G1 Conference Session 2: Scott Hollingshead - "Living Under the Authority of Scripture"

Genesis Apologetics

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G1 Conference 2021. My name is Scott. I'm a lead pastor at Doxa Church in Rockland, California And it is so good to be with you today

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Even through this means of technology. This has been something I've been looking forward to a long time

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And I only wish we just could have done this earlier and could have done it in person But rejoicing in God's providence that he would allow for so many more people to take

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Part of this event and I'm excited to come to you today because I have the privilege of preaching on Maybe my favorite subject in the whole world, which is this

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The title of the message is living under the authority of Scripture can change your life and I got to say this and I I don't sounds a little self -serving and And it may be that but here's my thought.

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I think the whole conference is driving you towards Making the subject of my message a reality in your life

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Like I am convinced that the reason ultimately that you are being supplied with a robust Genesis apologetic is so that you can

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Submit yourself to the God of the word by submitting yourself to the Word of God And so I'm excited to bring that truth because I am as confident as ever

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I am a product of the reality of the very message I'm preaching namely that living under the authority of God's Word can change your life

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And so in the short period of time I have with you I want to show you that that's actually

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God's intention all the way really from the beginning of the Bible in Genesis all the way through to the end the book of Revelation and I want to show you that five evidences

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Five evidences that the Word of God the scriptures can change your life

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So if you've got a pen pencil you want to write some of these down would encourage you to do that number One first reason first evidence that I have that the

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Word of God can change your life is this God spoke creation into existence

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Okay, God spoke creation into existence. Okay. What does that have to do with me? well there is a rhythm that God establishes in the book of Genesis and God said and there was and God said and There was

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God creating everything that is out of nothing by his own

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Word The psalmist testifying to this in Psalm 33 said it like this By the word of the

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Lord the heavens were made and by the breath of his mouth all their

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Hosts verse 9 says for he spoke and it came to be he commanded and it stood firm

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You fast -forward the same concept comes up in the New Testament in the book of Hebrews talking about how our faith plays out

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You and I were not there for the creation account to actually see it take place

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And so we trust it by faith in the Word of God Hebrews 11 3 says By faith, we understand that the universe was created by the

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Word of God So that what is seen was not made out of things that are Visible It becomes so clear in the

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Bible as you see This is God's process of bringing things into existence out of nothing

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My first conclusion to this piece of evidence that God spoke creation into existence is this

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If God can speak creation into existence Can't he change your life by his word?

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If God can make everything that is by his word Then changing your life by his word doesn't seem to be that difficult now does it but if you're not on that train yet?

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Let me give you a second piece of evidence It's not just that God spoke creation into existence, but that is that God number two

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God sustains all things by his word Hebrews 1 in the

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New Testament talks about Jesus coming Jesus being the exact imprint of the Image of God right the radiance of the glory of God and by his word

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He upholds the universe Hebrews 3 says it or 1 3 says it like this. He upholds the universe by the word of his power

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Everything that is Adams this chair that you're sitting on the pen that you are Writing with the

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TV that you're maybe taking this in on or the laptop or whatever It is all of that holds together by the word of God in Colossians 1 17 with Supports that as well by saying in him in Jesus all things

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Hold together. Listen if God can create all that is by his word and if God can sustain

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All that is by his word then trust me when I say he can change your life by his

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Word now the question is though. Why isn't that happening more often, right?

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Like what's up with that what happened that made it that we're discussing that we're discussing the subject where I'm even having this

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Conversation with you. Why isn't it just automatically happening? and I think that's such a Important question to answer and if I were to break it down one of the best verses in the

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Bible that talks about that is Romans 3 23 and it says for all Have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God That every one of us has sin going all the way back to our first parents, right?

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if you have a good Genesis apologetic, then you hold fast to a historical

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Adam and a historical Eve and it becomes clear from our first parents onward that we are born in sin because of the

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Rebellion of our first parents rebelling against God's Word not to eat of the tree that they were forbidden to eat from they chose to disobey the

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Word of God and that set humanity Spiraling into the place that we are now where us born sinners then engage in and live out our sinfulness such that we invert our

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Worship of the Living God and worship and serve created things instead of the Creator who is to be forever praised

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Amen, and so we don't look out at the creation and see the power of God and recognizes majestic Greatness instead we look out at creation and make some sort of futile attempt to explain it by some sort of man -centered evolutionary theory it is the epitome of the futility of the mind and so we as sinners that have fallen short of the glory of God That have not lived up to the standards of God's Word that have more than not lived up to the standards of God's Word you and I have rebelled against God's Word and we have no hope of Reconciling ourselves to the

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God of whom his word has been rebelled against by us And so what does

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God do God could leave us where we are in our hopelessness in our despair in our sin?

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and left in our sin you and I would die and stand before the Living God who spoke all things into Existence and be cast rightly so judged for our sin and cast into eternity in hell

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But this is what's so amazing about God and this is why I'm so in love with God and this is why it's so clear

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God loves us and This is why it's so clear that he can change us by his word

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The third evidence that the word can change your life is that God sent the word

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Jesus Christ God sent the word to those who had disobeyed his word to live faithfully in Perfect obedience to the word in his own life

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This Jesus this God man The second person of the Trinity took on human flesh and dwelt among us

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In the language of the book of John in the Gospels is that the in the beginning was the word?

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Talking about Jesus and the word was with God and the word was God Eternally existing as God and by verse 14

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John 1 says and the word became flesh God took on a bod y 'all

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He took on human flesh and it says he dwelt among us and we've seen his glory

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It's like everything God ever wanted to say to us in a person The word that had communicated that it created all things and sustained all things now made flesh in the person of Jesus Jesus himself is the word and he was sent to save us from our sins to save us from our

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Disobedience to the Word of God, which leads me to my fourth evidence that the

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Lord can change your life Not just that he can speak creation into existence and does and has not just that he

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Sustains all things by his word Not just that despite our disobedience of the word

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He sent the word Jesus Christ for us But number four God saves us through the word

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This is his plan. This has been his plan Then he would save us by the word of God now the reason why an

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Unbeliever comes to the Bible in his board comes to the Bible and finds it irrelevant comes to the

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Bible and finds it to be not helpful is simply because The Word of God to a natural person does not register 1st

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Corinthians 2 verse 14 says it like this He says the natural person does not accept the things of the

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Spirit of God and guess who inspired the Word of God All scripture is God breathed and profitable inspired first Peter by the

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Holy Spirit So 1st Corinthians 2 all natural person does not accept the things of the

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Spirit of God for they are Folly to him and he's not able to understand them because they are spiritually discerned.

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So what does God do? He sends preachers to proclaim the Word of God That's folly to those who are perishing but to those who are being saved the gospel that gets proclaimed about a

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God who is holy and a man who is sinful and Christ who is a Savior who delivers us out of our bondage to sin and Reconciles us to God Through the proclamation of the

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Word God brings people to himself God saves people from their sins He does it through the rock solid

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Word. He brings that conviction that leads people to Jesus Here's what the

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Word does in our salvation Jeremiah 23 29 says my word isn't it like a fire?

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Declares the Lord and like a hammer that breaks the rock in pieces so what the

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Word of God does is by the Spirit of God brings conviction about sin to the heart and God by his spirit opens our eyes 2nd

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Corinthians 4 Says that the God of this world has blinded the minds of unbelievers

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To keep them from seeing the light of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ But then you go two verses later and what's so stunning about it is he uses the same language as Creation to talk about how

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God saves people from their sin how God reconciles people into right relationship with himself

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By saying for God who said let light shine out of darkness

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Has shown in our hearts To give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ the

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God is supernaturally involved through the proclamation of the Word to remove the blinders on the eyes of unbelievers so that they might actually see the

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Word of God as revealed in the pages of the Word of God and you might see your sin for what it is and you might see

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Jesus for who he is and you might turn from your sin a gift of God's grace and Receive by faith as a free gift the work of Jesus Christ on your behalf who lived a perfect life

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One that you have not lived Right the Word of God you have transgressed.

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He fulfilled all of the righteous requirements of the law Perfectly he then died a sinner's death for the wages of sin is death and rose for our

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Salvation for anyone's salvation who puts their faith in the Word of God Jesus is the

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Word and God saves through the Word It's why

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Peter can say in first Peter 1 23 since you have been born again

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Because that's what you need to be. You need to be born again. You don't just make a decision for Jesus Jesus changes everything about you and how does he do it?

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Through the living and abiding Word of God Loved ones.

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This is God's plan to save you through the word that is being firmly supported through this conference to give you the

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Confidence that you can place your trust in the God of the Bible and submit your life to the

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Word of God last evidence five evidences

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God can change your life God spoke creation into existence God sustains all things by his word if he can do that he can change your life

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That's nothing to him in comparison to those things Number three God sent the word

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Jesus because we were lost in our sin dead in our Trespasses then he saves us through the word of God bringing us through the proclamation of the death burial and resurrection of the

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Word of God to a life -giving faith in Jesus and number five

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Fifth evidence is this God sanctifies through the word God changes us through the word

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God conforms us into the image of his Very son, this is what he does by the

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Word of God. He takes dead spiritually dead sinners and transforms them entirely to make them

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To redeem the image of God that's in them. John 17 17 says it like this sanctify them in the truth

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Your word is truth Jesus says of course praying to the

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Father And perhaps one of my favorite verses that explains this

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Sanctification process the power of the Word of God to literally change us from the inside out such an awesome picture

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Isaiah 55 10 through 13 gives us this awesome picture coming on the heels the back end of the

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Suffering servant who was to come and be crucified and die for our transgressions as a

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Substitute for us and we get to lay hold of the benefits by turning from our sin putting our faith in Jesus our confidence our trust

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Then Isaiah describes the work of the word like this in Isaiah 55 10 He says first the rain and the snow come down from heaven and don't return there

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But water the earth Making it bring forth and sprout Giving seed to the sower and bread to the eater

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So shall my word that goes out from my mouth It shall not return to me empty, but it shall accomplish that which

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I purpose and shall succeed in the thing for which I sent it Now the basic picture here is that in the ancient

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Near East you had rain was the difference between life and death between food and starvation and what

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Isaiah is saying is like the rain doesn't return to heaven without effectively bringing life and sustenance to the crops

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Right. So the Word of God does not return to heaven without doing its worth to bring life and sustenance to the people of God Now it may take some time and that harvest may not fully break through right away

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Just like the rains effect on the ground, but it never fails to fulfill its purpose and then of course

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We love the fact that the Word of God never returns void. But what's the purpose?

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What's that? Mean it never returns void Well, he continues on for you shall go out in joy and be led forth in peace

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The mountains and the hills before you shall break forth into singing this is echoes of the

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Exodus and the people returning to the promised land this language of going out is like a

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Slave being set free like when you come under the Word of God you're finally in the place you were supposed to be that every other place to confide in to hide in to operate under is not as enslaving and the place that sets you free is when you sit under the authority of God's Word and It says the creation is singing in the trees of the field shall clap their hands

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The creation is celebrating at the thought of sinners being made holy through the Word of God and then he gives this really interesting picture and he says instead of the thorn shall come up the cypress and Instead of the briar shall come up the myrtle and it should make a name for the

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Lord now something going is going on here if the

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Thorn the rain comes down and the thorn bush becomes a cypress and the briar becomes a myrtle

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You may not know much about plants, but let me just put it like this if you were to water a thorn bush

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What do you expect to get from that? Yeah, you would expect to get a bigger thorn bush, right which is even more frustrating if you have those already

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But in this case what he's saying is if you water the thorn bush something radically

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Happens to the thorn bush. It's transformed. It becomes a new creation Something altogether different comes forth you fat rain of the

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Word of God falls on the hearts of people Taking thorn bushes and making them into cypress

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Taking briars and making them into myrtles taking these all these these kind of weed dead looking

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Plants if you could even call them that and turns them into something transformed entirely

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He's giving us a glimpse into what the purpose of the word is, which is to take us and our broken sin -stained confused

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Reality and Causing us to be born again fully transform new creations in Christ through the

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Word of God That he sanctifies us. It's the word that means we become more holy and here's the crazy part

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That as you live under the authority of the Word of God, the goal is that you become like the

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God of the Word You live under the authority you become like the Word of God Jesus himself

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And this is all built into the narrative of the scriptures God's Word is what we come under authority and because we worship the

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God of the Word and as we submit our lives to the Word we become like the Word like his son

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Jesus Christ And I can testify to this because I've seen this in my own life

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God has taken a guy who grew up with not a strong Christian background by any sense who knew nothing about the

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Word of God and radically Transformed my life. I'm talking about knowing nothing and Little by little as I position myself under the word

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He took kind of my stilted early even Christian be that was filled with a few kind of cliche verses

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I can do all things through Christ who gives me strength on the soccer field, right? And just like by hearing the word in its context preached in an applicatory way to my life

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I watched God like a wrecking ball come through my life and tear down the scaffolds of the life that I had built and Began to rebuild my life such that my entire existence is a product of the very

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Foundation of this message, which is namely that living under the authority of God's Word can change your life

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I'll go one step further I'm confident of this The Spirit of the Lord is in it living under the authority of the

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Word of God will change your life Loved ones there is no better place to be and there is no better conclusion to this

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Conference than to submit yourself to the word to delight yourself in the word to ask the

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Spirit who? Superintended with the Word of God itself to give you eyes to see the glories of God in the face of Jesus as revealed in the scriptures for your good and for God's glory that's my prayer for you and Trust that as you continue in this

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Conference that you will be richly blessed by what you come across. Let's pray father

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Thank you so much for the opportunity get to preach your word and to let your word

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Speak from so many places in scripture and to see this pattern that you have to use your word

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To change people by the word to become like the word your son

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This is the pattern. This is the play and it's the privilege that we as Those who call themselves

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Christians who have turned from their sin and put their faith in Jesus Christ We are living trophies of this reality that you take dead

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Lifeless spiritually dead sinners and bring them to new fully transformed lives once lustful now pure once thieves now givers once angry now gentle because of Jesus Radically transformed

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God, I pray that you do that work in the lives of the people Listening here today and that they may leave and spend their lives