Titus chapter number three, where we hear not traditions of men, but we hear the very words of God through this spirit-inspired, spirit-filled, spirit-led apostle of Jesus, one who's sent by Jesus to represent him to the world. So Titus three this morning. Remind them to be submissive to rulers and authorities, to be obedient, to be ready for every good work, to speak evil of no one, to avoid quarreling, to be gentle, and to show perfect courtesy toward all people. For we ourselves were once foolish, disobedient, led astray, slaves to various passions and pleasures, passing our days in malice and envy, hated by others and hating one another. When the goodness and loving-kindness of God our Savior appeared, He saved us, not because of works done by us in righteousness, 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. 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. 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. 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. When I send Artemis or Tychicus to you, do your best to come to me at Nicopolis, for I have decided to spend the winter there. Do your best to speed Zenos 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. All who are with me send greetings to you. Greet those who love us in the faith. Grace be with you all. And all of God's people say, amen. Grace be with you all. What a beautiful way to end this letter. And also to begin this message. Grace be with you all. The message of the Bible contrary to popular opinion, the message of the Bible, the message of all that Jesus is and has done in this world by his life, his death, his resurrection, and all the message of the church of Jesus on this earth, and speaking here particularly of us, this church, this congregation, the message of all that we say and are about is the grace of God to unbelieving, undeserving sinners like you and me, amen? The message of the Bible, the message of Jesus Christ, The gospel is the grace of God towards us undeserving sinners. There was a 17th century Puritan, John mentioned him to me this morning, and providentially I had a little quote from him, so Thomas Manton. Thomas Manton was a 17th century English Presbyterian, a Puritan as they were known as, some of them were known as in those days. And he says this, or he said this echoing the early Christian church father, St. Augustine, saying this. Here's what Thomas Manton said. Let us then ascribe the whole work of grace to the pleasure of God's will. And then he says this, God did not choose us because we were worthy, but by choosing us, he makes us worthy. God did not choose us because we were worthy, but by choosing us, He makes us worthy. In other words, grace. Grace, grace, grace. And so God's grace is what Titus, this short little letter, is all about. And I've been saying to you the last few Sundays as we've gone through it that the big idea is Paul writing to Titus on the island of Crete to organize believers, organize Christians that were on the island already through the missionary work of Paul and others, to organize those Christians into congregations How? Through sound or healthy preaching of the gospel that produces sound or healthy living. That's what Titus is all about. So to gather believers, how? Through the sound preaching of the gospel, the healthy, the health-giving life, the life-giving preaching of the gospel that produces in believers healthy, sound, godly living. And all of that's the work of grace. The gospel is proclaimed, people hear the good news, we share the gospel with them, and God by His grace gathers them together into congregations to save them from their sins and to produce in them good works, good living. And so we become united to Christ and His body, the church, by grace. What we preach is grace, and how we respond in godliness is a work of God's grace too. So grace. Be with you all. And so here at the end, Paul says that, but notice he's giving an exhortation to us. His final instructions to Titus, to that island of Crete and the believers that were gathering there as congregations, and to us. Paul's final instruction to us is let's devote ourselves to good works. Let's devote ourselves to good works. First of all, notice this exhortation. I'm going to skip around a few throughout the verses here. You should have a little sermon notes page. You can see we're going to kind of pop back and forth throughout these verses, but we see this, this big exhortation, our new life of good work. So he's exhorting us to a new life. of good works. Now, go back to chapter one, verse number nine, which we've been kind of using as a somewhat of a little outline of this letter, where Paul was telling Titus that the minister of the gospel has two voices, two ways in which he speaks at different times to different people. He has a voice of encouragement. He uses that to the sheep, to the church, to the people of God, to believers. But there's also a voice of rebuke that at times has to be spoken in the church, but especially has to be spoken to those who are enemies outside the church. And so Paul is telling Titus here to use that first voice, that voice of exhortation and encouragement, When he says in verse 1, to remind these believers on Crete to be submissive to rulers and authorities, to be obedient. Now we know this, this is a short little phrase, but we know what Paul says elsewhere. This very same theme is found, for example, in Romans chapter 13. That's a much longer section where he says the very same thing. All authority comes from God. All authorities in the world are ministers, they're servants of God. And therefore, they are given by God for the common good. And believers especially, we are to be submissive. We are to be obedient to those in authority over us. Now, we all got up close and personal with authority, didn't we, just a couple of years ago? Right? It goes without saying, right? I mean, we all went bonkers during COVID about these kinds of verses. Romans 13, this Titus chapter 3. I'm so glad those days are over. I'm so glad those days are over. We can just get back to, you know, thank you, Lord, for those who lead us and who are over us with all of our disagreements, and we can seek as best we can to be submissive, to be obedient. And so Paul gives this exhortation to believers on Crete, right? These are Roman, citizens of the Roman Empire. And now he's saying to Christians who are also citizens of that empire, obey those in authority who are over you. And then he gives this big summary again, verse one, be ready for every good work. Now notice the context in which he says that, it's in the context of obeying authority. In other words, you and I are to live as citizens of our common earthly kingdom or nations. We have a spiritual citizenship that is in heaven. We have a down payment already of the Holy Spirit, of that heavenly inheritance that awaits us. But we also are real people, aren't we? We're not just souls, right? We talk about sometimes, you know, we gotta win souls, we gotta save souls. How many souls, you know, did the church add last year? Well, souls have bodies. Souls are embodied. And as embodied souls, as human beings, bodies and souls, and all that it means to be a human being, we are real people who live in a real place, in real time, and we have real authorities, meaning people with authority who are over us. And so our task, Paul says, is to do good for the benefit of others. Our citizenship is in heaven, but we also have an earthly citizenship. We might say we have an earthly passport, right? We have citizenship in heaven, we have a passport down here. And we are to do good as much as we are able to for the benefit of others. Now, notice verse 2. There's another beautiful exhortation here on how believers are to live in a society like the Roman Empire that was wholly unbelieving. So how do believers live amongst unbelievers? How do citizens of heaven live with the passports passing through cities, nations, and so forth here on earth? Speak evil of no one. Avoid quarreling. Be gentle. Show perfect courtesy toward all people. Loved ones, verse 2. You should memorize that verse. You should memorize that verse. Speak evil of no one. Avoid quarreling, be gentle and show perfect courtesy toward all people. I said two weeks ago, last message I think it was, when we looked in chapter 2, Paul's exhortation to young men, which I said is the shortest little exhortation in chapter 2. Older men has this lengthy couple of verses. Older women have a few lengthy verses. Younger women have a few lengthy verses. But then he said there in verse 6, urge younger men to be self-controlled. That's it. And what was my big thing? The big thing I said to you two Sundays ago. The big exhortation Paul was making to young believers, and he's now saying to all of us, is be different. Be different. Let's be Christians and a church that's in the world, but yet seeks to be different from all the world around us. We want to be different as Christians, Paul is saying. Don't speak evil, avoid quarreling, be gentle, be courteous towards all humanity. And so let's be different, O URC, from the ungodly far right. Let's be different from the Christian right, sadly, we have to say that. And the Christian, so-called Christian left. And the ungodly left in our society. There's way too much evil speech in quarreling already in the church of Jesus Christ. We all know that, right? There's way, way too much evil speech quarreling going on, not just in the world out there, but in the church. Let's be different. Let's be a better kind of church than the rest. People out there in the world already have the media. And sadly, we already have overly influenced by the media churches. Obama's the Antichrist, Trump is Hitler, right? We can go on and on. And those things that are said out there get trumpeted and they get blasted in here in the church. But it's all anger. It's not gentle. It's all rude. It's all dismissiveness. And if our society is going to hell in a handbasket, as many of us probably think, well then be salt and light. Amen? if it's going to hell in a handbasket, it will be salt and light. That's what you're called to do. I mean, don't we think Paul and the earliest Christians living in the Roman Empire and eventually experiencing some little bit of persecution and eventually even more so, if any Christians could have ever said, our society is hell in a handbasket, it was the first century. in the first couple of centuries. But yet, live as salt. Live as light. Speak evil of no one. Avoid quarreling. Be gentle. Show perfect courtesy toward all people. Now notice verse 8. He reiterates this big exhortation of our new life of good works. And here's one of Paul's faithful sayings. The saying is trustworthy. Pistos hologos. The saying is trustworthy. It's a faithful saying. insist on these things so that those who have believed in God may be careful to devote themselves to good works. There's that exhortation again. These things are excellent and profitable for people. Again, notice it's not just excellent, profitable for us. The world, people in general, the society in which we live. On the contrary, Paul says that the minister also has to use that other voice from chapter one, verse nine. That voice of rebuke, verse nine. But, but avoid foolish controversies, genealogies, dissensions, quarrels about the law. They are unprofitable and worthless. What's he talking about? Well, I mentioned before we're not 100% sure exactly the influence of Judaism with Greco-Roman religion and how that was affecting and infecting the church. We're not quite sure exactly what he means by all of this, but the principle is true. These, anything that leads to controversy, things of genealogies here, dissensions, quarrels, and so forth, they are unprofitable and worthless. So just insert the most recent nonsense on Twitter or Facebook, and that's what he's talking about. You're not on Twitter and Facebook? Good, God bless you, right? Stick to the word of God, stick to good old books, okay? Read Thomas Manton, okay, read Thomas Manton. Much better, better for your soul. So Paul uses this voice, this voice of rebuke, and he even is saying, in the church, avoid this, avoid this. But then he speaks even more harshly, we might say, more sternly, with this voice of a shepherd who has a rod at times, Those who stir up division within, these are those in the church, sadly. They're to be warned. You warn them once, you warn them twice. He's here echoing Matthew chapter number 18. Then he's implying here, then comes what we call excommunication. Have nothing more to do with them. Knowing that such a person is warped and sinful, he's self-condemned. Now, Paul fills in the blanks in his letters, say, for example, 1 Corinthians, where he says, we do this, we set a person outside the church, we have nothing more to do with them, they are warped, they're sinful, they're self-condemned. We do that to deliver them up to Satan so that they would come to their senses and come back to the church, come back to Christ. We never, and we said this before many times, we never exercise church discipline just to discipline, just to be harsh. We never do it just to pay back people for their sins. Discipline's not meant to be retributive, but restorative. It's always meant to warn people of their sins, absolutely, warn people of their sins. This leads to hell, brother, sister, friend. And if you persist in this the second and third time, we have to put you outside the church. Now, physically speaking, I mean, that's kind of hard, but in spiritual terms, we put a person outside so that they would come to realize the gravity, the seriousness. Why? To restore them back, to bring them back. I mean, we never discipline our kids just because we want to, because we have to, but we always do it to train them, to bring them back, don't we? in the same way in the church. So in summary, Paul is saying here that as a congregation in an unbelieving society, you and I, we are called to be a different kind of church, living a new life of good works because of the grace of God operating in our lives. Now notice in verse 14, just to bring this first point to a conclusion. He adds two little appendices, we might say. Sadie and Daxson should know this word. We've been doing catechism in the car on the way to school. Appendix, or appendices. It's a little addition to a book. You read a book, you get to the conclusion, there's an appendix in the back. What's that all about? There's usually some extra information some little sort of side story something else like oh by the way Let me add this notice what Paul says in verse 14. He sort of adds these two little appendices To help cases of urgent need so to devote ourselves a good works so as to help cases of urgent need and not be unfruitful these two little things urgent need and Don't be unfruitful. In other words, we need to be helpers. Christians in society need to be helpers. Last Sunday as I was away, I had an amazing little experience at the church that I was at. One of our former elders here, Dr. Hobson and his family and a couple of the kids of the Jones family that have moved away. So we have members have gone west to east and now we have members from east to west. So we got to get a few more to kind of like equal that equation out, but we're almost there. We're almost there. And last Sunday in church, someone gave a report up in front of the church for the relief work that this church was doing for the victims of the hurricanes this past summer. And it was just a great thing. They all came up and it was just a ton of people and a ton of resources that they were going to take to people in tangible need. And so Paul is saying, you know, what kinds of needs, he's asking us to ask the question, what kinds of needs can you and I respond to in one-on-one small ways with each other, right, or those who are outside the church? but also if there are bigger types of needs. What kinds of ways can we serve should needs arise? Because don't forget Jesus came to seek and to save, not to be served, but to what? To serve, right? To give his life as a ransom for many, and so should we. And so Paul says, we should not be unfruitful. Then comes, a little more quickly than that, verse three. There's a contrast here, so you put it all together, there's a contrast here. Our old life of selfish works, verse three. So after reminding us of all those virtues of our new life of good works, He makes a contrast here, a little transition. There's a little word for there in verse three, for. We ourselves, so here's the reason that we should do good works. For we ourselves were once foolish, disobedient, led astray. Paul likes things in threes in this letter especially. Foolish, disobedient, led astray. What does that sound like? What does that sound like? Foolish, disobedient, led astray. It sounds like an immature child, doesn't it? Fools, not wise. Disobedient, not obedient. Astray, not on the straight and narrow. That was us. That was you. That was me. As Paul said in Ephesians 2, we were by nature children of wrath. Why? Notice the next little phrase. We were slaves to various passions and pleasures. As Jesus said, the one who practices sin is what? You know that verse? The one who practices sin is a slave of sin. A slave of sin. Or as Paul tells us again in Ephesians 2 at verse 3, we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind. Slaves to various passions and pleasures. Our old life. Our old life was characterized by these things. Foolishness, disobedience, being led astray. Slaves to passions and pleasures. Passing our days, he goes on to say, in malice and envy. How did we pass our days? Hated by others. Why? Why did others hate us? Because they too were fools. They too were disobedient, led astray, slaves, passing their days in malice and envy. You see all that, right? So not just us, but everyone. This is describing the human race here, hated by others. In other words, Paul says, do good works because you have a new life now, unlike your old one. You're not defined anymore by that old life that you once lived. That's why Paul says in 1 Corinthians 6, such were some of you. He lifts off a list of sins just like this and says, but such were in the past, some of you. But notice as well, hated by others. He gives this little, he adds sort of the, here's the kicker to it, hating one another. It's not just that you were a victim hated by others. No, you are an active participant hating one another, hating one another. There's a question and answer early in the very beginning of our Heidelberg Catechism. And one of the little references is this very verse, and I still remember back in the day, Cyprian echoing this question and answer as we were trying to learn for the first time as parents how to teach the catechism to our kids. And the question goes like this. Can you live up to all this, God's laws, love God, love neighbor, right? The summary of the law that Jesus gives. Can you live up to all this, loving God and neighbor, perfectly? No, right? Nine. No. I am inclined, kids, you know that one? I'm inclined to hate God and my neighbor. I'm inclined to hate God and my neighbor. To hear a kid say that to you the first time is kind of a powerful thing. You get that dad feeling, you know, son, it's really not that bad, you know, it's gonna be okay. No, it actually is that bad. That's what makes grace grace, amen? We can't love God and love neighbor as God deserves and desires and requires and as we are required to do, we can't. By nature, our sinfulness leads us to hate others, to be hated, to hate God. So in contrast to our new life of good works that Paul is exhorting us to, he contrasts this old life of selfish works to illustrate for us just how far we've come because of the gracious work of God in our lives. And that leads to our final point, which is verses four through seven. It's really the heart of this chapter here. So how did we go from living in this old life of selfishness, being hated and hating. How do we go from that to being those that Paul can call to be devoting themselves to a new life of good works? What's the difference? Your old life of selfish works and this new life of devoting yourself to good works of doing good to all people. What makes the difference? Notice verses four, five, six, and seven, the love of God. The love of God, the reason why we can go from that old life to that new life is the love of God in Jesus Christ. Look at how verse three, when it says that we were hated by others, and we actually also positively were hating one another, that leads to this typical Pauline but God kind of moment, doesn't it? Hated by others, hating one another, but when The goodness and loving kindness of God our Savior appeared. He saved us. It sounds like Ephesians 2, doesn't it? hated by others, hating one another. But when the goodness and loving kindness of God our Savior appeared, He saved us. Notice a few interesting things here. This is just a really amazing verse. Notice a few things here. So back in chapter two, verse 11, if you just, it's like literally on the other side, the other column, at least in my Bible, we read this a couple of Sundays ago. 2 verse 11, the grace of God has appeared. The grace of God has appeared. So that's the same verb, that language of appearing there of 2 verse 11 and now here in 3 verse 4. It's the verb from which we get into English, epiphany. He had an epiphany, she had an epiphany, right? This awareness, something's appeared to them. But notice this as well. So he's linking it back to that passage. But notice also, in 2 verse 11, I mentioned that when Paul says, for the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation. Remember, I said there's like a literary thing that's going on there. Paul is speaking in a certain kind of a way, in a literary term we call this personification, kids. Remember I gave you the big vocabulary word two sentences ago? Personification. Personification is when you say things about something that doesn't have any life in it. You describe it as a person, right? And what did I say about the pulpit two Sundays ago? You guys remember that? The pulpit was alive two Sundays ago, right? I don't know if it was, but that's at least what I said. The pulpit was alive, right? Well, the pulpit's made out of wood. God bless George and Leroy for doing a great job. I think it was just George, but we have some metal here. I got a little bit of metal. There's some nice, there's some wood, there's some screws, metal. This is like a shingle, right? This is like a rain shingle, a rain gutter. So in the front, we have what we have in the front. It's not living stuff anymore, at least. It's dead, it's lifeless. This pulpit can't move unless I move it. But we can say, you know, the pulpit was alive, meaning the preaching, the person preaching, the preacher was alive. That's personification. That's personification, right? So he says this about God's grace. Grace appeared. Notice he doesn't say Christ appeared, he says grace appeared. And now he says, the goodness and the loving kindness of God appeared. So he's describing qualities, or we call them attributes of God, in personal human kind of ways, appearing, showing up, making an epiphany, arriving on earth. Notice also this. He says here in our passage that it was the goodness and loving kindness of God, our Savior, that appear. But then look down at verse number six. It speaks of Jesus Christ as what? Verse six, Jesus Christ what? Our Savior, our Savior. Now in verse four, the implication is that this is God the Father. He doesn't explicitly say this is the Father, but this is God the Father. And he is described as the Savior. Paul's a Jewish rabbi. Who's the Savior in the Old Testament? The Lord, God. The prophet Isaiah said, there's no other God but me, there's no other Savior but me. And to call anything or anyone else the Savior other than God is blasphemy. But notice what he does, he calls not only God, the Father implied, our Savior, he equates God the Father as the Savior, Jesus Christ. They're both described as the Savior. How? Because they're divine. They're divine. Like the Father, our Savior, Jesus Christ, saves from sinners. So how did the Father's goodness and this loving kindness, literally his philanthropy, his love of the human race, that's the term here, philanthropy, how did it make its epiphany? How did God's grace in 2 verse 11, how did his goodness and his philanthropy here in 3 verse 4, how did those things make their epiphany in the Son, Jesus, through, as the passage says, the power and work and person of the Holy Spirit? So how did God save us? How did he save us? Notice he says in verse five how he didn't save us, first of all, not because of works done by us in righteousness. Not because of works done by us in righteousness. Now, after you've just read verse number three, look at verse three again. After reading verse three, describing your past life, this is what you once were, There's no way on God's green earth that you could have even attempted to do good works of righteousness to somehow earn you and gain for you salvation. Do you see that? There's no way. That's why he says, but God, right? But the grace, the mercy, the loving kindness of God had to appear because of your previous life. So not because of works done by you. And in fact, even the good works that we now do as believers, do those works now get us like extra rubies and pearls in our crown in heaven? Do your good works as Christians earn you anything? Do they merit you anything? Absolutely not. Are you still a sinner? So your good works are still stained and tainted by sin. How does God accept them? He accepts them through Christ, by the power of the Holy Spirit, by grace. By grace. There's no good work that you can do. There's no good work that you could have done. There's no good work that you can somehow, you know, in your own way, do anything to be acceptable to God except through the work of Jesus Christ. Now, he says, not because of works done by us in righteousness, but according to his own mercy, the pity of God. He looked at us as helpless, as those who were foolish, disobedient, astray, slaves, passing days in envy and hatred, hating others, being hated by others. He looked in mercy upon you and pity upon you as a helpless creature. That's why you're saved. And the way in which this mercy came to you and to me, notice he gives here, the ESV kind of, I don't know, kind of muddles it up a tad bit, but it says here, Verse number five, by the washing of regeneration and renewal of the Holy Spirit. So you have that by, that little preposition by. And then again, in verse number six, whom he, the Father, poured out on us richly through, that's the same little preposition by, through or by, it's the same thing. So how did the mercy of God come to us helpless sinners? Through Christ, through the Spirit. or through the Spirit and through Christ here. That's the order he gives. He speaks of through or by means of the washing of regeneration and renewal. These are saying the same thing two different ways. Regeneration and renewal. The washing and regeneration and renewal of the Holy Spirit. In other words, the Spirit of God has entered your life to give you new life from your old life. He's transformed your old life into a new life. We call this what? We call this being born again. We call this being born again. This is what Jesus told Nicodemus. Amen, amen, I say to you that you must be born again. You must not be born merely earthly, but you must have a heavenly birth. We call this being born again, or regeneration. Furthermore, the Spirit was whom He, the Father, again, verse six, the Spirit is the one that the Father poured out on us richly by or through Jesus Christ, our Savior. So just like revel in these little verses here for a moment, in the gracious and the glorious work of your triune God, loved ones. God the Father. through Jesus, poured out upon you richly, lavishly, the Holy Spirit to graciously save you and transform you from death to life, amen? By the resurrection, Paul says elsewhere in 1 Corinthians 15, that Jesus Christ has become a life-giving spirit, that by the resurrection, the spirit of God has been given to him to then pour back down upon the church. That's Acts chapter two, the day of Pentecost. And from that day forward, every time a sinner comes to faith, it's the day of Pentecost. The Father pouring out the Spirit through the Son upon sinners like us. But Paul's not done. Verse seven, notice. And finally, verse seven. In his grace, that's chapter 2, 11, and now he tells us in the goodness and the love, the philanthropy of God, and the mercy of God, he saves sinners just like you and me, not because of our works of righteousness. And the result of this, notice verse 7, the result is that so that being justified. So you've been regenerated, you've been born again, you've been given a new life by the heart of the Holy Spirit. And therefore you are justified. Being justified, that is that you are declared righteous now, even though your previous life was one of utter unrighteousness. This is what makes justification such a wonderful, amazing, mind-blowing truth, that God takes unrighteous sinners and he makes them, he declares them to be righteous. It's not because of your works again, loved ones. Not because of your own works done in righteousness, no. By his grace. again, not works, by his grace, you've become heirs. So you've been regenerated, you've been justified, and you have been adopted as God's children. You become heirs according to the hope of eternal life. And so here at the end of his letter, he takes us all the way back to the beginning, because that little phrase there, the hope of eternal life, should sound familiar to us. Back in chapter one, verse one, Paul said that he was called to be a servant of God, an apostle of Jesus Christ, and all his labors were for the sake of God's elect, for the sake of their faith, the sake of their knowledge, and for the sake of their hope of eternal life. So you, unrighteous sinner, chapter 3, verse 3, have done nothing righteous. The power of God, the Holy Spirit has invented your life and caused you to be born again, regenerated you, renewed you to new life, from death to life, justified you, declaring you righteous, despite all that you had done, despite all that you cannot do, He declared you righteous. And He then gives you this inheritance of the hope of future eternal life. Why? Why? Why does God save sinners, loved ones? Why did God save you? His grace. His grace. All by His grace. And so we once lived an old life of selfish works, but we're now called to live a new life of good works. The difference between those two things is this grace or this love of God. Let me conclude with this. Titus has been a very quick, short little letter for us to study. Again, his purpose was to gather Christians into congregations through the sound preaching of the gospel that produces sound, godly living. By God's grace, loved ones, by God's grace, this is the kind of church we want to be, amen? We want to be a church family that is devoted to good works. In contrast to the world, how can we serve one another? How can we serve those just coming into our assembly, how can we serve the world around us? And I pray, and I pray more and more, and more than you can even imagine, I pray. And I ask you to pray that the kind of preaching that comes from this pulpit is the kind of sound preaching, sound, spiritual, health-giving preaching that causes you and I to live healthy, spiritual lives. Let's devote ourselves, brothers and sisters, let's devote ourselves to good works. Let's pray. Lord, we pray that you would write your words upon the tablets of our hearts by the power of your Holy Spirit to see and to know Jesus Christ today. And so we ask that you would also fellowship with us here and commune with us here at this table. feeding us with the precious body and blood of Jesus Christ for us, for us unrighteous sinners who've been made righteous, but yet we struggle with our doubts. Feed us, nourish us, sustain us. Uphold our faith today, we pray, that we might go forth in the power of your Holy Spirit, renewed and transformed once again. to serve all around us in your amazing love and to share that gospel that you have given to the world with those who need to hear it so desperately today. We ask it in Jesus' name and all of God's people say, amen.