This recording is from Willow Creek Church in Winner Springs, Florida, where Dr. Pete Alanson is our senior pastor. Today's sermon is part two in a series called The Awesome Community. This message is taken from Acts, chapter 2, verses 36 through 47, and is titled Community Bible Study. Now here's Pete with today's message. If you have your Bible's turned to Acts, Acts chapter 2, as we continue in our series, it's really a new series. The awesome community, as we're looking at the church of Jesus Christ, and today we're going to be talking about being a community that studies the Bible together. Community Bible Study. Now before we start, I wanted to ask if you'd heard that story about the church that was looking for a new pastor, and the deacons were doing the interview for this new pastor, and so they asked him into the room with the deacon chairman and a bunch of the rest of the deacons, and they said, well, listen, we want to know how much you know of the Bible. Do you know the Bible pretty well? He said, yeah, I do. I know the Bible very well. He said, well, what part of the Bible do you know better? The Old Testament of the New Testament. He said, I know the New Testament better. He said, what part of the New Testament do you know? He said, well, I know the story of the prodigal son, probably the best. He said, okay, tell us the story of the prodigal son, so we can see how much knowledge you have of God's Word. Well, all right, and this is what he said. He said, there was a man of the Pharisees named Nicodemus, who went down to Jericho by night, and fell upon Stony ground, and the thorns choked him half to death. The next morning, Sodom and his wife Gamora came by, and they carried him down to the ark for Moses to take care of him. But as he was going into the eastern gate into the ark, he caught his hair in a limb and hung there for 40 days and 40 nights. And afterwards, he hungered and the ravens came and fed him. The next day, the three wise men came and carried him down to the boat dock where he caught a ship to Nineveh. And when he got there, he found the lilas sitting on the wall. And he said, chunk her down, boys. And they said, how many times shall we chunk her down? Till seven times seven, he said, nay, but seventy times seven. And they chunked her down, 490 times. She burst the sunder in their midst, and they picked up 12 baskets of the fragments. And in the resurrection, whose wife shall she be? Deacon Chairman was kind of looking around the room. He said, boys, I think we need to hire this guy. Yeah, he's young, but he sure knows his Bible. Listen, how well do we need to know our Bible anyway? I mean, there's a lot of trivial pursuits in knowing that the trivial questions of the Bible is a lot of trivia questions of the Bible. How well do we need to know our Bible anyway? I'm going to give you a little test. Are you ready? On the sermon outline, there's a little area where you can take a test. And I've got seven questions for you. So get out your pan or pencil. I've got seven questions for you. Here you go. Seven questions. Seven is the number of perfection, right? These will not be collected. These will not be graded. We'll grade them together here. Okay, here's the pop quiz in the morning. Number one, is the book of Jonah a book of the Bible? Yes, don't talk out loud now. All right, don't cheat. Is the book of Jonah a book of the Bible? Yes or no, all right? Yes or no? Simple, yes or no. We'll do question number two. Is the book of Isaiah in the New Testament or in the Old Testament, no turning pages? Isaiah, is it in the Old Testament or New Testament? There's some elders in this room and I'm going to check their test. I want you to know. Number three, the book of Thomas, is it in the Old Testament or in the New Testament, all right? Okay, Old Testament or New Testament. Number four, in what book of the Bible would you find the phrase God helps those who helps themselves? Now there's 66 books, so this is probably the toughest one. What book of the Bible will you find the phrase God helps those who help themselves? Number five, in what city was Jesus born? All right? Number six, who was Matthias? Matthias. It's some of you really get it into this. If we did sword drills and I ask you to turn to a verse of scripture and stand up, you'd be the first one up. You love this stuff. All right. Number seven, to what verse would you turn if you had sinned and felt guilt or shame? What verse would you turn to? All right, let's test this. All right. Number one, is the book of Jonah a book of the Bible? I would do the show of hands, but I'm not that mean. Yes, it is a book in the Bible. Jonah is a book in the Bible. Number two, is the book of Isaiah in the New Testament or in the Old Testament? Old to see, you're getting out there, you know, I like that. Number three, how about the book of Thomas? Old Testament or New Testament? It's not in the Bible. So if you said Old Testament comes to see me after church where you had a remedial class for you. Number four, in what book of the Bible would you find the phrase God helps those who help themselves? Third Peter. That's great. That's great. Right near the book of hesitations, way, way, way. In what city was Jesus born? Bethlehem. Good for you. Good for you. I was hoping for a couple of Nazareth's so I could nail you and be quite arrogant, but I didn't get it. All right. Who was Matthias? He was a disciple who replaced Judas. Judas, he was the apostle who filled out the number of 12 after Judas hung himself to what verse would you turn if you had sinned and filled guilt and shame? There's so many verses you could turn. First John 1.9, if we confess our sins he's faithful and just to forgive us our sins, cleanses from all on the right. Romans 8.1, there is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. All right. Here's how we'll score this. If you got three or more of those right and you're a brand new Christian, good for you. Good for you. If you miss three or more of those and you've been a Christian for a very long time, you're going to hell. Just want you to know. All right. Now, if you've been in this church between five and ten years and you miss three or more, fire your pastor because he's not doing a good job. Listen, we're going to be talking about the awesome community of the church. We're not about the trivia questions in the church. I like trivial pursuits and I love Bible trivia. I love the facts of the Bible. I love knowledge for knowledge sake. But if you memorize all of the Bible trivia and got all of the Bible verses in line and in order, do you not get to heaven just because of that? We need to know our Bibles. But the main thing is that we've got to be in communication with God. That's the point, isn't it? The awesome community of the church is a community where we actually study the Bible together. And as we study the Bible together, we are transformed. We become awesome people because of God transforms us. And we're going to talk about that today. The text is Acts 2, 36 through 47. It's the starting point and it's really the beginning of the first sermons in the church. Peter is preaching the first foray into public speaking and he has really been bringing the gospel to bear upon his Jewish audience. He has really been preaching at them and to them pretty strongly. And this is how the sermon winds up. Verse 36, therefore let all Israel be assured of this. God has made this Jesus whom you crucified both Lord and Christ. That's the last line of his sermon. He drives at home. And then it says in verse 37, when the people heard this, they were cut to the heart and said to Peter and the other apostles, brothers, because they were all Jews, brothers, what shall we do? But Peter replied, repent and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins. And you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit, the promises for you and your children. And for all who are far off, for all whom the Lord our God will call. Many other words he warned them. He pleaded with them, save yourself from this corrupt generation. Those who accepted his message were baptized at about 3,000 were added to their number that day. Now look at verse 42, they devoted themselves to the apostles teaching and to fellowship and to the breaking of bread and to prayer. Everyone was filled with awe and many wonders and miraculous signs were done by the apostles. All the believers were together and had everything in common, selling their possessions and goods. They gave to anyone as he had need. Every day they continued to meet together in the temple courts. They broke bread in their homes and ate together with glad and sincere hearts, praising God and enjoying the favor of all the people. Look at this phrase, this last sentence. And the Lord added to their number daily those who were being saved. This is incredible. That phrase, the Lord added to their number those who were being saved. It's one of those summary sentences in the book of Acts. Acts is a history of the expansion of the church. And so every so often you will find in the book of Acts a line just like this. And so God added to their number and the church grew or the church got healthier or whatever. And this shows how important, how important certain things are in the life of the church. What helps the church become a vibrant force in the community. And it turns out the vibrant church becomes a vibrant force in the community when they're studying the Bible together. That's what they were doing. Every chance they got. And we're going to talk about that today. But I want to start out by saying this. There was one prerequisite for understanding the Bible. One prerequisite for understanding the Bible as the word of God. And it is this. You must have a converted heart. You can't understand the Bible unless you have a truly converted heart. If your heart has not changed, you can't understand when I was in junior high was before the ice age and before they started calling them middle schools. I was in junior high. Our church went on a mission trip to Mexico. And we went. We were down in Mexico and we got some time to do some shopping. So of course we did. You know, we're always looking for firecrackers and switchplates and other things that good little Christian boys like to buy and break back to the United States. So I was in this store buying something legal and the two guys behind the counter were talking together in Spanish. And you need to understand we had the pastor's son who was in the Hispanic work in our church. We had a Hispanic church that met in our church. Danny Tolopilo. Doesn't sound Hispanic, does it? Well, because he was Italian, really, they were Italians that grew up in Argentina. He spoke fluent Spanish. Didn't look Italian. Didn't look Hispanic, but he knew the language. These guys were talking behind the counter. How they're going to short me on my change back. Danny heard the whole thing comes walking up. Starts to talk to them. It was so good. Those guys were nailed. They turned white. Just sheet white, you know. And we nailed them. We got it. It was so good. I loved it. Danny was my insider. I didn't know the language. I didn't know the language. I needed an insider to help me navigate through that situation. The same is absolutely true for the word of God. Before we come to faith in Christ, the Bible and whatever language you read are just words. They're ancient words. They're wonderful words, but you will never understand them unless you have an insider inside you helping you understand the word of God. Because when we're unconverted, we're spiritually dead. And we can't understand the truth. The things freely given to us by God. But I love First Corinthians 2.12. It says that when we receive Christ, the Holy Spirit comes to dwell in us. And we become able to understand the things that were freely given to us by God. How many times did you read, have you read the Bible? And you said, this doesn't make sense. I'm going to try it again. And you read it again. And you read that sentence over and over. And the light finally came on. I know what that means. Why is that? Why does that happen? Because when you came to faith in Christ, the Spirit of God came in and took residence in your life. And now he enables you to understand his word. But if you've never been converted, you won't understand his word. So before we talk about studying the Bible together, I want to talk about what does a true conversion look like anyway? What is a true conversion? What does it look like? What is it? What is the experience of a person who goes through a conversion and has changed and becomes a Christian so that the Spirit comes to live inside them? What's that like? Have you ever been to one of those real revivals? Up in the South? This is not the South. Central Florida is not the South. Have you ever gone to one of those revivals? I was raised in a denomination that did them, but not like they do them in the real South. I mean, the sawdust, some denominations that really know how to do revivals, we don't so we don't do them. We figure somebody is going to get converted, God will do it and we don't need to worry about it. No, no, but we don't structure it. I go to speak for these men's ministries and I see in their bulletin, they say next week we're going to have a revival. How do you do that? You schedule a revival, I don't know, but God does good things in those times. A revival, the big word in revivals is conversion, right? The big word in revivals is conversion and transition and change to accept Jesus Christ as Savior in Lord. What does a true conversion start with? Peter shows us here in verse 37, it said after Peter's sermon, when the people heard this, they were, what does the line say? Cut to the heart. They were cut to the heart. In other words, a true conversion starts with hearing the gospel message and something happening inside your heart. Inside you, the gospel, a conversion has to start with being cut to the heart. Now he had spoken, he was speaking to the Jews. And the reality is is that as Peter was speaking to the Jews, he said some very harsh and straightforward things that earlier in his sermon he said this. He said, many of his real listen to this. Jesus of Nazareth, born in where? Bethlehem. Jesus of Nazareth was a man accredited by God to you, by miracles, wonders and signs. Which God did among you through him. As you yourself know, you saw him, you saw him heal the sick and raise the dead and feed the 5,000 twice. You saw all that. He did that in your midst. This man was handed over to you by God's set purpose and foreknowledge and you with the help of wicked men put him to death by nailing him to the cross. But God raised him from the dead, freeing him from the agony of death because it was impossible for death to keep its hold on him. That's straight talk, isn't it? Peter gets to the point in the sermon and he says, you put him on the cross. And you could imagine Peter pointing his finger at them. Jesus died on the cross because you put him there and they were cut to the heart. There was a piercing that took place inside them and their response was, what shall we do? They didn't deny it. They said, yes, we put him on the cross. How do we deal with this? How do we deal with this guilt that we are responsible for killing the Son of God? Now, Peter does soften it some because he says, listen, God never allowed this to happen but he delivered him up to you. It was in God's plan. He softens it, but it still gets to their heart. Remember when the movie The Passion of the Christ came out? Remember when it first came out? And how upset people were over that movie, the Passion of the, particularly the Jewish community, they were in an uproar. Why were they so upset? Do you remember? They were upset because every time Christians movie of this sort comes out, every time we talk about the crucifixion of Jesus, who gets blamed for it? The Jews do. And the Jews are very, very careful to distance themselves from this happening. They never want to say that Jews crucified Jesus. They want to say the Romans did. We had nothing to do with it. And the reason they are so skittish about that is because Christians down through the centuries have persecuted them and called them Christ killers. We called them Christ killers. And when we finally got power in the Roman Empire, when they wouldn't turn, and when they wouldn't convert, we called them Christ killers. And if we didn't kill them, we ostracized them from society. Now we haven't done that in a very long time. But even back to the time of Martin Luther, who learned from a rabbi, the Hebrew language, even Martin Luther, when they wouldn't convert, wrote tracks against them. And it was highly critical of them. They were persecuted during his time. He's why he wrote, but he did that. And they're nervous. And they're still nervous to this day because Christians have persecuted them. When Karen and I earlier this year were a part of the Holocaust Memorial Service. My Jewish doctor asked us to be a part of that service representing Protestants. And we went to that service at the Jewish Community Center in mainland. And I was looking forward to being a part of that. I was a little taken aback when we pulled up and there was a mainland police car right out front. Now you see a police car when you come here. That's just for traffic. That's it. We had to get scanned going into this place. I mean there were police officers there just to get into the memorial service. There were police officers scanning. I had to go back out of the car and take my pocket knife out there. Because Jews today are murdered just for being Jewish. And they're skittish about how people have used the gospel to club them. But can we talk? The truth is that it was the Jews in collusion with the Romans who put Jesus on the cross, right? It was. That is the fact that is the history and that cannot be changed. But I'm not mad at the Jews. Are you mad at the Jews? I'm not mad at the Jews. I've never had a pastor tell me I ought to be mad at the Jews. I've never been taught to call them Christ killers. Listen, to be anti-Semitic is a sin and to be anti-Semitic is anti-Christian. They're God's people. He's got a plan for them and he's going to do something for them and in them and through them. But the fact of the matter is when Peter spoke to them, he said, you guys put in there and they were pierced to the heart. They were pierced to the heart because what happened was that they saw their own sin in executing Jesus. Sin is universal. The Bible says all of sin and falls short of the glory of God, right? Everybody, 100% in this room. All of us need a savior and there's only one savior. Jesus came from the Jews to bring salvation to the world. I'm not mad at the Jews. You see the reality is, when a person understands that sin is 100%, when a person understands that sin is universal and that they have sin, that they realize that they were just like the Jews, they put Jesus on the cross. It came a point in time and I realized that it wasn't the Jews that put Jesus there. It was my sin that put it there. When a person comes to that point, where they for the first time realize in their minds and their hearts, that it wasn't just other people that are bad, that are people that said, but they've sinned. When it wasn't just the Jews that killed Jesus, they killed Jesus. When there is a wounding of our heart, conversion is in the process. There cannot be a change in a person's life until they begin to own the reality that they were a part of putting Jesus on the cross. And then what happens next in conversion is repentance and faith, verse 38. Peter replied, repent and be baptized. Every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. And this is, boy, I've sounded very baptized today, aren't I? But you know, Peter was, he was really a Presbyterian in his polity, but he preached like a Baptist. The reality is, is that we're just being biblical and using this word, when you understand that Jesus died for your sin, then the only response when God is at work is to repent is to turn. If he is wounding your conscience, then you turn, you want to turn and you want to trust in Jesus as the only Savior. That's conversion. And it can only be done by the Holy Spirit. I remember. I remember, I've been raised Baptist, man, I've heard some of the finest Hellfire and Brinstone services you've ever heard preached. But I remember that Sunday when it was all me and nobody else was in the room, it was just me. Well, I felt my way. And I knew that I'd put him there and I knew that I needed that Savior. There was a conversion that took place. And I wonder, you may not remember the exact time that that happened, but still you look back and you look back and you remember generally when you owned the gospel for yourself. Is there anybody here today who had been raised around religious things, better in the church for so long. And you've been in the church, but it's been external. It was interesting. In the first service we baptized a woman who's in her 30s who had been raised in the church and heard the gospel over and over and over. But in our inquires class, it was like I was speaking to her. And then Chris out of the way had the privilege of sharing the gospel with her. And in a in a in a tearful way she embraced Jesus Christ as Savior Lord for the first time. Second service was a lady in this church who said, I'm converted. It's all been out here, but today it's in here from a Jewish background. What a privilege to hear that. It's possible that for you, it's all been out here and not in here. You've been trying to understand the Bible. You've been trying to be religious. You've been trying to do good things, but it's not been real. Let's pray. Let's pray if you're in that category. I mean, it may be that today is the day to make it personal for you. If you have come to that point where you realized that it wasn't the Jews or other people who put Jesus there, but you and you're ready to embrace Him as your Savior. Pray like this. God, I'm not mad at the Jews. There to blame, but saw my God today. I want it to be personal. I want it to be real for me. I don't want to do religion. I want to understand your word. I want to be changed. I want to have eternal life today. I accept Jesus as my Savior. I want that change to be real. Come into my life. Convert me and then develop me as your daughter and son. I pray today in Jesus' name. Conversion, the sermon is not over, by the way. Almost, but not really. Conversion is the beginning point. When the Holy Spirit is working in you, then you want to know what happened. You want to know what it's all about. You want to know what God is doing in your life. We see that in the community life of the early church, when the people were truly converted, they immediately went to community Bible study. Verse 42, they devoted themselves to the apostles' teaching and to the fellowship and to the breaking of bread and to prayer. They were searching the scriptures together. They were studying the Bible together and they were asking questions. What does it mean? It was Peter right on when he said this. They were studying the scriptures together to understand what had happened to them. This also happened later on, by the way, when Paul's ministry, Acts 17, he's preaching to people and had to leave one city and go to another. It says, as soon as it was night, the brothers sent Paul and Salazar away to Berea. On arriving there, they went to the Jewish synagogue. Now the Bereans were a noble character, more noble character than the Thessalonians. For they received the message with great earness and examined the scriptures every day to see if what Paul had said was true. And many of the Jews believed as did it also, a number of prominent Greek women and many Greek men. They studied the scriptures to see if what Paul had said, true, you don't need more than one monologue a week like this. And some of you are saying, amen. When I first left Seminary and I was pastoring the church I served in New England before coming down here, I prepared four messages a week, monologues, Sunday morning, Sunday school, Sunday night and Wednesday night. And I prepared four monologues and the people weren't getting any better. And they weren't changing. And I'm thinking, you know, God, something's wrong here. I mean, I'm being faithful because it wasn't me, of course, what me, and they were getting any better. I read somewhere along the line of realize, you know, they don't, how much will you remember from this sermon today? How much do you remember from a monologue? What's the percentages? I want to see what you have to say. The second service had their percentage. How much of this sermon will you 40, 50, 60, 70%, 20? First service they said five. They're going to hell. The statistics are about 15%. Maybe if we've done a good job, you may remember 15% of this. Let me ask you a question again. How many monologues a day a week do you need? Not many. But you and I do need to study the Bible together, where we can say, what is that true? What do we believe? Where we can turn the pages and we can look at the words ourselves and say, I don't know what that means. What does that mean? Does anybody in this room know what this means? How do I apply this to my life for crying out loud? I've read it 10 times and I still don't know how this applies. It happens to me in sermon preparation all the time. We need to study the word of God. Like Peter said long now that your newborn babies in Christ long for the pure milk of the word that you may grow in regard to your salvation. We need to study the word, the word that was written down for us and we need to study it together. Alright, let me give. Alright, now, just a couple of minutes left. We're going to begin the sermon on why we should study the Bible together. Three points real fast. We need to study the Bible together because we get grace from each other and we need grace. Peter says at the end of second Peter, not third Peter, at the end of second Peter, he says that we need to study the word of God and grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. The woman said this, she said, my husband bought me a mood ring the other day. When I'm in a good mood, it turns green. When I'm in a bad mood, it leaves a red mark on his forehead. I like that. We need to grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ because see, we're good on the knowledge part. We evangelicals are good at getting the facts and compiling the facts. But we need the grace as well. And there are times when we leave red marks on people's foreheads and we need grace. We need to say, I did this and I'm sorry. And somebody else in a group where we're studying the Bible together say, you know, Jesus, Jesus paid for that. We need grace and we need to hear it from other people in a group where we're studying the Bible. We need, we need people to say to us, you're forgiven. There's grace for that. And I was in Atlanta the last time teaching what we were not teaching. We were doing the taping for that TV show. And I just that may honestly be the last time I'm invited to go do that. I think it's going to be on later this in November 27th. But the question was put out by all the religious types and I was the only Bible thumping religious type sitting there except there was a Baptist next to me and all of them, every one of them, the question was, would you want your kids to be taught intelligent design in the public schools? If that was optional, I was right out of the shoot. Absolutely, of course. I mean, if they teach evolution, why not teach intelligent design and every one of them around the table said, no, no, no, no. I felt like what it was like to be a minority for the very first time in my life. The Baptist guy said, what difference does it make? I don't want them imposing their values on my children. Do you want them posing the value of a creator on your children? And I ended that taping. They're only four or five minutes long. These little segments that they stick in in this program. I'm glad it was done. I was pretty cool. But afterwards we were talking. Bill's about 7580. He'd been a pastor since the Apostle Paul. And we got talking about it. We were going back and forth and I couldn't understand why take that position. I said, Bill, the things you see out there were the silliest things I've ever heard. And I knew immediately when I said it, it was a wrong thing to have said at that point because liberals are quite nice to each other. And that wasn't very nice. And so we kept going back and forth and got a little more heated back and forth. And finally he said, and I don't need a young guy like you lecturing me. It was great to have me called a young guy. You know, it was really good. And so when he said that, I said, you're right. I'm not lecturing you. I'm trying to reason with you. I don't get it. But I said, I was sorry. And then we sat down and we talked. And I said, tell me your story. He'd been the vice president who was going to become the next president of the Southern Baptist Convention. You might know his name if I said it. I'm not. He was going to be the president. He said, it was taken from me because I'm not conservative enough. He said, they sent people into my church and took my church from me. And they said people into other churches and took their churches from my friends. And I said, you know, the way they did it was wrong. And I'm sorry. He needed grace and truth. But he needed grace to hear the truth. And he wasn't going to hear the truth until he received the grace. And that's why we need to study the Bible together because in small groups, as we study God's word, when we can be honest and real and admit our faults, we can give grace to each other. So you're forgiven for that. We need to study the Bible together for that reason because we need grace and truth. We need to study the Bible together because we have been given the spirit of God so we can understand the things given to us freely by God. And we can minister to other people. You are a priest. You have not taken a vow to sell the sea because most of you are married. You don't have to. The Bible says, and the reformation in the 16th century confirmed that you are a believer priest. And as a priest, you can have a role of ministry and other people's lives. And the very thing I may need to hear may come from you. We need to study the Bible together in a group because sometimes what someone may know may say, as they get to know you better, as they speak right to you, maybe the very thing you need to hear and God just use them as a believer priest in community to say the hard thing you need to hear or the very thing you need to hear. That's why we need to study the Bible together. And then thirdly, we need to study the Bible together because we are more radically transformed by God's word as we study it together. The Bible involves a renewing of our minds by focusing on God's word. I got one of the questions in the past. People do send in questions from time to time. One of the questions was this, how do I know that God is speaking to me? And it's not just my own hard-minded, self-indulgent, they were very honest ways. How do I know that it's not just something I want to do? How do I know it's really God leading me? And my answer in community as we study the Bible in the context of God's people and we say things like, you know, I think God's leading me to become a missionary or God's leading me away from a particular sin or God's leading me to do this or God's leading me to do that. Then others in the group who know us and who care about us can say, you know, we think that God is saying that to you. You know, we do think that you ought to step out and start that new ministry. And we want to be a part of it with you. Many Americans do so much independently and God says, let's do it together. The world got changed when the Christians came together and studied the word of God. And as they studied the word of God, they were made into awesome people. And as awesome as an awesome community, God used them to change the world. You believe matters, but living it out and getting it into your life takes me in a part of a community. I love this story. Joe Devall gave me this boss asked one of his new employees. He says, do you believe in life after death? Yes, sir, the new employee replied, well, then that makes everything just fine. The boss went on. After you left early yesterday to go to your grandmother's funeral, she stopped in to see you. Some of you will get that later via what you believe matters, but you and I will probably not be able to flesh that out and apply the word of God without other people in our lives. So here's my one challenge and my one challenge only beyond Sunday morning. I challenge all of you to be a part of one time in the course of the week where you study the Bible in community, one of our small groups, our community groups, adult ed on Sunday morning and our grace learning community. Chris had always doing a great job of bringing together meals for you to go in there and digest and interact over. Our women are doing some great things, ladies. Be a part of one of those men. We've got stuff for you. Our seniors have got some great study guys. You can't go to the women's studies. But there's something for everybody. I challenge you. Men lead your families. Lead your families to be in one area where you study God's word because it's in community that God's word shapes us into an awesome group of people who he uses to change the world. If you never study the Bible after today, but receive Jesus Christ as Savior and Lord, you're going to happen. You're not going down. If you never study God's word again, you're his. All right? But don't you want him to continue to transform you? He'll make us the awesome community. And take it to heart. I must pray. If you today have embraced Jesus as your Savior and Lord for the very first time, come up and talk to me. If there was a really sense that there was a conversion, a turning, a changing in your life, where you turned from the past and moved ahead to the future and put your faith in Christ, let me know. I'd love to be able to celebrate that with you. Let's stand together for prayer. Father standing before me is an incredible group of people who you have used in my life, who you have used in so many other people's lives. Lord, I pray that as we move into a new week, that as a part of this community that you have pulled together, you would use each other to sharpen and change and develop us. Lord, make us like the first-century church that swept the world and brought your truth and grace to those who needed to hear it, for we pray in Jesus' name. Now may the amazing grace of our Master Jesus Christ, the outrageous love of God the Father and the intimate friendship of the Holy Spirit, go with you this week as you remember His deep love and concern for you. Willow Creek Church is associated with the Presbyterian Church in America, our website is www.Willow Creek Church.org and our phone number is 407-699-82-11.