We'll turn please to Psalm 19. I preached last week on humanity being made in the image of God specifically because it was sanctity of human life Sunday when we grieve over the abortion industry and tragedy in America and pray for that to be overturned. So good reminder that we're made in the image of God and the implications of that. I'm going back to a creation theme this morning, and then we'll move from creation into what God is doing in the world today. And most of our time will be spent in Psalm 19, one that I know is familiar to you and a favorite of mine. He's a theologian of previous generation, Francis Schaeffer, especially writing, I think, in the 70s. Wrote several books on apologetics, kind of defending the Christian faith, and one of them, the title of the book, is kind of worth the book itself. And I've heard many people responding to this in the last year. The book is titled, He Is There, speaking of God, that he exists, contrary to atheists, and he is not silent, maybe contrary to agnostics. The idea is, yes, God exists, but he's also a communicating God. He speaks, he's not silent. All through scripture we see him not only speaking, but he speaks in a self-revelatory way. He speaks in an autobiographical way. He shows us about himself, and from cover to cover of the scriptures, God is speaking. The only reason we have the scriptures is because God is a communicating God. Now, he has been that way throughout eternity, And one of the beauties of the Trinity is that God the Father and God the Son and God the Spirit are able to communicate together. They're able to love one another. All of the virtues of God that are relational were enjoyed throughout eternity before humanity existed. But because it's in His nature to communicate, one way in which He did that is creating humanity and communicating to us. So let me just give you some examples from Scripture. All through Genesis 1, we read God creating the world with a word, with the power of His communication, by speaking. So God would repeatedly say, let there be and there was. Let there be and there was. We hear messages in the Pentateuch where, like in Deuteronomy 6, it begins by saying, Hear, O Israel, and then it'll say, The Lord our God is one. But, Hear, O Israel, is God has a message for you. He's a communicator. He speaks. The prophets would preach, and the prophetic message would often begin with, thus saith the Lord. There are people that believe prophecy continues today, and they say, well, there's a prophetic gift. It's kind of like a testimony on steroids. People are gonna say, you know, God has a message for us, but it might be true, and it might not be true, and that is not a word of prophecy. A word of prophecy is direct revelation from God. It's authoritative, it's perfect. If it doesn't come to pass, the false prophet was to be put to death. The prophetic word was, thus saith the Lord. And so, Killeen Hill Baptist Church, if I ever tell you God has a message for you, I better be reading, not just relaying what God gave me in a hunch or a vision or a dream. But there was a time when God spoke directly through the prophets, through the apostles. Now we have that boiled down for us in the scripture. So thus saith the Lord. The Lord Jesus would comment when he had something particularly important. I'm using King James English, because it's beautiful. But he would say, verily, verily, I say unto you. In other words, be quiet, listen. You might want to get out a pen and take notes. This is important. He's speaking to us. And so the Lord Jesus came doing miracles and showing grace, but he was perpetually teaching and preaching. Of course, we could go to Hebrews 4. It tells us that the word of God is living and active and sharp and soul-piercing and divides our understanding. It peers into our soul. All of that to say that God is a communicating God The message this morning is gonna have the title, God Has Spoken. Now I'm using that historically. We could say God is still speaking. Not that he's speaking to us in revelatory ways through the gift of prophecy or tongues or something, but God continues to speak. This isn't a dead book, it's a book that continues to have a message for us. We have a communicating God, so we study God has spoken and a subtitle I have is the self-disclosure of God. We see that all through the Bible, but we especially see it highlighted in Psalm 19. So if you've turned there, let's stand and we'll read it together. It's 14 verses, beautiful, beautiful passage. Look as we read for evidences of God's self-disclosure. Psalm 19. to the choir master a psalm of David. Now, hear the word of the Lord. The heavens declare the glory of God. The sky above proclaims his handiwork. Day to day pours out speech, and night to night reveals knowledge. There is no speech, nor are there words whose voice is not heard. Their voice goes out through all the earth, and their words to the end of the world. In them he has set a tent. For the sun, which comes out like a bridegroom leaving his chamber, and like a strong man, runs its course with joy. Its rising is from the end of the heavens and its circuit to the end of them, and there is nothing hidden from its heat. The law of the Lord is perfect, reviving the soul. The testimony of the Lord is sure, making wise the simple. The precepts of the Lord are right, rejoicing the heart. The commandment of the Lord is pure, enlightening the eyes. The fear of the Lord is clean, enduring forever. The rules of the Lord are true and righteous altogether. More to be desired are they than gold, even much fine gold. Sweeter also than honey and the drippings of the honeycomb. Moreover, by them, as your servant warned, in keeping them there is great reward. Who can discern his errors? Declare me innocent from hidden faults. Keep back your servant also from presumptuous sins. Let them not have dominion over me. Then I shall be blameless and innocent of great transgression. Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in your sight, O Lord, my rock and my redeemer. This is the word of the Lord. Amen. Be seated, please. God is a communicating God, a speaking God, a self-disclosing God. We're gonna look at three ways in which he's done that, and each one is going to crescendo into the next. We move from general to very specific. God communicates. First, we begin at the first half of Psalm 19, and my description of this is that God has whispered through creation. The heavens are declaring, the heavens are speaking the glory of God. All of creation is showing his handiwork. But there's a sense in which nature, creation better, is whispering truths about God. So, Psalm 19, verses 1 through 6, we have what we call general revelation. It's not precise, but it is certainly true, it's accurate, it's undeniable. So Psalm 19 begins by saying, the heavens declare the glory of God. Joseph Haydn would write an oratorio called The Creation and you might even hear that when you read Psalm 19. The heavens are telling the glory of God. Anyone? Anyone? No? Okay. Pass the Pirate has a song that you might recognize and you might have more luck with that one. They're beautiful songs that talk about how creation shows the splendor of God. And again, we're speaking of God as the creator, so you say, well, we're talking about the stars talking, the sun talking, the birds talking, or the oceans. No, we're not talking about pantheism. God made all things that exist with the word, as we've discussed from Genesis chapter one, and there's a sense in which, in creation, we continue to have an echo of that. Okay, so I was discussing with Dan Totten how they're reading Tozer's book, The Pursuit of God, and he talks about, you know, when you hear the thunder, you're hearing the voice of God. When you're hearing thunder, you're hearing thunder. Okay, and there is a scientific explanation of that. You're not literally hearing the voice of God as they would have thought maybe back in Greek mythology. But when you hear thunder, you are hearing evidence of God, and I would argue, just think of it this way, you're hearing the echo of His creative word. God said, let there be, and now throughout creation, however long later, I would believe in a young earth, so say 6,000 years later from God's creative act, making everything out of nothing. 6,000 years later there's these reverberations and everything we hear and everything we see is supposed to be reminding us of God. So we look at the heavens and like Psalm 8 we say, Oh Lord, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth. You scattered the heavens, you made everything that exists And you've made man and entrusted it to us. And I just have to say, you're majestic, how excellent your name is. We look at creation and we're supposed to see the fingerprints of God. And we could move from the cosmos, that is this grand, infinitely large scheme. And then we have God revealed in the conscience, as we discussed last week. And from Romans chapter two, God has revealed himself not only out there, but in here. So we have the law of God written on our heart. We have eternity that is written on our heart, Ecclesiastes says. Or you could move from the celestial to the self. What I mean is macrocosm and microcosm. From the vast heavens to things that you and I can't even see, but now through the wonders of science and discoveries, we know that they're there. It's amazing what God has done. Big things, small things, visible things, invisible things. When Psalm 19 describes creation and its testimony to God and His attributes, His power, His goodness, it says that these things are visible. that they're timeless. And we're not going to be able to break down every section, but not only is there a proclamation from the heavens, but look at verse 2. Day to day pours out speech. I mean, every day since creation. And then every night, night to night reveals knowledge. There's never a time There's never a place where there's not evidence of God's creative power. So then we have this specific picture of the sun, and like a mighty man, he's running a race. What does that look like? He starts in the east, and you're gonna see him go across the sky to the west, and he's doing it all the time. Every country, every person has an opportunity to experience that. It's remarkable, visible, timeless, universal, and undeniable. What does it tell us about God? Well, Romans 1 is going to say that it reveals that He exists, that He is God, and that He is powerful. It shows His might, it shows His creativity. You look at flowers. I'm amazed by that. I love when I'm taking pictures if I'm traveling. I'm annoying to travel with because I'm often... Esther's nodding her head. You be quiet. Because I'm often behind and I'm looking at a little flower and I'm trying to get it just focused. And these are things, sometimes they're things that people have planted, but sometimes it's just a field and it's just wild. And there's this beauty that no human eye will ever see. A flower comes up and a flower, A flower disappears and no one ever saw it. There are creatures in the depths of the ocean that we're just now beginning to have the ability to see, but from creation nobody saw them but God. And there's still things in the depths of the ocean that nobody sees but God. And it shows his creative power, it shows his order. I'm gonna talk about astronaut Jeff Williams, who we had visit here because of his friendship with the McIntyres. And in a discussion with him, he's in my doctor of ministry class in California, so we're getting to speak more often. And as an astronaut, he's at the height, the cutting edge of scientific experiments. And he says, the only reason that space exploration is even possible is because God is so precise. We have a space station traveling at 17,500 miles an hour in orbit. 17,500 miles per hour. And then we're gonna have a space shuttle or now a Russian ship that is launching and is actually going to gain that speed and then connect to it. At that speed, how is that possible? It's possible because through engineering and through physics, Humanity is able to manipulate it and use the natural laws that God has put in place, and it's so precise that you can do unthinkable things. You say, man, that is just good luck. That is great design. And we're talking about the vastness of the heavens, and you realize, you know, we're so proud of ourselves if we get to the moon. Do you know how close that is relative to the rest of the universe? And then you look at small things like the wonder of the human eye, or the wonder of your body. It has a heating system, it has a cooling system, the respiratory plan, the blood flow, the fact that you can cut yourself and wait a couple of weeks and it will be gone. You've heard me say several times, I wish that would happen with my car. I dent my fender and just give it a little time because we have genius engineers on earth and given time it will fix itself." No, it doesn't fix itself. In fact, he will say when he's up on the space station, he'll go up for six months at a time, and he says, what we're trying to do is approximate the atmosphere of earth so that we could have a few people live up there. And in order for a few people to live up there, you have thousands of people giving them support. And we have to fix all these systems that break down. And we're just doing a minuscule portion of what God did with the Word and creation. So we're not awesome, we're actually tiny. And the more you learn about science, the more you just are amazed at what God did. And now it's continued year after year, day after day. He's a God of order, He's a God of benevolence. You know, you look at this object in my hand. The only reason we have that is because God buried in the world all of these natural resources, and it's like a giant Easter egg hunt. God in creation put ores, and he put chemicals, and he put all these natural resources and buried them and then gave us, as humans, the minds to be able to figure out how to mine them and develop them and use them and transform them. It's all the benevolence of God. Doesn't food tell you the benevolence of God? I'm totally a foodie. That might mean I enjoy Cheetos, I confess. But then you eat just amazing, good food and flavors, and God could have made food like oxygen or like water. It's good for you, but it doesn't really have a lot of flavor or taste. But instead, he just kind of showed off his kindness, and he gave us all of these different kind of flavors, and now we can combine them and It's amazing, all of this is showing us creative power. So we sing like we did this morning, How Great Thou Art. You know, when I in awesome wonder consider all the worlds thy hands have made, I sing how great thou art. When through the woods, I didn't used to like this, because I thought, oh, that's, you know, sing about Jesus or something. But verse two, when through the woods and forest glades I wander, and hear the brook and feel the gentle breeze, when I look out from lofty mountain grandeur, and whatever, hear the birds sing sweetly in the trees, something like that, I apologize. then sings my soul, how great thou art." You know, that's not just tree-hugging, that's looking at nature and saying, man, my God made all that, he's amazing. I sing the mighty power of God that made the mountains rise. Or later, there's not a plant or flower below, but what? But makes thy glories known. Creation shows the power of God, God. has spoken. Now, we know that general revelation cannot redeem, it can't save us. You don't know God enough through nature to be forgiven, to have a relationship with him. Instead, it actually renders all of us without excuse. Romans 1, 18 through 20 says that God has shown us enough about himself that it actually reveals him, but it condemns us. We need more. So God has whispered through creation. That's good, but we need something better. So we read on in Psalm 19. We come to this truth. God has spoken through the scriptures. There's more clarity. There's more communication. God has spoken to us through the scriptures. See, you see the progress in Psalm 19. It talks about how creation speaks, but you need more. And then all of a sudden in verse seven, it starts saying, the law of the Lord is perfect. The testimony of the Lord is sure. The precepts of the Lord. Six times we have descriptions of God speaking. And now, it's not just showing us God's creative power, now it's actually doing things, like verse 7, reviving our soul, making wise the simple, rejoicing the heart, enlightening the eyes. Now we have truth that is more specific and is life-changing and is soul-saving. God has spoken to us through His Word. Again and again in this passage, you have these varied descriptions of God, but what's repeated six times is the phrase, of the Lord. Okay, again, God is the one speaking. So verse seven, the law of the Lord, the testimony of the Lord, the precepts of the Lord, the commandments of the Lord, the fear of the Lord, the rules of the Lord, these are all phrases from the Pentateuch. but it keeps saying that God is the source of them. God is the one speaking, generally through creation, specifically through the scriptures. God has spoken to us. Again, for the sake of time, we don't have the ability and leisure now to discuss all of this, but in verses seven through nine, we move from a noun, a title of the scriptures, then we have an adjective, The law of the Lord is perfect, but then we have an action. It's not just that we admire it, like, you know, this book is perfect, it's beautiful, it's powerful. No, no, no. It is what it is, and therefore it does something in our hearts. So then you have this action, this verb. So six times we go through a noun, then an adjective, and then a verb. The last two, it changes a little bit and it actually just kind of reinforces the power of the scriptures. And it says that the fear of the Lord is clean, enduring forever. That's not something in our heart. It's just, this is unbreakable, forever sure. The rules of the Lord are true and altogether righteous. The whole thing. There's no mistake in here. It's actually arguing for the reliability of the scriptures, the inerrancy of the word. reminds me what we see in 2 Timothy chapter three, where we are commanded, Timothy is commanded, to continue in what he's learned, how he's been taught from childhood the holy scriptures, which are able to make him wise to salvation. All scripture is God-breathed. and therefore profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness, so that the man of God may be fully equipped, thoroughly furnished unto every good work." And what you have is a movement from what the Word of God is to what the Word of God does. You have the same thing in Psalm 19. The Word of God is perfect, and therefore it changes your soul. It saves you. It makes you wise. What a treasure we have in the scriptures. Moving through this section more quickly, verse 10 moves past all of those benefits of scripture. It says, more to be desired are they than gold, even much fine gold, sweeter also than honey, the drippings of the honeycomb. So you have this description of inspiration that the Bible is perfect, that it's profitable, but it's also Valuable, more than gold. The English language can be confusing. You know, the word valuable means valuable. Invaluable should probably mean not valuable. Instead, it means you can't value it because it's so valuable. It's beyond description in its value. Scripture is more valuable than fine gold. And then it's sweeter than honey. The idea is delight. Please hear this. The Bible is not bitter tasting medicine that you're going to kind of shudder when you take it, make an ugly face. It's good for you, but it's awful. It's not castor oil. It's actually a feast, it's so delightful. Yes, it's good for you, it changes you, it saves you, but there's such pleasure in it, more than gold, more than delicious food, more than honey, It warns you, but also rewards you. So you see the severity of God, but also the grace of God. Verse 11. Then verses 12 through 14, I go through very quickly. Verses 12 through 14, now make this application to you. It says, who can discern his errors? The answer is, you're not going to discern your errors on your own, but the word of God can reveal them to you. It's like we have in Hebrews 4, 12 through 13, that the word of God pierces you and opens you up. And then verse 13 says, all humanity is open and naked before God to whom we have to answer. What you have here is verse 12, He says, who can discern his errors, declare me innocent from hidden faults, keep back your servant from presumptuous sins, let them not have dominion over me, then I should be blameless and innocent of great transgression. He says, God, just like the sun travels the earth and nothing is hidden from the sun, verse six, I want your word to so work in my heart that no sin is hidden from your view, so declare me innocent from hidden faults. The Bible, is removing sin's cover, it's exposing us in our sinfulness, but then it's removing sin's guilt. So he prays and he says, declare me innocent. That's powerful language. God, I'm not innocent, but declare me innocent, that's the language of what? It's the language of justification. He says, God, I want you to declare me innocent. He says later in verse 13, I want to be blameless. I want to be innocent. The word of God cleanses you. And then not only does it remove sin's cover and sin's guilt, but eventually it removes sin's power. I wonder if there's any prayer in the scriptures that I've prayed more in my life than Psalm 1914. Let the words of my mouth and the meditations of my heart be acceptable in thy sight, O Lord, my rock and my redeemer. Okay, he doesn't just pray to be free from sinful deeds, but he says, Lord, let my words be profitable. Okay, I need that because I talk too much. Lord, let the words of my mouth be acceptable in your sight. Help me to watch what I say because it's revealing my heart. And there's times I do better and there's times I do worse. Then he goes even deeper, he says, let the words of my mouth and the meditations of my heart. Lord, the things I think about when I'm not thinking about something, I want them to please you. Many of us, if our thoughts were projected onto the screen and the entire church could see our thoughts, we would be horrified because they're secret and hidden and we're ashamed of them. You know, people say, Pastor, pray for my thought life. And immediately, we know what he means. You're struggling with sinful thoughts, maybe lustful thoughts. But before God, David says, Lord, I want even my thinking to be pure in your sight. Help me. The word of God does that. God has whispered through creation. God has spoken through the scriptures. Well, what could be better than that? One thing. Scripture tells us that God has shouted through the coming of the Savior. God has shouted through the coming of Christ. We have a description of Jesus coming at the incarnation. And look with me quickly at John 1, then we'll turn over to Hebrews and be done for the morning. John chapter 1. begins with this audacious statement, referring us back to the creation order, Genesis 1.1, it says, in the beginning, if you're writing a biography and saying, in the beginning, you better be writing about God. And John is, he's writing about Jesus, the Son of God, the Eternal One. He says, in the beginning was the Word. It's a weird statement. In the beginning was the Word. The Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. And of course, we jump down to verse 14, and the Word became flesh. The eternal God, God the Word, God the second member of the Trinity, God the Son, became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen His glory. Glory is of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth. There's a lot of description, there's a lot of debate throughout history about why is Jesus introduced in the book of John as the Word? You know, what does it mean that he's the word, he's the living word? Now that's confusing because we speak of the scriptures as the living word. No, no, but Jesus is the living, breathing, walking, thinking, acting, miracle working, dying, resurrecting word. He's the word that lives among us. And people would say, why do we use the description that Jesus is the word? And some will say, well, it's going back to Greek philosophy. I think you're trying too hard. Well, it's going back to Hebrew, like the idea of wisdom in Hebrew. I still think you're trying too hard. Just what is a word? What's a word? It's a means of communication. A word is a way we speak to each other. When we have a message, we give it through a word. And the Bible's going to say that Jesus is God's best friend. climactic and final word. God spoke to us through Jesus, and especially we see that if you jump down to verse, what is it, verse 18. Read with me John 1, 18, and think about the title of Jesus, that he is the word of God. No one has ever seen God. God is spirit, he's invisible. The only God who is at the Father's side has made him known. So you want to know what the invisible God is like? You look at God incarnate. So now, instead of sending you a book, which is awesome, God has sent you his son. God has sent you himself. So Jesus, we often will say that Jesus is the redeemer of sinners, true. But we underappreciate this, that Jesus is the revealer of God. So jump ahead to John chapter 14. Jesus gives this great promise. I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father but by me. And then we stop reading. Don't stop reading. Look at verse seven. If you had known me, you would have known my Father also. From now on, you do know him and have seen him. You've seen the Father. What? Jesus said throughout John that no one has seen the Father. So naturally there's going to be this question from Philip. Philip said to him, Lord, show us the Father and it is enough for us. That would be just the cherry on top. Show us the Father. And Jesus said, Borderline offended, Jesus said to him, have I been with you so long and you still do not know me, Philip? Whoever has seen me has seen the Father. How can you say, show us the Father? Do you not believe that I am in the Father? The Father is in me, et cetera. Jesus says, he is the perfect final revelation from God and to see Jesus is to see God in the flesh. And in any other way that would have been blasphemous because we're specifically commanded not to make any likeness of God in the second command. But now God has come to live among us and I do understand why for the Jews that was audacious and a stumbling block and borderline sacrilegious. God lived among us? How can that be? God is physical? God is human? No, can't be. Yeah, God has revealed himself through the coming of Jesus. We see that even more clearly. And finally, in Hebrews, turn to Hebrews. You may be weary with the morning. Rouse yourself for one last passage of scripture. Book of Hebrews doesn't start like a typical letter. Whoever the writer is, just jumps right into the meat of his message in Hebrews 1, 1. Long ago, at many times and in many ways, God spoke to our fathers by the prophets. That's great. That's basically the Bible. But in these last days, he has spoken to us by his Son, the Word. God has spoken to us by his son, whom he appointed the heir of all things, through whom also he created the world. He is the radiance of the glory of the father, the exact imprint of his nature. He upholds the universe by the word of his power. And after making purification for sins, he sat down at the right hand of the majesty on high. And he's greater than angels and greater than Old Testament priests and sacrifices and tabernacle. God has sent his best word, his best and highest revelation in the coming of Jesus. You think of the contrast. God spoke to us through the prophets, now he speaks to us through his son. The idea is the prophets would say, thus saith the Lord. Jesus comes and the message is this is the Lord. It's not me repeating what God has said, it is God standing in your midst. The Word became flesh and lived among us. Amazing truth. It's by way of contrast. You see Moses, remember in 2 Corinthians 3, we read about Moses' face is glowing and he had to put on the veil? But you contrast that with Jesus. Moses was just a man speaking. He was in the presence of God and he was reflecting the glory of God on his face. We had to cover himself. but a much greater glory is seen in Jesus Christ. You picture Him at the Mount of Transfiguration. Jesus is not reflecting the glory of the Father off of Himself. Instead, we see that He's transfigured, He's revealed to be as glorious as He's always been from eternity past, and we see that hidden behind His flesh is this perfect deity and it's overwhelming and terrifying. He's not reflecting it like Moses, like a mirror, secondhand glory. This is a glory that he has always had. He's called the heir, the creator, the sustainer of all things. He is the radiance of God's glory, the exact imprint of God. And you can tease that out, you can study it in all of these passages of scripture, like Colossians 1, what is it, Colossians 1, 15 and 19, that in Jesus dwells all the fullness of God in bodily form. God is here among us. Colossians 2.9, 2 Corinthians 4.4, we see the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. He's the finished and exalted Savior, gives a sevenfold description of who Jesus is. He's equal with the Father, but he's the one that came and he purged our sins by himself. There's no purgatory, why? Because he purged our sins by himself and he rose and ascended and he sat down because it's all done. Jesus. God's best revelation. God whispered through creation. God spoke through the scriptures. But God's best word is the Lord Jesus. God has shouted by sending us his son. I mentioned to you astronaut Jeff Williams. Spent a year and a half orbiting the Earth. Four missions. from NASA, and he's getting ready to move to a new phase of life. But here you have a man that has devoted his professional life to studying God's created order, and far better than me, he knows the intricacy of how science shows the glory of God. I think of Andy Prescher reading the scripture today. Andy is a science guy and a devoted believer, and how can that be? We've kind of been taught that scientists are atheists. It's not true. just the scientists that we read about or hear about or the media portrays. We have somebody devote his life to science and general revelation, but he's also devoted his life to the study of the Scriptures. Now at a doctoral level, he wants to know the Word of God, and he's giving himself primarily to the exalting of Christ, God's greatest revelation. And it's just an example of what God intends for all of us. Honestly, I've been negligent of the glories of science showing the creative power of God. We can't be negligent with the Word. We certainly can't be negligent with Christ. God is not silent. He has spoken through the world, he's spoken more clearly through the word, and he's spoken most clearly through the word, the Lord Jesus Christ. Even in Revelation 19, again, he's called the word of God when he returns. Our culture denies all three of these revelations. They deny creation through evolution, they deny the reliability of scripture, they say it's just myth, it's history, They deny the deity of Christ, but we affirm these things. And I say, how does it affect us? You listen. You listen. Listen to creation. Open your eyes. You marvel at the creator. You're moved to worship. So you see a sunset, just stop and take a look. You taste delicious food. You hear a beautiful symphony. You go on vacation and see an ocean. You should be marveling at God. not at the marvels of Hawaii or wherever it may be that you've gone. You marvel at God in creation. You listen to the scriptures, not as a book of rules or truths or principles, but this is God's self-disclosure. God has spoken to us in the scriptures about himself. This is God's autobiography, so you read it to meet him, not to learn facts. And then finally, you listen to the Savior, and through the Savior, you learn what God is like, and what Christians are supposed to be like. You listen to Christ. Of course, if you're lost, what you need more than anything is to repent of your sins and believe in Jesus. Be saved. He came to save you to purge your sins. He will save you if you will but ask even now. God has spoken. He's disclosed himself through creation, through scripture, through the coming of Christ. Thank you, Lord. for the truth of your word. Renew our confidence in what you've done and what you've said. Renew our wonder at the grace of the coming of Christ. Thank you for this time. Again, I pray that you would instruct us, grow us, change us with the power of your word. In Jesus' name, amen.