The 10 Commitments of a Vintage Church Part 1

Pastor Steve dives into the commitments that formed the early church. God moved powerfully in the "vintage church" and He can move powerfully in today's churches as we alight our values with His.

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Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

Hello everyone, I'm Dr. Steve Holtz. I want to welcome you to the Road Church Podcast. Each week we go into God's Word. We teach chapter by chapter and verse by verse. We are here to build the Kingdom of God revolution through empowering people to change the world. So we pray this will minister to you at your heart level and change your life. Okay, I want to do something a little bit strange. This is different for us today. I'm putting on a hat, and it's a church history hat. So I'm gonna put on a church. I'm gonna give you a quick summation of church history in about 10 minutes. Okay, so I'm gonna take you through 2,000 years in 10 minutes. Um and you say it's impossible, and it is, and I'm skipping over a ton of stuff, but I first want you to look at a photograph. And this is a photograph that was um given to me. By the way, the title is The Ten Commitments of a Venis Church, part one. So when I was looking at Acts chapter two, I was looking at just the aspects that we see in Acts 2 as a model to us of the church that was the original church in the original time at the beginning of 2,000 years ago. And I was blessed with Juve Hoffman, a guy in our church. Juve here, are they the Hoffmans here? Okay, maybe the second service. And he sent me and gave me this photo that he took. And this picture is of a bristle cone pine at about 12,000 feet right around Alma, Colorado. This is his picture, and that's the Milky Way behind it. But look at that old raggedy tree. That church that tree is between 2,500 and 3,000 years old. So that meaning that that tree was growing in that location when Jesus was on the earth. And I felt like when I looked at it, it was such a beautiful picture of the church, what the church has been through through the centuries. And we're talking about the vintage church, part one. We're looking at aspects or commitments of the church. And so the church, men and women, I'm just gonna keep that up while I'm talking to you, with Pentecost occurring, which we talked about last week. We talked about Pentecost in Acts chapter two, there was an explosion. Seventeen ethnic groups are mentioned in Acts chapter two. And those 17 ethnic groups, people got saved, people got filled with the Holy Spirit, and then they went back to Asia Minor. And Asia Minor is the area, if you're looking at a map of Israel just north, and then to the west, that that area around the Mediterranean Sea is Asia Minor, church blew up. And then into Rome, across the way, Rome, it blew up. North Africa, it blew up. Some estimates are that between 30 and 40,000 people came to know Christ in Jerusalem alone in the first two years because of what happened with Acts. So with that came an explosion of the church for the next 500 years. For the next 500 years, a lot of ebbs and flows, but I'm gonna give you a quick summation. There was this move of the Spirit that began to move across, moving past Rome and then into Spain and into Europe. Europe was largely tribal. You may know this. You may have, you've heard me talk about St. Patrick. St. Patrick in the third century, um, it's in the 300s, the fourth century, was called by God after being a slave to the Irish, the Irish uh tribal druids of that time went in and was used mightily to reach the tribes of Ireland, but then also into Europe and the British Isles, the the Spirit of God was moving. But then the church went through a period of the dark ages. I would call it the Middle Ages, was a dark time in church history. So in that dark time, what happened was that before, and I would say the first 500 years, the church, and this is really important, the church was more powerful than the culture. The church was overwhelming the culture. The church was greater than the culture, and so as it began to grow, they had what I would call a kingdom of God revolution. A kingdom of God revolution. But then with power came corruption. And so scandals began to occur in the Middle Ages with scandalous popes in the Catholic Church that were that were more politically powerful than spiritually powerful. So, how many have ever heard of the Desert Fathers or the Desert Mothers? Anybody heard of that? Okay. This was a monastic movement. It actually started earlier than that, but it really grew during this time. And these were men and women that really loved God and they wanted to escape the corruption of the church, and so they went into the desert. St. Anthony's the most important and probably the most famous. And so kings and queens and leaders of that time would go out to the desert to confer with Saint Anthony and some of these desert fathers who were weavers or they were doing things at that time to maintain themselves, but some of them lived on towers, like their whole life. They were up on a stylist. There was a guy who lived on a stylus. And they would come out to those places. And so the Middle Ages were rough, and they were really difficult for the church at that time. Well, then we come into the 16th century, which is the 1500s, and a guy named Martin Luther, who was an Augustinian monk, was reading the scriptures and he came to Romans 1.17 that talks about that the just shall live by faith. And it just was like a revival in his heart occurred. At the same time, there was a guy named Tetzel, and Tetzel was this traveling evangelist for the Catholic Church. So he would travel, and the Pope at that time wanted to build the 16th, the 16th chapel. And so with the desire to do that, he um he needed money, and he needed money bad. So they came up with this idea. It was kind of a scheme of indulgences by which you could give money to get your relatives out of purgatory. Okay? And he had this little mantra that he does the coin in the coffer rings, your relative from purgatory springs. And so people believed it. And when he came into the Germanic territory there, remember there's not nation-states yet. It's the beginning of nation-states, but it's not completely nation-states yet. It's still more tribal. And what you had is you had print, you'd have a prince over a region. And so Luther was in that area called Wittenberg. You might say Wittenberg, using W, but in German it'd be Wittenberg. The Wittenberg area, where he was a seminary professor, and he heard about what was happening, and it really angered him. So in 1517, he took 95 sort of proclamations against the church, called the 95 Theses, and he nailed them. We believe, we don't know for sure, but it appears in history that he at that point he nailed them to the Wittenberg cathedral door. And so with that, nothing would have happened. All that it meant at the time was that I'm open for a debate. We can debate these issues. That's all he meant by that. But there was something that had happened a few years before by a guy named Gutenberg. Gutenberg had developed a press, and it was a printing press where there could now be mass production of and marketing of an advertisement or a sermon or something like that. And so at the time, Gutenberg grabbed that, put it out, and it went all over Germany. Germany of that time. And then all over Europe. And suddenly, Martin Luther, who is uh an unknown Augustinian monk, was thrust into the spotlight and became like a rock star. And the Catholic Church was in trouble. They're really struggling with what to do with this with the Reformation. It's called the Protestant, Protestant Protest, Protestant Reformation. By the way, this is nothing against the Catholic Church in what I'm sharing. I'm just sharing the facts about it because there was actually a counter-reformation that occurred about 20 years later within the Catholic Church to bring reform to some of these areas. But anyway, during that time there were the five solas. If you got your, if you're taking notes, and a lot of people take notes, I want you to write these down. They're not going to be on the PowerPoint, but I want you to write these down. And this is the way I would call the 16th century. The 16th century was a recalibration of the church. 16th century was a recalibration of the church. Listen, this is really important. All revivals, all the revivals are, are a return to the book of Acts. And if you have a if you have a revival-esque work that's not a return to the Bible, not a return to Acts, it's not a revival. But revivals occur when there's a recalibration or reaffirmation of what we believe about the Bible. And so they had these five solas, S-O-L-A-S. This is in Latin. I want to give them to you. I'll go fast but slow. Okay, first one was sola gratia. Sola gratia, salvation by grace alone. Number two was sola fide, through faith alone, sola christus in Christ alone, soli deo gloria to the glory of God alone, sola scriptura in scripture alone. So with that recalibration and that reaffirmation, this revival occurred in the 16th century. And then men and women, there was all kinds of evangelical movements that occurred during that time. So out of the out of Luther, Calvin, and Zwingli, which were the, I was considered them the top three reformational leaders of that time, the Anabaptist movement occurred, which the Lutherans didn't like, and the Presbyterians were came from the Reformation that occurred out of Geneva. And I could go on and on. But the bottom line is all these movements began to occur, leading to this group of people called the Pilgrims and the Puritans who came to America. And when they founded with the Mayflower Compact, the vision was that America would be like a new Israel. That we would be used by God to bring the proclamation of the gospel all over the world. So movements began to occur. How many have seen the movie that just came out with Whitfield and Franklin called The Awakening? Pretty good movie. And it shows the relationship. I don't think it's in theaters anymore, but it shows the relationship between Benjamin Franklin and George Whitfield. George Whitfield comes over and we call it the First Great Awakening, 1739, with Jonathan Edwards and George Whitfield. Then there was a second Great Awakening in the 1800s with a guy named Charles Finney. Then as we move into the 20th century, we have Azusa Street in 19, somewhere around like 1904 to 1907. There's this move in Azusa Street, Los Angeles. And that began the Pentecostal movement that spread all over the world. Then you have Billy Graham and the Billy Graham Crusades. It started in the late 40s, probably the most famous one being 1948 in Hollywood, California. A lot of movie stars got saved, and that really launched through Randolph Hearst and his newspapers that launched Billy Graham upon the scene. And then how many saw the Jesus Revolution? The movie of Jesus Revolution. Okay. So that chronicles about 1968 into about 72, 73 with the Jesus movement, which I came out of the Vineyard movement at that point, which was a derivative of the Calvary Chapel movement with Chuck Smith and John Wimber. And then we moved through into the 21st century, and the 21st century is really interesting. But I'm like losing time here, so I don't have much time left for my message. But I think I went past 12 minutes. I'll do better in the second service. But I was just with a group of pastors in Texas, and they were talking about how God's moving so powerfully among the Amish. And that all these Amish families are getting saved, and it's just really, really cool. And if you look at uh media influencers and the stuff that's happening through, I always call him the greatest non-Christian evangelist for Christianity, Jordan Peterson, and what he's done, because I don't know that Jordan Peterson's a Christian, but man, his belief in the Bible and guys like Wes Hoff and others that have been used by God, it's just powerful what God's doing. So it's a very exciting time. So what we're doing now, this week and next, and if we go to a third week, we go to a third week. Um I want to look at Acts chapter 2. So look in your Bibles at Acts chapter 2, and I want to talk about what I'm calling the vintage church. And vintage, as I've defined in the past, means something of high quality. High quality or something that's ancient or old. And I think the book of Acts, that's a great term, vintage church, Acts chapter 2. This is our model, men and women. When we look at what church should be like, I think the measuring stick is the book of Acts. And so I, as I studied it, and it's just, look, it's just my perusal and exegesis of Acts chapter 2. There's probably four or five other things I could have said, but I kind of narrowed it down to what I think are ten commitments. Ten commitments of a word and spirit church, ten commitments of a vintage church. But here's the first one. First commitment is empowered by the Holy Spirit. So look at Acts 2, 1 through 4, which Pastor Al covered last week. When the day of Pentecost had fully come, they were all with one accord in one place, and suddenly there came a sound from heaven, as of a rushing mighty wind, and it filled the whole house where they were sitting. Then there appeared to them divided tongues, as of fire, and one sat upon each of them. And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak with other tongues as the Spirit gave them utterance. So here's my first point is that any church that desires to be a vintage church, that desires to be like the New Testament church, has to have the Holy Spirit in the mix. The power of the Holy Spirit. Guys, we cannot even live the Christian life without the power of the Holy Spirit. Now, there's all kinds of opinions about what that looks like. Some talk about it being, you know, you're only filled with the Holy Spirit if you speak in tongues. Others say that the filling of the Holy Spirit's about who's in power. And guess what? Our vision here is very eclectic. So I believe, here's what I believe: the power and the ministry and the filling of the Holy Spirit is who's in control of your life. I don't care if you've fallen down, flopped around, spoke in tongues, speak German, speak Spanish, speak English, doesn't matter. Are you filled with power? That's your question this morning. Are you filled with power? Or is your head so big and your heart so small that you really don't have a personal divided relationship with Christ? So God wants us undivided in our commitment to Him. And that's what happened to these new believers in A.D. 33. In A.D. 33. And here's, I love this quote. It's one of my favorites of all time by J.B. Phillips in his preface to Letters to Young Christians and Young Churches, he writes this the great difference between present-day Christianity and that of which we read in these letters is that to us it is primarily a performance. To them, it was a real experience. Now just talk about, just think about that for a second. Is your church experience one of performance? Or is it one of a real experience you've had with Christ? You see, for them, they didn't even know the word church. Church was gonna, the term church was gonna come later, okay? But they had experienced the living Christ. We're apt to reduce the Christian religion to a code, or at least a rule of heart and life. To these men, it is quite plainly the invasion of their lives by a new quality of life altogether. They do not hesitate to describe this as Christ living in them. Mere moral reformation will hardly explain the transformation and the exuberant vitality of these men's lives, even if we could prove a motive for such reformation. And certainly the world around offered little encouragement to the early Christians. We are practically driven to accept their own explanation. This is so important, which is that their little human lives had through Jesus Christ been linked up with the very life of God. These early Christians were on fire with the conviction that they had become through Christ literally sons of God. They were pioneers of a new humanity, founders of a new kingdom. Now, this is this is so vital. Listen to this. They still speak to us across the centuries. Perhaps if we believed what they believed, we might achieve what they achieved. You see, what happens with the church, like that old, that old pine tree that I showed you in that picture, where Jesus says that I will build my church and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it, is that we get filled with the Holy Spirit, we build churches with the filling of the Holy Spirit, and that's when the church and Christ is more powerful than the culture. That's what brings a revolution. But when the culture invades the church to such an extent that we're no different than anybody else, that's when the church dies. That's when it falters, that's when it struggles. And there's always highs and lows. And so when I look at the road church and I look at where we've been through this year and some of the mistakes we've made and some of the struggles that I've had with within my own marriage and things like that, the thing that that gives me hope, number one, is that I'm gonna be filled with the Holy Spirit. And Liz is gonna be filled with the Holy Spirit, and we're gonna be a spirit-empowered church. And we're we've we've gone through some lows, man. For you that are guests with us, you don't even know what I'm talking about, take it from me. I'm the senior pastor. Um but as I've said so many to others, I don't know if I've even said it here to you guys, but you know, when you look at a valley and you look at a mountaintop, especially in the Rockies, especially at 12,000 or above, which is called tundra, you can't grow anything very much in the mountaintops. Where the growth occurs really is in the valleys. That's where the green grass is, that's where you that's where you raise crops is in the valleys. So it's in the valleys, sometimes of the shadow of death, that God does his greatest work. And some people leave, some people can't handle it. I understand that. But I just want to say this you guys are here, and we're building something great here, and God's rebuilding because we're a spirit-empowered church. And with mistakes we've made, we're gonna learn from them, we're gonna grow, and I want to be a vintage church. And that's why I just found it amazing that here we are on this passage today, because it's a reminder to me of this is what it's all about. So let me read something to you, and you can turn there if you want to, because I didn't put it on the screen, but it's Ephesians 3.14. Matter of fact, why don't you go there? Ephesians 3.14, and I wanted to look at this because this is Paul's prayer for the church at Ephesus. He says, I bow my knees to the Father, and he and he prays this prayer, and it's about the Spirit, it's about the Holy Spirit. For this reason, I bow my knees to the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, verse 15, from whom the whole family, so he's talking about the church here, the whole family in heaven and earth is named. So this is not for nonbelievers, these are for believers. So this family is the body of Christ, verse 16, that he would grant you according to the riches of his glory. To be strengthened with might through his spirit. Underline that. Strengthened with might through his Holy Spirit in the inner man, in us, in the inner woman, in the inner man, verse 17, that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith, that you being rooted and grounded in love. See, that's what makes a great church. A church that's rooted and grounded in love. And we're rooted and grounded in love to the extent that we're strengthened with might through the Spirit in the inner man. And though our outward man is crumbling away, and though our outer man, sometimes in our marriages, in our personal lives, we go through depression and we go through anxiety and we're broken and we lose friends and we're betrayed. It's only through the Holy Spirit in the inner heart of each of you that are Jesus followers that God begins to root you and ground you in love. That's vintage church, man. It's not performance, it's not smoke and mirrors, it's it's worship to the King of Kings and the Lord of Lord. It's being grounded in God's word. It's making mistakes, taking risk, and then apologizing for them and saying, hey, we messed up there. And guess what? We'll mess up again. Because we're not perfect. But we're gonna always take risks with the Holy Spirit. We will take risks. And risk taking is a good thing as long as when you mess up, and you will, you're willing to be authentic and real and honest about it. Don't hide it, don't sweep it under the carpet, don't act like it's not there. Be real about it. And so that's the first point. Okay, that's my first commitment. As I see is they were empowered by the Holy Spirit. Now, number two. Number two commitment is gospel-centered preaching. Gospel-centered preaching. This is huge because this is not happening in many, many churches today. I'm going to say, well, what is what do you mean by gospel-centered preaching? Okay, go with me on this. Go back to Acts chapter 2, and I'm going to parse out what Peter does in this sermon. Because it's a beautiful sermon. It's a powerful sermon. Acts 2, start at 22. So I'm going to skip the part where he's talking about the gospel to the 17 different ethnic groups. But in 22 is actually when he gets into the meat of the sermon, and this is a beautiful representation of gospel-centered preaching. Look what he says. Jesus of Nazareth, a man attested by God to you by miracles, wonders, and signs, which God did through him in your midst, as you yourselves also know, him being delivered by the determined purpose and foreknowledge of God, you have taken by lawless hands, have crucified and put to death, look at 24, whom God raised up. We're talking about Easter now, God raised up, having loosed the pains of death, because it was not possible that he should be held by it. So here's the first point. So gospel-centered preaching is first emphasis on the life, death, and resurrection of Christ. It's on the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. He goes on. Now remember, he's talking to Jews. So these are Jews and proselytes. And a proselyte was someone who was a Gentile, meaning a non-Jew, who had become a Jew by faith, probably been baptized into the faith from all over the Mediterranean, who had come there to Jerusalem at Pentecost, but they're all of the Jewish faith. So he's speaking to Jews, and who's the greatest hero of Judaism? It would be David, David or Moses, or you could say, I mean, foundationally Abraham, but Moses and David. So now he makes a comparison, really important. Verse 25. For David says concerning him, I foresaw him, the Lord always before my face, for he is at my right hand that I may not be shaken. 26, therefore my heart rejoiced, and my tongue was glad, moreover, my flesh was will rest in hope, for you will not leave my soul in Hades, nor will you allow your holy one to see corruption. You have made known to me the ways of life, and you will make me full of joy in your presence. Verse 29, men and brethren, let me speak freely to you of the patriarch David, that he is both dead and buried. Okay, you esteem David, man after God's own heart, mighty man of the scriptures, the greatest king we ever had. He's dead. And he's buried. Makes that distinction. And he says, and his tomb is with us to this day. Therefore, being a prophet and knowing that God had sworn with an oath to him that of the fruit of his body, according to the flesh, he would raise up the Christ. Meaning he will raise up the Messiah through the line of David to sit on his throne. He, foreseeing this, spoke concerning the resurrection of the Christ. So in other words, he's saying, that's what he's talking about here. This is a prophetic word about the resurrection of Christ, that his soul was not left in Hades, nor did his flesh see corruption. So one thing you see in the New Testament is that all the preachings about the resurrection. And when you look at church history, it's interesting that all of your early art in the second century, third century, fourth century was not the cross. It was not the cross. It was depicting the resurrection of Christ. So the main message of the early church was the life, death, and capital R resurrection of Christ. And that's really important, men and women, that we remember that, and that I remember that in gospel preaching that we we talk about the life, death, and resurrection of Christ, and that the resurrection is the emphasis. Number two, verse 32 is look at this. This is so skipped most of the time. It's so important, verse 32. This Jesus, God is raised up, of which we are all witnesses. Therefore, being exalted to the right hand of God, and having received from the Father the promise of the Holy Spirit, he poured out that which you now see and hear. For David did not ascend into the heavens, but he says himself, the Lord said to my Lord, Sit at my right hand till I make your enemies your fistall. This is huge. Don't miss this. Number two, in gospel-centered preaching, is that Jesus is exalted at the right hand of the Father, victorious over the globe. Ruling from the right hand of the Father, and he's not coming back. Everybody look at me. He's not coming back until every one of his enemies is under his footstool. So that's Psalm 1101. Look it up. Psalm 1101. Psalm 1101, the most quoted Old Testament passage in the New Testament is that he's coming back when all his enemies are under his footstool. What does that mean? That means Christianity is gonna blow the doors off this globe as the years go by. And so 33%, 30%, 33% of the world is Christian right now. Okay, it's it's uh I wrote the stats down, I looked up for research this morning. I wanted to get up, 2.6 billion. So 2.6 billion in the world today, because it was F-Christian, it's around 33%, some say 35%. Here's this part is crazy. So in 1900, 90% of Christianity's population was in the northwestern part of the globe. Now, listen, that's only 20%. So we only represent 20% or less of Christianity in America and Canada and this part of the world. 68% of Christianity is in the southern part of the globe. So God is moving in Africa. God is moving in South and Latin America, God is moving in South Asia with unprecedented revivals happening. I can't even keep up with it. It's just going okay, we'll do a poll. Where do you think the biggest, most fastest growing church is in the world? What country is it in? Well, you guys. Okay, who says, who would say like Pakistan? Anybody say Pakistan? Okay. India. India? Try Iran. Awesome. Iran. It's just, it's the Christian population is blowing the doors off in Iran. It's amazing what God's doing there. So gosper center preaching. I'm not done yet. So first, emphasis on the life and death and resurrection of Christ. Number two, emphasis on the exalted Jesus, victorious across the globe, and continuing to be victorious. Verse 36. Okay, yeah. Therefore, let all the house of Israel know assuredly that God has made this Jesus whom you crucified, both the Lord and Christ. So number three is Lord of all. He's Lord of all. He's Lord of all. He's Lord over everything. Number four, verse 37. Now when they had heard this, they were cut to the heart and said to Peter and the rest of the apostles, Men and brethren, what shall we do? Then Peter said to them, Repent and let every one of you be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins, and you shall receive the gift of the Holy Spirit, for the promise is to you and to your children and to all who are afar off, as many as the Lord our God will call. Verse 40, and with many other words, he testified and exhorted them, saying, Be saved from this perverse generation. So number four, gospel preaching always includes you can be saved in Christ, and you can only be saved by Jesus. You can only be saved through him. So that's gospel centered preaching. Verse 41. Then those who gladly received his word were baptized, and that day about 3,000 souls were added to them. So number three, third commitment is baptism of new disciples. Baptism of new disciples. So this is different than John's baptism. And just a couple weeks ago, we baptized 51 people here, and in that baptism service, I talked about baptism. So I'm not going to elaborate on baptism here, except to say this that for the early believers, they had had John's baptism, which was a baptism of repentance. Now, as we just read in Peter's sermon, he called for repentance. But now the new covenant baptism is that we have repentance from the old life. Everybody listen. Repentance of the old life in order to embrace the new life. So you have a baptism of going under the water, representative of that old life being baptized, Romans 5, 6, being baptized into the death of Christ, but then you're raised up into new life with the resurrection of Christ. So it was a new kind of baptism. So we see in Acts 8, Philip baptized many in Samaria, and then even Simon the sorcerer, Acts 8, Philip baptized the Ethiopian eunuch. That's a really interesting story because history tells us that the Ethiopian eunuch went back to Ethiopia and evangelized the whole country. Acts 9, Ananias baptized. Acts 10, Peter baptized Cornelius and others. Acts 16, and Thyatira, Lydia, and her household were baptized, and we could go on and on. Look at verse 42, and we'll start into this, but because of time, I'll pick it up next week. Verse 42. And they continued steadfastly in the apostles' doctrine. Stop right there. So third commitment, excuse me, fourth commitment. Sound doctrine and biblical instruction. Sound doctrine and biblical instruction. They devoted themselves, means to give yourself entirely to a particular vision, activity, or pursuit. Church, the Bible is our anchor. That's why we teach book by book, chapter by chapter, verse by verse. We are a word and spirit church. And you've heard me say this many times. All word, no spirit, a church dries up. All spirit, no word, a church blows up. Word and spirit, a church grows up. So we want to be a church with the word and the spirit, but but the anchor. I heard it said many years ago, it's the pier. The pier is the word. As far as you can go into the sea of this culture, is how far that pier of God's word guides your life. So we're on that pier. You know, I've been on Santa Monica Pier, I've been on Newport Beach Pier, I've been on piers all over the world. Some are short, some are long. Anybody ever heard of an evangelist named Jed Smott? Okay, college students way back in my age would remember him. But he's this evangelist who's just this radical guy, wore white shoes, white socks, white suit, white Bible, and he'd come and preach at Georgia like every spring. And he was fire-breathing, hellfire, and brimstone guy. Well, anyway, he was in Santa Monica. I was out in Santa Monica doing evangelism years ago and I met him. I said, What's your most memorable story? Because I took him to lunch. And he said, When hell's angels threw me off Santa Monica Pier. And so he said to me, Desiree, he said, I want you to know, Steve, that my Bible never got wet. You really want to holy Bible up. But the Bible, men and women, is your peer. And you know, as you grow in Christ, as you're growing from God's word, you can go further. You can go further into turmoil, you can go further into big waves in your life because that's your peer. You start leaving the Bible behind, you quit reading it, you quit meditating in it, quit spending time in it. Hey man, you're on your own. You're out there. You've left the pier, you've left the anchor, you've left the platform that guides you through the waves of life. And I know for some of you in the room today, you've probably never given yourself fully by faith into Christ. Do that. Do it today. When I come back up after worship, give your life to Christ. Make a commitment to the Word of God. Make a commitment to reading one chapter of the Bible a day. Watch what God will do. What he'll do in your marriage, what he'll do in your personal life, what it'll do in your student life, what he'll do about your despair and depression. Start reading God's word, meditating in God's word. I can't wait to tell you next week what I want to share about that. Because I got a lot of notes I didn't get to. It's gonna be an easy week because I already got the notes for next week.

SPEAKER_00 38:09

Thank you for listening to the Road Church Podcast. We pray today's message has empowered you to make a difference in your world. For more information about the Road Church and to find more content like this, go to theroad.org. That's theroad.org.