Noah's Ark // Stories We Thought We Knew

**SPEAKER_1** (0:06)
Thank you for tuning in to the New Vision Podcast. Our prayer is that this talk builds your faith, brings clarity, and gives you hope. Enjoy the message.

**Kevin** (0:19)
I wanna invite you or encourage you to make sure you stop by the table outside and grab one of these bracelets. They each have a student's name written on there. You heard it in the announcements. We wanna not just tell our students that we're covering them with prayer. We want to have some reminders throughout the week so that we can not just pray for them one time, but each time as we're going about our day, as we look down, we see their names on our wrist, we remember to pray for them. And we'll be sending out a couple of messages during the week just to remind you to do that. But if you could stop by, grab those on your way out. We believe that as we pray together as a church for our students, that it will continue to give them more opportunity for God's presence to impact them as they're at camp. So do that for me. Stop by that table. Let's pray and then let's get started today. God, we thank you for all that you've done. God, I thank you that your presence is in this place. It is undeniable.
And Lord, what's also undeniable is you know us. You know what we've been thinking about, the things that are weighing on us, the things that we're contemplating, the things that we're hiding, the things that we're struggling with. You know all of us.
So Lord, would you speak to us today? As we look into your word, would that challenge us? Speak to us right where we are. Lord, I pray that you would anoint me as I communicate your word to your people. Help me to be clear. Help me to do it confidently so that we hear your voice much more than we hear mine. In Jesus' name, amen.
So Mel and I recently have gotten a handful of opportunities to watch our beautiful grandkids. And I want to show you a picture of Archie and Frankie, as well as Jordan with his eyes closed. But this is Archer here. Oh my gosh, he is the best. And then there's Frankie over there in my arms. And some of you were like, wait, math isn't math-ing for you. So let me help you. This is our family. You see Alexa and Jordan. These are our biological children. And then God gifted us, blessed us with JT. He was about a senior in high school when we met him. And over the years, God has just done incredible things and made him a part of our family. And he's married with two, there'll be three kids by the end of this summer. And so, I get the privilege of being pops to them, and they call Mel, Meli B. It is great. And so, we get to watch them, and when they invite us over, we get to feed the kids, spoil them, play with them, and then we get to help them to go night-night. And if you've watched little kids, you know sometimes that is the best, right? When they're cuddly and they're ready to go night-night. And then when they're playing you, and they need to get up and get down and they need six more stories and all of the things, right? Sometimes it can be tough.
But one of the things that I've loved about this routine as we get them ready for bed, is we get to read them stories from the Bible. And they have this Bible that we read through. It's called the Storytellers Bible. And in this, it's so much fun as we read stories about God and how he uses people and introducing them to Jesus. It's so much fun as they ask, can we hear more? One, just one more story pops. Okay, one more story. I'm a sucker. I'll just tell you that right from the start. Man, I am a sucker. But as we are reading them, I'm reminded of how familiar these stories are. I mean, as we go through scriptures, I don't know if this happens to you. When you read through pieces that you've read before, like sometimes God will show us one more thing. Something that has always been there, but at this point in our life, now he brings it up, and we see something that we didn't see before. And if you didn't know this, there's a portion of scripture that reminds us that God's word is living inactive. And that's why this happens. And so I would imagine some of you this week, you were having a day, or maybe a week, or you've been stuck in a month of something, and you opened up your word, and there was something in there for you that spoke to you about what you were going through. And it changed your mood, it changed your perspective, and it didn't just do it for that day, it changed your week, for your month, maybe. Some of you, this has happened, and you've got a life verse out of this. It is a verse that you go back to in moments of struggle, in moments where you need wisdom, in moments where you need to be reminded of who God is. You have a life verse.