Latest / Wesley at FSU & TSC / "Awakened to Grace :: Scripture" | Sunday Service | January 18, 2026

Transcript

"Awakened to Grace :: Scripture" | Sunday Service | January 18, 2026 · Wesley at FSU & TSC

• 0:58
  SPEAKER_00: We're going to be continuing our sermon series called Awakened to Grace.
• 1:02
  SPEAKER_00: And this week we're going to be talking about scripture.
• 1:06
  SPEAKER_00: Now, we talk a lot about scripture here.
• 1:08
  SPEAKER_00: We have a Bible study.
• 1:08
  SPEAKER_00: If you're not aware, every Wednesday night we we meet and we we've been working through the gospel of Luke.
• 1:14
  SPEAKER_00: We are almost done with it.
• 1:15
  SPEAKER_00: We're on our last chapter this coming Wednesday.
• 1:17
  SPEAKER_00: Shout out, come.
• 1:19
  SPEAKER_00: But we're we're talking about ways in which God shows us his grace in an assortment of different practices, spiritual practices, where we can grow closer to God.
• 1:28
  SPEAKER_00: And then so this week we're gonna talk about scripture.
• 1:31
  SPEAKER_00: And we're gonna do this from the passage from Deuteronomy.
• 1:36
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, and this is Deuteronomy 6.
• 1:38
  SPEAKER_00: So it's gonna be up here on the screens.
• 1:40
  SPEAKER_00: If you have a Bible, you can open up to it.
• 1:41
  SPEAKER_00: If you have it on your app, whatever.
• 1:43
  SPEAKER_00: Uh but here now the reading God's words, only a couple verses this morning.
• 1:46
  SPEAKER_00: Israel, listen.
• 1:48
  SPEAKER_00: Our God is the Lord, only the Lord.
• 1:53
  SPEAKER_00: Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your being and all your strength.
• 2:00
  SPEAKER_00: These words that I'm commanding you today must always be on your minds.
• 2:06
  SPEAKER_00: Recite them to your children.
• 2:08
  SPEAKER_00: Talk about them when you're sitting around your house, and when you're out and about, and when you're lying down, and when you are getting up.
• 2:16
  SPEAKER_00: Tie them on your hand as a sign.
• 2:19
  SPEAKER_00: They should be on your forehead as a symbol.
• 2:22
  SPEAKER_00: Write them on your house's door frames and on your city gates.
• 2:27
  SPEAKER_00: Let's pray over the preaching of God's word.
• 2:32
  SPEAKER_00: Oh God, your word is a lamp into our feet, and it's a light into our path.
• 2:37
  SPEAKER_00: May it speak to us and speak through us for the establishment of your kingdom on this earth.
• 2:47
  SPEAKER_00: We pray this in your holy name.
• 2:50
  SPEAKER_00: Amen.
• 2:52
  SPEAKER_00: I want to start with just a simple statement.
• 2:55
  SPEAKER_00: You are already being discipled.
• 3:01
  SPEAKER_00: Now, hopefully it's the case that you're being discipled by a person who's in a like you in faith and you can grow.
• 3:07
  SPEAKER_00: If you didn't hear that little shout-out for dusting, if you are a part of our dusting program, that can be an awesome place for you to meet somebody and be mentored one-on-one with somebody.
• 3:15
  SPEAKER_00: And if you still want to be a part of that, come see Hannah.
• 3:17
  SPEAKER_00: Hannah, raise your hand.
• 3:18
  SPEAKER_00: Come see Hannah, and she can get you signed up for that.
• 3:21
  SPEAKER_00: That's a really cool place for people to be discipled.
• 3:24
  SPEAKER_00: But you are already being discipled.
• 3:26
  SPEAKER_00: The problem is, is who and by what you're being discipled, right?
• 3:33
  SPEAKER_00: Every morning you wake up, and what's the first thing you grab for?
• 3:38
  SPEAKER_00: Your phone.
• 3:39
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 3:39
  SPEAKER_00: You grab for, and if you're super disciplined, pat yourself on the back.
• 3:42
  SPEAKER_00: But most of us grab for our phone and we see a scrolling list of notifications.
• 3:48
  SPEAKER_00: If you're irresponsible like me and you didn't turn off all the notifications for the apps that you didn't want the notifications on, they sent you something at three in the morning and you're gonna see it and you scroll through it, or you just ignore it and it's oh no.
• 3:59
  SPEAKER_00: We've been having network problems, and that's an example.
• 4:01
  SPEAKER_00: So anyway, enjoy Apple TV.
• 4:03
  SPEAKER_00: And it'll be up, everything will be up there anyway.
• 4:07
  SPEAKER_00: So you're being discipled by the things, apps.
• 4:10
  SPEAKER_00: How funny is that?
• 4:11
  SPEAKER_00: Uh being discipled by the apps that you open and the things that you read every single day.
• 4:17
  SPEAKER_00: In fact, I would say a lot of us wake up and we either like me do the wordle.
• 4:22
  SPEAKER_00: Anybody do the wordle in the morning?
• 4:23
  SPEAKER_00: Anybody a morning wordler?
• 4:24
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, a couple nerds.
• 4:26
  SPEAKER_00: And then uh I am a nerd.
• 4:28
  SPEAKER_00: I also read the news and watch the news in the morning, which is a great way to begin.
• 4:33
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you.
• 4:33
  SPEAKER_00: Appreciate that.
• 4:34
  SPEAKER_00: Uh it's a great way to begin by just being anxious first thing in the morning, right?
• 4:39
  SPEAKER_00: Like what a terrible thing.
• 4:41
  SPEAKER_00: But that's like the way a lot of us wake up.
• 4:43
  SPEAKER_00: We're being shaped by the things that are constantly in our lives.
• 4:54
  SPEAKER_00: It's not a knock at technology, it's just being truthful.
• 4:58
  SPEAKER_00: In fact, some of you have been around when I've encouraged you to download the Bible app or actually physically get a Bible.
• 5:04
  SPEAKER_00: And let me just make that statement in this space.
• 5:06
  SPEAKER_00: If you don't own a Bible, I do not want you to leave here this morning without one.
• 5:10
  SPEAKER_00: I put a few other ones on that table over there.
• 5:12
  SPEAKER_00: You are welcome to take them as you leave.
• 5:14
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, there's no shame in that.
• 5:15
  SPEAKER_00: If you don't own a Bible, I want you to physically have a Bible.
• 5:18
  SPEAKER_00: Mostly because the Bible app is great, but your friends don't text you in the middle of reading the book.
• 5:23
  SPEAKER_00: Do you know what I'm saying?
• 5:23
  SPEAKER_00: Like they might text you on the book, but it's not showing up at the top of the screen, right?
• 5:27
  SPEAKER_00: It's just there.
• 5:28
  SPEAKER_00: So it may be a helpful place for you just to center yourself on a physical book.
• 5:32
  SPEAKER_00: Can I show you some of the Bibles that have meant a lot to me throughout time?
• 5:35
  SPEAKER_00: The first one is this one.
• 5:36
  SPEAKER_00: I carry this sometimes in my back pocket, but I carried it in seminary through my back pocket.
• 5:40
  SPEAKER_00: It's a new revised standard version, and I love it because it's so small.
• 5:43
  SPEAKER_00: In fact, I was pulling it out of my pocket earlier, and Eli was like, I need a tiny Bible like that.
• 5:47
  SPEAKER_00: And I was like, No, it's the best.
• 5:49
  SPEAKER_00: As long as you can read the tiny words on it.
• 5:51
  SPEAKER_00: But this one got me through seminary.
• 5:53
  SPEAKER_00: This one actually was a uh one I got as a kid, and you can see the bonded leather is having some problems now.
• 5:59
  SPEAKER_00: But it actually has my name on it.
• 6:00
  SPEAKER_00: It says Bryant Manning.
• 6:02
  SPEAKER_00: I remember this fondly because I got it as a gift, and I really wanted one that had my name on it, but they took it and the place had misspelled my name, and so they put like a plate over it.
• 6:10
  SPEAKER_00: And I still think about that every time I see this plate.
• 6:13
  SPEAKER_00: This sits on my shelf in my office.
• 6:15
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, other two things I got through seminary with, interesting.
• 6:18
  SPEAKER_00: This is the New Testament, but it's all in Greek.
• 6:22
  SPEAKER_00: Nerd.
• 6:24
  SPEAKER_00: It's really cool, it's very hard to read.
• 6:26
  SPEAKER_00: In fact, if you I took a class on Mark, and you can read all the places I wrote the notes and erase them because I wasn't supposed to have the notes in there.
• 6:33
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, uh in the Gospel Mark where I was translating things.
• 6:36
  SPEAKER_00: And along with this, because you can't read it in Greek, uh, this is the what's called the grammatical analysis of the New Testament in Greek.
• 6:42
  SPEAKER_00: It has every word in every verse of scripture, and it has its declination, it has like what it means, it has what it means in context.
• 6:51
  SPEAKER_00: It's pretty cool.
• 6:52
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and this is a Bible that I got from my wife's family when her grandfather passed away.
• 6:59
  SPEAKER_00: It's a revised standard version, and it's he had used this, he was a preacher, he used this, but I found this note in it, which I thought was really neat, and stuff that's in his handwriting.
• 7:10
  SPEAKER_00: This one was typed up, and it says, I've been a Christian for better than 55 years.
• 7:14
  SPEAKER_00: I became a Christian in the only way one can, by faith and trust in Jesus Christ, and by holding fast to this book.
• 7:21
  SPEAKER_00: This was an undeserved blessing by the grace of God, and I could not buy or otherwise attain it.
• 7:27
  SPEAKER_00: It came only by faith and trust, and I praise and thank the Lord for my salvation.
• 7:34
  SPEAKER_00: All right, pretty cool.
• 7:37
  SPEAKER_00: You're being discipled by things.
• 7:40
  SPEAKER_00: The question is, oh, the question is what?
• 7:44
  SPEAKER_00: In the Christian church, we have these scriptures.
• 7:49
  SPEAKER_00: They're an amazing book.
• 7:51
  SPEAKER_00: It has what I would call our story in it.
• 7:55
  SPEAKER_00: From beginning, like literally in creation, to end, where God redeems entire humanity in revelation.
• 8:02
  SPEAKER_00: And if you've been, you've spent your whole life being scared of revelation, I'd actually invite you to read it because it actually is an encouraging and hopeful book, not this kind of scary thing that the media wants it to be.
• 8:13
  SPEAKER_00: But it tells our story from beginning to end.
• 8:16
  SPEAKER_00: And then in the middle of it, we get this transition to where Jesus came incarnate, God Himself came in the flesh here.
• 8:24
  SPEAKER_00: And we get to read about it not one time, not two times, not three times, but from four different people, four different perspectives, the story is that important that we get to hear.
• 8:35
  SPEAKER_00: And yet, for most of us, it's distant.
• 8:44
  SPEAKER_00: I want to talk a little bit about ways in which we can understand this passage from Deuteronomy.
• 8:51
  SPEAKER_00: And I want to start by telling you kind of uh how Jewish boys grew up, particularly boys, I'm sorry, ladies, but particularly boys grew up and they were studying to be rabbis, okay?
• 9:01
  SPEAKER_00: And they would go through a process called Talmud.
• 9:03
  SPEAKER_00: I think there's an image up here.
• 9:05
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, and they there were different uh sections, kind of areas of the Talmud in which you would learn certain things.
• 9:13
  SPEAKER_00: So in Beit Sephira, from five to twelve year olds, you would memorize the Torah.
• 9:17
  SPEAKER_00: That's the first five books of the Bible, and we're not talking about like, oh, I know the stories, you would memorize word for word in the Hebrew the entire Torah.
• 9:27
  SPEAKER_00: And then from ages 12 to 15, you would memorize the Torah, and then the prophets, that's Isaiah, Jeremiah, those, and then the writings.
• 9:34
  SPEAKER_00: Also, you've got Psalms, you've got uh Ecclesiastes, things like that.
• 9:37
  SPEAKER_00: And then as you would go to the Beit Talmud in 15, at age 15, you would start to become the disciple of a rabbi.
• 9:45
  SPEAKER_00: And then from that point on, from age 5 until 15, to the last 10 years, you've not only memorized the language, but it has lived with you.
• 9:53
  SPEAKER_00: Some of you remember the story when I talked about dusting in the first semester.
• 9:58
  SPEAKER_00: We talked about following behind a rabbi, being discipled, but the scriptures were there with them.
• 10:07
  SPEAKER_00: What's interesting about this passage from Deuteronomy 6 is that it makes something very clear.
• 10:17
  SPEAKER_00: And I think Moses had this in mind when he wrote it.
• 10:20
  SPEAKER_00: Because he understands the Talmud, he understands the way in which you would grow into faith.
• 10:24
  SPEAKER_00: He gets all that, but he makes one thing clear.
• 10:27
  SPEAKER_00: Knowing about God doesn't keep you grounded.
• 10:32
  SPEAKER_00: Being near to Scripture does.
• 10:37
  SPEAKER_00: Knowing about God doesn't necessarily keep you grounded, but being near to Scripture.
• 10:43
  SPEAKER_00: Not far away from it, but being in it often keeps you grounded.
• 10:50
  SPEAKER_00: So I want to go back to this first uh part of Deuteronomy 6 that we read, where he says, Hear, O Israel, or this says, Listen, Israel.
• 11:01
  SPEAKER_00: Or Israel, listen.
• 11:02
  SPEAKER_00: Our God is the Lord, only the Lord, the Lord alone.
• 11:09
  SPEAKER_00: This verse, and then the next verse, but we won't get there in a second, is called the Shema.
• 11:15
  SPEAKER_00: It is the Hebrew word for listen, but it's more than just a descriptive language.
• 11:18
  SPEAKER_00: It's it's the word that says, like, hey, you should pay attention right now, right?
• 11:22
  SPEAKER_00: That's it's a command.
• 11:24
  SPEAKER_00: So I want you to turn to your neighbor and say, Shema.
• 11:28
  SPEAKER_00: So it didn't sound you know Hebraic enough.
• 11:30
  SPEAKER_00: You know, it needs a little Shema.
• 11:32
  unknown: Shema.
• 11:33
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, all right.
• 11:34
  SPEAKER_00: Turn to your other neighbor and tell them to listen to.
• 11:35
  SPEAKER_00: It's dark outside, yeah.
• 11:38
  SPEAKER_00: Shemmah!
• 11:39
  unknown: Shema.
• 11:41
  SPEAKER_00: You know, three out of ten, but I'll I'll give it to you.
• 11:44
  SPEAKER_00: Three out of ten.
• 11:46
  SPEAKER_00: This is a a prayer that was repeated daily by Hebrew people as they were growing up in a world of polytheism, in a world where there were tons of different religions, the one true God needed to make the claim.
• 12:09
  SPEAKER_00: Do you hear the power in that?
• 12:11
  SPEAKER_00: Listen up, Israel.
• 12:13
  SPEAKER_00: The Lord our God is one.
• 12:17
  SPEAKER_00: Listen up, Israel.
• 12:21
  SPEAKER_00: I love that command to listen.
• 12:25
  SPEAKER_00: Because I do think that's where grace begins.
• 12:28
  SPEAKER_00: I do think grace begins when we finally open our ears up to listen to what God might tell us.
• 12:36
  SPEAKER_00: How often are we so distracted by everything that we forgot to listen in the first place?
• 12:48
  SPEAKER_00: So let me ask you a question that I I I think is important for you just to see on a screen.
• 12:53
  SPEAKER_00: It's very easy.
• 12:54
  SPEAKER_00: Who are you listening to?
• 12:58
  SPEAKER_00: Is it parents?
• 13:00
  SPEAKER_00: Is it professors?
• 13:01
  SPEAKER_00: Is it your TikTok algorithm?
• 13:05
  SPEAKER_00: Is it your Snapchat feed?
• 13:08
  SPEAKER_00: Who are you listening to?
• 13:11
  SPEAKER_00: There's not even a feed on Snapchat, right?
• 13:13
  SPEAKER_00: I'm so old.
• 13:15
  SPEAKER_00: You know, the thing.
• 13:18
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know.
• 13:19
  SPEAKER_00: I was on Snapchat for a very short part period of my life, and all I got was like pictures of ceiling fans, and it said streaks.
• 13:25
  SPEAKER_00: And I was like, what is the point of this app?
• 13:27
  SPEAKER_00: This is so dumb.
• 13:27
  SPEAKER_00: Do you remember that?
• 13:28
  SPEAKER_00: Do you remember like middle school?
• 13:29
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it's very dumb.
• 13:31
  SPEAKER_00: Uh so I I gave up on it.
• 13:33
  SPEAKER_00: The question though is, who are you listening to?
• 13:40
  SPEAKER_00: In the next verse, in verse five, he says, probably the main part that you're familiar with in this passage.
• 13:49
  SPEAKER_00: He says, Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your being and with all your strength.
• 13:53
  SPEAKER_00: And we're gonna get back to that because then in verse six, he says, These words that I'm commanding you today must always be on your mind.
• 14:01
  SPEAKER_00: So he says the important part, and then he says, These things must always be on your minds.
• 14:05
  SPEAKER_00: And then look how he doubles down on it.
• 14:07
  SPEAKER_00: In verse 7, recite them to your children.
• 14:09
  SPEAKER_00: Talk about them when you're sitting around your house and when you're out and about and when you're lying down and when you're getting up.
• 14:15
  SPEAKER_00: Tie them on your hand as a sign, he says.
• 14:18
  SPEAKER_00: They should be on your forehead as a symbol.
• 14:20
  SPEAKER_00: Write them on your house's door frames and on your city gate.
• 14:25
  SPEAKER_00: So he says, Hey, first of all, listen up.
• 14:27
  SPEAKER_00: Number one, listen up.
• 14:29
  SPEAKER_00: Number two, love the Lord your God with all your heart and soul and your strength.
• 14:35
  SPEAKER_00: And then he says, and then you, these are so important that you need to live with them.
• 14:41
  SPEAKER_00: You need to teach them to your children, recite them daily, tie them around your fingers so that you don't forget them, put them over the doorframe.
• 14:52
  SPEAKER_00: Now, if you are knowledgeable at all about Christian history, Jewish history, this doorframe thing is interesting to me.
• 15:01
  SPEAKER_00: Because there's a moment when the people are being rescued out of Egypt and they paint over their doorframe the blood of the lamb so that they would be, do you know, passed over by the angel of death.
• 15:21
  SPEAKER_00: Do you know that some modern-day Jewish people even still celebrate Passover by putting a red cloth over their doorframe?
• 15:36
  SPEAKER_00: Put it over your doorframe.
• 15:38
  SPEAKER_00: Think about how important your door is in your life.
• 15:41
  SPEAKER_00: It's it's your your exit or your exit and entrance way, it's your place of privacy.
• 15:47
  SPEAKER_00: It's also where you might put a Christmas wreath or a welcome or your name or something, maybe in a dorm.
• 15:53
  SPEAKER_00: And you put it over that so that it's all encompassing over who you are.
• 16:03
  SPEAKER_00: So if we're being discipled, this is Moses in Deuteronomy saying, Hey, listen up.
• 16:14
  SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna tell you some really important information.
• 16:18
  SPEAKER_00: The Lord our God is one.
• 16:21
  SPEAKER_00: Love the Lord your God with all your heart and your soul and your strength.
• 16:29
  SPEAKER_00: That's so important.
• 16:31
  SPEAKER_00: I want you to tell it to your children.
• 16:34
  SPEAKER_00: I want you to pray it every day.
• 16:37
  SPEAKER_00: I want you to tie it around your fingers so that you don't forget it.
• 16:40
  SPEAKER_00: We don't do that these days, we have reminders apps, you know.
• 16:43
  SPEAKER_00: But like they used to tie little uh knots around their fingers so they wouldn't forget something.
• 16:47
  SPEAKER_00: Tie it around your finger, put it over your door frame so that you will remember the command to listen and love the Lord your God.
• 17:04
  SPEAKER_00: So, for so many of us, we've heard the scriptures before, we've read them before, we've found interesting things about them, and then we left them on the table at Bible study and went about our life.
• 17:21
  SPEAKER_00: And it has not shaped us the way that it should, the way that it has the power to do.
• 17:33
  SPEAKER_00: What's interesting is later in the New Testament, Jesus is being met by uh people who are challenging him, and they're saying, Hey, what's the greatest commandment?
• 17:42
  SPEAKER_00: Do you remember this part?
• 17:43
  SPEAKER_00: And he says, Well, the greatest commandment is hear, oh Israel.
• 17:49
  SPEAKER_00: It's gonna be up here in a second.
• 17:51
  SPEAKER_00: I think in Mark, the uh Mark pass it.
• 17:55
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe.
• 17:56
  SPEAKER_00: Hero Israel.
• 17:59
  SPEAKER_00: Listen up, he says.
• 18:02
  SPEAKER_00: Love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, and he adds mind and strength.
• 18:07
  SPEAKER_00: And then he says, the second is like it love your neighbor as yourself.
• 18:12
  SPEAKER_00: And then he says, All of the law and the prophets hold on these.
• 18:19
  SPEAKER_00: Do you know what he's saying?
• 18:20
  SPEAKER_00: He's saying, All of the scriptures hold on these two.
• 18:25
  SPEAKER_00: Love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind, strength, and love your neighbor as yourself.
• 18:32
  SPEAKER_00: Feed them on Tuesday mornings at 4:30.
• 18:36
  SPEAKER_00: Love the Lord your God and love your neighbor as yourself.
• 18:41
  SPEAKER_00: All of the law and the prophets, all of the scriptures fall on this.
• 18:46
  SPEAKER_00: So, my question is: if we study the scriptures on Sunday morning and we study the scriptures on Wednesday nights, and we study the scriptures throughout the week because we're trying to keep up with our Bible devotion app or whatever, why do we have such a hard time loving the Lord our God without our heart, soul, mind, and strength?
• 18:59
  SPEAKER_00: And why do we have such a hard time loving our neighbors ourselves?
• 19:03
  SPEAKER_00: Isn't it true that for so many of us the Bible is present but it's distant?
• 19:10
  SPEAKER_00: It's like here, but I forgot about it.
• 19:15
  SPEAKER_00: And it's like I hear the voice of Moses saying, Listen, stop being so distracted by all the things getting in your way of being shaped by the grace of God in this book.
• 19:35
  SPEAKER_00: And I am just as guilty of it as all of us, even though I get paid to do it.
• 19:42
  SPEAKER_00: Not very much, okay.
• 19:43
  SPEAKER_00: Don't get crazy.
• 19:44
  SPEAKER_00: But you know, I get paid to do it.
• 19:47
  SPEAKER_00: It's definitely the calling God's place on my life, and I still wake up in the morning and I want to know what happened in Venezuela, you know?
• 19:56
  SPEAKER_00: Like I still wake up in the morning and I scroll the anxiety of the news, social media, whatever.
• 20:10
  SPEAKER_00: So I have a challenge for you.
• 20:15
  SPEAKER_00: I think that if you were to leave from here and you're like, you know what, I'm gonna read my Bible every day.
• 20:19
  SPEAKER_00: It's the new year.
• 20:20
  SPEAKER_00: I miss January 1st by a little bit, but I'm gonna start reading my Bible every day, or I'm gonna start spending time in scripture every day.
• 20:26
  SPEAKER_00: And I hope you do that.
• 20:27
  SPEAKER_00: But if most of us, when we say that we're gonna do that, we just don't accomplish it.
• 20:33
  SPEAKER_00: And what happens is when we get outside of the word, when we get far away from the word, we're no longer shaped by it.
• 20:39
  SPEAKER_00: We're shaped by the things that disciple us instead.
• 20:44
  SPEAKER_00: So here's my challenge.
• 20:46
  SPEAKER_00: Stop trying to do this yourself.
• 20:49
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, a couple things I can tell you.
• 20:51
  SPEAKER_00: First of all, I would invite you to pray to God.
• 20:53
  SPEAKER_00: Hey, God, can you give me the grace to read your scriptures daily, to spend time with you daily?
• 20:58
  SPEAKER_00: That's that's a graceful thing.
• 20:59
  SPEAKER_00: It's something that you don't have the power to do, it's only God can do it.
• 21:02
  SPEAKER_00: The other thing is that an accountability partner or buddy or scripture reader buddy or group can help a ton.
• 21:09
  SPEAKER_00: And as much as I love uh Wednesday nights, 70 other friends is not a great time for that to be in accountability.
• 21:17
  SPEAKER_00: So maybe you find somebody, maybe it's a dusting partner or somebody else.
• 21:20
  SPEAKER_00: It's like, you know what, I just really want to read together.
• 21:22
  SPEAKER_00: There's tons of stuff on the Bible app.
• 21:24
  SPEAKER_00: If I want to use that, we can just choose a book and start reading it.
• 21:28
  SPEAKER_00: But not just because I feel like I've got to check off a box.
• 21:31
  SPEAKER_00: Not just because I feel like because I want to be shaped by the Shema.
• 21:36
  SPEAKER_00: I want to be shaped by the command to love God and love neighbor.
• 21:42
  SPEAKER_00: I want to be shaped by that.
• 21:44
  SPEAKER_00: I want that to like, I don't even want to think about the decision.
• 21:48
  SPEAKER_00: I just want to do it.
• 21:50
  SPEAKER_00: That's the grace of God can offer you that.
• 21:54
  SPEAKER_00: Some of us uh are in places where you're like, oh, this book got a lot of weird stuff in it, got a lot of crazy stuff with it, got a lot of what you probably conceive of is hardenful stuff in it.
• 22:05
  SPEAKER_00: I just don't know where to start.
• 22:07
  SPEAKER_00: Let me encourage you that if you feel overwhelmed like that, please come talk to me.
• 22:12
  SPEAKER_00: I would love to sit down and chat with you about it.
• 22:14
  SPEAKER_00: I think hopefully I can invite you to see the scriptures in kind of a new and a fresh way and an inviting way.
• 22:26
  SPEAKER_00: But I can tell you this if you want to be awakened to the grace of God, you cannot do it without being shaped by the book he gave us.