Let's take God's Holy Word, if you would, and let's turn back to the book of 1 Timothy chapter 2. We took a little break from our series in 1 Timothy. We ended the year thinking about the Word of God and the significance of the Word of And we began the new year thinking about the significance of prayer in the life of the church and also in our lives as individual disciples. But today we want to go back to 1 Timothy and we're going to begin reading in chapter 2 As we continue to think about prayer, in this time we're going to think specifically about the character of public prayer, and you'll see that when we get to it. So 1 Timothy chapter 2, beginning in verse 1. First of all, then, I urge that supplications, prayers, intercessions, and thanksgivings be made for all people, for kings and all who are in high positions, that we may lead a peaceful and quiet life, godly, and dignified in every way. This is good, and it is pleasing in the sight of God our Savior, who desires all people to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth. For there is one God, and there is one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus, who gave himself as a ransom for all. This is the testimony given at the proper time. For this I was appointed a preacher and an apostle, I'm telling the truth, I'm not lying, a teacher of the Gentiles in faith and truth. I desired then that in every place the men should pray, lifting holy hands without anger or quarreling. Let's go to the Lord in prayer. Our Heavenly Father, we come to you now because we need you. Lord, without you, we can do nothing. You're the vine, Lord Jesus. We are the branches. In you, we live and move and have our being. And apart from you, we can do nothing. And so we come to you, Lord, the throne of grace. Lord, not because of any merit that we have earned for ourselves so that we might have a hearing today, but we come with confidence in prayer to the throne of grace because of Jesus, our Savior. Because of his blood and righteousness, we can come to you in our time of need, and we always are in need. Lord, we pray that we would be given hearts, Lord, that would be tuned to sing your praise. Lord, that we would have hearts that are focused upon the truths of this text of Scripture and other supporting texts that we will look at. And we pray, God, for an understanding, first of all, that you would enlighten and illumine our minds by the power of your Holy Spirit, that we may understand the truth rightly, and then that we could have the power of your presence, of your Holy Spirit, to apply these truths appropriately in our lives. as individual Christians and as a local church. Lord, our desire today is to make much of you and to lift up your name, to lift up the gospel of Jesus Christ and to glory in him alone. And Lord, we want in our church to be faithful to you as you have instructed us in Holy Scripture. So God help us to these ends and more for we pray and ask in faith in Jesus name. Amen. Amen. Because we have had our little break, I want to just bring us back up to speed where we need to be thinking about this text from verse one as a whole. It's clear that the focus of this particular passage of scripture is prayer because of the first words. First of all, of all the things that the apostle is going to write to Timothy to teach to the church in Ephesus, the first thing that he has in practical admonition is supplications, prayers, intercessions, and thanksgivings be made for all people, for kings and all who are in high positions. And so it is certainly a text that prioritizes prayer. As a matter of fact, we spent a lot of Sundays thinking about these first opening verses and the priority of prayer in the context of a local church. It's one of the things that is a tact maybe more than any other thing other than the Word of God itself throughout the centuries of time. The enemies of Christ seek to attack Him in two ways primarily. To seek to detract from the Word of God, to twist the Word of God, to distort the Word of God, or to stifle the people of God in their dedication and commitment to prayer, because these two things are so vitally important for any Christian life and for any Christian church, and without them we have no spiritual power. And so here we see that the Apostle rightly focuses on the priority of prayer. Now, we call this the priority of expository prayer. And the reason that it's expository is because, if you'll notice, he gives these different words that help us to understand from the text that we are to be praying and what kinds of prayers we are to pray. We won't go back and revisit all of that. But we learn from the very Word of God that we are to pray according to the will of God, and if we pray according to the will of God, we know that we have the petitions that we desire of Him. That's 1 John chapter 5. And so we know the will of God by knowing the Word of God rightly. And then we are to pray those promises back to God in faith. We are to remember those promises. It is the Word of God, in other words, that should fill the content of our praying. It should be the fuel of faith when we go to the Lord in prayer that we're asking things according to His will. And so it is a priority of expository prayer to pray according to the Word of God. The second thing that we noticed in verses 1 and 2 is that the focus and scope of this praying is evangelistic. It's evangelistic prayer, not just expository, but evangelistic. The salvation of the lost is the focus. The focus is on the advancement of the Kingdom of God through the Gospel proclamation in the salvation of the lost, and this is something that Paul says you should be praying for. You and I should be praying daily for the lost. He says to pray. for all of these people and especially even those that we might be tempted to leave off, those who are in positions of civil authority at the end of verse 2. And he says in verse 3 that this is good and pleasing in the sight of God our Savior who desires all people to be saved. And so the salvation of the lost is clearly at the heart of this kind of corporate praying. And again, think about it. What is one of the things that is often attacked when it comes to the prayer ministry of a local church? Is it not that we pray for everything, it seems at times, but spiritual things, salvation? How many prayer meetings have you been to and how many prayer meetings have I been to? And you say, are there any prayer requests? And what do we get? We get a list full of people that have physical illness. And we should pray for those things. But the problem is when there is an all but complete absence of praying for the lost that are out here all around us and even been reached yet for the gospel of Jesus Christ. And we're to pray for them. In other words, we said at this time that the scope and the broadness of the prayer ministry of the local church should be as broad as the commission to the church that Jesus gave in Matthew chapter 28. Go into all the world and preach the gospel. Now this is the salvation of all people, and why do we do this according to this text? There's two answers, because it is good in verses 3 and 4, and because it is pleasing in the sight of God. It is in alignment with the very desires of God. God, by His nature, is Savior. Jesus is called Jesus because God will save His people from their sin. God is working out His redemption plan in the world. What was lost in Adam is being renewed, is being redeemed by the second Adam, by the second man, the Lord Jesus Christ, the life-giving Spirit from heaven. And so we're to pray in a way that is in alignment with that desire for God to save sinners to Himself. Number three, God is the only Savior, verses 3 to 5. God is the only Savior for all people everywhere. And this is important. There's not another Savior. There's not multiple ways to the top of the mountain. as religious plurality says in our day, but there is only one way to salvation. There's only one way to eternal life, and that is through Jesus Christ alone. Jesus said, I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father but by me. Number four, in verse 4 we find this, that God desires all people not only to be saved, but to do so by coming to and growing in the knowledge of the truth, to come to the knowledge of the truth and to continue to grow in maturity in the knowledge of the truth. It is the joyful apprehension of biblical truth here that he has in mind, not just head knowledge, and we're going to come back to this, but a deep spiritual discernment of the truth and a love for it. The devils and demons know bullet point truths. but they don't embrace it with a heart of love and submission and that's what he has in mind here when he desires people to grow in the knowledge of the truth. Number five, at the heart of this text and at the heart of God's truth for the salvation of sinners and for Christian maturity is that there is in fact one God and one mediator between God and men, the man, Christ Jesus, verses 5 and 6. There is only one mediator between God and men, the man, Christ Jesus. The work of redeeming grace, the one who paid the price of sin that we owed to a holy God, our Creator, was paid on the cross of Calvary. And if we will come in repentance and faith to Jesus, if we will believe upon Him and trust in Him, we will be saved from the wrath of God. Jesus establishes peace. Number six, the work of redeeming grace is to be proclaimed. Look at the latter part of verse six. He says at the first part, he gave himself as a ransom, redeeming work for all. which is the testimony given at the proper time. Now that idea of time in this text is talking about the opportune time. This is an eschatological word. This is talking about what God has done with the coming of the Messiah. This is talking about at the time appointed from eternity past when the Messiah, the God-man, would come into the world and do this redeeming work. And ever since Jesus came into the world, the Messiah, he says, this is the testimony, this is the message given at the proper time. This message is supposed to be proclaimed. It's supposed to be proclaimed. And again, notice how all of these things are just at the heart of the gospel, at the heart of what should be in a local church. and what is at the heart of the attack from Satan and demon spirits all around us every day. If he can keep you from praying, if he can keep you from the Word of God, if he can keep you from proclaiming the gospel, he wins. He wins. So this is at the heart. It must be proclaimed, and here we feel the weight of the ministry, the missionary ministry of the Church. Number seven, because of this, in verse seven, we see that Paul has been appointed. In other words, the divine call and the divine authority given to the Apostle Paul is for this purpose of the proclamation of the Gospel. It is for the proclamation of the gospel and it is for the shoring up of the gospel in local churches that Paul was called and commissioned. That's what he says in verse 7. For this I was appointed a preacher, a herald, and an apostle, one sent with the authority of Christ to establish Christian doctrine. And that was done for us in that apostolic era, not only with Paul but the rest of the And so he has been divinely called and divinely appointed by God, by Christ himself, to be a herald for God, to be an apostle of God, and to be a teacher of the nations. And notice what he teaches them at the end of the verse 7, I am a teacher of the nations, the Gentiles, in faith and truth, in faith and truth, to establish what Jesus accomplished with his life, death, resurrection, and ascension, the apostles were given that kind of authority. And we have that solidified and crystallized for us in the New Testament Scriptures. And so that brings us to this idea, beginning in verse eight, I desire then, or I desire therefore, because of this fact, because of what we have been looking at, these great, glorious gospel truths and ideas, because of this, because of the Great Commission, because of the great need of lostness, because of the ministry of the local church is to pray for the lost and to proclaim the message of the gospel, because of this, He desires that in every place, in all churches without exception, the men should pray lifting holy hands without anger or quarreling. A local church is to have in everyone that exists, I desire in every place that the men would pray. And this is where I borrow a passage and a phrase from another passage of scripture that we are called here to adorn the gospel in all things. And specifically in this passage, we are to adorn the gospel in our prayer life as a local church. This brings us to the heart of what I want to say this morning, and that is this. There are three requirements that the apostle gives us as a local church in prayer. The conduct of men in public worship. Now, I'm not going to deal with the men and women issue this week, so I get myself off the hook one more week. I'm not gonna deal with that every place and some of these things. I wanna deal with this opening message on verse eight, with the heart of the text. The heart of this passage, the heart of this verse is the character of prayer in a local church. After we understand what is at stake in the message of the gospel, after we understand how important it is for all people without distinction to be prayed for, after Paul then turns to practical and particulars in the public gathering and worship of local churches, dealing specifically with men and dealing specifically with women. He starts with the men, and here he deals with who prays and the spirit or the character of the ones praying, because it does make a difference. It does make a difference. So what are these three requirements? Number one, it is the requirement of holy living. The requirement of holy living. Look again, if you will, in verse eight, I desire that in every place the men should lift, should pray, lifting what? Holy hands. What does that mean, holy hands? It is lifting up consecrated hands, lifting up hands that are set apart for God, that are set apart for God's glory, that are set apart for God's purposes, that are set apart for God's plan and desires. The word holy means separate. It means separate. It means that we, our bodies, are to be set apart from the rest of the world and to be set apart for a specific purpose. A purpose for God's glory in the world. A purpose for God's glory in the world. Hands are representatives of things through which we do stuff. Right? You do things with your hands. You build things with your hands, right? Holy hands is pointing to a part to represent the body, to represent the whole. We are to have holy living as we come to our heavenly and holy God in prayer. And this makes a difference. We're not to hold up hands that are stained with guilt every Sunday or whenever the church gathers and seek to approach God in heavenly worship, but we are to lift up holy hands. We are to live and pursue holy lives, lives that are dedicated, lives that are set apart, lives that are consecrated to the purposes of God and His glory in the world. The idea is coming to the worship of God, coming to the throne of God to pray to God and lifting up hands that are not stained with sin. Not stained with sin. Think about Psalm 24 verses 3 to 6. You can jot it down or you can turn if you'd like. Psalm 24, listen to these words. Who shall ascend the hill of the Lord, and who shall stand in his holy place? Answer, he who has clean hands and a pure heart, who does not lift up his soul to what is false, that's going to become important here in a moment, to what is false. and does not swear deceitfully." In other words, his word is what he does. He doesn't say one thing and do another. He will receive blessing from the Lord and righteousness from the God of his salvation. Such is the generation of those who seek him, who seek the face of God, of the God of Jacob. This is exactly what the Apostle Paul has in mind when he says he desires that in every church, the men of the church in corporate worship should pray, and when they do, they are to pray from consecrated lives to God. Now, ultimately, ultimately, This is fulfilled in the person of Jesus. You and I have remaining corruption, amen or ouch, either way you want to say it. And so we're never going to be a person that can stand and say, well, I have committed no sins today. You don't get to say that and I don't get to say that. We have no corruption within us today. So how can we have sanctified hands? How can we lift up holy hands? How can we be a person that's dedicated and committed to holy living if we have remaining corruption with us at all times? Answer the Lord Jesus Christ. You see, for everyone who comes by faith to Jesus, You have received a righteousness that is not your own, the righteousness of the Lord Jesus Christ himself. So when the Bible speaks about you being clothed in the righteousness of Christ or putting on the new man or putting on Christ and putting off the old man, this is talking about this righteous, perfectly obedient life that Jesus of Nazareth lived in our place and for us and gives to us graciously as a gift to be received by faith. And when we have this righteousness, we have an established relationship with the God of heaven and earth that is one of peace, is one of peace. If you remember in chapter 1 and beginning in verse 3. where he talks about the false teaching that's going on and the myths and endless genealogies of verse 4. Notice again with me at verse 5, the aim of our charge, chapter 1 verse 5, is love, supreme love for God, love for our neighbors as ourselves. Our charge is love that comes out of or issues from a pure heart and a good conscience and a sincere faith. This is the same thing. that we're talking about here. The same idea, that we who are reconciled and redeemed by the blood of the Lamb and filled and set apart by God the Holy Spirit, we have been called to live in obedience to our heavenly maker. We are called to reflect our Savior, Jesus Christ. We are called to be led by God the Holy Spirit, who is called, by the way, the Holy Spirit for a reason. He is holy and He is our constant companion and power for living this holy life. This is the same thing that Jesus taught in Matthew chapter 5, beginning in verse 23 and verse 24. Matthew chapter 5, listen to Jesus' words. This is the same kind of idea. So if you are offering your gift at the altar, coming to worship, and there you remember that your brother has something against you, leave your gift there before the altar and go. First, be reconciled to your brother and then come and offer your gift. Same thing. Same thing. If you come to worship and pray to God, and you realize that your life, that your hands are stained with the guilt of sin, the first thing that we need to do is to repent. The first thing that we need to do is to confess our sins and repent of our sins and ask God to cleanse us from our sins so that then we can give our praise and our thanksgiving to God. Then we can offer our worship. Then we can offer our praise with the fruit of our lips. When these men lift up their hands to pray to God on behalf of the great and glorious commission of the church in light of the lostness of the world and the great need of the gospel proclamation and the power of the Holy Spirit, when they come to do this, it's important. that their consecration, it's important that their dedication and their commitment to God in His mission to the world is not just expressed in words on Sunday, but those words are coming from a heart that is seeking holiness unto the Lord. Holiness unto the Lord. We need to understand something that I'm going to call a holistic view of the Christian life. We need to understand the need to maintain a holistic view of the Christian life. What do I mean by that? We need to understand that the work and the purpose of God in our life touches the entirety of our redeemed humanity. This is something that I believe is far too often neglected in Christian circles. The work of God in redemption, the purpose of God for your life touches all of your redeemed humanity, your body and all of its parts, your mind and your soul, all that you are, all that you are. redeemed humanity. This is something that we need to consider because that is what is at the heart of this kind of admonition. You don't just pray, you don't just say the right words, but you have words that come out of a life that is sanctified and set apart to God, with God, for the glory of God. You have the right words that are coming out of a right relationship that's being maintained by faith and repentance and confession and faith and the means of grace that God has given. Holiness unto the Lord. Let me explain it this way. 1 Corinthians 6 verses 19 and 20. Listen to this. 1 Corinthians 6, 19 and 20. Or do you not know that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God, you are not your own. For you were bought with a price, listen, so glorify God in your body. Beloved, there's another vein of thought in Scripture that talks about the groaning of our bodies, of our souls, to be clothed upon with that imperishable, sinless body. Amen? We want that. We long for that. The eternal state will be that glorious kind of life. But in this world, here and now, the powers of the age to come have broken in through the coming of the King, through the coming of Christ the Messiah, through His substitutionary death on the cross, through His glorious and powerful resurrection from the dead, ascension to the right hand of the power of God on high. he is there making intercession for the saints according to the will of God, and he has sent forth the Spirit of Christ, the power of God, to live a holy consecrated life for God. He has done that on this side of eternity. If you're waiting For eternity, for the eternal state, you are missing great and glorious blessings where you could be and live to the glory and honor of God now. Now. You have been given everything necessary for life and godliness, the Apostle Peter writes. And the danger I believe here is that of compartmentalizing. You ever heard that term? to compartmentalize your life, thinking that we can divide ourselves up into compartments and only some of those are for God and godliness and the others somehow are reserved for a little bit of sinfulness, a little bit of worldliness, a little bit of some other things, maybe being characterized by a secular mindset or a worldly mindset or a fleshly mindset. And we kind of, we don't say it out loud, but very often we live in a way That is the case. We don't see ourselves holistically under the redeeming work of Christ, what He accomplished on the cross when He gave His life in our place. We died with Him and we arose with Him and we are seated with Him in heavenly place. And the indicatives of what God has done in Christ give rise to the imperatives of how to live for Christ. And that's what this passage is all about. To live a consecrated, holy unto the Lord kind of life. By the way, it is a false idea. It is an untenable idea to think that you can compartmentalize your life. You cannot. You cannot. You are who you are holistically. And it has an effect on your fellowship with God, on your fellowship with the church, and on your fellowship and worship ministry of your life for God. We have to understand this. Christ redeemed us to God, redeemed us for God, so that we can live in fellowship with God. And you often hear people talking about the imbalance. It's an imbalance. Some people are all about right doctrine and some people are all about holy living. And that kind of seems to be the case sometimes, doesn't it? It seems like you have some people and you may be on one side or the other. I remember hearing a preacher talking about the goal is for all of us to stay on the horse You know, the drunk rider trying to stay up on the horse and he's always falling off on one side or the other. And he says, the goal is to stay on the horse. And he said, the first thing you might want to do is quit drinking. But you often see that, you have people that you think of, and you can think in your mind which way you are kind of bent. Are you bent toward, I gotta get this right, I gotta have right doctrine, or are you bent more toward, I need to live consecrated to the Lord in every facet of my life? And the idea is that there are people that will do the one to neglect the other. And that's why the Apostle Paul in writing to Timothy says to pay attention to your, guess what, life and doctrine. Your life and your doctrine. It's not just about right doctrine. It's not just about holy living, but seeing the interplay and the holistic nature of both of those. Because, listen, they always go together. They do. They always. go together. It's not just having the right things to say. And you know the examples of this in the scriptures, the Pharisees and the scribes, for example, people who almost exclusively are concerned with doctrine. And these rabbis are still to this day quibbling about all kinds of little minute details in the law that God gave and all of the commandments that they have added to in their traditions. And almost all of their energy goes into the right doctrine. And what did Jesus come and do? He rebuked them for their hearts and the way they were on the inside. You see, some people, they study the Bible, they study their church's doctrinal statement or their denomination's doctrinal statement, they're busy reading books on doctrine because they want to say the right things when they speak. They want to say the right things about doctrine, at least what they believe are the right things about doctrine when they talk. But they give little or no attention to the practical outworking of biblical truth in their day-to-day lives. It's about having the knowledge, which Paul says puffs up. It's about saying the right things and believing the right statements, but not the right kind of life. And right doctrine is important. You know that we teach that, and that's what 1 Timothy has in mind, right doctrine, holy living, these two together. So right doctrine is important, but doctrine, listen to this, doctrine that does not lead to holy living and spiritual worship, listen, is not right doctrine. That's what I mean by you can't have it. You think that you could have right doctrine without holy living? No, you can't. If you actually have a right understanding of God through the Holy Scriptures by the illuminating gift of the Holy Spirit, you will have holy living. You're not understanding God and you haven't been illumined by the truths of God and who He is for you in Christ until it gives rise to worship from those realities and to a kind of living that is in alignment with those realities. In other words, if you have a sin problem, you probably have a theology problem. you're probably self-justifying some way your behavior or your attitude because you have a misunderstanding about God somewhere. It may be that you presume upon His grace. How many in this room would be willing, I'm not asking you to, but to raise your hand if you were to say from your heart that there has been a time when you went ahead and said that, you went ahead and did that because you knew you were under grace. Beloved, you can't get any more sinful than that. And that's me talking to Kevin Belcher. You can't get any more sinful than that. When we have a right understanding of God, it will give rise to holy living. We who are called out of darkness, freed from our slavery to sin, are called to live in a way, listen, that expresses the truths of God in every aspect of our lives. If you compartmentalize one part, one part that you refuse to repent of, you refuse to confess, you refuse to deal with, you are shutting yourself off from the fullness of joy that you could have right now in Jesus. You're shutting yourself off from a life of fruitfulness to the glory of God. that you could have right now. Holy hands, consecrated lives to be dedicated to God for the purposes of God. This is the same thing that happened to the Old Testament. The people of God were given the law how to live when they got into the promised land after they were redeemed, right? They were redeemed from oppression and slavery in Egypt, and given the law, this is how you live. Same way in the New Testament, because that was simply a pointer to the true and the real in the new covenant with Christ. That you're redeemed, you're born again anew from above, you're filled with the Holy Spirit. Now you have the true freedom to live a holy life, a righteous life, a God-honoring life. A life that is a slave to a new master, your God and your Savior. So the totality of your redeemed humanity is to embrace the totality of God's self-revelation in scripture. And this is how we are, first of all, to pray. This truth is believed and embraced so that the practical implications have an effect on the way you live your life. Listen to this. I'm almost done. Luke 11, 42, but woe to you, Pharisees. You tithe mint and rue and every herb and neglect justice and the love of God. These you ought to have done without neglecting the others. They were meticulous about tithing their herbs but left off righteousness and justice and the love of God. And you have people today that are meticulous about saying and memorizing their doctrinal statement, but their life is in shambles. Matthew chapter 23, woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, beginning in verse 23, 23, 23, Matthew, woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites, for you tithe mint and dill and cumin and have neglected the weightier matters of the law, justice and mercy and faithfulness. These you ought to have done without neglecting the others. You blind guides, straining at a gnat and swallowing a camel. Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites, for you clean the outside of the cup and the plate, but the inside, but inside are full of greed and self-indulgence. You blind Pharisee. Clean the inside of the cup and the plate, and the outside also may be clean. Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites, for you are like whitewashed tombs, which outwardly appear beautiful, but within are full of dead people's bones and all uncleanness. So you also outwardly appear righteous to others, but within you are full of hypocrisy and lawlessness. When you come together in the assembly of the saints, and you lift up your hands to approach the living God in prayer, That is to be done, beloved, you men, out of lives that are consecrated to God, Monday through Sunday. Well, I'm not done. But I better quit, huh? I thought I'd be farther along than that. I want to come back and I want us to see this connection a little bit more from a few other passages of scripture so that we can solidify this. This is so important, there's no need to... You know, one of the great mistakes in so many churches today is to try to have a very slick, organized presentation event once a week, but they're not discipling their saints. They're not teaching their people. They're not feeding the sheep with the word of God. I could give you bullet points and say ABC with a poem and you're out, but that's not what I'm called to do. We're called to equip you as the saints to do the work of the ministry, and that is to grow each and every person that's a member of this church into the maturity of Christ. And he is perfectly holy and righteous in all of his ways, in all of his words, in all of his deeds, in all of his attitudes. And so I want us to see this. that when we come together, this beloved, you know, one of the reasons that I have so much to say and I'm so passionate about this is because I've been guilty of this. There have been times in my life when I have neglected the practical, but I was still doing the study and the preparations, gotta get ready for this class, gotta do this ministry, gotta be involved in everything that's going on in the church. but neglected my own heart, my own soul. And I know what that produces, and I don't want that for you. And if you're there today, I want you to know you don't have to stay there. I want you to know that you can call upon God right now, and you can ask him to forgive you. Maybe it is that through this message of God's word today, that you do heed the call to fulfill the command that is given to us in 1 John. Let me just read it. Listen to this. This is the message that we heard from him and proclaim to you, that God is light, and in him is no darkness at all. If we say that we have fellowship with him while we walk in the darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth. But if we walk in the light as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus, his son, cleanses us from all sin. Thank you, Lord. If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us if we confess our sins. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. If we say that we have not sinned, we make him a liar and his word is not in us. My little children, this is the way I feel towards you. My little children, I'm writing these things to you so that you may not sin. But if anyone does sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ, the righteous. Thank you, Lord. He is the propitiation for our sins. That means he stood in our place and took the wrath that we deserve. That's what he did. He is the propitiation for our sins. and not for ours only, but also for the sins of the whole world.