From the Feed to the Word

Let’s dig in today in a new series called Connected. So if it’s your first time with us or you have— you’re just coming back, we’re starting a new series today. It’s a great, great jumping-in point, uh, but this sermon series, uh, the, the goal is to find real community. Um, we live in a hyper-digital world, and yet we are finding that generally we don’t feel more connected. We often feel less connected, which is, is kind of ironic in a way, although we have the ability to be more connected with others through digital means, it just doesn’t quite feel the same.

So our goal is in this series to rediscover what it means to have a true authentic relationship with God and with the people of God. And so I pray that this will feed you today, encourage you today. I have to admit something, there’s some toe-stompers in this sermon. I pray you’ll forgive me for that. This message kind of stumped me.

For most of the week because I uniquely struggle with this. I’m 40 years old, y’all, and I grew up, it wasn’t, I was pretty young when I got my first Nintendo. And that changed my life in not all good ways. Christ Jesus truly changed my life, but unfortunately Nintendo had an effect. And ever since I was like 5 years old, I have gone in and out of struggles with screen time.

And what you’re going to find as we dig into today, I’m going to talk about that quite a bit, but my hope for you, and I’m saying this right away, is I want you to feel encouraged to walk with Christ Jesus and not discouraged by stuff you might feel ashamed of, because I felt some of that this week, but I was drawn back to the Savior who loves me and you and who bled and died for me and you and wants a relationship with us. That’s what this is about, is true community with the God who created us and loves us. So let’s dig into this. I’m going to give you some stats right away that’ll get your brain churning a little bit. The average person, just so you know, spends about 7 hours a day looking at screens.

7 hours a day. Studies are showing now that most of us, when we die, we will have spent 20 years looking at screens. And the number is rising for Gen Z and younger. In fact, they’ve developed a word lately because we’ve gotten so addicted to this thing, if you will, that they’ve created a word now called nomophobia. You’re thinking this is a lie.

You can look it up. You can Google this. I thought this is the craziest thing I’ve ever heard, but it’s a real word. It’s a real thing that people go to therapists for, and it means no mobile phone phobia. It’s a phobia that people have when their phone dies or they lose it, they can’t find it, and they feel like, oh no, I’m in trouble.

Apparently like 60% of people have some version of nomophobia. More than half. It’s wild, huh? You’re sitting there going, do I have my phone on silent? You’re thinking about it right now.

Go ahead and silent it just for all of us because you love us so much. This thing, we carry it around and it causes us to feel anxiety sometimes. It’s even harder on our children. In a recent book, and I would recommend this book to you, called The Anxious Generation— this is a really good book by Jonathan Haidt— he says right away, he says, my central claim in this book is that these 2 trends, overprotection in the real world and underprotection in the virtual world, are the major reasons why children born after 1995 became the anxious generation. Any, any post-1995ers in the room?

Go ahead, don’t be afraid. There’s a handful of y’all. Some of you might be like, I’m not that anxious. Well, just so you know, you’ve been dubbed so. I didn’t make that, that’s, that’s someone else.

And this guy makes the argument that part of the reason for that is parents, millennials especially, a lot of us were helicopter parents in the real world and had no idea what was happening in the virtual world. And so over here, it’s like, I, I got to protect my kid, I got to protect them from all this stuff, and then I hand them a cell phone and they’re up at midnight watching God only knows what. In fact, most people were like, I can’t let my 12-year-old walk to the park, but at midnight I have no idea what he’s watching. So we completely slammed the front door shut and left the back door wide open. And a lot of us have experienced this.

You can’t give anything in your life 8 hours a day and not expect it to form and change you. Now, adults, this message is for you, not just as parents. Some of you will interpret this in your parenting, and you should, but this is for all of us. Anything you’re putting— investing that much time in is going to change you and form you, whether you know it or not, whether it’s your expectations or even something as minor as your attention span. This is a wild thing that’s happened to us.

If you go back to even 20 years, people will have found that you could watch a commercial, for instance, for 2 to 3 minutes back in the early 2000s. Do you know how long the average attention span is now? Not 2 and a half minutes, 47 seconds. So we’ve gone a third of what we once were just in 20 years. And part of that is this, we have been completely changed into this viewing pattern of, if I don’t like it, I can move it in a second.

And there, you’re hard-pressed to find any video anywhere that’s more than about 47 seconds. You know why? They know what they’re doing. They know what they’re doing.

This isn’t a new problem, friends. The goal of this message isn’t to make you sit there and go, well, I need to do better. I need to change. No, we need a better activity. I’ve found this to be true in my life, and I hope this helps you, just this little thought, that anything you’re trying to change and get over, the more time you spend going, I got to stop doing this.

I got to cut this out, the less power you seem to have to do it. But instead of that behavior, saying, this is not what I want to do anymore. I want to do this. What we really need in life is a better replacement. And so if I’m wasting so much of my life here, then what would it look like to spend it doing something valuable?

We need a better mission. We need a better entertainment. We need a better objective. And this isn’t a new problem. I’m going to recite this probably every week.

I love what the Apostle John writes to primarily the church of Ephesus here. He’s an old man, one of the last living apostles. And I love what he writes in 2 John 12. He says, though I have much to write to you, I would rather not use paper and ink. Instead, I hope to come to you and talk face to face so that our joy may be complete.

The sweet old man said to his people, I want to come see you because nothing beats that. Nothing beats— church, nothing beats us coming together face to face and speaking to one another and putting arms around and hugging one another and praising God together. You can’t beat it. This won’t compete well with that. And so that’s where we’re going to dig in today.

The answer, the answer is at the end of this message. There’s not— I’ll go ahead and tell you, I’ll go ahead and tell you good news. After we’re done, I’m not going to say, all right, let’s all march over here to the retention pond and throw our phones in this. I’m not going to do that. All right, that’s not the point of the message.

The point is that you would turn what is a time of distraction and waste into something where you can have authentic community with a God who loves you and a people who he’s formed for himself. There’s a better way, and I pray that we could find it together as we dig in today. In Paul’s second letter to Timothy, this is a very famous scripture, and here he’s given us really the first of several things that It means to have authentic community with God. Paul here urges his disciple Timothy to fully devote himself to the Scriptures he grew up on, and we can do so as well. We can devote ourselves to the Scriptures we have in front of us, to the spoken Word of God, and to the community of believers.

So let’s dig in. 2 Timothy chapter 3, just a handful of verses. Listen to this, church. It says, but as for you, continue in what you have learned and have firmly believed. Knowing from whom you learned it and how from childhood you have been acquainted with the sacred writings, which are able— hear this— able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus.

For 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. This is God’s Word, amen? This is good news to us today because there’s 3 really clear reasons that we can devote ourselves to the Word of God and that we will begin to build a relationship with God the Father that will last the span of all eternity. We’re building a relationship that has eternal value and it begins with our time in His Scripture and in prayer. So why do it?

Why be devoted to God’s Word? Well, here’s the first and maybe the only reason I need, but there are more, but here’s the first. Because it leads me to Christ. This book leads me to my Savior. It leads us to Christ.

Paul says plainly, as he’s closing out his argument to Timothy, where he’s been talking about the deception of our world, how there are many voices and there are all kinds of competing information, and some of it tickles the ears of others and they just want to chase what makes them feel good. And he says to Timothy, I want you to hang on to what you’ve been taught because this is truth and real life. And this other stuff, it might sound good, but it’s empty and it’s deceiving. So he says the only command of this whole text for today is continue in. I want you— this word could mean abide, rest.

I want you to hang here in the Scriptures you’ve been taught. And it’s beautiful the way he phrases it. I want you— that which you’ve learned, that which you firmly believed, knowing from whom you learned it. Who’s he learned it from? He’s talking specifically to Timothy.

He says, first of all, me and you have spent a great deal of time together. Don’t forget about the hard work we’ve done together in the Word of God. But even more than that, he says, you’ve known it from childhood. Childhood here in the Greek is the word brephos. It means infancy.

He’s saying you pretty much came out of the womb and started being taught the Holy Scriptures because Timothy has this beautiful luxury of a, of a mother and a grandmother who love the Lord. So like so many of us in the room, his father was a non-believer, but his mother and grandmother were believers. That’s a lot of stories I hear from people. Is that they had faithful mothers and grandmothers. I pray as a church we’ll have more and more faithful men and fathers.

It’s one of my great goals, uh, and one of our great problems in all of society. But nevertheless, Timothy here is raised up in the Lord by his mother and grandmother. Paul writes early in 2 Timothy chapter 1, he says, I’m reminded of your sincere faith, a faith that dwelt first in your grandmother Lois and in your mother Eunice, and now I am sure dwells in you as well. I love these names, man. These sound like Appalachian North Carolina kind of names.

These sound like the names I grew up with. Like, I, I had an Eddie Elizabeth and a, and a, and a Wilda. Lois and Eunice could have grown up right where I grew up, uh, up in like Bristol, Virginia, Roanoke, Virginia, those areas. I love these names. He says, I want to commend you that you had these faithful women that taught you the truth.

And what I want you to do is I want you to continue in it because there’s a lot of voices. Church, have y’all noticed there’s a whole lot of noise? There’s a lot of competing voices, and a lot of them are not in agreement with what you’re going to read here. You’re going to hear all kinds of different things, and nothing is new there. Paul said this— he says this is happening in the first century.

Church, it’s been happening since the beginning of time. That there’s the voice of God, true, authentic, loving, but also challenging, and then there’s man’s voice and the culture. And what will you listen to? Paul says, hey, I want you to stand firm in this, in the sacred writings that’ll make you wise for salvation. Cling to your faith in Christ Jesus.

Here’s what you’re going to find everywhere else. You’re going to find that the digital world, that, that your phone is very good at entertaining. I have no doubt as to why you and I struggle with this, because it’s stinking entertaining. For hours you’ll just go wham, wham, wham, and you’ll look at the clock finally and go, how long have I been here? What has happened?

And I would just urge you to consider this. The next time that that happens to you, think back as to what it is you actually remember or learned. Because you’ll find out, man, I can’t remember half of what I just watched. I think there was some stuff in there that made me laugh. I remember laughing.

There was some stuff in there about building a garden in my backyard because I got this whole DIY thing Instagram thinks I need to be watching because I keep watching them, and how to cook things. I feel like I learned something about cooking, but I can’t really place it.

And we spent hours and hours there with entertainment. Here’s what I’m convinced of, church, and this might be a hard pill to swallow, but I pray you can hear it. I think so much with the church, with especially the American church, that the evil one has discovered, I can’t really tempt them to do what is wrong or sinful in that. I’m having a hard time getting them to fall prey to that. But guess what I can make them fall prey to?

Distraction. I can so dull their senses that they become useless. Now that is very effective for the American. I’ll just dull you to anything important and entertain you rather than to stick to things that actually really matter. I think that’s his ploy.

I think that’s what’s going on here. We’ve been entertained to the point where we most of the time are doing some nonsense, but the Word of God reveals that the only real truth and the only thing that gives us life is in Christ Jesus. So the very place where we’re trying to find peace and comfort and rest. And most of the time when you’re vegging out like this, it’s because you’re just trying to rest and relax. And I get that, but you won’t find it there.

It’s just an endless, I got to do it again, I got to do it again, because it’s never, it’s never really satisfying. Jesus says this in John chapter 5. He says, you search the scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life. And it is they that bear witness about me, yet you refuse to come to me that you may have life.

Oh, you’re searching everywhere. Here they’re searching the scriptures, but they’re not willing to say, there he is, the Messiah. We should see him on every page and recognize this is where I’m going to find true life, the peace, the joy, the rest I know some of you in the room, maybe all of you, have gone into your pantry at some point and grabbed like a family-sized bag of chips, and maybe you’re the first one to open it, and that’s a sweet moment, right? It’s like, because you know no one else’s grimy hands have been in there, you’re the first, and that’s exciting. And you tell yourself when you crack open that fresh bag of potato chips that you’re just going to eat a handful.

I’m just— I just need a little snack. And you’re going to have a few, and then 30 minutes to an hour goes by and the bag’s completely empty and you’re wondering what has happened to you because you don’t feel good about it. You’re covered in salt and grease and for some reason you don’t really know that you feel satisfied. You do know you feel thirsty now and a little like you’ve definitely made a mistake. And don’t dare look at the back of the bag after you’ve done something like that and go, wow, well, that was my daily portion of everything.

And it’s that very feeling you get— I’m thirsty, I’m not satisfied. This is the feeling that somehow we cannot recognize when we consume tons of content that we can neither remember nor can we do anything attainable with it. It’s just chips, just salt and science experiments.

And so do I. I struggle here too. Jesus says something very plainly. He says, man shall not live by bread alone. But by every word that comes from the mouth of God. Church, there’s no easy way to say this.

We have got to learn to have an appetite for the Almighty because we’re distracted. And the longer we linger there, the harder it gets. It doesn’t get easier. I, I just want to acknowledge— I want to acknowledge to you, I know this will be a challenge. I know it because so many of us have been have been numbed by distraction that we can’t even recognize that our attention span has shrunk to nothing.

Do you realize how discouraging it is to a person who preaches to hear that your attention span is 47 seconds? I’m so impressed with you right now. I see most of your eyeballs. Amazing. I’m doing my best to try to keep you alive right now, but you’ve given me more than 47 seconds.

You should give yourself a hand, just a hand just inside, like, good job, me. But when it comes to the Word of God, I know something is true. And but rather than dodge it, let’s come to that truth and say, all right, what am I going to do about it? If this is the words of life, if God the Creator who loves me and made me and died for me wrote this for me, and this is going to feed me, I must have it. But it’s hard to do because my habits are so bad.

I don’t have any habits of reading, period, Jonathan. In fact, most of the input I get comes through my eyes digitally like this.

I want to just tell you, there’s some things you, you’ve just got to push yourself. You’ve got to push yourself to say, all right, this is what I want, this is what I need. I believe that the Word of God will feed me. I believe that time and prayer with Christ would change my life. I believe it.

What am I going to do about it? It means I’m going to do little simple things to start. Some of you, every single morning this thing goes off and wakes you up, and the first thing you do is, all right, what’s going on in the world? Might I suggest to you, turn your alarm off, get up, and leave it, and go in the other room. And I know some of you need your morning coffee, I’ll give you that.

I kind of do too. Make you a little pot of coffee, Go into the other room without this, without computers, not but an analog— boy, we’re about to go, we’re about to go first century on this mug in my living room today— not but a drink and a book. Start with 10 minutes, see what happens. Start with 15. 15 will become 30.

You’ll start recognizing, wow, it’s quiet. You’ll recognize how quiet the world is after a while, stuff like that. But my kids are going to pop up right away, Jonathan. Well, you got to get up a little earlier.

I need 15 more minutes. I got to get up earlier than them. It’s discipline and it’s a challenge, but it’s worth it. It’s life. Imagine saying to yourself, well, I got to get up 15 minutes earlier because if I don’t, I won’t be able to eat today.

All of you would get up 15 minutes earlier, I guarantee you, because otherwise I don’t get to eat today. It’s like that though, friend. It’s like that and more. But Jonathan, I like to listen to the Bible on this. Okay, cool.

What happens when it dings with that notification that you just got an email or someone texted you? I’m not listening anymore. Now I’m on Instagram. Well, how did I get here? Don’t take it.

Time to start reading again, friends.

I don’t like this sermon. I didn’t like it this week writing it either. It was hard on me. I had to delete— I deleted 2 apps this week. I think more have got to go.

It wasn’t enough. Some of you like, I don’t, I don’t know about this. I just pray the Lord will challenge you where you need challenged. That’s between you and him. Ask yourself, what is receiving the first attention of mine every day?

Who’s getting number one? I bet it ain’t Him. Who’s getting number one? Who’s getting the most? We’re talking not only is this priority, but it’s majority, and it’s not God.

It’s not even your family.

That’s number one. It’s like, oh, there’s 2 more of these? Yeah, there’s 2 more of these. It points us to Jesus. That’s incredible.

Here’s another incredible thing, that we can be devoted to God’s Word because it speaks with God’s authority. We live in a world where we’re hearing competing voices. Let’s be honest, we don’t know who’s telling us the truth anymore. We don’t know who’s talking truth about medicine, about politics, about world affairs. We get 2 different voices, if not 10.

We, we hear— I mean, you just go there for a little while, you’ll find out that cancer is caused by 33 things. From parasites to the way you eat, from who knows what’s killing us. I’m happy that there’s a source of life, that this is God’s authoritative Word. It doesn’t always feel good. Sometimes it pushes you to think and realize things about yourself that need change.

It’s called repentance. It’s important we go there. It speaks with God’s authority. This is verse 16, one of the most powerful scriptures in all of Scripture. It says, Scripture is breathed out by God.

Now let me ask you something. When he says all Scripture, is he talking about your Bible? Well, yes, that is true, but at the point when Paul is writing, the Old Testament is the only thing written. So before you start going through life saying, I’m only going to read the New Testament, just know that’s not how Paul thought. That’s not how the writers of the New Testament thought.

They said the Scriptures, which at this time were Old Testament Scriptures, they said these is God’s very breath. And useful, profitable for all kinds of living. So friends, church friends, we need to be in the word of God from Genesis to Revelation because he says it is the very breath. This word is theopneustos. Theos is the word for God.

Pneuma means breath or wind or spirit. He said it is God’s very to you.

Amazing. It’s His very words on the page to you, and it’s profitable for so many things. I just want to, in this moment, I want to encourage you with something because there’s— I know there’s some people in the room that they have no habit of this. I don’t want you to walk out of here feeling ashamed or under some kind of burden you can’t manage.

I’m encouraging you, what if you started with 10 minutes tomorrow— today? And don’t start in the book of Leviticus. Let me just do— let me tell you a favor. If you’ve never read this at all, don’t start there. First of all, it’s not the first book anyway.

What are you doing there? This is a book that is comprised of 66 unique books, and there are better starting places than others when it comes to someone who is new to the faith or new to a discipline. Don’t start in Leviticus. Genesis is not a terrible starting point, but it gets challenging the deeper you get into it. So I would just say this to you, if you’re new to this habit, based on what you want to learn more of, I’ll give you a couple of suggestions.

Perhaps today you’re thinking, I want to know more about this Jesus who I’ve given myself to, that I’ve placed my faith in. I want to start with Jesus. I would recommend that to you too. Start with Him. Where do I start for that?

Well, any of the 4 Gospels will work. I would recommend John. You don’t have a habit of Bible study? Let’s start in John chapter 1, read John. John’s incredible.

And John also, just for you baby ducks in the room, he writes on the lowest Greek level of all of the disciples. He’s just a sweet old fisherman writing a story for you. John is a great read and speaks of the divinity of Christ closer than any of the others. So read John. I want to know more about Jesus.

Maybe you’re thinking, I want to know more about how to live rightly. I want to— I want to— I need help with my tongue. I, I, I constantly curse, or I, I have— I don’t have control of this, or the way I think, I need some help. Might I recommend to you the book of James? The book of James is incredible.

He comes right out of the gate and just starts slapping people, like, and it slaps me every time I read it again. Just a few chapters for Christian living. Great, outstanding. I just, I want to work on my worship. I just don’t feel like I’m a worshiper.

I don’t feel like I’m really giving my heart to God. Would you consider reading a psalm every day? There’s this beautiful thing, there’s like 150-some psalms, there’s a ton of psalms. You can read, you know, you could read 1 to 5 of those every day and every month you’d read the whole book of Psalms. They’re just beautiful, and they’ll get your heart in a place of worship.

I want more wisdom. Might you go to the Proverbs? God was so favorable there, he made 31 of those so you can read one a day. On the 31-day months, you’ll perfect it. I hope you can hear this and start a new habit that begins to give you life, and then later on you’ll go to Leviticus and go, There’s some crazy cool stuff going on here.

There’s laws and it makes sense because now that I understand Jesus, I know what He was doing. I know the sacrificial system. It all mattered.

It speaks with authority. Here Paul writes to Timothy and says it’s profitable. It’s advantageous for 4 things. And these aren’t just like he broke out the thesaurus and tries to get it right. No, these are 4 specific words for a reason.

He says, teaching, reproof, correction, training. Teaching is the idea that when you get in this Good Book, you will find out what is right. Reproof is the idea that when you get in this Good Book, you will find out where you are wrong. Correction is the idea that it will show you, okay, this is right, you were wrong, here’s how you get on the correct path. That’s correction.

And then lastly, training is, all right, now that you’re on the correct path, here’s how you stay in it. You know, God’s desire for you is not that you would live in your sin or be broken by it, but that you would come up out of it and walk with Him forever and no longer be given over to things that were destroying your life.

God’s Word is more powerful than any algorithm, than anything else you can get into. Those things just tell you what you want to hear. This tells you what you need to hear. Hebrews 4 says, the Word of God is living and active. Sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and spirit, joints and marrow, discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart.

It’s like the tale of 2 friends, if I could just use this as a picture. I know I’ve talked some about this in church before, but most of you in the room, if not all of you in the room, have 2 types of friends. You’ve got those friends that will tell you what you want to hear and the friends that will tell you what you need to hear. They both can be good friends, but one of them has a little more integrity than the other. There’s those friends you call up because you just want to vent and they’re going to say, you’re great.

You’re going to say, you wouldn’t believe what he said to me, what she said to me, what, what, what my boss said to me. You wouldn’t believe what I’m going through. And that friend will say, how could they ever treat you like that? You’re just a perfect person and you’re beautiful and everything goes right in your Sometimes you want to hear that, friend. That’s kind of like calling— at least for me, it’s like calling up my mom.

My mom’s gonna say, I just can’t imagine anybody would ever mistreat you, Jonathan. You’re just so— you’re just the best. I know my mom is definitely lying to me, but I think she really believes it because she loves me to that kind of crazy level, right? Some of you have that kind of friend, but you have that other friend where you call them up and say, hey, I had a spat with my spouse and listen to what they said to me. That friend will look at you in the face and say, what did you say first?

What was your response? What caused all this? Rather than say, oh, I can’t believe he would say that. No, no, this friend says, yeah, I bet you had a part to play.

This friend is entertaining, and I’m not saying— don’t take this illustration to its nth degree and say, well, I got to dump all those friends. It’s okay to have a few friends that pat you on the back and say, it’s going to be okay, buddy. It’s okay to have some of those friends, but the Word of God is not that friend. The Word of God is this friend that really loves you and has real integrity, that comes beside you and says, hey, I love you. I died for you, but you, you need to straighten up because you’re not a perfect wife.

You’re not a perfect husband. You’re not a perfect father. You’re not a perfect worker. Now, I am those things, and my word will reveal those things to you, but you got to be in there. So don’t just keep checking in with this friend over here that goes, oh, this thing just knows everything I like.

No, I need to check in with this thing that tells me everything I need. Because otherwise I’m just going to flounder. I’m going to be this same person. Because in your heart, don’t you know there are areas where you want to grow, you want to mature? I want to be a better man.

I want to be a better person, a better father, a better husband. I want to be— I want to be more than this. It’s got to be more to this. I won’t find it over here with this friend. I need to be challenged.

So here’s the diagnostic: when was the last time your Bible told you something you didn’t want to hear?

If it’s recent, then you’re in the right place. Keep digging. If it’s been a long time, I imagine it’s been a long time since you spent time there because for me it’s at least weekly that I go, oof, good grief, because I ask a question of the text every time that I would encourage you to do. Every time I’m in the reading, even if I’m in like Joel or Amos or some minor prophet that is definitely about a specific time in history, I’m coming to it saying, Lord, help me to see see what I need to learn here and where I need to change. Where do I need to repent after reading Amos?

And what I find almost every time is I’m not the hero of these stories. I’m the knucklehead that’s getting it wrong. I’m not King David, and nor are you. I’m Saul.

I’m not, I’m not John, who most of the time is like, oh, well, I’m Peter. Who puts his whole foot in his mouth all throughout the Gospels? I’m Peter. And I’m not even that good most of the time. Sometimes I’m Judas.

You pray like that, you come to the Bible like that, and it’ll affect and change you in a powerful way. So it speaks with authority. It draws me to Christ Jesus and it speaks with authority. And then lastly, it equips me for good work. This is the endgame.

This is the end state, if you will, of what it means to walk in Jesus. This chapter ends with verse 17 saying that you would be complete, equipped for every good work. It equips us for the work of God. Complete is the idea of perfected or finished, that the more time we spend here, he has so fitted us for battle that we’re fully furnished, that we’re fully ready to go. This is how the faith is tested.

Friends, it’s hard for us when we look at your life and you say, I’m a Christian, but we see no evidence of that. It’s difficult, difficult for us to have confidence. It’s difficult for us to know because the Word of God says faith should produce work. Faith, in fact, should fully equip you. That time spent in the Word of God will equip you to do what is good.

And so when you primarily do what is evil, it’s very confusing to know what’s going on in your heart. Paul says to Timothy, his disciple, I want you to sow, immerse yourself, and spend time with your Holy Father that it begins to produce good work in you. What kind of good work, might you argue? Well, I’ll tell you, there’s a lot of good work. There’s a lot of good work.

You might be thinking immediately like, okay, are we talking about serving the poor and the needy? Okay, sure, that’s good. I don’t think that’s primarily what he’s talking about. I’m talking about the more intrinsic stuff, like I want to be a good dad. You know who the ultimate great dad is?

God the Father. You want to know who the best husband is? Oh, it’s Jesus. So we’re— if we’re talking about good work, it’s the stuff you want to be great at, and He’s ready to equip you for that. James, when he writes on this, James chapter 1, he says, I want you to be doers of the Word and not hearers only and so deceive yourselves.

That you would read it and go, mm, that was nice. And do nothing with it. Oh, I think I should be— I mean, it’ll push you at times where you go into work and say, I need to stop treating my coworkers like I’m treating them. And you might think that and go, eh, not today. I can’t do it today.

I was going to do it today until I had that trip to work, which got my head all in a bad place. I was going to do that today until I walked in and Sally said that to me. I knew she was going to say that to me.

Be doers of the word, not hearers only. This isn’t about convenient obedience.

It’s real obedience that loves God and wants to honor him, not out of a sense of I need, but out of a sense of I want to spend time with the holy God. Paul writes to the Ephesians He says, you’re His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that you should walk in them. One of the things I did in my past was I was a chaplain in the Army for a season of my life, and one thing that still— I shouldn’t say still, it really doesn’t bother me anymore, but there was a season of my life where I was a bit bothered that I did all of that training and all of that equipping and I never got to deploy. Some of you might be thinking, why would you want to deploy? I’m not saying I wanted to deploy, but I never really got to put to test everything that I learned and trained for.

And God had his infinite provision. He desired for me what he desired, but I never deployed. And I always felt like to some degree, I really helped a lot of people in my time of service, but I would’ve liked to have known what it would’ve been like to really serve in that role overseas. But it reminded me of this idea that so many of us as Christians, we’ve done a lot of training, there’s been a lot of equipping. Hopefully this moment right now is equipping.

You’re wrestling with the things of God, and maybe you go to Bible studies at times, maybe you have in your past, maybe you’ve spent time with other believers trying to learn, and there’s been some equipping. But you also might feel as soldiers would feel who did all that training but never used it. It would be weird, in fact, if we had a whole military of well-trained soldiers, and we do, but it would be weird if they had done all of the hard work of qualifying on their weapons and getting all of their gear ready to go, the parachutes for those who jump and all the battle dress, and that all the vehicles were maintained and all the tanks and all the Bradleys and all of it was ready to go. And they did all of that hard work, and then war breaks out in the world. And all of them stay in the barracks.

That would be weird. And we would be, whether we like it or not, we would probably be calling them cowards. You’ve done all of this work to prepare for the very thing that has now happened, and you don’t leave the barracks.

And yet that’s how we so often are.

Perhaps we’re in there, we’re in prayer, we’re putting some of this stuff in us, But we don’t do verse 17, equipped for good work, not for just the kicks. Paul doesn’t say, I want you to be equipped for kicks and giggles. No, equipped for good work. Put it into action. You devote yourself to God’s Word, do it fully, not merely in hearing it and reading it and studying it, but by doing it.

That your joy may be complete, that you might be equipped for every good work. So who needs to hear you talk about this? Who needs to see you have life change? Who needs comfort? Who needs a friend?

Where can you put this into action? And as we close right now, I just want to— I pray you will remember these 3 things: that the reason that we can devote ourselves to the Word of God is because it draws us to our Savior. It’s authoritative on our lives, and it equips us to actually do something in life with it. But as I said at the beginning, I pray you can hear this. Some of you have been thinking ever since I led with this, do I really spend 7 hours a day in front of screens?

Whether you do or you don’t, I want to give you a better— I pray you have heard today a better way. That rather than think, man, am I— I need to change, I need to do better, I need to stop doing this. Instead think, when is the last time I just spent quality time with God? What can I do about that? What would it look like for me to begin to start praying, God, would you build such an appetite in me for you that I would long for you first thing in the morning?

I’m going to make this discipline, Lord, between me and you. I’m going to make this decision. I’m going to start my day with you, that at a bare minimum, you might see that I’m giving you first. You’re getting first. And I’m going to spend that time without distraction.

Little bitty incremental changes like that, where I start praying different and thinking different, that God’s Word might fill me fully.

Because at the end of the day, what we really need in this life is Christ. He’s the only place of peace and of joy, of fulfillment. That thing you really long for, it’s only in one area. It’s in Christ Jesus. That book that I recommended to you, that book of John, it begins like this.

Chapter 1, verse 1, it says, in the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God, and the Word became flesh. And dwelt among us. Later in the book of John chapter 1, it became flesh and dwelt among us. He spoke it, then he lived it. Guess what?

He’s alive and active today. There’s an empty grave. We serve a Savior who’s alive and well and active in your life. Would you invite him in? Let’s pray now together, church.

Heavenly Father, we ask that for those believers in the room that You would give us an appetite for You.

Lord, I don’t know how else to say it other than would You make us have a longing that can only be filled by You? That the areas in which we’re distracted, whether it’s screen time, whether it’s something else, the areas— maybe it’s a hobby, something that takes our mind and numbs it rather than drives it towards You, Would you, would you do something in our heart this morning that would cause us to long for you more than anything else? God, would you do something incredible this week? I don’t know how else to ask this, Lord, other than just boldly ask. God, would you— when I read my word this week, would you speak?

Would you reveal yourself? Let it be a sweet moment for that person in the room who’s never, maybe never had a habit of this or has really fallen out any habit of spending time with you in prayer and in Bible. Lord, would you show up in a powerful way that the words might jump off the page to them and they go, oh my goodness, you’re talking to me today. God, would you do that? Please do it in me.

Do it in your church. Lord, let that word so saturate us that later on when we’re having a conversation with a coworker, later on when we’re, we’re trying to parent or trying to be a good spouse, or later on, Lord, That, that word would come popping back up into our minds and go, oh, that’s why I read that. It’s for this moment. God, would you do those miraculous things in us? Would you feed your people in true life, true peace, true joy, that they might see this maybe for the first time and go, oh, I get it.

This is the authentic community I’ve been looking for, first with the Lord and then with my my brothers and sisters in faith.

Lord, for that person who’s come in today, I pray right now you would draw them to yourself. You know who you are today if you’ve come in this place, and all this sounds kind of sweet and everything, but you know good and well that you don’t have a relationship with Jesus at all. So the idea of walking with him and spending time with him in his word and in prayer sounds Strange, and rightfully so, my friend. But I pray today the Holy Spirit is drawing you towards Himself, that you’re feeling a desire to, to have faith and profess belief. Friend, today’s the day to do it.

Don’t put it off another moment. The Word of God says if we confess with our mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in our heart that God raised Him from the dead, we will be saved. That opportunity is in front of you as a sweet gift. Would you open it with me today in prayer? Say this with me if you’re ready.

Dear Lord Jesus, I believe today that you died on the cross for my sin, that you rose from the grave to conquer death for me. Thank you for that great gift. I believe it today that you died and raised for me, that you’ve paid for my— all my iniquities, and that now I can walk in eternity with you. Jesus, I ask now, would you guide me in life that I might hunger for you? Would you give me an appetite to spend time with you like a dear friend, that I would long to spend time with you?

Dear friend, welcome to the family of God if you prayed that. And all of us would pray along with you. God, help us to have a longing for you that can only be filled by time spent with our Creator. We love you, Lord Jesus. We pray all this in your name.

Amen.