Episode Transcript
WEBVTT
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If you would please remain standing and
let's hear God's word from Titus Verses One
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and two, titus versus, Chapter
Two, verses one and two. If
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you're using one of these church Pew
Bibles and you'll find it on page nine
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hundred and ninety eight, you'll have
to find nine ninety nine because it's actually
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not on the written on the page. That's titus two, verses one and
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two. Let's give our attention to
God's word. But as for you,
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teach what accords with sound doctrine.
Older men are to be sober minded,
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dignified, self controlled, sound in
faith, in love and in steadfastness.
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Ay God bless us in his word
and grant these things to us. You
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may be seated. Let me begin
by giving you, reminding you perhaps a
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little bit of the context of where
we're at in this letter are and also
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give you a little bit of a
preview of what lies ahead. In terms
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of context, Paul has been instructing
titus, titus, a fellow servant of
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his, a worker of Christ,
how to work among the churches, to
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continue the work of church planting,
of establishing these churches in the name of
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and in the grace of Jesus,
and he's just been giving several reasons why
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it's very important that there be elders
in the church, elders that meet certain
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qualities and have certain qualities, meet
certain qualifications. As we considered last time,
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this is important because they are doing
the work of God and a context
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that is very difficult. You see
that back in chapter one, versus ten,
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through the end of that chapter,
just to read a little bit from
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there, for there are many who
are insubordinate, empty talkers and deceivers,
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especially those of the circumcision party.
They must be silenced, since they are
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upsetting whole families by teaching for shameful
gain what they ought not to teach.
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There are several other concerns that Paul
has there, that God has there for
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the church, expressing the difficulty of
ministry in this context. And so these
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elders are called to meet these qualifications, to be a certain kind of people
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because they have a job to do. They need to be able to rebuke,
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as we considered last time, they
also need to be able to teach.
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That's how he gives the instructions and
chapter one, verse nine, so
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that he may be able to give
sound give instruction in sound draw doctrine and
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also to rebuke those who contradict it. Well, contrary to those who are
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teeping, teaching empty ideas, false
doctrine on things for shameful gain. Paul
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now turns away from that as those
people as his target and he turns to
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Titus in chapter two and he says, but as for you, as for
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you, titus, you do something
different. You don't act according to these
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ways, but you teach what accords
with sound doctrine. He's going to return
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to that in other places in this
short letter and in other ways he is
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going to talk about what the content
of that sound doctrine is. We've been
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introduced to it a little bit already
and we'll hear a little bit of it
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more this evening. But as he
teaches what accords to sound doctrine, there
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are certain expectations that titus is to
have for the church, things that he
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needs to be aiming at, certain
qualities in certain people. Later Paul will
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say in chapter three that the saying
is trustworthy. This is verse eight and
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I the saying is trustworthy and I
want you to insist on these things.
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That is the sound doctrine introduced earlier. In chapter three, so that those
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who have believed in God may be
careful to devote themselves to good works.
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You hear the connection there between doctrine
and life. A lot of times people
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want to disconnect these things, but
they're never disconnected. Paul connects them in
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this way. He says, insist
on these doctrinal points, things essentially about
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our Lord and our Savior, about
what God has done for us in this
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world. Why? So that the
fruit of the Gospel would be produced in
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the lives of God's people. Well, coming back to our verse for this
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evening and the verses that are coming
up, Paul Narrows in and focuses on
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for particular categories of people. There's, of course, all kinds of ways
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you can divide up people. Paul
does it in other places. Male,
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female, Jew, Greek. Here, he he, he divides a people
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up into categories of age. I'm
first of all, and then later he'll
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talk to slaves in particular in chat. In verse two he talks to older
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men. That's our discussion for this
evening, the message for this evening.
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In verse three and four he talks
to women, older and younger, and
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then, finally, in verse and
five, as well, and then in
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verse six he talks to young men
in particular, and so far our next
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for sermons we're going to be addressing, as Paul does, each of these
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groups, older men, then older
women, than younger women, and then
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younger men and considering what does it
mean to be an old man? What
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does it mean, in particular to
be a Christian old man? Those we
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think about that, let's start by
defining our terms. What do we mean
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by old man? It's not a
phrase we really use a lot today,
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and I think that's because we're afraid
of this. Youth Culture is a very
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important and prominent theme in American Society
and, I'm often to our detriment,
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we feel uncomfortable talking about old age. But the scripture does not. The
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scripture talks about as a category that
not only exists but is indeed even important
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and to be considered in a particular
way. Way, and here the Scripture
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addresses old men, or older men
in particular. I'm this word, or
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this this little group phrase here refers
to in a very dictionary kind of way,
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all put it, an adult male
of advanced years. To put it
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more concretely, we're talking about men
with gray hair. Some of you can
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identify yourselves easily in this way.
This is a true not just because I
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think this is what older men are
identified with, but the scripture puts it
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this way. When the Old Testament
is translated in Greek. This a term
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old men is applied in Deuteronomy three
thousand two hundred and twenty five to those
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with gray hairs or, using an
older English word, hoary hairs, if
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you've ever wondered what that means,
when it pops up in our hymnoll,
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that's what it's referring to. I
think we may sing that at this evening
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a little later on. But gray
hairs. Zachariah in Luke one hundred and
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eighteen is described as an old man, along with his wife, an old
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woman, and they were beyond childbearing
age, so that they were surprised when
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Gabriel came and told them you're going
to have a son and his name will
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be John. He was an old
man and was surprised. He says,
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how can this, how can this
be? I'm another old man that we
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see in scripture on specifically identified in
this way as Eli, who had adult
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sons at that time. So you
see what kind of man we're talking about
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here, not a young man,
but an old man, an adult male,
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advanced and yours. So moving on, what should he be like?
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Paul lists six things. The Holy
Spirit. This six things. Older men
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are to be sober minded, dignified, self controlled, sound in faith,
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in love and in steadfastness. Let's
consider each of these briefly. First,
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he is to be sober minded.
This is a term that we're familiar with,
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that we're accustomed to using. Means
restrained and moderate. That means I'm
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not being easily, not giving in
easily to outlandish are foolish ideas. A
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person who's sober minded approaches things in
a level headed way, as we another
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way we put this, if you
want to think about this in more concrete
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terms, you could perhaps think of
an it's Antonym, which doesn't really exist,
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but will make it up for the
moment. Drunk minded. What it
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mean? What would it mean to
be drunk minded? Well, it would
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mean to be stumbling and foolish,
easily fooled and sloppy in the way that
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you think, in the way that
you process things and the way that you
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make judgments. Even that term level
headed makes sense here. When you're drunk,
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you're not level, the world is
a little crazy, you can't perceive
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the things correctly, you can't judge
things correctly. But an older man is
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not to be drunk minded, but
sober minded, level headed, moderate,
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careful, perceiving things rightly and then
moving in a correct way forward. I'm
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moving in a way that is appropriate
with the given situation and the information that
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he has. In addition to being
sober minded, he is to be dignified.
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This is another word that has perhaps
gone out of vogue. In doing
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work on this sermon, I found
very quickly that when the word dignity pops
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up all in culture, and our
culture, it usually is pops up in
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in medical scenarios, case, cases
involving bioethics and things like that. How
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do we give dignity, in other
words, to the dying, to the
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sick, those kinds of things?
Often Times you'll see a kind of confusion
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over this word. There's really a
couple ways that we use dignified, and
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the scripture is using it here in
the second way. One way we use
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the word dignity refers to something that
we all possess, something that we all
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possess, and that is a certain
dignity for just being made in the image
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of God. Whether you're poor or
you're rich, your sinful or you're righteous,
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no matter what you are as a
creature that is made in the image
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of God and is above the beasts
and has been given a certain calling,
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we all possess a certain dignity.
That's a first kind of dignity. The
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second kind of dignity is not one
that we all possess, but it's one
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that we gain. The first kind
of dignity is one that's recognized. The
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second kind of dignity is one that's
awarded. The first kind of dignity you
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can't have any more or less of. The second one, however, can
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be measured in a certain sense.
It can go up and down. In
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the first sense, a man has
dignity simply by being a man, Ma,
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being made in God's image, valued
by God, being treated differently than
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the animals and giving certain tasks as
a human in the according to the second
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kind of dignity, the kind that
Paul refers to here, he it is
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when that man who has this dignity
as being made in the image of God,
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then acts according to that image.
According to the humanity that he's been
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given and flourishes in it. The
second kind of dignity is distinctive in this
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in this way, it can go
up and down. We can talk about
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someone being degraded, for example,
as it's opposite. So what do we
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do when we are dignified? Well, it means that we act in a
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very human way in according to the
best of our humanness. It means that
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we trust and we love God in
our neighbors in a way that is honorable.
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It means that a dignified man as
one who doesn't care for himself only,
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but cares for others, who lives
his life not in according to fear
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but according to joy. A dignified
man is one that knows how to endure
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sorrow and pain and loss in a
way that is marked by godliness. Everything
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he does is marked by this way, with a kind of honesty and righteousness.
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On top of having this kind of
moral dignity and this inward character of
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dignified character, often a dignified man
is one who excels in his use and
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understanding of creation. Perhaps he plays
an instrument well or knows how to read
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a book, knows how to look
at nature and study the things in the
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world. Perhaps he has an ability
to see situations or work through legal cases
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or any number of things. This
is people that we respect, right,
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people that know how to take God's
creation, understand it and use it to
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do amazing things. People that build
skyscrapers or people that build bridges, or
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are able to prove things mathematically or
discover stars or all the rest. These
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things bring a certain honor, don't
they? And rightly so, because it
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is a way in which we are
exercising our humanity in according to that,
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according to our our humanness. A
dignified man, therefore, is one who
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does these kinds of things, he
sees himself in relation to God and then
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acts in a way that is in
accordance with God's law, in accordance with
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God's laws in nature. He is
dignified. It's not dependent all this.
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Conclude dignity with this by saying his
dignity is not dependent, then, on
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his echo. GNOMICS has success.
necessarily. It's not dependent on his on
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his health. We might see a
very poor man on who loves his wife
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and takes care of his children.
This man has a lot more dignity than
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a very rich man who abuses his
wife and cares nothing for others. We
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want to define these things by not
according to sin but according to righteousness.
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So he is a man who is
sober minded, he has a man who
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is dignified, and he is a
man who has self control. This is
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the third of the six. A
man who has no self control, proverbs
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two hundred and twenty eight says,
is like a city whose wall is broken
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down. And you know what a
city with a wall who's broken down is
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like if you read the story of
Jericho. That was the whole point,
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right to break down the wall so
that what the city could be overthrown.
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A man who lacks self control,
therefore, is a man who is going
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to be overthrown, or perhaps already
is under siege. And we are given
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a vivid picture of this, of
what God desires in self control, in
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First Corinthians nine, twenty five through
twenty seven, Paul writes every athlete exercises
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self control in all things, and
you know this right when you see athletes,
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the way they work diligently their bodies
to exercise and to execute certain things
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over and over and over again.
Basketball player might go out every day and
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through throw a two hundred free throws
just so he can get that shot.
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Perfect self control over his wrist,
over his eye, over the spacing of
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his feet, over his breathing.
He exercises. Every athlete exercises self control
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in all things, and they do
it to receive a perishable wreath. But
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we and imperishable. So I do
not run aimlessly, I do not box
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as one boxing the air, but
I discipline my body and keep it under
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control, lest, after preaching to
others, I myself should be disqualified.
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And so you see, here are
the an older man is to be one
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who is not only knows how to
assess things properly and not only lives his
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life generally in this kind of immoral
and dignified way, but he has control
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over himself. He knows his limits, he knows how to fight temptation,
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he knows how to live not according
to the lusts and passions of his heart,
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but according to the things of God. Well, these are the first
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three things that should characterize older men. The second half is grouped together with
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this word sound. Paul says that
older men should be sounded in faith,
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in love and insteadfastness. In many
ways this corresponds to that other threefold set
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of virtues faith, love and hope. You see in other portions of scripture.
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Faith, love and steadfastness. To
be sound means to be strong,
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to be healthy without error or defect, and it often implies that a thing
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that is sound is able to do
the thing that it was designed to do.
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For example, a ship that is
sound is one that is going to
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carry you and not sink. A
spending plan that is sound means that one
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is one that's reasonable and is going
to going to guide you in your expenses,
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and a bridge that is sound is
one that you can stand on and
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rely trust in. Paul says the
older men should be sound in faith,
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love and insteadfastness. These above abilities, sober minded, self control and dignified,
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are carried then, I'm not by
public pressure, egoism or ambition,
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but these things are pretty to be
done and carried in faith, in love
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and insteadfastness. Indeed, a man
can be, and often men often are,
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self controlled because of the public eye
that's on them or the next job
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that they want to have, all
kinds of things. But God gives us
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another motivation, the motivation that should
be true in older men faith. They
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should have a faith that is sound, which means that it should be his
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faith should be without error, should
be trusting in things that are true.
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His love should be sound, which
means that it should be rooted in faith.
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His love should be an outgrowth of
the love that his God is given
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to him in Christ. His hope
should be sound. And then that let
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us looking something sure, not to
looking for something sure, not just the
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next honor on the horizon, not
just another house or another grandchild, but
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is looking for something that is lasting
and forever, great treasures of God that
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come to us in Jesus. Together, these things create a man, or
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describe a man whose foot doesn't slip, who treats others in love rather than
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seeking glory only for himself, and
who is dignified in these things as he
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experiences and grows in his knowledge of
God and God's world. Now I want
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you to take a moment and think
through your life. If you are a
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younger man, ask yourself, are
the things that I'm doing now taking me
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on a path, on a trajectory
that is going to make me into this
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kind of man? And if you
are an older man, of course,
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consider the obvious. Does this describe
you? Are you sober, minded,
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dignified, self controlled? Are you
sound in faith, in love and insteadfastness?
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As you look around, ladies,
at your world, do you see
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men like this? Are you praying
for them? Are you encouraging them?
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Are you training your sons? Are
you encouraging your husband's to be I'm like
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the man described here. If we
consider this truly, we are likely to
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see more, more that is not
in accordant with these things than is.
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And this description that we have here
is, of course, a great desirable
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one. Right this is the picture
that we all want, the the man
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that we all meet, our want
to meet, the mentor that we want
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to have, this guy right here. But in our society we often have
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many men that are not like this, so much so that we haven't have
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words, by words, to describe
the men that are not old fox,
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dirty, old man. These phrases
immediately described to us the reality that there
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are many men that are not like
this, men that see personal freedom as
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the highest end and did deny things
like public service and love for their own
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passions and desires. They see the
world is something that is meant for them
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than whatever honors they might have achieved. It is for them and because of
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their old age, their sins are
now excusable, the ways in which they
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sin against God and their neighbors.
As we see these men, or perhaps
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young men, if we look at
ourselves and we see ourselves becoming these men,
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we are right, I'm, to
go before God and to repent,
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even if we repudiate these things as
old men. I'm you, no doubt.
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I'm have regrets, and young men
to who may see the path they're
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on and see that it's not as
trade as they should be. And thus,
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as we consider these character qualities that
must be an older men, in
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older Christian men, it's right that
we begin to look beyond our own personal
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growth projects, as desirous as we
may be to fulfill this description, to
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be this kind of man. I'm
to pray for this kind of man.
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We're never going to get there if
we szumped, if we simply buckle down
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and try harder, because godliness in
old age, in old age, doesn't
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come from completing a list of life
hacks, but from growing according to a
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life giving spirit. This kind of
man comes about only when God is working
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in us, when God is applying
the work of the spirit in our lives.
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The steps towards strength of the soul
begin by seeing the weakness in ourselves
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and the power in God. What
kind of power might we be talking about?
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Well, surprise, surprise, Paul
Directs us to it and tells us
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exactly what he means. Look down
just a little bit of these after these
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descriptions, at verses eleven through fourteen. I won't read it, but I'll
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list through it and if you're if
you're looking at it, you can follow
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along with me. Notice what he
says. He says we should be these
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kinds of things because of what happens
and what has happened in verse eleven,
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Number One. The grace of God
has appeared, bringing salvation for all people,
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even old men. This has got
to be such a huge hope in
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your lie, a huge hope in
your life if you are an old man
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and you look on your life with
regret for time wasted and errors fallen into
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and pits and traps that you come
into again and again and again, to
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know that salvation has come into the
world for all people, even for old
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men. Old Dogs can be taught
new tricks by the grace of God.
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They can. You see that in
the example of Zechariah, a holy man
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and a good man, but a
man who made a mistake, all the
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old, all the nevertheless, when
an angel of God appears to him and
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says this is what's going to happen
and he doesn't believe it, talk about
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having trouble with faith. He doesn't
believe it and the angel shuts his mouth,
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but he opens it again and gives
praise to God. It is a
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wonderful sound. Hope, it is
your hope as an older man, that
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the grace of God has appeared and
Britt has brought salvation for all people.
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He does this, of course,
through Jesus Christ, who knows our sins,
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who took takes on our sins and
redeems us from them. He takes
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them away from us, he cleanses
us from them so that we might see
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our regrets in the Cross and know
that Jesus Christ, our Savior, has
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redeemed has redeemed us from them.
So that's verse a, Love and Verse
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Twelve. God goes on to say
that he is training us. This grace
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of God has appeared, bringing salvation
for all people, and is now training
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us to renounce ungodliness and worldly passions
and to live self controlled, upright and
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Godly lives in the present age.
Remember that analogy that Paul gave about boxing
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the air. Here he says why? You don't have to have a false
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hope that you will be boxing the
air. Why? Because God is your
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personal trainer and he is successful.
He is training you to renounce ungodliness worldly
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passions and to live exactly in the
way that he wants you to live.
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You see how God is help.
God is telling us in his word here
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that this work, this kind of
man that he wants you to be,
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is a kind of man that he
is making you to be. It is
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ultimately his work. It's not your
work alone just to gather up your strength
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to please him. It is ultimately
his work in and through you to please
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himself and, as Paul points out
in another place, even to shame the
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world, to show his glory and
how he can take dirty old men and
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rotten old foxes and turn them into
men of God. He continues on in
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verse thirteen by reminding us of the
soundness of our hope, the soundness of
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our steadfastness, he says, waiting
for our blessed hope, the appearing of
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the glory of our great God and
Savior, Jesus Christ. This is the
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certainty of our salvation, that God, our personal trainer, isn't just helping
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US along and giving us tips at
various points how we might work this muscle
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or that spiritual muscle, but he
is doing this work in us to bring
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us to this particular point, a
blessed hope, Paul describes it as,
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which will come at the appearing of
the glory of our great God and Savior,
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Jesus Christ. First for our teen
tells us that he will not fail
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at this task. Stumble though you
may, he will bring you to complete
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purity, dignity and honor, who
gave himself for us to redeem us from
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all lawlessness and to purify for himself
a people for his own possession who are
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zealous for good works. So,
as you consider what it is God wants
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you to do, consider what it
is God wants to do, consider what
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it is God is doing, the
project that he is on and the work
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that he will complete. So,
whether you are at the end or the
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beginning of fulfilling your role as a
man of God, find your faith,
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your hope and love in Him who
is doing these things, in Jesus Christ,
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who is come, who purifies us
from our sins, who redeems us
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from lawlessness, who works in US
and trains us to renounce on godliness worldly
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passions and to live self controlled,
uplight, upright and Godly lives in the
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present age. This is what God
is doing in and through you. And
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when you trust that, when you
trust in the work of God, then
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your faith is sound, your hope
is and your steadfastness is sure and your
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love will surely grow, because when
we are engrafted into the vine, we
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produce fruit. It is the nature
of things, it is the nature of
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God, it's the nature of grace. So, brothers, let us put
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our hope there in Christ and not
in ourselves, not in our strength,
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not in our ability to achieve these
things, but in God's ability to achieve
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them in us and to glorify himself
through him. And Sisters, please pray
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for us, please be there for
us, encourage US and show us the
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right way, remind us of the
Gospel that we might be strong to believe
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God grant us these things according to
His grace. Let us pray
