Letters: 1 Timothy 1

Letters can feel quaint until you realize they once carried hope across oceans and silence across years. We start with a story that makes that real: an elderly woman in her 80s whose arthritis kept her from writing to a friend in Ireland, until healing and persistence gave her back the ability to put pen to paper and reconnect. That “small” act becomes a big reminder that connection and discipleship aren’t disposable, even if modern communication is instant.

From there, we walk through 1 Timothy 1 with Pastor Angus at Cornerstone and step into Timothy’s world in Ephesus, a massive, diverse city crowded with pagan worship, spiritual counterfeits, and competing philosophies. We talk about why the pastoral epistles matter for church health today, how to recognize false teachers, and why endless speculation and argument can quietly replace the mission of Jesus. You’ll also hear a memorable warning about choosing teachers wisely and why we have to study Scripture for ourselves so our faith becomes owned, not borrowed.

We close with the heart of the message: sound doctrine should produce love from a pure heart, a good conscience, and sincere faith and no one is too far gone for God’s mercy. Paul’s transformation proves it, and our testimonies carry that same power when we live changed lives instead of chasing debates. If you’re hungry for biblical teaching, Christian discipleship, and a clearer path to spiritual growth, press play, then share this with a friend and leave a review. What part of your story might God be asking you to use?

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Transcript

Why Letters Matter So Much

Angus MacLeod 0:00

Good morning, Church. You know, during this series of letters, I've been thinking a lot about the idea of letters. And I was just curious, if you're comfortable, can I get a show of hands? How many of you have never written a letter before? Like, never ever written a letter. I'm not talking bills, I'm talking like correspondence, where you are sharing with somebody. Okay, there's a few. So back in the day, uh when I was in massage school, I uh I had a six-week uh my first case study that I worked with was a woman in her 80s, and um, and I had to ask her what her goals were for our sessions. And her goal was that she would be able to write a letter again. Her arthritis was so bad that she couldn't she couldn't write uh a letter. And the thing was, she didn't have a computer. This was back uh for those of us who remember what long-distance calls were uh and international calls were. She didn't have the the funds that she could call her friends back in uh Ireland. And she um the other thing she said is, I want to eat a potato again. Because as somebody from Ireland, potatoes were a staple, but her arthritis was so bad that she couldn't even peel a potato. And so we worked, we worked for several weeks, and on the fourth week I checked in with her and I said, How are you doing? And she started to cry. I said, Are you okay? She said, Yeah, she said, for the first time in eight years, I was able to write a letter to my friend. And so what I realized was she hadn't spoken because most of her family had passed away, she didn't have any friends here in America. Her one friend that she really knew in Ireland, she hadn't spoken to in any way, shape, or form in eight years. And so she finally was able to pen that letter, and she said, and the best part is I peeled a potato yesterday. And I had my first potato, and I can't remember how long. And it just impressed upon me, as silly as it is, just writing a letter, because today, you know, we send a text and it's nothing, or we write an email and that correspondent goes directly there. But for her, those letters were a lifeline. Because once she communicated to that person, by the end of our six weeks, she had gotten a return letter. And the pr and the her friend and her had finally been able to reopen and re-establish a lines of communication that she didn't know she was ever going to have again. And so as we think about this idea of letters, we have to remember that back before the age of the computer and tech and all of that, letters were a vital lifeline for communication. It was what made the world continue on. It's what made it so that the church could continue on, and so that we today can have a church like this because of those letters that were written back and forth between Paul and Timothy and the other apostles. So if

Cornerstone Mission And Life Groups

Angus MacLeod 3:24

we haven't met, my name is Pastor Angus. I'm the family pastor here at Cornerstone. And here at Cornerstone, our mission is to be more like Jesus. You see, we use this imagery of the disciples walking with Jesus all of the time because it's an acknowledgement that none of us have arrived. We are all in process, none of us are perfect, we are all still working on it. And it doesn't matter if we mess up as long as we continue to try and get closer to Jesus. And so that's why we use this image. As we try to be more like Jesus, the way we do that is by loving God, making disciples, and reaching the world. And that's where Pastor Jay and Pastor Celeste are this week, is they are out reaching the world. They are in uh in Asia and they are ministering. Their daughter Shiloh has been ministering this summer, and it's incredible because you see, I can communicate with Pastor Jay via text. In fact, he sent me a text this morning and just was saying that he was praying for us as a congregation. He was praying for the message, and I was so blessed by that. But that communication could not have happened like that a long time ago. And so I think we need to be very thankful for the day and age that we live in that we can send such quick communication to each other. Here at Cornerstone, one of the things that help us to love God, make disciples, and reach the world is our life groups. We are currently on a break for the summer because people are off doing vacations and all of that. But once we start up, I want to challenge you and encourage you to pre-decide to get involved in one of our life groups where we can connect, grow, and serve. Each of these groups, each of these different types of groups are meant to fill a place in our life and fill a call that God has put on us. And that's not to just be individuals who come and fill a building on Sunday, but it's a family that comes together. That we are people who we we live life together. That's how the early church worked and operated. The reason the early church was so successful was because they did life together. They didn't, like us, they didn't just come to a building on Sunday morning and then leave and not communicate, not see each other. They did life together every day. Well, today we're continuing our series on letters, which uh we've had some amazing speakers. Uh, if you were blessed last week by our our three speakers, Barb, Dave, and and Gage, would you just show them some appreciation? I know that uh the messages that they spoke, I I've been just ruminating on them all week, and it's been a blessing to me, and I hope that today would be a blessing to you as well.

Paul And Timothy In 1 Timothy

Angus MacLeod 6:24

The first scripture that we're gonna jump off here with is in 1 Timothy 1, 5. It says, The aim of our charge is love that issues from a pure heart, a good conscience, and sincere faith. See, these messages, this message that we're we're talking about today, we are in the uh we are in 1 Timothy uh chapter 1, and we'll be covering uh we'll be covering that chapter. Who was Timothy? In uh early on in the uh the scriptures it says, to my son, in this, to my son, my true child in the faith. See, Timothy wasn't related to Paul, but he was so close to Paul that he was like a son. And what that shows us is that just because you may not have a physical son or daughter, it does not mean that you cannot play that role of mentor and father or mother in somebody's life. And so I want to encourage you, if you as a believer don't have somebody that you're pouring into, find somebody just a few steps behind you and begin to pour into them. It was because of this relationship that Paul had with Timothy that the church of Ephesus was blessed in the way it was. And so today we're gonna be talking about the city of Ephesus. That's where uh that's where Timothy was. And it was it was an incredible city. And so Ephesus was a commercial port. It was the capital of the um, it was the capital of the east there. It was this city was so large, it was second only to Rome. And so, being that it was such a large city, there was a lot going on. It was filled with magic and uh pagan worship. There were a lot of competing philosophies, kind of like America, right? There's a lot of different competing philosophies, there's a lot of stuff that goes on. And though we are one country, within this country there are so many cities, and within those cities, you can go and you can find all kinds of different theologies, you can find all kinds of different thoughts, and that's what it was that Timothy was dealing with. See, Paul left him there as he traveled on to Macedonia. So here we see how far it was. It was about 865 miles away by land and sea. So when we talk about letters, again, it it would take about 40 days for that letter to reach back and forth. So think about this. Timothy, he was he was a young guy. Later in in the other books, it talks about how young he was. He was probably in his late teens, early 20s. So could you imagine if you're walking along with your mentor and he says, Okay, you stay here, I'm gonna keep going, but I want you to build the church. Oh, yeah, by the way, uh, if you have any questions, I'll be able to get back to you in about 40 days. So when when Timothy is uh is working on building this church, when he had a question, he couldn't just call and say, Pastor Jay, here's what's going on, man. This went wrong and this is going. He had to write a letter, he had to give it to somebody, and then it had to travel 40 days, and if it got there, then he had to wait for Paul to read the letter, give it to somebody else, have it come back. So we're talking 80 days potentially, and that's that's a minimum of 80 days. We're not talking about robbers on the road or storms at sea or any of that stuff. So if you had a problem, you had 80 days until you got advice on your solution. How many of you have a have a something going on right now that you can afford to wait 80 days for the solution? Or wait 80

Ephesus And The Cost Of Distance

Angus MacLeod 10:31

days for the answer. See, I uh we recently went to San Diego and um we were at Old Town San Diego, and I'm now the guy who doesn't just look at the exhibits when you go to a uh when you go into a museum, you you look at all the pretty stuff. I'm the one who stands there and reads the things. And one thing that just really struck me about that was uh when we're in there looking at the Wells Fargo wagon, it used to take, and I looked it up, from San Diego to Los Angeles, it takes about two and a half hours. In those days, it took 30 hours to get there. You would leave at five in the morning and you wouldn't get there until 30 hours later. Just the imagining how how easily we travel, how easily we communicate really puts this into perspective. And that's what I'm trying to help us see is that where Timothy was was in a place where he was all by himself. He didn't have the answers at his fingertips. And he had a lot that he was facing. He had magicians and false teachers and and all of these things. It was a beautiful, huge city. Here's a this is a picture of a reconstruction of what it might have looked like. But it was the capital of Asia Minor. It was a place where Paul had ministered for about three years. So he started the church and then he handed it right over to Timothy and said, Okay, now you take the reins, bud. It was really, it was a diverse place, um, and there were a lot of influences. And how many of you know, as believers here, just that you may come to church on Sunday, but throughout the week you hear teachings that come counter to what it is that you've heard here in the building. Same thing was happening there, except they they did were doing church completely different. One of the other aspects was there was the Temple of Artemis. This temple was one of the seven wonders of the world. It was a place where people came from all over the world to see this temple. And so as a result, there was incredible mixture. There was all kinds of pagan activity and things that were going on. And so imagine being a house church, a small church where you're just talking to a small number of people, but this is what's going on in the background. People are coming from all over the world to preach and teach things that are completely contrary to what it is that you are teaching. You see, 1 Timothy, 2 Timothy, and Titus are what we call pastoral epistles. What's important about these letters is these were letters that within the other epistles, they they had more personal nature and there was direct advice and things like that. But these pastoral epistles were specifically for the church. They were specifically meant to help uh Timothy as he was establishing the church so that they knew what it was supposed to look like. And the reason that's important to us is as we re as we read those those books, 1st and 2 Timothy and Titus, those should be markers for us today. You see, if if you go to a church and you see things that are outside of the alignment of what you find in those books, you should probably evaluate the church that you're at. Now, and that's that's not um because we want to badmouth any other churches or anything like that, but see these letters to Timothy were saying, here's what your church, here's what the church should look like. Because in 1 Timothy 1:3 it says, Remain at Ephesus so that you may charge certain persons not to teach any different doctrine, nor devote themselves to myths and endless genealogies, which promote speculation rather than stewardship. See, this was a charge to Timothy, because that's what was going on. Even within the church, there there were people who were spreading uh rumors and myths and lies. They they were they were engaging in speculative discussions, discussions that really had nothing to do with the mission of Christ. How often do we end up in discussions where we want to debate or somebody comes to us with a question that's really not a question? They ask you a question about your faith, but it's it's not meant for them to receive an answer. It's meant as a diving board for them to jump off into an argument with you, to challenge what it is that you believe. Well, there was a lot of that going on. There was a lot of talk that went absolutely nowhere. Verse 6 and 7 says this certain persons, by swerving from these, have wandered away into vain discussion, desiring to be teachers of the law without understanding either what they are saying or the things about which they make confident assertions. What was going on in these churches is people who were claiming to

False Teaching Myths And Speculation

Angus MacLeod 15:50

be leaders, who were claiming to be believers, they they claimed to have access to secret knowledge and higher knowledge. If your church is one that says that you have to attain a certain level in order to be able to learn this, again, you should evaluate the church that you're at. Here, we don't have secret knowledge. Everything that the Lord tells us, we tell you. We don't hide anything from you until you attain a certain, until you've gotten to a certain point where we know you can keep our secrets because there aren't secrets. The knowledge that we have, the knowledge that we share, is meant to be given to you at the base level, so that you can go and then share it with your uh with your world. They viewed the world as uh they viewed the physical world as inferior and evil. There was an emphasis on spiritual elitism, meaning that if if you had attained some of that secret knowledge, if you had gotten to a certain level, you were somehow better than everybody. See, again, that's why we use that picture of the apostles walking with Jesus or the disciples walking with Jesus. There wasn't a segregation. He didn't have it separated out by who was closest to him in who who had attained a certain level. They all walked together as a group, and that's how we should be doing it as well. Timothy uh 1-5. The aim of our charge is love that issues from a pure heart and a good conscience and sincere faith. See, the charge to Timothy was this to confront those false teachers, to protect the church from error, and to promote sound teaching. He was called to lead the church in a way that produces love from a pure heart, a good conscience, and a sincere faith. What we have to understand is that because of the way the early church was set up, we are all teachers. It doesn't matter where you are, we are all teachers. As a believer, you are a teacher. Now that doesn't mean that you have to know all of the Bible. You don't have to know everything when you come to Christ. You don't have to know it all, you don't have to be clean, and that's one thing that Gage uh spoke on last week. That you don't have to get cleaned up, you don't have to get sin in control, you don't have to learn the whole Bible before you become a Christian. You become a Christian, you accept Christ, and the rest of it comes. But you do have to understand that as you are a Christian, people are watching you. The people around you see you, and so you are a teacher. Whether you're speaking scripture to them or not, you're speaking to them through your actions, through your attitudes, through your behaviors. See, who

Choose Teachers Wisely Alaskan Wood

Angus MacLeod 18:53

you choose as a teacher is important. Now, um, if when my wife worked at independence, um, there was a group of gullible, gullible students, and I would often exploit that fact. Um, there was one day we were we were getting ready to do a fall show. I had just gone to Home Depot and I got this wood, and because it my my van door wouldn't shut all the way, I get back to the uh back to the school, and as we're unloading, this uh this freshman comes up and he's unloading and he goes, Angus, this wood is really cold. I said, Well, that's because it's Alaskan wood, and I walked away. And what I found is it's kind of like fishing. If they ask, what? I've got them on the hook. Now I just have to reel them in. And so he goes, Alaskan wood? I said, Yeah. Well, you see, when you cut down a tree, it retains the temperature of the climate it was cut down in. So because it was cut down in Alaska, the wood is cold. And so we, being here in Arizona, when we cut our wood down, our wood is hot. And so we have a free trade agreement with Alaska. So what we do is we cut down our trees and we send our wood there, they send their wood here, and what it does is it makes our homes naturally cooler and it makes their homes naturally warmer. He swallowed it hook, line, and sinker. Now, that's one of many stories, and eventually the students caught on that once I told them something that sounded a bit ridiculous, they would go ask my wife, hey, Angus told me this, and she said, Who told you? So fast forward to a few years later, this kid's now a senior. We're unloading for the spring musical, and the wood isn't cold. So as he's unloading, he he pulls it out and he goes, Angus, you didn't you didn't buy Alaskan wood this time? I said, Dude, what are you talking about? He goes, Don't you remember you told me that when when we get wood, we get it from Alaska because it's colder, it makes our homes cooler and all this? I said, Are you kidding me? Dude, I was just messing with you. He stopped and he stood there. He he he he dropped the wood and he said, Do you have any idea how many people I have told about Alaskan wood? It was so funny. It was, and I said, Man, I'm sorry, I didn't realize that you actually believed me. I thought it was so ridiculous that nobody on earth would have believed that, especially for three years. But see, that's That's why we have to choose our teachers wisely. Because the information that you get could be misleading. You see, here when when you come to church, when you come to any church, the pastors they do preparation, we study, we we dive into God's word, we we research and all of that, and then we give you the truths that we have come across. But that doesn't mean that you shouldn't do some fact-checking, that you shouldn't do your own work, because that's what makes it so that you own your faith. Because it's when you hear what it's when you hear that teaching, you go, oh, that's interesting, and then you delve into it. See, we know as pastors that we will be held accountable for the things that we speak and we say, and so we take that very seriously here. I take it very seriously. That's why I've never taught you guys about Alaskan wood or the viscosity of light, which is an entirely different story that I tell you at a separate time. But choose your teachers wisely. And so for Timothy to be left with in such a big city by himself with such with such a small church, it had to be left with somebody who could be counted on. And that was who Timothy was. Paul had poured into him, Paul had taught him, and Paul believed in his heart so much that Timothy could do what it was that he was being called to do that he left them there. You see, not only do the teachers that you choose matter, but what they say matters. Sound doctrine is what matters. Because sound doctrine is what changes lives. We can I can get up here and and we can spl spit platitudes at you all day. We can say things that are just encouraging and make you feel good for the day and give you energy to go through the day, but that doesn't necessarily mean that your life has been changed. It means that you're encouraged. Now we we hope that the preaching that comes to you would be encouraging, but more than encouragement, what we want to see here is life change. And so that's why we believe in preaching sound doctrine. But that's also why you have to check on it to make sure that that doctrine that is coming forward is sound. Do your own research,

Sound Doctrine And A Good Conscience

Angus MacLeod 24:49

do your own checking on it. In this charge, it's also uh Timothy is also charged to maintain a good conscience. Conscience is that inner moral awareness. A good conscience concerns how you live. So if you come here on Sunday, people know you are coming to church, but you live a life void of conscience. What are you teaching? What is it that you are showing others? Because you may end up with somebody who has absolutely zero idea of the importance of the gospel, what it means to be a Christ follower, and you may very well be the only example that they ever see. And so we as believers need to maintain a good conscience. We need to be honest before God. We need to be sensitive to sin, which means that we need to recognize it in our own lives. And it's never that God condemns us with that, but he makes us aware of our own sins so that he can deal with it. It's because as we deal with those sins, we live a life changed, and as we live that life changed, the people around us have good teachers in their lives. We also need to be quick to repent when we recognize those sins. These things are consistent with the truth of the gospel. Timothy 1 9 says this. Understand this, that the law is not laid down for the just, but for the lawless and disobedient, for the ungodly and for the sinners, the unholy and profane, for those who strike their fathers, mothers, for murderers. See, this actually this scripture actually kind of made me think about the speed limit. You see, the speed limit isn't necessarily it's posted there for everybody, but everybody doesn't necessarily need to know what the speed limit is. There was one day I was coming home from Costco and I was in a hurry to get home, and the person in front of me was going the speed limit. I thought about passing them until I noticed the cornerstone sticker on the back of their car. And so my kids were in the car, so they can attest to this. So I got up, I followed it a good distance, and I was like, hmm, I wonder who that is. The car looked like it belonged to the Brown family. So I thought I definitely should not pass and cut this person off. So as we got to the place where I was turning, I got into the turn lane, and the person was right next to me. It was Pastor Celeste. And so the law is there for everybody. But for the people who obey the law, it's it's more just like the signposting. You just pass by it and you go, Oh, yeah, I know that. I don't do this because I know it's wrong. It's because of that conscience that God put in us. Those speed limit signs are put there for people like me who like to go fast, who need a reminder to slow down. And that's what the Bible is. The Bible is there to instruct us, to to um to speak to us so that we know how to live. And some people they just live it naturally. It's it's not hard for them to follow some of the things in the Bible. For me, I need it, just like the speed limit signs. Because we all need that guidance.

The Law As A Loving Guardrail

Angus MacLeod 28:39

But one of the most important parts of this chapter, what really stands out is that no one is too far from God. You see, we have to remember who Paul was. The one who wrote this letter to Timothy, he did not start off as the father of the church. He did not start off as a person worthy and qualified to write a good portion of the New Testament. See, he was far from God. In fact, it says this in Timothy 1:13 through 14: Though formerly I was a blasphemer, persecutor, an insolent opponent, but I received mercy because I had acted ignorantly in unbelief. And the grace of our Lord overflowed for me with the faith and love that are in Jesus Christ. The saying is trustworthy and deserving of full acceptance that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners of whom I am the foremost. Paul fully acknowledges that he was not the guy who should have been writing it. He was not worthy of it. In fact, if if we today were to look at him before his conversion, we would say he's disqualified. That he sh has no room to talk. But it continues on there in 16, and it says, but I received mercy for this reason, that in me, as the foremost, Jesus Christ might display his perfect patience as an example to those who were to believe in him for eternal life. See, Jesus came into the world and his mission was to save sinners. And Paul presents himself as an ex as an example of God's mercy. He fully acknowledges that I shouldn't have been the one, I shouldn't have been the guy. Paul shouldn't have been the one leaving Timothy there. But because of what Christ had done in his life, that's what had qualified him and got him to the place where Timothy could be where he was. He also calls Timothy to fight the good fight. And that's what we are all called to do is fight the good fight. I know a lot of us like to fight, a lot of us like to argue, but that's not what God is talking about here. That's not what Paul is telling Timothy. He wasn't calling him to fight people with weapons, but to engage in spiritual struggle for the truth. And so what we have to do is we we fight our natural urges. We fight those things that we would want to do, and we do what we're supposed to do. Timothy 19, 19 and 20 says, Holding faith and good conscience by rejecting this, some have made shipwreck of their faith, among whom are

No One Is Too Far Gone

Angus MacLeod 31:59

Hymenius and Alexander, whom I've handed over to Satan that they may learn not to blaspheme. This is kind of where he ends his letter. And it doesn't sound very Christian to turn someone over to Satan. And so I had to kind of look into it. Now these two two men we we hear about in other chapters of the and verse books of the Bible. But basically, they were people who had come into the church and they were claiming to be part of the church, yet they did everything that they could to not align with the church. And so there are people like that in churches all over the world today that they come and their goal and their aim is not to come and receive Christ and become better people, it's to stir the pot. And so while we want everybody to come in, even Paul here says, look, at a certain point, if if you want to just come and make trouble, then we're gonna release you to your bad self. And that's basically what he did with these people is he just said, you know what, it's time to release them and let them go. But see, for those of us who come who want to be better, who want to grow in Christ and become different people, what we have to understand is that our testimony is our weapon. Your testimony is your weapon. We don't have to fight physically, we're not called to argue, but we're called to use our testimony to speak into the lives of other people. Those things that that we consider disqualifications are usually the things that are qualified that qualify us exactly for what God's called us to do. We can beat ourselves up, and I've I've talked to so many people and I've counseled so many people who just because of the things going on in their life, they say, I can't possibly do this, and I I'm such a bad this and and and all of that. The reality is, is the Lord sees it. He knows what's wrong with us, but he doesn't leave us there. He wants He wants to clean us up, He wants to fix us, and then those parts of us that were broken, He doesn't want us to be proud of our past, that past brokenness. He wants us to be proud of the fact that we turned that brokenness over to Him, allowed Him to fix it, and now we can use that to minister to others. Amen. Last week I was sharing with our youth about their testimonies, and the reality is, is sometimes your testimony is what preaches the gospel louder than anything. A few weeks ago, my best friend died. And uh we we had his his services this week, and they they opened up the stage for people to come and and share stories. And so when I got up, I started to share stories of all of the stupid things we used to do. And the adults in our lives were there, and they were gasping at all of the things that we had been doing right under their noses that they had no idea. As we're sharing these things, they're they're laughing at just the the sh the magnitude of our idiocy. And what was so neat was afterwards, as we continued to share stories and talk and all of that, and we caught up, and they asked me, So what do you do? I said, I'm the family pastor at my church, it was incredible because so many of these people knew me before. They knew the stuff, some of them knew the stuff we were getting into. We shared some of the stuff that we got into, but who I was is not who I am, and who

Your Testimony Is Your Weapon

Angus MacLeod 36:18

I am is not because of me. Who I am is because of what God has done in me, what I've allowed him to do, what I've partnered with him to do. And so my testimony is the fact that I'm not that stupid kid anymore. I don't make those same dumb decisions, not that I don't make any dumb decisions, but I don't make those same dumb decisions. But just the fact that this is who I was, this was the behavior that I had, because at his at his funeral there was not a lot of talk of God, but just me being me, sharing who I am now, that spoke so much louder than a message could to some of these people because they see somebody who's different, somebody who's changed, and that doesn't just happen. You can try, you can try through self-help and and and all of those things to become that different person and defeat those uh those things in your life, but really it's that partnership with Jesus that forms your testimony and will minister and speak so loudly to those. Because those people that I knew, some of them they're still in the same dark situations, they're still repeating the same patterns that they have been since I knew them in high school. And so their lives don't look a whole lot more, they don't look a lot different than they used to. But I look a lot different, and I praise God for that. And so I'm gonna ask our worship team if you would come. Perhaps you're in that place where you're still making those decisions that you know aren't necessarily the right decisions. Maybe you're still engaging in some behavior that you know you probably shouldn't, but you also know you don't know how to stop, you

Invitation To Embrace Jesus

Angus MacLeod 38:29

don't know how to change. And to that, I have one question have you embraced Jesus? See, because when I finally answered that question in my life and recognized that I hadn't embraced Jesus, and when I finally did, he came into my life and he began to slowly over time, it was slowly because of me and my thick head, by the way. But over time, he changed me into the person that I am now. And when I look back to those days in high school and I see all of the growth that happened, I can't wait to see what I look when I look back 20 years from now to this moment, how much I will look even better. What a better person I will be 20 years from now, and how much more powerful my testimony will be. So I'm gonna ask you if you would stand with me. You see, we look to the cross as a symbol of hope. It's because of this cross that was meant to intimidate, it was meant to terrify, it was meant to get people to do what the Romans wanted them to do because they were scared. What the symbol of the cross now means is you don't have to be the same person. Because Jesus went to the cross, he took all of those decisions, he took all of those choices, he took all of your sin, and he paid for it with his life on the cross, so that you could have a different life, so that the people around you could be exposed to what a different life looks like. It says it like this in Romans 10, verses 9 and 10. Because if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For with the heart one believes and is justified, and with the mouth one confesses and is saved. If you're here today and you recognize that you need Jesus in your life, that you need your story to change, I'm going to ask with all heads bowed and all eyes closed that if that's you today, that you need Jesus to come in, forgive you of your sins, speak to you about where you are, and take your life in a different direction. I ask that you would just put your hand up so that I can see who we're praying with and for, and then you can put it down. I see that hand. See that hand. Thank you, Lord. Thank you. And so I'm going to ask if everybody would pray this prayer with me. Lord, thank you for loving me. Thank you for sending Jesus. I believe Jesus died on the cross for my sins. I believe he rose again. Forgive me of my sins. I surrender my life to you. In Christ's name. Amen. Amen. To those of you who prayed that prayer for the first time, congratulations. Today is the first day on a brand new path for the rest of your life. And I am so excited to walk this life with you, as are the rest of us here. And we can't wait to see what your life looks like five years from now, ten years from now, as we look back and see what a changed life is. But for the rest of us, and for all of us, as we go into this time of altar, I want to invite you to come and examine yourself and your relationship with Jesus. Are you engaging in idle talk? Or are you proclaiming the gospel like Timothy was called to do? Not in a way that's argumentative, but in a way that builds up and edifies the people around you. Maybe you just need a little bit more of God's presence in your life. Whatever the reason, this altar is here for you to come and get closer to Jesus. Nobody has any idea what your motivations are for being up here. All that they know is that you want more of him. And so as we all as we open this altar, I invite you all to come and just receive more of Jesus. Let him speak to you where you are. Let him show you where it is that you are going. Father, I thank you so much for this time that we've had today. Lord, I thank you that you are doing things in each and every one of our hearts and stories. And Lord, I just pray that as we come to this altar, that we would lay down the cares and troubles of this world, we would pick up the confidences of Christ. Lord, we declare victories where we currently are waging war. And so, Lord, I just ask that as your people come, that you would meet every need in the mighty name that is Jesus

Youth Welcome Night And Final Blessing

Angus MacLeod 44:39

Christ. Amen.

Annie MacLeod 44:41

We're going to ask you to stand for the blessing, testimony. Good, bad, whatever you're going through. God has something for your testimony. He wants you to speak it, he wants you to tell others, and that's why the enemy tries to stop us because it's so powerful. If you have a child who just finished fifth grade, like one male finished fifth grade and about the sixth grade, we are doing a welcome to youth tonight. It is a hard step to go from children's church on up to youth. And so we are welcoming on a little party, some worship, a little bit of speaking, food. Yes. It starts at 5 30. And if you don't know what's going on, you have a fifth grader, come talk to Angus or I. We will be more than willing to help you figure out what's happening. We just cannot wait to get their wonderful, wonderful little booties in the seats.

Angus MacLeod 45:33

For all of those people that she's talking about, the parents of fifth graders, there should be an email inviting you to the group communication so that you can get those kinds of communication. But before we go, I want to just pray this prayer over us. The Lord bless you and keep you. The Lord make his face to shine upon you and be gracious to you. The Lord lift up his countenance upon you and give you peace. Lord, we pray this prayer over your church, your people, that as we go forward we would be people of the Spirit. We pray these things in the mighty name that is Jesus Christ. Amen. Thank you so much for joining us today. We love you here at Cornerstone. Have a great week.