Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Good morning. If we haven't met again, my name is Michael Tropez. I serve here as the campus pastor and grateful that I get to serve you and those online. Welcome for gathering with us online. We are in week two of really a four week series that is going to culminate in our August 16th one service, one campus moment.
[00:00:20] And we are going through the letter to letter of Titus, where we will explore one chapter each week. And next week will be the third chapter.
[00:00:30] But the real reason we landed on this teaching is to give us an idea of, hey, what does a healthy church, functioning church actually look like?
[00:00:40] Like, what does this household of grace, this body that we call the church body, look like in the world? How is it structured, leadership wise? What is that perspective? What is health from Paul's perspective to Titus?
[00:00:54] What does it look like from a discipleship perspective? And the relationship and the character of the people that make up the house, and how are they supposed to function with one another, to be a picture to the world and the communities around them. And so we're gonna go through a chapter each week and we're finding ourselves in chapter two. But last week we began this series getting context to what Paul was writing to Titus and to the church in Crete. You see, he left Titus in Crete to remember what I said, set what remained into order.
[00:01:25] That's what Paul was writing to Titus. Why? Because around them was disorder, was a people and a culture of Crete that it had found its way into these household churches, and it had found its way into leadership.
[00:01:39] And the culture around them was causing dysfunction and division and upsetting whole families, the letter says. And as Paul says at the end of chapter one, they profess to know God, but they deny him the by their works.
[00:01:54] So there was a difference, a misalignment from what the confession was of their faith and how they lived their lives. And it was seen in the leadership.
[00:02:04] And so what does Paul say to Titus? As a recap, Titus appoint elders in every town, men whose lives have been transformed by Jesus, like men of character, not just charisma, men that hold to the faithful word of God so that it's built on the foundation of the gospel in. And they can rebuke and set in order the division that is happening in the body.
[00:02:28] And they bring health and wholeness to that.
[00:02:32] But there's a second movement we see that's happening in Titus 2.
[00:02:37] He begins to move from the leadership of the house to all of us in this room today, all of us that make up the body of Christ in This local church. It's a whole family dynamic here.
[00:02:48] And so how does Paul open up to Titus in chapter two? But as for you, Titus, teach, what accords with what? Sound doctrine.
[00:02:57] Sound doctrine. When you hear that word doctrine, it can feel flat, stuffy, and not really inspiring, but it is deep and rich.
[00:03:07] You see the word sound doctrine, it moves into the relationship. In these verses, sound doctrine leads to discipleship. Relationships and characteristics of the different factions that make up the body. Older men, older women, younger men, younger women, Titus himself, and even these bond servants.
[00:03:29] And what Paul tells us ultimately, with the opening lines as it relates to what we're going to unpack here, is this big idea. Sound doctrine becomes healthy household discipleship.
[00:03:42] Sound doctrine leads, if it's right and sound, to healthy whole discipleship within the body at large.
[00:03:52] So when Paul writes these words in the Greek, the word.
[00:03:55] What does the word mean in Greek? It's where we get the word hygiene from, you see, it means healthy, whole, functioning, properly, teaching.
[00:04:06] And Paul uses medical imagery here.
[00:04:10] He isn't saying, hey, make sure your theology is technically correct, although that is an important part of it. He's saying, teach what is spiritually healthy, what causes flourishing, what the true root of the thing is, which is the gospel.
[00:04:25] That's what will make the church healthy and whole.
[00:04:30] When I was thinking about this, I thought about it this way and like, the same idea with the reference to food. When I was in college, we went to a place, again, I'm from New York, went to University of Buffalo. We went to a place called University Hots.
[00:04:43] Oftentimes the students did. And University Hots was known for something called the Garbage plate. And the name implies exactly what I'm about to describe.
[00:04:53] And the garbage plate was ground beef with fries, with onions, with grease, with mustard, with ketchup, with grease. Like, and it's put before you, all mixed up. And it's exactly as the name implies. But it is glorious on the first bite.
[00:05:16] It is glorious on the first bite. Second bite, the same thing. You get done, and you're like, you're questioning your life choices at that point, right?
[00:05:24] But for a moment, it seems healthy, not healthy. It doesn't seem healthy at all.
[00:05:30] For a moment, it seems good going down, but an hour to two later you realize, oh, there is a lot wrong with this.
[00:05:39] It doesn't hit, it doesn't nourish, it doesn't cause the flourishing. But as I've learned as I got older and nutrition became an actual thing that keeps my body, because my digestion system has Slowed down as I've gotten older. Hey, what is actually good for it is actually vegetables. Like these things that are actually full of nutrient dense things that actually keep me healthy, whole and nourished. They're not sexy by any stretch of the means, but they're good for you.
[00:06:08] And it's good for the flourishing of our lives in general. And Paul says teaching works the same way.
[00:06:16] Some teaching sounds exciting, it sounds trendy, it's emotionally satisfying and engaging, but oftentimes it feeds the fact that you're the hero.
[00:06:26] It feeds self righteousness, like it's all about you.
[00:06:32] And it may taste good going down, but it leaves the household spiritually unhealthy.
[00:06:39] But sound doctrine is different.
[00:06:42] It nourishes the soul, it strengthens faith, it retrains our desires, and here's what it produces.
[00:06:51] Love by the spirit, self control, endurance, purity, integrity. Good works.
[00:06:58] So what Paul is saying is sound doctrine is healthy teaching. Teaching that is faithful to the gospel and produces lives that are fit by the gospel.
[00:07:07] And here's the healthy doctrine.
[00:07:09] It teaches that God is savior, that Christ gave himself for us.
[00:07:14] If you hear anything from this platform of anyone teaching that you are the hero, bring it to me.
[00:07:22] Because Jesus is the hero and we are not.
[00:07:25] Jesus is the one who purifies a people for his own possession, that good works are the fruit of grace, never the root for our salvation.
[00:07:36] So sound doctrine does more than inform our minds. It reshapes our hearts and transforms our lives around Jesus.
[00:07:45] And so a definition I put together, if you're taking notes, sound doctrine is healthy gospel teaching the truth about God's saving grace in Christ, that forms the mind, retrains the heart, and produces a life that fits the gospel.
[00:08:00] And that's where Paul starts in chapter two to Titus.
[00:08:05] But look where he moves next.
[00:08:09] Paul says our sound doctrine isn't just some abstract reality, isn't some just information that we keep on a paper that we memorize and can repeat back.
[00:08:22] No, sound doctrine about Jesus inevitably outlets itself through relationships.
[00:08:31] Like what does the scripture say? It says older men are discipled into steadfastness.
[00:08:37] Older women are discipled into reverence and wisdom.
[00:08:41] And older women disciple younger women.
[00:08:46] Men are urged towards self control. I love the only thing for younger men is self control. You got one thing.
[00:08:52] You just need to work on this.
[00:08:55] Because we're slow.
[00:08:57] No, but that's a real thing.
[00:09:00] That's a real thing in the body, like Titus himself must become a model of good works. Workers are called to integrity so that their lives adorn the gospel you see healthy sound, gospel centered teaching creates a healthy household where people are formed through teaching, example, correction, encouragement and intergenerational discipleship. It's the whole body work working together.
[00:09:26] And so Paul's vision for a church isn't one full of isolated individuals who attend the same service.
[00:09:36] It's a household where truth moves through relationships and is dispensed one to another.
[00:09:43] Older believers helping younger believers. And it goes both ways.
[00:09:49] Leaders model what they teach in everyday life. Extremely ordinary like I talked about, talked about last week. Life becomes the classroom of faith in Christ with one another.
[00:10:00] Like these words from Titus 2.
[00:10:04] This is Paul's vision for this is my heart for us as a people at Grace Community Church at UB in particular.
[00:10:12] Like I'm not for just keeping you busy here.
[00:10:19] Like we don't present opportunities of groups just because we wanna keep you busy.
[00:10:26] I was talking to some leaders that are gonna be a part in leading a group this week and they wanna be a part of discipling others intergenerationally, multi, generationally to point them deeper to Jesus. That's why we offer groups.
[00:10:40] That's why our women's ministry team has Bible studies that they're crafting and flourish where they have older been through motherhood, are discipling younger women that have been through, that are walking through motherhood. Intergenerational discipleship walking with one another towards Jesus.
[00:10:58] That's why I'm passionate about deeper discipleship among men in this room.
[00:11:04] That's why I get up at 6am on Wednesdays and this is a plug for Wednesdays. If you're here with other men walking in deeper into the truth of God's word.
[00:11:14] Older men, younger men walking towards Jesus together.
[00:11:20] Like I love the fact that we have a ministry in Tyler, Texas that ministers to college age young adults in boathouse and why we want to send and you'll be hearing in a couple weeks, but what we want to send others to disciple that generation that is hungry to know Jesus and to be formed into his image by by other believers.
[00:11:42] It's why we celebrate every child God brings into this church family.
[00:11:47] And like sometimes discipleship in this way looks like sitting across from someone once a week. But sometimes it looks like holding a crying kiddo back there on Sunday morning or pushing a stroller where they are. They may not know the gospel but they're experiencing your love and the people of God whether they know it or not.
[00:12:08] And so are the parents.
[00:12:11] You see, that's the vision of Titus 2.
[00:12:15] Healthy doctrine holding to Jesus creates healthy households because the Gospel moves through ordinary people in ordinary relationships.
[00:12:26] That's Titus 2:1. 10.
[00:12:29] Now, if we are honest, after hearing what Paul just said, hearing what I just shared about grace in our environments and invitation, there's a question that could be hanging over us.
[00:12:43] How do people become like this kind of house? How do we become like this household, individually and corporately?
[00:12:51] Like, how does an older man actually become steadfast?
[00:12:56] How does an older woman actually become reverent? How do younger men actually learn self control?
[00:13:03] How does Titus become a model?
[00:13:06] How do ordinary people like us with ordinary struggles actually live lives that fit the gospel?
[00:13:14] You see, here's a danger. If we stopped at verse 10, it would almost sound like another list of impossible expectations. We have to jump to another religious checklist. Hey, go be better. Go try harder, become this kind of person.
[00:13:32] You see, Paul knows better.
[00:13:36] He knows that commands without power only produce either arrogance and pride in those who think they've arrived and succeeded, or produces shame and guilt by those who know they haven't.
[00:13:51] And so before anyone leaves here thinking Christianity is ultimately about behavior modification, Paul takes us to the only place he ever takes us to, the grace of God in Jesus.
[00:14:03] We see in verses 11 through 12, we'll read it together.
[00:14:08] Paul says the Titus for the grace of God has appeared bringing salvation for all people.
[00:14:17] And the grace of God is training us to renounce ungodliness and worldly passions and to live self controlled, upright and godly lives in the present age church. Paul reminds Titus, reminds us today that there's no way in our own strength we become sober minded men and women of love, of reverence, submissive to our spouses on our own merits.
[00:14:47] Like I can't become this person of love just by trying harder to be more loving. It doesn't work like that.
[00:14:55] Women in the room, you can't become this reverent, submissive to your spouse of this Proverbs 31. Unattainable in your own strength or on your own merits.
[00:15:08] Younger men. You don't become self controlled by just gripping harder to making better choices.
[00:15:14] Nothing of your own merit can make you these things.
[00:15:21] Like I don't know about you, but I have tried, I've tried that hand.
[00:15:26] Like I've tried saying hey Lord, I'm not going to pursue this area of sinfulness. I have fallen in. I'm gonna just trust you, lord, and then 24 hours later I'm there, right?
[00:15:38] Or Lord, here is my plan that I wanna pursue. Here's the house that I want the job that I want.
[00:15:44] And I've done that quest before and literally 12 hours later I'm doom scrolling on job opportunities. Zillow for my next house.
[00:15:54] Lord, I am not going to. You know, I. I don't need to tell my spouse about this hidden sin struggle that I have. Or I'm. You know, it's just one time I talked to my kiddo in a way that was demeaning and I. And you know, I don't. It's not that big of a deal.
[00:16:12] Like I've tried getting there on my own merits and like we naturally drift by our default setting just like the cretins, just like these religious leaders to disorder, sin and depravity by our very default setting.
[00:16:29] And we don't become like these Titus 2 transformed men and women in our own strength. Not at all. But that's the good news.
[00:16:40] All that everything that Paul has commanded in verses 1 through 10 rests on everything God has already done in Christ.
[00:16:48] And hear me when I say this. The household doesn't create the gospel. The gospel creates the household.
[00:16:55] The gospel creates the household. And we read it in verse 11. What does it say? 4. One of the greatest words here in this passage. In other words, here is why all of verses 1 through 10 are possible. For the grace of God has appeared.
[00:17:09] He's the one that brings salvation to all, everyone that calls on him as Lord and Savior.
[00:17:14] He's the one who trains by his grace and grace alone. He trains everything to renounce ungodliness and worldly passions.
[00:17:23] He's the one that lives through us to bring self controlled lives by his spirit, upright, godly lives in the present age.
[00:17:32] Notice that word in the present age. Not one to come today.
[00:17:37] You see, because of Jesus, I can become by his spirit, sober minded, dignified, self control, sound in faith, in love and steadfastness. But it's only as I hold to Jesus and because of Jesus, I can pursue younger men and invest time with them, pointing them towards Jesus, not to me.
[00:18:00] And if you're an older woman or older man today in this room, heads up. You're generally both.
[00:18:06] You're like an older man that can disciple an older woman, that can disciple a younger man or woman or are also pursue other relations that can disciple you. Unless you're like 85, 90, you generally are at the top of the food chain at that point. You know what I mean? Like you're there.
[00:18:23] But I would love to present people and I'd love to be 85 if the Lord gives me 95 and still going hard and discipling the next generation that's gonna be taking this mantle.
[00:18:37] But only because of these things mentioned is because of the sheer grace of God.
[00:18:43] Not because we are good, but because of the forgiveness, redemption, the sanctification of Jesus Christ by His Spirit in us. Do we become these things. Grace trains us in who we are becoming.
[00:18:58] My question for you is where's grace training you right now?
[00:19:05] Where's grace training you right now? Maybe it's in how you speak to those who are close to you.
[00:19:12] Maybe grace is training you in your anger or curbing your desires for lesser things. Maybe it's in your phone habits. Maybe it's in how you are being espoused to someone alongside you. Maybe it's in how you work or who you work for and the attitude you are walking in there.
[00:19:30] Maybe grace is training you in your relationship with money and holding to the things of this earth.
[00:19:36] Or maybe it's in your hidden life that no one knows that you need to bring out into the open to allow Jesus to heal you. Where is grace training you right now?
[00:19:49] I'm beyond grateful as I shared with the men at our Bible study on Wednesday mornings this past week I shared with them hey, the place where the Lord's training me. He's been purging me over the past year and a half of self reliance and selfish ambition.
[00:20:07] Like thinking I'm the center of the story, that I need to get here and be here and then jump here. Like that has been a part of my DNA information for so long. But I am grateful for the purging of that. It hasn't been easy, but it's been good because he's reframing me into by God's grace, into godly ambition. But that's where grace is training me. Where is grace training you right now?
[00:20:33] As we walk towards him so church sound doctrine becomes household discipleship.
[00:20:42] The grace of God and Jesus trains who we are becoming.
[00:20:47] But where does the section go next?
[00:20:50] So we see how grace saves. We see how grace trains. But grace also sends us.
[00:20:57] And here is the last point. Grace makes us eager for good works while we wait for his return.
[00:21:03] Grace makes us eager for good works while we await his return.
[00:21:09] Verse 13 says, waiting for our blessed hope, the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ, who gave Himself for us to redeem us from all lawlessness and to purify for Himself a people for his own possession. Who are what zealous for good works?
[00:21:31] Zealous To Titus, he says, declare these things, Exhort and rebuke with all authority. Let no one disregard you.
[00:21:40] Paul is saying to Titus and these households and to us while we wait for his return. We don't sit on the sidelines.
[00:21:49] The Gospel doesn't say, come and sit down and go on your merry way.
[00:21:55] We don't sit, come here and say, just accumulate a whole bunch of knowledge or just merely attend church service. We become a people who are zealous for good works.
[00:22:06] The word in the Greek isn't a passive thing. It's not even casual.
[00:22:11] It means eager, passionate, ready, looking for opportunities of people who are asking, hey, Lord, how can I help others know you today?
[00:22:24] And we disciple accordingly.
[00:22:28] Several years ago, probably five, six years ago, I was reading through this text, this Titus 2 text and this text, and also Acts 2, 42, 48, the birth of the church.
[00:22:41] And I was really wrestling through, what does a healthy church actually functioning look like? And people pursuing Jesus? What does it actually look like? Cause I want to see it in our time and space, and I believe it's possible.
[00:22:52] And so I went up to someone who had been walking with Jesus probably for around 40 years. They were in their mid-60s, and I just asked them a question. I said, hey, who are you discipling right now and pursuing to point them towards Jesus? And that person said, oh, I can't do that.
[00:23:09] I was like, can't do that.
[00:23:11] Like, what does that mean?
[00:23:13] And so I said, maybe. I said, or framed the question in a poor way. Because oftentimes we frame discipleship in this way of, hey, we sit down once a week, we open a Bible and we say, hey, this is what we're learning. And we learn like, that's. Oftentimes we frame discipleship in that specific way. But discipleship is many things. It's serving too, within the local body. So I asked it a different way. I said, hey, hey, how are you serving those within the church, Bobby? Maybe an older, a younger woman? How are you serving to point towards Jesus or in the community?
[00:23:46] And they said, oh, I'm not.
[00:23:49] And that broke me.
[00:23:52] Like, I didn't. It wasn't a guilt thing that I was trying to bring up here.
[00:23:57] But here's what was happening in that person's heart. They had outsourced discipleship for professional experts.
[00:24:05] In their mind, there was a varsity level and a JV level Christian. And the varsity level actually does the discipleship and actually serves.
[00:24:16] And I don't know if that was shame.
[00:24:18] I don't know if that was Fear. I don't know if that was equipping, that needed to be cared for there. But that broke me the lie that discipleship belongs to the experts.
[00:24:33] Because Paul to Titus knows nothing of that type of Christianity.
[00:24:38] Paul isn't writing to only pastors here. He's describing an entire household. All of us in this room.
[00:24:46] Older men, older women, younger men, younger women, workers, leaders, everyone. Everyone is being discipled. Everyone is discipling someone.
[00:24:58] Just hear me when I say this.
[00:25:03] The only qualification to be a disciple maker isn't that you've arrived. It's that you've been rescued.
[00:25:12] The only qualification to be a disciple maker in this room isn't that you've arrived, isn't that you've attained this set of theology, isn't that you've attained this part of years of walking with Jesus, it's that you've been rescued by Jesus.
[00:25:30] The only thing that qualifies us is not what we've earned, accomplished, or mastered. It's the sheer grace of God in Jesus.
[00:25:41] If Christ has redeemed you, if Christ is training you, if Christ is changing you, then you have something to give to and to the world.
[00:25:52] And you don't have to know everything. You don't have to give all the right answers. You simply have to know the one who gave everything.
[00:26:01] And when we truly stare at the cross of Jesus and we'll take communion and I want us to stare at what Jesus has done in his broken body and shed blood, we're not doing that in this moment. But when we stare at the cross and we realize he gave everything, our response shouldn't be, hey, what little, how little can I do?
[00:26:23] It's Lord, you gave everything for me, so let me give my life away for others. That's why it says in this present age, heads up. This life is fast.
[00:26:34] Like if the lord graciously allows 85 years, that's 85 vapor of a years.
[00:26:42] I'm just about halfway there. Ish, right?
[00:26:48] But here's my encouragement and my exhortation and my challenge for you.
[00:26:55] Don't wait for a perfect season before you begin discipling.
[00:27:00] Don't wait until life. You know what? When life slows down, heads up. It doesn't.
[00:27:07] And it shouldn't.
[00:27:10] Start with people God has already placed around you. Parents. Hey, heads up. Disciple your kids.
[00:27:17] If you're a dad and you don't know how to walk with your family through family discipleship, start with Genesis 1 and merely go through it.
[00:27:26] Start there.
[00:27:28] Grandparents in this room, start with your grandchildren. To be models of steadfastness.
[00:27:35] Students in this room, young adults, start with another student or another college student or kiddo on a Sunday morning. Start there, open your Bible, hold a kid, pray together, serve together. Just begin.
[00:27:52] And a specific thing as we walk as Grace Community Church, UB campus here, we have some unique things the Lord is doing in our midst.
[00:28:01] We have many places to serve, and we'll talk about that in the coming weeks.
[00:28:05] But over the next six months, around 24 babies are going to be born into this church family.
[00:28:12] Heads up, last year there was 30.
[00:28:14] That's a small church of births, you know what I mean?
[00:28:18] That's an insane privilege.
[00:28:21] That's an insane opportunity that we get to do.
[00:28:25] And I am grateful for all of you that currently serve our Grace kids, our GSM students, our college students, in some way. I'm so grateful. But heads up. We are in a season that is going into. Hey, we need 19 people in this fall season to hold babies, to push strollers on a Sunday morning, to serve twice a month.
[00:28:48] Like, what if we began here? To create margin, no matter where you find yourself, to say, I'm giving my whole Sunday morning twice a month to say, hey, I'm gonna go serve. Disciple the next generation in holding babies. Yes. Cleaning diapers, you can do it. I know you can.
[00:29:05] And pushing kiddos in a stroller because you're giving an exhausted mom and an exhausted father in that moment in life time to come and take in.
[00:29:16] And you're actually pointing them and loving these kids as if they're your own.
[00:29:22] Like young adults. You have probably the most freedom in life right now. What would that look like if you restructured your mornings to love Christ, to love kiddos, and we have 19 opportunities to do that twice a month. Like, I'm not trying to sell you on this. I'm trying to say the Gospel compels this sound doctrine about Jesus, compels the health of our discipleship intergenerationally here.
[00:29:49] That's the household Paul envisions, and that's a practical way to serve it. Not as consumers, not as spectators, but people asking people, saying this, how can I help others become more like Jesus here? Older men, older women, younger men, younger women, leaders in this family of Faith.
[00:30:09] That's Titus 2. That's my belief for us as we hold to Christ. Everyone has a place and everyone is being discipled and discipling another. And I believe that's a church that changes the world by the grace of God.
[00:30:22] When you have older men and older women and Younger men and younger women pursuing their own story, their own narrative in a world that's really about them.
[00:30:31] This speaks counterculture to a world that God intended and created and is good and healthy and whole and flourishing by the gospel of Jesus Christ.
[00:30:39] That's the household. Next week, we're going to talk about what that looks like between us.
[00:30:46] But that's the household God envisions. That's the household that Jesus died for.
[00:30:51] And so I thought, what better way we can continue to hold to the sheer grace of God than to celebrate communion? And so if you have your elements today, if you would grab them.
[00:31:06] But here's what communion reminds us. Before we ever discipled another person, that Jesus gave himself for us, before we ever pursued Christ, Jesus pursues us.
[00:31:24] Before we ever loved, he first loved us.
[00:31:28] And so we are people who aren't deserving to come to this table. But because of the goodness of God displayed in the death, resurrection and life of Christ, we come remembering the one whose body was broken and blood poured out to redeem us as a people.
[00:31:44] So we're going to take this and remember this today.
[00:31:50] And so Paul, in speaking to the Corinthians, which there was their own, they were also a church in disorder, he called them to remembrance of this last supper, a remembrance of communion.
[00:32:06] He was repeating what Jesus was talking to his disciples about.
[00:32:10] In First Corinthians 11:23, Paul says, For I received from the Lord what I also delivered to you, that the Lord Jesus, on the night when he was betrayed, he took bread. And when he had given thanks, he broke it and said, this is my body which is for you, to train you, to restore you, to give grace to you.
[00:32:31] Do this in remembrance of me. Church, family, let us take the bread together.
[00:32:38] Thank you, Jesus.
[00:32:46] In the same way also, he took the cup after supper, saying, this cup, this cup is the new covenant. The new covenant that you did nothing to earn, Jesus earned for you.
[00:32:59] This is the new covenant in my blood. Do this as often as you drink it in remembrance of me.
[00:33:07] For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord's death until he comes. Church, family, let us take the cup together in remembrance of Jesus.
[00:33:21] God, I thank you.
[00:33:24] I thank you that you are the one who builds this house.
[00:33:29] I thank you that you pursued us and loved us enough to not leave us in our depravity, in separation. But you loved us enough to send Jesus the rescuer, to earn for us what we can never earn, a relationship back with a holy God.
[00:33:47] Because of your perfect holiness, because of your sacrificial death, because of your triumphant resurrection, we can have a relationship with the most High God.
[00:33:58] Because of the sheer grace of God. We can be here today not because of what we have done in our own strength, because we have done miserably.
[00:34:07] We are dead in our trespasses, but because of Christ. We have been made alive and in relationship, and that is good.
[00:34:15] God, continue to transform us into men and women who are steadfast, who are pure, who are godly, who are upright.
[00:34:27] But it's only because we cling to Jesus and God. If there are any in this room that feel totally unworthy, totally not right, God, I pray that they know that they're. They're so loved in Jesus that they submit to him as Lord and Savior. And they turn from their sin and hold fast to you and you transform them from the inside out.
[00:34:53] God, and you will make us a healthy church. Because we're holding to the perfect God, we will be imperfect, but we are holding to the beautiful, loving Savior who was sent for us.
[00:35:07] God, create us day by day more into this household to stir up our hearts, to share the gospel with our own and with the world.
[00:35:16] God, we need you. And apart from you, we are absolutely and can do absolutely nothing. But with you, you are making us a people of your own possession, zealous for good works.
[00:35:26] Help us become those people by your grace and your grace alone. God, we love you today. We remember you today in Jesus strong name. Amen.
