We are beginning a new series tonight, a series I'm excited about. I believe that it is a very needed thing for us to talk about, especially in the day and age in which we live. And it is really about having a biblical worldview on a number of different topics. And so over the next few weeks, we're going to be talking about having a biblical worldview tonight of salvation, a biblical worldview of creation, of human sexuality, of sin, of the home, of the government, the church, human life, money, racial justice and reconciliation, education, and end times. And I believe that these are important, very important subjects because they're staring us in the face every single day. And it's important that we view them not through a cultural lens, not through an emotional lens as we'll talk about tonight, but through a biblical lens and that we live our life with a biblical worldview. And so it will take us at least 12 weeks, probably more than that, probably up until the summer. We'll take a little break when we have our spring our spring preaching time that we're having in March and April, which I hope that you've seen. I hope you'll make a point to be here for each of those. It will be on Thursday night instead of Wednesday night during the month of March in the first week of April, April the 1st, and we're excited to have some wonderful singing groups here with us as well as some wonderful preachers. And so it is our spring preaching series, that's what we're calling it, and of course inviting our community of other churches to be a part. This will be interrupted a little bit by that, but we'll pick right back up on it after that is over. As we talk about worldview tonight, by way of introduction before we get into the section about salvation, I want to kind of lay a groundwork and talk about the different kinds of worldviews that there are and the importance of having a biblical worldview. And then I want to speak for just a few moments on the sufficiency of Scripture and our beliefs about the sufficiency of Scripture. Having a biblical worldview is so important because a worldview is what helps us navigate everyday life. It affects the way that we interact with each other. It affects the decisions that we make, the values that we hold all flow from our worldview. I have defined a worldview as this in your notes. A worldview is a pattern of ideas, of beliefs, of convictions, and habits that help us make sense of God, the world, and our relationship to God and the world. It's basically this, it is the lens through which we see the world and the way that we interact in the world. How do you view the world? How do you view things that are going on around you? How do you view relationships in your life? It's important that we see everything in our life through the lens of the Bible. not through the lens of our culture, not through the lens of how we feel, but through a biblical worldview. So we all have a worldview and it's influenced by a lot of different things, isn't it? It's influenced some by the way we were brought up. It's influenced some by the culture that we live in. It's influenced some by the things that we pump into our mind, by the media outlets that we watch, by the things that we listen to, by the people that we are around, by our education or our lack of education, the books that we read. All of these things have impact upon our worldview and how we see life. And it's vitally important because it affects everything about our life. Our worldview is comprehensive. It affects our morality or our lack of it. It affects how we spend our money, how we spend our time and our energy. And it affects our politics, doesn't it? It affects how we vote, how we see life, and how we see the world. It affects all of these things, and who we choose as our close associations, and what we do in this life. So it's vitally important, and that is why as Christians, we wanna make sure that our worldview is not influenced by our culture, but it is guided and guarded by the word of God and by scripture. George Barna, who has the research group, said this, and I love it. He says, if Jesus Christ came to this planet as a model of how we ought to live, then our goal should be to act like Jesus. Sadly, few people consistently demonstrate the love, obedience, and priorities of Jesus. The primary reason that people do not act like Jesus is because they do not think like Jesus. Behavior stems from what we think, from our attitudes and our beliefs and our values and our opinions. The dominant worldview in secular and academic circles today is called postmodernism. Maybe you've heard that word before, post-modernism. To the post-modernist, reality is whatever an individual imagines reality to be. That means what is true is determined subjectively by each person. You determine what you believe to be as true and I determine what I believe to be as true and we're both right. That is what it says. It says that there are no absolute authority. There is no authoritative truth that governs or applies to humanity universally. So it suggests that every opinion should be shown equal respect and that every opinion is also equally true. So in contrast to postmodernism, a biblical worldview says this, that absolute morality does exist. That there is absolute truth. That it doesn't really matter what you think or what I think, it matters what the word of God says. It is, therefore, our absolute authority of what is right and wrong, and that such truth is defined by the Bible. And there's firm belief in these six specific religious views, I think, that define a biblical worldview. That is, number one, that Jesus Christ lived a sinless life. That we believe that Jesus Christ in Christianity, that he came to this earth and he lived a sinless life. Number two, that God is the all-powerful and all-knowing creator of the universe and he still rules it today. Do you believe that? Amen. We believe that Jesus came to this earth, lived a sinless life, that God is the all-powerful, all-knowing creator of the universe and rules in the world today. We believe that salvation is a gift from God and cannot be earned. We believe that Satan is real and that he is at work in the world in which we live today. We believe that a Christian has a responsibility to share their faith in Christ with other people. And we believe that the Bible is accurate in all of its teachings. Do you believe that? that it is the truth, the absolute truth. And the only way to have a biblical worldview is by studying and knowing what the Bible says and allowing that to shape our thinking, first of all, and then as it shapes our thinking, it affects the way that we live out in our life and the way that we have relationships in this life. And that is why the word of God, listen, that's why it should be part of our life every day. Every day, that's why we should spend time meditating upon the word of God, studying the word of God, memorizing the word of God, getting it into our hearts and minds so that when we live life, that every day as we view things that happen in life, as we view death, as we view sickness, as we view everything that happens to us in life, encounters that we have, that we view it all through a biblical lens. That's what we mean when we say that we have a biblical worldview. It's not good just to have an emotional worldview. Some people have an emotional worldview and everything is based upon their feelings or they'll say my heart guides my view of life and how I see life and that's a dangerous thing because our emotions are fickle. Our emotions are not sinless. Our emotions change. And so it's not a fixed standpoint. So we don't follow our heart. Our heart will deceive us. Jeremiah told us that, didn't he? Jeremiah chapter 17 and verse 9. The heart is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked. Who can know it? The answer to that is we can't know our hearts. It'll fool us. Now we feed our hearts the word of God and we try to, as Proverbs says, keep thy heart with all diligence for out of it are the issues of life. It's important that we do maintenance on it and strengthen it, but it's marked by sin. It will mislead us. And so our emotions will lead us, but a lot of people have an emotional worldview. A lot of people have a cultural worldview, and that's dangerous as well. That means that the culture around us defines how we view the world. And our culture is progressively becoming anti-Christian, anti-Bible. And so if we have a cultural worldview, we are going to stray way away from the word of God. And listen, it's even dangerous to have a conservative culture worldview, like Ventress County is. They'd say, we're a conservative county. This is not what defines for us our view of the world. Again, we have to go back to a fixed point. So we learn to think biblically. It is the one absolute that we have is the Word of God. It will not change and it will not guide us wrong. It has been passed down forever. The book that is still published the most is still the word of God. It's not going anywhere. This is the one absolute. Our one absolute is not our feelings. It's not our dreams. It's not our visions. I believe that God can speak to us through circumstances of life. Certainly God can speak to us through visions, through things that he gives us, through dreams that we have. He can speak to us, but those are not absolute. The Word of God is absolute. It's not going anywhere. It's not changing. It is our one fixed standard that we base everything upon. Listen to what Jesus said in John 17, 17. Sanctify them through thy truth. And what is truth? Thy Word is truth. Thy word is the absolute truth. What someone said that God told them in a dream or vision is not our standard. We have to come back to our final revelation which is what? The word of God. The word of God. That doesn't mean that we discount experiences and things that happen in life because All of us know this. God has spoken to us and challenged us through different things in our life. But it is not our standard for how we view the world. This is. This is the thing that has stood the test of time. And the Bible says that it will stand the test of time, that it will endure forever, that it will be eternal. This is the eternal word of God. And so it is our absolute standard. Also, we have to settle in our minds then our belief about the sufficiency of scripture. Say, what do you mean? Do we believe that it's enough? Do we believe that it's sufficient for everything in life? You say, why are we talking about this? Because it's a real battle. And it's made its way into the church now to where even Christians hint around and dabble with and convey that perhaps the Word of God is not sufficient for everything that we need in life. Church, you and I need to get this in our hearts. The Word of God is enough for everything that we have in life. It is the best guide. There is not a book that is written on marriage or an article that is written on parenting that you will find that is better than the Bible's advice on parenting and marriage. So it is sufficient. It is absolutely sufficient for everything that we need. And that means that we test all other truth claims by this. Let me say that again. We test every other truth claims by the word of God. It is our standard. We filter it all through the word of God. So from start to finish, the Bible shapes what we believe and it governs how we behave and it should frame our entire perspective on life. And so we see that we need to recognize that there is an attack on it and it's subtle sometimes. It's subtle sometimes. And so we need to come back to this. The Word of God is enough. It is not sufficient for just most things in life. It is sufficient for all things in life. The Westminster Confession of Faith in 1647 said this, the whole counsel of God concerning all things necessary for his own glory, man's salvation, faith, and life is either expressly set down in scripture or by good and necessary consequence may be deduced from scripture. unto which nothing at any time is to be added, whether by new revelation of the Spirit or traditions of men. Most people do not, even Christians, even churches, would not hold true to that belief anymore. The average Christian seems to assume that something more, listen, something more than scripture is needed to help us cope in a modern world. As I wrote on Facebook this week, the idea is we need something more. We need something extra biblical, up-to-date, counsel and entertainment and ideas. If you and I are not convinced that the Bible is a sufficient revelation of truth, look, we will continually be looking elsewhere for more revelation and new mystical experiences and we will be, look, we'll be all over the place. This book brings us back to a fixed standard and guide that becomes the thing that we view everything in life through. This is the lens that we keep going back to. So now, we no longer believe that the Bible is sufficient for how we deal with all these other things in life. This is important, that we affirm what the Bible says about itself. And you know what the Bible says about itself? That the Bible is sufficient. The Bible says that the Bible is sufficient for everything that we need in life. You remember in Matthew chapter four, when Satan came to tempt Jesus, how did he fight off the temptation? With what? With scripture. Showing us that what we need to be able to say no to temptation, brother Anthony, is scripture. Hiding God's word. Thy word have I hid in my heart that I might not Sin against thee. So you're having trouble with temptation. The solution is not necessarily a five or 10 step program. It is the word of God. It is the word of God. All spiritual sufficiency is bound up, look, in hearing and obeying the word of God. In Luke 11, 28, Jesus said, blessed are they that hear the word of God and keep it. James 1 verse 25, but whoso looketh into the perfect law of liberty and continueth therein, he being not a forgetful hearer, but a doer of the work, this man shall be blessed in his deed. Do you remember in Luke chapter 16 when the rich man was in torment? And he said to Abraham, Abraham, will you go back to my brothers and will you tell them and will you warn them? Do you remember what Abraham said to him? He said, if they hear not Moses and the prophets, neither will they be persuaded though one rose from the dead. If they're not gonna believe the word of God, then an experience, a radical experience isn't going to change their mind. showing us again that it's a sufficiency of scripture. I encourage you maybe this week in the weeks to follow to make Psalm 119 and Psalm 19 part of your reading in regards to the sufficiency of scripture. They are very comprehensive in how God has revealed himself to us. And I want to look at partial part of Psalm 19 tonight. But if you go back into the first part of Psalm 19, you see really two ways that God revealed himself to man. First of all, In creation, Psalm 19 verse 1 talks about the heavens declare the glory of God, the firmament showeth his handiwork. God revealed himself to us, you could say in the world, right? In creation. As we look at creation, it was a nonverbal way in which God spoke to us. But then, not only did he speak to us by the creation of the world in a non-verbal way, but he also revealed himself to us in the written word of God. In the written word of God. So look at verse number seven. Again, what the Bible says about itself. The law of the Lord is what? Perfect. And this is what it does. Converts the soul. The testimony of the Lord is what? Sure. We're going to have some interaction here. All right. The testimony of the Lord is what? Sure. And here's what it does. It makes wise the simple. The statutes of the Lord are what? Right. And it rejoices the heart. The commandment of the Lord is what? Pure, so it's perfect, it's sure, it's right, it's pure, it enlightens the eyes. The fear of the Lord, another, all these are words, all these are phrases for the word of God. The law of the Lord, the testimony of the Lord, the statutes of the Lord, the commandments of the Lord, the fear of the Lord. What are those all references to? The word of God, the scriptures. The fear of the Lord is clean, enduring forever. Here's another phrase. The judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether. More to be desired are they than gold, yea, than much fine gold. Sweeter also than honey in the honeycomb. Moreover, by them, by the scripture, is thy servant warned, and in keeping of them, the scripture, there is great reward. All right, so it's, again, what the scripture says about us, it says that it is perfect, it is sure, it is right, it is pure, it is clean, it endures forever. And that is why it is so important for you and I to view everything, everything in this life through the lens of the word of God. The temptation is going to be to look for something else. The temptation is going to be to look for experience. The temptation is to be able to look for emotions because that's so real to us, isn't it? And look, don't be scared of emotions. God made us emotional people. That's not what I'm saying. What I'm saying is do not let that be your standard for your life. It ought to make us emotional when we sing about what an awesome God we have. It ought to make us emotional when we read about what he's done for us. But it all comes back to the truth of the Word of God and our absolute standard, which is the Word of God. What we think shapes who we are, doesn't it? What we think shapes who we are, which is the reason that Paul wrote in Romans 12 too, be not conformed to this world, but be transformed, how? By the renewing of your what? Mind. Remember I've told you before that the target of Satan in the spiritual warfare that we're in, the target is relationships. So he wants to divide your marriage, and he wants to divide your relationship with your children, and he wants to divide relationships within this church, and he wants to divide you and business partners. He wants to kill, steal, and destroy relationships, because God made us relational people. That's his target. But his battleground is the mind. That's where we have to guard our hearts and our minds. So he says, do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind that ye may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God. So in a world of differing voices, in a world where the media is screaming at us, in a world even full of emotionalism, they're all competing for our allegiance. They're all wanting us to trust in them. Put your trust in me. Put your trust in this. View life through my lens. And it's important for us as Christians, we've got to get this in our hearts and minds that what we are going to look at this world through is the lens of God's word. It's gonna guide us. It's gonna be our standard for everything that we do and everything that happens in life, we view it through the Word of God and so we're gonna begin tonight looking about thinking biblically and it's gonna be a lot of repetitive stuff, very foundational stuff, but I wanted to start with what I thought was the most important thing that we need to think biblically about and it's salvation. So a lot of this tonight is gonna be review for you and I and look we could have gone way more in depth than we did. I wanted to try to Simplify it as much as I possibly could. So I'm gonna give you five elements of salvation that I think we need to drive deep down into our hearts and settle in our hearts to think biblically about salvation with these five core truths. Number one, salvation is a gift from God. Very basic. Ephesians chapter two, verses eight, nine, and 10. For by grace are ye saved through faith. We spent several weeks in Acts chapter 15 on Sunday nights talking about their message, the early apostles message that salvation is by grace through faith alone in Christ. It was the message all through the book of Acts. He solidifies it here. By grace are you saved through faith and that not of yourselves. It is the what? Gift of God. Not of works, lest any man should boast. But we are his workmanship, right? Created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them. Sometimes we don't really know how valuable something is until later in life, right? It wasn't too long ago, we were moving some stuff at the house and I ran across a box. And when I opened the box, I remembered immediately that that's where I had put all of Kim's cards and love letters that she had written to me when we were dating. So 20 plus years ago she wrote those to me. And I got them out and I began to read through them again and you know what they became very valuable to me. They reminded me of what a rich relationship that I have. And salvation is like that. It is rich. But look, the longer that we have it, the more we ought to experience its richness. The more we ought to celebrate what a gift it really is. What those letters reminded me of is what a gift I have been given in my marriage in Kim. And the longer we live this Christian life, we ought to realize what an incredible gift that we have. The Bible calls it a great salvation. Great salvation. How many of you are thankful for the great salvation we have in God tonight? And I love the word saved and salvation. I loved it because it's so descriptive of what we have in Christ Jesus. Salvation saves us from the penalty of past sins. The wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord. It saves us from the power, the control of present sins. We don't have to live, now we're not gonna be sinless, because we have this human sinful nature, but we don't have to live under the control and the power of sin. Why? Because of salvation. Salvation saves us from the punishment of future judgment. So it is a gift from God. You'll hear me say a lot of times Romans chapter 10, you'll hear me especially on Sunday mornings when I share the gospel, some of my favorite verses in all the word of God. Romans 10 verses 9 and 10. Sorry guys, I kind of skipped some things here. But it says this, that if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be what? Saved. Saved, he says, for with the heart man believeth into righteousness and with the mouth confession is made unto what? Salvation. This is why being a personal witness for Christ is such a huge deal, because when someone puts their faith in the gospel of Jesus, in the death and burial and resurrection of Jesus, and they stop putting their faith in something else or someone else, they are literally saved, rescued, delivered from eternal damnation and eternal separation from God. It's a big deal. So when we hear of salvation, it ought to cause us to rejoice in our hearts. So first of all, salvation is a gift from God. Secondly, salvation produces good works. Look, you cannot read the word of God and get away from the truth that true salvation does bring about good works. It does bring about a change in our life. By their fruits ye shall know them. In fact, the same phrase that we like to quote all the time that we just did, Ephesians 2, 8 and 9, we like to quote 8 and 9, and a lot of times we don't like to quote verse 10 with it. It's all together. We're not saved by works, it's not of works, but we are the workmanship of Christ. Created two good works, right? So genuine salvation, if we're really professors of salvation or possessors of salvation and not just professors of salvation, then there will be a change in our life. There will be fruit that is produced out of that. You may remember on Sunday mornings as we were going through Philippians that we spent a week or two in Philippians chapter 2 verses 12 and 13, where the Bible says this, we are to work out our own salvation. Not work for our salvation, but we're to work it out. In other words, what God has done in us, that it should be coming out in our life. He says, wherefore, my beloved, as ye have also obeyed, not as in my presence only, but now much more in my absence, work out your own salvation, how with fear and trembling, for it is God which worketh in you both to will and to do of his good pleasure. Paul is teaching an important truth here, and that is that the developing of our worldview does not just happen in the presence of spiritual leaders, in the presence of Paul, in the presence of each other when we're in here in church, but it is developed out in the world, in our private lives, in our jobs, when we are around unsaved people, not just when we come in here to church. Now, positionally, we are righteous, aren't we? I could say tonight truthfully and it kind of bothers me a little bit to say it sometimes because I know myself so well, but I'm a righteous man and you're a righteous woman. You can say that with assurance tonight because the righteousness of Jesus Christ has been applied to your life. And so positionally tonight, we are righteous. We are justified. Just as if we never sin, that's how God sees us positionally before him. But the question is practically, do we think and live biblically? Does the world look at our life and by our fruits do they see that there is a difference in the way that we live? And look, if there's a difference in the way that we live, it is going to stem from the difference in the way that we think, right? So we don't think culturally, we don't think emotionally, we think how? Biblically. We view everything through the lens of the Word of God, and because of that, it affects the way that we live, and the fruit of the Spirit comes out in our life, and it is seen. Galatians talks about this, Paul writes about this in Galatians 5, but the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, long-suffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance. Now, you ought to look at that list, and you ought to say, these are the good works, the fruits that are coming out of my life because of salvation. That's what he means when he says these are the fruits of the Spirit. The Spirit of God lives inside of us, and when we are surrendered to the Spirit of God, this is what he's producing in our life. You say, well, I'm pretty good on two or three of those. These are not fruits, plural. All these are one fruit. You know what that means? They all ought to be coming out of our life. All of them. love and joy and peace and longsuffering. And so when things happen to us in this world, the world ought to look and find these things and go, wow, that is different than the way I would have responded. How do they have peace right now with what they're going through? How are they joyful with what they are going through? How do they have love with what they are going through? And it is because we have God in our hearts and he is working out in us what is inside already, the salvation that is there. Work it out how? With fear and trembling. He means take it serious because one day we are going to stand before God and give an account for how we have worked out our salvation. He says in the next verse, for it is him that works in us both to will and to do of our good pleasure. Remember I said this when we were going through Philippians. Some people say that God does it all and I do nothing. Other people say I do it all, God's given me a free will. and he really doesn't do anything. Both of those are false. And he balances that out with this verse. He says, work out your salvation, but it is God which works in you, both to do will and to do of his good pleasure, right? So how are we able to work it out? Only through him. Only through Christ. Only through surrender to his spirit. So if someone professes to have a relationship with God, but they have no desire for the things of God, no desire to be with the people of God, no desire to do anything that is good, there is no love, joy, peace, long-suffering, meekness, gentleness, then look, we have to truthfully evaluate whether we've ever been saved or not, and the Bible gives us a way to do that, by good works. True salvation ought to bring about good works, not perfection, not sinlessness, but a desire to do what is right, a desire for the word of God, desire to be in fellowship with God. In 1 John 2, John wrote, they went out from us, but they were not of us. For if they had been of us, they would no doubt have continued with us. Now listen, I have heard people take this way out of context when people leave a church and say, they weren't real Christians. That's not what he means. He means someone who departs from the faith. It doesn't mean that they left this church and they go down the road to another gospel preaching church. So if they leave our church, they weren't real Christians. That's not what it means. It means they left the faith. They walked away. Demas hath forsaken me, having loved this present world. That's what it means, that we can look at our life and we can see there are some signs in our life that show us that we have truly been saved and born again. So salvation is a gift from God. Salvation produces good works. Number three, salvation is secure. Salvation is secure. We don't work it out with fear and trembling because we're afraid we're going to lose it. That's not why we work it out. with fear and trembling. That's not what Paul means. We're not born again and again and again and again. We cannot be born again over and over any more than we can be unborn. We can't be unborn again any more so than we could be unborn physically. We are secure in Jesus Christ. In other words, God's gift is forever. God is not an Indian giver. He doesn't give us something and then take it back. That's what John's talking about in John 10 verse 28 and 29. He says, and I give unto them eternal life, and they shall never perish, neither shall any man pluck them out of my hand. My Father which gave them me is greater than all, and no man is able to pluck them out of my Father's hands. And we're gonna stop right here, and I wanna just remind you tonight of this, all right? Satan is an accuser of the brethren. One of his greatest tools is to get you and I to doubt our salvation. To sin, when we fall into sin, I should say when we step into sin because we do it willfully, when we step into sin to think I must not be saved. Now we ought to, as we just said, we ought to measure our life. The Bible says examine yourself whether you be in the faith. So if you look at your life and there's absolutely nothing there, no fruit there, no desire there, you have a right to question that. But just because you sin, just because you fail, God doesn't want us to live our lives wondering whether we are his child or not. We need to go back, again, not to how we feel, because guess what? You're going to get up on days just like I do, and you are not going to feel saved. You are going to feel as worldly and carnal as anybody else in the world. So I don't base that on how I feel. I base it on what the Word of God says. I look through this lens. And Jesus said, no man can pluck me out of my father's hands and that he has given me eternal life, life forever. If we look through an emotional worldview, we're gonna be up and down about this. And Satan wants us, one of his greatest tools is he wants us to doubt our salvation and to doubt what God said. He started this all the way back in the Garden of Eden with Adam and Eve when he said, half God said, You know what he's trying to get them to do? Doubt what God had already said and established. You know what he still does for you and I today? Is that really right? Has God really said that? Yes, he really has said that. He really has said that we have eternal life. Let me give you just a couple more verses in closing. First John chapter five, verses 10 through 13. He that believeth on the Son of God hath the witness in himself. He that believeth not God hath made him a liar because he believeth not the record that God gave of his Son. And this is the record that God hath given to us what? Eternal life. and the life is in his son. Is it in our good works or is it in the finished work of Jesus? It's in the finished work of Jesus. It is in his son. He that hath the son hath life and he that hath not the son of God hath not life. These things have I written, listen to this and get it in your heart. These things have I written unto you that believe on the name of the son of God that ye may, what? Know. that ye may know that ye have eternal life." Not because of the way you feel, but because of what God said. He said, believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved. You shall be saved. We cannot be separated from our Father's love. John 5, 24, verily, verily, I say unto you, he that heareth my word, you hear it, and you believe on him that sent me, you believe in Jesus Christ, you believe the gospel, what happens? You have everlasting life, and you shall not come into condemnation, but you have passed from death into life. Sounds pretty secure to me, doesn't it, you? Secure in Jesus Christ. You cannot lose what he has given us. Romans 8, 35. Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation or distress or persecution or famine or nakedness or peril or sword as it is written, for thy sake we are killed all the day long. We are counted as sheep for the slaughter. Nay, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him that loved us. For I am persuaded that neither death nor life nor angels nor principalities nor powers nor things present nor things to come nor height nor depth nor any other creature as if he didn't list enough things none of it can separate you from the love of God and so we need to be reminded tonight we don't view salvation through how our culture sees it we don't view it through how our emotions feel we view it through the Word of God it is a gift It produces good works and it is secure in Jesus Christ. There's a couple more things that we'll talk about next week. But we have to have a biblical worldview. Listen, I understand, I understand that some of you have been taught other things other than this. But I want to challenge you to go to the Bible, to go to the word of God. to see it in its true context, to see the character of God and who He is, and to base your salvation on what the Word of God says, not what you have been passed down through tradition, through your life. Get into the Word of God, seek the Word of God, Study it in its context and know what it says about salvation and believe it. Not because of the way you feel, not because of the culture around you, but because the Bible says this is the way it is. Look through the lens of the Word of God. In everything that we study over the next 12, 15, however, 20 weeks, whatever it takes us, we want to come back and say this is how we view creation through this lens, not our culture. This is how we view human sexuality. Here, our culture doesn't define it for us, the Bible's already defined it. All of these things, we have to come back to the word of God, and this has to be how we view everything else. We'll finish this up the next time that we're together, and maybe expound on some of it a little bit more than we had planned to. I was hoping to get through it all tonight, but it didn't happen. Unless y'all wanna stay here for another 30 minutes, y'all are kind. I know you don't. Let's pray together. Father, we love you and we thank you for your word. What a gift, what a treasure it is. Lord, I pray that you would help us to see it as it is. Lord, help us to see it as a treasure that we every day get to open up. And Lord, that you reveal yourself again to us through your word. We thank you, Lord, for the freedoms that we have to come together and study it, But God, we also realize that there may come a day when we're not as free to do that. And so God, I pray that you would help us to be committed right now more than ever to the study of the scriptures, to the memorization of the scriptures. And Lord, that we would encourage each other in the word of God. And I pray, Lord, for us that again, we would not be pulled away by what our culture believes or even by how we feel, but constantly, day in and day out, as we experience things in this life, as we go through relationships, Lord, that we come back to the Word of God and it is the lens that we see everything through. Everything, Lord, that we look at the Word of God and what it says. And I pray that it would be our guide and our standard. In Christ's name we pray, amen.