Would you take your Bibles, please? Turn to the New Testament to the little epistle that Paul wrote to Titus. Titus chapter 2 is our text for this morning. I want to talk to you this morning about why I preach the way I do. Every once in a while I think it's good for a pastor to just talk to his people about what's on his heart and mind. I know that one of the dangers of preaching is that I assume you know my motives and my plan and my ideas more than you do, but you wouldn't. You can't read my mind and you'd only know what I tell you. And I was kind of abruptly brought to the need to remember this again by a letter, an email I received from one of our elders that you can breathe easy. It's a nice email and I wanted to read part of it to you because it's the reason why this sermon is what it is today. Dear Mike, I hope this email finds you and your family well and I hope you have a blessed holy week in Easter and that you have enjoyed celebrating the marriage of your son. I have enjoyed listening to your sermons of late. In particular, I am pleased that you are addressing a burden that I have namely the false sense of salvation some people may have and that they may have made a profession of faith but that there is no apparent change in their lifestyle. It is like focusing exclusively on Ephesians 2 verses 8 and 9 without verse 10. You are correct when you say that we live in a grace only age. What does it say when we cannot tell people who profess to be Christians from non-Christians? We are called to be a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation. But I do have a concern that some of our congregation have misinterpreted your message. I have heard some say that they believe that you are preaching a grace plus works message. I am especially sensitive to this sense I grew up in a church that implicitly taught that we have to merit his grace through good works in order to be saved. I have also had people express a concern that you are saying that we can lose our salvation. Of course one cannot lose something one never had. I have assured them that this is not your message and have reasoned with them through the scriptures. Given that some of our congregation believe you are preaching a legalistic message it would make sense I think to provide some clarification on what legalism is and what it is not. Years ago I heard you preach a very good sermon on the dangers of both licentiousness and legalism. I recall you saying that we had to navigate down the middle road since we have tendencies to bounce from one side to the other. I of course believe your recent messages are not only biblically very sound but very important. But since you are getting some feedback that your message approaches legalism is this something that you would like to address. This is why we have ruling elders. They keep their ear to the ground and they give guidance to the pastors. And of course I would like to address it and I would like to be very clear that a person is saved by grace through faith in Jesus Christ alone. Period. That is it. Not by any good works, by church membership, by keeping the law, by performing well, for by grace you have been saved through faith and that not of yourselves. It is the gift of God not as a result of your works so that none can boast. And we are His workmanship created in Christ Jesus for good works which God ordained beforehand that we should walk in them. Salvation is by grace, the grace of God through faith and our Lord Jesus Christ alone by the work of the Holy Spirit. And the proof of that is that we lead a life that is a life of good works. And Jesus says in a number of places that our faith is manifested in our works and James says that faith without works is dead. So even though I do not believe that you are saved by grace plus your works, I do believe that saving grace is manifested by your works. So confession of faith says faith is the receiving and resting on Christ alone and His righteousness as the only instrument of justification. Yet it is not alone in the person justified but is ever accompanied with all other saving graces and is no dead faith but works through love. These good works done in obedience to God's commandment are the fruits and evidences of true and likely faith. And by them believers manifest their thankfulness, strengthen their assurance, edify their brethren, adorn the profession of the gospel, stop the mouths of the adversaries and glorify God whose workmanship they are created in Christ Jesus thereunto. That having their fruit under holiness they may in the end have eternal life. I also do not believe that you can lose your salvation, certainly we learned that last Sunday. I believe that once someone is born again, once they have been regenerated by the Holy Spirit and through the Holy Spirit's irresistible grace brought to repentance and faith, they are justified. And there is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. I believe that Paul is right when he says that nothing can separate us from the love of God. And I believe that John is right when he said this is why we write these things so that you may know for certain that you have eternal life. Jesus Himself said, I give eternal life to them and they shall never perish. For no one so snatch them out of my Father's hand, for the Father who has given them to me in place them in my hand is greater than all and I in the Father or one. Our little confession of faith says, they whom God has accepted in His beloved, effectively called and sanctified by His Spirit, can neither totally nor finally fall from the state of grace. But shall certainly persevere therein to the end and be eternally saved. Although hypocrites and other unregenerate men may vainly deceive themselves with false hopes and carnal presumption of being in the favor of God and in the state of salvation, which false hope they shall perish in. Yet such is our truly believing in the Lord Jesus Christ and love Him in sincerity and daring to walk in all good conscience before Him, may in this life be certainly assured that they are in the state of grace and may rejoice in the hope of the glory of God. This hope shall never make them ashamed. I want to be absolutely clear. I do not believe nor have I ever taught that one could earn their salvation nor do I believe or have I ever taught that one could lose their salvation. I want you to hear me clearly and I want you to be clear about what you believe, because all of eternal life hangs on those two great truths, how we are saved and how we are preserved unto eternal life by the Holy Spirit. I want anyone in this room, man, woman or child, to leave this sanctuary today without certainty that they are saved. I will be at that back door till midnight or beyond if you need to talk about those things and if you look at the bottom of your worship service bulletin, you'll find that after the service the ruling elders will be up here to talk to anybody about how they can receive the gift of eternal life and how they can receive assurance of their salvation. I want you to be very sure of these things and I want you to know that I am concerned about these things and so they are constant themes in my preaching and teaching. I am concerned about three things. I'm very deliberate about what I do. I'm deliberate as a pastor and as a preacher and as a leader, I'm just deliberate as a person. I get up in the morning and I do exactly what I'm going to do the rest of the day and if I don't, I think I'm something to do exactly for the rest of the day. I want you to know that there are three things that I'm very concerned about and I want you to look on the overhead screen to this first slide. I have three great concerns for you. Grace, godliness and glory. I want you to receive the grace of god offered to you in Jesus Christ so that you can be saved. I want this for you and for your children and grandchildren for all of your friends I want this for everybody you know. I want people to be saved and the only way to be saved is to receive the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ offered to you and me through him in the gospel. I also want you to enter into the pursuit of godliness because I believe this will make you fulfilled in this life. I believe that a godly life, a holy life will make you and your loved ones happy and I believe the opposite will make you sad and I want you to be holy and happy in this life. I want you not to just have all your joy when you go to heaven. I want you to experience the joy of the Lord in this life and I want you to focus on the glory of god. I want you to live for his glory and look forward to your own because when Jesus comes we shall receive our glory along with him. And these are the three things that make up the gospel. These are the three pillars of the gospel. Grace and godliness and glory. It is by grace that we enter into a justified relationship with god through Jesus Christ. We are then given the gift of the Holy Spirit who produces in us a godliness that gives glory to god, gives us assurance of salvation and gives us joy in this life and ultimately we are glorified when god the Father sends Jesus Christ back. Our life was hidden with Christ in god and when he is received in glory we will be glorified with him. Christ in us Paul calls him the hope of glory. And those are the three things that make up the gospel message. They are in this passage that I want to look at this morning and want to unpack these three things one time so that you are absolutely clear where I am going with you absolutely certain about my deliberate intent and what the gospel really means for you and me. Look at Titus chapter 2 verses 11 through 15. 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 the blessed hope, the appearing of the glory of our great god in Savior Jesus Christ. Who gave himself for us to redeem us from all lawlessness and purify for himself a people for his own possession who resell us for good works, declare these things, exhort and rebuke with all authority but let no one disregard you. Now I want you to look at the passage again going to read through it a second time. I want you to see these three words in this passage. 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 the blessed hope, the appearing of the glory of our great god in 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 resell us for good works, declare these things, exhort and rebuke with all authority, let no one disregard you. This is the summary of the Christian life. It begins with grace, it ends with glory and in between our godliness and good works, the four G's of the gospel. There are three great truths here. Grace, godliness and glory and I want you to look at the first one. Truth number one that the grace of god appears for our salvation, verse 11, for the grace of god has appeared bringing salvation to literally to all mankind. There's a little word in this passage that forms an inclusio or a bracket. It's like a sandwich with two pieces of bread on either side and the meat in the middle. The sandwich pieces, the inclusio, the brackets, are the word appear. Epiphanate in Greek, from where we get our word epiphany, it means to unveil, to make manifest, to reveal or bring out from secret that which was once hidden to appear. The classical Greeks use it when the sun would rise, they would talk about the epiphany of the sun. Or when an enemy was spotted on the horizon and came out of cover in full arrangement, in full view. Or of the gods when they manifested themselves among mankind to do their works. Paul uses this word ten times in the New Testament, four times to talk about the first epiphany, the first appearing of god in the birth of Jesus Christ. Six times he uses it for the second coming of Jesus Christ, the appearing of Christ in glory. Our life begins as Christians with the incarnation of Jesus Christ, the grace of God appearing, bringing salvation to all mankind who dies to save us from our sins. And it ends with the second appearing, the second epiphany, the glory of Jesus Christ coming a second time to receive us in glory and to judge the living and the dead. Both of these appearing have a saving significance, one begins in grace, the other ends in glory and they book end the gospel message, the life of Christ, and our life as little Christ as Christians who believe and are united to him in faith. This first statement here, the grace of god has appeared bringing salvation to all mankind is in the past. The grace of god has appeared, we could literally read this in the Greek, the grace of god has already come. It's in the eras tense, we don't have a tense like that in the English, but it points to a work of god that is finished. Jesus Christ has come, he has the grace of god that has appeared, and he has brought salvation to us, this is what the gospel teaches. The word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, the glory of the only begotten son of the father full of grace and truth. For from his fullness we have received grace upon grace, for the law was given through Moses, but grace and truth came through Jesus Christ, for no one has ever seen god, but the only god who is from the father's side has revealed god to us. Jesus Christ in the past has completed our justification. Christ died for sins once for all, it's done, it's finished, it's over. There's nothing to be added to it, that's why it's all of grace and faith, what could you add to the atonement of Jesus Christ to earn you favor with god or to pay for your sins? The answer is nothing. Jesus Christ has completed this work, and that is why we spend so much time talking about Jesus Christ and his cross and his redemptive work. It is an historical fact, it's not something that's unfolding, we're not in the process trying to find our way to god, the way is clear, I am the way and the truth and the life. No one, no one, no man, no woman, no child will get to god except through Jesus Christ, the grace of god that has appeared. My fear is that we will forget this or take it for granted. There is a danger in hearing something over and over and over again that it becomes trite and then boring and then meaningless. How many times have we looked upon this cross and sung these hymns and read these scriptures or heard the pastor talk to people about the grace of god that has appeared bringing salvation to all mankind? And once we begin to take this truth for granted, then we begin to add things, add things to the work of Christ in order to enliven our faith and to encourage our souls and to make us acceptable to god. When we begin to add things to that we become legalists, that is the definition of legalists, trying to find favor with god through your own performance. Lest you think that I am exaggerating, I want you to listen to the author of Hebrews. See to it that not one of you comes short of the grace of god. What a sober statement to come short, literally to fall short of the grace of god, to hear it so much that it becomes meaningless. Brothers and sisters, when I stand before the judgment seat of Jesus Christ, I want no man or woman or child to say to me, you never talked to us about Jesus Christ and His cross. You never made it clear how a person could be saved, how we could be justified. You were unclear about the finished work of Jesus Christ. Paul put it this way, I would remind you, my dear brothers, of the gospel I preached to you, which you received and which you stand and by which you are being saved. If you hold fast to the word that I preached to you, unless you believed in vain, for I delivered to you as a first importance, this truth, that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures, that He was buried, and that He was raised from the dead on the third day according to the Scriptures that He appeared to many. By the grace of god, I am what I am and His grace toward me did not prove vain. On the contrary, I worked harder than all the rest of them, though it was not I, but the grace of god that was working within me. So then whether it was I or they, so we preached and so you believed. Let's be very clear. The grace of god has appeared. It will not appear again to save us. It does not need to. It has appeared to save, to offer to all mankind the justifying grace of Jesus Christ. The question is, have you received that grace? Have you turned from your sins called repentance, turning to Jesus Christ believing in Him alone, trusting only Jesus Christ to forgive your sins, to make you right with God and to carry you to heaven or have you not? That is the first concern I have. But the second goes with it. In fact, it flows out of it. And that's where some of you may think that I'm adding works to grace. For the grace of god has appeared to all mankind bringing salvation and doing something else. Here's the second truth. That the godliness of Jesus Christ is for our good. Training us to renounce ungodliness and worldly passions and to live self-controlled upright and godly lives in the present age. Look at verse 14, who gave Himself for us to redeem us from all lawlessness and to purify for Himself of people for His own possession who are zealous for good works. If there are three Gs in this passage and there's really four, then the middle two come here. Godliness and good works. This is just the standard orthosilutes or order of salvation that Paul has all through the New Testament. That there is a logical order and somewhat a chronological order whereby God brings us to salvation. He first justifies us in Jesus Christ. That's happened in our past when we put our faith in Jesus Christ. In the present, He is sanctifying us. Causing us to grow in godliness and in good works and in the future, He will glorify us. He will take us to heaven in a sinless perfection. And we know that for those who love God, all things work together for their good. For those who are called according to His purpose. For whom He for new, He also predestined to be conformed to the image of His Son. In order that He might be the first born among many brothers. And those whom He predestined, He also called. And those whom He called, He also justified. And those whom He justified, He also glorified. Paul talks about these three things in Romans 8, 28 through 30. He talks about those whom He justified by His saving grace. He talked about being conformed to the image of His Son, about being sanctified and growing in godliness and good works, and being glorified in heaven. Those whom He justified, He also glorified. Paul tells us why Jesus came to earth, not just that He did, but why He came to earth. He says negatively, training us to renounce ungodliness and worldly passions and to redeem us for all that is lawless. Those are the things Jesus Christ does not want us to be, and He has saved us from all ungodliness and worldly passions and lawlessness. And positively, He saved us to live upright, self-controlled and godly lives, to purify our people for His own possession and to be zealous for good works. I want you to notice this, that the time frame for this particular phase of redemption is the present, where the grace of God has appeared in the past. Christ is now training us. It's in the present tense, training us to renounce ungodliness and worldly passions and to live self-controlled upright and godly lives in the present age. Justification is rooted in the past. In Christ's finished work, sanctification is rooted in the present and the indwelling work of the Holy Spirit, and therefore, folks, if we looked at our life in terms of a continuum of time, the vast majority of our time is spent in the middle. In the sanctifying process, it took me 18 months to be justified. It will take me an instant to be glorified. But in between my justification in August of 1976 and my death in 2099, there will be a long process of developing godliness and character and good works in action that we call sanctification. We call this thing holiness because we're becoming like the Holy Spirit or godliness because we're becoming like God the Father or Christ's likeness because we're becoming like Christ. The point is that is why the Holy Spirit lives in us, to produce in us the character and the fruit of God in us. See what kind of love the Father has given to us that we should be called the children of God in such we are. The reason why the world does not know us is that it did not know him. Beloved, we are God's children. And what we will be has not yet appeared, but we know this, that when he appears, we shall be just like him because we shall see him as he is. And everyone who has this hope in himself purifies himself just as Jesus Christ is pure. What's the spiritual danger that Jesus Christ is saving us from? The text tells us it's lawlessness. Look if you will at verse 14, he or Christ gave himself for us to redeem us from all lawlessness. Anamias, no law, anti-law, lawless, antinomian, we sometimes call it. A life set against law and holiness and godliness and obedience. If legalism is always the problem of religious people and it is because they forget the grace of God that has appeared. They become bored with the atonement of Jesus Christ, then it's lawlessness that is the major problem of the culture around us. There's a great debate going on in our denomination now. Of what is the greatest threat to the church? Some say it's legalism, some say it's lawlessness, and I say it's both. I say that in each one of us there's a legalistic bent, and in each one of us there's a lot of lawless DNA. We can't help but be like that. Raised in the church, living in our culture, we have to be a little bit of both. And that is why the New Testament, especially Apostle Paul, speaks in two moods. The indicative mood and the imperative mood. The indicative mood talks about things that are. There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. That's a statement of fact. You have to do anything. That's a statement of fact you either receive and believe or not. That's the indicative. And it always whenever Paul talks about the indicative. He's talking about what Jesus Christ has already done for us, and all we have to do is believe and receive it. He's talking about grace. But there's also another side to the Christian life which is the imperative. What you ought to do. Work out your salvation with fear and trembling because God is already at work and you both do willing to work for his good pleasure. Paul talks about the indicative and grave to offset legalism. Always in the first half of his epistles. But then he talks about the imperative and godliness to offset lawlessness. Always in the second half of his epistles and there is not one epistle that is an exception. He speaks in both directions and that's what I want you to see in this next slide. That the gospel of Jesus Christ pushes back on both directions. It pushes with grace against legalism. And it's always speaking in the indicative and reminding us of grace because conservatism tends to be legalistic. And it pushes in the other direction against lawlessness with the imperative of what we need to do to follow Christ because we tend to believe in cheap grace. And that is the choice of the liberalism. Martin Lloyd John said, when you preach, you should preach grace to such a point that the people say that you're anti-nomean, that you're lawless. And then you should turn around and preach holiness to the point where they accuse you of being a legalist. And then you know you preach with biblical balance. That's what I'm trying to do. Probably not doing a very good job of it, but that is what I'm trying to do. There are grace only people in our culture. The contemporary grace movement and any talk of duty or holiness or obedience or godliness is branded as legalism. This is the choice of those who are 50 and younger. But it breeds a cheap grace, as Dietrich Bonhoeffer said, grace that is an idea, but not the power to change a life. Paul said Christ came to redeem us from all lawlessness, just as it came to redeem us from legalism. This is probably a generalization, but it's generalization because it's generally true. That the number one problem in the American culture is lawlessness. How else could you explain our defending our right to be homosexuals and lesbians, to contract gay marriages, to abort our children, to leave our wives, to engage in pornography, to do whatever we want to do and say that people you have no right to tell me anything. Is that not lawlessness? Unless you think I'm picking on the younger people only, I need to say, for my generation 50 and up, our danger, our drug of choice is legalism. The belief that the Republican Party will be the salvation of our country, the defining of a Christian by our own values rather than a gospel paradigm. And this performance generation, this performance mindset that wears us out, thinking that somehow we need to add something to what Christ has done so that we're good Christians, and I'm telling you the cross of Jesus Christ pushes against both of them. The preacher needs to preach against both of them, which means he'll just make the whole crowd angry. They'll all hate him on one given Sunday, cheer for him the next, doubt him and the other. People who say, you know, you're beginning to preach a grace plus works, those are people leaning towards lawlessness. And those who are conservative say, you're telling us we can lose our salvation? I'm not. I'm just pushing against legalism. These are not just thematic ideas loved ones, these are not just concepts. You read through the New Testament as I have, perhaps a hundred times, and you'll find that Paul has three great enemies he slams into one after another, after another he pounds away at him, legalism, lawlessness. And there's a third one I'll mention in a moment. And that is what I want to bring to you every Sunday. My second goal for you is I want you to live a holy life, not because I'm desperately afraid that somebody out there might be having a good time, because I believe that holiness is healthiness and it is happiness. You know why I believe that? Because I believe the most happy being in the universe is God, and God is holy. And I believe that before Adam and Eve fell and we were perfectly holy, we were happier than we've ever been, and I don't believe that sin makes people happy. I believe it makes some prisoners. And I believe when you do whatever you want to do, you don't exercise your freedom. Paul says you step into deeper bondage, Roman six. I want you to be free, and I want you to be happy. I know you won't have perfect freedom in this life, and you'll never have complete happiness, but I believe that the holy life, the life of Christ, following Jesus Christ, will give us joy, unspeakable, and full of glory. And the life of the world will make us miserable. I want you to have an assurance of your salvation. I want to give you and your family a joy that's rooted in Christ, and I want us to present a win some and healthy Christian worldview so that people say, my goodness, how they live is so much finer, so more happy, so much more noble that they would want to follow us. And so I will continue to speak about God. It's not because I'm a legalist, but because I'm a pastor. And there's a third thing I will speak about, and that is glory. The glory of Christ promises us our glory. That is verse 13. Waiting for our blessed hope and the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior, Jesus Christ. If the past concerns Christ incarnation, His grace and our justification, if the present concerns the work of the Holy Spirit, and His grace and our sanctification, our growth in God that is in good works, then the future promises us the return of Jesus Christ and our glory. The glory of God is the supreme good of mankind. That sounds J. I. Packer says in his book, concise theology, as if God is egotistical, but really the glory of God is rooted in God's love for us. For when God is glorified, men are blessed, and when He is not, men lead miserable lives. What is our chief end? It is to glorify God and don't forget the second half. It is to glorify God and enjoy Him forever. God's glory is only in its fullness when we enjoy Him. God is most glorified, John Piper says, and he's right, God is most glorified when we enjoy Him. He had said to the prophet Isaiah, I will not give my glory to another nor share my praise with graven images. God will not give His glory to idols, but He will share His glory with you. Set your mind on the things above, where your life is hidden with Christ in God, and when Christ who will be revealed in glory comes, you shall be revealed in glory with Him. Salvation is not complete my loved ones until you and I go to glory in heaven. That's the end of the process. And by preaching the glory of God, reminding you of heaven, I strike against the third great enemy that Paul does, not lawlessness or legalism but worldliness. The belief that this world can give us all that we need to be happy, which is absolutely false. Paul would write to the Corinthians, and he would say to them, we all with unveiled face behold the glory of the Lord are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another, for this glory comes from the Lord who is the Spirit. So we do not lose heart. Though our outer man is decaying, our inner man is being renewed day by day. For this momentary and light affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison and imagination, as we look not to the things that are seen, but to the things that are unseen, for the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are not seen are eternal. John would put it this way, this world is passing away and all of its lusts, but the one who does the will of God abides forever. This third enemy may be the most subtle of all the viruses that we face in our souls, this worldliness, this concern with the things of the world, so that we do not enjoy God. And his ideas of glory for him and for us, but we try to find our enjoyment in this life. I have served three different pastures, and I want to tell you, all three pastures were precious people, but they face different challenges. In Myrtle Beach, you can imagine that the challenge that they faced was lawlessness. It was just one carnal place, Myrtle Beach is one, Funkadelic place, morally. That's a theological word you'll learn in seminary. Jackson, Mississippi, struggled with a old Southern form of legalism. Charlotte is the most worldly place I've ever lived. It's worse than Columbus, Ohio, and that's a worldly place. And we cannot help but bring some of that worldliness in here. I'm using preacher hyperbole, this is exaggeration on purpose to make a point, but sometimes I wonder if you're more concerned with getting your kids in the Chapel Hill and you are with getting them into heaven. And I wonder if your career and your profession and your practice in your house means more to you than your life with God. And I wonder whether you really think that the way you can enjoy God forever is having all the trinkets and toys of this life, without his glory. That's probably unfair, at least exaggeration, but it's not out of the question for me to wonder whether or not worldliness is the chief enemy of Christ covenant church in this affluent and beautiful and powerful city. I say these things, folks, not because I'm mean. I say these things because I love you. I love your children and your grandchildren. I want you to go to heaven when you die. I want you to experience salvation in this life. I want you to be transformed into a glorious Christ-like person because I think that's what make you happy in this life. That's all I want. It's all I'm after. And therefore, I've been you again and again to this wonderful truth of the gospel, for the love of Christ controls us because we have concluded this. That Christ died for all, and therefore all have died. And he died for all that they who live should no longer live for themselves or him who died for their account and rose for their sake. The gospel is not complete in us. It hasn't done its full work in us until we consider our chief joy in life to live for his glory. This last slide is the conclusion. It's why I say that salvation is a process. I know when I say that. I understand that it can sound like I'm saying, well, Jesus hasn't done enough because most of us consider salvation just justification. But it's more than that. The Bible, Paul, talks about the fact that we have been saved past. We are being saved in the present, and we will be saved in the future. Because the Holy Spirit is taking us from grace into Godliness and group works and onto glory through justification and sanctification and glorification. And in the process, he's expunging from us legalism and lawlessness and worldliness, teaching us to renounce worldly passions, ungodliness, and redeeming us from all that is lawless. I know that I have sent you some, but I don't do it on purpose. I preach grace one week, godliness the next, and glory the next, and so it sounds like I'm jumping around here and there. It sounds like one week I'm a legalist, and the next week I'm lawless, and the next week I'm just cranky, but I'm not. I'm making a lot of mistakes, and I could always say things better than I do. But I want you to know that every day of my life, you are always on my heart and mind. I worry for you, and I pray for you because I want you to go to heaven with me. I want grace for you. I want godliness and a good life, and I want glory, and I'm not going to stop until you fire me, or I retire, or I die, or better yet till Jesus Christ comes again. When I was a young man, and I had a conversation with my favorite preacher ever, his name was James Montgomery Boyce, and he told me he said, Mike, you need to build your preaching ministry around three words. Grace, godliness, and glory. He took me to this passage, and we talked about it. We read General Assembly. 20 years later, I invited Dr. Boyce to come to our church and be a preacher at a conference we were having on preaching in September of 2000, but he didn't make it. He died suddenly on June 15th of that year. But a few months before he died, I was with him again, and I said, Dr. Boyce, when you come to talk about preaching, I didn't know he was terminally ill then. I said, what's the main thing you want to deal with us? And here's what he said. He said, I have feared all my life that when I preached, I was too theological, and I didn't press home the applications with enough firmness. He said, Mike, press home the applications, press them into your people's lives, press grace, and press godliness, and press glory. Look at this last verse in this little chapter, this little paragraph. Declare these things. Exort and rebuke with all authority. Let no one disregard you. Why? Because we love you. We want you to know the grace of God. We want you to have a godly life. We want you to go on to glory. That's even why every Sunday morning I give you the benediction I do. Now may the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all, and that's why I preach the way I do. That's pray. Father, we want to thank you for three marvelous gifts you give us in and through Jesus Christ, the gift of grace. To save us from all of our efforts to earn our salvation, the gift of godliness that you bring with the indwelling Holy Spirit to make us like Christ, to make us like you, and to make us happy. And the promise of glory yet to come when we shall be just like you when we see you face to face. We are coming this morning, Lord, to the table of the Lord, a table about these three things. Table that tells us that only those who have received the grace of Jesus Christ been born again, may enter into the supper and partake of Christ. Table that talks about godliness, that only those who have been baptized into the church and are living a life free from scandalous sin in harmony with one another can take this table. And a table about glory, a table here today that points to a great marriage feast of the Lamb in the future and promises those who partake of this supper a grace, a working and renewing and a daily grace that will lead us on to glory when we behold you face to face. Open up our hearts to receive Christ through His Word and through His sacrament, help us to grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, to grow in holiness without which no one will see the Lord, and to remember that Christ is in us the hope of glory, and our glory will be revealed with His appearing. And give us this faith this morning for Christ's sake and for our own blessings. For we ask this in Jesus' name. Amen.