Gaining Ground | A life shaped by God's word | Greg Pruit

Let's all stand together in worship, put our hands together. Let's all stand together in worship, put our hands together in worship, put our hands together in worship, put our hands together in worship, put our hands together in worship. It's a narrow road that leads to life, I want to be honest. It's a narrow road, the tide is high, but you'll find the water. I'll take you at your word, you said it, I'll believe. I've seen how good it was, you started it all for me. I'll take you at your word, you got it on your promise. You said your love would never give up, you said your grace is always enough. You said your heart would never forget or forsake me. You said I'm safe, you called me yours. You said my future's full of your hope. You never failed, I know that you'll never fail me. You said your love would never give up, you said your grace is always enough. You said your heart would never forget or forsake me. You said I'm safe, you called me yours. You said my future's full of your hope. You never failed, I know that you'll never fail me. I'll take you at your word, you said it, I'll believe. I've seen how good it was, you started it all for me. I'll take you at your word, you got it on your promise. You got it on your promise. I'll take you at your word. Amen. Let's sing this church, my hope. My hope is built on nothing less than Jesus' blood and righteousness. I dare not trust the sweetest praise, but wholly trust in Jesus' name. Let's declare this this morning, Christ alone.

Christ alone. ♪ Cornerstone, we can be strong ♪ ♪ In the Savior's love and through the storm ♪ ♪ Yeah, He is Lord, He is Lord of all ♪ ♪ We believe that this morning, hey ♪ ♪ When darkness seems to hide His face ♪ ♪ I rest on His unchanging grace ♪ ♪ In every high and stormy day ♪ ♪ My anchor holds within, hey ♪ ♪ My anchor holds within, hey ♪ ♪ Christ alone, cornerstone, we may be strong ♪ ♪ In the Savior's love and through the storm ♪ ♪ At this point, yeah, He is Lord, He is Lord of all, yeah ♪ ♪ He is Lord of all, sing again, Christ alone ♪ ♪ He is our cornerstone, oh, that we may be strong ♪ ♪ In the Savior's love and through the storm ♪ ♪ Yeah, He is Lord, He is Lord of all, yeah ♪ ♪ Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah ♪ ♪ Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah ♪ And it's right here we await this day. ♪ When He shall come with trumpet sound ♪ ♪ Oh, may I there in Him be found, yes, God ♪ ♪ Flawless we stand before the throne ♪ And we sing this church. ♪ Christ the Lord, He's our cornerstone ♪ ♪ He lives in us and through, through the storm ♪ ♪ Yeah, He is Lord, He's Lord of all ♪ Amen. ♪ Maybe we've made this complicated ♪ ♪ More than it was ever meant to be ♪

♪ More than it was ever meant to be ♪ ♪ Hasn't it always been about the same thing ♪ ♪ Lord, bring us back to simple things ♪ ♪ You be the center of it all ♪ ♪ My heart belongs to You, my Savior only ♪ ♪ You're the one I hold on to for the beauty of Your name ♪ ♪ My soul will live to say, Jesus, I love You ♪ ♪ Jesus, I love You ♪ ♪ Teach us to discern the moment, when to serve ♪ ♪ And when to sit here at Your feet ♪ ♪ Keep us awake to what's important ♪ ♪ Just like Mary, she chose the better thing ♪ ♪ Oh, for You are the center of it all ♪ ♪ My heart belongs to You, my Savior only, Lord ♪ ♪ You're the one I hold on to for the beauty of Your name ♪ My soul will live to say, Jesus I love you, oh how I love you. Yeah, oh how I love you, Jesus I love you, oh how I love you. Yeah, oh how I love you, Jesus I love you. My whole life for your glory, my whole world for you only, everything for the honor of your name. And if my days tell a story, let it be of you only, everything for the honor of your name. My whole life for your glory, my whole world for you only, everything for the honor of your name. And if my days tell a story, let it be of you only, everything for the honor of your name. Oh how I love you, oh how I love you, Jesus I love you, oh how I love you. Yeah, oh how I love you, Jesus I love you. For you are the center of it all, my heart belongs to you, my savior all in all. You're the one I hold on to for the beauty of your name. My soul will live to say, Jesus I love you. My soul will live to say, Jesus I love you. My soul will live to say, Jesus I love you. And I love you Lord, and I live my Lord.

To worship you, oh my soul, rejoice. Take joy my King, in what you hear. May it be a sweet, sweet sound in your ear. Come on, every voice in this room, sing out loud. And I love you Lord, and I live my Lord. To worship you, oh my soul, rejoice. Take joy my King, in what you hear. May it be a sweet, sweet sound. May it be a sweet, sweet sound. May it be a sweet, sweet sound. ♪ In your home ♪ Amen, you may be seated. Hey, welcome to Compass. Our mission is navigating people to God. My name is Drew. I'm one of the pastors here at Compass and I'm excited to be here today with you. I just returned from Greece last night, about 10 o'clock, and we had about 26 people from Compass. And I'm so impressed with how many of them are here today. They're jet-lagged over 12 days, but they're here today, so that's awesome. We invite, we welcome all of you that are watching online today. And would you help me in welcoming the men of the Allred unit today? Men, we love you. You're a big part of our church. And so I am excited today to introduce our speaker, the guest speaker today.

His name is Greg Pruitt. Greg, for 20 years, has been the president of Pioneer Bible Translators. And it's such an important anchor ministry for us here at Compass. We support it with all of our hearts because we love their mission to take the Bible to the Bibleless people of the world. Can you imagine not having a Bible in your language? Well, we're not gonna have to imagine it much longer because of organizations like Pioneer Bible Translators. Greg and his wife were also missionaries to West Africa for 12 years, which means he has a ton of adventures. Maybe he'll share a couple of them with you today. And he is also the author of one of my favorite books. To me, it's the best book I've ever read on prayer. It's called Extreme Prayer. You can get it at Amazon. But I want you to join me in welcoming our guest speaker today as we continue our series, Gaining Ground. Would you please help me welcome Greg Pruitt? Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Good morning. That was quite an introduction, right? Praise the Lord.

And praise God for 262 baptisms. Wow. Wow. Thank you. Amen. So we are in the second week of a series, Gaining Ground. It's a series about spiritual growth and how to grow spiritually from 1 Timothy 4, 11 through 16. As he said, I'm the president of Pioneer Bible Translators. And Compass, I want you to understand that God uses powerfully your generous giving. You know, sometimes it might feel like we're just like doing church as usual. But when you give here at Compass and you come to this church, God takes your gifts and he works miracles around the world. You know, right now you guys are an integral part of a great Bible translation movement. You know, right now you're helping Pioneer Bible Translators to translate 157 languages, Bibles into those languages, spoken by a half a billion people in 41 different countries. And you're part of the Bible translation movement. You guys are a significant force. And there's 11 Bible agencies all collaborating together in the Illuminations Collective Impact Alliance. And, you know, there was a time in 1999 when there were 3000 languages that had no scripture at all and no Bible translation project. By 2010, it was like 2000 languages.

And now there's only 514 languages in the world with no scripture. Praise God. By 2028, that number is gonna go to zero. Praise God, right? So, you know, in the next two years, there's gonna be a situation where 4,500 languages are all getting Bibles translated at the same time. And that's happening in our day and you're doing that. You're a big part of it. Okay, so today, the part of 1 Timothy that we're focusing in on is 1 Timothy 4.13. And we're really zeroing in on one word of that verse. It says, devote yourself to the public reading of scripture and to preaching and teaching. So when I hear about the public reading of scripture, that makes me think back to the time when I was a missionary in West Africa and I went to the village of Sandinia, the most resistant Muslim village in our whole area. And the chief of the village had said, we only want the religion of Islam in our town. So one day I was at my house and someone told me that there was a semi-automatic 12 gauge shotgun in the village of Sandinia. And like any good spiritual missionary, I had to have it. I don't know how, I mean, how do you hunt warthogs? I mean, that's, this is how I roll. So I went over to this village

and a bunch of people gathered around to, they heard me speaking their language and they said, hey, aren't you those people who have books about God in our language? And I said, yes. And they said, did you bring any? I said, no, I'm just here to buy a shotgun. And they said, well, you know what you should do? You should next market day, bring some of those books and teach us how to read them. I was like, yeah, I'm a missionary. I should totally do that. So the next market day, I showed up with a big box of the gospel of Luke and like a hundred people gathered around all staring at this box. But nobody wanted to be the first one to take one because of the chief was against it. So I sat there and I, you know, devote yourself to the public reading of scripture. I pulled out one of the gospel of Luke's and I opened up to the genealogy and I just started reading it out loud in the middle of the market. And I could tell by the look on their faces that they could see here was a book that had information about the prophets and about God that the Quran didn't have. And at the end of that genealogy, when I got to the last line, one guy just walked over and he took one and he ran.

And all hundred people descended on that box at the same time and they fought and they pushed. And I just remember the box coming up off the ground in the crowd and just ripping in half and gospel of Luke spreading all over the ground like bread in a famine. These people were hungry to know what the word of God in their language said. It reminds me of this prophecy in the book of Amos. The days are coming, declares the sovereign Lord, when I will send a famine through the land. Not a famine of food or a thirst for water, but a famine of hearing the words of the Lord. Jesus said something really close. He said, blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness for they will be filled. Are you hungry for the word of God in your life? You might be starving and not really realize it. You know, maybe you're kind of like me and you've got like a lot of pressures in your life and they'll wake you up at three o'clock in the morning. You're thinking about that and you can't go back to sleep. You get anxious and stressed about something going on in your life and you just look for comfort. You know, you find comfort in food or you're scrolling on social media trying to get comfort. You might fall into an addiction to something and you're hungry, but you fill your life with other comforts because you don't realize that what you're craving is a life filled

with instruction from the Lord. Jesus knew all about this thing. He said, people do not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God. He's saying, he's teaching you need the Bible just like you need food. He's, you know, sure, he's not saying that you're gonna die. You're gonna survive. You're gonna keep breathing, but you won't really live. Not the life that God dreamed that you could live. unless you have instruction from God. That's why Paul tells Timothy to help people encounter the word of God. He says, devote yourself to the reading of scripture. So that word in the original language where it was translated public reading of scripture, it breaks down into two parts. And one part means to know. And the other part means again. And he's saying, when you read scripture, you are reminded of things that you might have forgotten about God. And the word, the part that means to know, it's not just any word for know. This is a word that's most closely associated with an intimate relationship. And he's saying every morning, when you have the opportunity to open up the scriptures and read the Bible,

you have the opportunity to know God. And we're not saying to read the Bible to learn facts about God, but to have an intimate relationship with God, where you have a fresh encounter with the kindness and the grace of God. And you have the opportunity to completely change your life. Not really even suggesting that this is like a discipline, that you would read it out of a discipline, because you probably have already learned in your life that when the stressors of life come, you do not rise to the level of your disciplines, you fall to the level of your habits. So you need a bedrock solid habit of reading scripture every day. So my challenge to you is to build one healthy spiritual habit at a time. So what's this like? You know, go home and you pick out a place. For me, and you pick out a time. You know, for me, there's this one chair in my living room, and right next to that is a table. And on that table, I've got the Bible, I've got my journal, I've got a pen, I've got, now that I'm 58, I've got my reading glasses, right? You gotta have everything that you need to kind of be the scaffolding for this habit. And then when I wake up in the morning, I know I'm on my way to that chair.

Like I'm gonna stop off and make a pot of coffee, but I'm gonna go straight to that chair and I'm gonna read the Bible and I'm gonna pray, right? So, I mean, this is such a habit, like at first it's gonna require discipline to get started, but after you've repeated it over and over again, you know, have you ever had a really bad habit that you just could not break? Good habits are just as powerful as bad habits. So, you know, that's for me, that's it. Even the dog knows that I'm on my way to that chair. You know, that's, everybody knows that's what's happening. I wanna challenge you to do that, but you might be saying, okay, but what do you actually do when you do this? Okay, it's real basic. Just read the Bible and pray, that's all. And it sounds so basic, you might underestimate how powerful it is, but if you will have a habit of reading the Bible and praying, everything in your life will become more possible because you'll have the spiritual power to overcome. You're gonna have bad days, but you will have the power from God to gradually overcome those challenges. And if you don't have that habit, you're gonna find that in your life, the wheels just keep coming off the cart and you can't figure out why,

and you don't have the spiritual power to fix it. You know, everything just becomes more hard, more difficult. Okay, so somebody else might say, okay, but how do I get, where do I start reading? You know, don't start with Leviticus, right? You know, like I recommend Matthew and even, you know, Matthew five, if you really wanna just have a home run, start with Matthew five, and then just go reading through the whole New Testament. But how much should you read in the morning? You know, like some people read like a lot. I think that it's fine to read just until you come across something that will make you think or act differently that day. Read until you find something to obey. Okay, so this is so important because without God speaking into our lives, we all start the day just a little bit off in the way we're thinking, just a bit off course, and we need God's instruction to get us back on His target for us so that we don't go astray or we don't get lost during the day. You know, it's like if you start off just one degree off today, but you never correct that course, 20 years later, you're way off. You know, this is how it happens that sometimes you read in the news

about mega church pastors or ministry leaders who've just gone into a situation where they ended up in a catastrophic moral failure, big public display. It didn't start out that way. They were just one degree off at some point, and then they never got that correction that they needed. Everyone needs that tiny, almost unnoticeable daily adjustment from God so that they can understand who they are in the eyes of God and what God's purpose for their life is. Obeying the word of God can completely transform your life. One year in West Africa, I was doing a language survey, and we were surveying this language that was spoken by 99.99% Muslims. And in the course of the survey, I was visiting people and getting language data from them, and I went to one man's home, and his house was about as wide as his couch. You know, it was a very small home. And he invited me in. He had me sit on the couch with him, and we were having a conversation, and he finally said to me, "'Hey, I have a question. "'If, as people here say, "'the Bible foretells the coming of Muhammad,

"'why don't Christians and Muslims "'get along better than they do?' And I said, "'Well, listen, Umar, "'I've been a Christian a long time, "'and I've read the Bible a lot, "'and it does not foretell the coming of Muhammad.' He said, "'You know, I thought you were gonna say that, "'because one of the missionaries here "'gave me an audio of the book of Matthew, "'and I've been listening to it, "'and Jesus said that other prophets would come, "'but not to listen to them.' And I said, "'Well, maybe in that sense, "'the Bible did foretell the coming of Muhammad.'" And then he said, "'Well, the real question I have is, "'how can I make the old prophets of the Bible "'to be my intercessor on the day of judgment?' And I said, "'Well, the Bible teaches "'that it's not just any prophet's job "'to be the intercessor on the day of judgment. "'The Bible says that there is one God "'and one mediator between God and man, "'the man, Jesus Christ.'" And he said, all right. And he said, "'Then how can I have this Jesus "'to become my intercessor on the day of judgment?' And I was like, "'This man is evangelizing himself.'" And I said, "'Well, you could ask him.'" And he said, "'How can I ask this man, Jesus, "'to be my intercessor?''

And I said, "'Well, here's your prayer mat. "'I'll get down and I'll show you.' So I got down on his prayer mat and he got down right next to me. And I started praying to Jesus and he started saying everything I was saying. So I just prayed every sinner's prayer or salvation formula I could think of. And he prayed it all. And so next, when we started translating the Bible into his language, he started receiving the Bible in his own language and he became a follower of Jesus based on the word of God. And he got baptized. And years later, we heard from his wife that he had gotten sick and died. But on his deathbed, she said that he would go to sleep talking to Jesus. and he would wake up talking to Jesus. And I believe when he finally woke up the last time, he was talking to Jesus face to face. The word of God is powerful. And so once you establish one powerful spiritual habit of encountering the word of God, like in the morning maybe, you might add another one, like listening to a chapter each night or praying with your spouse before you go to bed. So learn also that you should pray what you read. Okay, so what do I mean by that? When you read the word of God, take for example,

if you're reading the verse Matthew 5, verse four, and it says, blessed are those who mourn for they will be comforted. You can say, Lord, here today are the reasons I have to mourn. And these are the griefs that I'm mourning over. Would you please comfort me? Just that simple. When you learn to pray what you read, that transforms scripture reading into a two-way conversation. Now, suddenly he's talking to you, but you also are talking to him. And so that's an important skill to learn. You can just add habits along the way. For example, I don't know if anybody else has a super energetic dog. We're not gonna ask for a show of hands, but I have to spend literally hours walking my dog. So, I mean, I've been trying to establish a habit of listening to the Psalms. And as I'm walking and listening to the Psalms, I'll seize on words from the Psalms, you know, prayers from the Psalms. I'll pray those to God. And I found this to be super powerful, transformative in my life. And a couple of weeks ago, we had a meeting with one of our teams of people at the office here in Pioneer Bible Translators.

And it got really challenging. There were a lot of raw emotions expressed at that meeting. And I went home that night and I was praying the Psalms for them. I was praying Psalm one through seven. And I just somehow focused in on this one verse where it says, in peace, I will lie down and sleep for you alone, oh Lord, will keep me safe. I just found myself praying that over and over again. God, give them peace that they could lie down and you would take care of their sleep tonight. So, I got up the next morning. We had another follow-up meeting planned. And at the beginning of that follow-up meeting, two different people in that meeting said spontaneously how amazing they had slept that night. I mean, when have you been to a meeting like that? And one of them said, I haven't slept for months, but last night I slept 11 hours. God is real. And when you connect the word of God and prayer in your life, He will release power into your life for living. In Deuteronomy, God said through Moses, He said, listen, oh Israel, the Lord is our God, the Lord alone, and you must love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul and all your strength. And you must commit yourselves wholeheartedly to these commands that I'm giving you today. Repeat them again and again to your children.

Talk about them when you're at home and when you're on the road, when you're going to bed and when you're getting up. Tie them to your hands, wear them on your forehead as reminders, write them on the doorposts of your houses and your gates. He's trying to say, make my word the core of your life. If he had written this now, if he had said this now, he would have said, and put them on your phone so that you can stare at them as you often do. If you don't have the YouVersion app on your phone, get your phone out right now. As a matter of fact, everybody get your phone out right now. Let's try to crash the internet. And if you don't have it, please go ahead and download the app right here, right now. And if you do have it, Go ahead and click on, at the bottom of the screen, you'll see the Bible icon down there. And if you click on that, you can go up to the top where it says, on mine, it says NLT. Go ahead and select a version of the Bible that you can use. I recommend the New Living Translation. It's my favorite. It has awesome, it's got five different audio styles that you can listen to. You know, so that's my personal favorite.

You know, if you click on that little audio button at the top, you'll get to choose. Don't hit play, whatever you do right now. You're gonna get embarrassed. Okay, you can click on the center under plans, that little icon in the middle, and you can choose a reading plan that kind of helps you get into a good pattern of reading in your life. And there's literally, for any conceivable spiritual situation, you have a reading plan on there that will help you stay on track with this habit. If you happen to speak another language, you can go and select different versions. So up in the, where it says NLT, you click on the NLT, and there where it says English, you can click on English, and you can change that. Where you see more versions after that, you can literally select from 2,420 languages. You didn't even know there were that many languages, right? Admit it. Okay, right now in this app, 6 billion people on our planet have a whole Bible translated in their language. Another 1 billion people have the whole New Testament translated in that language in this app, in your pocket.

So literally any Uber driver or anyone you encounter, you could find out what language they speak. You could text them John 3 16 to their phone in their language, and they could open it up and have the Bible in their language on their phone. We are in a day where between now and 2033, 99.96% of the population of the world will have at least the New Testament. And everyone will have at least 25 chapters in their language. The Bible will soon cover the whole earth. Everyone, everywhere is gonna have the opportunity to read the Bible. And the big question is, will you read the Bible? The Bible says, for the word of God is alive and active, sharper than any double-edged sword. It penetrates even to dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow. It judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart. This book is alive and God will use it to cut sin out of your life. Okay, so one example, I've been reading in the book of Ephesians lately, and it's been, you know, some weeks ago that I came across this passage in Ephesians four, verse two, where it says, be completely humble and gentle.

Be patient, bearing with one another in love. I have read this verse, I know I have before, but somehow in that moment, it came to life for me. And I was reminded by how I have been treating my wife. I don't know how this started, but I think it's been years that I haven't been very humble or gentle or patient when I talk to my wife. You know, if she does something inconvenient for me, if she makes a mistake, if she miscommunicates, if she's put something away and I can't find it. Why is that funny? All of a sudden, I'm just talking mean to her. And I remember this really started coming home for me, you know, and I was in the middle of a argument with my wife and I thought I was winning. And I'd already given a little sermon at, you know, about one of these things. And I was gonna clinch this argument with this one, I don't even know why this makes sense now, but I was gonna say, what do you want? And she very softly said, a little kindness, I did not win that fight. I was pierced to the heart, you know, I know that my wife deserves not to be criticized. I know that God expects me to treat my wife with kindness and for her to be precious to me. But somehow years ago, I just got one degree off and the Lord had not yet adjusted my life. So I spent the last several weeks, I was working hard,

you know, and I get in the middle of a situation, I get frustrated, I would have to reel those words back in before they got so, you know, the way my habits had developed. And I thought, man, I'm making progress, this is good. But you know, she was here Thursday for the first time and heard the sermon and she hadn't noticed. I was, you know, I'm still, it's hard. It's just hard to change your habits, but you know what? I promise, I'm gonna learn this. And my wife is going to have the husband that God intended her to have. Okay, so maybe you have a different concern about the Bible. Maybe you're thinking, what if I misunderstand it and I don't apply it well? There is a rule of thumb for that. Okay, always apply the Bible to live more like Jesus. Jesus is the meaning of the Bible. And as long as you're applying the Bible in a way that's consistent with his lifestyle, you're gonna end up doing it right. Okay, so that's what the Bible means when it says that you should be transformed by the renewing of your mind. All right, back in 2012, I went to Asia to see the dedication of the whole New Testament in a language spoken by tens of millions of people in a context where there's a lot of persecution. Okay, and I went there and there were 8,000 people celebrating this New Testament.

And one, there was one worship band there that had all decided to follow Christ and they were priests in a Hindu temple. They just padlocked the temple and left and they go to events playing worship music instead. And one guy danced at that dedication like a madman. Neither of his feet are touching the ground. When was the last time that you celebrated your New Testament like this man is celebrating his New Testament? Maybe we need to rethink the value and the wonder of having the word of God translated in our lives. Revelation 3.20, Jesus says, look, I stand at the door and knock. If you hear my voice and open the door, I will come in and we will share a meal together as friends. Every morning when we wake up, if we listen carefully, we have the opportunity. There's that gentle knocking sound somewhere in the distance and any of us who opens the door, Jesus will come in and share his life with us. So compass, I'm challenging you today. Get your Bible or reading plan, choose a place in your house, choose a time of day, begin to build out that habit of encountering Christ every day and the challenge is start tomorrow. Let's pray. God, thank you so much for the power

and the beauty of you coming to enter our lives each day. And God, I pray that tomorrow you will remind each person in here to begin to focus some part of their day. on reading your word and praying. I pray this blessing on them in Jesus' name. Amen. Let's sing this with the anime. Worthy of every song we could ever sing. Worthy all the praise we could ever bring. Worthy of every prayer we could ever bring. We live for you. Jesus, the name above every other name. Jesus, the only one who could ever save. Worthy of every prayer we could ever bring. We live for you. Oh, we live for you. Holy, there is no one like you. There is none besides you. Open up my eyes, ain't a mother who'll show me who you are and fill me with your love. And lead me in your love

to those around me. I will build my life upon your love. It is a firm foundation and I will put my trust in you, oh. And I will not be shaken and I will build my life upon your love. It is a firm foundation and I will put my trust in you, oh. And I will not be shaken and holy, there is no one like you. There is none besides you. Open up my eyes, ain't a mother who'll show me who you are and fill me with your love. And lead me in your love to those around me. And so we build our lives on a foundation that is Jesus Christ through the word of God. And what a great word from my friend Greg this morning. Hey, if you're a guest with us, we'd love to meet you right outside these doors

on the right is guest gathering. You guys have a great week.