Good to see you guys. We’re in 1 Timothy. If you’re new to the church, we tend to just go through books of the Bible. We believe that is the simplest way to study the Bible and also the most accurate because it forces us to deal with things that otherwise we may want to avoid, and so we’re finishing up the book of 1 Timothy. When we complete it here in about a month or so, we will start 2 Timothy. That’ll take us to the summer. Then we’re gonna do the book of Ruth, which is a great book on a godly, godly young woman, and then we will look perhaps at the book of Jude. And then it looks like after that we’ll probably do Colossians, so that’ll get us through the summer, different books, Old, New Testament, bouncing around a little bit.

I will pray for our time, and if you’ve got a Bible, feel free to get to 1 Timothy 2.

Father God, we thank you for this home that you’ve given us as a family. I thank you, personally, Lord God, that you have enabled me to be an elder here with some fine elders and deacons in this church. I thank you, God, that I get to teach the Scriptures tonight on their behalf and on your behalf. I pray, God, that you will give me wisdom to be faithful to what the Scriptures have to say. God, as always, we thank you for sending the Holy Spirit to inspire the writing of the Scriptures, and Holy Spirit as our great God and our teacher, we invite you now to illuminate our understanding of the words that you know best exactly what is meant.

God, pray for our church that we would be marked by sound doctrine, love for Scripture and good teachers, parents teaching children, nursery workers, community group leaders, class instructors – everyone, God, who is here and influencing another. I pray that we would love you, that we would know your Word and that we would be obedient to it and that we would teach it accurately. As we study tonight, God, I pray that you will get your glory, we would get our joy, and we ask for it in Christ’s good name. Amen.

As we get into the Scriptures tonight, say a few prefasory comments, and that is that when we pick up the Bible, we’re undertaking a very sacred, very important, very miraculous event. That’s what we are doing. And as you read the Bible, you will be struck with how it presents itself. It says that it is perfect and without error, that it is the truth, that it alone is the only book inspired by God.

And it refers to itself with such terminology as in Jeremiah, that it’s a hammer, that it is a fire. In the New Testament on two occasions, the Scriptures refer to itself as a sword, as a sword. These are the kind of things you don’t let kids play with: fire, roofing hammers and swords. When you pick up your Bible, you’re picking up something that is militaristic in nature. You’re picking up a weapon. You’re picking up a tool. You’re picking up something that can burn, that can cut, that can crush. That’s what it says about itself.

And what you find throughout the Bible as well is from the very beginning to the very end, there is a constant battle, a spiritual war, between God’s people and Satan over this sword and that if we don’t know how to wield it well, he will take it from our hands, as he did our first parents Adam and Eve, and he will slaughter us with our own sword. So we need to be very deft at handling this sword.

And as we get into the Bible tonight, I’ve told you before and I repeat it every so often. It’s important to repeat tonight because we’re dealing with good and bad teachers who teach false and true doctrine. That’s the theme of 1 Timothy 4. There’s really only two ways to approach your Bible. I’ve done it before. One is like this. Any of you that have been to university and are educated beyond your intelligence, this is probably how you come to the Bible. You think that because you’ve been taught post-modern hermeneutics according to Derrida or modern hermeneutics according to Nietzsche or something of that nature, you’re educated in the epistomology and philosophy of hermeneutics and all of that, you will have the propensity to see the Bible as not authoritative and as it not having any true meaning.

But instead you, as the interpreter, stand on top of and over the Bible, and in that way the Bible, like all other texts, is devoid of any authority or any true meaning. And what it is really then is nothing more than an echo chamber where you yell into it and then it speaks back to you your own voice. So you don’t come to the Bible to hear God. You come back to hear the echo of your own voice. And what happens then as well is that, as you come to the Bible, there’s a propensity to make it say whatever you want, and it doesn’t bother you because after all, all this is is opinion and perspective and conjecture and speculation. It’s not like it came from God, and it’s not like it has any authority over us. Lots of people approach the Bible that way. They’re false teachers. We’re gonna see who inspires their instruction and to what ends they lead.

Here at this church we have a totally different view of the Scriptures. We believe it belongs right there, over us. We believe that when we come to the Scriptures, we don’t come to hear an echo of our own voice. We come to hear the voice of God, and we believe that we are not in authority over the Scripture to interpret it however we want or make up whatever doctrines we wish it would say. Instead, we’re under authority and we bend our knee and we bow our head and we open our heart to receive what God would have for us, knowing that because it’s a sword and a hammer and a fire, it could be painful, that God could use this to convict us. And first he will wound us and then he will heal us, and that’s oftentimes what he does with this great sword.

And so as we come to it tonight, it’s very, very important that you have a high respect for the Scriptures and that if you aspire to teach in any way as a parent or as an instructor or as a leader in this church, you have a very high regard for the Scriptures and you know how to handle your Scriptures so that you don’t become a false teacher.

The guys we’re gonna get into tonight are a group of false teachers that really had that very low and poor view of the Scriptures, and they were using the Scriptures to teach things that the Scriptures didn’t teach. Now, they wished – they wished – the Scriptures taught certain things, but they didn’t. And so they would pull verses out and put arguments together and try to convince people that it was biblical.

The point is simply this: Just because someone opens the Bible and quotes a verse doesn’t mean they speak for God. Satan did the exact same thing. It says that demons know Scriptures in the book of James. Just because you know Scripture doesn’t mean you’re teaching it accurately and that you’re honoring God in the process. Some of you come from churches where there was rampant false teaching. Some of you have a hard time even believing that there’s false teaching because you’re epistimology and your hermeneutics and your interpretive theory is such that there’s just opinions and perspectives and conjectures, but there is no such thing as a right answer to who is God or how are we saved or who is Jesus.

I wanna explore this with you tonight. There are false teachers. There’s a ton of them. There’s also good teachers, and there’s something that distinguishes them. In chapter 4 verse 1, Paul’s gonna play this out, how a good teacher approaches the Bible, how a bad teacher approaches the Bible. Chapter 4 verse 1 Paul says, “The spirit clearly says that in latter times some will abandon the faith and follow deceiving spirits and things taught by demons.” Here’s the first verse.

There’s two sources of inspiration for teachers – spiritual, theological, biblical teachers. The Holy Spirit inspires them to teach the Scriptures that he inspired to be written, okay? So it is God the Holy Spirit who caused the Bible to be written. It is he who illuminates our understanding and enables us to be teachers.

Other teachers also have spiritual insight and illumination. They speak boldly, passionately, confidently. The only problem is they work for Satan. These are people who get their doctrine not from Scripture and the Holy Spirit but from false spirits, from demons, okay.

Any of you watch Oprah? She is the Queen Bee, the Mother High Priestess of all that is wrong with American religion, but she has her daily television show, which is basically church. She has reading groups throughout the country, which are basically small groups and talks about life transformation and blah, bladdah, yah. And then in the middle she always has a segment she calls “spirit.” Just a nice whispery, pastels, just taped sounds of running water. It’s just – you’re waiting for the backrub. It’s just soothing, so nice.

And what you’ll realize is she’s bring out teachers, and they will say, “Well, I had this spiritual experience or this dream or have this spiritual insight or my spirit tells me this,” and then it’s all about being spiritual. Spirituality today is enormous in American culture. Everybody’s spiritual.

Paul says there are false spirits. 1 John says we need to test the spirits because not every spirit comes from God. If you just accept that anything that is spiritual is good, you will get a demon, an angel that has been kicked out of heaven as an enemy of God. That’s why the people in that day, like our day, when they hear the word spirit or spiritual, they think, “Well, it must be good. It’s from the spirit realm.” No, it’s from Satan. It’s from your enemy.

Some of you think, “Oh, this just sounds too naïve, too simplistic,” but I’ll tell you this. In Genesis we’re told that Satan is more crafty than any of the animals that the Lord God had made. What that means is this: He’s a great salesman. He’s not gonna show up and say, “Hi. I’m Satan. These are demons. We’d like to lead a Bible study. All we’d like you to do is just believe what we say and go to Hell and burn like sausage on a summer grill. How’s that?” because that’s not a sales pitch. He’s gonna come and say, “We’re very spiritual. We have spiritual experiences, visions, dreams. We have spiritual insight. We have spiritual experiences for you. Would you like a spirit?” “I’d love a spirit.” “Well, here’s a nice little demon for you. Buy one, get one free. One for the kids, one for the husband? Everybody gets one.”

And they abandon the faith. He says they abandon good teaching and following the Holy Spirit and Bible, and they start following demons that are teaching false doctrines. And we don’t get this in our culture ’cause if you go to Barnes and Noble or B. Dalton, there’s the spiritual section. It doesn’t say demon, but it should. It should say deceiving doctrines inspired by demons. That’s what it should say, but it doesn’t. It says spirituality, which is going to hell in a tricky way. That’s what it is. That’s what spirituality means.

He says there’s false teachers that are inspired by demons. Do you guys know that some people who say they see UFOs, some people that have dreams, some people that can predict the future, some people that have spiritual insight, it is indeed spiritual, but it’s not from God. It’s inspired by Satan. So he says you gotta be careful that you’re learning from the Holy Spirit, from the Scriptures, not from unholy spirits and false teachers.

Now, it’s not just that demons show up and teach, right? It’s too obvious. They showed up red horns, cape, pitchfork at your house with a Bible study. You’d be like, “No, I’m not gonna join the group.” But a couple of guys in white shirts and pearly white teeth on a bike, you know, looking all medicated and happy. Look at those guys. They’re so cute. It’s like we photocopied the 1950s and sent them to Freemont. That’s just cute. They’re so cute. It’s vintage. They’re almost back, you know? It’s so great.

It’s a subtlety. It’s a craftiness. It’s an appearance of wisdom that just isn’t. So the enemy works through false teachers, okay? That’s the next verse he talks about. “Such teaching comes through hypocritical liars whose consciences have been seared with a hot iron.” Anybody ever been branded. Don’t. It’s terrible. It’s terrible. When you brand somebody, you cauterize the skin. You take away all feeling. That place just becomes dead and numb. What he says is that you really, really need your conscience.

Now, I’ll say this too. Your conscience is a rudder that gets you through life. Some of you say, “I’m a good person. I’m not a Christian, but I’m a good person.” You may be because you’re following the rudder of conscience that God has given you, but still, that rudder is still from God, so you’re not a good person. You just happen to be paying attention to the rudder that he’s given you.

Conscience helps us sort out moral and ethical questions and decision-making in life. Should I do this, not do this, and the conscience is important. Certain people that are inspired by demons, they start reading the wrong books. They start following the wrong teachers. They start downloading stuff from the wrong Web sites, and I tell you this. I swear I think demons are particularly good at HTML. It’s just crazy. If you’re some freakish, weird nut job with some off-the-map bizarro thing, you can start a whole movement off of a Web site from your mom’s house. I mean, it’s just in the basement in your underwear just like some evil villain in an old cartoon just ruining the world with a cackle [ha, ha, ha]. It’s just weird really.

Watch where you get your information. Watch who you learn from. Watch and be careful what you read and what you follow ’cause certain people, their conscience is just branded. It’s just broken. It doesn’t work. They’re totally wrong, but they don’t know it. It says in Revelation that Satan is the deceiver. Because he’s the deceiver, he’s good at deceiving certain people. They get so deceived that all of the sudden, they can’t even hear the voice of God anymore. Jesus says, “My sheep hear my voice.” These are people that are deaf. They can’t hear Jesus anymore. Spiritually, they have just lost all sensitivity.

And because they’re deceived, they are deceptive. Because they’re convincing, they’re bold, brash, confrontive, combative. They argue. They’ll debate. They’ll spin. They got their angle. They got their thing. What he says is this: Their compass is not finding north. Their rudder is not working. Their conscience is broke. You could argue all day, but you’re not gonna get anywhere because they have lost the functionality to receive the truth.

And the problem here is always this: It’s never an academic problem that leads to heresy and false teaching. It’s a hard heart. It’s not that we don’t understand the truth. It’s just that sometimes we don’t like it. That’s why Romans 1 says we have a propensity to suppress the truth because we wanna continue to sin. These are guys who keep sinning, keep disobeying, keep avoiding false teaching, keep ignoring the Bible, keep, keep, keep resisting God to the point where all the sudden their conscience is broken. They’re being inspired by demons. They’re speaking on behalf of Satan, and they’re bold and brash and loud and confrontive and combative and compelling because they’re deceived, so they’re very deceptive.

Such teaching comes through hypocritical liars whose consciences have been seared as if with a hot iron. They’re hypocrites. These are guys who tell you, “Don’t eat meat. Don’t drink wine. Don’t listen to rock music,” and if you go to their house, they’re drunk barbecuing with, you know, Guns ‘n Roses blaring out of the garage. That’s who those guys are.

I had this argument with one pastor. He’s a guy who loves to make lots of rules like the guys who killed Jesus, and he forbade anybody in his church from drinking alcohol. And I asked him one time, I said, “Do you drink?” He said, “Well, once a week I play cards with the guys, and I drink beer.” I was like, “Dude, you forbade everybody from drinking. If anybody on your staff drinks, you’ll fire them, but you drink. How can you do that?” He was like, “I know. I’m a hypocrite.” No, you’re demonic. You’re wicked. You’re evil. You’re gonna get the Blair Witch corner of Hell with no beer. That’s what you’re gonna get. You can’t do that. You can’t be a hypocrite. You can’t tell your people, “No, no, no, no. I’m gonna confiscate all the beer. I’m gonna confiscate it all, and take it to my house. Nice safe place where you can’t get to it.”

You know, it’s just – it’s hypocrisy, and they’re liars. They’re lying. Some of you say, “But they’re nice. They’re so sincere. They’re family. They’re friends. They’re neighbors. They’re people I know and love and care about, and they’re well-intended. They’re well-meaning.” So Satan-completely-deceived, off his nut, wrong. They’re liars.

Satan works through false teachers with broken consciences who are hypocrites and liars. Here’s some examples of what false teachers teach. They forbid people to marry. I’ll talk about that. They order them to abstain from certain foods. All vegetarians are mine – we’ll get to you in a minute – “which God created to be received with thanksgiving by those who believe and know the truth.” What he’s saying is God made cows and steaks. We’ll talk about that. “For everything God created is good, and nothing is to be rejected if it is received with thanksgiving because it is consecrated by the Word of God and prayer.”

First thing, demonically inspired false teachers take things that God made good and they tell you, “That’s bad. Don’t touch it. Don’t listen to it. Don’t eat it. Don’t drink it. Don’t go near it. That’s bad.” That’s what they’ll tell you. First thing they’ll tell you is, “Don’t marry.” Some of you say, “Well, that’s weird.” Yup but the whole Catholic Church believes that. Okay, I was raised Catholic, was an altar boy for three years, raised in a Catholic family, don’t hate Catholics, love them. But anytime you forbid people to marry like priests, you’re gonna have problems because it’s a demonically inspired doctrine Paul says.

You know, the Catholic Church has got a big problem right now with pedophiles in the ministry, and you wonder why. Well, if you subscribe to demonically inspired doctrines, and if what 1 Timothy 3 says that a good husband and father makes a good pastor, and they said we will not allow men who are husbands and fathers to be pastors, you will not get the right men leading. You’ll get sick and unhealthy men. We don’t even have the statistics for how many of them are involved in homosexual activity or heterosexual non-marital sex. And we don’t even know how many good, godly men would go into the ministry, providing they could get married and have kids.

Here’s where we’re created. We’re created in Genesis. He’s going back to Genesis here. God made everything, called it good. God created the man, said that it was not good for the man to be alone. God’s answer was a woman. Brilliant. Wasn’t a hobby or a golden retriever or a fishing pole. It was a woman. Brilliant. God then says that the man and woman together very good. From that point on, they’re supposed to be fruitful, multiply, increase in number, fill the earth, subdue it. [Woo hoo] That’s sounds like a wonderful life right there. I gotta fill the planet, me and her? We’re gonna give it a run. That’s a brilliant idea.

Okay, now, from that point forward, children are a blessing in the Bible. It is a blessing to have children. You know, the Bible says, “Blessed is the man whose quiver is full.” We would say blessed is the man whose Suburban is too small. It is a good thing to have kids. It’s a beautiful, wonderful thing. I’m a father of four, all about being a dad.

There are a few occasions where being single is elevated in the Bible. First is a guy named – I’ll give you a couple of examples – Jeremiah. He’s single, not married. Is he happy about it? No. Jeremiah is the weeping prophet. He’s depressed, right? He’s very depressed. God says, “My life stinks. I want you to feel like I feel. Your life will stink too. No wife, no parties, no fun, no joy, no birthday cake, no blow horns, no funny hats, nothing.” Jeremiah just sits around and writes depressing poetry like some Indy Rocker junior high kid just at the end of his tether, right?

So Jesus is single. I’ve heard a lot of single guys say, “I’m single like Jesus.” No, you’re not single like Jesus. Jesus didn’t stay at his mom’s house and download porno from the Internet and call in sick to work all the time ’cause he was playing X-Box. You’re not single like Jesus, all right? There’s a couple reasons Jesus didn’t get married. One, he was gonna die and leave. That’s not a great time to start a family. In addition, being equally yoked was impossible.

You think about it, ladies. You’re married to Jesus. You like that? You hate that. You’re fighting, arguing. You’re all, “He just thinks he’s perfect.” Well, guess what? He is, so every time you argue, fight, you apologize ’cause you’re always wrong. It’s always your fault, right? There’s nobody for him to marry.

And then you got Paul who writes this book. Paul perhaps was married at one point. He worked for the Sanhedrin. If he was a member, requirement to be a member of the Sanhedrin – I think it was the Jewish ruling council of ’72 – you had to be married. Maybe his wife left him when he got converted. Maybe he’s a widow. We don’t know, okay.

Some of you think that because Paul says in 1 Corinthians 7 that it’s better not to marry that it’s better not to marry. It’s not. 1 Corinthians 7 is this: The church writes a letter to Paul asking a question about a circumstance in their church. That’s the whole book. It’s a series of responses to questions. He says in chapter 7 verse 26 that because of the present crisis, it would be best for you to remain unmarried. They were undergoing persecution. If you got married, they would slaughter you and slaughter your kids. What he’s saying is it’s not a sin to get married, but under persecution and strife where you and your kids could get murdered, if you’re a single guy, this is not the best time to get married. It’s circumstance.
Today if you’re a single guy who plans on dying a martyr’s death for Jesus Christ, if you plan on living a hard life like Jeremiah, Paul or Jesus, if you plan on getting murdered or slaughtered for your faith or going off to a Muslim country or some other difficult mission field where having a wife and kid is not possible, then you should be single. You should be.

But it’s a rare exception. The vast majority of men should marry. That’s why the book of Proverbs says that, “He who finds a wife finds what is good.” Finds what is good. I remember being a young guy in the Catholic Church, young boy, and my dad – like Jesus, I had a construction worker dad named Joe, salt of the earth guy, wonderful guy. Loved my dad. We’re tight. My dad, serving communion this morning, goes to Mars Hill. And my dad was a great guy, masculine, union drywaller, raised five kids. He’d come home from work every night in his work boots, and we’d play ball, and he was my Little League coach. My dad, okay.

So as a young boy growing up, I aspired to be like my father. I’m thinking, “You know what? I can’t wait to get married, have kids, be a dad, coach Little League.” This is like my vision and goal.

I go to church. Catholic priest is effeminate. No wife, no kids, no Little League, can’t catch, can’t throw, can’t change his own oil, nothing. And I’m looking at him and I’m looking at my dad, saying these two guys are totally different, and I wanna be like my dad. So I didn’t go to church anymore. I just checked out till I got saved at 19, just checked out. Didn’t want anything to do with it.

I was thinking, “You know what? I don’t wanna be like this guy. I don’t wanna be single.” Like virginity is a season, not a goal. Sorry. I wanna have kids. Just thinking about that sort of just – it just hit me like how ridiculous that is. I wanna have kids. I wanna be a dad, and I wanna love my wife, and I wanna coach Little League. And like yesterday, I’m outside and my kids are riding their bikes.

Today I bring my two boys in my Chevy pickup truck. We park outside. It’s got a bacon air freshener. We’re listening to 16 horsepower really loud driving here. We got the windows down, rocking out, me and my four-year-old boy, two-year-old boy. We park out here next to this little Beirut parking lot next to us, this big bomb thing over here. And they boys get out and there’s dirt clods all over, man. They just run out of the truck. I turn my back. They disappear, handfuls of dirt clods, having a dirt clod war. That’s biblical living. That’s what it is.

This whole forbidding a guy to marry – any guy, anybody who teaches you, “If you really love the Lord, you wouldn’t wanna get married and make love to your spouse and have kids and coach Little League and throw dirt clods,” that’s Satan. That’s a demon. Only a demon who took a tire iron to their own head would come up with that kind of theology. What kind of stupid idea is that?

I wanna get married and work a job and have kids and coach Little League. “You don’t love the Lord.” I love the Lord and I love Little League and I love my wife and I love my kids, and you’re Satan. You’re out of your mind.

You guys should aspire to get married. You guys should aspire to get – you gotta get a job first. You gotta get a job, not a job where you wear a uniform and ask people if they wanna supersize something. You gotta get a job. You gotta get a job so you can get a wife so you can get kids. And it’s a great, glorious thing to be a husband and a father, and only a demon would tell you otherwise. Only a demon would tell you otherwise.

And if you’re a guy in this church, c’mon. I mean look around. It’s like fishing in a trout pond. I mean, any woman that is in this church and endures me as her Bible teacher is obviously patient, kind, forgiving and loyal, right? She’s just – she’s got all this stuff to be a wife. She does.

So we’re not forbidding people to – we had a couple get engaged here in the building yesterday. We have people getting engaged all the time, getting married. We love marriage. We love kids. We’re not gonna tell you to abstain from marriage. We’re gonna tell you to grow up and get married.

You know what? In our city, though, this is what’s so weird in our city. Cohabitation rate’s 250 percent higher than the national average. Everybody’s against marriage, but they’re all for sex. You know what? That’s demonic. That’s demonic is what it is. It’s just wicked. It’s evil. It just doesn’t come from crooked people. It’s Satan’s way of trying to ensnare people in lifestyles that lead to death.

Demonic teachers do that. They also abstain from certain foods. They force people to abstain from certain foods. Now, some of you are vegetarians, okay? Seattle’s big on vegetarianism and people who live together. Tells you it’s kind of a demonic city. Horny vegans. It’s what he’s talking about. Horny vegans. That’s not God’s team, right?

Now, I’ll say this about food. Some of you have lots of dietary convictions. In particular we have Bastyr University nearby, which is a natural health institute, and you know what, honestly? More Christians need to get involved in alternative medicine, homeopathy, naturopathy and diet. They do. They need to assume that everything God made is good, and if we have good diet and we have good lifestyle, we’ll have good living because God created the environment and food and the environment in such a way that we should have health through eating well. I believe that. I’m firmly convinced of that.

And I’ll say this too. The last year before this year, I was doing the Fatkins where get up every morning, have like a chocolate cake for breakfast and then have like, you know, a bucket of whatever had the most grease for lunch and then something big for dinner, usually a big bag of something that ends in “itos” and then a shake. And then I’d go to bed and just lay there all night in some catatonic state.
And what I noticed with the Fatkins, there’s an upside to the Fatkins diet. You can eat all you want, wherever you want, whenever you want, however much you want. There’s only really one downside, and it’s eventually you get your own zip code. You just – you keep going is what happens. I just kept getting bigger, and I was 30 and about every six months I’m buying new pants ’cause the old ones shrunk.

And I finally realized, you know, I gotta look at my diet and my exercise, so I changed my diet. Right now, I’ve slimmed up and get ready to do the swimsuit calendar and everything. It’s gonna be great. I’m still hairy. It’s like I’m half Wookie. I mean, it’s unbelievable. And so on my diet I’ve got lots of strong personal convictions. I’ve changed my whole diet. I’ve changed my whole diet. I’ve cut a lot of simple carbs out and sugars, and I’m eating vegetables and grains and meat, red meat and red wine and those kinds of things that God made good, and my health is much, much better.

What I’m saying is this: Demonic teachers will tell you that you can’t eat things that God made and God made good. What this doesn’t mean is that you can’t have personal private convictions. You should. You should. But your jurisdiction ends in your life, right. There are two kinds of sins in the Bible. It’s really important to note this. False teachers don’t understand this distinction. There are universal sins, which are a sin for everyone: murder, rape, theft, lying. For everyone, everywhere, all the time, all circumstances, those are universal sins.

Then there are also particular sins, which maybe your conscience won’t permit you to involved yourself in but are not universal sins, so you have to obey your conscience. Maybe your conscience doesn’t allow you to eat meat. Maybe your conscience doesn’t allow you to participate in certain forms of diet. Maybe it doesn’t. And you know what? A good teacher will tell you to obey all the universal principles and to obey your conscience in all of the particulars.

A false teacher will take their beliefs on all of the particular sins, and they will force them on everyone. We need to be very, very careful that we say what the Bible says, and where it’s silent, so are we. And if someone should ask, we can be free to say, “My convictions and my conscience is this way, and I conduct myself this way for these reasons.” We could use health. We could use nutrition.

I’ll give you another example: smoking. The Bible does not say “Thou shalt not smoke.” It’s not in there, so we can’t say smoking is a sin. We can’t. Now, what we can say is for me personally it is a particular sin, and I have a conscience issue against smoking. We can also say that everything is permissible, but not everything is beneficial, as Paul says to the Corinthians. We can make an argument it’s not good for you. But at any point we start kicking people out of Mars Hill because they chain smoke, we lose the whole worship department.

It’s about timing. It’s all about timing. It’s the key to all of it. So there has to be freedom and give and take, and what you’ll find is your conscience will change over time. I never had a drink until age 30. My conscience said do not consume alcohol, so I didn’t drink. And then at age 30 my conscience changed so now I drink, but I don’t get drunk because the Bible says don’t get drunk. Don’t cause anyone to stumble, so I obey the Scripture.

You need to be free to allow one another to have variants of conscience on this particulars and then to agree biblically on the universals. That’s why at communion we have wine and juice. Why? Conscience. Don’t break your conscience. You need it. And Paul says in Romans that some are weak and some are strong, and the truth is we’re all weak and we’re all strong in different areas. Some of you are strong in alcohol, and you’re weak in food. You’ve never gotten drunk, but you’re a glutton. Some of you are strong in food. You’re not a glutton, but you’re weak in alcohol. You can’t touch the stuff.

We’re all weak and strong in different areas, and we gotta abide by conscience. If the Bible doesn’t prohibit something, we can’t enforce prohibition on one another, but bad Bible teachers don’t know that. They make rules and legalisms and moralities, and they enforce their conscience on everyone. And in so doing, they’re acting in a demonic way because they’re going against the freedom that the Scriptures give.

Goes on, “For everything God created is good.” You know that everything in creation has a good use? Everything in creation has a good use, even pot. Before you say, “Hey, man,” let me explain. Every pothead only knows two verses in my experience. They know the verse from Genesis that every seed-bearing plant that the Lord God gave is good. The love that one. And thou shalt not judge. They love those two verses, and they put them together.

You know, everything is good if we use it as it was created and intended to be used. Can we use hemp to make clothing and paper? Sure, we can. Is it possible that marijuana is good for glaucoma patients and for certain forms of cancer and medicinal purposes? Certainly. Does it mean we should sit around eating brownies watching Cheech and Chong? No. That’s not – I don’t think that was God’s intention, you know? Vegetables, Cheech and Chong. That’s not a good use of God’s good creation.

But what false teachers will do is they’ll take something because it’s being abused, and they’ll say that it’s bad, but it’s not bad if God made it. It’s just not. Says in the Scriptures that God gave wine to gladden the heart of man. So they say alcohol’s evil ’cause people abuse it. Well, food’s evil. Sinners abuse everything. There’s people that worship the sky. We don’t get rid of it. Oh, somebody worshipping. Gonna have to get rid of that.

People sin with anything. It doesn’t mean that the thing is bad. It means that the person is. That’s why he says that we consecrate things between two things: the Word of God and prayer. First thing is when we have an issue to make, we don’t run off to a teacher and say, “Oh, legalistic, self-righteous jerk, give me a list to do, so I can be like you.”

What we do is we open our Bible and we say, “Lord God, I need to sanctify, consecrate this by the Word of God. What does the Scripture say?” And there’s whole denominations, whole elements of Christianity that are built on this. Methodists don’t drink. Presbyterians do. And some Christians do, and some Christians don’t. He says this: Take everything. Go to the Scriptures first thing. Don’t go to the teacher. Don’t go to the book. Don’t go to the Web site. Don’t go to the legalists. Don’t go to the moralists. Don’t go to the freaky nut job fundamentalist handbook. Go to your Bible, say, “Okay, Lord, what do you have to say on this matter?”

And ask that the Holy Spirit who inspired the Scriptures would illuminate your understanding, come with a teachable heart and say, “God, I’m studying your Scripture here because I don’t know what to do. Please guide my decision-making by your Word.” And in that way what we’re doing is we’re humbly coming under the Scripture and we’re asking to hear from God and we’re asking to learn from God and we’re asking to be convicted from God. And we know that God speaks to us through his Word, and so first thing you do, you search your Bible.

Now, once you’ve searched your Bible and if you don’t find anything that prohibits you from watching a certain movie, listening to a certain band, smoking a pipe, eating a kind of food, drinking a kind of drink, then the next thing you do, you take it to prayer. That’s what he says, to pray about it. You say, “Lord God, search my conscience. Can I do this with a clear conscience? Does this proceed from faith?” Prayer is where you look at your own moral rudder, your conscience. And you don’t disobey that because the false teachers do that, and because of that, they’re susceptible to demonic teaching. You wanna obey your conscience.

Let’s consecrate it by the Word of God and prayer. Is this okay with God? Yeah, it is. Okay, is this okay with me? Conscience, yes or no? That’s why as Christians we pray before meals. We’re consecrating things through prayer. But I tell you what. We shouldn’t just pray before meals. We should before films. We should pray before concerts. We should pray before batting practice. We should pray before shopping at the mall. We should pray before everything because we should consecrate what? Everything, everything through the Word of God and prayer.

Somehow a lot of Christians think that the meal is the sacred time. The whole day is a sacred time and everything in it: driving in traffic, working your job, answering the phone, mowing your lawn. It all can be consecrated to the Lord. It could be done in a biblical, prayerful way that is worship and glory to God. Everything. There’s no dualism in your Bible. There’s no holy and unholy things. There’s holy and unholy people who do life with or against God. That’s it.

False teachers don’t know that. They say, “Don’t drink. Don’t smoke. Don’t cuss. Don’t chew. Don’t play guitar. You’ll be holy.” It’s not that easy. False teachers teach a holiness through abstention. That’s what he’s getting at. Holiness does not come through abstention. It comes through Christ. And it’s demonic to think that “I don’t drink. I don’t smoke. I don’t – I always use my turn signal. I’m going to heaven.” No, no, no. You’re not made holy because of something you don’t do. You’re made holy by something Jesus did.

False teachers miss it. They just miss it. They think it’s about what you do. No, it’s about what he did. It’s about how you please him. No, it’s about how he loves you. False teachers want you to save yourself through morality and good works and lists of dos and don’ts. These are the same guys who crucified Christ because he came preaching grace, and it would put them out of a job.

And I’ll tell you what, guys. There is nothing more beautiful than what Jesus Christ has done, and we have no right to add anything to it. It’s never Jesus plus anything. It’s not Jesus plus Calvinism, Jesus plus speaking in tongues, Jesus plus veganism, Jesus plus no alcohol. It’s just Jesus. That’s all that it is. Died for our sins. Rose for our sins. Loves us. Makes us new creations. And because of him, we’re not about abstention. We’re about redemption. We take everything, and we consecrate it back to the Lord through Scripture and prayer.

We eat biblically. We drink biblically. We make love biblically. We listen to music biblically. We laugh biblically. We exercise biblically. We take everything back to God because everything belongs to God, and to say, “Ooh, that’s unholy,” it’s saying that somehow Satan made something and has jurisdiction over it and it doesn’t belong to Jesus, and that’s demonic. Everything belongs to Jesus. Everything that is made is his, and Satan has no right to use it in an evil way and then for God’s people think they’re holy by letting Satan have things. How twisted is that?

We take those back through Scripture and prayer and say no. That food and that marriage institution and that work ethic, those belong to God. He can’t have those. We’re God’s people. Those are gifts to us. We’re winning them back through Scripture and prayer. We’re not gonna let Satan have anything. It all belongs to the Lord. False teachers don’t know that. False teachers believe that the problem is out there and not in here. False teachers believe that the hope is in here, not up there. And because of that, they teach a man-centered theology, a woman-centered theology that dishonors God and is demonic. It’s evil. It’s wicked.

There’s a lot of people that get confused about this at Mars Hill. Well, you guys drink and you all play guitar except for one, and he’s taking lessons. You know, everybody, what’s wrong? We’re redeeming stuff. Film, music, culture, sports, we’re redeeming anything we can get our hands on through the Word of God and prayer. False teachers? Abstain, abstain, abstain, abstain, abstain, abstain. No. Advance, advance, advance, advance, advance. Redeem, redeem, redeem, redeem, redeem.

It’s a sick, twisted theology. Some of you have it. Say, “Man, I’ll be a good Christian when I stop blank.” You know what? Christianity is about Jesus, his love for you, your love for him. Those are the tethers that hold you together. I’ll tell you what. If you have a problem with food, if you have a problem with drink, if you have a problem with anything, a problem with your marriage, a problem with your sexuality, you know what you have at the bottom of it all? You have a theological problem. You don’t believe in the love of Christ. That’s your problem. If you believe that Jesus loved you, you would love him back and you would obey him.

At the bottom of every moral, ethical, sinful conduct problem is nothing that can be redeemed by rules and morality and regulations. The only hope is that you love Jesus, and that changes your life ’cause I’ll tell you what. There’s sin and Jesus, and if you’re going towards sin, a demonically inspired, legalistic teacher with a list of rules will not keep you from sin. You may stop smoking, stop drinking and start screwing, but you know what? In the end, you’ll trade one sin for another. And if you should stop them all, you will just be arrogant and proud and self-righteous like Satan, and you will commit the worst sin o fall, which is pride.

So your goal is not to focus on your sin and obey manmade rules to keep away from it. Your goal is to love Jesus, and if you love Jesus, you will turn your back on sin. Your desires will change. Your heart will change. Your motives will change. Your nature will be transformed and redeemed and made new. Your appetites will change. You will change.

And false teachers, they’re just worried about, “Let’s get ‘em not to smoke.” No, let’s get ‘em to love Jesus. “Let’s get ‘em not to drink.” Let’s get ‘em to love Jesus. “Let’s get ‘em not to eat. Let’s get ‘em –” Let’s get ‘em to love Jesus. You know what? People who love Jesus walk away from sin. They don’t even notice it, actually, ’cause that’s not their goal. Their goal is not to get away from sin. Their goal is to get near Jesus.

Some of you have learned that. You become Christians. You used to struggle and fight with sin. You’d make all kinds of silly, stupid rules. You’d read all these foolish books. You’d go through all this rigermarole, and then you met Jesus and you’re like, “I can’t believe Jesus loved me. He died for my sins. He rose. He embraced me. He’s my God. Look what he’s done for me.” Then all the sudden, you go, “Haven’t even thought about that sin I used to just die over every day. How come? Well, I guess I walked away, but I didn’t notice that.”

Walking away from sin is what happens to people who are walking toward Jesus. False teachers want you to focus on the sin and see yourself as the solution to your own problems, glory to you, pride and arrogance just like Satan, back into the deceptive demonic trap that you can save yourself and be a righteous person apart from Jesus. He says it’s demonic. It’s sick and evil and twisted, and I’ll to you what. It’s prevalent. It’s prevalent.

Even if you go into the Christian bookstore, the self-help section. Just meditate on that. Just meditate on that. Christ help – that’s really what’s needed. We need Jesus’ help. Demonic teachers. No Word of God, no prayer, and I love what he calls it. The next verse, flip it over. Here’s what he says, “If you point these things out to the brothers, you will be a good minister of Christ Jesus brought up in the truths of the faith and of the good teaching that you have followed.” He says, “You know what? You gotta point these things out. Gotta point these things out.”

Some of you will think that I’m negative. Okay, I’m not negative. When I criticize, it’s really because I see people in this church who have a propensity to go the wrong way and follow the wrong doctrine and get off the wrong track. And so the Bible says we have to point those things out. To be a good minister, you have to point things out, bring people back to good teaching, good doctrine, back to Scripture, back to Jesus. You need to be in a community group. You need to be in class. You need to learn, need to have good teaching.

We just put together a conference. It’ll be coming up this fall. Tell you about it right now. We’re gonna do it here. It’s gonna be a theology conference on trends in theology that are aberrant and going astray. We’re gonna do it ever year. This year we’ve nailed down John Piper, one of the best Bible teachers, I think, in the country. And I’ve got the former president of the Evangelical Theological Society of America coming, a PhD in theology to do a number of seminars. I have other pastors teaching. We’re gonna do a full couple days of theological instruction.

We believe theology matters very much at this church. Since I’m going through 1 Timothy, this issue of sound or healthy doctrine keeps, keeps, keeps coming up, so we’re gonna be a church that’s going to raise the bar on teaching. You will see more classes. We have good classes. You will see more. We have good community groups. You will see more. We are doing some good conferences. You will see more. You will see more. And those evening sessions at that fall conference are all gonna be free, so you guys can come for nothing when you get off of work. Our goal is to instruct you and to point things out.

And I’ll tell you this, too. It does concern me. Some of you, particularly you young guys, you have a propensity toward extremism. You get onto one author, one publisher, one theological system, and you keep going, and I never see the brake lights. And at some point, you start defending a theological system and ignoring your Scripture, okay? And I could tell by the questions you ask. There’s certain questions that people have who read their Bible. There’s other questions that people have who are not reading their Bible but are reading everything but their Bible. Paul says point this out, point this out.

And sometimes even good theologians and good theological systems and good confessions of faith even have their problems. Reading “The Westminster Confession” recently. Again, it says God is without passions. In Exodus he says he’s a God of compassion. There’s a mistake there ’cause it’s not the Bible.

I love the Puritans, huge fan of the Puritans. They created a thing called “the regulative principle” which says that you can’t sing any song except for the Psalms. Bible never says that. I was arguing with a guy recently to defend this principle that’s part of his theological system. I said, “So Jesus’ name.” I said, “Hear me on this. Jesus’ name never appears in the book of Psalms.” He says right. I said, “So it’s a sin in church to sing the name of Jesus.” To be logically consistent with his systematic theology, he said yes. Said that is demonic. If I say Jesus and that’s a sin, you have elevated a theological system over the Bible, and to defend the theological system, you’re starting to teach the kind of thing that demons would want you to teach in an effort to be consistent with yourself, not consistent with your Bible.

Paul says you know what? Point this out. Point it out that, you know, you’re not thinking biblically. You’re not sticking in your Bible. You’re getting off into something. You gotta hit the brakes. You gotta come back to Jesus. Get back in your Bible.

Here’s how we respond to false teachers and false teachings. First thing is we point them out. The second thing is – and I love this little next segment – he says in verse 7, “Have nothing to do with godless myths and old wives’ tales.” A lot of you old wives love that verse. I know it’s just one of those encouraging verses. The old wives’ tales, what he’s talking about there is the kind of junk you get in your e-mail inbox. That stupid stuff that some of you believe it. You forward it to other people, right?

There’s a Nigerian guy who’s trying to bring money into the United States of America. Got that one? What they are is godless myths. What they are is they’re theologies and systems of thought that aren’t godly. They’re godless. Actually, morality works without God. Spirituality works without God. That’s why they’re myths. You could be spiritual and moral without God. These are godless myths and old wives’ tales. These are popular thoughts and sayings and such that are so embedded in the culture that sometimes Christians just believe them without even thinking about it.

“Well, everybody’s a good person.” No, we’re all born sinful. “Oh. Well, I mean everybody worships the same God.” No, no. “Well, in the end God’ll save everybody.” No, that’s not what it says. That’s a myth. It’s a popular myth. It’s a prevalent myth. If you listen to the radio and watch the TV and read the magazines and go to the bookstore and just pick up what is most popular, you will get myths.

One of the most popular ones today is that Jesus had a wife in the Da Vinci Code and ran off to the South of France and had kids and never died and blah, blah, blah. It’s a myth. It’s a total myth. There’s a ton of myths, and they’re so prevalent. And what he says is have nothing to do with them.

Here’s the deal. If you spend your life focusing on all the false teachers and the heresies and the terrible books and the aberrant thinking, you will never read your Bible because the freaks and the nut jobs and the weirdoes and the oddballs and the heretics, they publish at a rapid rate. It’s unbelievable. And if your goal is to keep up with everything that is off, you will never have time to read your Bible.

So what he says is have nothing to do with it. Don’t let somebody else dictate your study. What about this? What about this? What about this? What about this? Say, “You know, I’m busy reading the Bible. I’m just busy. I was reading the Bible, and if you would like to read the Bible, we could talk about the Bible.” But I wanna, you know, the commentator’s commentator on the commentator’s commentation about the commentator’s comments about the Bible. I went to public school, man, and I’m telling you I don’t even know what they’re talking about. I’m reading my Bible, and I’m praying for understanding, and I’m trying to obey the Lord, and you can get off into all your bizarro, weird next, next, next.

Some people – here’s the point – they keep drinking out of the toilet. It doesn’t matter how you polish the water fountain. They never get to it. You say, “Look, you can drink from the toilet. Feel free. I’ll be over at the water fountain. You wanna join me, feel free. God’s Word has streams of living water it says. You keep drinking toilet water. I don’t know why you do that?” Some freakish Web site or some oddball publisher or, you know, just reading in a very narrow, narrow, narrow vein? Reading my Bible.

And don’t get me wrong. I’m not against reading. I read about 100 pages plus a day. I read a lot. I like to read. Most of what I read is to help me understand the Scriptures. It’s Bible teachers. At the end of the day, someone asked me yesterday, they said, “Do you wanna be a good theologian?” No, not if what it means is that I understand all the systematic theologies throughout the history of church. What I wanna be is a good Bible teacher.

And if what you mean by good theology is like I understand Paul and John and Moses and Jeremiah and Isaiah, then yeah, I’m for that. There’s only one perfect book, and if I gotta camp somewhere, I’m gonna make this home, sweet home. And I’m not gonna waste my time with every other stupid theory and weird idea, and I’ll tell you what. There are a multitude of them. You give me the most insane thing you can think of, and I’ll give you a book. I’ll tell you where to buy it. Anything, anything, somebody’s written on it.

I really desperately am pleading with you as your pastor. Don’t chase trends. Don’t chase fads. Chase Christ. Read your Bible. Don’t waste your time. Don’t waste your time. I’m not saying books are bad, but I’m saying if you haven’t read your Bible, it’s not time to pick up a book. First things first.

The other thing we do, we pointed out we avoid false teaching and teachers. We have nothing to do with them. Last thing to do, guys, rather train yourself to be godly. He’s using imagery here from Greek culture, working out. How many go to the gym? Work out, right? Both of you? You look good. It shows. The rest of you…

This is the 5:00 service. Everybody here is an Indy Rocker, right? Smoking, playing guitar. “Running’s for jocks, man. I’m not running.” Here’s the personal trainer’s life verse, right? “For physical training is of some value.” Do you believe that? It’s good to run more than just like to the fridge between commercial breaks, right? Like, “Ooh, more Ding Dongs. Oh, I pulled a ham. Oh, gosh.” You know, it’s good to exercise. Exercise is good. You need to exercise. You have a physical existence. You have a spiritual existence. He’s gonna talk about exercising both.

I was a guy that did not eat well and I did not exercise and I was in bad health. I’ve started exercising now. I run. I lift. It has value. I’m gonna live longer. I’ll see my grandkids. It has value. There’s a lot of value. Build bone density and muscle mass and my wife thinks it’s, you know, sexy, so there’s value. There’s a lot of value, all kinds of value really. Don’t have a six pack, yet. Still got a cooler, so there’s work to be done. But exercise is of value.

Now, we all know that. Everybody knows exercise is – yes, I’m for exercise. I’m praying about it. You know, we all know exercise is good, but Americans are notoriously lazy. In some countries they walk to work. They bike to work. They work.

And in our culture, we’re such a sedentary lifestyle, we just don’t move. You could sit there, and if you have high speed Internet access, you can order anything you wanna eat. They’ll bring it to your house, and if you leave the door open, you don’t even need to get up. They’ll just hand it to you.

There are new reclining chairs that have coolers built in for beer and pop, so you don’t have to get up and go to the cooler. You just lift open the lid and get drunk and pass out and wake up, and there’s another cold one. Praise Baal, look at that. Modern-day convenience.

We’re a lazy people, man. We are a – people – I do this. This is so weird. See, the other day, I’m driving to the gym to run on a treadmill, not running to the gym. You know, I still got some stuff to think through, not a genius.

But physical training is of some value. What he’s saying is this. Physical health is good. You need to exercise. You wanna be healthy. You wanna live a long life. You wanna serve God. You wanna see your grandkids, but more importantly, is godliness, spiritual health. “Godliness has value for all things, holding promise for the present life and the life to come.” Godliness, holiness, exercising your spirit, your soul, is vital. Your body’s gonna die. It’s gonna go in a hole. Your spirit’s gonna go to be with the Lord. Your body will cease. Your spirit will endure. So it’s good to exercise your body and have an efficient, effective, long-lasting joyful life, but then ultimately, your spirit’d better be connected to God.

Someday Jesus will give us our bodies back, resurrected and glorified as his. Then we’ll all be in great shape. How are you doing exercising your soul? I see it on TV all the time. Extreme Makeover. Everything’s worried about the shell, not the contents. Everybody wants to look healthy. Nobody wants to be with Christ. There’s no like Extreme Spiritual Makeover. “Okay, this fundamentalist is gonna yell at you, and then you guys are all gonna repent and cry.” “Okay, you ready?” “No.”

I don’t want that kind of makeover, right. Where it’s, “I want to look healthy. I don’t want to be spiritually healthy,” thinking that if we change the outside, we’ve transformed the individual, whereas the Bible teaches that we transform from the inside out, from the heart, from the center of our existence, the God makes us new creations, that he transforms us, and we become new people.

Everybody wants a makeover. Everybody wants a transformation. Everybody wants something extreme. I’ll tell you what, man. You meet God. He changes you from the inside out. Life goes different, and it’s good because it endures forever. Godliness is good for what things, Mars Hill? All things. It’s good for marriage and work and ministry and friends and family and leisure, and it’s good for everything.

You wanna know how to be godly? You wanna know? It’s really not that hard. Jesus loves you, first thing. You’re a sinner, separated from him. He came, lived without sin, died for you. “He demonstrated his own love for us in this. While we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.” You’re loved. You gotta accept that, gotta receive that. Only pride and demonic arrogance would reject that.

He lived and he was tempted with sin. He didn’t sin. He died. He rose out of love. He’ll embrace you. He’ll love you. He’ll forgive you. He’ll walk with you. It’s unbelievable. He’ll send his Holy Spirit to live in your heart. Romans 5 says that the Holy Spirit brings with him love so that you can love God out of a new heart as a new transformed person.

And as you do, you’ll start walking away from sin as you walk toward Jesus out of love for him. That’s all that godliness is. God loves me. I love God. And because of God’s love for me, I also love my neighbor, so I read my Bible, not ’cause I have to, ’cause I get to, and it teaches me about Jesus. I serve, not ‘cause I have to but ’cause I get to ’cause Jesus served me. I participate in the church, not because I have to but because I get to, and there I realize that Jesus just doesn’t love me. He loves us, the whole family of God.

And I’ve not just been reconciled to Jesus. I’ve been reconciled to my brothers and sisters. As Jesus takes away my sin, I can be close to him, and I can be close to you. I can have horizontal and vertical relationship restored. I pray, not ’cause I have to but ’cause I get to because I get to speak to God. I study, not ’cause I have to but ’cause I get to ’cause I get to hear from God, who loves me.

And false teachers will come along and they will say, “Do, do, do, do, do. It’s about what you do. It’s about what you do. It’s about what you do.” And the Bible will tell you, “No, it’s about who you love. It’s about who you love. It’s about who you love.” Jesus says, “You love me? You’ll obey me.” That’s godliness. People who love Jesus are godly. It just happens, happens by grace. It empowers us and enables us to be new people.

Bad teachers focus on change. Good teachers focus on Jesus. People who meet Jesus change. People who focus on change may change, but it’s from one sin to another kind of sin. They make no progress. Don’t fall into the demonic trap. Godliness is love of Jesus, and it’s good for what things?

Response: All things.

All things. All of life gets redeemed by the Word of God and prayer back to Jesus and holy living that is joyous. We invite you to that. Tonight I don’t invite you to spirituality. I don’t invite you to morality. I invite you to Jesus. That’s what I invite you to. He loves you. He’ll take away your sin. He’ll make you a new creation. He’ll make all things new.

You’re welcome to partake of communion, remembering his body and blood shed for your sin. You’re welcome to spend some time in your seat praying. You’re welcome to raise your voices and to sing and to shout and to raise your hands and to thank God for his loving Christ. Can we do that together as a family, a family that’s knit together by what the Scriptures reveal about who God is and what he’s done, so please pray for our teachers as well, myself included, that we will do a good job opening the Bible, pointing to Jesus and nothing else.

Father God, we love you. Thank you for your Word. It’s sufficient. It’s complete. It’s beautiful. It’s perfect. It’s good. It’s helpful. It’s true. Sometimes it burns like fire or it hammers upon us like a rock or it cuts us like a sword, but ultimately, after it’s done its hard work of killing us, you, Lord God, bring us back to life as someone new and better and different and more like you.

God, I pray for all of us that we would be people who open the Scriptures and see you, Lord Jesus, and love you because you loved us first, that it wouldn’t be about what we do. It’d be about who we love. It wouldn’t be about going to teachers and rules and systems. It would be about going to Scripture and Jesus, and we pray that our study and our teaching would be guided by the Holy Spirit, Lord God, and not by false spirits.

And I pray against the enemy and his servants and their works and affects and in Jesus’ name I command them away from this church and from our teachers and the parents who are instructing in the Bible.

God, I pray we be a church of sound doctrine, not just theological precision, but also health that comes out of theological precision, love, fruit, conversion, marriage, joy, feasting, fasting, loving, laughing, crying, all things consecrated by the Word of God in prayer.

We love you, Lord God. I thank you for this teachable group of people. I thank you for the honor it is to be a teacher of your Word and to have people who open the book and actually care. I pray it would always be that way in Jesus’ good name. Amen.