Motivation

Well, good morning. My name's René, it is great to have you here, and I just want to add my thanks to all of you who navigated the mermaid triathlon to get here. That was a challenge, wasn't it? All those orange cones and bikers and CHP people. We did not know about that in advance, that they would be here, but life throws wrinkles at us sometimes, and you made it. And so, with all honest justification today, you can say to get to church, you had to fight mermaids. I'd like you to share that with other people. So congratulations.

Hey, listen, I want to start out by showing you some riveting pictures today. These ones really kind of got my heart in my throat, and I want to say in advance, I'm so glad that these were worse tragedies with loss of life, but you'll be stunned when you see these pictures. In New York City, two row houses, one collapsed, while the other one right next to it stands firm. Turns out that there had been a leak for years under the collapsed house in their plumbing. Just one little molecule of dirt at a time undermining its foundation, and then it goes down like this.

Another example, in the UK, one house stands firm while its neighbor collapses. Same reason, a simple plumbing leak undermines the foundation. This next one is an amazing one. In Shanghai, an entire apartment building, unoccupied, thankfully, falls over, while all these buildings next to it of apparently identical design stand firm. Why did this fall over? A simple plumbing leak. No, just kidding. That part's not true. Some of you are going, "I'm checking my plumbing today!" The builders apparently decided to save some money on the foundation. They didn't save any money. The whole building went down and looked just fine until this happened.

And to me, the most amazing example of this sort of thing is this next picture. In New Zealand, one house in this nice upscale neighborhood drops into a sinkhole. It turns out, years and years before, just over the little hill, there had been a mine, and the mining company had dug a shaft into this neighborhood, and it kind of neglected to map it accurately. And so this one house was built over a little extension of the mine and disappears into the ground while most of the neighbors are just fine.

And what's interesting is, in Jesus' day, you know this phenomenon must have happened as well. In AD 17, when Jesus was in his early 20s, one of the biggest earthquakes to ever hit the Mediterranean region was in Israel, and it toppled entire cities like this one. This is a Sithopolis, one of the ten cities of the Decapolis, that the Bible says that Jesus visited. And we all know how earthquakes work. Your house might go down while the house next to it might be just fine.

And in the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus actually concludes his message by telling a story about an event like these. He says, "There were two guys that went out and both built houses. One guy went out and built his house on solid rock. The other guy goes out and he builds his house on what? Shout it out on sand. You know the story. Then he says, "Unexpected rogue winds hit. A tsunami comes up, and it's both of those houses equally. The winds blow against it, and the rains come down, and the flood rises. And the house that was built on the shifting foundation of sand collapses. But the house built on the solid rock was able to withstand the storms of life." And Jesus says, at the end of this story, Matthew 7:24, "Everyone who puts these words of mine into practice is like that wise man who built his house on the rock."

And this is exactly why we are starting this series today. This service is the kickoff for week one of 40 days in the Word. Why am I so passionate about this? Because as a pastor, one of the things I see week after week, I get to participate with people in joys of their life, like new babies being born and people, answers to prayer about new jobs. But also every week I see people's hearts being broken because a tragedy has struck. A wind has blown, the storm has come, the tide is rising, because storms happen to everyone. That's part of the point of Jesus' story.

If you're a Christian and you go through storms in life, don't say, "God, why have you abandoned me?" Jesus promises it. The storm comes against the believer just as much as against the unbeliever. The difference is not in the weather that hits you, the weird storms of life, the tragedies, the unexpected twists and turns of life. The difference is your foundation. The difference is not in the storm. The difference is how you handle it, not in the moment based on the foundation that has been laid for years.

And I see people in our office every single week going through almost identical tragedies, losses of loved ones, hospitalizations, bad diagnoses from doctors. And people handle them in two different ways. For some people, their world is collapsing. For others, their faith shines brighter in the midst of the tragedy. What's the difference? The foundation that their lives were built on. The foundation of knowing the Word of God.

And I'm going to give you a spectacular example of this from right here at Twin Lakes Church in just a few minutes. But first, let me tell you my heart for this. My heart for this series is not just that you'll learn the Word of God, but that you'll love it and then that you'll live it, really live it out. That's very, very important. And how are we going to get you to this goal? Well, if you've ever been a part of one of the spiritual growth campaigns that we do every fall here at Twin Lakes Church, you know that there are five key components.

And would you do me a favor and take out the postcard that looks like this, says 40 days in the Word. This is a reminder card for you. Stick on your fridge. Invite a friend. But also it gives you an overview of what we're doing here in the months of October and November. There's five key components. There's a weekly message component. There's a memory verse component. More on those two in just a second. There's a small group component. And a huge part of this is these workbooks.

Now, this is quite a hefty book that Saddleback Church down in Orange County put together because it includes not only the studies and the outlines for the small group lessons in the series, it also has other things like the 20 verses that every Christian ought to know. The 20 verses that you really ought to know and commit to memory. It has other things in there like a whole chapter, a whole Bible study on how you can trust the Bible. How do you know the Bible is true? There's also a whole chapter in this book on what's the best Bible translation for you. And why are there so many different Bible translations? Why is it you read one verse, the same verse, and another translation? They seem to be different. It explains translations, the theories of translations, a lot of great material in this book.

So if you're not in a small group, you're going to want to get in one today. You can pick up more info at the info desk in the lobby and grab one of these books. We're asking for a $10 donation because that covers our cost to the dime. But if you don't have that today, if you can't afford that in your life, please pick up a book. We want to put one of these books in your hands. This week is week one for the series. And then there's also a daily devotional component to this. There's a daily verse meditation that you'll find in that workbook.

But there's also something that's brand new to us here at Twin Lakes Church. There's a daily video devotional that's delivered by one of the best pastors in America. It's a different pastor or teacher every single week. Francis Chan is in there. Ray Johnston's in there. Rick Warren's in there. Lots of really great teachers. They give you a five to ten minute daily devotional. You can get it for free at 40daysintheword.com. Set up a little account. It's free. And what's cool is you can get it texted to you every morning at a time you choose. You can get it emailed to you, tweeted to you. I've done this. I love it.

And then we also have service projects as a component. These are things that we do to actually practice what we are learning in this series. And one huge way we're going to do this is we're going to have a giant Serve the Bay day with all kinds of other great churches here in the Santa Cruz area. And I asked our director of outreach, our pastor of missions, Paul Spurlock, to come up here for a minute and share a little bit about that with us. Let's all give Paul a hand. Paul, you do a great job.

Thanks, René. Oh, wait a second. Paul, I know you are a sports fan. Yes. You are, I mean, like huge, huge sports fan. So the Giants incredible game last night, your thoughts? I was so glad it was still going on because we were in the middle of the church service. We had to leave our office where we were listening to it and watching it on Dave Hicks' TV. And then we snuck in here and then went out and it was still going on. It was like a dream come true. It was awesome. The Giants chances, I think they're very good. Very good.

All right, enough of that. Tell us about Serve the Bay. What kinds of projects do you guys have going on? All kinds of projects. You can learn about them all in this insert in your bulletin. Pull that out. It lists them all right there under choose from. And there's a big new feature about Serve the Bay this year. That is we don't want to just have it limited to one day because some of you can't do that day. It's the whole month. Some projects have already begun like Project Pajamas or build a bench.

So let me just tell you about build a bench. We went to the Home of Services Center, one of our projects, and they said our number one request would be benches for our older clients who have to either lay on the asphalt or have something to lay on. We're going to build them benches. And like Big Creek and Monument Lumber folks from here are helping us with the donations. It's awesome.

And so anyway, that's a great project. Another one I want to highlight because it has to do with our water issues right down in Soquel, Soquel Elementary. If you look at their front yard area that you drive by, it's got gopher holes and grass that's dying. They don't have enough water. A Twin Laker, Nicole Douglas, is going to help us with our landscape design to redo that whole area. And that's actually next Saturday. One of the projects that's happening not even on the day. It's all throughout the month. And that is just one of the other projects.

Okay. So wait a second. People have all these projects. It's kind of bewildering, but they want to look it over themselves. Where can they go to find out more about these projects? They can go first. Look at the screen. Go to TLC.org. Click that major banner that says Serve the Bay. It'll take you right to servethebay.org, that all of us churches host. You click on the project menu. I see it's circled there in red. It drops down all the same projects you'll see on here and even more, including ones you can create yourself. And I can help fund for you. And it's more there. And if you don't like going online and signing up, just come out and see me. I'm the wise guy who, with red hair and fair skin, is wearing a black shirt on a hot day standing in the sun. Along with my lovely bride, Robin, who's at the other table. So right out here, right out here, you can sign up today, which is especially important for the ones that are happening next weekend.

That's right. And Paul, speaking of today, the Niners, Casey, your thoughts? I'm going to make the prediction. Niners, it'll be tight early, but they'll pull away and win 27-23. Great. Let's thank Paul. Wonderful. I love to hear those words.

All right. Let me just give you kind of a flyover of what we're going to be covering in this series. Next week is kind of an orientation, rediscovering the Bible. We're going to be talking about that. Then transformation, resisting temptation through the Bible. How many of you still at times struggle with sin in your life? Can I see a show of hands? Good. 90% of you, 10%, it's lying is your problem. So you'll all want to come to week three. Very practical.

Then week four, I'm going to love this. This is foundation. Can I trust the Bible? And that weekend, we're going to do something really different. Today, I'm literally walking out the door at the end of the service and flying to Istanbul, Turkey. And I'm going to be in Turkey and Greece for the next couple of weeks, filming videos for our small groups for the next two years. But also while I'm there, I'm going to be shooting video for this message because I'll be at archaeological sites that help us trust the Bible's veracity, its historical accuracy. There's some great stories I'll be telling you from the ruins of Ephesus and Corinth and some other things. We'll be watching those videos and I'll be here live during that week, week four foundation. Can I trust the Bible? So pray for us as we head over there.

And then number five, we're going to look at interpretation. How do I understand the Bible? Right? When I crack it open, it doesn't make any sense to me. How do I make sense of it? Very important because if you interpret the Bible correctly, you get wisdom and beauty, strength and love. If you interpret it incorrectly, you get cults and wounds and all kinds of wacky weirdness. And so you have to understand these basic kind of common sense principles of interpretation.

Week six is inspiration. What are your questions about the Bible? Isn't it repressive? I've heard it supports slavery. I've heard it's anti-woman. Whatever questions you have, email them in to us. We're going to answer them this week. Week seven application. That is, how do I actually put the Bible into work in my life to have a better marriage, to make wise decisions, to balance my budget? How do I apply scriptural principles? And then finally, the weekend before Thanksgiving, celebration weekend.

And we're doing all of this because remember those houses. We don't know what's going to happen for the rest of 2013. Or for 2014. I know what's going to happen the rest of 2013 actually. I do know that. I don't remember it, but I do know it. I could look it up. 2014, 2015, you know, we don't know, but God knows. And God is telling us through the word, there will be storms. There will be quakes. There will be unexpected things. That doesn't mean that God doesn't love you. That just means you're living on planet earth. The winds blow and the storms howl. And so not knowing what's going to happen, but knowing something is going to happen, you have to have a solid foundation in God's word.

So how do I do that? Well, if you have a Bible with you, turn to James 1:19–25. And if you don't have a Bible with you, all the verses that we're going to look at this weekend are on this handout. If you want to pull this out of your bulletins, they'll be on the screen too. And the key verse in this passage is verse 25. And I'd love for us to read this out loud together. Let me hear you say this with gusto. Ready? Verse 25.

Quick show of hands, anybody here want to be blessed? Anybody here want to be blessed? Yeah. So do I. I want you to be blessed. We want you to be blessed in every area of your lives. So how do we do that? How can I be blessed by the Bible? James says four very simple things. And this is very important to establish this foundation. Because if you don't get this, the next 40 days study is just not going to be that effective in your life. Because there's some preparation that has to happen first, James talks about.

And the very first thing he says is, "I have to receive the word of God with humility in my life." Receive it with humility. Now what do I mean? Look at how James describes this starting in verse 19. He says, "Everyone should be quick to listen, slow to speak, and slow to become angry. For man's anger does not bring about the righteous life that God desires. Therefore get rid of all moral filth and the evil that is so prevalent and humbly accept the word of God planted in you, which can save you."

So he's establishing some things that we've got to do that lead up to accepting the word of God. It's an interesting phrase here, accept the word. In the Greek it's actually a hospitality phrase that means to welcome the stranger. Isn't that interesting? It means you're opening the door of your life and you're saying, "Lord, come in." When you open the Bible, you're opening the door of your life saying, "God, come into my life. I'm wide open. I want to receive whatever you have for me in here, not just what's on my agenda." And it says, "Planted." You know what's fascinating to me? That throughout Scripture, the word of God in your life is often compared to a seed.

My wife Lori is a gardener, I'm not, but I've learned a lot of things from watching her and sometimes helping, but mostly watching. And one of the things I've learned is this, you can plant the same exact seed in three different places in your yard. And in one spot, same seed, one spot you get giant delicious tomatoes like we're enjoying right now. One spot you get tiny tomatoes. One spot no tomatoes at all and the vine withers. And if the water amount and everything is equal, what's the difference? It's not the seed, the seed's the same. What's the difference? It's the soil, right? It's the soil. You got to break up the soil, you've got to put fertilizer in it, mulch it, and miracle grow or something, and that's how you're going to get something out of the exact same seed.

And the same thing is true with your heart and the word of God. Your heart has to be receptive. You know, let's say you come to church and you've got a late start to begin with, and then you're driving to church, you're late already, and then you turn the corner and there's a bunch of orange cones and CHP people and bikers think they can take over the world and you're already late and then you take your kids down to the gym and there's a detour, you can't get the gym the normal way because of construction, and you're going around and you're trying to get in and some guy tries to stop you and talk to you about something and you get in late and you sit down and you've missed three worship songs already and you pluck yourself in your seat and say, "Okay, God, speak to me, I'm listening." You're probably not going to get a lot out of the service that way, right? And yet that's often what we do.

You know, we just kind of rush in, we're not prepared at all, and this is why you can take two exact same people, two different people put them in the same exact church service and one of them is going to leave and say, "God really spoke to me today," and one of them is going to say, "I didn't really get much out of that. What's the difference?" The heart prep. And so how can I be prepared so important? I want to show you a video. You might remember this. I cannot watch this video without crying, I think it'll put a lump in your throat too. This is somebody who, because of a new ear implant, is hearing for the first time. So powerful, watch this.

It's like so clever. We're not right over it. There you go. So now technically your device is on. Can you tell? Oh, that's exciting. Here, you can put it down for a second. Just get used to the sound. What does it sound like? I don't want to hear myself cry. Can you hear me? And you hear your voice? Is your voice sound pretty loud? Um, no, not really. What's going on? My laughter feels loud.

You'll get used to all of that over time. Want to hear your husband say something? Man, isn't that powerful? Wow. But listen, that experience right there, the joy of hearing the voice of someone who loves you and encourages you and challenges you and convicts you, hearing the voice of your Heavenly Father through Scripture, that joy can be yours every day when you meet Him in the Word of God.

Now, some of you are saying, "Well, how is that true?" That never happens. I hear people talk about, "Well, the Lord spoke to me in Scripture. It didn't happen to me." Well, let me give you kind of a spiritual ear implant to help you hear the Word of God. The Bible says you have to be prepared. You have to do some things for good reception. And James talks about these in this passage. The first thing he says is, "Be calm," right? It says, "Be quick to listen, slow to speak, and slow to become angry." Why? You just don't hear much when you're angry, right? When you're flooded with emotion, you don't really hear what somebody else is saying. When you're irritated and you're emotionally upset and you're defensive. And the same thing is true for getting into the Bible.

The Bible says, "Be still and know that I am God." You know what I read this week? I read that speaking actually raises your blood pressure, and listening lowers your blood pressure. So I'm up here raising my blood pressure, and you're out there lowering yours. Some of you, it's very successful because you're asleep. But that's not important right now. Need to be calm, and I need to be repentant. It says, "Get rid of all moral filth and the evil that is so prevalent." Check this out. I'm no Greek scholar, but I read this week that the Greek word used here for filth is also used in some ancient Greek medical text for earwax. Isn't that kind of gross? Don't you kind of love that? You know, if you have junior hires, you will share this with them. But I love this image, you know. I can't hear God if I've got junk in my ear. And so you got to get it out.

You say, "God never speaks to me." Maybe you need to kind of, you know, clear the hearing canal to God. How do I do that? Well, the Bible calls it confession. Confession simply means to agree with God. That was wrong, God. I agree with that. I shouldn't have spoken to the kids that way. Lord, I'm not going to get defensive about that. I know I shouldn't have had that attitude toward that person. And when you do that, when you repent going into the reading of the Word of God, it opens you up. It increases your receptivity to what God actually wants to say to you. And it says, "Be humble. Humbly accept the word planted in you which can save you." You know what that means? That means to be ready to do whatever God tells me from His word.

Now, look up here for just a second. Don't flip your page over yet, because I just want to say something. Those of you who are maybe kind of veteran believers, raise your hand if you have been a Christian, trusted in Christ, for maybe 10 years or more. Kind of slip up your hand. Probably most of us here, right? This first point, be humble when you receive the word of God. This point is going to be most difficult for you. This series is going to be most difficult for you, because you're going to go, "Well, I already know the word of God. Forty days in the Word, I already know the Bible. I've been memorizing Bible verses since I was a little kid. What new thing am I going to learn?" Right? And because we have this cocky attitude, we actually end up not memorizing the word anymore, not reading the Bible anymore, because we have this horrible arrogant attitude that we already know it all. And I'm guilty of this, too.

I actually grew up in the church. I started memorizing verses before I can even remember. Our church had something like a wana, where they did something called a sword drill. Does anybody remember what I'm talking about, the sword drill? And that was when you had your Bible. That's right. And you brought your Bible to your kid's club, maybe on Wednesday night. And whoever stood in front of the class for the sword drill would shout out a Bible reference. And the first person to stand up, having looked up that reference, reading the verse, won the sword drill. And I got to just tell you, I killed at the sword drill! I was so proud of myself. It was like the, you know, "Unbeaten champion of the sword drill every single week." Was René Schlepfer. Oh, yeah. I might not have been good at baseball or football, but who cares about those sports when you're good at something spiritual like the sword drill?

Now, do you think that that motivated me at all to want my, you know, fellow, you know, kids to get to know the Bible? No, I wanted to steal their Bibles from them so that they would not beat me in the sword drill. And sometimes you need to come from a background like that. You're like, "I've been memorizing it my whole life. I don't need 40 days in the Word." Listen, that's not a humble attitude. Be open to the fact that God has got something for you here, and God wants you to get back maybe to those days when you're hiding His Word in your heart again.

And if you're not a veteran, if you're new to all of this, and maybe you walked in for the first time this morning, you chose a great time to start, because it's kind of like when you walk into a gym and the trainer shows you all the sports equipment, and you feel so intimidated because everybody's out there working out on these machines, and you have no idea what they do. You know what? They're not really veterans. They've just been to the gym like a week longer than you. The basics about the Bible, you can learn so quickly. Don't be intimidated. This is designed to help you get into the Word and start laying that foundation in your life. So whether you're new or a veteran, be humble about it. Prepare to learn and receive it humbly.

Then there's other spiritual hearing aids. Number two, read it intently. Read it intently. James 1, 22 through 25 says this, "Do not merely listen to the Word, and so deceive yourselves. Do what it says." Anyone who listens to the Word but doesn't do what it says is like a man who looks at his face in a mirror and after looking at himself goes away and immediately forgets what he looks like. But the man who looks intently into the perfect law that gives freedom." I love that. And continues to do this, not forgetting what he has heard but doing it, he'll be blessed in what he does.

I just want to look at that phrase, the person who looks intently, not just kind of speed reads but really studies, really looks intently. And the image that he conjures here is somebody who looks intently into a mirror. Why? Because a mirror reveals the truth about yourself. And there's something about really looking intently into the Word of God. I don't know if you've had this experience, but it reveals truth about your spiritual state. Suddenly you see yourself, nobody else has to even evaluate you, criticize you, critique you. You're just reading the Word of God, and the Holy Spirit is reflecting your character and you see, "Oh, there's something that the Lord is speaking to me about, that I've got to change, that I've got to grow in." That's what a mirror does, and that's what the Word of God does.

Speaking of mirrors, I read an interesting story this week. Did you know that the first Queen Elizabeth during Shakespeare's time had mirrors all over Buckingham Palace, but as she got older and she felt she was losing her beauty, what do you think she did with all the mirrors? She had every single mirror removed from the palace because she didn't want to see evidence of the fact that she was growing older. Well, you know what I've noticed, speaking of veteran Christians, sometimes we're that way with the Bible. I'm growing a little less godly, but I don't want to see it, that mirror's irritating me, and so I'm kind of removing it from my life and not really spending daily time in it anymore.

Now, there's a couple of ways to look at a mirror. You can just glance at it quickly, kind of like give it a side long glance. Anybody remember Fonzie from Happy Days? Do you remember that show? Remember that opening scene where he looks at the mirror and kind of goes like this because there was nothing he figured he had to do, just to glance at it? Or you can study the reflection in its details and really see how you need to change, and that's what this passage is talking about. You say, "I don't know how to do that with the Bible." During 40 days in the Word, in the small groups, we're going to teach you some tools to help you really gaze intently into the Word. Very powerful, very life-changing tools that you can use until the day you die.

And then a third part of being blessed by the Bible, and this is huge, and we leave this out so often, is this. Review it regularly. Review it regularly, and by this I mean Bible memory. I want to show you how I get this out of this passage. Back to verse 25. "The man who looks intently into the perfect law and continues to do this, not forgetting what he has heard, but doing it, he will be blessed in what he does." You continually do this, remembering it. Look up here for just a minute. If your hope for your life is that you become a godly man or a godly woman, that you grow spiritually, I don't know a personal spiritual discipline that is more effective at accomplishing this than Bible memory.

Why? Because when you're under stress, when you're tempted, when you're in need of some truth from Scripture, you usually do not have a Bible right there handy open to the verse you need. When you're being tempted into sin, there's not usually a Bible right there in front of you, right? When you're feeling under stress because you're stuck in traffic because of the stupid mermaid triathlon, you know, there's not always a Bible open on your dashboard. When you're discouraged, and so what happens is, when you have the word hidden in your heart, suddenly these verses, you don't even have to try to remember them is what's incredible. When you have hit, when you've established that foundation, what happens is when you're in stress, when you're tempted, when you're discouraged, these verses will pop up, they'll bubble up into your memory. It's phenomenal.

You see, René, I've got a terrible memory. I can't remember anything. Did you know memory is a skill that you can get good at? That's all it is. It's like a muscle. And we're actually going to teach you in this series some skills for memory. I've just read some stats on this. People who tend to memorize scripture as a habit have a better memory about everything. When you memorize scripture, it'll just improve your memory in general. And there's a Bible term for this. The Bible term for what we're talking about is meditation. These days, some people get spooked out by the word meditation. It sounds New Age-y or something, right? But the Bible says to meditate on the Bible like a cow chewing its cut and hide that word in your heart. And when you do this, you know you're joining a lot of world-famous Bible memorizers.

Anybody here ever see the movie "The Elephant Man"? Anybody here ever see that movie? It's the true story of this man, John Merrick. John was born with this misshapen head and hands. He was taken away from his parents when he was just a toddler, put in a cage called "The Elephant Man," treated as a freak. And you know what convinced people that he actually had a high IQ, that he wasn't an animal, was he loved to memorize whole chapters of the Bible. And he would quote people in a beautiful voice, whole chapters of scripture, and people saw his soul, and they were able to see past what they judged him for.

Another famous Bible memorizer was Martin Luther King Jr. They probably don't teach this in high school history, but it was like his hobby. He memorized whole chapters of the Bible, and you can hear it in his speeches. He just starts riffing on them, just quoting right off the top of his head. Another one was Abraham Lincoln. He quoted entire chapters of the Bible as well. They say you could never stump him when it came to a Bible verse, and he said it was those verses that helped him through his depressions personally and through the Civil War nationally. So you and I can learn a lot from these giants, and we're going to equip you to do that.

In fact, take out this bookmark that looks like this in your notes. This bookmark, put this in your Bible or in your workbook. Carry it with you in your pocket. This is every single one of the six weekly memory verses on it, and it starts with the first one right at the top. Let's read that one together. Do you see it? Colossians 3:14. Let me hear you. "Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly." And we're going to teach you six ways in the small group sessions to let the word dwell in you with richness.

And then finally, there's one more way I build my life on the Bible. I respond to it actively. James says you have to turn it into action. Don't merely listen to the word. And it says don't deceive yourselves. How do you deceive yourself by just listening to the Bible and thinking you've got it? Actually, you only believe the parts of the Bible you do. And this is why we need to do what it says, why serve the bay is such a huge part of this.

But do you remember the story we started with? Jesus ends the Sermon on the Mount with Matthew 7:24, and he says everyone who hears these words of mine and puts them into practice, in other words, you respond to it. He's like a wise man who built his house on the rock. The rain came down. It's going to come down. The streams rose. The winds blew and beat against the house. Yet it didn't fall because it had its foundation on the rock.

I want to show you this is not just like church propaganda. It helps when unexpected trials hit you. A couple of years ago, TLC Attender Janie Price and her husband got some shocking news. Janie was up in San Francisco. They had a home at Mount Herman, and she got a cell phone call from her son. And he said, "Mom, the house is on fire," and he sent her this picture. It was on fire. She said, "Do I need to rush home and help with something?" He said, "No, by the time you get here, it'll be gone." And he sent a little cell phone video as well. Imagine getting this image of your home. All those years of keepsakes, everything that you and your family, your spouse had decided to buy, saved up for, and it's all gone.

How do you survive when the winds crash and the storm rises and the fire burns? Well, to tell us about her experience, here's Janie Price. Would you please put your hands together? Let's welcome Janie as she comes up here.

Janie, first of all, I'm so glad you're here. And it's funny, kind of a sports theme. You are a huge football fan, your husband and coach at Scotts Valley, right? No. No? Oh, SLV. Yes. Oh, my goodness. The nemesis. What a papa. I know, I know. So thanks for being here, Janie, and it was a riveting story. You said while you were driving down, I think, from San Francisco, a memory verse actually popped into your head.

Yes, I was really grateful not to be at home when this was all transpiring. Once I got that phone call and found that my son was out of the house safely and he had also gotten our dog out safely, I really appreciated having about an hour to contemplate, meditate on what I was going to be coming home to. And in that drive, there are a number of things that happened, but one of them was a verse that I had memorized as a child, having gone to a church where scripture memorization was not optional. I'll challenge you to a sword drill right now.

Hey, we could do it. The verse that came to mind almost immediately was out of Psalm 24, "The earth is the Lord's and everything in it, the world and all who dwell within." And I realized that although I had really considered this to be my home and had really invested myself in it, it actually didn't belong to me but had been a gift from the Lord. And although I don't believe that God burned our house down, that was stupidity on the part of the homeowner, he did allow that to happen and it was his house. And so I just needed to trust that he had a way that he was going to redeem this and to bring good out of this experience. And he did redeem it.

You told me that there were three things that you learned. Well, more than three, but three things you're going to share today that you learned from this whole fire. There were many spiritual lessons along the way, but one of the things that I became aware of pretty quickly is that as believers, we don't really get to experience God's presence in advance of something happen. We can't really look at a picture like that and say, "Oh, I'm wondering how I would respond." Because we don't know, we can't experience the fact that Jesus meets us there and is with us in it until we're right there in that moment. He doesn't dwell in our fantasies about what might happen or our worries about what might happen in life. He can only be with us in the moment.

And that has really transformed me into desiring to seek to live more in his presence in the moment today, whether it's in the midst of something that was traumatic or just in day-to-day life. So the presence of Jesus and the presence of Christ in others reaching out to you as well. We really did experience the body of Christ in new ways through this experience. I can remember walking around the corner. I had to park at a neighbor's because there were fire trucks in my driveway. But just walking around the corner and seeing our entire neighborhood gathered, not to just be curious and voyeuristically watch a house burn down, but to be there to stand with us and to let us know that they were for us and they were going to be with us. And that's part of the foundation, that community, right?

Yes. The presence of Christ, the presence of others. We have time for one more. I want you to share what you told me about loss, also leading to gain. One of the things, too, that we discovered big time was that for every loss comes an opportunity for something new to be born. And whereas I had to offer up my dream of continuing to grow old in the house that I had brought my boys home from the hospital in and where they had lived their entire childhood, instead we got to experience having a whole new house, which was actually the picture of the house you saw as the new house, not the old house.

And also, after 31 years of giving and ministering in the community, we got to be the ones to receive that from other people. I'd love to tell the story that that Christmas, our son who lives in Sweden, was planning to bring his Swedish fiancee and every member of her immediate family to celebrate Christmas in the home he grew up in. And instead, Dave and Leslie Burns hosted all 12 of us for Christmas dinner. There's so many things I love about that story, including the fact that all of these people came to visit you anyway, even after your house burned down. They had tickets, what can I say? They were Swedish, I don't know what that has to do with it.

Listen, Janie, thank you much. I know that this is going to mean a lot to people who have gone through loss and who don't know, but are going to go through it in the year ahead, and that's all part of building that foundation. Thank you so much for sharing with us this weekend. Let's thank her together.

You know what, I love, Janie, what you shared about the presence of Christ, because that's how she remembered a scripture, but then it pointed her to the living presence of Christ in the moment, and that's the whole point. You know, Jesus said, "You search the scriptures because you believe that they bring you life," but the scriptures point to me. That's the point of this all, that the end is to get to know Jesus Christ. The end is that the Word points us to the living Word, Jesus. The point is not to memorize the Bible. The point is that that's the foundation that sees you through the rough times, because it points you to Jesus, who is there with you through it all.

And in fact, that's one of the reasons we're wrapping up this kickoff message today with communion, because we're saying, "God, we're kicking off 40 days in the Word, but we're not holding up the Bible as the end. The Bible leads us to you for eternal life. So, Lord, lead us to the cross even as we start this series." Let's pray and dedicate communion to Him right now.

Heavenly Father, thank you so much for Your Word. And, God, we want to build our lives on the rock, not on sand. We want to build our lives on Your Word, which leads us to the living Word, Jesus Christ. And so, God, I just want to commit the next 40 days to You that You would help our church establish a firm foundation for the inevitable storm so that we're led to You, Jesus, even as we go through times of trouble. And with heads still bowed, as we're taking communion, if you've never invited Jesus into your life, I invite you to make this communion your first communion as a believer, just to settle the issue and say, "Jesus, I ask You to come into my life and save me, forgive me, help me learn to love You and trust You, but I receive You into my life right now as I remember Your sacrifice on the cross. In Jesus' name, amen.