How Can I Confidently Read the Bible?

The Christian life requires consistent, daily engagement with Scripture — not occasional reading or Sunday attendance alone. God’s word guards the heart, orients desires toward Him, and sharpens the believer's ability to detect sin and deception. Over time, this regular intake produces joy, builds discernment about the consequences of sinful choices, and develops the resilience needed to endure hard seasons. The long-term fruit is profound: a believer who reads Scripture faithfully comes to know Jesus not just as Savior but as a friend, and gains a mature, grounded perspective on life.

Spiritual growth doesn't happen automatically or comfortably. The sermon pushes back against several common lies believers tell themselves — that anxiety and a critical spirit are just personality traits, that occasional reading is enough to coast on, that small compromises don't really matter, or that growth can wait until life settles down. In reality, most gospel growth happens during the week, not Sunday morning, and it typically comes through difficulty, not comfort. Knowing Jesus deeply is something that happens in the middle of obstacles, not around them.

Practically, growing confidence in Scripture comes through repetition — reading regularly, memorizing key passages to fight lies with truth in real time, and testifying about what God is doing. The church's summer series is supporting this through a Scripture memory program, with Psalm 1:2–3 as the current week's verses. One closing, clarifying word from the sermon: the voice that calls you names — idiot, loser, worthless — is not God. The Holy Spirit convicts about actions; Satan accuses about identity. Learning to tell the difference is itself a mark of growing maturity.

Transcript

This transcript was generated automatically from the audio and may contain small errors.

A special thanks to Asher Conrad this morning. Asher, thanks for coming to lead and worship with us. You've been doing a great job. And Asher came and led worship with not a whole lot of notice. So we're excited that we heard David Tribble had somewhere to be kind of last minute. And so Asher's so graciously filled in. Thank you, brother. The Screwtape Letters. Screwtape Letters, a great book, a great read if you have not partaken. The Screwtape Letters, I'm not gonna spoil too much. It inverts, it inverts this encouragement that we normally get, this normal kind of encouragement to spiritual growth. And it inverts that by taking the perspective of a demon. A demon named Screwtape. Screwtape is an established demon. He is really good at tricking people, at making people believe things. And he is writing letters to his nephew, Wormwood, a demon in training. So hence, the Screwtape Letters.

And it's really interesting to read because it puts everything, I mean, it's kind of like whenever you're watching Jeopardy and every answer has to be in the form of a question. You're reading the Screwtape Letters and you're receiving encouragement by what a demon is telling another demon. It's a little wild, but it's a really good way to think it through sometimes because maybe we don't think that way very often. And so I wonder what Screwtape would say to us today. I got some ideas. Screwtape might say to us today, hey, your anxiety, your sharp tongue, your critical spirit, those aren't sins. Those are just natural reactions to a stressful world.

You might say, when you take offense, when you make sure that when you take offense, you take big offense at the people and the culture around you to show how righteous you are. Maybe Screwtape might say, look, you've read the chapter. You've memorized the verse for the week. You've attended the service. You know enough answers. You can coast. Maybe Screwtape would say, listen, your motives are generally good, so these small compromises that you're making, they don't really count. God kind of understands it's no big deal. Screwtape might say, hey, wait for this really chaotic season to pass, and then after things have calmed down in your life, because they will definitely calm down soon, then you can kind of go hard on your spiritual life. Screwtape might say, hey, you're not feeling it today. Don't worry about it, because any spiritual effort that you would put forth would just be hypocritical

because you're not feeling it. This summer, we are working to be more weak-minded, and we started with this idea that people grow in the gospel, and specifically, they don't just grow in the gospel generally. They grow specifically through a couple of different ways. They grow in the gospel in community. They grow in the gospel through obstacles. They grow in the gospel with grace,

with habits, with accountability. On any given Sunday, we're gonna be talking maybe about two or three of these, and if you need an acronym for this, because I know you love an acronym, you can go with gotcha, no T though. I'm not making up a T just to have the T of gotcha. G-O-C-H-A, right, grace, obstacles, community, habits, accountability. These are the way that we grow in the gospel. When you look at this list, and this is by no means an exhaustive list, but this is just a way to think about just the different ways that you grow. When you look at this list, the majority of these things occur during a normal week.

You're not trying to overcome a lot of obstacles on a Sunday morning. Okay, this is community, but this is kind of a limited version of it, right? Like we're all dressed nicer. We're all like smiling a little bit more. There's some just expectation that just comes with a Sunday morning that you just can't shake, despite however hard you try, you can't shake it. There's something different, maybe a different way to say this. There's something different about being with somebody in their living room and having a meal and talking, versus having a conversation on a Sunday morning. Right, it's a little bit more limited. Most of these things that we grow, most of the ways that we grow in the gospel don't happen on a Sunday morning. They happen during the week. And today we're gonna be focusing on a specific part of our spiritual growth, and I'm gonna use it in the form of a question.

It's the question that's on the front of your worship guide. How can I confidently read the Bible? And I realize this question, how can I confidently read the Bible? It's not exactly a burning question. You might not have woken up thinking, man, how can I confidently read the Bible? That might not be it. But this idea of being able to read the Bible, comprehend the Bible, understand biblical things is a really big deal. And regular intake of God's word is, there's no way to overstate it, I think. It's vital to spiritual life. Regular intake of God's word is vital to spiritual life. Let me just give you a few saints talking about this same thing. A couple of quotes. We'll go with J.I. Packer. If I were the devil, one of my first aims would be to stop folk from digging into the Bible. I should do all I could to make Christian people live on spiritual scraps, chipped and out of context,

because I know that if I can keep them from the word, I can keep them from the power. John Piper. I need to hear the gospel every day because I forget it every day. Wordlessness leads to prayerlessness, and prayerlessness leads to powerlessness. Tim Keller, to read the Bible regularly is to immerse yourself in the reality of God's world, allowing his truth to reshape your desires, your thinking, and your entire life. Without it, the world's narrative will quietly become your own.

Lastly, John Chrysostom. This is the cause of all evils, the ignorance of the scriptures. We go into battle without armor, and how can we remain unhurt? For just as the assembly of weapons protects soldiers, so the reading of the divine scriptures secures the soul. Ignoring the intake, the regular intake of God's word, is like starving yourself in preparation for a marathon. It's like trying to grow a sunflower in your basement. It doesn't work.

It's not a great way to proceed. And so what I wanna do today, I wanna do just a full 360 on this, a full 360 on Bible reading, Bible memorization, Bible comprehension. And this summer, we're doing this, we're actually having a memory verse every week for the whole summer. And if you're thinking, oh no, I'm already a week behind because we're on week two. It's okay, don't worry. We have some week ones, some week one verses back there. They're blue. This week's are pink, okay? So Psalm 1:2-3. We're gonna read that a little bit later. But our hope, our hope with this whole series this summer, our hope even this morning as we're talking about this, is that you are equipped to be able to read the Bible confidently and often, regularly, okay? And this isn't about checking off enough boxes during the week. It's not what this is about. This is about breathing.

This is about surviving as a Christian. So let's do it. We're gonna talk about the use of Bible reading memorization and comprehension. So what do we need it for? How does it function? We're gonna talk about its effect. What does it do to us long term? How do we change from it? And we're gonna pair those up, the use and the effect. And then we're gonna look at how. What does this look like in the everyday? What does Bible reading look like in the everyday? And here's our hope with this. Our hope is that you would drink deep of God's word, that you would minister in God's word, that you would draw strength from God's word, that you would see the direction that He's drawing you in, and that you would be encouraged to read God's word today. Let's start in Psalm 119. We're gonna be doing Psalm 119 a little bit, and then we're gonna do all of Psalm one or most of Psalm one together.

Psalm 119, nine through 11. We're gonna have the verses up here. There's also some Bibles kind of around you. You can find the verses on your phone, I'm pretty sure. And if you need help doing any of those things, just ask the person next to you. They will definitely know what to do. Okay, Psalm 119 verses nine through 11. 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've stored up your word in my heart that I might not sin against you. The first use that we can see right here is that God's word guards our hearts. It keeps our way pure. It keeps our desire going toward God. It keeps our desire going away from sin. It gives us the ability to detect sin kind of from afar, lies from afar, and begin to fight that with truth. Let me give you some examples of fighting lies with truth.

Here we go. So let's take a couple of the lies that Screwtape was feeding us this morning, okay? So maybe the lie that my anxiety, my sharp tongue, my critical spirit aren't sins, they're just reactions. What is the truth to combat that? James one says, be quick to hear, be slow to speak, and be slow to anger. Don't jump into that critical spirit. Be slow to speak, be slow to anger. Be doers of the word and not hearers only. Be the one who looks into God's law. Be a doer who acts, and when you do that, there will be blessing in that doing.

This is what James one tells us. Maybe the lie, the lie that we, you know, hey, listen, when you take big offense, when you just can't believe how some people act, that shows how righteous you are, okay? What's the truth? The truth, said Corinthians five, that we've been given the ministry of reconciliation, that we are ambassadors of Jesus Christ, that we should take the position of a servant, not a judge. Romans one, Romans two, that we are blessed, this is Matthew five, so I run them out, we are blessed when we hold our strength back and we treat people gently. That's the truth. The truth is you don't show how righteous you are by how offended you are about whatever somebody did that you read about on Facebook. That's a lie. Here's another one, that you've read the chapter, that you've attended the service, that you know enough answers, and that you can coast.

1 Corinthians 10, 12 says, anyone who thinks he stands, take heed lest he fall. You don't have this wrapped up to get hell insurance. That's not the truth. We stand by the grace of God, and we stand as slaves to Jesus Christ. That we live in obedience to him. That yes, the debt has been paid, hallelujah, amen. But we are still walking in that in an active relationship with Jesus. 2 Corinthians 10, three through five says, for we walk in the flesh, excuse me, for though we walk in the flesh, we are not waging war according to the flesh. For the weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh, but have divine power to destroy our strongholds. We destroy arguments in every lofty opinion raised against the knowledge of God, and take every thought captive to obey Christ. When we understand the fact that we aren't, when we're fighting, we're not fighting what's in front of us.

Oftentimes we're fighting what's in here, and we're combating the lies that we believe with truth from Scripture, that we understand that not every thought we have should be what we follow. That sometimes the thoughts we have are intrusive. Sometimes the thoughts we have are lies. They're lies from the world, they're lies from the devil. Sometimes they're just lies that we just tell ourselves over and over again. Maybe they're lies that we've believed for a long time. Maybe they're lies that it's our parents told us, or grandparents, or a good friend. But when we fight this way, when we combat lies with truth, this is the effect. You will say what Psalm 119 continues to say in verses 12 through 14.

We will say, blessed are you, O Lord, teach me your statutes. With my lips I will declare all the rules of your mouth. In the way of your testimonies, I delight as much as in all riches. When you fight lies with truth, what happens is that you discover joy in the middle of it. You discover joy and you discover a desire for more. You can look, see the, you can see the joy here. Teach me, blessed are you, teach me your statutes. I'm excited about that. There's an exclamation point there for a reason. And it says with my lips I declare the rules of your mouth. So it gives us the impression of kind of mouthing, mouthing God's word, right? Repeating it over and over. With my lips I declare the rules of your mouth. In the way of your testimonies, I delight as much as in all riches.

Look, we don't get more perfect at obedience over time. We find more joy over time. When you meet somebody that has been following the Lord for a long time, they are typically marked by joy. Joy in the middle of maybe even some really troubling circumstances. Let's keep reading, verses 15 and 16. It says, I will meditate on your precepts and fix my eyes on your ways. I will delight in your statutes. I will not forget your word. Our hearts are meant to discover joy in God's path.

Our hearts are created, intended to discover the joy that is in God's path. We are motivated by this joy, by this desire. And I say discover joy in particular because God has put joy there. I realize that when we talk about enjoying something, we usually talk about it from our perspective, right? So go find something that you enjoy and keep doing that, right? Find something that you like and then keep going. That's fine. Biblically, there's a little bit of a different explanation than that. Biblically, what we see is that from God's point of view, right, God puts joy in obeying his commands.

God commands us to love, to hide his word in our heart, to avoid sitting in the seat of scoffers. But let's just take that last one. Let's take sitting in the seat of scoffers, scoffing at people's pain, okay? What if somebody would say to you or me, hey, no, I actually enjoy scoffing at other people's pain. I take great joy from that. I would disagree. I would say you can feel a dopamine hit. You could feel a little bit of adrenaline. You can have social reinforcement. You can have your friends being like, yeah, yeah, scoff at them. I don't know who your friends are if they're talking like that, but you might need new friends, just saying. There is no joy to be had in scoffing at people. There is no joy to be had at being cruel. There's no joy in it. You can say that you enjoy it, but you're really lying to yourself. You're not enjoying it. You might be used to it, but there is no joy in it

because God didn't put joy in there. Where did God put joy? In obeying his commands. You ever wonder why God commands us to love him? Doesn't that feel a little backward, right? We're supposed to love God. Okay, yeah, God commands us to love him. But if my wife commanded me to love her, it would be weird. It would be a little strange. Love me or else. I don't know. It just kind of comes off a little strange. Here's why it works for God and not my wife or me or anybody else. Here's why it works for God because he created joy to be had in the middle of obeying him. He created our ability to find the things that truly make us human as we are obeying him, as we are loving him, as we are serving other people in his name. When we do these things, we discover more about who we are, about how God made us, about who he is, about how God made people. Like we understand a lot more

when we are being obedient and finding the joy there. In a sense, regular intake of God's word begins to make room in your heart for true joy. It reminds you over and over and over again that if you were just doing the right thing to be a right person or to be moral or anything like that, then you are living a hollow existence because there is no joy in that. The joy is to be obeying God from the heart, discovering the joy that is in there. And when you find true joy in God, it will change you. When you understand and when you experience firsthand the joy of knowing Jesus Christ, it will change you, amen? Yeah. You see this at work in Psalms 1 also, Psalm 1, verses 1 and 2, says, blessed is the man who walks not on the counsel of the wicked, nor stands in the way of sinners, nor sits in the seat of scoffers. But what? His delight is in the law of the Lord. And on his law, he meditates day and night.

It connects a couple of things. It connects avoiding sin to delighting in God's law. That's what we just talked about. It's what we just established. When we obey God's law, there is joy to be had. But it also connects it to avoiding sin, to meditating on God's law. So one of the uses of God's word is that it builds our discernment. As we meditate on God's word, we are able to recognize what it is to stand in the way of sinners or to walk in the counsel of the wicked or to sit in the seat of scoffers. We're able to see where those things are. We move from a place of ignorance to a place of discernment as we continue to read God's word. We grow in our ability to see the end of sinful actions. I don't know if you've ever been talking with a friend and they're kind of telling you their plan, and about halfway through their plan, you start to think to yourself, this is gonna end terribly.

This is a really bad idea. You shouldn't do this. This is gonna be bad. Have you ever been telling someone else your plan, they've stopped you and be like, listen, that's not gonna go like you think it's gonna go. It's gonna be so bad. Please don't do that. Part of the reason that we can do that, it's called discernment. We can understand the end of things even sometimes at the beginning of things. We know where they're gonna go. Sometimes it takes us halfway through and sometimes for us, for people like me, it takes 15 times doing it wrong and go, oh, okay. I get it now. We will grow in our ability to see the end of sinful actions. Look at Psalm 1, verse three. This describes kind of this life. It says, he is like a tree planted by streams of water that yields its fruit in its season and its leaf does not wither. In all that he does, he prospers. Now, don't let that last line fool you.

This is not a get rich quick scheme. This is not a if I do A, B, and C, I'm gonna have perfect kids. If I do A, B, and C, I'm gonna make all the money. If I do A, B, and C, my business won't fail. If I do A, B, and C, that's not how this works. That's not what this is. There's plenty of so-called teachers who will tell you that it is, that that's how that works and it's wrong. It's not true. It's not how it works. This is not rich dad, poor dad, okay. We are talking about, whenever we're talking about, in all that he does, he prospers. Let that be colored by the previous part of the verse. He's like a tree planted by streams of water, yields fruit in season, leaf doesn't wither. It's talking about a resilience. It's talking about the ability to be able to stand through different seasons over time. You are like a tree planted by streams of water. It doesn't mean you don't go through winter.

It just means you make it to spring, right? It doesn't mean you don't feel the scorch of summer, but it means that you are there for the harvest to fall. It means that you are resilient. Look, if you are, if you in your spiritual life, if you have this mindset where, you know what, I'll just feel my way through it. I'll just wing it. It'll be fine. I'll kind of know what to do. I kind of learned some things as a kid and that was really enough and I don't know a lot of Bible. I mean, I don't, but I kind of know what to do. I kind of know right from wrong. Listen, friend, do not wing it. Set a discipline in your life of regularly intaking God's word because what it will do when you read it, when you understand those things, you will be shown in your own life where you believe lies. I can sit here and make up lies from screw tape, okay? But that's a whole different endeavor

than you reading the Bible and the Lord convicting you of a lie that you believe right now. That kind of experience will help you understand the power of reading God's word. And when you do that, when you go through that enough times, maybe the first time, you're just completely horrified. You don't even know what to do with your sin and over time, you begin to understand, okay, I can repent of this. Okay, I can repent of this quicker. Okay, I've got all these kind of attending things that happened, but now I know, okay, when I am screwing up my life and when I go to scripture and when I feel bad and I feel conviction, I can pray, I can ask the Lord for healing and I am healed and I am forgiven in that moment. That will build a resilience in you to keep going back to the fountain of God's word. Look at Psalm 1, verses four and five. The wicked are not so, but they are like chaff

that the wind drives away. Therefore, the wicked will not stand in the judgment nor sinners in the congregation of the righteous. God has a plan for your life. He has mapped out your life already. I realize that you and I are experiencing life one day at a time, one decision at a time, one consequence at a time. That's fine. Like we're all like in first person, I get it, okay? But God in heaven has mapped out your whole life and his desire for each and every one of you is to bring you into glory. He's mapped out your whole life, his desire, the trajectory of your life is to bring you into glory. Here is the long-term effect of taking in scripture is that you will know Jesus as a friend. Look at the last verse, Psalm 1, six. For the Lord knows the way of the righteous, but the way of the wicked will perish. The Lord knows the way of the righteous. The Lord knowing your way means he's invested.

It means he's got it mapped out. It means there is an end that you are marching toward and that as you regularly intake God's word, you are familiarized with that end more and more and more and more. And it doesn't mean that like somehow you receive some secret knowledge or anything like that. It means that as you understand scripture more, you begin to understand that time is headed toward something

and that you have a part to play in that. As you continue to bring your sin to God, as your concerns to God, as you begin to pray through things, as you begin to do that as you're reading his word, you begin to understand your life in the context of all that he's doing. I remember being 19 and I was talking with a friend of mine who was, I don't know, she was probably 43, 44, something like that. She had grown children. Her name was Wendy, Wendy Avant. Shout out to Wendy, okay? If you listen to this on the podcast, shout out. Okay, Wendy Avant, we were coworkers and she was Christian,

mature Christian, strong Christian, had been through a lot. And I was really frustrated where I was. I didn't understand, obviously I was 19. I was not mature in the faith. I hadn't regularly taken in God's word a whole lot. I knew Bible stories, I knew those things. But I was really frustrated at work because I wanted to be here, but I was only here. And in my youthful arrogance, I thought, I'm good at what I do, so I should be here. That's how that works, right guys? And so, but I wasn't. I was down here, I was frustrated, and I thought, man, I'm so much better. And Wendy, in all of her wisdom, she listened to me, right? She asked me a couple questions, bless Wendy Avant.

She asked me a bunch of questions, and then she said to me, she said, listen, Drew, our lives are part of a bigger tapestry. And on the front of that tapestry, God is weaving something so beautiful, like it looks so good. But have you ever seen the back of a tapestry, Drew? It's so knotted, it's so messy. There's all these things that look like they're not going anywhere, right? It just looks bad. In fact, we don't flip tapestries around because they're ugly. We keep it pretty on one side. That's what they're for, it's what they're made for. And so, but that's a really good illustration of this life that a lot of times you're a thread in a big tapestry, and you think, why am I laced this way? What is going on here? What's wrong with this? I don't understand all this. I don't have perspective. Well, the answer is, the answer Wendy gave me was, yeah, you don't have perspective.

The end, right? There is a way to trust God, even whenever you don't have that perspective, that he is making that tapestry. That was some deep wisdom I got from Wendy. And it was because Wendy had experienced the same thing, but it's also, it wasn't just some dry wisdom. When I looked in her eyes and she was telling me that, I could tell that Wendy cared about me. I could tell that Wendy had joy in Jesus. She was speaking from a place of healing, right? She knew the Lord, but really, she only knew the Lord through that obstacle.

Some of us want to go through life facing as few obstacles as possible. I would submit to you that that is a bad way to live. If you avoid every obstacle, you kind of die inside. Maybe not kind of. That part of what the Lord wants to do in your life is he wants you to get to know him through these obstacles, not despite the obstacles. Think back on your life. Think back of a time whenever you grew a whole lot. Was it right after you got broken up with? Was it right after you lost a job? Was it right after you faced a really crazy situation that you didn't know how to fix? Was it right before a big decision? Probably, probably. People typically grow spiritually, not on the beach, reading a book with the sun shining, not a problem in the world, okay? That's just not typically, I'm not saying it could never happen. It could never happen, the Lord can do whatever the Lord wants to do.

But typically, we grow through obstacles. And when you do, you know Jesus as a friend. Many people in Texas, many people in Burleson in particular, are haunted by Jesus because they know him from afar and they are scared of him. They understand that there's respect that needs to be there but they don't know him. When you take in the Bible, this is how we get to know God. This is how God speaks to us. This is how we commune with him. We have other ways to commune with him, that's fine. The Bible is a primary way that we commune with God.

The Bible helps us get the contours of what God is like, of what people are like, of what God values, of the grand history of what it is to be human. The Bible gives us all of these things. And the effect, the long-term effect, so you'll know Jesus as a friend, but also the long-term effect is that you will get a mature perspective on your own life and whatever is happening to you at a given moment. Take in God's word because he's not done with you. He's not just, he's not said, oh, okay, these 10 years have been great. I'll see you in heaven.

See in 25 years, I'll see you in heaven. That's not how it works. We take in God's word to get a mature perspective on what is happening and how we play a part in that. You cannot wing that. You cannot intuit your way forward. You cannot TikTok your way into this. You can't, there's no YouTube channel that you could subscribe to that's going to duplicate the regular intake of God's word. It's not gonna happen. I'm not saying those things can't be helpful, but I am saying that it's not like breathing. Taking in God's word is like breathing. Okay, so we've talked about the use, we've talked about the effect. Let's talk about how. Let's get down to brass tacks, as they say. Anybody ever heard that expression, down to brass tacks? Four of you, okay. A long time ago, they used to make furniture and when you took the upholstery off underneath were? Brass tacks, okay, that's the expression.

Okay, I feel like I've, I feel like I've helped you. Okay, that's, I probably haven't. I just feel that way. Yeah, my feelings are betraying me. I have not actually helped you. Okay, the how, the how of Bible reading, of Bible memorization and Bible comprehension. First, repetition is key for confidence. Repetition is key for confidence. Repetition is key for confidence, okay. So when we talk about the habits, right, in the gotcha acronym, the age of habits, right. There's a few habits that will help you grow confident in reading the Bible. The first one is reading the Bible, I know. Some stellar wisdom today. You guys are getting it on a platter. You're welcome.

It is funny, it is funny, I know. Sometimes what's funnier is the reasons that we don't read. Right, like we got distracted by something. Look, just read the Bible, man. Just read the Bible. You're like, I don't know if I understand all of it. Okay, just read the Bible. Right, and it's not some spell book. It's not some magic, you know, like you say these words in a particular order and then things are gonna happen. It's that God in heaven desires to speak to you through scripture and whenever you are telling him like, Lord, I wanna hear from you, however clumsy that is, right. He's not giving you some score on, you know, how well you're being spiritually today. That's not really the point. The point is for you to commune with God through his word. So the first habit is reading. You should read. You should also memorize. It's really helpful to memorize scripture.

Psalm 1:2-3, I don't have it memorized yet. So I'm not gonna try. I know when to not try. Psalm 1:2-3, I probably could like fake my way through it and maybe get most of it, but I'm not gonna do it. I don't have it memorized. But next week I will, okay. Psalm 1:2-3, but his delight is in the law of the Lord and on his law he meditates day and night. He is like a tree planted by streams of water that yields his fruit in its season and its leaf does not wither. And all that he does, he prospers, okay.

We got like, what, six lines this week? Okay, six lines, all right. The gauntlet's thrown down. Last week we had Psalm 52:10 and this week we got Psalm 1:2-3. The reason that we do that is because memorizing scripture is a really good habit to get into because whenever you are trying to combat lies with truth, it's really helpful. It's really helpful to remember, oh, this is true. And the Holy Spirit can even bring that out of the well, right, of like, oh, this is true, I need to remember this. Also the habit, so reading, memorizing, also the habit of testifying, okay. Look, when you talk about what's happening in your life

with people that don't know the Lord or people that you're not sure they know the Lord, that's a really helpful thing for you, okay. I'm not saying do it just for you, but it is a really helpful thing for you. It builds your confidence. So here's my encouragement. I stole this from another pastor, here you go, who also stole it from another pastor. When people ask about your weekend, don't stop with Saturday. When people ask about your weekend, don't stop with Saturday. Tell them about your whole weekend. Tell them about the whole thing. It's a good way to start a conversation to testify about what the Lord's doing. It builds confidence as you just regularly have a conversation like a Christian with a person. It's okay, you can be a Christian and you're not trying to like muscle the gospel down in that one conversation. There are times to share the gospel. That's another habit that you should develop.

That's great, but in this moment that I'm talking about right now, like if you're just having a conversation with somebody and you've listened to them for five minutes and they ask you how your weekend was and you would say, well, my weekend went really well. Saturday, we went up to the lake and then Sunday, our family, we go to church. Pretty often, we were there and we heard this sermon about Bible reading. It was weird, but it made me think about some things that I'd never thought about before. One of those things was X.

You're already testifying right there in the moment. They're asking how your weekend was. You're telling them about where you were reading in Psalm 119. You're talking about what the Lord was saying to you. It's okay, you don't need to translate for a non-Christian what's going on in your life. Just say you prayed about it. Just say that you're having a season of struggle with the Lord. Just say that. Say you read the Bible. Say you prayed and you don't really know if God heard it today. You're just feeling weird about it. Say that, it's okay. It's okay to say that. Just be a Christian in front of somebody. There's nothing wrong with it, I promise. In fact, it might be really helpful for somebody to have a real conversation about being a Christian. I actually have these kinds of conversations pretty often. The Lord is very gracious. I'll be talking with somebody,

we'll talk about spiritual things and they have a question and as soon as I'm starting to talk about that, I'm very plain spoken about stuff. I try not to be too pretentious or anything. They already, often they already know I'm a pastor and so every once in a while, we'll be just having a normal conversation. It'll turn to spiritual things and you'll see a switch happen. They'll just kind of change their posture and they'll say, okay, I got a question

and usually whatever pops out of their mouth next is like amazing, okay? And they're just like, the Bible never really made sense to me. I'm like, okay, thank you. I appreciate you saying that. What about it didn't make sense? And I'm not rushing it like, well, you know the Bible and God's Word, don't you? If you were a Christian, you'd understand it. Okay, okay. Calm down, calm down, easy tiger. Wait up.

Just say like, okay, what parts were hard? Let's talk through that. Maybe we could read the Bible together for real. It's not that hard, man. It's not that hard. It's a discipline of just testifying about the Lord and seeing what the Lord's gonna do. You might be like, well, that's scary, good. You could use some scaring. So could I. So I don't know if I wanna do it. Pray about it. The Lord wants to give you the desire and the power to do what He's commanding you to do. So go to Him. Just say like, well, I guess you're telling me to do this but I don't wanna do it and I don't feel like I have the power. God's like, I got you. Let's go, let's do it. Man, look, I swear, if you, I dare you to pray that. I dare you to pray that and I guarantee like some moment soon you're gonna have a conversation with somebody and they're gonna be like, tell me why you're a Christian

and you're gonna be like, dang it. I knew the Lord was gonna. It's gonna be amazing. It's gonna be amazing. There's so much joy to be had in that. There really is. I know it's scary, I get it. It's scary but there is so much joy. There's so much joy in it. As you do these things, it's gonna speed up your timeline of confidence. It's like training for anything, really. That taking in God's word is like training. And so when you do it repeatedly, training is just doing a thing before you need to do the thing, right? So training would be running a 40-yard dash when it's not the track meet so that whenever it is the track meet, you can run the 40-yard dash faster, okay? This is basic logic here, right?

You need to be able to draw on truth and apply it. This is discernment, this is basic Christian living, this is fighting off sin, this is being in an encouragement to other people, this is listening to the Holy Spirit. This runs everywhere. You need to be able to draw on truth and apply it. That is Vince Lombardi, some of you don't know who that is. He was one of the first great football coaches, okay? Vince Lombardi would start a season, most seasons, every season, actually, all of his players testify to this. The first thing he would do is he would grab a football and he would stand in front of his men. First thing he said every season, he would say, gentlemen, this is a football. And they were like, no kidding, coach, okay? And he would build from the fundamental every season. Christians, this is God's word, we should know it and apply it.

This is basic, this is fundamental. This is how, it's how you do everything else in the Christian life. It's how you preach a sermon, it's how you encourage a friend, it's how you discern things, it's everything. This is God's word and here's how you apply it. It's like the skill, applying God's word. And as you do that, as you continue on that skill of just knowing and applying God's word, you will know more truth, your well will deepen. You will know what the Holy Spirit prompting you to do something, you will know what that feels like more. You will know what the voice of Jesus sounds like versus the voice of the world, versus the voice of Satan, versus your own voice. You'll be able to kind of pick that out with time and not perfectly. It's gonna be messy and hard, but you will be able to do it. You will be able to check what you are hearing against Scripture because you know Scripture.

So here's my encouragement, here's my application for this week. Okay, besides don't stop on Saturday, that's a good one. Here's my encouragement, I want you to practice doing spiritual combat out loud. Okay, I know some of you introverts just died a little. I get it, you can do it when no one else is around, it's okay, I'm not saying you have to do it out loud on a street corner, but I am saying doing it out loud. And I think the reason I say that is because it's going to help you recognize the process a little bit more as a protocol or as a sequence or something like that. There is nothing like perfect about what I'm encouraging you to do here except that it comes from the wisdom of fighting sin, okay, and it comes from Scripture. I want you to do this out loud, number one, I want you to name the lie. I don't have these up here, no I do, oh, listen. Sometimes you just, you just help yourself.

Okay, spiritual combat, doing it out loud, the first thing, you're gonna name the lie, out loud, name the lie. The lie might be, you know, the lie might be lust, the lie might be greed, the lie might be jealousy, the lie might be, you might not even know what the name of it is, but you're like, God, I feel super insecure right now for reasons that I cannot name. I don't even know, but here's kind of what's happening. Try to name the lie, and then discover where the lie is coming from, discover the source of the lie, whose voice is it, right? Here's a way to discern that just from wisdom. If you are hearing yourself being called a name, so like idiot, loser, worse, if you hear yourself being called a name, that's not God. Satan is called the accuser. He accuses you by calling you names, and I know that sounds kind of innocuous, like playground or something, but they're names that actually hurt you.

They're worse than sticks and stones. Okay, names that hurt you, names that you've been hearing a long time that make you cry, make you sad, make you remember things you don't need to remember. If you're being called a name, it's probably not from God. If you are being convicted of something that you did wrong in action, that's probably the Holy Spirit. Okay, see that, see the difference?

So try to discover where that lie is coming from. I'm not saying you have to write it down for a grade. I'm just saying it's gonna help you. Just try to pick out where it's coming from. And then out loud again, you're praying against the lie with truth. You need to declare the truth, okay? So you might be dealing with super big insecurity, and you're just saying like, I don't, these people think I'm an idiot, these people, whatever, and maybe you're the voice. Maybe it's you telling it to yourself, maybe who knows? Praying against that lie would be saying, Jesus, only your opinion matters of me. It's only your opinion of me that counts for anything. It's only what you've done for me that defines me. I don't have to win approval of people because you're in charge of my future. Whatever leverage I think I'm going to get by winning these people over, it won't get me what I want it to get.

What I really need, what I really want, is your approval. What I really want is your plan for my life. So help me stay centered on that. Because you know what? Nothing good is gonna come from you stressing and worrying about what other people think about you because you cannot do anything to change it. Lastly, ask for Jesus to help you believe it. Help me believe it, Lord.

I commiserate with the man who says, I believe, help my unbelief, right? The father whose son Jesus was healing in the moment, Jesus says like, the father slips up and says like, well, if you can, go ahead and heal him. And Jesus is like, if I can, if I can, do you believe that I can heal him? And the guy responds with, I believe, help my unbelief. Look, that's me like 90% of the time. Where I'm like, I'm doing this because I trust you, but I'm really confused right now. I'm really frustrated in the moment. I really believe a lot of lies right now. I don't even know. But I do know, I do know what's true, and I do need your help to believe it. I need your strength to believe it. Don't forget that last part. Here's my encouragement. I'm gonna call the worship team back up. Here's my encouragement. Just as we are looking toward being weak-minded, right? So in this, in this our,

consider this the launch point for the rest of the week. Okay, you got a Monday through Saturday to absolutely kill it. It's gonna be great. Here's what I want you to focus on. I want you to focus on some lies that you believe and focus on combating truth with that, okay? If you need help, look, ask for help, ask for a friend. There are, you know what, here's my, I'm gonna give you, I'm gonna give you some permission right now. It's gonna be great. If you are experiencing a lie and you don't know the truth against that lie, and if you have zero person to ask, like if you don't have anybody to ask at all,

I would encourage you, get on chat GPT. I'm not kidding. I'm not kidding. Get on chat GPT and say, I believe this lie, I need a Bible verse to combat this lie with the truth. See what comes up, okay? It's good information. It might not be the long-term way to handle that, but look, if you're in a spot, I'd rather you know the truth, and I don't care where it comes from, because it's the truth, right?

I'd rather, in fact, I'd rather you chat GPT scripture than read a book or then, you know, watch somebody's YouTube channel and try to get advice from them. Go to scripture, and if you don't know where to go, look on chat GPT, okay? Fair, can we do this? I want you and our whole church, I want us to be able to combat lies with the truth. It's really important that we're able to do this. This is why I read all those quotes at the beginning, because I'm trying to help you. These people that have been working in ministry a really long time are saying, it's a big deal that we know scripture. It's a big deal that we are regularly taking it in. It's a big deal. It's like breathing, and it is. We're not doing scripture memory because it's fun. We're doing scripture memory because there is joy in it.

It's also vital to your spiritual health. So take it seriously. Let me pray for us. Lord, thank you for the opportunity to see a vision of our lives regularly taking in your word. I pray that you would give us all a vision for that, that we would take a step, we'd start reading scripture on our own, we'd try to plow ahead even whenever it seems frustrating or weird or maybe we didn't start in the right place or whatever. Lord, you are bigger than all that. We trust you for that. We pray that you would make us people of your word,

that you would make us people that live according to your word, that have discernment according to your word, that are mature so that we can minister to others, so that we can see your kingdom come on earth as it is in heaven.