Finishing Well

Our sermon text this morning comes from 1 Timothy chapter 4.

1 Timothy 4 · chapter mention

Reading the whole chapter.

Paul wrote to Timothy, his young assistant, pupil, minister.

He had quite an assignment, Timothy did.

Probably about eight years earlier, Paul had visited Ephesus.

He'd stayed there almost three years.

He knew the church well.

Timothy had been with him.

Timothy knew these people.

And yet, one of the wake-up calls from the scriptures is that a good church like Ephesus, right?

How many of you have just benefited so much from reading the book of Ephesus over the years?

Great theology.

This bastion of orthodoxy.

And yet they were starting to encounter problems.

There was some bad teaching that was starting to infiltrate the church.

And so the Apostle Paul writes, Timothy, who's there, and he says, Timothy, these are my instructions.

Take heed.

You need to really pay close attention to what's going on around you because people are drifting spiritually.

And so we read.

We read the text.

Now the Spirit expressly says that in latter times people will depart from the faith by devoting themselves to deceitful spirits and teachings of demons, through the insincerity of liars whose consciences are seared, who forbid marriage and require abstinence from foods that God created to be received with thanksgiving by those who believe and know the truth.

For everything created by God is good, and nothing is to be rejected if it is received with thanksgiving.

For it is made holy by the word of God in prayer.

If you put these things before the brothers, you will be a good servant of Christ Jesus, being trained in the words of the faith and of the good doctrine that you have followed.

Have nothing to do with irreverent, silly myths.

Rather, train yourself for godliness.

For while bodily training is of some value, godliness is of value in every way, as it holds promise for the present life and also for the life to come.

The saying is trustworthy and deserving of full acceptance, for to this end we toil and strive, because we have our hopes set on the living God, who is the Savior of all people, especially of those who believe.

Command and teach these things.

Let no one despise you for your youth, but set the believers an example in speech, in conduct, in love, in faith, in purity.

Until I come, devote yourself to the public reading of Scripture, to exhortation, to teaching.

Do not neglect the gifts you have, which was given to you by prophecy when the council of elders laid their hands on you.

Practice these things.

Immerse yourself in them so that all may see your progress.

Keep a close watch on yourself and on the teaching.

Persist in this, for by so doing you will save both yourself and your hearers.

This is God's holy, precious word.

And so we pray that the Spirit of God would be at work in us this morning at this time.

We just sang, bread of heaven, feed me.

And that's our prayer.

Father, you've given us the bread.

We're holding copies.

We're holding loaves of your bread in our hands this morning in your precious word.

Feed us.

Feed us.

We pray in Jesus' name.

Amen.

This morning is a one-off sermon, if you will, not part of a series.

I think God put this on my heart earlier in the summer as I was just reading, as many of you have read, probably or heard, another wave of spiritual falling away within the church.

Another wave, very public, very prominent Christian leaders, people who have been walking with God for years, rejecting the Christian faith.

Apostasizing, you might say.

Saying, you know, I used to believe all that, but I don't anymore.

I don't know about you, but for me it seems to come in waves.

I can go for a while and not hear such things, but then oftentimes it seems like they come in bunches.

I'm not sure what that's all about.

Godly people who are not only leaving the Christian faith, but godly people who appear to be godly people who are leaving marriages, who are finding new lifestyles.

So what do we do with this?

What do we make of this?

Are they true believers?

Were they ever?

I have to leave that in God's hands most of the time.

Sometimes, I mean, we just have to take them at their word, but the story's not over either.

We don't know what God's gonna do yet in their lives, perhaps.

Oftentimes only God knows their ultimate spiritual destiny, but it can be very disturbing and confusing, can't it?

But this is nothing new.

The New Testament includes the names, the very specific names of people who walked away from the Christian faith.

And the Apostle Paul is usually the one that rebukes them, that urges them to come back.

But it's not just in the New Testament, it's in the Old Testament.

Solomon.

The prayer that Matt read this morning.

What a great prayer.

What a great start that Solomon had.

Humble?

Needy in a good sense.

But Solomon lost his way.

A few years ago I preached a series on Ecclesiastes on that.

Solomon lost his way.

I believe that he found his way back later in life.

We read the last of Ecclesiastes, but boy, he wasted a lot of time.

And he wasted a lot of years.

And he wasted a lot of opportunities.

And it wasn't just Solomon.

Reading through the kings of Israel and Judah, the list goes on and on of kings that had good starts.

I mean, they wanted to be close to God.

They were in the Word.

They were obeying God as the priest delivered the Word of God to them.

But they just lost their way.

I mean, some of them reverted to pure idolatry.

And they put false gods all around the city.

And they led the nation of Israel astray.

Some of them didn't go that far, but some of them just made foolish mistakes.

The scriptures will say, and they followed God with all their heart for there, that season.

But I noticed that many of them just really made dumb, dumb decisions.

They got scared.

And you know when it always seems to happen?

When there's fear.

There's this sense of losing control or not being in control.

I just noticed that that oftentimes really is the spark.

And so whether it was King Abijah or Joash or Asa, the list goes on.

Many who started well and finished poorly.

So here's the question.

How do we guard our own souls?

How do we pay closer attention to our own soul and teaching?

Paul says to Timothy that life and doctrine are inseparable.

What you believe has everything to do with how you live.

Isn't that what he says in the text?

He says in verse 15, practice these things, immerse yourself in them so that all may see your progress.

Are people seeing your progress in your walk with Jesus?

Keep a close watch on yourself and on your teaching.

Keep a close watch on your life.

Yes, your behavior, but even more than that, your attitude.

What's going on in your soul?

And your teaching.

You can't separate them.

If you're not in the Word, if the Word is not growing in you, you're not going to be able to do that in your life.

That's just the way it works.

Spiritual drifting.

That's what we're talking about this morning.

And let no one here think that they're immune to this.

Let no one here think that this can't happen to them.

Drifting.

I uh I did some foolish things in college.

One of the things that really stands out in my mind, and I'm probably the only one in the room that did this, I did the all-nighters before my exams.

I was one of those guys.

And driving from Chattanooga to Pittsburgh, we would all pile in a car and take off late at night and drive through the night.

Anyone identify with that?

You gotta, you know, you want to get home.

You know, you're 18, you're 19, you're 20.

Get another night's sleep and then start off.

Then never thought about it.

Wanted to get home.

I remember one time we were all piled in a car.

It was one of it was my friend Dusty's Dodge Charger.

And I'm driving late at night.

I don't know what time it was, I don't know where I was.

But I started falling asleep.

I started drifting.

And I thanked the Lord for those rumble strips.

Any of you ever hit one of those rumble strips?

The coffee wasn't enough.

It was the rumble strip that jolted me awake before I went off the road.

What are the rumble strips in your life spiritually?

What is God putting in your life?

The guards to keep you from falling off the road, to falling away from the Christian life.

Let's talk about that.

First of all, from the text, we're going to see that the problem in Ephesus was that they, some of them were drifting from the gospel.

And again, many of you have read the Epistle of Ephesians many times.

It's one of your favorite books.

You think this is a great church.

Paul spent the most time he spent in any church in Ephesus.

You couldn't have a better foundation than the Apostle Paul gave them.

They were rock solid in the gospel.

And yet it was only a matter of years, probably not even a decade.

And there were some problems.

He says very clearly, the Spirit says, the Holy Spirit says, and apparently he's using that phraseology to tell them that as the Holy Spirit said in the Word of God, we see these words verbatim in the book of Revelation.

We see them, I think, as well in other parts of Scripture.

The Spirit says that in latter days, some will depart from the faith.

That is a scary phrase.

Some will depart from the faith.

They were rejecting the finished work of Christ alone as their sole ground of acceptance with God and others.

As always in false gospels, they insisted on the cross plus something else.

We say that a lot at APC.

That was the problem in Galatians, right?

That's always the problem.

Saying, no, it was necessary that Jesus died on the cross.

We believe that.

Plus.

Watch out for the plus.

In their case, it was asceticism.

You know, the idea that the way that you attain a higher spiritual standing with God is by denying yourself certain foods, certain activities.

It's all about self-denial.

It's all about what I'm going to give up, what I'm going to do for God.

Now, there's lots of things that we ought to be doing for God, but that's not the foundation.

In this particular case, well, we could call it hair shirt theology.

You know, some of you have heard of that.

Back in the Middle Ages, some of these godly people would literally put on a hair shirt, which would be scratchy and itchy, very uncomfortable.

They were trying to make themselves miserable, and they thought if they were miserable enough, they would be accepted by God.

Crazy, right?

And I know none of us ever do that.

Yeah, right.

How do we beat ourselves up?

How do we beat ourselves up?

Well, that's not what this is about, but I've got to ask the question.

How do we beat ourselves up in ways that we're not even aware of it?

Flog ourselves, put on hair shirts, and somehow think that God notices our suffering, self-inflicted, and somehow God is just paying attention and he's smiling on us as we grovel.

That's not it.

These people lost the sight and the aroma of the gospel, and right in the middle of their strident dogmatism and all the rules that they were imposing on themselves and others, it was Gnosticism.

The idea, the Greek idea, philosophy that the body is evil.

You have to subjugate the body, put the body down.

In this case, there were two things that Paul mentioned specifically.

They were abstaining from certain foods, but wait a minute, in Acts chapter 10, didn't the Holy Spirit tell Peter all foods are now clean?

Acts 10 · chapter mention

Yeah.

They thought that they were more spiritual than others because there were certain foods that they were not eating.

Sounds crazy.

But a lot of them were doing it.

Some of them were abstaining from marriage.

They thought that they were more spiritual because they were not caught up in the mundane daily activity of marriage.

How do we do this today?

How do Christians, where are Christians challenged and tempted to do this today?

I want to start off with the general.

Making secondary things primary.

Always be on your guard of that.

Making secondary things primary.

Even in this case, it was unbiblical because nowhere in Scripture does it say it's wrong to get married.

I mean, God created marriage.

And you can do that by making things that are not commands of God.

Commands in your mind.

But you can also do it by taking things that are not primary and promoting them as sec as primary, secondary things, so that becomes what you really live for, you become dogmatic about.

And that's very, very uh makes you very vulnerable to drifting, by the way.

What are the things that people will speak about?

What are the things that people are most passionate about when they talk about what they talk about most frequently when it comes to spiritual things?

Listen.

Listen.

It'll tell you a lot.

When they're speaking of the Christian faith.

What did the Apostle Paul say in Galatians chapter 6, verse 14?

Galatians 6:14

May I never boast except in the cross of the Lord Jesus Christ.

Through whom I've been crucified.

I've been crucified to the world, and the world has been crucified to me.

May I never boast except in the cross, the gospel of Jesus Christ.

Oh, that many, many more today, all of us included, would get stirred up about other things, maybe more so, than secondary things.

And I'm not saying that secondary things with respect to convictions that we need to have are not important.

I'm not saying that.

I'm saying when we promote them and we make them all important so that we judge, we judge the people around us whether they conform to our standards.

Oh, that we would be more stirred in our hearts about the lost who died without Jesus.

Do we ever get stirred up about that?

Oh, that we would get more stirred up about the pride in our own hearts.

Oh, that we would get more stirred up about the opportunity that we have every day to praise the triune God.

That our lives would be marked more by praising and repenting, that our lives would be marked by a hunger to worship, a hunger to be in God's word.

The problem in Ephesus was that they were drifting from the gospel.

Again, why would anyone get pulled into asceticism?

Well, there's reasons.

C.S.

Lewis once said, as a matter of fact, if you examined a hundred people who had lost their faith in Christianity, I wonder how many of them would turn out to have been reasoned out of it by honest argument.

Very few, he says.

Do not most people simply drift away?

I think he's right.

You know, I watched the Charles Mansion documentary on TV last night, 50th anniversary.

You young people look it up later.

Not, it's not, most people don't drift Manson style.

Here comes this very allegedly charismatic, dynamic personality, and these young, very pliable minds just followed him like nonsense.

They just followed him into this violent, wicked lifestyle.

I think what Lewis is saying, most Christians who drift don't drift Manson-like.

They just start drifting.

It's not that somebody sits down to them and shows them from the scriptures.

Don't you see that this is all wrong?

Don't you see that you've been wasting your time?

The Christian faith is bankrupt, it can't support its own credibility?

That doesn't usually happen.

What Lewis is saying is do not most people simply drift away?

Is it the old uh scholar Benjamin Jowett, Oxford theologian who Abandoned the faith while still in church.

It's said that when he would recite the Apostles' Creed in chapel, he would usually say, I in a loud voice, and then he would whisper to himself, I used to believe in God the Father.

I used to believe.

We've seen the problem.

Secondly, what's the wrong solution?

Well, it's not asceticism.

It's not by denying ourselves.

Every time you think that you're making progress with God and that God loves you more because of how hard you're working at denying yourself, you're falling, you're drifting away from the gospel.

It's a works righteousness.

And none of us are immune to it.

We are oftentimes released, a lot of Christians are known more for what they are against than what they're for.

Francis Schaefer, one of the great apologists of the last century, started out, his first church was not far from Pittsburgh.

Great apologist that God used.

50, 60, 70 years ago, Francis Schaefer was admonishing the church.

Be careful.

You're so known for what you're against that you're not really known for what you're for.

Be careful about that.

Of course we have to take stands against evil, yes.

But is that our hallmark?

The problem is not discipline, denying ourselves in itself, but legalism.

Legalism is using your goodness to prove your righteousness.

Alright?

Legalism is using your goodness to prove your righteousness.

And that's not ever helpful.

The problem is not discipline, but legalism.

The solution is not by abstaining from certain things, that won't save us.

Nor is it in indulging the flesh.

Hear me, it's always about the flesh.

When we drift, it's always about the flesh.

Whenever we drift from the cross, we will end up getting ourselves wrapped up around the flesh.

Either by suppressing the flesh, like the asceticists were doing in Ephesus.

By suppressing the flesh or by indulging the flesh.

Now, those of you that have read the New Testament more than once, you know that the Apostle Paul spends a lot of time talking about not indulging the flesh.

It's so easily done.

But he also speaks forcefully about trying to just simply suppress the flesh.

Trying to just hold it under.

You can either suppress or promote the flesh to the point that that becomes more central to your identity than the finished work of Jesus Christ or your union with Christ.

That's when we become guilty of searching the scriptures to confirm our own ideas or biases or prejudices, than to let the scriptures search us.

Unless the Holy Spirit shines the light of God's Word, the promises of God's Word, unless the Holy Spirit shines the light on our hearts, we probably will not see past our prejudices.

Let that sink in.

Many, many times, I suspect, we read the Bible looking to confirm what we think we already know.

And it's not always accurate.

Pretty helpful.

He said, Tom, behind every legalist is a hidden life, and behind every antinomian is a hidden agenda.

I think that's right.

Behind every legalist who's trying to use his goodness to prove his righteousness is a hidden life to some extent.

Sometimes they just get really exposed because they're very public and visible.

You know, what's the old saying?

Watch out for the person who's really trying hard to live like an angel because inside he's living like the devil.

You know, look, anytime there's this preoccupation with look how good I'm doing, look how holy I am, I mean, we're at it seems like the spotlight is on that and not Christ.

It's a hidden life.

That sooner or later is probably going to be exposed.

Certainly one day it will be.

Behind every antinomian, if you're saying, well, what's an antinomian?

That's just somebody that says, God loves me as I am, Jesus saved me, I can live as I want, it doesn't matter, I'm forgiven.

And of course, Scripture never encourages that.

Behind every antinomian is a hidden agenda.

I think we're seeing a lot of that today in our culture.

I think I'm seeing more of that.

A hidden agenda.

Well, who really knows that the Bible is that clear when it teaches on the subject of sexual ethics?

Who really knows that the Bible is that clear when it teaches on the subject of the unborn life?

I mean, sometimes you just get nauseous.

You just hear the stuff so much.

It is just cascading, it's bombarding us all the time.

And I think sadly, in our day and age, many, many professing Christians are buying into it.

A hidden agenda.

No, I know what I want in my life.

I know what my needs are.

And frankly, I really don't care what the Bible says.

Now, very few of them will say that, but what did we say just a few minutes ago?

Unless the Holy Spirit is really shining the light of Christ on God's word in your heart, you will, not may, you will read your own prejudices in to the Bible.

Be careful.

The Holy Spirit, Holy Spirit-filled Christians don't have to force themselves to read the Word of God.

Holy Spirit-filled Christians don't have to force themselves to read, to hunger for the Word of God.

Holy Spirit teacher is in the classroom of the heart.

When we see only what we want to see in the Bible, it loses all power to transform.

Did you hear that?

It loses all power to transform.

When you see only what you want to see in the scriptures.

These are the rumble strips, friends.

These are the spiritual rumble strips in our life.

Lastly, what's the right answer?

The right answer.

We have to be on the right diet, and we have to be on the right exercise program.

That's what Paul says.

That's what he says.

He says, um, be trained in the words of the faith and the good doctrine that you have followed.

Rather, train yourself for godliness.

For while bodily training is of some value, godliness is of value in every way, as it holds promise for the present life and also the life to come.

Verse 16.

Keep a close watch on yourself and on the teaching.

Three things, and those of you that know me well won't be surprised.

Delight, discipline, and desperation.

But let's start with the end.

Desperation.

Are you desperate enough to pay attention to your heart?

When I say desperate, I don't mean hopeless.

I don't mean despairing.

You do understand that the devil is planning your death.

The scriptures are very clear about that.

You do understand that his number one goal is that you spend eternity without Jesus.

You do understand that his desire, if he can't take you out of your salvation, he'll do everything he can to take your family out.

He'll do everything he can to throw grenades into your life.

Nobody lobs grenades like the enemy.

He comes after your thought life.

He comes after your relationships.

And you never rest.

I'm just saying, take that seriously.

Don't be naive.

Sometimes I think there's a lot of naive Christians today, just kind of coasting along, floating along.

Well, I pray, you know, I'll pray sometimes if I think about it.

You're not desperate.

I'm just being straight with you.

If prayer is just something that you do occasionally, you're not desperate.

Read Ephesians 6, put on the whole armor of God.

He's planning your destruction, the devil.

You ought to be sufficiently alive and alert that you realize that you need to be on your knees praying daily.

And you need to be in the Word of God.

Because that's your sword, that's your shield, that's your strength.

Wake up.

Maybe this morning, some of you are going to wake up.

Maybe this morning, some of you are feeling the vibration of the rumble strips.

Because you know that you're starting to drift.

You know that you haven't really hungered for the word of God.

It's been something that you check your box.

Wake up.

There is a heaven and there is a hell.

What did Paul say at the end of this passage?

Save both yourself, Timothy, and your hearers.

A church that doesn't preach these realities of heaven and hell is or has drifted seriously from the gospel.

I fear that there are many churches in this city that never preach about a real place like heaven or a real place like hell.

They just don't do it.

It's not popular, it's not part of the culture.

But they're known as Christian churches.

But they're not preaching that you're saved by grace and grace alone.

They're not preaching that the only hope that you have is a crucified, risen, ascended Jesus Christ.

And in very different ways, what they're really promoting is to promote the flesh.

Most of these churches are more into promoting the flesh than suppressing, but you can do both.

Desperation.

I try to live every day of my life with a sense of desperation.

When I pray, I think about the people whose lives are really coming apart at the seams.

And that could be mine.

I'm not immune to it.

I ask God to make me sufficiently desperate so that I'm not just saying my prayers.

But my heart is stirred by these needs.

Secondly, discipline.

Discipline is necessary.

Discipline is the spiritual in the spiritual disciplines is not legalism.

Should I say that again?

Discipline in the spiritual disciplines is not legalism.

It becomes legalism when it becomes about trying to prove your goodness, your righteousness.

We need to be practicing the spiritual disciplines.

We need to be in the Word of God.

We need to be praying.

We need to be in church.

Don't take weeks off of church, alright?

Oh, I'm tired.

Well, go to bed earlier.

There's this really cool thing happening at Andrew's today or whatever, you know.

The gnats are starting early.

Who cares?

Don't upset yourself from your high calling of worship.

That's part of the disciplines.

When Paul says, rather train yourself for godliness, that's a very interesting Greek word.

It has to do with the gymnasium, workout.

And he's referring to what was going on back in the day in the Greek games.

He would look around and he would see these athletes, just like today, who strain in the gym, preparing, getting their muscles toned and strengthened and they're increasing their speed.

And Paul says, look at look at them.

Look how hard they work to win a race.

That really doesn't matter.

There's value in physical exercise, yet, how much more spiritually are you taking your soul to the gym?

Some of us go to gold's gym.

Are you going to God's gym?

Really?

Are we taking our soul to the gym or are we falling prey to the lie?

Oh, I've been saved.

I'm going to heaven.

I don't really need to work out.

I'll be a spiritual couch potato, and that's just fine.

No, it's not.

You're going to pay for that.

If you adopt that lifestyle, it's going to show up.

And you're going to pay for it.

And other people are going to pay for it.

I need the word of God in my life.

I need the word of God.

It's the only bread I have.

I need to pray.

Not because I'm supposed to pray, but I need to pray because I need.

I need God.

For me.

I need God in my marriage.

I need God as a parent, as a grandparent.

I need God as a pastor.

I'm going to close with Kent Hughes, scholar, talks about two illustrations about being in the spiritual disciplines, regardless of how busy we are or how demanding our occupation.

Well, that sure fits Washington, huh?

Billy Graham has shared that his medical missionary father-in-law, Nelson Bell, who ran a 400-bed hospital in China, made it a point to rise every morning at 4:30 and to spend two or three hours in the Word.

And I know some of you are going to think, oh man, here comes a guilt trip.

You know, I used to think that.

I did.

He didn't do correspondence.

He wasn't checking his email.

Of course they didn't have email 70 years ago.

But there's always been ways that the evil one comes along and says, Don't you think you ought to get up and look at that?

Don't you think you need to take care of that?

People said he was a walking Bible encyclopedia, and they were stunned by the holiness and the greatness of his life.

Ken Hughes says, I asked a personal friend who worked with him, and he said every word was true.

Or consider the example of Lieutenant General William K.

Harrison, who was the most decorated soldier in the 30th Infantry Division, rated by General Eisenhower as the number one infantry division in World War II.

General Harrison was the first American to enter Belgium during the war, which he did as the head of the Allied forces.

He received every declaration for valor except the Congressional Medal of Honor.

General Harrison was a soldier-soldier who led a busy, ultra-busy life, but he was also an amazing man of God.

When he was a 20-year-old West Point cadet, he began reading the Old Testament through once, and the New Testament four times every year.

Even in the thick of war, he maintained his commitment by catching up during two and three-day respite for replacing and refitting the following battles so that when the war ended, he was right on schedule with his reading of Scripture.

By the age of 90, with failing eyesight, he had read the Old Testament 70 times and the New Testament 280 times.

Look, I'm not saying that, I'm not saying this just to make this, you know, now your new rule.

I'm just saying that it really makes a difference.

That's how we're transformed.

By being in the Word, guided by the Spirit of God, standing on the promises.

It really makes a difference.

Ruth Graham, married to Billy Graham, roommate in Wheaton College, said, guess what Ruth Graham did every morning?

She got up at 4:30 and it was in the Word of God.

I wonder how much influence, I mean, I know Ruth Graham had a lot of influence on Billy Graham.

Sometimes I wonder if she wasn't the bigger spiritual giant in the family.

Not to put Billy down, but this woman was a powerhouse.

Let me close with this.

One of my heroes, Robertson McWilken, used to be president of Columbia Bible College.

This poem is called Let Me Get Home Before Dark.

And I close with this.

Life with you, unsoiled and free, but I do fear.

I fear the dark specter of the night may come too soon.

Or do I mean too late?

That I should end before I finish, or finish, but not well.

That I should stain your honor, shame your name, grieve your loving heart.

Few, they tell me, finish well.

Lord, let me get home before dark.

The darkness of a spirit grown mean and small, fruit shriveled on the vine, bitter to the taste of my companions, burdened to be borne by those brave few who love me still.

No, Lord, let the fruit grow lush and sweet, a joy to all who taste.

Spirit sign of God at work, stronger, fuller, brighter at the end.

Lord, let me get home before dark.

The darkness of tattered gifts, rust locked, half spent or ill spent.

A life that once was used of God but now set aside.

Grief for glories gone or fretting for a task that God never gave.

Mourning in the hollow chambers of memory, gazing on the faded banners of victories long gone.

Can I not run well unto the end?

Lord, let me get home before dark.

One more verse.

The outer me decays.

I do not fret or ask reprieve.

The ebbing strength but weans me from Mother Earth and grows me up for heaven.

I do not cling to shadows cast by immortality.

I do not patch the scaffold lent to build the real eternal me.

I do not clutch about me my cocoon, vainly struggling to hold hostage a free spirit pressing to be born.

But will I reach the gate in lingering pain, body distorted, grotesque?

Or will it be a mind wandering untethered among light or grim terrors?

Of your grace, Father, I humbly ask, let me get home before dark.

Pray with me.

Father, we come.

We acknowledge our weakness.

Father, we acknowledge that none of us are immune to spiritual drifting.

Save us from ourselves.

Give us a hunger for the word like we've never had.

Teach us how to pray differently.

Like we really mean it, like we really need you.

And we'll pray often.

And we'll pray earnestly.

And we'll pray corporately because we know that we need, we need the support and strength of others.

Teach us how to pray.

Give us a desire to be in your house every Lord's day that we can.

Most of all, point us to Jesus.

Help us to believe once again today that it's not by suppressing the flesh, it's not by indulging the flesh, but it's by looking to Jesus alone.

Jesus, may we be captured by your beauty again this morning, that you died to free us from all of this.

It's only because we're united in Christ that we're free, that we're saved.

Father, by your spirit, keep our eyes on Jesus.

That we might pay close attention to our life and our doctrine.

We pray in Christ's name, Amen.