Proclaim and Live: The Pastor's Call to Righteousness and Gospel

first and second Timothy. Uh Lord, you have I believe brought about change uh because of the truth that is in there. uh you have grown us and I know that um me as well as the other pastors as if we have looked at this these two books speaking uh to Timothy a minister in the church Lord that we have grown in our understanding better of your word how to apply how to live and we thank you for that and I know the congregation has as well as I had the opportunity to once again review your word with your people uh would you guide me in your truth in your heavenly name amen Do you have your Bibles? I don't know.

Can you hear? I am Am I on? I can talk louder if it need be. Unless I was really loud. Am I on? Oh, there. I definitely hear that. Uh, if you have your Bibles, turn to two passages actually because we're going to go from one to another. um turn to Isaiah chapter 1. Uh we'll be there at the end of my message here or the last portion of it and then uh put a bookmark there or something and flip over to 1 Timothy uh chapter 1 and we'll spend the majority of our time in the first part of First Timothy. While you're doing that, I just want to make a couple comments. I appreciated Pastor Ener's message last week.

I wasn't here but got to listen to it online and so thankfully the microphone did work. uh and and I appreciated his his message. He uh noted if you were here and you remembered that he had surveyed second Timothy and he had looked at all the commands that are within that book and noted that there was a lot and rightly noted that if we just focused on all the commands we could we could feel overwhelmed. But inner then noted or pastor iner then noted that within second Timothy there's also uh teachings about where power and motivation come from to be able to follow these commands. And he referenced the graphic behind us.

And I appreciate our graphic here because it helps us to envision what Pastor Enner was getting at. If we were going to run a race and try to finish the course and try to finish it it well, there would be a number of things that we would want to focus in on our running uh to be able to accomplish that. We want to make sure we were training appropriately for the race we were going to run. We want to make sure our diet is correct. We want to make sure we have the right shoes, the right shorts. We want to make sure we develop the correct strategy. And there's all these kinds of things that we would want to focus on to be able to do it and we could get overwhelmed.

But but if we had the the power and the motivation to run well, then all those other commands and issues would just would just fall in line as we as we pursued after our passion. And so Pastor Enson noted that there was uh five elements of power and motivation to bring through or to live out these commands. And they were the power of God, the power of the Holy Spirit, the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, God's word, the scripture, and Paul's example. Four of those applied directly to our to our God. And one here is of Paul. But yet that also reflects back to the Lord because Paul is not an example in his own strength.

Paul's an example of what a God can do to a man who submits to these other four principles. And so in first Corinthians 1 Corinthians 15:10, Paul says, "By by the grace of God," speaking of himself, he says, "I am what I am." I love that verse. We are what we are because of the grace of our God. What he what he has worked within us. And so Paul, the one who wrote these commands out to Timothy, is the one who is living them, living them by the grace of God. Now, tonight, I want to kind of follow in on that same idea. There's a bunch of commands in first and second Timothy, but but I want to look at a overarching idea that we find throughout these two books that that was given to Timothy, a call for Timothy to to follow and realize that Timothy is a he's a minister.

He's basically like a pastor. He's playing the role of a pastor at this period of time. and and Paul is giving him directions on how to minister well. And there's an overarching theme in that. And and I was encouraged when my light bulb in my brain kind of came on when we were studying. And and I and I noticed that because I found that play out through 1 Timothy and to second Timothy. And it was in uh 1 Timothy 4:16 that I I started to see what Paul was getting at. Let me read you the last portion of that verse. He says,"For in doing this, thou shalt both save thyself and them that hear thee." Paul here notes that there's something this is a reference that he has.

I'll get to what it is here in a second, but but he says that there's this thing that if you do, if you follow through, uh, you will save yourself and you will save others. And I was captured by that because that's my goal and I'm sure it's your goal as well, too. You want to see your salvation secured and you want to see those that you proclaim God's word to and those that you love have their salvation secured as well too. So So what is this thing that Paul references and it's a it's that theme that actually runs through the book and it's the idea that the minister of of God is to proclaim God's truth and then to live it so that he is an example to those that see him.

The example of this you can pick up if you step back a little bit from verse 16 and start at verse 11 of 1 Timothy chapter 4 and let me read it. You can pick up the the commands that are there to to proclaim the word but yet also to live it out as an example. Verse 11, he says, "These things command and teach. Let that no man despise thy youth, but be thou an example of the believers in word, in conversation, or in manner of life, in charity, and love, in in spirit, in faith, in purity, till I come, Timothy, what are you to do?" He says, "Give attendance to the reading." And in the Greek, that's the public reading uh um uh uh to the people.

uh give your attendance to reading, to exhortation, to doctrine. Preach and teach is basically what he's telling him to do. Read the scriptures out loud to the congregation. Verse 14, neglect not the gift that is in thee, which was given thee by prophecy with the laying on of the hands of the presbyter. Meditate on these things. Give thyself wholly to them, that thy profiting may appear to all, that they may see the effects of what is being laid out here played out within your life yourself. Verse 16, take heed unto thyself and unto the doctrine continue in them. And then the promise again, for in doing this, thou shalt both save thyself and them that hear thee.

And so what God has done is God has given really a a simple overarching principle that we can kind of uh cast over first and second Timothy that is the call for the successful pastor and that is to preach and to teach God's word and to live it out then so that others who hear the message and see it lived out will then also find salvation. Now, you may be wondering as I read that verse, why Paul would talk to Timothy about saving himself? Isn't Timothy already saved? Doesn't he believe in Christ? Is Is there something going on going on here? And I tell you, no, there's not. There's nothing special.

Timothy is saved here. But there's another aspect of salvation that I'll come back to later in my message here. But but for right now, I just want to focus on the calling of the minister within these two books. And that is that the calling uh to bring about that salvation is to proclaim God's word and to live it. And it doesn't get any more complicated than that. You see, the power of salvation and the power for life is found within God's word. You hear that in 2 Timothy as well too. And 2 Timothy 3 16-1 17. It says, "All scripture is given by inspiration of God and is profitable for doctrine, for reprove, for correction, for instruction in righteousness, that the man of God may be perfect, that the man of God may be complete, lacking in in nothing."

Continuing the verse here, thoroughly furnished unto all good works, the the good works that every single one of us has been called to in coming to faith in Christ Jesus. And so once again, the pastor then his primary focus is the proclamation of God's word and living it out. And it is through this that God then uh not only establishes the church but actually grows the church. It's no different. I found it interesting because I had the opportunity for teaching the first part of second Timothy chapter 4. And in there Paul is is starting to bring his letter to the to a close. This is the second letter he's written.

His the end of his life is coming. he has um this last opportunity to to say something to Timothy. And what does he say in verse two? He he once again comes back to the idea of preaching and calls him to preach. But then in verse 5, he adds something that at first seems almost new. He tells him to do the work of an evangelist. And as I studied that, I was thinking about that because Paul here drops this in, but he doesn't give any direction. And suddenly it dawned on me he doesn't have to because you see the work of an evangelist and the work work of a pastor are exactly the same thing. The same overarching principle applies to both.

Both are to proclaim God's word and to live it out as example. The only difference with the evangelist is the audience. He now does it before the unsaved before unbelievers that they may come and be saved. And so as I learned and grew through the study of first and second Timothy, I came to recognize that there's no special trick for church development. There's no special trick for evangelism. God simply grows it through faithful men and faithful women who will proclaim his truth and model it within their lives. And I don't know about you, but I find this simplicity extremely comforting because there are always people that want to tell you that there's something else.

And I find that to be honest in in even in secular leadership within my job, there's there's people that want to come to me and tell me, you know, if you do something different, you're going to be able to run your company better, manage people better, and things like that. And to be honest, they they might have some good points. they might be worth listening to. But when it comes to the ministry of of God's word, it's God actually who lays out the framework and for how ministry is to run. And so we follow this direction that he has given us um knowing that while it is different from how the world considers things to be effective, it is effective because it is how he has decided to grow and establish his church.

And as we look back at the history of his kingdom, we see that it is successful. If you look back to the Old Testament, we see the example of Jonah. Jonah goes to the Gentile city there in Nineveh. And what does he do? He simply preaches. He has no pamphlets. He has no special events planned. He's not giving out any free meals. He's just preaching preaching the coming judgment. That's all he's got. And yet God works through that. That's all that's actually needed. And through that the whole city repents. The city that took three days to walk through. Every person within that city repents. You see a similar idea in Acts chapter 2.

God does something special there to to gather the Jews and he gives the gift of tongues to the disciples. But once the people have estab have have gathered uh it falls onto Peter and Peter simply stands up and he and he preaches. And as he preaches a clear presentation of the gospel tied directly to God's word, there's 3,000 people that turn to Christ. And we see that the church continues to grow through the preaching and teaching of faithful men throughout history. And by the time we hit 300 AD, there are churches that we know are established throughout the entire Roman Empire. There has been nothing in human history that has grown like this.

and there's no printing press and there's persecution of the faith and yet it grows and it simply grew through the faithful preaching and of God's word and of men and women living it out within their lives. I've done some church history study and I can tell you or at least one from if you want to take my word for it for what I can tell within my studies I think that every great revival that has come about has come about through the faithful preaching of God's word they're true there has been other uh times where people have tried to done do different things to spike up a revival and maybe they they've sp spike things up for a moment but it seems to have just washed out but but solid revival seem to focus on this idea of solid biblical preaching We find this in our own country with the great revival that took place in the 1700s.

It it came through simply the the solid preaching of faithful men. Faithful men like George uh Whitfield and Jonathan Edwards. Men with different traits, but men who placed their teaching emphasis on doctrine and on theology. They were different. Witville was a passionate preacher that was full of energy. He would run from side to side on the stage. Every once in a while, we get a visiting pastor that does that. Me and my wife get kind of dizzy. But he's a man of passion and he was loud and he and he and and he and he and he was got the word out there. But yet, you look at what he spoke and he spoke clear doctrine tied directly to God's truth.

And many people came to faith through George Whitfield. But then there's Jonathan Edwards as well too. And Jonathan Edwards, believe it or not, was quite different. If you're like me and you've read some of Jonathan Edward's writings and you've read a sinner's in the hand hands of an angry god, you probably get an image like I used to do where you get an image of a man who's up in the pulpit and he's loud and he's and he's pounding on it and he's convicting the people. But the reality is we're told that's not Edwards. John Edwards was a frail man by the time it got to the the time of the re the um that revival, that great awakening.

He's frail. He's he's losing his eyesight. And so what he has to do is he actually has to pick up his notes so he can read them. and he's not very loud. And the second time that he preached that sermon, sinners in the hands of an Angry God, he actually had to stop mid um halfway through his his his preaching time and put down his notes and ask the congregation to settle down because he wasn't loud enough to get over the cries of the people that were turning to Christ. And so two different men from two different different emphasises, but at the same time both preaching the power of God's word. And I love Edwards because you look at his writings and you see the power there and you realize that that that wasn't him in his his presentation or him as a man.

You recognize that the power is simply in God's word. And this then is what we are as pastors called to put our primary focus on the solid clear presentation of God's word. And so above all things, our pastors are to focus on the application for themselves, but also on the proclamation of God's word. I want to come to first Timothy and I want to look at some direction that God gives and and try to take that overarching idea of the the proclamation of God's word and and and define it a little bit according to 1 Timothy. Let me read 1 Timothy verses 3-4 of chapter 1. There it says, "As I besought thee to abide still at Ephesus," Paul here is giving directions to Timothy uh when I went to Macedonia, "that thou mightest charge some that they teach no other doctrine, neither give heed to fables and endless genealogies which minister questions rather than godly edifying which is in faith."

So do Paul as he writes to Timothy in his first letter he immediately concerns himself not what Timothy is to teach but to get Timothy to stop certain kinds of teachings because it's not what God has ordained. And the reason for that is that teaching doctrine or giving instructions were not being given from of God. And I found it interesting in looking at this passage that that at this point Paul doesn't actually call these things wrong. He just says don't do it because they're not of God. And I realized that that within the teaching, not only are we to reject from the pulpit false teaching, but we are to reject from the pulpit teachings that are just not of God.

You guys know that I I I have two jobs. I I work here for the church and then I have an engineering company that I work for. And to be honest, I could stand up here and I could give you some wonderfully sound advice how to prepare your homes for the next storm. I'm a licensed structural engineer. I have a civil engineering degree as well too and license and and I can tell you about the soil characteristics and the issues of the house and how they perform under the wind and and but you know what that's not for up here. There's nothing wrong with that. That's a good thing, but it's not for up here.

What gets preached from up here is what is of God. And so Paul tells Timothy to stop anything that is not preached of God. And then he gives him another thing to get stopped. And we find that in verse four. He says, "Stop them that give heed to fables and endless genealogies which minister questions." Now, I like the Greek translation here of questions that's in our King James. I know the other English translations vary with other other terms. I think questions is is good and helps us catch what's going on here. The pastor isn't to bring things to people that doesn't build or edify them. He's not to preach on subjects that create questions that create an atmosphere of instability within the congregation.

He's not to preach things that causes the the congregation to be unsure of how to live. He's to preach directly of God's word. I was thinking on this passage and I was being reminded in my mind of the times I had the opportunity to go listen to Robbie Zachcharias preach or teach. He was on the island here several times and and throughout the years I got the opportunities to go see him twice. And to be honest, he was an amazing teacher and he could hold the attention of the congregation or a group of men so well. Even men that didn't want to follow after Christ would be quiet and listen to him speak.

But one thing about him is after he spoke, why people would ask me what he he spoke on, I would respond that it was amazing. And there was all these stories that he would give and they were amazing stories. But but yet there was nothing in there and I didn't know what to do with what he had actually spoken on. And as I thought about the things that he spoke on as people would ask me questions what it was like I at a certain point came up with more questions than answers because they were all just stories and I didn't couldn't give any information about the stories of locations or exactly who he was talking to or or results or applications out of that.

And it dawned on me that what he was speaking on wasn't something that edified. It didn't build in the faith. And so it wasn't God ordained preaching. God ordained preaching is the preaching that builds up the body of Christ. Now in verse 5, Paul comes and he starts to define this God- ordained teaching a little bit better. In verse five of 1 Timothy 1, it says, "Now the end of the commandment is charity, out of a pure heart and of a good conscience and of faith unfeigned." That word there end is the Greek word tell us and it and it literally means purpose or goal. And so that verse could could read the commandments goal uh is charity or love from a pure heart and a good conscience and of unfeigned faith.

Now, with this statement of what preaching is to be, we get two elements of preaching that we need to pay attention for that that bring about that love. And Paul doesn't define the love here, but I think it's safe to say that he's speaking of the the love that is for God and the love that is for others. But the first element is that there is to be a pure conscience to preach for a pure conscience, a pure heart, and a good conscience. Now, if you remember when I started earlier, I talked about how Paul talks to Timothy um that if he does these things, they'll secure Timothy's salvation and the salvation of others.

I said I'd explain that a little bit more. Well, now I'm going to do that. But before I start to explain that, I just want to make sure that we're clear that when we speak of our salvation, our alvation is complete and it is comes to us by faith alone. Ephesians 2:8:9, for by grace are you saved through faith, that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God, not of works, as any man should boast. And so we have faith in our we have we have salvation through faith in our Lord Jesus Christ. However, the Bible also teaches that there is an ongoing aspect to salvation. And that ongoing aspect requires holiness from God's people.

Hebrews 12:14 says, "Follow peace with all men and holiness without which no man shall see the Lord. There's a holiness requirement that is necessary to see the Lord. Christ spoke of this as well in Matthew 7 21-23. Christ there says, "Not everyone that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven, but he that doeth the will of my father which is in heaven. Many will say to me in that day, Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in thy name, and in thy name cast out devils, and in thy name done many wonderful works. And then I will profess unto them, I never knew you. Depart from me.

Why? Ye that work iniquity. You lack holiness. Brothers and sisters, how we live matters. We have a changed heart as we come to Christ. And there and there should be a changed uh uh pattern of life that follows after that. How we live lives matters. And and here God has ordained preaching to bring out that holiness, to bring out that pure heart, to bring out that good conscience, which is necessary for that love of our Lord and our love for others. I was recently listening to HB Charles preach and he referenced Jeremiah 17:9. You guys are familiar with that verse. It says, "The heart is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked.

Who can know it? And in the scriptures when it when it speaks of the heart, it usually means the center of our being, who we are as a as a person. And God's word looks at that and says that it's deceitful. It's it's wicked. And HB's Charles comment on that was that our heart really is just a sin factory, a factory that's racing to produce sin. And it's and it's going on and grinding on day after day after day after day, producing sin after sin after sin. But yet it is through the preaching of God's word to his people that God has ordained to correct that out of us. And he uses his righteousness to do that.

At least one of the steps is his righteousness to do that. In 1 Timothy 1 8-10 it says this. But we know that the law is good if a man use it lawfully. Knowing this, that the law is not made for a righteous man, but for the lawless and disobedient, for the ungodly and for the sinners, for unholy and profane, for murderers of fathers and murderers of mothers, for manslers, for whoreongers, for them that defile themselves with mankind, for menalers, for liars, for perjured persons that there be any other thing that is contrary to sound good doctrine. Men can misuse the law. We picked that up here at the first part of this this first sentence.

And to do that, they would use it out of a context to promote things other than what God desires. But but the law, as we see in this passage, is there to confront sin. And Paul uses some gross examples of sin here. And as we read this, or as I read that, you probably looked at that and many of us probably thought, well, well, that's not me. I don't do those kind of things. Those are the extreme things. But the reality is is we have wicked thoughts that come into our mind that are of this level. We just haven't acted them out. And the reality is if the sin that that is produced within our hearts, if if it's not addressed, we can uh sink to this kind of level.

And my goodness, it seems like every year there's one or two men that that we thought was godly and had a godly reputation and suddenly they just crash and we find out that they've had years of sexual immorality or or some other thing that has not been addressed. And we realize that it needs to be addressed or it comes to life. And it is the law then God's righteous requirements that are that if rightly used prick the heart of the believers and and then exposes the depth of their sin. Something that that we're very capable of finding with somebody else but not real good with finding our own selves, the depth of our own sin.

And it is the righteousness of God's word that exposes then our personal needs for that pure heart and that good conscience. So God ordained preaching uses the law to expose our our our wickedness. But praise God that that that it doesn't stop there. You see, if it did and God only left us with the requirements of the law, one of two things would happen. one, we would think that we could make ourselves holy if we just try a little bit harder and we would fail and then we'd say, "Oh, I just got to try a little bit harder and we'd have this this building effort of of of going on and on and on." And at a certain point, we'd recognize that, "Hey, I can't meet these requirements.

So, we're going to change the requirements and we're going to soften the law. We're going to redefine the law. We're going to call things that aren't that are sin not sin." Or the other thing that happens is we live in defeat recognizing that we can't meet the righteous requirements of the law and we live defeated and we live without joy because we see ourselves constantly failing. But our God doesn't leave us with just that with the preaching and the and with the preaching because he directs Paul to continue in verse 11 of chapter 1 where it says in addition that according that is to be in according to the glorious gospel of the blessed God which was committed unto my trust.

This brings in the second element of preaching that's mentioned in verse 5. That faith unfeigned or sincere fa sincere faith um that that is necessary. The requirements of the law when preached according to the gospel activates faith. And so preaching then becomes this and I'm making a general statement here, but preaching then becomes a a two aspect uh tool where there's a a working of the the righteousness of the law and then a calling to the saving aspect of the gospel that we have through faith. I was listening to a pastor preach on this idea one time. It wasn't on this direct passage, but it was on the idea.

and he he talked about how he preaches and he he envisions himself speaking to his congregation as if he has a knife. And as he preaches through the passage and he sees the righteous aspects within the passage that he's on, he takes that he takes that knife and he and he reaches out into the congregation, he cuts and he cuts the flesh and he exposes the pride. He exposes the the lack of love. He he exposes the lust. And then after he makes the cut, after he has exposed the weakness of their faith, he comes in and he comforts it. Then he comforts it with the gospel. And he uses the passage to show what people have in Christ.

How we how we have this wonderful savior and how our God has been faithful and unflinching towards us with a neverending love. And he soos the area that's been cut. And it's through this cutting and soothing and cutting and soothing that the flesh is pulled away and we are moved more and more into the likeness of our Lord Jesus Christ. Let me spend a couple minutes and give you an example of this. Look over to 1 Timothy chapter 2. I'm going to read verses 1-8. It says, 'I exhort therefore that first of all supplications, prayers, intercessions, and giving of thanks be made for all men, for kings and for all that are in authority, that we may lead a quiet and peaceable life in all godliness and honesty.

For this is good and acceptable in the sight of God our Lord, who will have all men to be saved and come to the knowledge of the truth. For there is one God and one mediator between God and men, the man Jesus Christ, who gave himself a ransom for all, to be testified in due time, where unto you I am ordained a preacher and apostle. I speak the truth in Christ and not lie, a teacher of the Gentiles in faith and variety. I will therefore that men pray everywhere, lifting up holy hands without wrath and doubting. There's a lot going on here, but but Paul here is calling for prayer. And he's calling for prayer for two reasons.

one so that believers can live a peace lead a peaceable life but also so that other men will be saved. And how are they to pray? They are to pray with holy hands lifted without wrath and without doubting. They're to pray with holiness here and with faith. The two aspects that I've been trying to speak on are necessary within the preaching. Now I want to talk a little bit about hands so we can get the right context of it so we can move into ultimately the Isaiah passage and then I want to note that that there's nothing wrong with raising of hands. There's nothing wrong with that. But in our current culture we do kind of miss how scripture sees it.

We tend to do it during a time of singing and it's often based on how our emotions are feeling and how we want to draw closer to the Lord. And like I don't see anything wrong with that. But the raising of hands in scripture is actually more related to prayer. Solomon lifts his hands up to pray with the dedication of the temple. Ezra, while he's praying in Nehemiah 8, the people are raising their hands saying, "Amen. Amen." And they fall on their faces. And I I believe the context there is picturing them falling down with their hands up where they now with faces down worship God in prayer. And so while lifting hands isn't always in prayer generally, it's it's mostly it's more commonly in in prayer and scripture.

And but yet it's it's the the main point of that main point I want to get on it is that it's always associated with holiness because if it's not associated with holiness, God rejects it. Look to that Isaiah passage now. Look down to verse 15 of Isaiah 1. God from I think it's well I think the 12 verses before this God is is is is just just tearing apart the the Jews for their their sin and we get down to 15 and and he and he says when you spread forth your hands I will hide my eyes from you. Yay when you make many prayers I will not hear you. Your hands are full of blood. The the image that's that's going on here is they're they're praying and they and they have their hands up uh thinking they're being heard uh by God.

But God looks down at them and in God's view of them, he sees them with blood on their hands as if they're murderers and they're they're not actually murderers. What what they are is they're sinners and they haven't addressed the holiness issue. And holiness is the issue that's required. And Paul's noting that in the first Timothy passage as well too. and that men are to commit themselves to holiness and then come together committed already to holiness with that already accomplished and then now praying for the salvation of others and for uh peace for the believers there in the church. That's a righteous requirement.

But here, let me ask you this. Now, this is a command, right? We should be following this this this command here, right? you leave tonight, tell me, can you live this next week and come back next Sunday and say, "You know what? I did it. I'm holy. I held off of sin. I was able to do it all week long. Now, let's pray. Now, let's raise our holy hands to the to the Lord and pray for the unsaved and pray for peace within our church." You can't, can you? I mean, most of us aren't going to make it to Monday without selfishness or anger or pride, lust, something. So, how then do we obey this command? How do we come and raise holy hands for the unsaved and for the peace within our church?

Look down at verse 18 of Isaiah chapter 1. There it says, "Come now and let us reason together, says the Lord. Though your sins be as scarted, they shall be white as snow. Though they be red like criminom, they shall be wool." To the people that God has just said, he's not accepting their raised hands in prayer. He now tenderly calls them to himself. And to be other to be honest, brothers and sisters, our English just doesn't capture the beauty of this call. Because there's a word that gets translated here is is I think most of our English word translations translated as as now. But but it's a Hebrew word na.

And na is is what they call a a participle of intreaty. And and what that means is it's something that's added to a command to soften the command in the hopes that that wherever the command is issued, it gets obeyed. But get this, it's not a command that's issued from the greater to the lower. It's the command that's issued from the from the lesser authority to the greater authority. Let me give you an example of this. So if you have a child and he wants to go to the beach and so he comes to his mom and he says, "Mom, take me to the beach." Now the mom's a greater authority. She doesn't have to follow the command of that child, but that child's command expresses the desire of his heart.

Now, if that child really wants to go to the beach and really wants to convince his mom, he adds a word and he says, "Mom, please take me to the beach." In that form is how God is now talking to the rebellious nation of Israel. With that understanding of of please, we could translate verse 18 as please come and let us reason together sayeth the Lord. The God of creation is calling on them so that they can be cleansed so that they can lift the holy hands. And for us, we have a mediator. Verse five of 1 Timothy 2, we have a mediator between God and man. That man, Christ Jesus, who gave himself a ransom for us all.

We now have one who takes away that sin and can make us clear as wool so that we can come together and we can now obey the command and we can now lift the holy hands with one another and pray for the unsaved and pray for peace. Our life is to be holy, but we need the gospel to be able to do it. God has called the overarching theme for preaching to be that call to righteousness, but to be according to the gospel, according to the element that allows us to be holy. Let me close in prayer.