Titus chapter 2. We're going to read the whole chapter. It's just 15 verses. It's really the heart here of the letter. And Paul, writing to Titus, says, But as for you, Titus, teach what accords with sound or healthy doctrine. Older men are to be sober-minded, dignified, self-controlled. Sound in faith, in love, and in steadfastness. Older women, likewise, are to be reverent in behavior, not slanderers or slaves to much wine. They are to teach what is good, and so train the young women to love their husbands and children. to be self-controlled, pure, working at home, kind, and submissive to their own husbands, that the word of God may not be reviled. Likewise, urge the younger men to be self-controlled. Show yourself, in all respects, to be a model of good works, and in your teaching, show integrity, dignity, and sound speech that cannot be condemned, so that an opponent may be put to shame, having nothing evil to say about us. Bondservants or slaves are to be submissive to their own masters in everything. They are to be well-pleasing, not argumentative, not pilfering, but showing all good faith, so that in everything they may adorn the doctrine of God our Savior. For the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation for all people, training us to renounce ungodliness and worldly passions, and to live self-controlled, upright, and godly lives in the present age, waiting for our blessed hope the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior, Jesus Christ, who gave himself for us to redeem us from all lawlessness and to purify for himself a people for his own possession, who are zealous for good works. Declare these things, exhort and rebuke with all authority. Let no one disregard you. Into these words, all of God's people say. The purpose of Titus, remember, was to organize Christians on the island of Crete into congregations. There were believers there, and so Paul sends Titus to organize those believers in various towns into congregations. How? Through sound or healthy preaching that leads to sound or healthy living, meaning sound, meaning spiritual living. Healthy not in an earthly sense, but good. Good doctrine leads to good living. Godly doctrine leads to godly living. Now in that preaching that Paul told Titus to go to Crete and ordain men to the ministry to preach, the pastor we saw last Sunday has two voices. He has one voice that is to exhort his people in sound or healthy doctrine, to build us up, to feed our souls. The other voice is to rebuke or to literally control the attacks of wild wolves seeking to devour the sheep. with their false theology and piety. We saw that in chapter 1, verse number 9. That's the first voice of the minister. And the second voice is this, to rebuke those or to control those who contradict it. So here in our chapter, this is a very short letter, Paul returns to that first voice of the minister of the word, saying to Titus in contrast to the false teachers on the island of Crete, but as for you, notice that in verse one, but as for you, because in verses 10 through 16 we saw last Sunday, he's been speaking about how to use that second voice that wards off wolves, that protects the sheep. But as for you, in contrast to those false teachers, teach what accords with, or what is consistent with, sound doctrine. Sound, again, meaning healthy. But here it's interesting, the way that Paul constructs the syntax and the grammar, there's a present active verb here. It's health-giving doctrine. It's not just sound doctrine as a static thing. but health-giving doctrine. There's an active dynamism, in other words, of the Word of God that is constantly bringing to us sinners who are sick, health, bringing to us, as an older writer said, the medicine of the gospel for our sin-sick hearts. And so that's what he's been telling them, telling Titus to tell them on the island of Crete. And so as he said at the opening of the letter, the truth of the gospel accords with godliness. The truth of the gospel accords with godliness. Teach what is consistent with health giving doctrine. That's what he's telling them to teach. He's telling Titus to teach them to teach. So notice then, we see how Titus is to go organize Christians of the congregations through sound or healthy preaching that brings sound or healthy living. The truth accords with godliness. You've heard me say it before, brothers and sisters, just by way of application, that theology must become biography. Our theology must become our biography. The truth must accord with godliness. It already does. But it has to become more so in our own lives. Theology must become biography. Amen? So what we hear in the gospel has to affect us. And that's what we see here in chapter 2. Paul gives us a glimpse into this healthy doctrine and then the basis for it. Note that the doctrine that is here is all about godliness. That is in accordance with the truth of God's revelation of grace in Jesus Christ. And so what we learn here 2,000 years later is that we are to be a church saturated in grace. That's what Paul is telling Titus to tell the churches on Crete, and that's what he tells us by the power of the Holy Spirit, that we must be a church saturated in grace. First of all then, notice this. First of all, a church that is saturated in the grace of God has a healthy practice of godliness. A church that is saturated by the amazing grace of God has a healthy practice of godliness. A healthy practice of godliness begins with older men. Verse number two, notice that, the older men in these new congregations. They are to be sober-minded. Sober-minded, this means a man who exercises sound judgment based on a dispassionate consideration of facts and circumstances. He's not blown by every wind of doctrine. Older men in this church must be sober-minded, exercising sound judgment based on dispassionate consideration of facts and circumstances. They are to be dignified, again, verse two, meaning someone whose conduct matched his profession of faith. Dignified, a person whose actions in life matches the words that they speak. That's the kind of older men that we want in this church. So, older men, listen up. It's what Paul says, it's what the Holy Spirit says to you. You are also to be, they are also to be self-controlled. We're gonna see that this aspect is in every single little category here. Older men, older women, younger women, also younger men. All are to be, as it's translated here, self-controlled. Self-controlled. Someone who's wise in a practical way and balanced in his or her behavior. Someone who's wise in a practical way and balanced in his or her behavior. They must be sound in faith. Sound in faith, meaning they're committed. They're committed to the healthy doctrine that's been taught by the apostle that Paul has given to Titus to give to them. In the same way, us, we need older men in this church to be sound in faith, meaning committed men, committed men in the faith that has been once for all delivered to the saints. But also sound in love, verse two, sound in love. Recall what love is. I don't know, it was a few months ago, Ephesians 5. Ephesians 5. What did I say about the biblical definition of love? When we read in Ephesians 5 that husbands are to love their wives, how? Husbands, speak up. As Christ loved the church. All right, you got that lesson down at least, right? Okay, at least we learned that. As Christ loved the church. And what did I say then? What's love? Well, it's a deliberate choice to benefit someone else. That's exactly what God has done for us in his son, Jesus Christ. He's deliberately chosen to benefit us lost and fallen sinners. That's love. Husbands, love your wife as Christ loved the church. church. Just as God has done so, so we are to do. Older men need to be great examples to us of that and also to be sound in steadfastness or patience. And so older brothers, older men in this church aspire to these things. Aspire to these things. This is apostolic teaching to you, healthy teaching to give you healthy living. Aspire to these things and exemplify them to us all. The church needs you. The church needs you. And so older men hear the word of the Lord. Now he goes on to speak of this healthy practice of godliness. It flows from older women to younger women. Notice that verse three and following. Now, I did mention, I think it was first or second sermon in Titus, it's only been a few weeks, but one of those earlier sermons in chapter one, that the language that Paul uses of the elder overseer, the presbyter, the bishop, in chapter one, being, quote, a husband of one wife. Now, I said that that's one of the reasons One of the reasons why we only ordain men to the ministry of the gospel. But I did say, remember, that women have a big role to play in the church, just not as apostles and ministers of the word. And we see that here. The role of, especially here, older women as they are to teach younger women. They're to have similar qualities, notice the language here, similar kinds of qualities as the older men in the congregation. And in fact, older women are to have a teaching function in relation to raising up a new generation of women in the church. Likewise, older women are to be reverent in behavior. So very similar to what he said about the older men. They're to behave in a way that reflects the sacred character of the life they were called to live as members of the church. behave in a way that reflects the sacred character of the life that God has called you to live as a member of the church. One writer said this, and I thought it was a great little line for us to think about for a few minutes. Again, this is to older women. This writer says, quote, they created the atmosphere and their conduct might easily determine whether a congregation would survive and grow in a healthy state or deteriorate and eventually disappear. That's how high and dignified Paul is speaking of older women in the churches in Crete 2,000 years ago and by extension us. creating the atmosphere and conduct that easily determines whether a church survives and grows and is healthy or deteriorates and disappears. What kind of older women do you think we want in the church? The kind that live godly lives. The kind that have conduct and create an atmosphere of love and of teaching younger women. of cultivating godliness so that the church doesn't deteriorate and disappear, but that the church survives and it also thrives. They're not to be slanderers, he says here, or slaves addicted to much wine. Why does he say that? Well, because in the first century, wine was one of the few remedies that there were. to numb pain. There's no Advil. There's no ibuprofen. There's nothing really to take other than drink some wine. And it was easily available. If you drank water, typically you would get sick because water was where, that's where you wash clothes. That's where you wash your animals. That's where you went to the bathroom. So like all the water could be Contaminated and so you drank wine because the alcohol would kill Bacteria and germs and all kinds of things that would cause sickness and so it was readily available How much more so today right so we got to be aware older women be aware Be on guard, as he's saying here, not to be slaves or addicted to much wine. And again, verse 3, to teach what is good. The word that Paul uses here, it could be that they are teachers of what's good. that they are teachers already, just by being older women, or that what they teach is what's good. So it could be taken either way. So either that they are teachers of what's good or that they are to teach what is good. Well, notice then he says they're to train They are to train the young women. And that verb train there, it's the verbal form of that word self-controlled. It's really an interesting construction here, but he's saying that just like the older men are to be self-controlled, the older women themselves, in a self-controlled kind of a way, are to teach younger women to be self-controlled as well. How? To love their husbands and children. To love their husbands and children. Now, If you lived in the first century, sometimes they ask, you know, people ask, you know, if you could live in any century, which one would it be? You know, if you could go back to the first century and live in the time of the apostles, would you do it? Well, it depends. It all depends. If you were a teenager, a teenage, a young girl, a tween like Sadie, a tween, in the first century in the Roman Empire, just imagine a 12-year-old girl You've never socialized, you've never talked to a man outside of your house. You've never talked to a strange man outside of your house. Imagine then your marriage is arranged. Your parents arranged a marriage with a family down the street. And you've never talked to the 12, 13, 14 year old boy that is going to be your husband. Paul says then, the reason why he says this, the older women are to train the younger women to love their husbands and their children, because that's the kind of a cultural situation that they find themselves in. They needed to be trained by godly women how to socialize with this brand new husband, how to raise children. So it was necessary for young women to be taught and trained up by older women. So that truth still applies despite the culture that younger women, younger girls in this church need older women to encourage them, to train them, to come alongside them, to build them up in the ways of godliness. Older women were to train the younger women to be self-controlled. Again, there's that word, verse 5, to be self-controlled as well as pure. Self-controlled as well as pure. To work at home could be taken as homemaker, sort of one way to translate it, as a person who works in the home. Why is that important? Well, again, in first century Roman society, Greco-Roman society, hospitality was just a must. If you were a Christian and someone, a stranger, walks up to your front door, you were required by social etiquette of being a Roman to welcome that person into your home. Hospitality, like there were no little fences blocking people off from your front porch and they didn't have ring cameras back in the day. So you were expected, especially as a Christian, let alone a Roman, but as a Christian. to be hospitable, to be welcoming to strangers. And especially if it was another Christian or a preacher or an apostle or someone like Titus coming through town, you were expected to welcome them in as the woman of the house, to take care of them. to feed them, to entertain, and so forth. Now, in the early church, there were all kinds of rules about this outside of Scripture, but there were rules saying, you know, if a prophet or a preacher comes to town and walks up to your front door, you were basically required to welcome them in for one to two days, to house them, to feed them, to clothe them, to let them take a bath and whatever it was. But if they stay for three days, that's how you know that this is a charlatan, this is a false prophet. That's how it was back in the day. But you were expected and you were just required by being a Roman and by being a Christian to be hospitable. So that's what Paul's saying here. Older women teach young women how to be hospitable, how to welcome people into the home, as they are required to do. But also because the home was sort of like a small business, if you were a Roman. You lived in the home, and the husband would typically be outside, and the woman would use the home for whatever it was, to make clothes or to make furniture. jewelry or some kind of furniture. Women worked in the first century. Don't ever think that this is Victorian era. This is not. Women worked and the home was the center of their work. They're to be kind as well. They're to be kind or good, literally good. It could go with homemaker. They could be encouraged to be good homemakers. To be submissive, this is what they're taught to do, to be submissive to their own husbands. As I mentioned back in Ephesians 5, this is not submission to every single male. Women, wives are to be submissive to their own husbands, not every single man on the face of the planet. And so older women, The younger women in this church need your help. The church needs you both in the overall life and ministry, as well as notice even in the realm of outreach. All this is for the purpose of the word of God not being reviled. Older women, are to be godly women who train up other younger women to be godly women so that the gospel is not reviled, that the gospel spreads and the gospel has its impact. Now notice this healthy practice of godliness comes to younger men. There's only one verse there. Likewise, urge the younger men to be self-controlled. That's it. Are they getting off easier? There's all this list about older women, younger women, and the young men only get this? Urge the younger men to be self-control. Again, you gotta imagine yourself in the first century. It's not much different from today. In contrast to Roman society, where young men were known for, especially on places like Crete, carousing at night, hitting up the local tavern, drinking way too much, on the way home, stopping off at the local brothel or temple prostitute. That's Roman society. To be a Roman man, that's what you did. You hung out with your buddies, you caroused the streets, you mugged people, you drank way too much, and you hit up the brothel or the temple prostitute on the way home. That's Roman society. Paul's saying something completely contrary to that. Urge, notice the verb there, this is an imperative, this is a very strong. Urge the younger men to be self-controlled. Just like the older men, just like the older women, just like the younger women. Urge them to be self-controlled. Imagine the difference is what Paul is saying here. Imagine the difference. calling young men who are Christians in these new congregations to live in contrast to the world. Imagine that. It shouldn't be very hard to do. Imagine if all the young men in this church and throughout our cities here, our county, our state, our country, who call themselves Christians, imagine if young men lived differently than what the world expects them to be. Imagine that. I mean, we drive around now and it's like, I was driving the kids to school in the morning and I saw there's a sign up on the 78 freeway and I had no idea what it was. And Dax is like. That's a huge weed ad, dad. I don't even know what, I can't remember what the sign says. I can see it right now. If I drive by, I'll probably see it today. And I was like, what is that? And Dax is like, that's a weed ad. And I'm like, what? That thing is huge. It's right there on your face. Reject smoking pot. Lift up the sweet-smelling incense of prayer, amen? The world wants younger men to just carouse like ancient Romans, when in Rome, after all. Resist, as Paul even says, for example, in Ephesians 5, resist getting drunk, but be filled with the Spirit. When we moved to Oceanside, there was like a handful of bars, like the entire way home from here on Coast Highway, it's nothing but what? breweries, pubs, wineries, distilleries, let's just drink. In fact, you can drive that little 1940s World War II green Jeep up and down Coast Highway. You can go bar hopping, pub crawling in a World War II Jeep. It looks cool, but everyone in the back of the thing is just wasted. Reject that. Resist porn. And instead, cultivate godly relationships. Resist staying out all Saturday night and missing church. Get to church. Bring someone with you who needs to hear the word. Spend time with believers. Come back again, be different. That's what Paul's saying here. Urge the younger men to be self-controlled. And a healthy practice of godliness includes ministers. No, it doesn't exclude the minister. It includes him. Paul is speaking to Titus as a minister to be a microcosm of all that he's saying. Doctrine leads to godliness. Set an example, he says. Show yourself, in all respects, to be a model, a type of good works. And the character of his teaching is also to show integrity, not leaving out anything that's been deposited in the Word. He's to have a dignity or a gravity, a sound or a healthy speech that cannot be condemned, verses 7 and 8. And again, note the purpose of all this. Why is Titus, as a minister, to be an example of good works? Why is he to show integrity in his teaching, dignity in his teaching, sound speech in his teaching? Notice, so that an opponent may be put to shame. having nothing evil to say about it. That's, again, what we saw last Sunday. That's the other voice of the minister. That's the rebuking false teaching. That's the calling down, speaking out against error. Speak in a way, he says to the minister, that opponents might be put to death. To shame, in other words, everything that we do, ministers, younger men, younger women, older women, older men, is for this evangelistic purpose of the church. And then he finally addresses bond servants or slaves in verse number nine as also having an important role in the church's healthy practice of godliness. Why does Paul address slaves in his letters? Why do you think he does that? How many slaves do you think lived in the Roman Empire? Like 20 to 30% of all people were slaves. 20 to 30% of all people were slaves. I don't have time to get into it, but you could be a slave because you were taken in war. You could have been a slave because you got into debt. Today, we would just declare bankruptcy. But back in those days, you would go into debt to someone, and you would become their servant. And you'd have to work off the debt. Our own Constitution even says this in one of the amendments. Slavery can only be acceptable in our society. It's kind of a strange part of our Constitution, Bill of Rights, but that's later on. But one of them is that slavery can still be used in our society to pay off debts, right? That's like this older conception. of servitude, not the kind of slavery that our country was known for, but a servitude. Lots of people were slaves, and of course Paul's going to address them. Of course he is. They're people too. Many of them became believers, and they were to be submissive to their own masters. Again, not everyone Just like a wife is not to submit to every male, a slave was not to submit to every other Roman, every freed person. No, they're not the doormats of society, they are image bearers of God, and they were to be submissive to their own masters in everything, to be well-pleasing, not argumentative, not pilfering, not stealing, showing all good faith, so that in everything they may adorn, or literally that they might be in adornment too. the doctrine of God our Savior. In other words, slaves' lives especially illustrate that the truth of the gospel accords with godliness. Notice that. He doesn't just diss slaves and just ignore them, and he doesn't just say, you know, submit and that's the end of it. No, that your life might be an adornment of the gospel itself to all who see. In the church, in the society. As a church, then, we need to be a living picture to the world that we are saturated in God's amazing grace by having a healthy practice of godliness. Godliness matters, is what Paul is saying, amen? Godliness matters. Now, the second way we are to be a church saturated in grace is by having a healthy doctrine of grace, a healthy doctrine. of grace. Note how all the exhortations to the practice of godliness are rooted in grace. With that little word there in verse number 11, for all of this, for this reason, for the grace of God has appeared. The grace of God has appeared. That's that verb there. It's appeared. It's the verb from the word from which we get epiphany in English, the word epiphany. There was an epiphany, an appearance. of God's grace in the past. This is also what's called a personification. What's a personification? What's a personification, kids? You know what that word is? It's kind of a big word, but in English you'll learn it. It's when you attribute to something that's Not a person, but personal qualities and personal attributes. You know, if I said, you know, the pulpit was alive today. This pulpit, is this pulpit alive, kids? Right, it's wood. But what if I said the pulpit was alive today? What would I be saying? He's saying that the preaching, right, was alive. The pulpit's just sort of an inanimate thing, but we attribute to it personal qualities. So Paul's speaking here of grace. It's a thing, I mean, better yet, it's an attitude of God, but he's personifying grace. Grace, notice the grace of God has appeared. So what's he saying? What's grace? According to Paul in verse 11, what's he saying? Who is he talking about? Jesus Christ, right, the Son of God in human flesh has appeared. The grace of God has appeared. Christ has appeared. Christ is the grace of God. And he, notice, he brings salvation for all people, verse number 11. And I just want to say on that, you know, we're a Reformed church, don't get hung up on these kinds of verses. We celebrate these kinds of things. We can get hung up on these verses and what do they mean and all the qualifications. Don't get hung up on these verses. Bringing salvation for all people. Instead, celebrate that we have a doctrine of God's amazing grace. The big thing that Paul's saying here is that salvation is no longer confined to Israel. It's international now in the New Covenant. It's no longer confined just to the Jews. It's pan-ethnic. All tribes, all languages, peoples, and nations. What Paul is saying is that Christ is available to every sinner. And if He hasn't actually been brought to every sinner in the gospel, that's on us to do. He's saying Christ is offered to all. In the sense that all, that there's a must, there's an ought of our evangelistic task. Is there any group that's off limits to the gospel? Is there any person in the world just way too sinful that I cannot share the gospel with him or her? Is there any tribe, people, language, nation just too far away that they don't deserve the gospel and the effort to get there? Absolutely not. The gospel of Jesus is for all. He's brought salvation for people in Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, all the way to the ends of the earth. He's brought salvation sufficiently for all. He's all that's necessary. There's nothing else anyone can do to be saved other than come to Him. That's what he says here. The grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation to all people. Come to Christ. He comes to you today, clothed in the gospel. He comes to you today, clothed in words and in this Lord's Supper. Receive Him today. Come to Him today. There's nothing else that you need to be saved from your sins than come to Christ. Amen? There's nothing else. Note what this grace of Jesus does when it saves a sinner. Verse 12, training us. Training us. Jesus is our personal trainer, we might say. That's the language here. He's already walked the walk and he's talked the talk, as a trainer has done, right? A trainer, whatever it might be, sports, school, you know, piano lessons, whatever. A person who trains, who teaches, has already done the work. And so in grace, Jesus Christ has actively appeared in this world. He's already done all that it is to be the Savior. And now he's active in us. Training us, notice. A healthy doctrine of grace embraces that Jesus lives inside the believer, training us. And note, you know, as we might think of a trainer here, sort of martial arts-wise, notice the defensive and offensive training that Jesus gives. Christ, as God's grace, appeared to save sinners like you and me to renounce ungodliness and worldly passions. That's the defense. That's the negative, we might say. Renounce ungodliness and worldly passions. And then secondly, Christ, as the grace of God has appeared to save sinners like you and me, to live, here's the positive, here's the offense, to live self-controlled, there's that word again, upright, godly lives in the present age. Our doctrine of God's grace coming to us in Christ affects us in real ways. And while we are being trained to live in the here and now of this life, fighting off sin, embracing godliness, notice Jesus Christ also has a future focus to it, verse number 13. Waiting for, as we're being trained now, we're also waiting. for our blessed hope, the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior, Jesus Christ. He's appeared once, right? His epiphany has appeared once, and he will appear or epiphany again. That's the language here. Think about our recent sermons through 2 Peter, for example. He's already come once, but he's coming again, the second coming. He's coming again. This is so important for us, brothers and sisters. It's so important for us. As I think I mentioned in 2 Peter last month or whatever it was, two months ago. It's so important for us to have our hope in the right thing. Better yet, our hope in the right person. Our hope in the right person. Just too many believers put their hope in the wrong thing for the future, right? The great escape from the world, right? The secret rapture to get out of the world as fast as we can. And since we messed up that hymn this morning, I've got to say, Too many of us reformed Christians, right? I mean, we got to the hymn, we started singing it, and all of us were already like, we all became post-millennialists for a second, right? We all wanted to get to the end, you know, Christ shall have dominion over land and sea. We wanted to get, you know, to that point, you know, gotta calm down a little bit, okay? Gotta put our hope in Christ and His glorious appearing. Let the Lord sort it out, right? If post-millennialism is true, it's all gonna pan out in the end for us who aren't quite there yet. Sorry to Bobby here and to Denny and our good brothers who always encourage us to preach the gospel and to expect God to do something, amen? The Lord's going to do what he's going to do. He's going to change the world. He's going to bring the gospel and save sinners. But we kind of jumped the gun there in that hymn a little bit, and we all kind of, for a moment, you know, got a little too post-millennial. You know, for my liking, but so be it. The blessed hope. The blessed hope. The appearance of Christ. And it's an appearance of his glory, the glory of Jesus. So Paul goes back then here, he goes back to his healthy doctrine of grace as it trains us to renounce and to live godly lives. And he says here that, yes, it does enable us to hope for the future, but don't forget he's the one who gave himself for us. Verse 14, who gave himself for us. Who is the Savior who's training us to renounce ungodliness and to announce with our lives godliness and to wait for his coming? Who is he? He gave himself for us. Don't forget that. He gave himself for us. For us, notice that. For us. Can you, this morning, personalize that and say, for me? Can you say that for me? For whom did Christ give himself? Say it, for me. That's the healthy doctrine of grace that we need to embrace and hear every single week. Christ for me. And after saying Christ came with salvation for all, verse 11, notice his concern here is for us. Those He's writing to, for you, for me. Why did He give Himself on the cross for us? Verse 14, to redeem us from all lawlessness, to purchase us back from being slaves to sin. He's redeemed us in His amazing grace to purify for Himself a people for His own possession who are zealous. for good works. What kind of language is that in the Bible? To redeem us from lawlessness, to make us a people for His own possession. Where does that come from, you think? Paul's a rabbi. Saul's a rabbi, isn't he? Comes from the Old Testament. What does it sound like? What part of the Old Testament does that sound like to you? Sounds like Exodus, doesn't it? Psalms will talk about the Exodus, yeah. He's redeemed us from, not from Egypt, not from Pharaoh, but from lawlessness, from our sins. Why? To purify us for himself. A people for his own possession. That's right from Exodus chapter 19. A people for his own possession. Zealous for good works. And that verse 14 brings us to a conclusion. And really that verse 14 is sort of the whole message here in a nutshell. And so I say to Oceanside URC, let's be a church saturated in grace by having a healthy practice of godliness, because we have a healthy doctrine of grace. Amen? Let's pray. Lord, we do thank you for your amazing grace, and we know that you are the king upon the throne of the whole world. All things are yours, and you are saving sinners for your glory, for your own pleasure. And we, Lord, look to you to come with that glorious appearing. Until then, Lord, enable your church to be a witness in the world, to spread the seed of the gospel, to see lives transformed, to see the world around us change for good so that he's known as the King, the Lord, the Savior. Grant us faith this morning to say that this is all for me. And as we come to the Lord's Supper, Lord, to hold it in our hands, to hold your grace in our hands, to see it with our eyes, to smell it with our noses, to taste it upon our lips, your very grace in Jesus Christ, assuring us that he gave himself for me. We ask it all in his name and all of God's people say, amen.