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We want to welcome you to the scripture story. Oh, should we call it a Jesus story? We may still do that up the road, but This pandemic has given us an excuse. I was gonna sit down Just sit down with my grandkids and help them kind of appreciate the Bible like I have I have been reading this book Since I was Austin's age by the way just to let you know that's Austin on the left. That's my nine-year-old grandson That's Amy in the middle. She's 15 and brilliant and not that Austin isn't brilliant because Austin's brilliant too And then there's Lindsay on the far right that Lindsay's of my 12 year old and I was gonna spend some time with them But now the pandemic put me in my house and them in their house And so we're going to talk about the Bible with them and and as many of you guys don't want to listen in now Or listen on the recording can do that as well. So I Just want to talk about this book a little bit because Austin I was your age when I started reading this book and I started reading it almost every day not not every day like a Rule but most days I would just spend a little bit of time with this and why it happened when I was nine Was because there's a new Bible that came out. It was called the Living Gospel It was just the four Gospels which we'll talk about the next time we're together So it's just a part of the Bible wasn't the whole thing It was a part of it and it was the stories about Jesus and I started reading that just every day I would just go get by myself and I would read a story I'd read a section of it and I would think about it and I didn't do it every day But I it began to give me a hunger For this book and what this book could do in my life and since then now I'm 67 years old I just had a birthday right guys. You know my birthday. Yeah, that was all cool And we had a chocolate cake because that's my favorite, you know, I have chocolate cake Anyway, I started reading this book then now I'm 67. So I've been reading this book almost 60 years and The reason I read it so much is because I have found it one of the most precious things in my life In fact, I could compare it to maybe something like this What if I told you I had a treasure chest and it was full of riches and there was like $10,000 in here and I wanted to give it to you. Would you take it? Yeah, all of you would take it. Okay. Now. I'm I'm not saying the Bible's like $10,000 Okay, but I am saying this this is the Bible I used to read when I was young. Look at this thing It's a monster, right? Look, it's got more stuff in there. Oh, man, that there's treasure in there. What if I took $10,000 in $100 bill and I hid them in every page. I put money Would you read through the whole book if I put money on every page $100? Would you at least look through the book? Yeah, you probably would just to pull the money out, huh? Well, some would say this book is a treasure But this book actually says that God's wisdom is the treasure. It's not the book It's the wisdom and what I want us to think about when we think about this Bible is That we think about it not as the treasure itself, but I want you to think about the Bible as a treasure map This is where it's not all the treasure itself, but it tells us where the treasure is hidden and Jesus what this book says one of the scriptures I want to talk about this morning with you is This book says that Jesus is the treasure And this book is the map that leads us to Jesus Now all of us get to know Jesus all of us. He lives in our hearts. We've talked about that with you kids before Jesus wants to live in us, but Jesus is invisible now, right? We can't see him Can't seem like you see grandpa or austin or mommy or daddy Jesus now he was here one time. He had a body just like grandpa's well It's probably better than grandpa's but he had a he had a body and he lived here for about 35 years or so He hung out on the in the in the world with us and he came to show us what the father was like it would be like austin, what's your favorite costume these days the spider-man? Dinosaur costume what what is it? Spider-man spider-man your favorite costume. Okay. Well, it's like Jesus took on a human costume Because we couldn't see him. He was a spirit. He doesn't have a body like we do So 2000 years ago, it's a long time ago 2000 years ago. He took on a body like us so God could walk among humans And show us what God was like and show us who God is and Part of the way that God's done that over centuries even before Jesus came Is that God inspired certain men and men and I will talk about why there wasn't a lot of women writing scriptures back in the day But God inspired men to put down His wisdom the ways they saw God move in their generation and it started 22,500 years before Jesus even came that's how that's how old some of these writings are And then Jesus came 2000 years ago. So we're 2000 years since Jesus. So it's like 4500 years Of God revealing himself to humanity And he helped us discover that in a book like this Now the answer that what we really want is not What's in the book like this? What we want is the treasure this book leads us to and what's the treasure? Yeah, you got it Jesus is the treasure knowing Jesus inside of you not just knowing Jesus in the bible We can find Jesus in the bible But what's most important is that Jesus become alive in you. So the reason I wanted to give you this little uh This little treasure map To think about the bible with is because the bible leads us to Jesus As we get to know god's wisdom from the things he's revealed to other people back through history and time Then we get to know him better as well and that's we get to go on him. So this is the map This is the treasure. I mean, this is the map that leads us to the treasure So Jesus has been speaking to you since the day you were born Jesus has been saying stuff to you like, you know, I love you Austin I love you Lindsey And I've got some wonderful things. I want to share your life with you and life's going to be hard Some things in life are really fun, right? And then some things are like this pandemic which are really hard and you can't go see the people You'd like to go see and you can't be with your friends and you can't do certain things because we're trying to protect people Well, the bible helps us know Jesus in all kinds of times where there's good times or bad times But I think what one of the things that scripture says the bible says is that when you're very young It's easier to believe in jesus to think about jesus and to know jesus And the older we get then the more we start buying into a world story the world's view of reality And the world's view of reality is different than our treasure map It tells us that we we should do whatever is best for us. We should be happy We should do whatever makes me feel good and that's how the world tries to lure us into its story When jesus is inviting us into his so the older we get sometimes The harder it is to listen to jesus and to see jesus And so while you're still young, this is a great time jesus loved hanging out with kids Kids hang out with jesus all the time and he got to know them and he got to share life with them And he shared life with them They got they they got to know him and other people try and keep the kids away Oh, no, jesus is too important for the kids and jesus would say no No, let the kids come to me because i want to be with the kids. So we've got this huge book There's lots of wisdom in here This wisdom will help you think the way jesus thinks which will help you listen to when he speaks into your heart and gives you something To do or something to know This book is going to help us do that now. It's pretty big right? How many of you would read a book this thick? any of you Would you this two thousand pages who would read lamie wood? Yes, she would amy's more. I mean amy used to be my reader She's not reading as much as she used to but but if you start this book and many people do oh, i'm going to read the bible so i'm going to go to Genesis one and i'm going to start reading and there's some interesting stuff in genesis and there's some interesting stuff in Exodus and there's the children of israel we'll talk about them and then you get to leviticus and then it's just a bunch of numbers and then laws and rules and By the time people get just a few weeks into the bible. They quit reading it because it's boring So i want us to look at the bible another way I want us to look at a bible like this This is one of my favorite books kids you recognize these books probably not this is old This is the chronicles of narnia. I started reading this book. In fact, I bought these books right here in 1970 when I was still in high school I have read these books I don't know 40 times in my life because I I enjoy these stories lion witch in the wardrobe some of you haven't read the books in the movies But there's seven books in the narnia series right there's seven of them So it's like a little library There's a book lion witch in the wardrobe. How many have seen the movie you read the book You guys all seen the movie read the book. You know the story about aslam the great austin. You know the story about aslam the great lion You don't oh boy. Austin's got some learning to do Then there's prince casper in but you know these books aren't in The first few books are in the order of the story and then it starts changing where this this is the silver chair It's not it's not happening at the same time the kids were there and then There's the horse and his boy and the magician's nephew how it all got created So it's best to look at the bible just like this. It's a library And the most important book isn't necessarily the first book. Here's our library Who made these for me? You guys did and your mommy helped. This is like the library. We're going to go through the library The most important book in the library though is not the first book It's this book. So let me put these back down This is the most important book It's the book about jesus and there's four books in the bible that talk about jesus And we're going to talk about these next week because we're going to start right here at the end of the story Because the bible that's not going to stay there. The bible was meant to lead us to jesus And jesus is in the end part of the book. There's There's uh 66 books in the bible isn't that amazing 66 We're going to talk about seven books though. We're going to we're going to make it a little bit smaller so you can Find out the whole story. This is the seventh seven of the eight books. This is about jesus This is going to represent all four of the gospels. Matthew mark luke and john So there's 66 books in the in the bible 39 are the old testament books. They happened before jesus that was all the time About 2,500 years 4,000 years before jesus came all that story happens And then jesus comes and that was 2,000 years ago now. We've had 200,000 now We had 2,000 years since jesus came so jesus came and here's how this book starts If we use john chapter one in the beginning was the word And the word was with god and the word was god And the same was in the beginning with god now. That's john chapter one. We'll talk about some of that a little bit throat What do you think that means in the beginning was the word? What does that mean? Do you know? You got a thought What's the beginning? Well, what do you think the beginning would be? What's the beginning? You don't know that okay The beginning would be Because genesis tells us what the beginning is and we didn't read that but genesis once is in the beginning God created the heavens and the earth that's where the story begins So john comes and he says this about jesus in the In the beginning was the word Now, what's the word? Many people mistakenly call this bible the word of god This bible is the words of god It's not the word of god When john talks about the word became flesh and dwelt among us. Well, who became flesh and dwelt among us? Who did that? Jesus did god did in the form of jesus god As jesus because jesus is god right jesus put god puts on a a human suit A human costume and he comes to live here. So in the beginning so even before the creation Jesus existed with god jesus was with god in the beginning. Does that make sense? So before he had a body He was with god Father god jesus and then we'll talk about the holy spirit eventually too. So jesus comes And he makes the father not so in the beginning was the word in the beginning was jesus And jesus took on flesh and dwelt among us and then we got to know who god was Because of what jesus did That's why we're going to start with jesus The people who understood the bible in the old testament all these this is where the gospels start Right about here. So all of this This thick stuff. That's the old testament. We'll talk about that eventually This is the new testament and the gospels this how late in the story just like our little This is where jesus comes in clear over here Jesus comes in there and the people who knew that old bible Before jesus came Missed jesus when he was here. They didn't think he was god They read that old book and they decided god was a big old meanie that had a bunch of rules and everybody had to keep them And if you didn't keep them god wanted to whack your head off They just got yeah, doesn't sound good does it? You want to enjoy god every day if you're just waiting to whack your head off if you break all the rules That's what they thought and so when jesus came and he was hanging out with people like you little rug rats and you know people Do stuff wrong. I do stuff wrong. Do you do stuff wrong? You find sometimes that you know, you want to do a good thing, but it's hard to do the good thing and the bad thing It's easier to do you notice that So if if the books just a bunch of rules you're supposed to follow or god's mad Nobody's going to read this thing The jesus came to show us something else that god does have a way for us to live There's a wisdom that god has because god made us and god made our world. So he knows how we're to live in it But he also knows we can't do it without him We can't do it by ourselves jesus needs to live in us and when he lives in us And we begin to learn the way god thinks and the wisdom that god has Then we can live differently in the world So next week i want us to start with the gospels matthew mark luke and john we're going to look at those gospels And we're going to look at the story of jesus because that's the story that makes the whole bible makes sense when you understand jesus Now we can go back and read the old testament In ways that will help us know the treasure that jesus wants to be in your life today The way he wants to lead you guide you and show you his work. Okay, so how many books in the bible? Do you remember? 66 how many books in the old testament? 39 How many books in the new testament? 27 How many books about jesus? eight Six five four four is it good guess lindsay it's four There's four so we're gonna we're gonna talk about that now what i want you to do this week I want you to do a couple of things for me. Okay, and and we get done parents I want you to have some time with your kids just to talk about first of all the bible in your own life How does the bible fit into yours parents? Even if you started reading it when you were younger and you got bored with it when you got older Or it just started reading it as the mean god book again, and you just gave up reading it Just be honest with your kids. Tell them tell them how you read it Tell them what it means to you and if and if you if it hasn't been important in your life Then just tell you that let's all learn together that i want to make this important in my life with you And so just share what it is that how the bible fits into your life And the next thing is i want you to do is to find a translation That the kids can that the kids will enjoy together now i'm going to take this book i'm going to take this uh Right here i'm going to share this with y'all This is from a web page called bible hub dot com And you might want to look there so verse here that uh is an important verse It's the bible talking about the bible and the bible says this all look at the new international version right at the top All scripture is god breathed And is useful for teaching rebuking correcting and training and righteousness Now just below that is a different translation. It's called the new living translation This is the one that i i first started reading that made me hungry for god Only it was the old living translation. This is a new one. It says this all scripture is inspired by god And it's useful to teach us what is true And to make us realize what is wrong in our lives It corrects us when we are wrong and teaches us what to do is right Now i don't want you to just focus on the doing wrong and doing right because that's back to all the rules What that scripture says that's important for us is everything in this book is true now It's kind of funny that the book tells us that it's true right like if grandpa said hey, i'm the best singer in the whole world Would you believe me? No, you've heard me sing right so yeah, no, he's not the best singer in the world So just the fact that I say I am doesn't mean it's true But this book says that it's true So, yeah, well, how do we know it's true just because that book says it's true Well part of the way we know it's true. I'm telling you from nearly 60 years of my life Every way I live my life is guided by this book and the jesus it draws me to I can tell you this book is trustworthy What's in it is true It'll help us think the way god thinks it'll help us listen to jesus in our lives And that's what that verse is saying god breathed this book to us. He didn't write it people wrote it But people wrote their insights about him And now we get to read their insights and we also get to have our own insights as we get to know jesus to work in our life So I want you to think about that. This is this is the treasure map to where we want to go And I want you parents and kids together Why don't you take a page like this is bible hub.com and put any store you want to in it And then read it in different translations and each of you each of you kids find a translation that works for you Maybe it's a kids bible. Amy as you get older. Maybe it's the new living translation. I've heard there's a there's an amazing book of that called Uh, the the immersion translation or the immersed translation. It's the new living, but it's in chronological order So you see the whole story of the bible and we'll talk more about why that's important to see the bible as a story Not not a rule book But find a translation that you can read and understand and maybe your parents will help you just by going to a Website like this and look at the same story pick a very simple story like the good Samaritan or some good story And read it in different translations and then say oh, I like that one that one. I can read the message is a good one It's one of my favorites these days. I read the message a lot The new living translation might be really good when i'm studying hard I like new american standard, but that's really complicated for kids And what i'm going to help you do over the next few weeks together Is learn to enjoy this book and what it can do to help jesus be available in your life. Does that sound good? Yeah Okay, so we're going to do it you got a little homework to do in the meantime So sit down talk for a little bit more and then find a translation this week that could work for you And then you could order it from like amazon or somebody and i'm not sponsored by amazon So i don't get any money from that But i want you to enjoy the book and i want you to enjoy that to make sense okay Well, thank you for joining us today everybody And uh, we'll see you next week on tuesday at 11 o'clock. We'll try all this again Thanks for coming