Titus 3:8-11 - Stay Focused

Secret Bible and go to the book of Titus, chapter 3.

Titus 3 · chapter mention

We started Titus in March, and we're going to finish in just a couple weeks.

Today and next Sunday will be actually our last message in the book of Titus.

We're going to be in verses 8 through 11 this morning.

I imagine for many of us, sometime this week, you either did or didn't do the most important thing that was on your list when the week started.

Some of us might have had a week where you had this list on Monday, but by the time you got to the end of the week, you looked at the list and you said the top priority did not get done.

You've had those weeks, haven't you?

Maybe at work where the most important thing is put onto the calendar, and all of a sudden you receive an email that talks about a scheduling conflict.

And then as you read the thread, the thread drifts away from the scheduling conflict into a whole discussion about scheduling philosophy.

And then it gets into a longer thread about the management, organizational management practices of the place where you work.

And all of a sudden, that most important thing gets buried.

Or maybe you've walked into a meeting about that most important thing.

It's supposed to be a 30-minute meeting, turns into a 90-minute meeting.

And at the end of the 90 minutes, everybody kind of goes, Well, that was an important meeting.

And you realize that the most important thing was still on the table and no decisions had been made about it.

Or perhaps you've sat in your office and somebody's come by and they've brought an issue, and it's a significant issue.

It needs to be talked about, but you realize, you know, it's been an issue and it's not going to go away.

But that conversation becomes a 60-minute conversation, then a 90-minute conversation, and then the whole afternoon's gone, and you're like, what I needed to get done today did not get done.

And I say most of us, because I too have had to learn the lesson that there's a big difference between what's important and what's urgent.

And oftentimes what's important is not a fair competitor against what's urgent.

The urgent things often seem to win the day.

And the reason is because what's important often doesn't announce itself with the same kind of clarity and loudness of speech that the urgent does, and it gets overshadowed.

But this is not just a personal problem, and it's not just an issue that we often find at work in different places.

Paul names this tension between the important and the urgent in the passage of scripture that we're going to be looking at.

In the book of Titus, which is just three short chapters, Titus has been receiving from Paul the instruction necessary to help stabilize this young church.

This church has been dealing with some matters that could be disruptive, but also some things that need to be put into place in order for it to be a mature body.

Their leadership needs to be put into place.

The qualifications for that are listed out in chapter one, how the church is meant to operate well in all of its dimensions in chapter two.

And now, here near the end of the letter, Paul directs Titus to speak to the church about the things that are absolutely necessary for it.

For the things that the church must insist on.

And so he writes to this church to address a specific problem.

And the problem is this that the false teachers that Paul discusses in chapter one and that he alludes to here in chapter three, they come in and they're not idle people.

They are energetic people.

They are people who want to engage with real energy about things.

But these things don't produce anything good.

They've got their genealogies to reconstruct, they've got their controversies to argue, they've got their quarrels about the law to promote.

All of this effort and no fruit.

And that pattern is very, very, very subtle.

Because oftentimes conversations can enter into the life of a body and it can gain attention.

And as it does, there's a slow drift away from what is most important.

And by the time you recognize it, you've already been off track for quite a while.

So here we are in Titus chapter 3 and verses 8 to 11.

Titus 3 · chapter mention

And Paul addresses this concern directly.

How directly?

Well, he talks about insisting and rejecting.

His commands are sharp and pointed.

It would be like a contractor sort of driving up to a building site to find out how his workers are doing and to realize that they've been building a very constructive building, but it's on a different plot of land than what they've been, they were told to build on.

So Paul doesn't commend this effort or even suggest it.

He names it with some force and directness.

And this is why, because what the church needs to center its attention on has in itself only the power to perform what it's meant to do.

And that'll make sense in just a moment.

And so, in order for any church and our church to stay where God wants us, we need to do three things.

We need to insist on the excellent thing.

We need to reject the worthless thing.

And the third one is we need to release the troublemaker who makes the worthless thing his project.

Three instructions, but one purpose.

The purpose is that we keep center what is necessarily the center, and what is necessarily the only thing that will produce the kind of church that God wants.

So let's look at these three points, these three action points about how to keep the thing that is central, central.

Take a look at verse 8 with me.

This saying is trustworthy.

I want you to insist on these things, so that those who have believed God might be careful to vote themselves to good works.

These things are excellent and profitable for everyone.

Now, Paul brings up a pointer phrase here, which is extremely important.

He says, This saying is trustworthy.

Now, Paul uses that language, very similar language, or even that exact language, five times in the pastoral epistles.

So in 1 Timothy, 2 Timothy, and here in Titus.

3 in 1 Timothy, I think once in 2 Timothy and once here.

And this formula sometimes points forward and sometimes points back.

And in this instance, it's pointing back to something, saying, This which we've talked about, not what we're about to talk about, but that which was just mentioned, this is a trustworthy saying.

So let's see what he says is a trustworthy saying.

Take a look at verse four.

When the kindness of God, our Savior, and his love for mankind appeared, he saved us, not by works of righteousness such we have done, but according to his mercy, through the washing of regeneration and the renewing by the Holy Spirit, he poured out his Spirit on us abundantly through Jesus Christ our Savior, so that having been justified by his grace, we may become heirs with the hope of eternal life.

That is a glorious statement of the gospel in a lot of very, very fine and full dimensions.

And Paul is saying about this statement about the gospel that this is the faithful, trustworthy saying.

So what Paul's doing here, right after stating the gospel, is let's park it right here.

Let's stop and let's look back now that we've just said this, and to see just how vital that was.

And what he says is, we're not going to move from here.

This needs to be a fixed point in the life of the congregation.

The gospel is the thing.

And Titus, you must, you must, you must insist on it.

And that insisting is it's in itself the instruction here.

And what Paul is saying by this insisting is to speak about this confidently and to assert it without qualification.

And what Paul is telling Titus to do, and everyone who has any responsibility in the direction of a church is to take the gospel, set it in the center, and make sure nothing else gets in its place.

It's that vital.

And like I said, he's not suggesting this, he's commanding this.

This is a vital word to receive.

And he's saying it with the kind of weight of, again, a builder who is going to the job site and looking at the foundations of the building that's about to be built.

And he's saying, This is where we're building.

No other place.

This is where it's happening, right here.

And this is exactly how Paul is insisting on this.

He's saying, This is the spot.

Now, here's why.

Look at the next phrase.

So that those who have believed in God may be careful to devote themselves to good works.

Now, notice the construct of that: the insistence on the gospel as the central point to the life of the church for the purpose of good works in the life of God's people.

And what he is saying there is that only the gospel can produce the kind of life that believers are meant to live.

That's the connection.

Only the gospel produces what it says it produces.

Only the grace of God can make people who are devoted to doing what is good.

And they do that not in order to gain anything from God, but in response to the grace they've received.

And without the gospel at the center, anything that looks like religious activity has absolutely no foundation underneath it.

And so the gospel is what changes people.

And Christian living should never, never, never, never be mistaken for moralism.

Because moralism is a command to live your life in a particular way without the power of the gospel undergirding it.

And so with the gospel of the center, good works are produced by the Spirit, energizing them in those who have been justified by grace, by those who have received an inheritance, by those who have the hope of eternal life.

The Spirit works in such a way that their life becomes one of displaying these good works.

Now, let's describe those good works here because Paul gives some qualifiers for what they look like.

He calls them good and profitable.

Good and profitable.

In the Greek, these words are very descriptive.

That good word, we often think of good and we think of it in a moral dimension, and it is a moral dimension.

But this word for good goes broader than that.

It's a word which talks about things that are beautiful, that are inherently excellent, that are praiseworthy, that are noble.

That's good works.

Those are the kind of good works he's talking about, that are genuinely good in and of themselves.

And if anyone were to see them, they would have to affirm there is something absolutely beautiful about that.

And then the next word, profitable, again, is a very clear word.

Things that are useful, things that are beneficial, things that produce a real advantage.

So the gospel moves in a heart of somebody who is described in verse three as foolish and disobedient, deceived and enslaved by various passions and pleasures and malice, hating and being hated by one another, takes that kind of person, brings them into this wondrous hope, and then produces a life of beauty and productivity.

It's a glorious thing.

This is how congregations grow, when the gospel is kept center.

And this is what congregations look like when the gospel is kept in the center.

A community that shows itself not only amongst itself, but also in the public good, as something that only the gospel could produce.

This is why Jesus said, they will know that they are my disciples by their love for one another.

And in another place, they will know that I've been sent by the Father, because there's something that happens in the gospel that the rest of the world just can't explain.

They just have no categories for comprehending those things.

Let me give you an example of one.

And the missionary was like, uh, a little uncomfortable talking about finances, and said, Yeah, yeah.

And and you you probably probably give a lot of what you do have to the work.

And he's like, Yeah.

And he said, Um, I've been thinking about that.

And I was just wondering, um, do you have like a college fund set up for your children?

And he's like, uh I I I don't.

He said, good.

Because I want to start one for them.

He said, you don't need to do anything, you don't need to contribute anything.

We'll take care of this.

And set up a college fund for that missionary's children.

Out of the love of the gospel, out of the love of the truth, these kind of good and profitable things that were poured out abundantly, not because the person had to do it or needed to be seen by it.

That was a private conversation I never would have known of if I hadn't spoken to that person.

And here is this person who's recognizing that the gospels move their heart so much that they want to take care of those who are taking the gospel to different places.

We need to keep what is excellent central, Paul says here.

I also want to take that builder analogy a little further.

Think about that builder who has come to the job site and he's known, look, we need to be building here, and this foundation is just what needs to be built.

And that builder has been building enough to know what should be done as this construction continues and what shouldn't be done.

Because there are a lot of ways to cut corners and a lot of ways for cost to be shaved so that profit can be increased.

But he's not going to do that because he wants to build what is going to remain and what is going to be stable.

And he knows the difference between the hard, unseen work that's going to make sure that that building is sound and safe and long-lasting from a lot of effort that is shoddy and going to show cracks very, very shortly.

And so he focuses his attention on ensuring that the building stands.

And it's going to take a lot of patient, unglamorous, unseen, unappreciated work to make sure that that's done.

Now, let me move the analogy.

Any pastor or preacher who maintains the line of the gospel week after week after week after week, and is returning there constantly and insisting on it is not run out of ideas of what to preach.

He is one who understands that this is the central thing.

And this is what must be kept right there.

Because he knows that when it is, the gospel will actively produce what only the gospel can produce.

A people who are filled with beautiful, beneficial, profitable actions.

The contrast is not subtle at all.

And some of you have been here for a long, long time.

Years and years and years before Micah and I ever showed up.

So we're not talking about our past few years.

We're talking about decades.

And you've been here long enough to see how the gospel kept central has changed people, and how it stabilized their life, and how there's a fullness to them that nothing else could produce.

And some of you are newer to the faith and you're wondering, is there more to the Christian life?

I want to tell you with a degree of confidence that some of this greatness provides me.

The gospel is the center.

There's a lot of teaching out there that treats the gospel like it's the front door to the house called Christianity.

And you pass through it and you shut it, and then you just kind of enter in, and everything else is in front of you.

You've heard me say this.

The gospel is not the front door to Christianity.

It is the front door and the rest of the house.

It is everything.

Because out of it flows all that God is doing for us in his redemptive activity.

And there is voices out there, and sometimes these little thoughts in our head to think, well, maybe there's something different or more or better.

Paul is insisting that the faithful saying is remained fixed in our hearts because the gospel doesn't need any veneer on it.

And so we have to ask ourselves constantly this question: Is the gospel central?

Is it fixed in our attention?

Are we maintaining it right where it should be?

Or have we let something else enter in?

Am I asking some of you to do a little bit of a painful inventory now?

Think about those places where you've been or those periods in which you've endured where there has been something consuming the church other than the gospel.

Where there's been conversation after conversation after conversation about this matter.

And I want you to ask this question.

Have those conversations produce the kind of fruit that Paul just described the gospel produces.

A person who is filled with beautiful deeds that are truly profitable to people.

And if the answer to that question is patently no, it gives you some idea of where on the priority list that conversation should have been.

And so here, because the congregation's life is built on the gospel, we need to keep that which is excellent and to hold tight to it and insist on it, as Paul tells Titus to do.

Now that leads us to the second point.

Point two is that we are to avoid the worthless thing.

Look at verse 9.

Avoid foolish debates, genealogies, quarrels, and disputes about the law, because they are unprofitable and worthless.

The contrast here couldn't be any more stark, could it?

The profitable, beautiful deeds that flow out of the gospel, and the unprofitable and worthless things that flow out of these kinds of controversies.

And the word that he uses here for unprofitable and worthless is empty, vaporous, the kind of thing that can't be held.

What's left of a soap bubble after you pop it?

Nothing.

It's actually the same Greek word that's used in the book of Ecclesiastes when it talks about vanity, vanity.

All is vanity.

Now, Paul has said this before, and he brings it up quite a bit in his pastoral letters to Timothy and Titus.

In chapter one of this book, he said to Titus that there are people full of empty talk and deception.

In 1 Timothy 1 4, that there are people who promote empty speculations rather than God's plan.

In 1 Timothy 6.4, he talked about people who have this driving unhealthy interest in disputes and arguments about words.

And then in 2 Timothy 2.16, he says that they have irreverent and empty speech.

What's interesting about those statements is Paul doesn't necessarily define what all of that is.

He gives categories, but he doesn't give specifics.

Because I think Titus and Timothy knew exactly what he meant.

And if we're honest, we do too.

And the question isn't whether or not these kind of empty things exist today.

They do.

What we need is perhaps some equipment to know how to recognize them.

And I want to give us three three ways, three clues to help us recognize these kind of conversations.

First of all, these arguments divide.

And it's not the total picture, but that's one of the three points.

And the context of Titus here is unmistakable.

He's telling Titus that he needs to command the church to stay away from foolish debates because they're divisive.

Verse 10, he'll talk about that.

We'll look at that in just a moment.

Empty arguments and divisive people travel together, and they fracture what the gospel unites.

Now, there are moments when debate is necessary.

There are times when the truth of the gospel is at stake.

There are times when the clarity needs to be out there to protect the flock.

There are times when error needs to be named and it needs to be corrected.

Paul had no hesitation whatsoever to confront the Judaizers in Galatia when the gospel was on the line.

The integrity was necessary.

But there's a difference between contending for the faith and somebody being contentious and divisive.

Because there's some people that don't love the truth, they just love a fight.

And Paul's counsel here is not gentle.

As we'll see, he says, reject them.

It's pretty clear.

The second element about recognizing these kind of conversations is they're not only divisive, but they also divert.

They divert.

Going back to 1 Timothy chapter 1 and verse 4, Paul talked about those who promote endless, empty speculation rather than God's plan, which operates by faith.

1 Timothy 1 · chapter mention

And so they're diverting the conversation to empty speculations, things that don't advance the faith, things that don't strengthen the church's witness, things that don't build up the body of Christ.

Things that can be full of conversations that consume time and energy and attention, all the while diverting the focus on the gospel.

I've had to talk to my sons at times about different conversations that they've been in.

And some of the things that we've had to talk about have been absolutely unbelievable.

Arguments in churches about whether or not when they come to communion, they should all do it with one cup that everybody shares together, or if it's biblically permissible to have several different cups from which to drink.

Have that conversation if you want.

Or to go to Genesis chapter six and for people to have this raging conversation about the Nephilim and whether they're the sons of Seth or if they're, you know, sort of like half-breeds of angels and human women.

Sure.

On a long night, after a good dinner, sit down with a friend and have a conversation, but for it to be the conversation of a whole church that diverts.

Not only is it one of division, it's one of diversion.

And ultimately it's one of destruction as well.

Listen to what Paul says about these kinds of conversations and the people that bring them.

He said in Titus 1.11, they ruin entire households.

And that's not just a family unit.

I think that's a code word for a church.

They ruin entire churches.

Second Timothy 2.14 quarrels about words that lead to the ruin of those who listen.

And then in Second Timothy four or two, verse 16, speech that will produce even more godlessness, false teaching that will spread like gangrene.

It has that kind of poisonous effect.

These arguments don't just waste time, they don't just divert, they corrode, and they unsettle and they fracture, and they breed suspicion in the place of trust, and they breed pride in the place of humility, and they breed noise where there should be nourishment happening.

And any departure of the gospel that goes down that way through speculation or novelty or some needless controversy needs to be rejected.

And look at what Paul says about it here.

Avoid.

That's just not quite strong enough.

The Greek word there means to turn away from.

Turn away from it.

And the reason he's saying that is because there's an assumption underneath there that these kind of conversations have a gravitational pull to them.

That there's something about them that sucks you in if you engage them and you get locked into it.

And he's saying, don't even drive that direction.

Paul's not alone with that warning.

Hebrews 13, he warns against strange teachings, teachings that produce nothing.

And here's the problem is when these people come in with these kind of teachings, they look serious about God.

They wear the clothes of serious theological discussion.

But there's no fruit to the kind of conversations they're having.

Let me paint a scenario for you.

This is a made-up scenario, not a real one, but it's sadly very recognizable.

Imagine, if you will, a church, a healthy church, shaped by the gospel in every way, loving people, genuinely working out their salvation in fear and trembling because God is at work within them.

And then some guest preacher comes in and interjects some of those thoughts.

And people are like, oh, I hadn't really thought about that.

And other people are like, oh, I haven't really thought about that either.

And there's this genuine interest to sort of engage one of these things.

And all of a sudden, people are finding it a little more compelling to talk about.

And then the elders of the church call for a study about this thing.

And the study produces more discussions, and the more discussions produce some division.

And then all of a sudden, the whole church is wrapped up in this thing that produces no fruit.

And six months later, one of the elders kind of goes, Where have we gotten ourselves?

Has this conversation produced the kind of fruit the gospel produces?

No.

And the church starts to move themselves back to the gospel, but for a year or longer, they have not been a display of the kind of people that the gospel produces.

In the middle of those kind of scenarios, Paul is saying, look, don't go there.

Don't get caught up in its vortex.

Don't get sucked in by its pressures.

Don't get pulled in by it at all.

Turn away from it.

Because the gospel needs to be central, we must insist on it, because only the gospel can produce the kind of people God wants his children to be.

And therefore, we must reject the worthless thing.

Paul drives this even deeper in verses 10 and 11.

We must release the divisive person.

Reject a divisive person after the first and second warning.

For you know that such a person has gone astray and is sinning, being self-condemned.

This is a very difficult passage.

And I was talking to Royal last night, and she said, How's it going today?

And I said, I've been sitting on these two verses all day long.

I came to Tony's celebration with the weight of that just on my shoulders.

Paul names a particular kind of person, and we need to identify this person carefully.

Because it's easy to make this too broad or too narrow.

Look at what he says in verse 10.

We need to reject a divisive person.

If we were to transliterate the Greek word and we have, it would sound very familiar to many of your ears.

It's the word heretic.

Heretic.

And the word heretic in our dictionary typically means bad theology, right?

And that's true.

But the source of it is something that Paul is pointing to.

It is not talking about the theology, it's talking about the divisiveness of the person more than it's talking about the content of their conversation.

The divisive person reject, the person who is factious in their behavior, the person who operates by drawing lines, by creating parties, by pulling the community toward the place that he wants it to gravitate, and by doing it persistently enough that it ends up in a disruptive way in the life of the body.

That's what he's talking about.

Now let's be clear to clarify that.

Because if you apply this passage too quickly, you know what you've done?

You've just weaponized it.

And it's not meant to be a weapon, it's meant to be a safeguard.

And Paul is talking about giving even this divisive person a process.

Take a look at the process.

Verse 10.

Reject the divisive person after a first and second warning.

And so this divisive person, after discussions have been had, and the disagreements are seen to be more than just someone with a difficult question, and more than just somebody with a disagreement at some point about something that's done or said, but it comes to comes to be clear that this person is being divisive for divisiveness's sake.

And that person is given first one warning, clear, spoken, unambiguous, and then a second warning, clear, spoken, without any ambiguity.

And after those, then in the third step, there is a rejection.

It's a mechanism that leads, hopefully, to repentance and reconciliation.

But if it goes through the process of first step, second step, then third step, then there has to be a display of this in which that person who has made this issue so central that it's diverting the attention of the body from the gospel itself, that person needs to be let go, rejected.

Now, this is not something Paul came up with.

And in his discussions about it, say in 1 Corinthians chapter 5, he talks about the person who is disciplined, even in a redemptive way, in the hope that even after the judicial decision of the church, that person might be delivered by being let go.

1 Corinthians 5 · chapter mention

Paul says, you need to work through the process.

You must do this.

And in verse 11, he talks about what the verdict, where the verdict lies.

For you know that such a person has gone astray and is sinning.

He is self-condemned.

Warped, twisted, out of shape, and self-condemned.

A person who is judged by his own choices is what he's saying here.

It's not the community rendering the judgment, it's not even the elders rendering the judgment.

This is a verdict that's rendered by the person himself, because his divisiveness has been so absolutely evident that he is self-condemned.

Now, there are two errors that crop up here, and I've seen both of them.

One of them is the error of never reaching the end of the process.

There's the error of talking to someone who's been seen as divisive, who's been absolutely identified as divisive, and having one conversation, then two conversations, then 20 conversations, then 30 conversations, and then 40 conversations, where there's been something on the agenda of an elder's meeting, and it's going to get discussed.

And every time it's discussed, it gets put on the next elder's meeting, and then it gets discussed, and then it gets put on the next elder's meeting, and the next one, and the next one, and the next one, and the next one, and that person remains and continues to do their divisive work.

An infinite extension of the process is not love for the truth of the gospel, it's not love for the body of Christ that needs protected, and it's not love for the person who is in this factious mindset, because it's not confronting them clearly with what they're doing.

But then there's the other side.

There's the other side of taking a question, a disagreement, and turning it into immediately a divisive frame and stepping into this too quick.

Several years ago, we had to receive two families into the life of the church here who had been disciplined by a congregation.

That's a very, very delicate thing to receive when we sit down in our membership interviews with people who want to become a part of New High Park Baptist Church.

One of the questions we always ask is this have you ever been put under discipline by another body of Christ?

And those two couples, those two families had to say yes.

And that started the conversation.

What happened?

And after a long involved investigative process and talking to them and talking to the people that they were involved with, it was exactly what the other side of this can be.

The church had stepped in so quickly into what shouldn't have been a disciplinary issue, and it actually threw these two families out of their church.

Such a sad thing.

Platform from which you can enter into even these kind of conversations and have clarity about how to proceed through them.

The congregation's life is centered here on Christ, on what He's done in His wondrous grace for us, when mercy has been shown upon us when judgment should have been ours, when we've been justified by grace, and we've been given an inheritance so that we might rejoice in the hope of eternal life together.

For some of you who are newer to us, and you've been in those kind of places, and we've many of us have had the kind of conversations about them, and you've come in here and you've said something's different here.

Something's happening here that wasn't happening where I was from.

And now you understand why.

It's because what is central, as Paul said, needs to be central, is what keeps getting repeated here.

And I want to say to you, you're welcome.

The gospel has to be central.

But I want to say something to all of us who have been here, and all of us who are here.

This centrality of the gospel doesn't happen by default.

It's not just something we can put into neutral and just assume that it's always going to be here and assume that the fruit of the gospel is always going to be on display here.

Because Paul is warning us that there's going to be people and there's going to be situations and questions that may sound very, very attractive, but underneath them is an energizing not of the spirit, but of Satan who wants to come in and divert and destroy God's people.

And we have to be on our guard.

As he said, keep the unity of the faith, guard the gospel, guard the truth of it.

And so we have to insist on what is excellent.

We have to reject what is worthless.

And if necessary, we have to do the hard thing and even release the person who is causing the factions.

We have to continue doing what only the gospel can do: living a life with gospel clarity, living a life with relational spirit-driven honesty, and living a life in which we're all committed to walk together in the light of truth.

I want to say something as I close.

We've been talking a lot about the gospel, but I want to remind everyone here that what Paul is doing here is not simply talking about church management policies and procedures.

He's helping us see what is really the essence of the Christian life and what is the essence of our church life.

It is the gospel.

These are not just operational instructions, it's the vital overflow of what only the gospel can do.

And all of us are here because of it.

And only it.

We're here because we were once foolish, disobedient, deceived.

We were enslaved by various passions and pleasures.

Left to ourselves, we would go astray in a heartbeat.

But the kindness and the love of God has appeared.

While we were sinners, Christ died for us.

While we were filled with all of these things, his love appeared and his mercy saved.

And he's washed us and he's regenerated us and he's renewed us and he's given us the overflow of the Spirit that works the fruit of love, joy, and peace within us.

And he's done so with abundance and overflow.

And he's making us different.

People whose lives are now good and profitable.

And if you're here this morning and you say, look, I'm still stuck in verse three.

I don't know verses four to seven.

I don't know this kind of love, this kind of this kind of kindness.

I don't know this kind of mercy.

I don't know this kind of grace.

What do I do?

You come as you are.

God's not asking you to bring something with you to Him.

He's saying, bring yourself to Him, just as you are.

And admit who you are.

Admit that you are foolish and disobedient and deceived and enslaved by passions and pleasures.

Admit that before God.

And the scriptures say that if you do, if you confess your sins before Him and you come to Christ as the only hope for deliverance and salvation, if you receive Christ Jesus, the scriptures say that he is rich to all those who call upon him.

And it doesn't matter whether you're a Jew or a Gentile.

He said, anyone from everywhere whoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved.

And then you can enter in to the glorious forgiveness and inheritance of the gospel, and you'll find yourself wondrously transforming.

And you will find yourself sometimes looking in the mirror and going, now that's the same person, but I don't feel the same at all.

There's something going on here.

And I can only, only attribute it to God.

Come to Christ, He'll receive you.

Let's pray together.

Our Heavenly Father, what wondrous things, what wondrous things are we recipients of.

Father, to see this indictment of our condition with words that are hard, uncomfortable, easy to want to push away from, that describe us foolish and disobedient, deceived and enslaved, living in malice and envy.

There's not a single one of those words we'd like to have marked on us.

But you say that's exactly what we are.

Your holiness is so great that this is exactly who we are in the light of it.

And yet, and yet, to us, foolish, disobedient, deceived, enslaved to people living in malice and envy, to hear these words, the kindness of God our Savior and His love for mankind appeared, he saved us.

What wondrous love is this?

What wondrous love is this?

Lord, give us the spiritual perception to discern and to approve that which is excellent.

Give us the spiritual understanding and perception to reject that which is worthless.

And Father, give us the courage and the compassion to release one who would persist in worthless things.

Father, give grace to all of us so that we together might be the pillar and ground of the truth, the habitation for you to dwell happily.

And may we all be energized through what only the gospel can do.

And we pray this in Christ's name.

Amen.