Show Notes
Titus 3:8-11
Pastor Stephen Laurer
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Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] We thank youk that it is good and that it contains things that are good for us.
[00:00:05] It's valuable something to be treasured, because in it we find life.
[00:00:11] In it we find Jesus in the way of salvation.
[00:00:15] And it is sweet, for it offers us great comforts and protections and so much goodness. O Lord, help us to taste and see in youn Word that yout are good.
[00:00:28] We ask that you would feed our souls by faith in Christ our Savior, as we meditate on His Word together. For his sake we pray. Amen.
[00:00:40] Let's read God's Word one more time. From Titus, chapter three.
[00:00:46] We're going to read verse four through the end of the chapter, through the end of the letter.
[00:00:55] Our sermon text, though, will be focusing on verses 8 through 11.
[00:01:07] This is God's Word listed accordingly. But when the goodness and loving kindness of God our Savior appeared, he saved us not because of works done by us in righteousness, but but according to his own mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewal of the Holy Spirit, whom He poured out on us richly through Jesus Christ our Savior, so that, being justified by his grace, we might become heirs according to the hope of eternal life.
[00:01:43] The saying is trustworthy, and I want you to insist on these things so that those who have believed in God may be careful to devote themselves to good works.
[00:01:55] These things are excellent and profitable for people, but avoid foolish controversies, genealogies, dissensions and quarrels about the law, for they are unprofitable and worthless.
[00:02:11] As for a person who stirs up division after warning him once and then twice, have nothing more to do with him, knowing that such a person is warped and sinful, he is self condemned.
[00:02:26] When I send Artemis or Tychicus to you, do your best to come to me at Nicopolis, where I've decided to spend the winter there, do your best to send Zenas, the lawyer and Apollos on their way. See that they lack nothing, and let our people learn to devote themselves to good works so as to help cases of urgent need and not be unfruitful.
[00:02:54] All those who are with me send greetings to you.
[00:02:57] Greet those who love us in the faith. Grace be with you all. Please be seated.
[00:03:13] What's a profitable pastoral ministry look like?
[00:03:18] What does any profitable career look like?
[00:03:22] We mean that someone's worked in a particular career field, particular calling, and he's done well.
[00:03:31] And by doing well, we mean that there's been results. The kind of results that one would want in that particular line of work, right? So if someone's an entrepreneur, then we Think. Well, a profitable career for an entrepreneur looks like starting a number of businesses.
[00:03:51] And each of those businesses makes money, right, on the one hand. But on the other hand, it serves people.
[00:03:58] It meets whatever need.
[00:04:00] Manufacturing something, selling something, providing a service. Right? That would be a profitable career for an entrepreneur. You could think of a doctor, his career, if it did well, he would have helped lots of patients, maybe he would have helped his hospital improve its care of patients. In other words, a little bit even beyond his own practice, helping others in his career field.
[00:04:25] You could think of other things, maybe any career.
[00:04:28] Someone who's an academic historian. On the one hand, he would have trained lots of students, trained other historians, and he would have done lots of research, written books that were interesting, that advanced knowledge. Right? You get the idea. There's results, there's other people being helped as a result of someone having a profitable career.
[00:04:52] In these verses, Paul tells Titus about how it is that he can be a profitable pastor, that he can have a fruitful, profitable ministry among God's people.
[00:05:07] Now, what does that look like? You could probably think about it in a number of ways. But generally, if you think about what you know about the Bible and about the Gospel, a profitable ministry might look something like this.
[00:05:20] That God's people who received his teaching and his care, they would be served like he actually met their needs.
[00:05:28] And as he met their needs, through the preaching of the Gospel, their lives would begin to reflect the realities of the Gospel. Those who were in sin might be rebuked and called to faith and repentance and receive forgiveness. Those who were struggling and hurting might receive the comfort of the gospel.
[00:05:48] Right?
[00:05:49] And at an even more basic level, those who hear the preaching of the Gospel would be brought to saving faith in Jesus Christ. That's what this is all about, right?
[00:06:02] And then, having come to know the Lord Jesus, their lives would be changed, and they would live lives that flow out of that faith in Jesus Christ and what Jesus has done for them. That's maybe something of what a profitable ministry would look like.
[00:06:19] But there's something that's very different about a profitable career in most fields and a profitable, you might say, pastoral ministry.
[00:06:30] And you hear it in this verse from First Corinthians 3, Paul talking about his pastoral ministry and other pastors.
[00:06:40] He says, I planted Apollos watered, but God caused the increase.
[00:06:48] I planted Apollos water. Apollos and I were both pastors. We did lots of pastoral ministry, lots of work, but God caused the increase, the fruit.
[00:07:02] The profitability of a faithful pastoral ministry never comes from the Pastor, unlike the doctor or the lawyer or the historian or whoever it is. It never comes from me, the pastor. It always comes from God working in the hearts of his people. And that's a big difference between a profitable, faithful pastoral ministry that Titus would have carried out. Or other pastors in the island of Crete pastors today carry out. And the difference is this.
[00:07:41] We do the work that God calls us to do.
[00:07:44] And if we're faithful in doing the work he calls us to do, God may use us as a tool to bring fruit in others.
[00:07:54] We're just a tool.
[00:07:57] So if we're faithful, we may have a profitable ministry. But not because of what I do, but because of how God uses the faithful work that I do. I want to look this evening at how Paul describes the work of a profitable pastor. He exhorts Titus.
[00:08:16] He's very insistent here in verse 8.
[00:08:20] This saying is trustworthy. I want you to insist on these things. So that those who have believed in God may be careful to devote themselves to good works. These things are excellent and profitable for people. People, he says, I want you to devote yourself to this faithful saying and to these teachings.
[00:08:40] And if you devote yourselves to these things, God can use it to bring fruit in his people.
[00:08:49] We may plant and water. And if we're faithful in planting and watering with what God's given us to plant and water with, which is his word, his gospel.
[00:08:58] God may bring increase.
[00:09:01] He may make it profitable in the lives of his people.
[00:09:06] I want to look this evening at that faithful or profitable pastor, fruitful pastor, who only happens through faithfulness. I want to look at that first by looking at verse eight, the profitable teaching.
[00:09:20] Secondly, verse nine, the unprofitable controversies that we're to avoid. And thirdly, the unprofitable person who needs to be dealt with in faithful ministry. First, the profitable teaching.
[00:09:41] Pastor Titus. Young Pastor Titus, who's been left on his own here on the island of Crete, received lots of instruction from Paul in this letter that bears Titus name.
[00:09:53] But Pastor Titus and all pastors are called to devote themselves to right teaching.
[00:10:01] And Paul says that we are to be insistent in that right teaching.
[00:10:09] And focus on only the right teaching. Because only that is going to bring about good in God's people.
[00:10:19] There's two phrases here in verse eight that refer to the teaching that we are to be faithful in.
[00:10:27] First is the trustworthy saying at the beginning of the verse.
[00:10:31] And then he expands a little beyond the trustworthy saying.
[00:10:36] He says, I want you to insist on these things, whatever these things are. And then he references it again at the end of the verse.
[00:10:44] These things are excellent and profitable for people.
[00:10:49] So there's the trustworthy saying and these things. Now, these things in context here is referring to everything Paul's been teaching from chapter three, verse one, all the way down to verse seven. So the whole first half of this chapter is the. These things that Titus as a pastor, is to insist on.
[00:11:09] And then a portion of that is the trustworthy saying, the faithful saying. And that faithful saying is found in verses four through seven. So there's the broader teaching. And we can think of it this way.
[00:11:25] In this section, Paul's doing two things.
[00:11:29] He's saying. If you look back at chapter three, verse one and two, he begins the chapter by telling Titus that he needs to remind God's people, believers, to be ready for every good work. We could summarize what he's saying there. That way they're to live the Christian life, to be faithful in being kind to outsiders, to being submissive to authorities, and so on.
[00:11:56] And then in verse four through seven, he begins to give the. He gives the reason why they are to be faithful in the Christian life, to be diligent and ready for good works. And the reason is that God has saved us. Because God has saved us, we're called to live the Christian life. That's the logic here. We spent a number of weeks working through those verses, but Paul's looking back on all of those things and saying, now insist on these because they're profitable and good.
[00:12:29] Now, in the middle of that teaching, verses four through seven, we have what Paul calls a trustworthy saying. And Paul uses this phrase, a trustworthy. This is a trustworthy saying. Uses it several times in his letters. And when he uses it, he's saying that these words, these phrases that I've just given you, or that in this case, I'm about to. That I've just given you, or in some cases, the things that follow this saying as a saying that Paul, you might say, has memorized. It's a set of words that he uses to teach on a regular basis. Now, we're familiar with this idea, a set saying that's used for teaching in the church.
[00:13:14] One of them most people are familiar with is the Apostles Creed. It's a saying that lays out teaching, and then we use that as a summary and a basis for further teaching.
[00:13:26] Another thing that we use in our churches is a catechism. It's a set form of words that have laid out the doctrine of the teaching of the Gospel that we use to Teach our children as well as adults. So this saying Here in verses 4 through 7 is like a creed or a catechism that Paul uses to instruct God's people as he goes from church to to church.
[00:13:54] What's in this saying? It's an unfolding of the gospel message that God is kind to sinners, that he comes and he saves sinners by bringing them to faith in Jesus Christ, regenerating their hearts, giving them new life, taking away, washing away their sin nature, taking that away, and then justifying them in Jesus Christ, forgiving their sins, receiving them as righteous, and then giving them the hope of eternal life.
[00:14:23] That's what we call the gospel, right?
[00:14:26] That's this trustworthy, faithful saying. It's trustworthy and faithful because it's true.
[00:14:33] It's trustworthy and faithful because it's founded upon the word of God. And in this case, it is the very word of God.
[00:14:41] And so Paul says, you need to stick to this.
[00:14:45] This is the gospel. Stick to it. And then he expands to these things the call to live the Christian life, as well as this message of salvation.
[00:14:57] Why are these things all of this profitable and good?
[00:15:02] First of all, this is the teaching that leads people to salvation.
[00:15:07] It says people hear this faithful, trustworthy saying as they hear about the kindness of God to sinners in Christ Jesus, his offer of forgiveness of sins and of eternal life. As sinners hear that message, God uses that to bring them to saving faith.
[00:15:27] That's surely good and profitable.
[00:15:32] Secondly, it's good and profitable because not only does it lead sinners to salvation in Jesus Christ, it also leads them to live the Christian life.
[00:15:43] The only reason we can live the Christian life is because Jesus has saved us, because he's given us a new heart, because he's poured out His Holy Spirit richly on us and so forth.
[00:15:56] That's good and profitable teaching.
[00:16:00] And Paul is saying that these are the things that pastors need to focus on.
[00:16:07] Whatever we're teaching on this is to be at the heart of our teaching what Christ has done for us and how he calls us to live because of what he's done for us.
[00:16:20] Paul says, you're to insist on this. And what does that mean? Well, surely it means that we're to be vigorous in teaching it, to exhort God's people in these things, to encourage them in it, to comfort them with it, and so on.
[00:16:35] But it needs to be at the heart of everything we teach. We talk about our heartbeat, our heartbeat, right? That's at the heart of us as a person. The Heart's in there pumping blood.
[00:16:45] This work of Christ to save sinners needs to be at the heart of the pastor's teaching. It's beating.
[00:16:53] This teaching is there always, constantly, and so the whole person is brought to life and saving faith and so on. You might think of it that way.
[00:17:04] If we lose this teaching, it's not there at the heart and core of what we're doing now. We're going to have spiritual death and decay, and that's what you'll see in the next section.
[00:17:15] So profitable pastors are going to focus on and insist on this faithful, profitable teaching.
[00:17:23] Secondly, profitable ministry is going to avoid unprofitable controversies. We're looking here at verse 9 especially.
[00:17:33] Avoid Foolish controversies, genealogies, dissensions and quarrels about the law. They are unprofitable and worthless. If a pastor is going to have a faithful, fruitful ministry, feeding the flock, caring for God's people, with results that come because God is at work, he's going to avoid these things.
[00:17:56] Now, what's in view here is described as controversies and quarrels.
[00:18:00] But what Paul has in view is what we call false teaching.
[00:18:07] Now, it seems that he doesn't even want to dignify these things that are going on, these things that are being. He doesn't want to dignify it by calling it teaching.
[00:18:20] So instead he calls the teaching strife, quarrels, and so forth. But what's in view here is false teaching.
[00:18:31] Now, he uses four different words to describe it.
[00:18:35] Three of them have to do with arguing and strife.
[00:18:40] That's clearly not a good sign about what it is that tells us about what's going on.
[00:18:46] Wherever this false teaching goes, there's arguing questions, strife.
[00:18:50] But there's two words that give us a clue or point us to the content of the false teaching. What are these false teachers talking about as they go around in the church teaching these things?
[00:19:02] And those two are the genealogies and quarrels about the law.
[00:19:07] So there's a lot of fighting strife around it. But the heart of what they're talking about, our genealogies and quarrels about the law.
[00:19:17] Three observations that we can draw out about this false teaching. In Paul's day, this false teaching was of a Jewish origin, a Jewish nature. The Jews had endless arguments about the law, its meaning, and about lots of human traditions around the law, things that they'd made up relative to the law.
[00:19:40] Paul references that back in Titus, chapter 1, verse 14.
[00:19:48] He says that God's people are not to devote themselves to Jewish myths and commandments of people who turn away from the truth, the commandments of men.
[00:19:58] So on the one hand, as they're debating Jewish laws, they add to them commandments of men, human traditions.
[00:20:06] On the other hand, this Jewish teaching is summarized by the word genealogies. In the Jewish teaching, the teachers would unfold speculations and mythical stories about the patriarchs in the Old Testament. You have the lists of names, for example, in Genesis and other places in the Old Testament. And they would speculate and make up stories, myths about Old Testament names and figures, the famous ones like Abraham or Joseph, and the lesser known ones as well, whose names are just included in the genealogies.
[00:20:48] What do you draw out of this, this Jewish origin, the genealogies and speculations of the law?
[00:20:55] This false teaching, though it has a Bible connection, it's connected to God's law. It starts there, it starts with names, genealogies in Bible, it starts there as a Bible connection.
[00:21:08] What they're actually talking about, studying, teaching, arguing about, is speculative, man made and mythical.
[00:21:20] Lots of speculation, lots of human ideas and man made stories.
[00:21:26] Secondly, this false teaching is constantly shrouded by endless questions and arguing.
[00:21:35] It's not clear, sound teaching with clear logical conclusions that we can rest in and then apply in our lives.
[00:21:45] There's lots of questions with no real answers and the result is arguing.
[00:21:52] Further, it results in strife in the church and divisions. As people disagree about these things, they form factions and you get division in the church.
[00:22:03] You step back and you compare this with the trustworthy saying and the profitable teaching.
[00:22:09] We find that unlike the true teaching, this false teaching is not trustworthy. It's founded on human ideas and speculations and myths, not the word of God.
[00:22:20] It's not trustworthy. It's also not good and profitable. It doesn't lead people to Jesus Christ, the Savior.
[00:22:28] It doesn't lead them to salvation and faith in him, nor does it encourage or help people in the Christian life. In fact, it distracts from it.
[00:22:38] So it's neither trustworthy nor profitable.
[00:22:42] Now we wish that this were just an ancient thing that followed Paul around. Wherever he planted churches, the Judaizers would follow him around. We wish it were just on the island of Crete or even in Greece, wherever he went.
[00:22:54] But unfortunately we have many modern examples of this sort of controversial false teaching out there in the fringe. The Mormons make up lots of stories. They carry Bibles around, they use Bible language, but they've created their own myths and genealogies quite literally.
[00:23:14] That's maybe pretty obvious, but not so obvious when they knock on the door, they Use Bible language.
[00:23:22] There's what you might call the modern Galatian heresy. It seems innocuous. It's friendly people, nice people that you meet, make friends with in evangelical Christianity.
[00:23:34] But these people go around very interested in learning from the Jews about how to follow Old Testament laws.
[00:23:42] They'll tell you that they eat kosher, that they practice the Passover. Every year they're getting back into the Old Testament law that Christ has fulfilled and done away with.
[00:23:56] This is something Paul is warning against.
[00:23:58] Seems innocuous. They seem friendly, they seem like they're wanting to learn about God and his Word, but they're really distracted by other things.
[00:24:08] It's not just sort of low brow, you might say. It's not just lay people that are affected by the sorts of things Paul warns against here in biblical scholarship. This is the people who study and teach in seminaries and in colleges and so on, often evangelical biblical scholars.
[00:24:29] They like to go around and they sound very learned and scholarly, they like to go around reviving the very ancient myths and, and genealogies that Paul warns against in his letters, the things he was opposing. We've dug up some of them, we have copies of those documents and they go up and they say, look, I have the Book of Enoch, look, we've dug up tablets that have Canaanite creation myths and so on. And these things help us to understand the Bible well. So let's go study this, this pagan literature or these Gnostic Gospels and it will help you understand the Bible better.
[00:25:14] And then of course there's the old enemies, the very old enemies of the Gospel, Rome and Eastern Orthodoxy, who encourage us to practice Lent holy days for the saints, prayers to the saints, studying the miracles, the so called made up miracles of the saints, icons and worse. And we could keep going, but there's just a few and if you don't have to go very far to run into them.
[00:25:42] Now none of this is trustworthy or profitable. All of it is unprofitable. Why?
[00:25:50] Because it comes from man and it doesn't come from God.
[00:25:56] It does not lead to Jesus Christ. It may be interesting, it may be fun, but it's human ideas and it leads to divisions in the church and worse, it leads you away from Jesus, away from the Savior and not to him.
[00:26:18] So pastors, sounds like I'm warning you, but all of this is really directed back first at me because that's who Paul is writing to, Titus the pastor. You avoid these contentions, strifes, myths and genealogies.
[00:26:35] You steer clear of them and I warn you if you get into them, you will find that they are a colossal waste of time.
[00:26:46] I have spent hours working with people who had been drawn into these things, and I'm called to work with you. It's a delight and a joy to work with you. But you will find that you have wasted hours, months, maybe even years of your life pursuing teaching that wasn't leading you to Jesus.
[00:27:08] It leads to heartache and trouble.
[00:27:12] And here we find that the biggest problem isn't even the waste of time. The biggest problem is, is that these teaching and controversies, the old ones, the new ones, and the ones that we haven't discovered yet, that somebody's going to make up in the future, they're unprofitable because they lead away from Jesus Christ, the Savior, the root and ground, not just of justification, our forgiveness of sins that we need every single day, but Jesus is also the source of the Christian life.
[00:27:42] We're regenerated by the Spirit, and we have new life in us because Jesus pours him out on us. And it's the power of Christ working in us by his Spirit that we're able to pursue good works in the Christian life.
[00:27:59] So, unprofitable controversies. Finally, the unprofitable person.
[00:28:04] If we're to have a profitable pastoral ministry, we need to stick with the trustworthy gospel.
[00:28:10] We need to avoid false teaching and things that would lead us astray from Christ.
[00:28:16] And we need to work with people who've been caught up in these things.
[00:28:20] We need to admonish them and admonish them diligently.
[00:28:27] Paul says here in our translation, the way it reads in verse 10, as for a person who stirs up division, you're to warn him once and then twice, and then have nothing more to do with him, this factious person.
[00:28:44] Which is maybe a better way to translate it. This isn't just the teacher. If we were thinking this is the false teacher, the guy that stirs up division.
[00:28:55] That phrase in English sounds a little strong. It sounds like Paul says to go after the ringleader.
[00:29:02] But the word here is the person who's joined himself to and is following whatever these divisions are. So that could be the teacher, but it's also the people who've gotten snuckered by him and begun to follow after him. It's both the person who teaches this false doctrine and also those who adhere to it and follow after it.
[00:29:25] And they're factious persons or schismatics, because they're joining with the faction. They're leaving the true faith and following a false faith. They're Leaving what's trustworthy and following after error and errors. Divide the church as people follow after them. That's the person in view, not just the ringleader, but the people who follow after him. They are to be warned and admonished the pastors to come alongside the person and deal with him as a brother.
[00:29:58] That's what Titus Paul is saying here to Titus. You're not just to say, oh, someone's gotten snookered. Kick him out of the church and have nothing to to do with him. No. Verse 10 tells us that you're to begin by warning him not just once, but twice. You're to pursue him.
[00:30:14] You're to deal with him because he's one of Christ's sheep. Deal with him as a brother in love.
[00:30:20] You're to come alongside him and trust that if this one is one of Jesus sheep, then when you bring Jesus word to him that trustworthy saying the truths of the gospel, if you bring that to your brother and say, hey, what you've begun to believe is error, it's misleading you. It's causing trouble for you and those around you. But remember, here's the truth.
[00:30:42] Here's Jesus, your Savior. He's the way of salvation. It's only in knowing him that you can have peace with God. It's only in trusting him and depending on him that you can live the profitable Christian life. We come to him and we call him with Jesus voice. That's what Jesus says in John 10:27. He says, My sheep hear my voice and I know them and they follow me.
[00:31:09] So we don't start by assuming that someone who's begun to listen to error is not one of Christ's sheep. No, we start by going and seeking to persuade them in love. Not just once, but at the very least twice. I think his point is you need to go again and again and. And seek to persuade them and draw them and reason with them and win your brother over.
[00:31:34] Now what happens if you've done that and he rejects the truth? You point him to Christ and he says, I don't want that. I want these false teachings that I've been following. After Paul says, you're to put him out of the church.
[00:31:49] Now maybe that seems pretty harsh, but that's what he's talking about when he says that you are to have nothing more to do with him. Other translations say you're to reject him.
[00:32:01] In other words, reject him as being one of Christ.
[00:32:05] He doesn't belong in the church.
[00:32:08] So the one who's been admonished again and Again, pled with, reasoned with, and won't come back to Christ, won't come back to the church, is to be put out.
[00:32:18] Why Paul gives the reasons.
[00:32:21] He says that he is warped. That's a strong word. If you say that a person is warped.
[00:32:28] The word here is the idea that this person has turned away from something. What has he turned away from?
[00:32:37] He's turned away from the truth, which means he's turned away from Jesus.
[00:32:43] Now, if someone claims to be a disciple of Jesus, but then he turns away from Jesus, or as Paul says here, he's warped, warped away from Jesus, well, then he's not one of Jesus disciples anymore.
[00:32:58] He's turned away from the faithful, saying, and so he's rejected Christ and salvation in him.
[00:33:04] And why should he remain in the church? He shouldn't. He should be put out. What Paul is saying here is very reasonable.
[00:33:15] But Paul adds, not just has he turned away from Christ, but at that point it's pretty obvious then why Paul says that he is warped and sinning. The person is sinning.
[00:33:25] He's persisting in his sin.
[00:33:29] And so Paul says his own words condemn him. That's the point. This person is not professing Christ and the truth, but but professing falsehood and clinging to it. And so you've admonished him, you've called him to repentance. But no, he's going to persist in clinging to something else. At that point, he needs to be rejected.
[00:33:54] So profitable pastors are not only going to stick to the truth and avoid falsehood, they're also going to tend to Christ's flock, to care for tenderly, again and again, with great patience, seeking to bring brothers and sisters back from falsehood.
[00:34:20] I want to bring in one other verse here. It's Acts 20, 28, 30.
[00:34:29] There Paul talks about exactly what he's exhorting Titus in here.
[00:34:35] Now, there, Paul is speaking not just to one pastor, but to a group of pastors and elders.
[00:34:41] And what he says is this. He says, you all, all y' all take heed to one another.
[00:34:51] In English, it doesn't quite come out. If you just read most translations, it's not you singular watch over him, but all of y'. All, elders and pastors all watch over everybody, take heed to one another and to the flock, the church of God, which he purchased with his blood. And then he goes on to explain specifically, particularly why he wants them to take heed to one another into the flock of God. It's because from within their own midst are going to arise False teachers, he calls them ravenous wolves who are going to try to devour Christ.
[00:35:30] Sheep.
[00:35:32] So we ask the question, how do we do this? What Paul is talking about here, in keeping watch over one another and correcting the factious person, the person who's begun to enter into division through error and false teaching, we're to watch over one another. The pastors and elders first are to watch over each other, to correct each other when they see each other going astray. My brother elders here in the congregation hear my teaching every week, and they always have an ear to say, is pastor preaching the word of God or is error creeping in? And it's their job to come to me and take me aside and say, hey, brother, you said something that didn't sound like it was from God's word. If I begin to do that, it's our job to keep watch over one another, and then together, all of us as pastors and elders, to keep watch over the flock.
[00:36:30] Now, what's the goal in all of this?
[00:36:33] The goal in all of this, it's all connected, and that's why we dealt with it all together tonight. The goal in all of this is that sinners might be pointed to Christ.
[00:36:44] That's the trustworthy word, that salvation is found in him.
[00:36:49] So when sheep begin to stray, when the pastors begin to stray, we need to be pointed back to Jesus, back to the source of our salvation, back to our faithful Savior, that we would turn to him once again, find salvation, forgiveness of sins in him, and be kept free and safe from false teaching. Let's pray.
[00:37:13] Our gracious God and our Savior.
[00:37:18] When we read passages like this, we are reminded of how great our weakness is.
[00:37:27] Lord, we are full of weakness.
[00:37:32] Our hearts are so quickly and easily led astray into all sorts of error.
[00:37:39] Things sound good to us, they sound interesting to us. So we pursue them.
[00:37:45] We have a moment of discouragement and something. Someone comes along and says something that sounds nice and it encourages us. And so we begin to pursue it.
[00:37:55] All the while we don't realize that we're being led astray from you, Lord Jesus, our Savior.
[00:38:03] We ask Jesus that you would speak to each of us. You are our shepherd. It is your word that we need to hear. It is your voice that you promise that we will follow and listen to. So we ask that you would speak to us savingly, healing with healing with comfort.
[00:38:24] We ask that you would speak to us to correct us, to restore us, Lord Jesus, we ask that you would open our hearts to hear and receive your precious and wonderful words that as we receive them, we would be receiving you and your salvation.
[00:38:43] We thank you that you hear our prayers. We lift them up. In Jesus name, Amen.
