Hey, it's great to be with you all this morning. Hopefully you guys had a great, great Christmas. Hopefully got to see some friends, family. But if you were here for our Christmas Eve services, you remember that we get to have a wonderful life, not because of the context of everything here, but because life's great, but because we can put our hope in our Savior, Right? And we have hope for eternity through faith in Christ. And so hopefully you're kind of coming off of that reality, remembering that. And we're gonna dive into a new series this morning, like Randall was saying. But before we do that, I wan kind of start you off with a series of questions. Okay? These are easy questions, not trick questions, all right? And if you know the answer, either shout it out when I ask and. Or raise your hand. It'll make sense here. Okay? So first question. What is this? Bible. Bible? Yes. You guys are one for one. It's good. This is the Bible, Right? Second question. How many of you have at least one Bible in your possession? Most of you? I saw most hands going up if you do not. But you have a smartphone, you have a phone with the Internet. You can either have access to God Word through the Internet or an app. And so I'm just going to assume for kind of practical purposes that almost every single person in here either has at least one Bible and or has a smartphone that can access a Bible through the Internet or through an app. Good. Okay, next question. How many of you are Bible people? Now, before you raise your hand, let me explain what I mean by Bible. Are you a Bible person? What I mean is, do you love your Bible? Do you read it daily? Do you know your Bible? Do you memorize your Bible? Do you align your life with God's word? Would those who know you well say he or she is a Bible person? They love God's Word. Okay, so how many of you are a Bible person? Few. It's great. There's a pretty big difference, though, between the amount of people who own Bibles and the amount of people who are Bible people. Right. There's a pretty big disparity there. We'll come back to that later this morning. Hey, Veritas, like Randall said, we're taking a break from our second Corinthians study. Right. And so we'll revisit that here another four or five weeks or so, but we're going to start kind of a rhythm series today. And I don't know about you guys, but this is something that we do every single year, and it's just a Great time to really look back, evaluate, and then look ahead. Okay. At this time of the year, maybe the way my mind works, maybe life events, a combination of the two. I like to kind of evaluate how the previous year went, how's God at work? What did we see him do, both personally and through our church? And then also look ahead, what are some tweaks, what are some changes? What are some. Some things I want to do differently. Right. I just had a birthday, turned 43. It's great. Yeah. Hey, last year I got one. Woo. This one, I got three. Thank you, front row for that. I also have my 19th wedding anniversary coming up on New Year's Eve, and the calendar is flipping from 24 to 25. And so kind of combining all those things is just a great time, not only for me, but for us as a church to once again look at our rhythms, to evaluate how are we a faithful steward of what God has given us. And so I'm not simply asking you to like, have a new year new you. I'm not saying find out ways to better your life, to improve yourself, to make a name for yourself. I'm not saying, hey, self care. No, no, that's not what I'm saying. I'm saying, as we look ahead to the new year, as we look ahead to this new series, I want you to simply ask the question, what have I done with what God has given me to steward? How have I handled my time and my energy and my resources and the relationships that he's entrusted to me? How has that gone? And if it's gone, well, keep it up. If you're like me and there might be an area or two that you want to tweak, that you want to change, I would encourage you to commit to making that change. Regardless. We have been given a life to steward. Right? And the question becomes, how are we stewarding that? Most Americans, whether you're Christian or not, set resolutions, set goals, have grand ambitions. Right. Research shows that less than 10% of those are actually resolved, actually come true. They actually get lived out. And so we can have great intentions, we can have great hopes, but it might not come to fruition. Once again, I want to encourage you to look back, evaluate, and then look ahead. So with all that said, though, I do want to kind of ground us not only for this morning, but also for this series. In a text that I think we got to continually remember, and that's found in John 15, two verses for us. It says, starting in verse four, this is Jesus speaking. He says, abide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit by itself unless it abides in the vine, neither can you unless you abide in me. I am the vine, you are the branches. Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit. For apart from me, you can do nothing. Those powerful words, Veritas, this is Jesus speaking, and he's saying that you can do nothing of spiritual significance apart from Him. Right? That you can try to live your life your way. You can try to make things happen, yet nothing of spiritual significance will happen apart from Him. You cannot bear fruit by your own strength. You cannot will your way to being more loving, to being more joyful, to being more patient, to being more kind, and so on. You see, we need God to move. We need him to act. We need him to mold and to change us. So when we talk about spiritual rhythms, when we talk about habits and things that we do to abide or to remain in Christ, we're not simply saying, hey, check a box, so you do them. We're not simply saying, come up with a list of things to do and be done with it. We're saying, what does it look like to remain in Christ? What does it look like to abide in Him? So he changes you over time so you are a different person over time. We want our people more than anything else to abide in Christ. Like, if we can be a church marked by people who truly abide in Christ, I think we'd be blown away with what God does. So as we dive into this rhythm series, I want you to keep that in mind that we can do nothing apart from Christ. Right? We, as a church, don't offer lots of programs and events. For those of you who've been here for a while, that's not news to you. Maybe for some of you who are new, you're like, man, this is a giant church with lots of people. You guys probably have tons of events and programs like, nah, actually, we don't. Because we as a church want to come alongside you and want to resource you in a way that will help you abide, that will help you remain in Christ, that will help you in your walk with the Lord. And so over the next four weeks, as we talk about the Bible and prayer and worship and mission, amidst my hope and my prayer, that not only do you hear the words of the Lord, but you also ask yourself, how am I doing in these areas? And what might God be calling me to do differently? Amen. You guys good with that? All right. So here we go. Usually we dive into, like, a specific text and kind of extract it and kind of go through it verse by verse and. And stay with that the whole morning. We're actually gonna do something a little bit different this morning. We're gonna take a look at some Old Testament and New Testament passages and really see what they have to say about the word of God. Okay. It's my hope, it's my prayer that you see how incredible this is, that you fall more in love with your Bible. That for many of you, this might go from a book that sits on your nightstand or on a shelf somewhere to something that you actually open up and you can become somebody who says, I love my Bible. Right? We saw earlier there's a pretty big difference between having a Bible and being a Bible person. Right? You might have 15 Bibles, yet never open one of them up. It is my hope and my prayer that you are a Bible person, that you become a Bible person. Because the reality is, as followers of Jesus are Bible people. Notice we didn't say followers of Jesus have Bibles yet. That's true also, but followers of Jesus are Bible people. So what is the Bible? Glad you guys asked. It's a book or a collection of books. Right? There's 66 books in here. 39 Old Testament, 27 New Testament written over about 1500 years. There's about 40 authors, and they include everyone from 30 fishermen to kings to shepherds to doctors, to priests. Written in three different languages. Right? And yet we see that God authored God inspired the Bible. We see this in second Peter 1, verses 20 and 21. Knowing this, first of all, that no prophecy of scripture comes from someone's own interpretation. For no prophecy was ever produced by the will of man. But men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit. And so what you have in your hand or what you have access to on your phone is not simply another book. It's the inspired word of God given to us. It's the creator of the universe saying, this is what I'm like. This is who I am. This is what I've done. This is what I'm doing. This is what I will do. Vertas. I hope we come to love God's word. I hope we come to love our Bibles. So it's God's written word to us. There's different types of books in it. There's law, there's history, there's poetry, there's prophets, there's gospel, there's church history, there's epistles or letters. There's apocalypse. Yet it tells one story. It's not about us. It's not about how cool we are or how great we are. It's a story about God, who, who he is and what he's done in his plan of redemption through Jesus Christ. And so we, we have access to that. We can read that whenever we want to. That's something that's not always been true throughout Christian history. See in 2nd Timothy 3, verses 16 through 17. All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work. God authored the Bible. God wrote the Bible. It's His Word to us. It's useful for teaching, for rebuke, for correction, for training in righteousness that the man of God may be complete and equipped. See at Veritas. We want to raise up mature disciples, send out everyday missionaries to the glory of God. Like we want to see that happen over time. And we're praying for that to happen over time. And if we are a church full of Bible people, if all of us can raise our hand and say we love God's Word, we read God's Word, we know God's Word. God's Word impacts our life. If we truly can say that God will move, God will work, we will be a church full of mature disciples. We will not care so much about our agenda in our life, but we will want to proclaim and display the name of Christ to the world around us. If we aren't in God's Word, if we don't know God's Word, if we aren't Bible people, we can have thousands of people come every single Sunday. We can have 3,500 people come to Christmas, we can have 5,000 come to Easter. But if we are not Bible people, we're like branches that are cut off from the vine. We'll wilt, we'll die, we'll. We will do nothing of spiritual significance. Hebrews 4:12 says this. For the Word of God is living and active, sharper than any two edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and of spirit, of joints and of marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart, the Word of God is living and active. When you read something in scripture and you think, I feel like God was talking to me, like I feel like God wrote that for me today, or you hear something, get taught on a Sunday morning and you're like, I feel like that was for me or Maybe you read a passage that you've read multiple times before, and you say, I've never seen that before. It's because God's word is living and active. It's not a book you just read once and put on a shelf. No, you read it day after day, week after week, month after month, and it changes you. It's living and active. I know that when I am in my Bible, regularly, daily, consistently, I'm a better husband, better father, a better pastor. I'm a better friend. I'm a better neighbor. Like God produces fruit in me that other people can see. And yet, for whatever reason, when there's seasons of life where I'm not as consistent in my Bible, my marriage suffers. I'm not as good of a parent. I'm not as patient with my kids. I'm not as good of a pastor. I tend to think about what I need more often than I think about what other people need. There is a huge correlation between when Christians are in the word of God and when they're not, and what their behavior is and what it's not. Psalm 119105 says this. Your word is a lamp to my feet and the light to my path. Now, I don't know how many of you find yourself in, like, really, really dark situations. I'm talking like, dark physically, right? Like pitch black. I'm not talking about your bedroom, your living room, where you know everything's at and you can kind of memorize and get. I'm talking like you can't see anything and you have no idea what's around you, right? You're like, I never found myself. It's great, okay? I like the outdoors. And so I have found myself in really dark situations, whether it's mountains or northern Minnesota, Canada, woods of isle, whatever the case may be. And I can't see anything. And there very well could be a hole or a tree or a rock or a cliff. I was like, I have no idea that it's there. And yet, the second I turn a flashlight on, I see clearly. I know what's there. Guys, we live in a dark world spiritually, and so many of us are blind to it. So many of us give into temptation. So many of us do dumb things. Why? Because we can't see. Because we don't know what God's word says. God's word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path. If the power in here all of a sudden went off and the skylight got shut and it was pitch black, you could See? Nothing. My guess is that you would reach for your phone and turn your flashlight on. We're quick to do that. Are we as quick to open up God's Word for clarity and insight? Isaiah 55:11 says this. So shall my word be that goes out from my mouth. It shall not return to me empty. Other translations say, it shall not return to me void, but it shall accomplish that which I purpose and shall succeed in the thing for which I sent it. Church when we hear God's word, when we speak God's word, when we share God's Word, when we read God's Word, God works, right? God brings about his plans and his purposes through the reading and hearing and listening of his Word. Remember when Jesus was tempted in the desert, right? Early part of Matthew 4, Satan tempts him. He says multiple times, if you're the son of God, do these things, right? If you're truly something, like, do some miracles. How does Jesus respond? Anybody? He responds with God's word. He responds, it is written, Satan says, right before this, in Matthew 4. 4, Satan says, if you're the son of God, turn these stones into loaves of bread. I mean, if you're God, do it like that. Snap your fingers and make it happen. And Jesus says, it is written. He quotes God's word, Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God. You see, Jesus fought lies with truth. When tempted, he responded with the word of God. Do we know truth in order to fight lies? Do we respond with temptation or to temptation by the word of God? Many of us don't know it well enough to do that. Veritas. We need food to physically survive, right? If you went weeks without food, we could tell, like, if you walked in here, like, I haven't eaten in two weeks, we'd be like, yeah, we can see that, right? Likewise, we need spiritual food. We need God's word to live and thrive spiritually. There's probably not anyone in here who would go a day or two, at least intentionally without eating food, right? Somebody like, yeah, I skipped breakfast. Okay, fine. But, like, do you just go days without eating? Like, no, I don't do that yet. How many of you go days or weeks or even months without feasting on the word of God, without feasting on the nourishment that is spiritual food? Most Christians today, I hope, and I don't have, like, research for this, but people that I talk to, most people are like, I want to grow in my faith. I want to follow the Lord Better. I want to become more godly. I want to be a mature disciple. I want to be an everyday missionary. I want to honor God with my life. I want to treasure God above all. Like we all have these great desires. But many of those same people would say I don't open my Bible regularly. And you wonder why there's no growth and you wonder why temptation comes often and you give into it easily. In other words, owning a Bible, which most of us do, and being a Bible person are not one and the same. There's a study that came out over a decade ago by a organization called the center of Bible Engagement. They did a study in which they provided scientific evidence for what they call the power of four. And what they found was there is a huge difference in the behavior of self professing Christians. People would say, yeah, I'm a follower of Christ who read their Bibles four or more times per week. And those self professing Christians who read their Bibles less than four times a week, like a big, big difference. And here's some of the stats there. They said that those people who read their Bible at least four times per week, professing Christians are 57% less likely to get drunk. They're 68% less likely to have sex outside of marriage. They're 61% less likely to view pornography. They're 74% less likely to gamble. People who read their Bibles at least four times per week were also 228% more likely to share their faith with others, 231% more likely to be discipling others, and 407% more likely to be memorizing Scripture. I mean, these are all marks of a mature or maturing disciple. So when we as a church say we want to raise up mature disciples, there's a direct correlation between time in God's Word and maturing as a disciple. This is what they said. It said the low rates of Bible engagement among American Christians have tremendous ramifications for local churches and the body as a whole. Like sheep, we tend to drift away from our shepherd. Living in a world filled with temptations, disconnected from God's Word can increase those temptations. Without a firm grasp on the Bible nurtured through daily reading or listening, we weaken our ability to defend the faith. We claim we're less confident to share the faith with others and we're more vulnerable to falling prey to false teaching. Now we don't have any like fancy studies here at Veritas. We're not like, you know, collecting data at Least numerically. But we do meet with a lot of people. Okay? And I can almost for certain say that there is a direct correlation when it comes to the spiritual health of our people who read their Bibles regularly and those who don't, like. We see this as a church. We see this as pastors every single day. We have gospel shepherding, we have discipling relationships, we have connection groups, we have meetings that we do with people. And there's lots of stuff going on in our church, right? People are struggling in their marriages, they're struggling with other family conflict. There's sin issues, sin struggles, there's relational conflict, there's cancer diagnosis, there's a death of loved ones, there's anxiety, there's depression, you name it. People in our church are going through it. And it's incredible, though, as we meet with people, one of the questions that we ask right away, what are your spiritual rhythms? How's your walk with the Lord? And kind of even drilling down a little bit deeper, what's your time in God's word like? And almost 100%, if not 100% of the people that say, good, I have consistent rhythms. I'm in God's Word daily. Almost all, if not all of those people, even though they're going through a really hard time, even though there's conflict, even though there's cancer, even though there's anxiety, even though there's whatever the heck's going on, they have hope. They know it's true. They cling to God's word, right? They're grounded by the fact that no matter what happens, no matter what this life brings, they are a redeemed child of God through faith in Christ. Like that reality should trump everything. And the opposite, unfortunately, is true as well. When we ask, how's your time with the Lord? How's your time in God's Word? And they say, eh, or it's nonexistent, or I would like to grow in that. But up to this point, not really there. Like, those people struggle. They don't have hope, they don't have joy, they don't have truth to cling to. They're a product of their circumstances. If life's going great, they're fine. When something bad happens, all their energy, all their focus goes towards that thing. And they struggle because they don't have the word of God to cling to. They don't have truth to cling to. And so they believed lies and they gave into temptation. Like, we see this play out all the time. Church, we have access to the inspired word of God. We can open our Bibles or open the app on our phone anytime we want. God has authored the Bible. He's given it to us to know him, to come, to love him, to know what he's done, to know what he's doing, to know what he will do. It's living and active. And followers of Christ have to be Bible people. That's a non negotiable. It's my hope that you want to be Bible people. For those of you who didn't raise your hand, right. It's my hope that you want to open up God's word, that you want to read your Bibles, that you want to love it, that you want to delight in it, that you want it to guide your life. But maybe you don't know what that looks like. And so I want to get a little bit practical this morning. I'm just going to kind of walk you through a couple different ways to do that. Okay. And these aren't all encompassing, these aren't all inclusive. These are just a couple of many. But here's a couple helpful hints before we even dive into those methods that I think would be helpful for you. The first one is just like start, just do it right, Open your Bibles, read your Bibles. What does it say? Have a time, have a place, and have a plan. Your time might be 6:00 in the morning at your dining room table. It might be on your lunch break in your car because that's when you have a 15 minute window. Whatever the case is, have a time, have a place, have a plan. We have Bible reading plans, right? Raelyn just talked about a couple. Stop by our bookstore, grab those. There's other ones online, but it's yes, you can open your Bible and say, all right, God, what are you going to show me today? This one. And that's better than nothing. But a plan is also helpful. Okay? So I would encourage you to have a time, have a place, have a plan. Secondly, approach the Bible with humility and pray. James 1:21 encourages us to receive with meekness the implanted word, a simple prayer asking God to give you the desire for his word. A simple prayer saying, God, please show me what you want to show me today is all it takes. And then approach God's word with humility. Like eagerly expect to hear from your creator. You're opening up the inspired word of God. Approach it with humility. Okay, so you have a time, you have a place, you have a plan. You said a quick prayer, you have humility. Now, how do you actually do this? Two different methods I'm going to show you. The first one's called Bible dwelling. Okay? And so for this example, we're going to say that my place is at 10:15 on stage in front of a bunch of my friends. And my plan has me in Colossians 3 today, right? So I'm gonna read Colossians 3 two, maybe three times. And then I'm gonna one take small bites. And so Colossians 3 is packed with tons of good stuff. Like there's incredible stuff in God's Word, but if I just read it, I'm gonna forget it. There's whatever. I'm gonna take small bites. So I'm gonna actually pull out a phrase or a verse that stands out to me most. And so Colossians 3, the first part of verse one says, if, then you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above. But that's a powerful phrase, right? So I've taken a small bite, I've identified a small chunk of scripture. Next one is chew it up. You guys know what ruminate means? You guys are like, yeah, I have cows. I know what that means. Well, if you don't, cows, like, eat stuff and then they have multiple chambers in their stomach, and then they regurgitate their food, they throw it up and they chew it again. They ruminate, right? What are they doing? They're trying to eat a ton. They're trying to extract all the nutrients from it. So when you see a cow just sitting there chewing, you're like, he's ruminating, right? We wanna do that with God's Word. We want to extract what we can extract the gold, so to speak, from God's Word. And so you can just read it really quickly by check that box. Or you can ruminate on it, you can chew it up. And so as I look at that one phrase, if then you've been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above. I'm blown away by the fact that I have been raised with Christ. Like through the Gospel, I've gone from an enemy of God to his Son. I've been reconciled to a holy God through faith like that. That blows my. I have been raised with Christ. Next is seek the things that are above. So I might ask, like, what does it even mean? I might ask myself, what am I currently seeking? Where does my mind go? Where does my focus go? What am I currently seeking? I might compare and contrast. What am I seeking? What do I want to be seeking? You're Going to dive into that. You're going to ask questions, you're going to make observations. You're going to ask yourself, how do I go from seeking earthly things to godly? Like, you're not just reading it, you're digging in, you're chewing it up. Next is digest it in your heart. Words of Christ should impact your joy. The Gospel should bring you joy, right? So what's the good news in this? I've been raised with Christ. That's good news. That should impact my day and my attitude and how I carry myself. I have freedom from sin. Christ has set me free. I have the freedom to seek what's above. That's incredible news. Finally, let it come out. And pray in prayer can be something as simple as God. Thank you so much for your word. Thank you for the fact that I have been raised with you. Thank you for the fact that I have the ability, empowered by your spirit, to not simply focus on earthly things, but to seek things above God. I confess that I don't always do that. I confess that my mind goes here and looks here and wanders here. God, please give me the strength, please give me the ability to seek what is above. Amen. It can be simple. It doesn't have to be some super long detailed process. Second method is an acronym. It's called soap. You guys ever use SOAP before? Like Barca? Like soap soap? No. Whatever. It stands for Scripture, Observation, Application and Prayer. Scripture. Your Bible reading plan tells you what. This is simple. First step is easy, right? So for our purposes, it's Colossians 3. So I'm going to read through Colossians 3, 2, 3, maybe four times. I'm going to make observations. I'm going to ask questions like who, what, where, when, how? It's interesting that this was repeated. It's interesting that Paul used this language. Like I'm making observations. This is where you would highlight or underline or write in your margin or take notes. Once again, you're not speed reading through this. You're trying to observe what is in the text. Next is application. Ask yourself, how should what I just read impact my life? How do I respond to what I just read? You apply it. You're not just hearers of the Word. You got to do God's Word. You got to live out and obey God's Word. Then finally, prayer. Once again, thank God for His Word. What he showed you, help to apply His Word and so on. Those are two pretty basic, pretty accessible methods to reading God's Word. Here's the thing. If you go home and try one of these, you're like, ah, that was hard. Yeah, it's your first time. It might be a little bit hard. But I guarantee you these are pretty easy. These are pretty accessible. By time 10 or 15, 30 or 40, it gets a lot easier. But you have to start, you have to do it. You have to open God's word. I would also encourage you to write it down, to take notes. I'm not saying, like, write a novel. Just saying even a couple sentences, like, here's what I observed. Here's what my prayer is. That can go a long way, too. And look back on that and see the faithfulness of God over time. So Bible dwelling and so two of, like, hundreds of methods. If you're like, I don't like those two. Those are both dumb, that's fine. Okay, you can go on a resource center. Like Randall said, we have, I think, seven, eight or nine books devoted specifically to Bible reading. And so if you want to know more, please go to our bookstore and check those out. The bottom line is that we have a God who communicates with us. We have a God who reveals himself with us to us. We have a God who has given us his Word. Like that. That should blow your minds. The reality is that we have at least one Bible. Many of you have lots of them. My wife was cleaning out kind of our headboard the other day. She's like, are all these your Bibles? Like, yeah, and that's only just a few. Like, we have access to God's Word, but that doesn't mean that we actually read it doesn't mean that we love it doesn't mean that we delight. It doesn't mean that. That it guides our lives. Life veritas. I want to encourage us to be Bible people. I want to challenge us to open up God's Word. This is a great time of the year to look back and look ahead. This is a great time of year to evaluate our rhythms and to plan new ones. If you have solid spiritual rhythms, great. Keep it up. Keep going. Right? We like steady plodding over time. You might read your Bible once and not be like, whoa, God changed. No, but day after day, week after week, month after month, over year's time, through Bible reading, through prayer, through other spiritual rhythms, God molds you. God shapes you. God changes you. God produces fruit in your life. And you're a completely different person than you would have been if you had been cut off from the vine. So as we're looking at rhythms, as we're Looking at habits, you might need to start some new ones. That's great. I would compel you, if you're not a Bible reader, to become one. I would say start there, open up God's word. Read it, ingest it, pray through it. Let it be your spiritual food. It also might be a good time of the year to think, what are some of my unhealthy rhythms? What do I do that takes time away from my walk with the Lord? It might be binge watching Netflix daily. It might be whenever there's any downtime whatsoever, taking out your phone and scrolling aimlessly through social media. It might be giving all your time and energy and in focus and devotion to your job or to some other hobby. We have a God who communicates with us. We have a God who is revealed himself to us. Maybe six, nine, 12 months ago. Kind of all blends together. But some of our pastors were just really saying, like, we have a lot of words that we use around here. We have values and we have strategy and all those things, and they all sound really, really great, but maybe they could be simplified. And so we kind of met for a few weeks and we came up with simple values and then simple strategies coming out of those values. And kind of a question that really guided us was like, what do we want a mature disciple at Veritas to be? Or what do people at Veritas need most to grow spiritually? And one of those values was simply this personal devotion. And kind of the tagline there was, we believe a fruitful life and a healthy church is directly connected to closeness to God. I mean, that's John 15, right. Therefore, we place a high value on being a people who grow in the knowledge of God and practice personal spiritual rhythms and devotion to God. And so what's the ministry strategy? Compelling and really setting our people up well to be engaged in personal spiritual rhythms. And so this series we're going through isn't simply, we'll take a break, we'll come back to 2 Corinthians at some point. No, this is trying to urge our people, trying to compel our people to pay attention to your walk with the Lord. We want to be a church that is made up of people who are connected to the vine. We don't want to be a church where hundreds or thousands of people come on a weekend, yet they're all wilting and dying spiritually in Veritas. I would make an argument that it starts with God's word. So can we commit this next year to being a church that is full of Bible people. Yep. See some heads shaking. All right, let's pray to that end. God, I am blown away that you have given us your word, that you penned the words in scripture, that you inspired them, that they're living and active, that it's not about us, but it tells about you, God. And yet I'm also, if I'm honest, got to confess that I often take that for granted. And so I do pray, God, that our church will be marked by people who can say, I am a Bible person. I love my Bible. I desire to read my Bible. I know my Bible. I memorize scripture. The Bible impacts my life. God, help us to feast on your word. Help us to digest your word. Help us to just have an affinity and an affection for you and your word. God, we love you, your name, we pray. Amen.