Word before World

Last night, we already started talking about the Word, the importance of God's Word. And I was fired up after hearing Nancy talk about Psalm 119. And then Kevin talking about Genesis 3. There were so many things that I realized that God opened my eyes to in His Word, in passages that I have read over and over and over in the past, because His Word is living and active. And that's what we're going to be talking about today.

What does it mean to put the Word before the world? Because I'm sure almost everybody in here has heard the idea that should have a quiet time. We should be reading our Bibles each day. And if we're not careful, we'll become like Nancy described last night: where we are numb to the power of God's Word. We become numb to the absolute amazingness of Jesus Christ.

Well, my hope today, as I share from John chapter 1—so if you've got your Bibles or your phones, I know a lot of us are using that—go ahead and open to John chapter 1. My prayer is that we would walk away from this session in awe of God's Word and, even more importantly, that we would walk away in love with our Savior.

So I want to begin today, actually going back to 2018. This was a year where I realized that I had a pattern in my life of discontentment, of discouragement, and of constantly feeling like I could not focus my heart or my mind on God's Word. And so, at the end of the year, one thing I love to do at the end of each year is to look back at the year before and go, “Okay, what are some things that were not working well in the past year, and what are some things that I feel like God is calling me to do in the year ahead?”

Well, as I began to look at it, kind of like a doctor going, “What's underneath this pattern of discouragement and discontentment and despair in my life?” I realized that I was living a world-driven, phone-based life. How many of you feel like this little phone is just an added appendage to your body? Because in the 2000s, when phones became so popular, we have not realized how vital they've become to our lives, but also how detrimental they can be to our spiritual lives.

God opened my eyes to see how my phone was distracting me from what mattered most. I would wake up each morning, and I would have my alarm on my phone. So I would open up and I would see all my notifications and read the emails that had come overnight. I would scroll social media and read the news. And by the time my feet hit the floor and I started the day, I was so discouraged, because I had placed my mind on all the problems that I was going to face that day without going to the One who is the answer.

And then, in the middle of the day, when life felt stressful and my children needed me, and there was work and errands and all the things, I would then pick up that little phone and search for some sort of escape—something that would kind of help my mind melt away all the stresses and anxieties. And then, at nighttime, I would go to bed and I would scroll my phone, and then I would have a restless night of sleep.

Well, God graciously showed me that living, putting the world before the Word, will never lead to the joy—and, as Revive Our Hearts talks about, the freedom, fullness, and the fruitfulness that God created us for.

And I know I'm not alone in this struggle, because if you have not noticed, this room is pretty full of women from all different places, all different ages, and yet we still know that there is a hole in our hearts that only Jesus can fill. You may be running on empty as you cme in here, you're pouring out. There's a lot of you in here that are women's ministry leaders at your churches, or you're leading a Bible study, or you just have these little disciples beneath your feet every day who are in your home—and you're empty.

My prayer is that right now, you would bring that emptiness to Jesus. And I trust that, because His Word never returns formless or void, He is going to speak and He's going to show us more of who He is.

Here's a reality: every single day, we have a choice to make. Will we put the world first, or the Word first? What are we going to allow to shape our thoughts and our affections and our devotion?

Are we going to allow all of the data on our phones to shape us, or God's unchanging Word? I actually realized how detrimental this is whenever I was looking at my screen time data. When my phone rolled out that feature, and then all of a sudden, you start getting this at the end of the week: “This is your average daily data.”

Because a lot of times, we don't realize where we're spending our time until we're able to take a step back. I found some research that says that we spend over five hours a day on our phones, but when you go to Gen Z, they're spending seven hours or more. So if you were to add that up, that would amount to seventy days a year—from, I mean, every single moment—two months of the year where we're looking at a little tiny screen, and it's shaping us.

It's forming us into somebody we want to be—women who are transformed by God's Word. We are a Word-driven people because God created us to know Him through His unchanging Word. The difference between a life lived with purpose, peace, and a gospel-shaped perspective is who or what we choose to put first.

So the title of this, of today's message, is very simple. It's “Word Before World.” And my hope in the title is that those three little words can be catchy and memorable. So that when you do wake up and you feel that pull—it would be so much easier just to open up my phone right now, instead of opening God's Word—that God would bring those words to mind: a Word before World, Jesus over everything.

So our roadmap for this session—you have a little handout, and it's pretty simple—so there's lots of things you can add to the notes. But in case you are a note person and you're nervous that you're going to miss one of the blanks—because I've been there, and you're like, you leave the session going, “What was number three? Does anybody know what number three was?”—I'm going to go ahead and tell you our three points, because we're going to go deep into it.

So the first is: the Word is eternal. Our second point in our roadmap is: the Word is powerful. Our third point is: the Word is full of grace and truth.

Delighting in Jesus, the Word made flesh, is like feasting on a steak dinner. After you have been snacking on cotton candy, once you have the steak dinner, you realize that cotton candy doesn't taste that good. This is what nourishes my soul. Because social media will fade away. The news will constantly be updating. And if you haven't noticed yet, the news is not going to report on the happy things in the world, right? The books on Amazon that you have to read—the self-help books, all the things—they're constantly updating. But it is this Word that has the power to change your life.

The Word of the Lord endures forever. And this Word points us to a person, and His name is Jesus.

So let's pray before we begin. Father, Your Word is life. There is no other word that can be described as living and active, as sharper than a two-edged sword. Your Word is a gift to us that we may know You by. And Lord, I pray that if our hearts have become numb to the glory of the gospel, to Your truths, Your testimonies, Your law, Your promises, God, I pray that You would startle us awake today. Father, I pray that Christ would be glorified as we open up Your Word, and that You would show us how to pick up our spiritual fork and to feast upon Your Word day after day. In the name of Jesus, I pray. Amen.

So when my family is on a road trip, one of our favorite stops is Buc-ee’s. Have you heard of Buc-ee’s? Okay, now I know there has to be somebody in this room who has no idea what Buc-ee’s is, so I'm going to explain it a little bit. Think of the world's largest gas station. It's basically like a mini amusement park.

And as you've been driving and you're so tired of being cooped up in the car, I cannot tell you the excitement of being like, “A Buc-ee’s is coming up! We can stop and we can get out and stretch our legs. It's easy to get gas. And when you go inside, there's so much food and snacks and all the things you could ever want. They have Dr Pepper slushies. It's so good.

Well, what? One of my favorite billboards I've ever seen for a Buc-ee’s—because if you live near one, you know they're pretty good at billboards—read: Wasn't no potty like a Buc-ee’s potty. If you've been there, you know it's true.

Well, every time we stop at a Buc-ee’s, we always get the same snacks. I'm the Dr. Pepper slushy girl, and my children always get a bag of Buc-ee’s cotton candy and a slushie. That's one of those things where they put a little bit of every flavor, and it looks like mucky brown and black at the end. And that's their favorite snack.

We get in the car. We've had our little Buc-ee’s stop, and they start snacking on it. And even though I tell them, “Do not drink that whole slushie and eat all that cotton candy at once. You will not feel good,” every single time, they do. Every single time.

And you know what ends up happening? They get a stomach ache, because drinking a slushie like that in the car and a bag of cotton candy is a recipe for disaster. Because the truth is, Buc-ee’s is not the place to go for a nourishing, strengthening meal.

The same is true, though, for our intake of words each day. Our souls are hungry. They're ravenous. We want to know the truth. We have doubts and fears and questions, and yet we turn to every other place other than this place, this Word that God has given us.

Did you know that the average person encounters about 100,000 words per day? Now, if you have young kids, I'm going to up that by like 10,000 with all the questions that they add in.

And yet, the American Bible Society did research in 2024, and it revealed that only about 40% of adults read the Bible. But here's the kicker: that's only three to four days a year when they attend church. On average, it's only about 16% that say they read the Bible daily.

We are in this room because we know this Word is life, and yet it can be so easy to turn everywhere else. We're consuming words just like that cotton candy, and they may give us a sugary, delightful dopamine hit—for just that little moment, that brief amount of time—but they leave our souls empty, malnourished. They leave us wanting more.

Sisters, God has given us the greatest gift of salvation in His Son, Jesus Christ, and He has blessed us with the written Word of God. How many of you were moved by the video that Nancy showed last night of that tribe receiving the Word of God? Even just thinking about it?

Have we forgotten the wonder that we have God's written Word, and most likely multiple copies at home? This is the Word that has the power to save. God's Word is not a sugary snack. It's not a quick fix for the soul. It's a nourishing, mouth-watering, soul-satisfying meal—or snack—that He has invited us to feast upon.

The psalmist writes in Psalm 119:103, “How sweet are your words to my taste, sweeter than honey to my mouth.” The more you taste God's Word, the rest of the world loses its flavor, and your cravings—your spiritual cravings—get rewired.

So I want you to walk away from this session—and this is by God's grace: it's not through me; it's through the work of His Holy Spirit—with an unrelenting hunger to know Jesus more.

So about fifteen minutes ago, I asked you to open to John 1, and now we're going to start reading in John chapter one. In this gospel, John presents Jesus in a way that his deepest desire is that his audience will believe that Jesus is the Son of God.

So He writes in verses 1 and 2: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God.”

Now, what do those verses make you think of? It's another part of the Bible. Anybody know? Go back to the very beginning. I hear everybody whispering, “Genesis.” This is not by accident. John knew exactly what he was doing whenever he echoed the words of Genesis chapter one.

So if you want to flip there, it's pretty easy to get there. It's the first part of the Bible. Flip there, and you can actually save your spot, because we're going to be coming back to Genesis in a little bit. The opening words of the Bible: “In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. The earth was without form, and void, and darkness was over the face of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters,” before the world was ever created.

The Word was before there were sun and moon and stars to light the night. God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit dwelled together in perfect harmony.

Before there were ants and antelopes and asteroids in the sky, the Eternal Word, Jesus Christ, existed. His Word is eternal. His Word is true.

Psalm 119:160—this beautiful psalm—I can't remember the exact words that Nancy used to describe it, but it is this masterpiece of adoration for God. In His Word it says, “The sum of Your word is truth, and every one of your righteous rules endures forever.”

So why does God call us to put the Word before the world? Because that's how He wired the world. That's how He created the world.

The meaning of the word Word in John chapter 1—when he says, “In the beginning was the Word”—is logos. Now I know that somebody's here representing the Bible software Logos. So if you're ever wondering where they got it from: John chapter 1, “In the beginning was the Word”—the revelation of God.

Now, this would have appealed to both the Jewish and the Greek audience who was listening to this passage: that in the beginning was God's revelation to His people.

Well, the Israelites would have heard that, and they would remember God's revelation to His people in the Old Testament. But then you have the Gentiles, who don't know all of that. They would have heard the word logos, and they would have thought of a Greek philosophy. John calling Jesus the Word would connect to them and make a bridge that He is the Creator of the world. It would establish Jesus not as just a person that was born, but as God in the human flesh.

John is showing his original audience, and he's showing us, that Jesus is the embodiment of God's message of salvation and grace. If we want to know God, we have to go through His Son, Jesus Christ. He is the better Word. He's the best Word. And He is the final Word.

The prophet Isaiah describes God's Word in Isaiah 40:8 by saying, “The grass withers, the flowers fade, but the Word of our God endures forever.” And He's saying this to a people who are in Babylon. They're not in a place of flourishing at the moment. And He's reminding them, “Don't turn from God's Word. This is your comfort. This is your hope.”

From the very first verse in Genesis to the last verse in Revelation, the Bible tells us one story of redemption. This Word points us to a person, and that person is Jesus.

Well, we will go to great lengths to get the things that we want, right? I read an article earlier this year, and it was titled “Mount Fuji: Climber Rescued Twice After Going Back for Lost Phone.” So I was immediately like, “What? What in the world has happened?”

Read the article: a student was rescued by a helicopter after he attempted to climb Mount Fuji and he got altitude sickness. Well, those kinds of rescues—they're not a small thing. This is a big deal, to be rescued off of Mount Fuji.

Well, he gets down, recovers, and realizes I forgot my phone. So he climbs back up Mount Fuji, only to get sick and be rescued again. Well, unfortunately, the article doesn't include if he found his phone. I don't know. But I will tell you that the rescue he needed was much more than just getting a phone. Only Christ can truly rescue us.

And it sounds so foolish, but so often we do the same thing. We look for hope and for help in people, and work, and friends, and TV and movie stars, and books, and all of these things, when we have it right here. We have it in Jesus Christ.

If we are going to be wise, and discerning, and fruitful women who are not easily swayed in this world, we have to be women who know and love and treasure God's Word, because the sight in the Lord far outlasts any dopamine hit that scrolling your phone could ever give. God's Word never changes, but it always changes us.

And that leads us to our next point: the Word is powerful.

So flip back with me to John chapter 1. We're going to read verses 3–13.

All things were made through him, and without him was not anything made that was made. In him was life, and the life was the light of men. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.

There was a man sent from God whose name was John. He came as a witness, to bear witness about the light, that all might believe through him. He was not the light, but came to bear witness about the light. 

The true light, which gives light to everyone, was coming into the world. He was in the world, and the world was made through him, yet the world did not know him. He came to His own, and his own people did not receive him. But to all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God, who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God.

So right here, John is showing us that the Word created the world. So flip back with me to Genesis chapter one again. He's calling us back to the very beginning, and he says in verses three through four:

And God said, “Let there be—say it with me—light.”

“Let there be light,” and there was light. And God saw that the light was good. And God separated the light from the darkness.

On the very first day of creation, the first thing God makes is light to push away the darkness.

How did He do that? Did He wave a magic wand, like we see in all of these fairy tales? No. God's very words created the world. His Word has power to create life. And this is not just life back in Genesis. His Word has the power to create life in us today. If you are weary or discouraged, if you're in a space of just grieving or questioning or hurting, His Word creates life, and it creates life in you and in me.

I love how Paul expands upon this in Colossians 1. Isn't it beautiful how all of Scripture connects? We've gone from John to Genesis; now we're in Colossians, and it's all telling the same story.

So in Colossians chapter 1, verses 15 through 16, he says, “He is the image of the invisible God.” He, being Jesus, the Word made flesh, “the firstborn of all creation. For by Him, all things . . . ”

So if you're somebody who—either if you feel okay writing in your Bible—I'm Nancy, actually doing a session on note-taking. I love to track these things, the repeated words in Scripture, as I'm studying. You can do this on your notes. I want you to notice how many times Paul is saying all things and what he's talking about.

So, “For by Him, all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities—all things were created through him and for him. And he is before all things, and in him all things hold together.”

Paul is establishing that there is not one single thing in this universe that's not under His control. He has all power and all authority. All things were created by Him. All things were created through Him and for Him. He is before all things, and in Him, all things hold together.

Well, I want to tell you a story about my middle child, who is precious. He is so creative; you never know what is happening in that little mind of his. He's our child that, when he was learning to ride a bike or swim, he didn't want help. He wanted to do it on his own. And he did it. We did not teach him to ride a bike or to swim. He learned on his own.

So he's that kid that is just thinking about things and figuring them out. Well, for his birthday, he asked for—he really wanted—little parachute men. And, of course, I just hopped on Amazon and ordered, like, a pack of six, and he got these parachute men.

And he would love the way our steps are. You can stand and be able to drop something down. So he would stand there, and he'd put little things on his army men and drop them down.

One day he came to me and he said, “Mom, can you tie all of these together?” And I was like, “Sure.” So I tied them all together. Who knows what? You just never know.

Well, later, he comes to me with this face serious, and he says, “Mom, I need to tell you something.” And he takes me out to the stairs where I look down, and there's just a pile of pillows and blankets. And I knew. I knew he used that little pack of six as a parachute, thinking that he would just glide down from the top of the steps to the floor like an army man.

Well, I hate to break it to you—it did not work. But praise the Lord, he had the foresight to put the blankets and all the pillows down, because if he did not, I would be telling a very different story today.

These toy parachutes—they're just a false promise, a false hope—that he would carry his body down to the floor and not be hurt.

Don't we do the same thing? We look for hope in the words of others that so often lead us astray from this Word. Or we look for peace and satisfaction in the things of this world. Maybe it's shopping, or getting a bigger home, or a promotion. Or maybe it's just like that your kids would be well-behaved at church.

We look for hope in so many other things other than this perfect One. We are not the perfect One, but He is. And we've been doing this ever since Adam and Eve. Pastor Kevin DeYoung shared last night from Genesis chapter three, a powerful message about the big story of the Bible.

Well, I want us to go back to the beginning of Genesis chapter three. So flip back to the beginning, and we're going to read the first verses in this passage.

Now, the serpent was more crafty than any other beast of the field that the LORD God had made“.

He said—so I want y'all to notice all of the words in this passage. Okay, as you're reading, notice these words.

He said to the woman, “Did God actually say, ‘You shall not eat of any tree in the garden’?”

What's he doing there? He's making them doubt God's Word, His good Word, that He'd given them for their joy, for their protection.

But God said, “You shall not eat of the fruit of the tree that is in the midst of the garden.”

Neither—oh, I missed a verse. Sorry, for everybody that's like, “Wait a second. That is not how the story goes.” Let's go back. Go back to verse two.

And the woman said to the serpent, “We may eat of the fruit of the trees in the garden, but God said, ‘You shall not eat of the fruit of the tree that is in the midst of the garden, neither shall you touch it, lest you die.’” But the serpent said to the woman, “You will not surely die. For God knows that when you eat of it, your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.”

Right here, we see that Satan's tactics have not changed, have they? He caused her to doubt God's good and powerful Word.

Sisters, if we are not careful, we too will easily turn away from God's Word and soak our souls in the words of this world, thinking that they could offer something better. And like Pastor Kevin DeYoung shared last night, Satan promises to bring us high, but really sin brings us low.

It is only through Christ that we are lifted up again by His grace. When we are stressed or anxious, it's so easy to turn to Netflix, or TikTok, or novels, or all of these different things, trying to find something to soothe our sorrows. But we only find these little toy parachutes that really will not bear us up when the burdens of life weigh us down.

Because when our world is falling apart—and does it not feel a little bit like the world is falling apart a lot of times?—God's Word holds it together. It is this Word in which we hope.

John also describes Jesus in John chapter one as being the light that conquers the darkness.

Now, I love to garden. Any other gardeners here? Yep, there's a lot of us here. Can you grow a plant in complete pitch-black darkness? No. There is no . . . I looked it up. There are no—there are low-light plants. So we can get into all of that stuff.

But every plant needs light to grow and to survive. And most plants—I like flowers. That's like . . . honestly. They're those vegetables. They're so fussy. But flowers, they just—they forge right through all the times I neglect them. And they need the light.

They need the light in order to grow and to flourish. We too need the light. We need the Son of Jesus Christ to shine on the soil of our hearts, and He does that when we are in His Word. We need the heat of His Word to burn away the sin in us, the waywardness in us, to draw us back as the Good Shepherd.

Well, I live in the South, and we get a lot of big, torrential rainstorms in the summer.

It's so humid down there, and there's always a time where we'll get just one of those that, like, comes down out of nowhere. And I'll go back and check on my garden after, and pretty much everything's just, like, flopped over—just laying flat on the ground.

And I love watching the days after the storm, though, when the sun comes out, because even those flowers have literally—they've just, like, I give up. They just fell over because of all of that rain. What they end up doing is they crane their necks toward the sun. And so even though their bodies may be kind of laying down from that storm, they literally will—it’s like the side will just become kind of curved, and they'll turn up to find the light.

That's what we need to do: to turn our hearts, to crane our necks, to fix our eyes on His Word, because Jesus—He is the sun. We're only like the moon. The moon doesn't give off its own light. What the moon does at night is it reflects the light of the sun.

We are not the sun. Our pastor is not the sun. Our favorite author is not the sun. Nancy's not the sun. Jesus is the sun. Our calling is merely to reflect Him, to bask in the light of His goodness, His glory, and His grace.

John actually talks about this whenever he goes into verses six through thirteen, because it may seem a little bit out of place. All of a sudden, he starts talking about this man who is sent from God, and his name was John.

You're like, “Man, there's so many Johns.” This is John the Baptist. So John—the disciple is talking about John the Baptist—and he's saying that this man came to bear witness about the light. He was not the light.

John the Baptist wasn't the Savior. He even says that in the following chapters in the book of John. He says, “Look to Him. He came before me. He must increase; I must decrease.” John was not the Son. Christ is the Son.

We are just like the moon. Are you reflecting Him? Are you looking at Him and craning your neck? You may be walking through a storm in your life. I mean, I would be shocked if everybody in here was like, “Nope, life is just so easy right now. I just—just so great.” There's always something, isn't there? You come out of one thing, and there's just something else—that's life. Life in a fallen world.

And yet we can be like those flowers, who crane our necks to see the sun. Jesus is the light of this world. He gives us life because His Word has power to save. Only God's Word can break the strongholds that are in our lives—the sin that festers in the darkness behind closed doors.

Maybe there's something that you're holding right now. Maybe there's some sort of sin pattern or addiction that you have not told anybody about, and you walk around just like Adam and Eve, with that shame, feeling like you're covered up in fig leaves.

I want to remind you that God has given us hope. He traded Adam and Eve for those little flimsy fig leaves that, when you pull a leaf off of its branch, it dies, right? I mean, those fig leaves—they were going to crumble real soon. But God has given us an enduring covering in His Son, who lived a perfect and spotless life—one that we could never live. I mean, ever, ever live.

And then He died a death in our place so that we could have life in Him. But right—He’s not in the grave anymore. We don't serve a God that has a tombstone that we can go visit. I've been to the empty grave. He's not there anymore. Just like those angels, they were saying, “Come and see. He's not here. He's not here anymore. He is risen. We have a risen Savior.”

It is only God's Word. It is only His Son who conquered the darkness of sin with the light of the gospel. When the light of the Eternal Word shines on your heart, the darkness has to flee. It can't stay. I've never turned on a light and the darkness stayed. It's impossible. You turn it on, and you see all the things, right—all the things you didn't want to see in that junk drawer that you just keep putting everything in. When you open that, it’s all there.

Still, the light of the gospel burns away everything that is of us, and it reveals our need for Jesus.

So John, he goes on, and we're going to read John chapter 1, verses 14 through 18. This is our last little passage.

And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth. (John bore witness about him and cried out, “This was he of whom I said, ‘He who comes after me ranks before me, because he was before me.’”) For from his fullness we have all received, grace upon grace. For the law was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. No one has ever seen God; God the only Son, who was at the Father's side, he has made him known.

This is astounding. If you were to look at all the other religions, there is no other God who came to rescue His people. Our God sent His Son to become flesh. He experienced everything that we experience, and yet He was not—He was without sin. He never sinned. Can you imagine?

And yet now He is our Great High Priest, who can sympathize with our weakness. He can help us. He can provide a way out. He is full of grace and truth.

I don't know where you are today, but Christ hasn't run out of grace. He's not up there going like, “Man, I just really ran out yesterday. Man, sorry, you're out of luck.” No. Out of His abundance, we have received grace and truth.

Paul writes in Colossians 1:19–20, “For in him all the fullness of God”—not like a little bit, you know, just a little bit—He was fully God and fully man—”was pleased to dwell, and through him to reconcile to himself”—here's those two words again—y'all know what they are?—”all things.” Can y'all say it? All things. Not some things, right? All things.

All right. I love this group. All things—making peace by the blood of the cross, we have received from His fullness, not His lack. We're the ones who have lack. He's the one who has all the fullness.

Over the years, my family loves to go to North Georgia. We live in Georgia, and go apple picking. It's, it's like my favorite day of the year. I'm not sure if it's everybody else's in my family—they're like, “Oh, gotta get, like, tons of apples.” But I love it. It's so fun.

And one year, when we went, we neglected to check, like, where the gas was. So we drove out there. And these apple orchards—they're not, like, by the city or anything. You drive way out there. And when we got there, we'd had a fun day apple picking. And when we left, we realized, “Wow, you know, this is like really low, and we've got a long way to drive.”

So as we were driving, it just seems like when it gets to that point, it's like, jump, like, tricked ya. Now I'm really like, nothing there. And I freaked out, so I turned the radio off. Not sure if that takes gas, but it made me feel better. Turned the radio off, turned the air off, was like, “Nobody breathe. We cannot run out of gas.”

So I'm driving and trying to coast on, like, the little hills. I do not know how we made it, but I have a picture of the gas gauge, and it literally is like zero when we pull into the gas station that we finally arrived at. So it didn't fully run out, probably, right? There was, like, no more. I never forgot how it felt to run on empty. It was not fun.

But I know that a lot of us today, we're running on empty. Like I mentioned earlier, there's a lot of women's ministry leaders in here. Maybe you coordinate the groups in your church. Whatever it is, we all have some place where we're serving. Maybe it's in children's ministry. Maybe it's just—like I said—not just this is so important—with the children around you in your home or at your work or in the ministry where you serve, and we're running on empty.

You're constantly pouring out, giving to others, meeting with them, encouraging them, and it feels like you've got no time to come and just sit at the feet of Jesus, and you're running on empty.

Or maybe you are a mom with young kids, or you're in school, and there's so many things going on. You've got all of these activities you've got to do, and it seems like every time you try to open God's Word, it's like, your phone dings, someone calls, there's a meeting, somebody interrupts you, and you feel discouraged. And you're like, you're just running on empty.

You're here, just kind of at that very end of the gas gauge. Or maybe you're in a season of deep grief and longing. Maybe you lost a loved one this year.

Maybe you received a life-changing diagnosis, and the way you knew, life is completely different now, and you're barely hanging on by a thread, wondering, is there really hope?

The Word became flesh and dwelt among us. The Word was nailed to a cross in our place and suffered for us. The Word has walked on this earth in a human body. He understands, and He conquered.

It is through Him that we can stand in the gospel. We can know His truth, that even when everything's falling apart, when it's like you don't even know what to hold on to anymore, His Word really does hold us together.

In Isaiah 55, the prophet reminds us to come. He says, “Come, everyone who thirsts.” I'm thirsty. I'm actually really thirsty for some water right now, so I'm gonna take a little sip.

He says, “Come, everyone who thirsts, come to the waters; and he who has no money, come, buy and eat!” You don't have to—you don't have to have it all together. No, that's exactly how He wants you to come: without money and without price.

Then he says, “Why do you spend your money for that which is not bread, and your labor for that which does not satisfy?” We have the Word of life.

And down a few more verses, in verses 10 through 11, he says,

For as the rain and the snow come down from heaven and do not return there but water the earth, making it bring forth and sprout, giving seed to the sower and bread to the eater, so shall my word be that goes out from my mouth; it shall not return to me empty, but it shall accomplish that which I purpose, and shall succeed in the thing for which I sent it.

I know there are days where I open my Bible, and have you ever done a Bible reading plan? You're inevitably going to get to Leviticus, and you're going to get to Chronicles. And when I read on those days, there's a lot of times where I don't walk away like, “I just—I feel so comforted.”

But this Word is still life. God is still accomplishing when you're reading that genealogy, because God is—He's purposeful in every little thing. He's a designer, He's a writer, He's a creator. Even those genealogies, there's gems to be mined there. Even when you're in the book of Leviticus and you're reading about all the sacrifices—oh my goodness gracious—the gospel is there.

Come to Him, all of us who are empty. Bring Him your empty cup, because He will fill it up.

The Bible is not some old, antiquated, out-of-date book. You're going to see that all over social media, all these places. I think it was Nancy that mentioned last night that it was on a book list—or a list of all the books not to read. Mind-blowing.

This is the only book that you really do need, the very opposite. Open it. Treasure it. We don't have to coast through this life running on empty. We can bring our empty cups to Him and fill them up.

So I want you to, if you've got a Bible—even if you're using your phone, the Word of God is on your phone and it speaks—hold it up for me for a second. I want you to say after me, “This is the Word of God.”

This is the Word of God, sisters. This is the Word of God—the Word that came before the world, that created the world. The Word that gives us wisdom for this life. The Word that shines in the darkness. The darkness flees. He overcomes it. The Word that makes our dead hearts beat again. The Word that revives our weary souls. The Word that never changes, but it always changes us.

This Word does not lead us to a life of legalism and checking off reading the Bible; it leads us to a life of joy and delight.

George Mueller was a Christian evangelist in the 1800s, who became known for founding orphanages all over England. He ended up ministering to and taking care of over 10,000 orphans, and he had quite the prayer life, if you've ever read any biography about him.

Well, obviously he was a very busy man, ministering, pouring out for these children. But he wrote one day these words. He said, “I saw more clearly than ever the first great and primary business to which I ought to attend every day was to have my soul happy in the Lord.”

The first thing to be concerned about was not how much I might serve the Lord, how I might glorify the Lord, but how I might get my soul into a happy state and how my inner man might be nourished.

“I saw that the most important thing I had to do was to give myself to the reading of the Word and to meditation on it, that thus my heart might be comforted, warned, reproved, instructed.”

Is your soul happy in the Lord? Is your soul seeking joy in Christ? My question for you is this: do you know Jesus? Have you encountered the Word made flesh?

I know we're at a women's conference, but I know there could be women in here who have never truly come to know Christ as their Lord and Savior, and if you have never believed in His name, I pray that today would be that day.

I know I'm here to talk. All of the Revive Our Hearts staff is here to talk. You may even be here with friends—make today that day. And if you are a believer walking with the Lord, maybe you feel like I did in 2018, and like I so often feel even today. Like it's so easy to turn on the news or to turn to all of these other words without first coming to the Word and basking in the light of the Son of God.

I pray that today we will know that it's by grace we read the Word. God's not up there looking at you, going, “Man, you really—you didn't do it today.” No, He's inviting us: come. Come right where you are. Come and bring your empty cup to Him.

And here's the deal: you're not always going to get it right. I know I don't love hearing that, but we're not. There's going to be days where we wake up and pick up our phone instead. There's going to be seasons where suffering just zaps it out of us. But keep coming back to His Word.

So I want to end by telling you a story that just blew my mind. It's about two women who knew God's Word, and they decided to put the Word before the world, and their lives made a difference that actually impacts us today. And I'll tell you how.

The first woman was named Lilius Trotter. She was born in the late 1800s, and from an early age, everybody knew she was artistically gifted, amazing at drawing and painting. She had the opportunity to study under a great painting master, but she realized that if she was going to live a life that is focused, she wanted to go on mission.

And the beautiful thing is that even as a missionary to unreached people groups, she still created beautiful art. You can look it up if you've never seen some of Lilius Trotter's art. And she also continued to write. She was a well-known writer.

Well, in about 1901, she wrote a pamphlet called Focused that became printed—so kind of like keep that away in your brain. Around the same time, another woman was born whose name was Helen Lemmel. She was born into a ministry family that eventually immigrated to the United States.

Helen was also artistically gifted. She was a writer. Over the years, she developed a deep love for writing and music. She eventually wrote over 500 hymns.

Well, in 1922—it's a long gap in between—Helen read a little pamphlet named Focused that Lilius Trotter wrote. This was in a season of deep sight suffering. Helen eventually got married and then began to lose her eyesight due to a disease. Her husband left her. She still wrote hymns about her faith and her hope in Jesus.

Well, she read those words written by Lilius Trotter, and they say: “So then turn your eyes upon Him, look full into His face, and you will find that the things of earth will acquire a strange new dimness.”

Does that sound familiar? Helen recorded her response to Lilius's words, saying, “I stood still, and singing in my soul and spirit was the chorus, and no one conscious moment of putting word to word to make rhyme or note to note to make melody. The verses were written the same week after the usual manner of composition, but nonetheless dictated by the Holy Spirit.”

We sung this song yesterday in the worship with Shane and Shane, “Turn Your Eyes UponJesus,” written by a woman who had lost her eyesight, by a woman who had suffered, inspired by the life of another woman who had surrendered so many things to follow the Lord and to go to another country to share her faith with people who had never heard the good news of the gospel.

These words point us to a person. This Word points us to a person, and His name is Jesus Christ.

So I want you to hear these words again in light of what we've just learned in John chapter 1 about who Jesus is, because Helen writes:

Oh soul, are you weary and troubled?
No light in the darkness you see?
There is light. Look to the Savior,
And life more abundant and free.

[Will you sing the chorus with me?]

Turn your eyes upon Jesus.
Look full in His wonderful face,
And the things of earth will grow strangely dim
In the light of His glory and grace.

Well, Helen actually wrote a third stanza to that, and it's at the bottom of your notes page. We sang it last night, and I'd always known about “Turn Your Eyes Upon Jesus,” but it's this third stanza that really caught my eye, because it says:

His Word will not fail you; He promised.
Believe Him, and all will be well.
Then go to a world that is dying
His perfect salvation to tell.

Let's pray:

Father, we turn our eyes upon Jesus, the Author and Perfecter of our faith. We know that Your Word is true. Your Word is eternal. It is powerful. It is full of grace and truth.

So God, we thank You for filling our empty cups today with Your Word that points us to Your Son, Jesus—our hope, our peace, our joy, and our salvation. In the name of Jesus, I pray, amen.

Scripture quotations are from the ESV® Bible (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version®), © 2001 by Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved. The ESV text may not be quoted in any publication made available to the public by a Creative Commons license. The ESV may not be translated in whole or in part into any other language.