Speaker: Well, I'm gonna give the spoiler away.
Right off the bat, this sermon is going to be about reading your Bible more.
And so now that that's out of the way, let's talk about the why.
Uh, you've probably heard sermons before, uh, about reading your Bible more, and
maybe you're preparing for that one again and, and to prepare to walk out and,
and feel guilty or feel ashamed or feel.
Well, the pastor just is, is telling me to do this because he just wants me to do
this so that he can say that he's got more people reading the Bible in the church.
That's not the why this morning.
The why I want you to read your Bible more is because if you will commit to
reading your Bible more in 2026, it will be the greatest investment that you make.
You will have no other investment that will yield a greater return than the
investment of you committing to being in God's word every single day in 2026.
And when I say that, that's what I mean every single day in 2026.
The, the, the word of God as, as Jesus himself attested.
And, and he did that by quoting Deuteronomy chapter eight, as Jesus
is in the wilderness being tempted.
What did Jesus respond?
He said, man shall not live by, by bread alone, but what?
But on every word that comes from the mouth of God.
And so what Jesus is doing there and what Moses did back in Deuteronomy
under the inspiration of the Spirit is he's equating our need for spiritual
nourishment with our need for daily nourishment, the, the nourishment
of, of eating the food that we eat.
And so there is no greater investment that you will make in 2026 besides committing
to being in God's word every single day.
Some of the benefits that you'll see in being in God's word every single
day in the next year is gonna be these, you're, you're gonna overcome sin.
That you've been battling for years, you're gonna strengthen
your relationships with other Christians, with other believers.
You'll grow in humility and love for the gospel.
You'll have a, a bolder confidence about your standing with the Lord.
You'll have a bolder witness to the unbelievers in your midst.
You'll have a, a greater wisdom and discernment as you navigate
the trials and the decisions that you have to make in life.
You'll be less anxious about things in life and, and probably
most importantly, in fact.
Absolutely.
Most importantly, you'll have a greater love for Jesus and a closer
relationship with him as well.
Time in God's word is the greatest investment you will make in 2026.
Bar none, nothing else will pay greater dividends than the time that you
put into reading God's word in 2026.
We're gonna be in Proverbs chapter two to find out some more of the
the why behind this together.
Proverbs chapter two is the, the section of Proverbs that is,
is still King Solomon writing.
And, and he's primarily addressing his sons in his wisdom here that he's giving.
But before we get to the payoff of the investment, the first thing
that we have to wrestle with is the effort of the investment itself.
And that's what, so Proverbs, that's what Solomon begins with here in verse one.
He says this, he says, my son, if you receive my words and treasure
up my commandments within you.
Making your ear attentive to wisdom and inclining your heart to understanding.
Yes.
If you call out for insight and raise your voice for understanding,
if you seek it like silver and search for it as hidden treasures,
you're expecting the then, right?
Because we're conditioned that way.
It's a conditional statement.
He says, if and when, whenever we say, if you do these
things, then this will happen.
Well, we're gonna get to the then, but what I want us to
f first focus on is the, if.
That for you to get more out of your walk with Christ this next year, there is an if
that's contained within that, if you want to have a closer relationship with Jesus,
if you want to feel a greater intimacy with him next year, then, then there's
an, if there's an investment, there's an effort that needs to be given on our side.
Look at some of the things that he says here.
Just look at the words, the, the verbs that he uses.
He says, if you receive my words.
In other words, if you come with a humble posture, with a teachable heart to the
word of God, if you will receive them.
Now, Solomon says, my words, he, he talks about his commandments as well, and
for Solomon, he would've primarily been thinking about the Old Testament Torah.
That is the first five books of the Bible, because that's the
only Bible that Solomon had.
And so Solomon, as he's talking about his wisdom and the commandments
and the laws, he's thinking about the Mosaic law, the Torah.
But you and I sitting here today can extrapolate further than that
to assume that he would've been okay with us, assuming that this
applies to all of the word of God.
In fact, in verse six, Solomon is going to say this.
He's gonna say, for the Lord gives wisdom.
And so any place that we find the Lord having given us wisdom,
which would contain all 66 books of the Bible, we should say, okay,
we need to receive those words.
We need to come to the word of God with a humble heart, with a teachable heart, with
a humble posture before the word of God.
But then he goes on and he says this, treasure up my commandments within you.
Not only have you received them, but if you treasure them up within you, this
is the internalization of God's word.
As, as we come to the word of God, as we seek wisdom from God, it's one
thing for us to just let our eyes kind of glaze over the words on the page.
Maybe in school you had an assignment, you have to read this book by this due date.
And so you set your book in front of a fan maybe, and you just let
the fan blow the pages and, and you thought, well, technically my eyes
saw all the words in the books.
And so check the box.
I read the book, I can sign off on that.
That's not the way we should treat God's word.
If your motivation to read God's word is simply to check a box and to
say, well, I did it, I, I I did it.
That that's not a relationship that's legalism and that's
also not gonna benefit.
You we're meant to, and God's designed us to be those that internalized God's
word to treasure his commandments within us, to consider them worth
something that is valuable, that we would say, man, I want as much of
this in me as I can possibly get to desire the word of God to that level.
But then he goes on and he says, making your ear attentive to wisdom and inclining
your heart to understanding the, these are two phrases that imply an intentionality
that's required on our part.
That's we have to approach the word of God with great purpose and great
intention behind it, that we're not prone to want the word of God in our flesh.
We're prone to run from the word of God.
And so he says, making your ear attentive to wisdom.
That's part of the equation.
Think about James.
When James talks about the word of God, he says, let us not only
be hearers of the word, but also what doers of the word of God.
In fact, if you grew up in my house with like my five kids did,
you would know from a very early age that we taught them to listen.
And what do you think the next word is?
Listen and obey.
I was in pre preach and I had two of my kids over there and, and they
were sitting in the classroom and I said, I raised my kids to listen.
And they both filled in the blank, obey.
So mission accomplished.
Like at least they knew it.
We will say that much, right?
But making your IR attentitive to wisdom.
When we come to the word of God, we don't just come to the word of God
just to hear it for knowledge's sake.
We don't come to the word of God just to read it and be like, well, I know more.
We come to the word of God to read it and then be transformed by it.
And the way that we're transformed by the word of God is when it works itself
out in the way that we live our lives.
And how we obey it and how we apply it to our lives.
So making your IRR attentitive to wisdom.
And then he says this in inclining your heart to understanding that
word inclining means to bend towards.
We are not naturally inclined towards the word of God, like I said a moment ago.
Because why?
'cause the word of God as the writer of Hebrew says, is
that sharp two-edged sword.
It's the surgeon scalpel in our lives.
And so often God, by his spirit, uses the word to open us up and to show us
areas that we need to battle sin and put sin off and be more Christ-like.
And that's such a good thing.
And I hope to show us that in just a moment here, that that's so good
for our relationship and our love for Jesus, but at the same time,
in our flesh does not like that.
And so we need to incline our heart.
We need to intentionally purpose ourselves, to give ourselves over, to
bend our heart towards the godly wisdom that's contained there in his word.
All of this implies effort.
We're talking in this message about fail-proof investing.
Uh, if you're looking for our financial advice, don't come to me.
But if you're looking for spiritual advice.
I'm, I'm happy to help you on that one.
Failproof investing starts with making the investment right?
If you wanna return on an investment, you're not gonna get
a return if you don't have the investment to put up to begin with.
This morning, the investment that we're talking about is you committing
to saying, in 2026, I'm going to be in God's word every single day.
That's gonna inquire or require effort from you.
It's gonna require sacrifice from you.
It's gonna require you inclining your heart towards
it when you don't feel like it.
It's gonna require you getting in God's word on those days
when you'd rather just not.
But you're gonna do it because you know that it's gonna be worth it.
But to get the return on investment, you have to have the investment to begin with.
So our first point this morning is this Convi.
Commit to the investment of daily Bible reading.
Back in our passage in Proverbs two, he says this in three through four, he says
he ask if you call out notice again that, that this is our effort, our investment.
We are calling out for insight.
We are raising our voice for understanding.
If you seek it like silver and search for it as hidden treasures.
Uh, my wife and I in, in our family lived in Arizona for a while.
We were in East Mesa, if you're familiar with the area, almost Apache Junction.
So all, all as far out in Mesa as you possibly can get.
But there was a mountain range and it was a beautiful mountain range and we
could see it from our, our yard and it was called the Superstition Mountains.
And just a gorgeous range of, of rocky crags and everything else.
And there was a legend that, there was a fortune that was contained there.
There was a lost gold mine that a guy found and he had not yet tapped it out.
And then he died and he left a treasure map to try to find this.
And so there was every year people that would put on their backpacks and
go into the Superstition Mountains and they were looking for the lost mind.
In fact, I think it even got a, a TV show at one point in time and there
were a few episodes of that as well.
I don't know if there was ever a mine or if it was just a myth, but the people
that went, they put in a lot of effort to get out there, especially during the
Arizona summers when it's 119 degrees and you're putting on a backpack and you're
carrying your water bottles in there and you're bearing up the heat and you're
doing all of that, all for what purpose?
For the hope that maybe you'll stumble upon a fortune.
Yo.
When it comes to God's word, the effort is always worth it because the
fortune is guaranteed to be there.
The treasure's there.
It's God's word.
In fact, it's, it's so much, is it there?
Listen to what Solomon says about the, the word of God, about wisdom,
about the, the source here of our pursuit of wisdom and godliness.
Here he says this in Proverbs one, just one chapter earlier from
where we are, verses 20 through 21.
He says, wisdom cries aloud in the street.
In the markets.
She raises her voice at the head of the noisy streets.
She cries out at the entrance of the city gates.
She speaks.
In other words, Solomon is trying to get his children, his sons,
to understand if you want the wisdom of God, it's not hiding.
She's there.
The question is, are you looking?
Are you searching?
And so church, part of our commitment to the investment of being in God's
word every single day in 2026 is, is leading the search party for the riches
of God's word every single morning.
Getting outta bed intent on opening up God's word and saying, I know
there's treasure to be found here because God's word tells me the
treasure is to be found there.
I wonder if somebody were to tell you, Hey, over at the brand new HEB over
here in Prosper, uh, they're doing a, a, a thing this next year for 2026.
They are giving out a hundred dollars to anyone who shows up at 7:00 AM in the
parking lot at HEB and Prosper for 2026.
My guess is your alarm would be set for earlier than it usually is.
You'd be willing to get up.
You'd be willing to put in the effort to wake up 30 minutes earlier to make
yourself somewhat presentable, to get in the car, to go out in public.
You'd be willing to drive to the HEB and Prosper no matter where
you lived, around the area so that you could get out of your car.
You'd be willing to go wait in the long line with everybody else that heard about
this deal to also what, so you could get a hundred dollars a day for free.
Why?
Why would you do that?
Because it's worth it to you, because there's a payoff.
There's something that you're getting out of it that's worth
the investment, worth the effort.
Y'all.
What we have in God's word is worth more than a hundred dollars a day
from HEB, what you have in God's Word.
If you will spend every day in God's Word in 2026, the payoff will be
greater than what you get from, Hey, here's a hundred dollars a day from
HEB, by the way, that's not happening.
Don't show up at HEB and be like my pastor said, I don't want them coming after me.
But a major part of the equation at this point in time for us to, to
really wrestle with church is this.
Do you consider the investment to be worth it?
That's not something that I can answer for you.
I can exhort you as your pastor and say, Hey, I want you to be in God's
word every single day for 2026.
In fact, we're trying to remove as many roadblocks as possible for you.
We put the DBR cards in your bulletin, so if you picked up a bulletin,
you've already got these bookmarks and they're meant to have you follow
along with us as we go through this.
Pastor Rod and I do a Daily Bible podcast that you heard about earlier
that's gonna go out every single day.
We're trying to make this as accessible and easy for you as we possibly can, and
yet we know that you won't do it if you don't see that it's worth it in the end.
And so the question you have to ask is, is it worth it to get up 30 minutes earlier?
I I, is it worth it to delete the social media apps that steal the time from
you that you say you don't have, when really you do have it, you just waste it?
Is it worth it for you to get an accountability partner, somebody
that's really good at being consistent in the time of the words?
So they're gonna be on you every day going, Hey, how's
your time in the word today?
What'd you learn from the the DBR today?
I, I can't answer those questions for you.
You have to decide in your own heart that it is worth it.
Now, let me just point you to scripture for a minute.
If I can't, just to remind you that scripture does
tell us that it is worth it.
Scripture testifies to it, to us itself of its own value and worth.
Psalm one 19 verse 72, the law of your mouth is better to me than
thousands of gold and silver pieces.
Psalm 1 19, 1 27.
Therefore, I love your commandments.
Above gold, above fine gold.
Psalm 1910 more to be desired are they than gold?
Even much fine gold, sweeter also than honey, and the drippings of the
honeycomb scripture tells us that the treasures that it contains are worth it.
The wealth of God's word is ready to yield itself to you.
This next year.
The question is, are you ready and willing to make the investment?
Do you believe what scripture says about itself?
Are you ready to receive the words?
Are you ready to treasure up the commandments within you?
Are you making your ear attentive to God's word?
Are you ready to incline your heart with that purposefulness, that
intentionality every morning to pursue understanding of his word?
Are you looking to to call out to the Lord for greater insight and understanding?
Are you going to raise your voice for that understanding?
Are you gonna seek for it like silver?
Are you gonna search for it?
As for Hidden Treasures, our DBR plan starts on Thursday.
You don't have to wait to 2026 to to get into God's word to
start making this investment.
In fact, I would say don't jump in now, wherever that may be for you, but I do
wanna give you some suggestions to help.
'cause I know this can be a barrier.
In fact, if you're trying to go from zero to a hundred on this, you may be
thinking, man, every day, number one, lemme just tell you you can do it.
You can do it, I promise you, you can do it.
This is not outta the reach of any single person in this room.
You can make 2026 in the year that you are in God's word every single day.
Number two, pick a spot in a time.
Spend this time when when things are a little bit slower between
Christmas and New Year's.
Pick a spot in a time that's gonna work for you to be in
God's word every single day.
But here's the thing, don't pick the spot in the time that works
right now when life is slow.
I want you to think about when your life is gonna be busy.
I want you to think about the busiest season that you're gonna have in 2026.
As much as you can anticipate that, and I want you to think about a spot
in a time that will work for that season and make that your spot in time,
because if it works in that season, it's gonna work in the rest of the year.
So pick a spot, pick a time.
Third, pick a Bible.
You might think, well, duh, if I'm going to read the Bible every
day, I need to pick a Bible.
But pick a Bible you're gonna wanna be in.
Pick a Bible that you're gonna say, man, I, I love the, the, the copy that I have.
I love the version that I have.
I want to be in God's word.
I know a lot of people are, are looking at some bibles and going, why would
you spend so much money on a Bible?
Um, how much money do we spend on these every year?
Oh, well, that's different.
Consider everything, all the benefits that we have in this phone.
Okay.
How about we consider all the benefits that we have here?
This, you're gonna trade in in a couple years.
This, you get to keep for a lifetime.
In fact, one of the things that's kind of cool, let me just cast this
vision for our dads in the room.
We're, we're big on, on men leading their homes.
Well, in our, our church dads, think about this.
Grandfathers.
Think about this.
If you invest in a good Bible with some wide margins, think about the notes that
you could write down in that Bible and then pass that on to your kids or your
grandkids and future generations for them to be able to see the way that the
spirit was working on your life and glean from your wisdom and the experiences that
you've had, what a treasure that would be.
So pick a Bible, all that to say, a Bible that you're gonna want to be in every day
for the next year, third or fourth, pick a friend or two to hold you accountable.
Find somebody that's really good at being in God's word, not somebody that
struggles to be in God's word, because then you'll just have an accountability
commiseration party, and you guys know what those are Like, oh, did
you not read the Bible today either?
Yeah, I didn't either.
Well, I guess next time, which on that note, if you miss a day or two, it's okay.
If you miss two or three, four days, it's okay.
You're not a failure.
The failure is then saying, well, I'm just gonna wait until next
year when it's January 15th.
I'll read the Bible next year.
I missed a couple days.
No, no, no.
Get back into God's word.
Just pick it up.
Get back in.
I saw a meme recently where a guy was like, you know what?
To hold myself accountable to running.
I'm committing to running an extra 20 minutes for every day I don't run.
And he's like, I'm supposed to run for four weeks today.
Sometimes we can feel that way with the Bible, right?
It's like we we're on a Bible plan and if we miss a few days in the plan,
we feel this need to, to go back and make up because we're perfectionists.
Don't be the perfectionist.
It's okay.
Jump in where you are.
If you can, if you've got the time to, to make up and go back and read, then great.
And you wanna do that, awesome.
Do that.
But if that's gonna hinder you from, from jumping in and picking back up and, and
staying consistent, don't worry about it.
Jump in where we're at and keep going.
Keep reading God's word.
It's gonna pay dividends.
And then finally, and not to make this a shameless plug, but, but we do it for you.
Listen to the DBR podcast with us.
You can find it on Apple, you can find it on Spotify, you can find
it on the, the, the different podcast providers, pastor Rod and I.
They're usually 15 to 20, probably 20 minute episodes, pretty consistently
there, uh, where we walk through the passages that we're reading for that
day and try to pull out a couple of nuggets to help, uh, take some things
away and just apply it to our lives.
So join with us and follow along in, in the podcast with us all this to say y'all
to, to get a return on an investment, you have to make an investment.
And so this investment, like I said at the very beginning, is the most
important investment you'll make in 2026, because the return will be better
than any other return that you'll get.
Making the effort to get in God's word every single day with us.
One of the greatest evidences, or one of the greatest returns that you'll
have in that process is gonna be what it does to your relationship with Jesus.
It's going to produce change in your life that's gonna draw you closer to Jesus.
Think about why we do hard things.
We do them for the reward, right?
You exercise for the healthier body, you study for the better grade.
You work long hours to get the paycheck at the end of the pay period.
Well, like those things.
If we will give ourselves to the sometimes difficult pursuit of wisdom,
it will also pay dividends in our lives.
Look at verse five as we go back to our text in proverb chapter two.
Here he says, then, okay, so we have the if, remember the, the contingency.
If you do these things, now we get to the dens, then you will
understand the fear of the Lord.
Look down at verse nine.
Then you will understand righteousness and justice.
Look at verse 16, so you will be delivered from the forbidden woman.
Look at verse 20.
So you will walk in the way of the good.
Now we're beginning to see some of the payoff.
I I, if we will mind the word of God for the riches and
treasures that are in there.
These are the things that it's gonna do for us.
For example, like those first two that I just mentioned, then you
will understand the fear of the Lord and find the knowledge of God.
And verse nine kind of helps us understand some of the fear of the Lord there.
That is, that we would understand righteousness and justice
inequity in every good path.
And so one of the byproducts of our time in the Word of God, one of the, the
returns that we get from our investment that is, is that we will have a greater
fear of the Lord or possess a, a greater understanding of the fear of the Lord.
The fear of the Lord is, is one of those subjects that is kind of,
that, that christianese category.
We, we talk about it a lot without really fully being able to define
what does it mean to fear the Lord?
Well, the fear of the Lord can be likened to a, a, a good
loving father with his children.
In this sense, my kids as, as I raised them, and I, and I wasn't a perfect
father, I'm, I'm still raising them, so I, I guess I'm still not a perfect father.
Um, but they knew that dad was the disciplinarian.
They understood that when mom said, wait till dad gets home, that
meant behavior change really fast.
They understood that about me, and yet at the same time, even though they
feared my hand of discipline, they didn't fear me when I walked in the
door and, and the day had gone well.
They still don't, they'll run up and they'll gimme a hug and they'll come and
greet me in the morning and gimme a hug.
My, my oldest one doesn't anymore 'cause he's too cool for school.
But, um, my younger ones do.
I think my daughter always will, and they, they love me and I love them and so their
fear of discipline, of, of crossing a line or of, of disobeying or of transgressing
in that sense, that doesn't keep them from enjoying the warmth of my love for them.
That doesn't keep them from enjoying my care for them.
In some sense, their fear of discipline, it, it has the opposite
effect of what you might think.
It doesn't drive them away from me, it actually drives them closer to me because
it's, it's their fear of discipline that causes them to conduct themselves in such
a way that's better for my relationship with them and their relationship with me.
And that's what the fear of God does for us church.
It, it causes us to think, man, I don't want to cross a
divine and holy and just God.
I want to live in a devo devoted life to him because I, I love
him and I enjoy closeness to him.
And so because of that, I want to obey him.
I want to pursue him.
I wanna be devoted to him.
And that that fear of the discipline of God, which God does discipline,
those whom he loves, that fear of the discipline of God is not gonna drive
me from him, but it's actually gonna result in drawing me closer to him.
And that's what Solomon is saying.
Our commitment to our investment of, in God's word, does for us as Christians.
It produces more of a fear of God in us, which in turn is
gonna draw us closer to the Lord.
There are benefits that come with the fear of God.
Here's just a handful of them that I found from these Old Testament passages.
The fear of the Lord Job says in Job 28.
28, that's wisdom.
Proverbs 10 27, the fear of the Lord, it prolongs life.
Proverbs, Proverbs 1426.
The fear of the Lord has the result of giving us a strong confidence before him.
Proverbs 1516.
Better is a little bit with the fear of the Lord.
The fear of the Lord can lead to contentment.
Proverbs 1923, the fear of the Lord leads to life and whoever has it rest, satisfied
Again, that measure of contentment there.
And then Proverbs 22, 4, the reward for humility and the fear of the
Lord is riches and honor and life.
Again, look back at verse five, then you'll understand the fear of the
Lord if, if you make the investment.
If you put the effort in one of the returns is you'll understand the
fear of the Lord and understanding more of the fear of the Lord is
gonna draw you closer to the Lord.
It's gonna draw you closer to Christ, make you love Jesus more, and experience more
of the warmth of His presence as well.
God promises some pretty amazing blessings that are gonna accompany
our time in the word if we're willing to make the investment.
That question though comes back to it.
Are we willing to make the investment?
Is the trade off worth it of waking up a little bit earlier?
Of pushing through some of the times where the word is hard to understand
of staying consistent even during the busy times in life, is it worth it?
And I would say, I hope we begin to see that it is because the why
behind our time in God's Word.
Point number two this morning is this.
Remember the why behind your daily Bible reading.
Remember why we're doing this.
The why that I want you to zoom in on at least right now, is the fact that
this draws you closer to the Lord.
This, it stirs your affections for Jesus.
It gives you a greater intimacy with Christ because it gives
you a greater fear of God.
Proverbs two, six through eight in our passage as it continues, it says
this, for the Lord, gives wisdom.
From his mouth comes knowledge and understanding.
He stores up sound wisdom for the upright.
He's a shield to those who walk in integrity, guarding the paths of justice
and watching over the way of his saints.
All of these things that the, the, the, the way that the time and the word
protects us and, and gives us wisdom and knowledge and, and guards our paths.
And yet what I want you to focus on is there.
Verse six.
For the Lord gives wisdom.
Again, the wisdom is, is found in him.
So church, go to the Lord for the that wisdom, cultivate that greater
relationship with him by being in God's word, not just occasionally, but daily.
Get there.
Charles Spurgeon said, visit many good books, but live in the Bible.
Live in the Bible.
You can glean wisdom from devotional books, you can glean knowledge
from commentaries, but the, the source of any of those blessings.
Is gonna be the word of God.
That's the font.
That's the, the, the,
the, the headwaters of the river of God's.
Wisdom is the word of God.
It's like this.
My guess is everybody in the room likes McDonald's.
It's just whether or not you're brave enough to admit it publicly.
I do.
We're going on a road trip.
We're, we'll stop at McDonald's at someplace, I'm sure of it.
You could say, I've got some money.
Somebody gave me some money and and said, why don't you take this and invest it?
So you could say, you know what?
McDonald's is doing pretty well for itself.
They're still serving, you know, billions upon billions of burgers every day.
So I'm gonna invest my money somewhere.
With McDonald's, you could say, you know what, they make hamburgers, so
that means they need hamburger buns.
So I'm gonna find out who the BUN provider is for McDonald's.
I'm gonna invest in that company because they're gonna do well,
because McDonald's is doing well.
Or you could say, you know what, I'm gonna invest in the McDonald's
pickles because they're doing well.
They put pickles on everything.
I'm gonna invest in the McDonald's pickle maker, so I'm gonna find out
who the pickle maker is, and I'm gonna put my money with the, the pickle
maker because they're doing well, because McDonald's is gonna do well.
Or you could say, you know what?
I'm gonna invest in onions because McDonald's throws onions in.
I'm gonna invest in that person.
See, you can invest in, in them or the, the people that provide
the cups for McDonald's or the naps, napkins for McDonald's.
And you could say they're all gonna do well.
Why?
Because McDonald's is doing well.
Or you could say, you know what?
Why don't I just go to McDonald's and invest in McDonald's?
That's the cash cow.
That's the source of why all these other companies are doing well.
In fact, these other companies might tank.
McDonald's isn't gonna tank.
If the hamburger bun provider goes down, McDonald's is just gonna find another one.
McDonald's is still gonna be okay.
So for me, the best bet for my money is gonna be to go to the source.
Then if you've got some leftover, you wanna invest in
pickles, fine invest in pickles.
But your best bet is to invest in the source.
When it comes to our time, we do have limited time, and we do need
to understand that as Christians, we've got 24 hours in the day.
You've got a lot of different responsibilities.
So when you think of the time that you have to invest in growing in Christ's
likeness, invest in growing, in your knowledge of God, make sure that
you're investing in the source first and foremost, which is God's word.
John Piper's got a lot of great wisdom, but John Piper would stand up here today
and be like, if, if it's between me and the Bible, choose the Bible every time.
Right.
Get to the word, get to the source.
Get to the headwaters of the wisdom of God.
That's where you're gonna get the greatest return on investment.
The Lord gives wisdom.
Take the Bible each and every day this year and get to the Lord.
Go to the Lord in search of the wisdom.
It's gonna produce the fear of God in your life, which you're gonna draw you
closer into that relationship with him.
In Ecclesiastes, Solomon says, the words are given by one shepherd.
Listen, y'all, there's gonna be times this year though that is
gonna be hard, and I get that.
There's gonna be times you're gonna come to a passage, you're
gonna say, this is confusing.
Or you're gonna come to a passage and you're gonna say, man,
this is just a list of names.
Or You're gonna come to a passage.
And if I can be so sacrilegious to suggest, you might even be bored.
And those are the times that it's gonna be hard for you to stay consistent.
And the temptation might be to say, well, you know what, I, I, I'm
just not gonna read this section.
I'm just not gonna go to it today because it's too hard.
It's, I don't understand it, or I, I'm just bored by it.
Let me encourage you.
Those are the times more than any other that you need to remember
the why behind our daily Bible reading and, and the payoff.
And it's like this New Year's right around the corner, you're gonna go to
the gym and, and maybe it's the first time you've been to the gym in a long
time, and you're gonna go in there and you're gonna get your workout in and
you're gonna leave it all on the floor and you're gonna feel like you are sw
as Arnold Schwartzen Schwarzenegger.
If you're a guy, at least maybe not the ladies.
And you're gonna go home and you're gonna be like, I can't wait to
see the differences this has made.
You're gonna go look in the mirror.
You know what you're gonna see?
Same exact person who left for the gym.
Just a little bit more scraggly and all sweaty.
And you're gonna say, wait a minute, wait a minute.
I, I just worked so hard at the gym.
How can there be no difference?
I quit.
I'm not going the gym anymore.
But here's the thing, if you commit to the gym and you say,
I'm going 365, I'm gonna be there.
You were to take a picture of yourself, like all the good influencers do in the
mirror right before they go to the gym.
If you were to take your, a picture of yourself on day one, and then you were
to take a picture of yourself on day 365, that's when you see the gains, isn't it?
That's when all of a sudden you see that all of those days that you didn't
see the, the, the change happening.
There was change happening.
Your body was being transformed spiritually.
Y'all, you need to take a spiritual selfie at the beginning of 2026 and then take
a spiritual selfie at the end of 2026.
And if you commit to being in God's word every single day, even through
the passages that are hard or confusing or boring, you will see the gains
at the end of 2026, and you will see God even in those passages that
I didn't understand your spirit was at work in my life and my heart.
And it's okay to get help in those times in those passages.
Listen to the podcast.
See, seek help from a commentary.
Text us to find out, Hey, pastor pj, pastor Rod, what does this mean?
I'm, I'm trying to figure this one out, but, but stay consistent.
Remember the why behind our daily Bible reading.
'cause the blessings are there.
He goes on in our passage and describes a lot of 'em.
We don't have time to dive into this too much here, but
he, I'll just read it for you.
It says then, 'cause remember, here's the, then if, then.
Then you're gonna understand righteousness and justice and equity in every good path
for wisdom will come into your heart, and knowledge will be pleasant to your soul.
Your affections will be changed.
You'll cultivate a, a taste for, you'll acquire a taste for God's word.
That's gonna make you say, I can't wait to get up in the morning
and get back into God's Word.
Why?
Because it will be pleasant to your soul.
Discretion will watch over you.
Understanding will guard you, delivering you from the way of
peril, from men of perverted speech, forsake the paths of uprightness
and walk in the ways of darkness.
Who rejoice in doing evil and delight in the perverseness of evil
men whose paths are crooked and whose are devious in their ways.
So God's word.
It's all of these benefits that are gonna be there for you.
Wisdom's gonna come into your heart.
Knowledge is gonna be pleasant to your soul.
Discretion will watch over you.
It's gonna guard you from all of these other things as well.
There's so much of a a why for us that can sustain us.
It's not reading the Bible every day.
It's not just divine busy work.
There's a payoff that's gonna be a hundred percent worth the investment
and that the biggest part of that payoff, like I said, is that you will
be more intimate and close with the Lord than you ever have been before.
You'll have a better relationship with Jesus than you've ever had before.
But there's one more payoff that I want us to focus in on here in the
end and, and we began to, to allude to it here in the the last section.
And that is the way that your time in the word is gonna protect
you and keep you safe in 2026.
Look down at verse 16.
In our text it says this, so you will be delivered from the forbidden woman from
the adulterous with her smooth words.
And then look at verse 20.
So you will walk in contrast.
In the way of the good and keep to the paths of the righteous.
Solomon in the Book of Proverbs spends a long time talking about the adulterous
and the immoral woman and, and rightly so.
But what I want us to think about here is whatever the sin may be
that is beset you as a Christian.
Whether it's the lust of the eyes, of the lust of the flesh, or the boastful
pride of life, like John talks about, whatever category that may be for you,
the word of God is key, essential to your victory over those areas in 2026.
And so if you will, give yourself over, if you will commit to, if you
will invest in God's word in 2026, you are gonna see victories in areas
that maybe you haven't seen victories for in, for, in, in, in years.
Because as we're gonna find out, you're gonna be fighting
armed rather than fighting.
Disarmed.
Third and final point this morning is this experience victories because
of daily Bible reading, experience victories because of daily Bible reading.
This is another part of the return on investments.
That makes your investment in God's word a better investment than
your investment in anything else.
In 2026, it's not only gonna improve your relationship with Jesus, but by extension
it's going to make you more like Jesus.
It's gonna make you look more like Jesus.
This is that process of sanctification.
Again, whatever that sin is that may have beset you, whether it's anger or lust,
or greed or laziness or bitterness or unforgiveness or fear of man, if you want
victory in those areas this next year, the the, the daily Bible reading is a
huge step in realizing the freedom that you desire, in fact, a necessary step in
realizing the victory that you desire.
Peter says this, he says, uh, be sober minded and be watchful.
Your adversary, the devil prowls around like a roaring lion
seeking someone to devour Satan.
I don't know what your, your conception of Satan and his demons
are, but it's not the cartoon version.
He's not in hell right now with his pitchfork and his pointy red horns
waiting for people to get there.
Him and his demons are active on this earth and in this world, and the Bible
says that they're not so ostentatious as for you to be able to look at them and
say, that's clearly evil and demonic, and I, I want nothing to do with it.
Rather, what the Bible tells us is that Satan and his demons disguise
themselves as angels of light.
And so Christian understand that you are walking through a minefield and
the minds have been placed by the the enemy who knows your weaknesses.
My suggestion is not that when you sin, you can say,
well, the devil made me do it.
But you should be aware that you have an enemy that knows your weaknesses and will
do everything possible in this world to make it as easy as possible for you to
give into your flesh, which is all the more reason why we have to be in God's
word every single day in the The Armor of God passage of Ephesians chapter six.
Paul says that we are to take up the the full armor of God every single day.
And there's only one offensive weapon in the armor of God.
And you know what it is?
It's God's word.
Take up the sword of the spirit, which is the word of God.
And some of you in this room may have been fighting your battles
unarmed for the last year.
And yeah, you've been praying and you've been seeking accountability,
and you've been going to the Lord, asking for him to remove the desire.
You've been trying to stop the, the drinking or stop the swearing or stop the
lust or whatever it may be, and yet the whole time you've been fighting without
a weapon in your hand, make 20, 26 of the year that you pick up your sword.
Maybe that hilt has been rusted shut and you gotta open that up again.
Maybe the blade has gone dull because you haven't used it, and
you need to, to, to sharpen it and pull it out and start honing it by
getting back into the word of God.
Church, I want you to see that your spiritual vitality depends
upon your time in the word of God.
Who you want to be at the end of 26.
If that person is more like Jesus, you won't be more like Jesus
if you're not in God's word.
This year.
God's word is the medium the Spirit uses to conform us more and
more to the image of Jesus again.
Yeah, in our text, we need to deal with it.
Solomon specifically deals with sexual immorality, and I think he
does that because that is a sin that has beset the people of God.
Almost from the very beginning.
David was ensnared by sexual sin.
Solomon was distracted by his many wives.
It was sexual immorality that led the Israelites to leave off their faithfulness
to God and go after the gods of these other nations in the land of Canaan.
In the New Testament, sexual immorality is listed time and
time again as a vice specifically.
That is one that Christians need to be putting off and having nothing to do with.
And then in the end, even as currently in this, uh, dispensation of our daily Bible
reading, as we're finishing up in the book of Revelation, we're reading about how
sexual immorality is a key component of the kingdom of the Antichrist in the end.
I hate how overly sexualized our culture is and how easy it is to
find the path of the adulterers.
Today, Solomon talks about her path leading to death.
It used to be that that path required a lot of work, but now that path is not in
the back alleys or the bad parts of town.
That path is sitting on our phones and our laptops and our
tablets and our TV screens.
I hate that my kids have to grow up in such an atmosphere as this.
Again, her description, she has smooth words.
She forsakes her, the companion of her youth, meaning she has no
respect or reverence for marriage.
Her house sinks down to death.
None who go to her come back, nor do they regain the paths of life.
Sexual sin when it grips a person has grave consequences.
So much so even that Paul says in one Corinthians six, nine, or do you not know?
That the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God, do not
be deceived, neither the sexually immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers,
nor men who practice homosexuality.
This is a sin church that we need to understand is a, a, a vice that is
prevalent in our culture and society.
And what makes it so insidious is it's a, a vice that can grip someone
and, and they can pursue it without thinking that it's hurting anybody else
or that anybody else needs to know.
And yet it is rotting your soul.
What's the hope?
The hope is God's word.
And so I zero in on that because that is the, the sin that that
Solomon zeroes in on here in our passage, and it is God's word.
If, if you are ensnared in that, you need to fight with the, the
weapon that God has given you to fight, which is the word of God.
And yes, accountability and yes, these other things as well, but we can't leave
the word of God on our, on, on the shelf.
We can't leave the weapon on the, the mantle and walk out into the
battlefield every single day.
We've gotta arm up.
We've gotta fight armed as Christians.
So whether that is lust in sexual sin or whether that is pride or whether
that is, is anger and bitterness and wrath and malice, listen, whatever
it may be, your hope in experiencing victory in 2026 is, is not in just
pulling yourself up by the bootstraps.
Your hope is not in reading a different Christian book on
how to overcome that thing.
Your hope is not in finding another accountability partner.
Your hope is not in a software that you're gonna install on your program.
Your hope is in picking up the word of God, the sword of the spirit,
and going after the enemy with it.
And so church, your investment in God's word will pay dividends because
therein you will find victory like you've never experienced before.
Look at verse 20.
So you will walk in the way of the good and keep to the paths of the righteous.
When you fly, they give the speech.
At the very beginning of the flight, they tell you all about
how to buckle your seatbelt.
Still, they tell us how to do this.
Um, one of the things they talk about though is those lights on the path, you
know, which, which ones I'm talking about, that, that line, the aisle, I don't often
think about those lights, but one of the things they say is an inventive emergency.
The lights will illuminate the path to the exit.
And so, Lord willing, none of us in this room will ever be
involved in a, a plane crash.
But I, I want you to imagine being involved in a plane crash where
you survive and it's pitch black.
In the only light that you can see as you unbuckle yourself because
you, you listened, you buckled your seatbelt as you unbuckle yourself,
the only light you can see is the lights on that aisle leading forward.
And you remember, if I follow those lights, there's safety
there, it'll keep me on the path.
Solomon is telling us that those lights are the words of wisdom
contained in the word of God.
If we will give ourselves over commit to being in the word daily.
We will find that we will be more often than not on the path
that is good and righteous.
And so we want to invest in God's word because our, our spiritual vitality,
our sanctification depends upon it.
There's a recommended reading resource that you have on the back of your, your
worksheet by a guy named Nate Picowitz.
It's my favorite theologian to say Nate Picowitz.
He wrote a book called How to Eat Your Bible.
Hopefully the title is enough to get you to buy it.
Just intrigued.
But he said, here's three things that time and God's word will do for us.
It's gonna change your mind.
It's gonna change your emotions, and it's gonna change your will.
It's gonna change your mind what you think about the knowledge that you have.
It's gonna change your emotions, what you're affectionate for, what you desire,
and it's also gonna change your will, the decisions you make, your volition,
the things that you choose to do.
That's what time and God's word will do for us, and that's one of the ways that it
can pay off in pursuing Christ-likeness.
God's given us his words that, that we will walk in the ways of the good and
keep to the paths of the righteous.
In other words, if you're gonna stay on the narrow path, you need the word of God.
I need the Word of God.
We need the Word of God, not just occasionally, but every single day.
Church isn't the weekly booster shot that you get of God's word to be
able to make it through the rest of the week, you need more than what
I can give you on a Sunday morning.
You need it every single day.
Again, men shall not live by bread alone, but on every word
that comes from the mouth of God.
And so I pray, I Hope Church, that you'll see that in 2026, your investment in
the daily Bible reading is worth it.
You may say, well, I, I have another plan, or I wanna do great.
I'm not saying you can't do more than this.
But I'm asking if, if this is your church home, if I'm your pastor and this is where
you are, I'm, I'm, I'm gonna say, Hey, will, will you do this with us in 2026?
Um, there's a lot of benefit that can come from this if you're involved in a
community group, and I, I, I hope you are.
That's, that's such a key component of the vitality of our body life here.
Think about having all of your community group on the same reading plan together.
How that's gonna help when you're discussing the application questions in
the sermon to say, well, that reminds me of what we read in the dbr R.
And all of y'all read the same thing in the dbr.
Or think about the the way that's gonna help you counsel one another
just to say, Hey, remember what we just read together in the dbr.
Having all of us on the same planet is gonna be so good and so helpful.
Pastor Rod and I are doing the Daily Bible Podcast.
We're committed to doing that every day unless Jesus comes back.
And then hopefully we won't be here to do the Daily Bible
Podcast with you guys anymore.
You can go back and if you're not here.
If you're not here, we'll talk after service about that one.
But you need God's word, all that to say.
And so we're asking you to jump on the dbr r with us and, and follow along
with us in that plan, in that program.
But like I started with it, it requires effort.
It requires the investment, it requires a commitment, and there's
gonna be times it's not easy, and yet it's gonna be worth it.
It's gonna be the single greatest investment you make in 2026.
Let's pray.
God, we thank you so much that we have your word.
What an amazing reality.
It is that you are the God of creation, the Lord of the universe, and yet
you condescended to make yourself known in a language that we can read
and understand, at least in part.
We don't pretend to know everything there is to know about you or
everything there is to know about your word, but what an amazing reality
and what a glorious truth it is.
That year, after year after year, we can come back to the Bible and read it
again and learn more about who you are.
Lord, we confess that we have not fully treasured the word the way that
we should or thought of it as, as valuable as perhaps that we should.
But God, I, I pray that in 2026 you would give us a, a greater
love for it, a greater desire for it, a greater hunger for it.
That would not be satiated by anything other than spending time
every single day in your scriptures.
And Lord, I do pray that we would be able to see the gains
to look at who we were day one.
And then to look at what 365 days in the gym of your word and letting your
spirit go to work in our hearts has done.
As we look back on that, as Lord willing, we get to 2027 and think about
what the next year will look like.
What may this be the year that all of us dive into your word like never before.
And may you do great things through We pray in Jesus' name, amen.