My name is Ian. I'm our family ministry pastor. It's good to be with you guys. This morning. We are starting a new series, like Randall said, starting a new series called Creed. Alternate titles for this series were, can you take me higher with arms wide open and my sacrifice. Those did not make the cut. Some of you guys were born in the nineties, and some of you did not understand that reference at all. But we're excited to jump into this series. And some of you might be wanting us to take some famous creed songs and pulling out christian themes in all of them. That's not what this is. That's not what we're doing this morning. As fun as that might be, you can do that on your own time. But we're going to be talking about creeds, and really we're going to be talking about what creed do we believe. Now, if you're unfamiliar with creeds, a creed is a set of beliefs. It is a formal set of beliefs which guide someone's actions. So it's a clear statement saying, I believe this, and because I believe that, it changes how I live. That's what a creed does. You might be familiar with some creeds, like the Nicene Creed or the apostles creed, maybe in different church backgrounds. Growing up, you've recited some creeds, but creeds are really important. Back in early Christendom, they used creeds to share. This is what we believe as followers of Jesus. They're short, just simple statements that share what they believe. And that's what's really valuable about them, is that they're short, memorable, repeatable statements. They're easy to say, learn, and to memorize. They're helpful to remind you of what you believe and to pass on to others what you believe. So creeds are super useful, super important to the Christian. But christians aren't the only ones who have creeds. Our culture has creeds. Our culture has statements that it believes to be true, that guides how our culture and our world around us acts. And you guys know some of these creeds. You know some of these short statements that are identifying markers of what our culture believes? Like, if I were to say the statement love is, how would you fill it out? Love is love. You're like, can I say that in church? That's a cultural creed. It's not in the Bible, it's not true. But that is a creed. That is a statement that our culture has made. It's a statement that has, like, permeated all aspects of our country. It's a short, memorable, easy to transfer statement about what our culture believes. So the problem isn't that culture has creeds, because culture does have creeds. The problem isn't that culture has creeds. The problem is that sometimes it just seems like the world knows what it believes more than we do. The problem isn't that the culture has its own way of believing things, like, we should expect that. The problem is that we, as followers of Jesus, sometimes are not as convinced in what we believe as what the world is and what they do believe that we're like, oh, what? I'm a Christian, but what does that actually mean? Like, what do I like as a Christian? What do I believe? Like, what's actually true? And we can be so easy to be shaped by other things around us. We can be so easy to be shaped by culture, so easy to be shaped by these cultural beliefs that have permeated everything. And so we, in this series, we want to say, as a church, this is our creed. Like, this is what we believe. These are true statements that carry a lot of weight in how we live. These are short things that we short statements that we want you guys to learn. We want you to memorize. We want you to be able to stand firm of, like, as a follower of Jesus, I believe these things. And so that's what we're going to be doing through this series, where we're going to just take statement by statement. We're going to say, this is what we believe here at Veritas Church. And each week, to help resource you guys, we're going to have a new resource in the resource center for each week of the series. So if you want to dive in a little bit deeper with the topic that we're talking about, that'd be a great way to do that. So that's where we're going. You can check out the resource center for more resources as we go. But what we want to do is we want to give you guys these short statements to help you defend what you believe. Maybe not even defend what you believe, but clarify what you believe. Say, as a follower of Jesus, this is what I believe, and this is why. And this is how it affects the way that I live. Sound good? So that's where we're going for the series today. We're starting with our first statement. The Bible is true. The Bible is true. That should not surprise you to hear in church. If you're surprised to hear that in church, you might be in the wrong church. But the Bible is true. That is our first statement. That's the first thing we're going to look at today, because as a church, we believe two Timothy 316. We believe that when it says that all scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching and reproof, for correction and for training in righteousness, that that is true. We believe that the Bible is God's very word, breathed out to us so that we can know him, so that we can live our life for him. We believe the Bible is true, but here's why we need to talk about it. I think too many people believe the Bible is true or say they believe the Bible is true, but they don't know why. It's like, wait, why do I believe the Bible is true? Why do I believe that the Bible is important? Why do I believe that it's accurate? Or maybe they know why they believe that it's true. But then when you dissect their life, you kind of, like, cut them open a little bit and you peer into their life and you see, oh, you say you believe the Bible is true, but you don't live like it's true. Like you say, I believe this. Yet your life looks nothing like how the Bible would describe a follower of Jesus life. And I think we see that even in our church that there's people who say they believe the Bible is true, but they don't know why. And their life doesn't love their life doesn't look like they believe it. And so, guys, the goal for this morning is really simple. I want you guys to believe the bible is true. Like, I want you to believe it, like, to your core, like, down to the center of who you are. I want you to believe that the bible is true. Like, I want you to believe the bible is true. Like, you believe you need oxygen to live. Like, you know you need oxygen to live. You know why you need oxygen to live. And it changes the way that you live. You don't live underwater because you need oxygen. If we're going to say we believe the bible is true, we need to know why do we believe the bible is true, and what does it mean to live as people who believe the bible is true? So that's where we're going. That's where we're going to get started. We're going to start with talking about why do we believe the bible to be true? Why do we believe that's true? And this is going to be like a mini survey of quick apologetics, okay? And I don't want you to tune out. I know I said apologetics, and some of you just like, oh, great, here we go. I want you to lean in. I want you to pay attention. It's not going to last super long. I'm going to try and make as much sense out of it as I can. I'm not that smart, but I'm going to try. But I want you to lean in. Because I think some of us, when we hear the word apologetics, we kind of just like, we get a little defensive. Like, even for a while, I was like, I'm not an apologist. I'm a pastor. I don't need to care about this stuff that much. But I was like, that's a really naive statement to make, because as a pastor, I should know why I believe the Bible. If you're a follower of Jesus, you should know why you believe the Bible. You might say, well, I'm just a mom or a dad, or I'm just a teacher, or I just am an engineer, or I'm a factory worker. It's like, those are the things I know. I just need you to tell me what the Bible says. But here's the deal. It's because you are all those things that you need to know that the Bible is true and why it's true. So that when your coworker says, why do you believe the Bible? Why do you read it? Like, you're able to tell them why. You're able to say, this is why I believe the Bible. Or if you're a parent and your kid asks, like, why do you make such a big deal out of this stuff? Like, you're able to give them a real response. Not just, it's just what we do. It's like, no, you're able to say, this is why I believe the Bible. So don't tune out, lean in. It's going to be brief. It's going to be somewhat short, I hope, and hopefully it's understandable. But we want to go through and give just a brief overview of why we believe the Bible to be true. Not going to get into everything. I don't have time for that. You probably don't even want me to do that. There's way smarter people than me at this stuff. A couple references that you guys can look up and study on your own time. Like I said, we're not going to get into everything or answer all of your questions, maybe not even any of them. But here's a couple resources that you can write down and look at later. One is the case for Christ by Lee Stroebel. So you can write that one down. He was an atheist turned Christian, and he took a journalistic approach to showing the validity of the New Testament in the Bible. So Lee Strobel's case for Christ, a lot of you have heard of that one. There's a free ebook on Gospel coalition last month. I think it's still free right now, but it's just called can we trust the Gospels? So you could go to Gospel coalition search can we trust the Gospels? And you can find that resource there as well. We also have a resource in the resource center, why trust the Bible? It's a short little booklet that you guys can pick up on your way out today that you can kind of get more information on why we can trust the Bible. And then if you're more of an auditory learner and you like to listen to things, there is a breakout session at the last salt conference by Paul Sabino, who's a pastor in our network called Confidence in the Bible. And honestly, I got a lot of my information from that podcast. And so you can listen to that, get a little more in depth information. But confidence in the Bible, if you just google confidence in the Bible Salt company, you'll be able to find it. So those are some good resources that you can go to, because we're not going to cover everything, but we're going to jump in and we want to see why. Can we trust the Bible? You guys ready? All right. All right. So the Bible is a really unique book. It's a really unique writing. It's really old. It's an ancient manuscript, but it's also living and active. It's the most unique writing in existence. Most ancient manuscripts, they were written by one author over the course of a couple months to maybe a year or two max. That's how most ancient manuscripts were written. The Bible is written by 40 authors over 40 plus centuries of time, or not centuries, 40 plus generations of time in three continents. And it tells one cohesive, true story of God redeeming his people. Right away. It's a unique writing right away. It's more unique than any other writing you can find. But is it trustworthy? And there's a few different kinds of evidences you can look at to tell, is the Bible trustworthy? Is an ancient manuscript trustworthy? The first one is manuscript evidence. And so when we talk about manuscript evidence, we're saying the copies that we have of the originals, there are no original copies of these ancient manuscripts. And so when we look at the validity of an ancient manuscript, we're looking at a couple of things. One how many manuscript copies do we have? And then how long were the copy, how long did it take for them to get a copy into existence? So, like, how long from the original writing of it to the copy is there? And so, to give you an example, how many of you had to read Homer's Iliad in a lit class at some point? A couple of you guys. Yeah. Some of you are still suffering through it. I'm sorry. It's tough. I don't remember any of it. I probably spark noted it, honestly. But Homer's Iliad is one of the most recognized ancient writings that people recognize as a true writing of Homer. One of the most recognized ancient writings. It's used in lit classes everywhere. And here's kind of the things that we're looking at. There is a 500 year gap between when it was initially written and the first copy that we have. Okay, 500 year gap. And there are 640 copies of those manuscripts. So 500 year gap, 640 manuscripts. You guys tracking. Okay, what about the New Testament? If Homer's Iliad is like, the gold standard of, hey, ancient manuscript reliability, 500 year gap, 640 manuscripts. What about the New Testament? The New Testament has 24,000 copies of manuscripts, 24,000 copies, compared to 640. And the time gap between initial writing and the first copy was only 25 years compared to the 500 years of Homer's Iliad. And so when you take those sets, here's why this is important. 24,000 copies. That means there are so many cross references that we can make to show the validity of what was being written, to show the accuracy of what was being written. And so it's like, well, we think there's an error here. Well, let's go through the other 23,000 manuscripts and see where the error is and see what kind of error it is. So having so many manuscripts helps us know that is a reliable and accurate copy of God's word, a reliable and accurate copy of the ancient manuscript. And a lot of people say, well, there's a lot of errors. There's a lot of differences between the copies that we have. And they'll just say, a statement like that. And I would encourage you, if you get asked that or if you get shown that statement, just ask them. Like what? Like, just ask them that question. Don't go on the defensive. Just ask them to say, hey, show me the errors. But here's what you'll find. I'll just read you this quote. The vast majority, like 99% of scribal discrepancies in the New Testament consists of things like spelling errors. So remember, these were all hand copied by individuals. The jewish people did a great job of copying all these manuscripts. So they are. 99% of them are spelling errors, word order. So, like, Jesus Christ versus Christ Jesus, and the use of definite articles in proper names. So John versus D John, or repeated lines. And so it's just people like, oh, I misspelled a word when I was writing a copy of. That's 99% of the errors it that you will find when you compare these 24,000 manuscripts. And so he goes on to say, no unresolved textual variant places a significant doctrine in jeopardy. In other words, there's no existing difference between copies that affect what we believe as christians. So here's what you can pull from that, from the 24,000 copies. All that is to say that the New Testament is one of the most accurate ancient writings you can find. It was copied with extreme care, and we can trust what it says. But then I also want us to look at the 25 year gap, because that's not a very long time. Like Homer's Iliad, 500 years between the initial writing and the first copy. If someone copied something wrong in the New Testament, they could have asked someone who was alive. They could have said, hey, did this actually happen? They're like, yeah, I was there. Jesus said that. And you would be able to just go and ask other eyewitnesses of the validity of what was written. It would be like this. Let's say someone came up to you and be like, hey, you remember back in the nineties? Remember back then, way, way, way back then, when all the NBA stars had their talent sucked out of them by aliens, and then Michael Jordan had to save the entire world and the NBA all at one time. You'd be like, I lived in the nineties. That didn't actually happen. Like that space jam. Come on. It's like if someone told you something from the nineties, you'd be able to say, actually, I lived in the nineties. That's not true at all. It's like if someone miswrote something in the New Testament, miscopied something. Like, did Jesus actually rise from the dead? Yeah, I saw him with my own eyes. Did Jesus actually teach that? Yeah, I was there. I was amongst the crowd as he broke loaves of bread. I was there when he turned fish and bread into enough for plenty. Like, you would have been able to go and ask eyewitnesses about what was written. So we have manuscript evidence saying, yeah, what we see is accurate. What we see is trustworthy. So there's manuscript evidence. There's also archaeological evidence. There's a ton of different kinds of archaeological evidence. One of my favorites, though, is what's known as the Dead Sea scrolls. In the 1940s, there was a shepherd boy off the coast of the Dead Sea, and he lost a sheep. And the sheep went. Wandered away. And so he went down into these caves. He's scared to go in the cave, and so he takes a rock and he chucks it into the cave, hoping to hear, like a baa or something like that. What he hears is clay crashing. And so he's like, that's not a sheep. And so they go in and they find all of this pottery, and they find all of these scrolls. And on these scrolls are all these ancient manuscripts, some biblical ones and some non biblical ones. And when they pieced together all of these manuscripts, there were 40,000 inscribed fragments from which up to 500 books, biblical and non biblical books, were able to get put together. So they were able to put these fragments together and reconstruct 500 biblical and non biblical books from these scrolls that were found in these caves. Do you know how amazing that is? And so not only do we have these New Testament manuscripts, now we have these scrolls which show the Old Testament, and in those findings, they found all the Old Testament except the book of Esther. And so in these caves, they find all these writings. And the coolest thing is these dated back to 125 bc, which is 1000 years earlier than the copies of scripture that they had been using. And so what do you do? You cross reference those like, all right, we have these really old ones that we just found, and then we have these ones that we've currently been using. And here's what they found, that they were extremely accurate to each other. So when you look at Isaiah 53 from the copies that they were using at the time versus what they found in the Dead Sea Scrolls, here's what you find about Isaiah 53. Of the 166 words in Isaiah 53, there are only 17 letters in question, and this is 1000 years afterwards. 17 letters in question. Ten of these letters are simply a matter of spelling, which does not affect a sense. Four more letters are minor stylistic changes, such as conjunctions like cannot versus can't. The remaining three letters compromise the word light, which is added in verse eleven and does not affect the meaning greatly. In one chapter of 166 words, there are only three letters in question after a thousand years of transmission, which is a bunch of just copying, copying and copying. And this word does not significantly change the meaning of the passage. So because of this archaeological finding, we are able to say, man, we can trust the Bible to be accurate because of the new testament manuscripts. But also these Old Testament writings, we see that they're so similar that they're accurate, that all the copying had been preserved near perfectly. So we have archeological evidence, not to mention the buildings that have been found, the pottery that's been uncovered and all those things. So we got manuscript, archaeological evidence, and then there's prophetic fulfillment. This one's wild. So when you look at prophetic fulfillment, that's saying what was written about the Messiah in the Old Testament coming true in the person of Jesus? Us, which if we believe the Bible is true, which we do, and we've seen the reliability of the scriptures. The fact that all these prophecies were fulfilled in Jesus is completely unlikely and improbable. Yet it happened. And so just for example, if you take the 60 major prophecies concerning Jesus coming or the Messiah's coming, them all being fulfilled in the person of Jesus, that is quite improbable that one person could fulfill all those. Just to put that in perspective, if one person fulfilled eight of those prophecies, here's what you could imagine that look like. So for one man to fulfill just eight of these prophecies, the probability is one in ten to the 17th power. That's one in ten with 17 zeros behind it. I don't know how to say that number. If you do, let me know. I have one more service after this. So one in ten to the 17th power, the probability that one man could fulfill the prophecy, just eight of those prophecies. Okay, here's how you can visualize that. To visualize that, take ten to the 17th power, silver dollars. So about that big. And lay them on the face of Texas. Texas is big. Lay them on the state of Texas and they will cover the entire state 2ft deep. Now mark one of these silver dollars and stir the whole mass together. Blindfold a man and tell him that he can travel as far as he wishes, but he must pick up one silver dollar and say that this is the right one. What chance would he have of getting the right one? Just the same chance that the prophets would have had of writing these eight prophecies and having them all come true in any one man from their day to the present time, providing they wrote them in their own wisdom. And that's just eight prophecies. Imagine the number, if it was all 60. The fact that Jesus fulfilled all of these prophecies that were written in the Old Testament. Is unimaginable, and it's true. And so we're able to say we believe the Bible. Here's why we believe from all of this physical evidence around us, and there's so much more that we could say about why we can trust the Bible. And a bunch of people have taken time to show it. Not to mention there's also non biblical scholars, so secular scholars that agree that the observable evidence of the resurrection is sufficient enough to establish its historicity. So secular scholars say, yeah, the evidence that we have of the resurrection, of Jesus, it checks out. You can call it history. Like, that's wild. And not only do we have physical evidence of it, but we also have the evidence of changed lives. Like you look at the apostles, the disciples of Jesus, the people closest to Jesus, many of them died gruesome deaths. Why would someone die, be willing to die a death like that if they knew it was wrong, if they knew it was fake? They wouldn't. It makes no sense. Why would they choose to die in that way if it wasn't real? I think the biggest evidence that we have, the ultimate reason we can trust the Bible, is because the Bible is God's word and God is trustworthy. That it's God's word and God is trustworthy. And we've seen the trustworthiness of scripture in our own lives. Like when you look at two Timothy 315, it says that the sacred writings, which are the scriptures, are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus. That the word of God is able to make you wise for salvation through Christ Jesus. And we have seen this happen. You've seen it in your own life. If you're a follower of Jesus, that through the preaching and reading of God's word, he saved you. You're able to see in the life of your family members. We see it in this church all the time by the grace of God. And we see it. I even think about a couple years ago, we had a middle school girl who didn't know Jesus went home. She read Romans eight. By the end of the time of her reading Romans eight, she's like, I follow Jesus. Now, what is that? If that's not the power of God, to make wise someone for salvation through God's word, we can trust the scriptures. We can trust God's word. We can trust that it's true. With physical evidence, with logic, and with faith, we can trust that the Bible is God's true word. It's not a blind faith that believes it. It's a firm faith. It's a believable faith. The Bible is true. All right, classroom time is over. We're done teaching. We're not going to preach. So if we can reset the timer to 35 minutes. I'm just kidding. That'd be wild, though. But if the Bible is true, and it is, which we have seen, there's evidence. For if the Bible is true, it has to change the way that we live. If we're going to say the Bible is God's true word, then it has to change something in us, us. It has to change our life. And so I want us to turn to psalm 119 because we're going to see how does the Bible being true change someone. Psalm 119. Psalm 119 is the longest chapter in scripture, and it is about scripture. That's not a coincidence. Longest chapter in scripture. It's about God's word, and you could read the entire chapter. In fact, I did this this week and it was super sweet. I would encourage you, carve out 20 minutes and read the entire chapter in one sitting. It is just really sweet when you're able to read about God's word like this at one time. So read psalm 119 all in one sitting on your own time this week. Be refreshed in the good news. Be refreshed in God's word. But we're going to focus in on verses nine through 24. It says, how can a young man keep his way pure? By guarding it according to your word. With my whole heart I seek you. Let me not wander from your commandments. I have stored up your word in my heart that I might not sin against you. Blessed are you, O Lord, teach me your statutes. With my lips I declare. Are the rules of your mouth in the way of your testimonies I delight as much as in all riches. I will meditate on your precepts. I will fix my eyes on your ways. I will delight in your statutes. I will not forget your word. Deal bountifully with your servant that I may live and keep your word. Open my eyes that I may behold wondrous things out of your law. I am a sojourner on the earth. Hide not your commandments from me. My soul is consumed with longing for your rules. At all times you rebuke the insolent, accursed ones who wander from your commandments. Take away from me scorn and contempt, for I have kept your testimonies even though princes sit plotting against me. Your servant will meditate on your statutes. Your testimonies are my delight. They are my counselors. This is someone who loves God's word. This is someone who believes God's word is true. And in their believing that God's word is true, it changes a couple of things. Their heart longs for God's word, and they live according to God's word. That's what we see here, that this person longs for God's word and they live according to it. Look at some of the ways that they describe their desire for God's word. It says, my whole heart, I seek you. I have stored up your word in my heart in the way of your testimonies. I delight as much as in all riches. I will delight in your statutes that I may behold wondrous things out of your law. My soul is consumed with longing for your rules at all times. Your testimonies are my delight. Do you guys hear how much this psalmist loves the scriptures? Do you hear how much he desires them, how much he longs for them, how rich he counts the word of God? I feel like far too often, we just go to God's word and we read it. We mark it off of a to do list and we just go in, we read it. All right, got my Bible reading done? Check. And we treat our Bible reading as a chore, and we don't see it as a treasure. God's word is not a chore. God's word is a delight. It's a delight to read. It's a delight to sit in. It's a delight to be consumed with. It's not just a task, it's a treasure for our souls. It's what satisfies around here a lot. We say that God is the prize. We're actually going to have a statement on that in a few weeks. God is the prize. And if God is the prize, then God's word should be the most treasured thing that we possess, because it's how we know him. It's how we draw close to him. It's how we fall more in love with him. It's how we follow him. It's how we hear him. Like, God's word should be the most treasured thing to us because it's how we know God. Our heart needs to long for God's word. Someone who believes God's word longs for it. They don't just know that they should read it. They don't just value it as something to learn, but they desire it. It's the most profitable thing to them. It is a well of knowing God that has no bottom and never runs dry. Do you long for God's word like that? Like, does your heart ache to be in God's word? Do you have a satisfaction that can only be satisfied in God's word? Think too often we look to other things to satisfy us. What would happen if we started looking to God's word to satisfy us? Instead of looking to pleasures of the earth, instead of looking to food, instead of looking to job, instead of looking to wealth, instead of looking to comfort, instead of looking to all those things for satisfaction that never actually satisfies. What would happen if we started looking to God's word to be our satisfaction, if we longed for God's word the way that we tend to long for other things in this earth? Do you long for God's word in that way? Do you delight in it? Do you see his law as wondrous? Is your soul consumed with longing for God's word? I think if we're honest, a lot of the times we'd say probably not. Like, I know for me it's not always that way. Like I'm ashamed to admit how many times my soul doesn't long for God's word, where instead I long for that extra 30 minutes of sleep because I got woken up 800 times in the middle of the night, someone's a father over there. It's like I just long for that extra amount of sleep. And I think that extra sleep will satisfy me. It's like that's not me being tired problem. That's my heart being tired problem. Like we. It's not just that I see the Bible is just not worth like it's not that I am trying to pursue all these other things. It's just that my heart doesn't see the Bible as worth it as much as it is. I don't see as being in God's word as the treasure that it is. Instead, I see focusing on the urgent things of this world as more important. Guys, if we are people who believe that the Bible is true, if we believe that the Bible is the word of God, then we need to have a longing for God's word. We need to have a desire for it. We need to have a part of us that can only be satisfied in being in God's word. People who believe God's word is true have hearts that long for God's word. And sometimes our lack of longing for God's word tells us more about what we believe than we'd like to admit. So do you believe God's word? Do you believe it in a way where it changes what you long for what you treasure, what you delight in. So we need to be people who believe God's word is true and long for it, but also live under the authority of it. I want us to kind of walk back through the psalm. We're not going to like, read the passage again, but I want to point out and want you to see how the psalmist, his life, is not just delighting in the scripture, but it's shaped by the scripture. Look at what he says in verse nine. He's guarding his heart according to God's word because he knows that's how he keeps his way pure. The Bible isn't just instruction to keep his way pure. He knows that God's word is how he keeps his way pure and he walks in purity. In verse ten, he doesn't just let his ways wander from God's commands. In verse eleven, the word stored up in his heart keeps him from walking. In sin. Verse 13, God's word shapes his words. In verse 15, God's word changes what he thinks about and focuses on. In verse 16, God's word is the thing that he won't forget. In verse 17, he begs God to be gracious towards him so he can keep his word. In verse 24, God's word is where he goes for counsel. God's word shapes this psalmist's life. It shapes what he does, shapes what he thinks about, it shapes what he dwells on. It shapes what he says. It shapes every part about him. It all goes back to God's word and being shaped by it and living under the authority of it. See, God's word is how we live godly lives. And believing in God's word looks like living a godly life. Believing in God's word looks like submitting your life to God's word. And under God's word, it's how we live in this life. I love verse 19. In verse 19 it says, I am a sojourner on the earth. Hide not your commandments from me. He's saying, I'm a sojourner. This isn't my home. I'm a wanderer. I'm waiting for my final home with God. The thing that I need to do that is I need your commands, I need your law, I need your words. Do you see God's word as the only way to live life here on earth as you await the coming of Jesus? Because in one Peter we hear similar language. In one Peter 211, he says, beloved, I urge you as sojourners and exiles to abstain from the passions of the flesh which wage war against your soul saying, hey, this isn't your home. This isn't where you belong. You belong with God. And if you are in Christ, you belong to God. You're a citizen of the kingdom of heaven and to live as a citizen of the kingdom of heaven here on this earth. The psalmist tells us that we need God's word. The only way that we can live a life of the kingdom here on this earth is knowing and loving and obeying God's commands and cherishing them. We need to love God's word, meditate on it, read it, talk about it, and we center our entire life around God's word. And that shows if we actually believe it. Like if you believe God's word, if you believe the Bible is true, it's seen and you're submitting to it. So church, what's your submission to God's word look like right now? Where are you getting the authority for your life? Are you getting the authority for your life from yourself? Just saying, no, whatever I want, that's what I get. That's how I'm going to live my life however I want to. Where's the authority coming from for how you live? Because as Bible people, we don't look to the world to give us our priorities. We look to God's word. We don't look to culture to tell us how to be good parents, good spouses. We look to God's word. We don't look to influencers on how to spend our money, on what we should buy and purchase, how we should live. We look to God's word as people who believe the Bible is true. This is the foundation of our entire life. This is what we submit to. This is how we know if we're following Jesus. We submit to God's word. We submit our life to his word. I think oftentimes we have a lot of people who say they believe that the Bible is true, but they don't live like it. They believe the Bible is true but their life isn't in submission to it. And we see a lack of transformation in our lives. I think that lack of transformation comes from we just don't submit our life to God's word and we don't submit our life to God's word because we don't long for God's word. We don't treasure God's word. We don't value God's word. See, here at Veritas, we are Bible people. We believe that this is true. We believe that it is God's word breathed out for us. And because we believe it's true, this is what I want you to know. Because we believe the Bible is true. We long for God's word, and we live by God's word. We long for God's word, and we live by God's word. And so, church, may we be a people who long desperately for the word of God, long desperately to be reading it, to be listening to it, to learn more from it. May we long for God's word. And maybe that's where your prayer needs to start this week. Maybe the Bible has just been a checklist for you. Be like, yep, I read it today. That's all. Ask God to just change your heart. That you would believe the Bible is true in such a way that you would long for it, that you would desire it more than anything else, that you would cherish it and treasure it. We'd be people who long for God's word, but then also people who live by his word. So maybe this week you need to kind of take inventory of your life a little bit. Like, are there areas in my life that I'm not submitting to God's word? Are there areas that I'm choosing to make myself the authority on, or I'm choosing to make the world the authority on or culture the authority on, and I'm not submitting to God's word as the final authority. And you just need to take time and you need to go through, like, every aspect of your life thinking through, where's my authority in this? And you need to resubmit it to the word of God, because we're people who long for God's word and live by God's word. We're Bible people and we're not shy about it. We want people to know that we believe that this book is true, that we long for it, and that we live for it. And guys, when you start seeing the Bible like that, when you believe the Bible is true and you long for it and you live for it, the Bible is no longer just a book. The Bible is no longer just something that you do because you're a Christian. The Bible is a gift. It's a gift for you to know God. It's a gift for you to draw close to God. It's a gift for you to just cherish Jesus more and more. Because in this book, in the Bible, in God's word, we get to know who Jesus is, that God reveals himself in Jesus and through his word to us. And it would be a gift to you that would be expressed in worship to Jesus. And, guys, we'd be worshipful people, because even though we might not have everything the world has, if we truly believe that the Bible is true, this is the most valuable thing to us, and we'd be the most satisfied people on this earth. Let's pray. God, you are such a good God that you would reveal yourself to us through your son Jesus and then give us your word so that we might know you. God, I repent of times where I don't see the Bible as the treasure that it is, as the joy that it is. That I don't long for your word. God, I want to long for your word more. I want to desire closeness with you. That comes from your word. It comes from reading your word and dwelling on it and meditating on it. God, I want that to be true of our church, that we'd be people more in love with Jesus, because we're people who are in our Bibles, that we'd know you more and follow you closer. It's in Jesus name we pray. Amen.