Guarding The Good Life: The Good Life (Week 3)

This Sunday, Associate Pastor Tony Scialabba teaches that we must guard our hearts and our church against false teaching by holding firmly to God’s Word and trusting Jesus alone for our salvation rather than adding human rules or traditions. We learn that when we stay rooted in Scripture, remain connected to the local church, and help one another discern truth from error, we are protected from deception and grow in the freedom Christ gives us.

PDF Resources: ( Sermon Notes )

Transcript

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Thank you, James. Good morning, everybody. It is so good to be with you on this beautiful summer morning. We have to take every summer day and appreciate it, right? I want to be honest with you. Can I be real with you? This morning in the first service at 8 o'clock, as I was going through this message, I think I might have been minimizing the impact that this has on all of us. And I sensed in prayer after the service that this weighty subject of false teaching has a broad reach, even here and among all of you. And so I want to just start off this morning by going to the Lord in prayer. I think there's spiritual forces at work that I can't really explain, but I think that this is a word that the enemy does not want you to hear. So let's go to the Lord in prayer and ask for him to be glorified in this time. God, we thank you that we can come together and worship under the authority of your word, because it's from there that we get all of words of life and hope and peace. And as we delve into this topic of false teaching, there can be a lot of turmoil, a lot of confusion, and a lot of threat against that peace that you give us. So I pray, God, as we dive into your word this morning in Titus, would you teach us, would you help us, and would you help us to dive deeper into the anchor that Sarah talked about? The anchor that is Jesus. And we pray all these things in Jesus' name. Amen. So I lived in Indonesia for many years. A lot of you know that. One of the things about Indonesia is that it is a beautiful country. And part of its beauty is the oceans of Indonesia, the beaches, the crystal clear waters, the marine life, the coral, the species of fish. It is quite a sight to see. If you've never been able to go snorkeling and see that kind of biodiversity, it'll blow your mind, and it often did for us. And our family love to enjoy the ocean. We would go out snorkeling. I enjoy diving. My 10-year-old daughter, or my 12-year-old daughter, got certified at 10. And so we just love being in the water and enjoying God's creation through the ocean. One day, several years ago, when my daughters were very young, we decided to go out on a snorkel trip on a boat. And on that trip, it was a beautiful day. I mean, the sun was perfectly shining in the sky. The water was, the visibility was crystal clear. The temperature of the water was just right. And the coral that we got to see was just amazing. The diversity of color and shapes and uh the the fish, and there were so many of those fish around us. It was beautiful. And my daughter, who was little at the time, was learning about swimming and being in the water. So she had her floaties on and goggles. She wasn't ready for the mask yet, but she had the goggles. And what she would do is she would dip her head in the water, look at all the coral, take a deep breath, and then come out and get another breath, go back under, take a look. I could hear her say, you know, uh under the water. She was loving it. I was loving, watching her love it. It was a great time. And as we were doing that, I began to feel something start to shift. The current began to pick up. And this often happens in that part of the world. Uh I even I think Rick recently talked about a time where he was swept away by the current there in Indonesia. But this time it started off slow, started to feel that drift, and then it started to pick up. So my daughter, who's right by me, we're a little ways away from the boat. I grab her by the hand and I start to swim with her back towards the boat. And everything about the what we were seeing was the same. The coral was still beautiful, the sun was still shining, the water was still crystal clear, but that shift began to move us. And so as it got stronger, there were parts of the of the swim where I could grab onto coral to pull us together and wait a few seconds, get the strength, and then go again. Eventually, I put my daughter on my back because I couldn't just continue to hold her and try to pull with one hand. So I put her on my back. I did full strokes to fight against the current. And it was a little bit terrifying. Eventually we got back to the boat and uh we were able to get in. I was exhausted, caught my breath, and was so relieved. Here's what stands out to me about that experience. The danger wasn't obvious at first. Everything still looked good and peaceful. It felt like the same water that we've been enjoying, but there was a current beneath the surface that, if we ignored it, could have carried us somewhere that we didn't want to go. And I think that gives us a helpful picture of this section that we're reading today in Titus 1. Paul is writing to Titus about churches surrounded by dangerous spiritual currents. These teachers did not necessarily look dangerous at first. They sounded religious. They used spiritual language and claimed to know God. But Paul says that there was a current underneath their teaching that was pulling people away from the good life God intended for his church. That's why Titus had to appoint faithful leaders. The church does not drift into health on its own, it has to be guarded. And while this certainly applies to elders, the whole church needs discernment. Because false teaching never announces itself as false. It doesn't walk in and say, I'm here to deceive you. Instead, it often sounds helpful or wise, sometimes morally serious or even spiritually impressive. But when a spiritual current is pulling people away from Christ and harming the church, it cannot be ignored. And that is what Paul wants Titus and the church to understand. Here's what it is: the good life God intends for his people must be guarded from teaching that sounds spiritual, but damages people, distorts truth, and denies God. So as we walk through Titus 1, verses 10 through 16, Paul shows us why the church must guard the good life God intends for his people. And there's three ways, or three, three reasons. Because false teaching damages people, it must be stopped. Because false ideas distort truth, they must be corrected. And because empty profession denies God, it must be exposed. So let's read Titus chapter 1, verses 10 through 16 together. For there are many who are insubordinate, empty talkers, and deceivers, especially those of the circumcision party. They must be silenced, since they are upsetting whole families by teaching for shameful gain what they ought not to teach. One of the Cretans, a prophet of their own, said, Cretans are always liars, evil beasts, lazy gluttons. This testimony is true. Therefore rebuke them sharply, that they may be sound in the faith, not devoting themselves to Jewish myths and the commands of people who turn away from the truth. To the pure all things are pure, but to the to the defiled and unbelieving, nothing is pure. But both their minds and their consciences are defiled. They profess to know God, but they deny him by their works. They are detestable, disobedient, unfit for any good work. Before we step into verse ten, we need to remember where Paul has been. Last week we saw that Titus was left in Crete to put what remained there in order, appointing elders in every church and every town. And those elders were not chosen because they were impressive or they were popular, but Paul gave Titus a list that pointed to these men to be men of godly character and who held firmly to the trustworthy word. And verse 10 begins to tell us why. Paul begins this section with the word for. In other words, Paul is saying, Titus, this right here is why the church needs qualified, faithful leaders. This is why elders must know the truth, love the truth, teach the truth, and be able to correct what contradicts it. And before we move into this first point, I want to say a quick word about our elders here at CBC. Last week you may have seen a picture of the elders at Cuyahoga Valley Church. And I am so grateful for the faithfulness of these men. Now, you don't often see them up front. Some come and teach and pray, but what they do is so vital to the health of our church. These men on the weekly are praying, meeting together, and daily they're lifting up this church. They're lifting up us as a body together as a community, and they are keeping the teaching that we preach from this pulpit and in every different area of the church, prioritizing that this is the word, this must be based off of the word of God. There are a lot of models of church out there, but I'm so thankful that we are a church at Cuyahoga Valley Church that is an elder-led model because with that plurality of leaders that Pastor Rick talked about last week, we're able to safeguard against this false teaching that Paul is talking to Titus about. So I want to encourage us again, pray for these men. Pray for their families. Pray that God would strengthen them, protect them, and help them to continue to shepherd this church well. Because we need it. And because Titus 1 reminds us that the church needs faithful leaders who will help to guard the good life. So the first reason the good life must be guarded, and that we're looking at this morning is because false teaching damages people, it must be stopped. Let's look again at verses 10 and 11. For there are many who are insubordinate, empty talkers, and deceivers, especially those of the circumcision party. They must be silenced, since they are upsetting whole families by teaching for shameful gain what they ought not to teach. Paul begins in verse 10 by saying, There are many, for there are many people. That many is important. Because what that many is indicating is that this is not a solidary case of something happening. Instead, it's it's all around the church. Paul's not telling Titus to be paranoid about everyone. He's not saying assume that everyone that you interact with in Crete is dangerous. That's not what he's saying. He's telling Titus to be watchful and to be realistic. False teaching was not a rare problem in Crete, and it wasn't a rare problem in most of the places where Paul and the disciples were, because in fact, 22 of the 27 books of the New Testament are directly addressing false teaching. This was a major issue that was happening among the churches. And this is why Titus needed to appoint qualified elders in every town. There were many dangerous voices that were trying to influence the church. And this was not an outside job, this was from within. These were people who were attending church every week. These were people who were in homes of church members in Bible study together, hearing the letters that Paul was giving, hearing them read out loud, reading from the Old Testament scriptures. These were people that were under the same leadership and teaching. And yet they were deliberately trying to take people away from the authority of Scripture. Paul describes them in three ways. He says they are insubordinate. That means that they're not submitted to proper authority. He says that they were empty talkers. What they said may have sounded impressive or spiritual, but it led others away from Christ. And then Paul says that they are deceivers. This was not just mistaken speech. They were intentionally misleading people. When you hear these three descriptions, you can begin to understand why false teachers were such a danger. Now, we also need to be careful here because false teaching is not the same as every disagreement that we might have in the church or even among churches. Faithful Christians may disagree on important but secondary issues and still have Jesus. And when I say secondary issues, I'm talking about things that matter, but they're not central to the gospel. They're not central to the truth of Jesus. The fact that he lived a perfect life, died the death that we deserve, rose from the grave, and gives us eternal life if we repent and ask for forgiveness. Instead, it's issues like styles of worship or like modes of baptism. Or maybe end times predictions. These kinds of things are not what Paul is talking about. These are not central to the gospel. These are things that are much more serious. People who resist correction, twist the truth, and deceive others. And they use spiritual influence for selfish gain. Paul says that this was coming especially from the circumcision party. In other words, these were insiders who were bringing Jewish tradition, myths, and religious legalism into the church. They were taking people's eyes off of the sufficiency of Jesus and adding requirements God had not given. And false teaching doesn't always sound rebellious. Sometimes it sounds morally serious. It says, yes, you need Jesus, but if you really want to be holy, if you really want to be accepted, if you're actually serious about your faith, you also need this rule. You need this tradition. You need this extra requirement. But the problem was not that these teachers cared too much about obedience. The problem was that they were confusing what God commands with what only Christ can give. They were confusing what God commands with only what Christ can give. That might sound confusing, so let me break that down a little bit. God's commands are good. But God's commands, the things He tells followers to do, cannot save us. The law shows us what obedience looks like, but the gospel shows us what Jesus has done. Jesus obeyed perfectly in our place. And like I said earlier, the good news of Jesus is that he was perfect, sinless, died the death that we all deserve, and then rose back from the grave, having victory over death and sin, so that anyone who believes and trusts in him will be saved. That is the gospel. That is the good news of Jesus. But false teaching confuses that intentionally. It shifts our confidence away from what Jesus has done and onto how well we perform or how much better we look compared to someone else. And that damages people. It either crushes them with guilt because they can never do enough, or it fills them with pride because as they look around, they see that they're doing better than everyone else. Either way, it pulls people away from the freedom that Christ gives us and leaves them anxious, exhausted, and trying to prove themselves. Often while the false teacher is selfishly gaining from all of it. And that helps us understand why verse 11 is so strong. Paul says, they must be silenced. Now that sounds pretty harsh. It may even sound unloving. But notice why Paul says it. Because here's the thing: false teaching does not stay theoretical, it works its way into homes, into marriages, into children, relationships, churches, and consciences. A family begins listening to a teaching that sounds spiritual, but it starts adding burdens that Jesus never gave. It starts using scripture to control instead to shepherd. It starts replacing grace with fear, and before long, that teaching is wreaking havoc on the people that it's affecting. And I know this all too personally. Many of you were here last week and you heard a little bit about my story. I grew up with an abusive stepfather, and much of that abuse was wrapped in religious language. He was a self-proclaimed pastor, and in our home, he used the name of God to heap burdens on us that we could never live up to. And then when we could not perform, we pay the price for it. By God's grace, I came out of that situation still knowing and loving Jesus. But I want to be honest, if my view of Jesus had only been shaped by the pressure and the fear that I experienced under the name of Jesus, I could have easily wanted nothing to do with him. And maybe that's you. Maybe you're someone who's been negatively impacted by false teaching that has seeped into your home. Or maybe you've been a part of a church in your past where false teaching was spoken from the pulpit and it caused problems and confusion in your life. Maybe you're stepping into church for the first time because you've had so much of this type of damage done in your life. And this is your last straw. You're saying, I'm gonna give it one more try. It impacts all of us. And it's more serious than I think we make it to be. And this is why this matters. False teaching is not just bad information, it can crush people. It can confuse people. It can make you think that Jesus is harsh, unsafe, impossible to please, or always ready to punish them. That's not the Jesus of the Bible. And that's why Paul says they must be silenced. Not because Christians enjoy confrontation, but because love cannot ignore what harms people. But stopping false teaching isn't just the end goal. The goal is not just to quiet dangerous voices, the goal is to bring people back to the truth. And that's why Paul moves from the damage being done in verses 10 and 11 to the correction that is needed in verses 12 through 14. So the second reason the good life must be guarded is this because false ideas distort truth. They must be corrected. Let's read verses 12 through 14. One of the Cretans, the prophet of their own, said, Cretans are always liars, evil beasts, lazy gluttons. This testimony is true. Therefore, rebuke them sharply, that they may be sound in the faith, not devoting themselves to Jewish myths and the commands of people who turn away from the truth. Now, you can read verse 12, and it can sound a little bit jarring at first. Paul quotes from one of the Cretans that Cretans are always liars, evil beasts, lazy gluttons. Paul's not pulling any punches here. The Cretans were a rough crowd. But we need to be clear about what Paul is not doing here. Because what he's not doing is telling Titus and giving him permission to despise the Cretans. He's not saying look down on these people because they're terrible. He's saying that there were real patterns in the surrounding culture, and those patterns were beginning to show up in the church. The Cretan culture was beginning to seep its way into the church. And the reputation of Crete was not supposed to become the character of the church. But that was the danger. The church was beginning to be shaped by the culture around it instead of being shaped by the truth of Christ. And that's still a danger for us today. Imagine if a life group leader at CVC was sitting down with parents and they were sharing about the pressure that they were putting on their kids to perform in school or in sports. And instead of helping these parents view that pressure through the lens of scripture, they encouraged it. They said, that's what good parents do. Your kids need to get ahead. Their success should be your priority over everything else. That is what happens when the culture's values supersede the truth of Jesus. A cultural value becomes dangerous when it starts functioning like biblical truth. And that is why Paul says in verse 13, therefore rebuke them sharply. If you think that sounds aggressive, look at the goal. The goal is not so that they just get heaped on and that they're out of our sight. But the goal is that they would be sound in the faith. And that word sound carries the idea of health. So biblical correction is not cruelty, biblical correction is care. We can't control how someone's going to respond to correction, but we are responsible to love people enough to bring what is false back under the truth of God's word. Now look at verse 14. Paul says they were devoting themselves to Jewish myths and the commands of people who turn away from the truth. So these people were giving themselves to Jewish speculation, religious speculation instead of the Word of God. And that still happens. People can be fascinated with hidden meetings, conspiracy theories, end times predictions on how things are gonna go down. Is anyone excited about revelation? Or spiritual sounding ideas that go far beyond what scripture tells. It may feel deep, but it moves us away from the clear truth of God's word. It is not depth. Those things that are hidden truths that come up in our social media feeds and the prevailing theories of the day, conspiracy theories, those things are not depth, but they're distortion. And they were treating human commands like divine commands. They were making preferences, requirements, traditions a test of faithfulness, personal convictions the standard for everyone else. Pointing to the doing and not to the one who did it all. And when that happens, the issue is authority. Who gets to define what faithfulness requires? And Paul's answer to Titus here it's not myths, it's not speculation, it's not cultural values or human commands, it's the trustworthy word of God. If you remember last week, Pastor Rick talked about being under the authority of Scripture. That's what Paul is telling Titus to make sure and prioritize in these brand new churches with these brand new elders, make sure that they're looking to the word, not to what's happening around in the culture, not what's happening in the latest trend of the day of theories. But look to the word. And remember, at this time they didn't have the full Old and New Testament together. They had some scriptures from the Old Testament, I'm sure they could read from, and they had these letters. And so these letters would be read, people would hear, and Paul is telling Titus that is what we need to look to. One way this has become real to me is through the way that we prepare sermons here at CVC. When someone preaches on Sunday, that sermon is not prepared in isolation. Weeks before a message is preached, our preaching team is reading the text, we're studying the passage, we're praying, and we're asking, is this faithful to Scripture? Is this speaking to the heart of the passage? And is this edifying to the body? Then we meet together, we read the text, we pray and talk through the message. And I've been so helped by this process. I'm still a new preacher, and I need that kind of input. But the thing that amazes me most is that it's not just for me, it's also our seasoned veteran preachers. People like Pastor Rick Duncan and Pastor Joe Villenei. They're willing to submit their outline, their wording, the direction of their sermons to scripture and to the wisdom of other leaders. We don't do that because we think that we're above error. On the contrary, we do that because we know we're not. We want the word of God, not the personality of the preacher, to lead the church. Amen? This is why correction matters. Correction brings us back to what God has actually said. I was in a group at Frontlines with a group of high school students, and some of the comments that were being made were I just, I'm looking for the answers. I'm still trying to figure out what the answers that I'm looking for. And my encouragement to them, and my encouragement to you, is we often say that, but we're rarely going to the source. We like to listen to commentary. We like to listen to a podcast or someone who is an expert and explaining about what the Bible says and we're not actually reading it for ourselves. How active are you in your home opening the word or firing up your app? How active are you putting the word of God into your thinking and perspective? Are you aligning your day according to what God's Word says? Maybe it means it's time to get up a little bit earlier. Maybe it means you need to get a place in your house where you can sit down and you can read. It can mean a lot of things to a lot of people. But the point is, are we consuming the word of God or are we just consuming commentary? And that's a part of how God guards his people. Not by making us suspicious of everything, but by making us humble enough to be corrected by truth. Now, in your sermon notes, if you have the paper copy, on the back of that is the guide that we got about a year ago from Pastor Rick Duncan. It is a checklist for evaluating Christian teachers and teaching. And I thought it would be helpful for us to bring that back as we talk about false teaching. It's meant to help us bring every teacher and every teaching back under the authority of God's Word. And so you have it there. You can also go to cbconline.org slash connect. It'll be there for you also. I'd encourage you to download it, keep it by. And if you hear something online or in a conversation and you think, that didn't sound all right to me. Use that as a guide. It's very helpful. Because false ideas distort truth, they must be corrected. But Paul doesn't stop with the damage being done or the ideas being spread. In verses 15 and 16, he presses beneath the teaching itself and exposes the contradiction at the heart of these false teachers. They claim to know God, but their lives told a different story. And that brings us to the third reason: the good life must be guarded. Because empty profession denies God, it must be exposed. Let's read verses 15 and 16. To the pure, all things are pure, but to the defiled and unbelieving, nothing is pure. But both their minds and their conscience are defiled. They profess to know God, but they deny him by their works. They are detestable, disobedient, unfit for any good work. So verse 15 has this sentence. It says, To the pure all things are pure, but to the defiled and unbelieving, nothing is pure. And at first that might sound a little bit confusing. Paul's not saying that if your heart is pure, then whatever you do is fine. You could do whatever you want. Sin does not become okay just because someone has good motives. Paul is dealing with people who were focused on external religion. Remember back in verse 14, it said that they were devoted to myths and human commands. False teachers were teaching that the things that we do on the outside was the real problem. Things like food, traditions, and rules. In their minds, holiness meant adding rules God had not given. But Paul says the real problem was their hearts. If someone's been made clean by Jesus, then the things that they are on the outside isn't dirty. They can be received and enjoyed in the way God intended. And that's what Jesus says. He says, it's not what goes into a man that defiles him, but it's what comes out of the heart. And the thing about false teachers is they're never focused on the heart. They're never focused on aligning the heart with God's standard. Instead, they're focused on what is it that you need to do today? What is it that you need to sacrifice in works in order to accomplish holiness? It's about accomplishment. It's not about receiving it from Jesus through the Holy Spirit. I lived in a Muslim country for many years in Indonesia, and I got to see that lived out day after day, where people were doing a lot more than I was. They were praying five times a day, going to the mosque. They were fasting 30 days during the fasting month of Ramadan. They were doing and doing and doing to the point of exhaustion. There were times when during Ramadan, Muslims often will stay up into the wee hours of the morning reciting verses from the Quran. The focus of a false religion is the works that those who follow it are doing. It's not about the loving God of the Bible who says it's not by works that you're saved, but it's by grace through faith. And so these false teachers are doing the exact same thing. They're saying it's not about what is happening on the inside. Instead, it's it's Jesus plus this thing. It's Jesus, yes, Jesus is good, but also are you doing this thing? Because this is really what a holy person looks like and does. Putting on burdens that we were never meant to carry. The law shows us that we can't live up to the standard that God gives us. And these people who were in the church in Crete were saying, these laws are the things that we need to continue doing. So, yes, Jesus, but also the law. However, they're using holy words to cover up an unholy heart. Paul gives the clearest test to this in verse 16. They profess to know God, but they deny him by their works. So even though they're focused on works, it's their works that show that they are far from God. They claim to know God, but their works deny him. They talk about good works, but Paul says that they were unfit for any good work. So how do you recognize false teaching when it sounds spiritual? You don't only ask, does this person use Christian language, you ask, does their life match the claim, the truth claim that they're making? And this is harder in our day because much of the teaching that comes out is through a screen. A teacher can sound convincing in a short clip. They can look polished on a platform, they can say true things in a sermon or a podcast, but a polished platform is not the same thing as a proven life. We need to ask: does this person's life match the truth that they claim to teach through their platforms? Because what are we seeing on the daily? We see these teachers, these leaders, these pastors who say with their words one thing, and yet their life is marred with sin and adultery and greed. With looking to themselves in their own desires instead of looking to Christ in humility. And this is why the local church matters so much. An online teacher may be able to teach you, but they can't shepherd you. They don't know your life, they don't know your family, your struggles, or your soul. And you in turn don't know theirs. God guards his people through qualified leaders who know the word, love the sheep, and have the courage to confront what is harmful. And the community that God has given you right here is by God's design the way that we all grow in our faith, the way that we all learn and align what we know to be true according to what God's Word says. We do it together and we do it with each other. And we look to our leaders to help us do that. Because when someone claims to know God but denies him by their works, it can't be ignored. So a false teaching needs to be stopped, corrected, and exposed. How do we respond when we hear teaching that sounds spiritual but seems off? What are we to do if this happens to us? You hear it and you're like, uh, I'm not sure about that. Well, I've got four ways that you can determine if something sounds, if something is spiritual or just sounds spiritual. The first, test it by the word. Don't judge only by the confidence or emotion or how spiritual it sounds. Ask, does this line up with God's word? Does it agree with the gospel? Does it make Jesus sufficient or does it add something to him? Because the equation that we live by is Jesus plus nothing equals everything. Not Jesus plus plus plus. It's Jesus and nothing. So test it by the word. Second, get clear on what is wrong. Is this a secondary issue like I talked about earlier, where faithful Christians might disagree? Or is it actually distorting the truth? Is it damaging people or denying what God has said? We need to be careful because a careless concern can easily become gossip. So it's not about carelessness in addressing these things. But a clear concern can become a way to protect people. So get clear on what is wrong. Third, bring it to the right people. If it's a personal concern, go humbly and directly where you can. If it's public, harmful, or connected to a teacher or a leader, bring it to trusted elders or pastors. Do not spread it in the shadows, bring it into the light in the right way. And we welcome that here at CVC. If you ever hear one of the leaders here, one of the pastors here say anything that might be contrary to Scripture, it is your duty, it is your responsibility as someone who is a part of this faith community to make those things known. Third, bring it to the right people. If it's a personal concern, go humbly and directly. Oh, I already did that. Sorry. Finally, finally, correct it with truth. The answer to false teaching is not outrage, the answer is the trustworthy word of God. We correct what is false by bringing people back to what God has actually said. And when the error is persistent, public, and harmful, it must be exposed. The goal is truth, protection, repentance, and the health of the church. That's what's at stake. So test it by the word, get clear on what is wrong, bring it to the right people, and correct it with truth. Because empty profession denies God, it must be exposed. And yes, this should have us examining ourselves too. None of us wants to be the person whose mouth claims Christ while our life resists him. But the main call of this passion is clear. The good life God intends for his people is guarded by the truth of God's word, the transforming work of his spirit, and live lived lives that actually reflect the God that we profess to know. And this takes us back to where I began. When my daughter was in the water and the danger was not obvious at first, the water still looked beautiful, the sun was still shining, the fish was still there, but beneath the surface, a current was pulling us away where we needed away from where we needed to be. And in that moment, love didn't just float along. Love fought the current. And that's what Paul is calling the church to do. The good life does not drift into health on its own. It must be guarded. Because false teaching images people, it must be stopped. Because false ideas distort truth, they must be corrected. And because empty profession denies God, it must be exposed. But we don't fight these currents in our own strength. We cling to Jesus. We hold fast to his word. We receive the care of his church. And when his word exposes something false in us, we do not have to run from him, but instead we can run to him. Because Jesus does not expose what is false in order to destroy his people. He exposes what is false to bring us into the truth. So, CVC, do not just float. Hold on to Jesus. Hold on to his word. And by God's grace, let us guard the good life that he intends for his people. Let's pray. Lord, maybe some of us need to ask forgiveness. Because we've been following teachers and we've been following conspiracies or theories that have this. Distracted us from the true message of the good news of Jesus. Lord, would you convict our hearts if that's where any of us are today? Would you take our eyes off of false teachers and put our eyes on the true word that brings life eternally? Because false teachers are gonna are gonna leave us confused and broken. They're gonna leave us in a wake of regret and negativity. But you, Lord, you bring hope. You bring a promise that there's nothing that can separate us from your love. There's not a power, there's not a kingdom, there's not anything that can take us away from the love that we find through Jesus. So thank you for that love. And thank you that you call us to love above doing anything. You say, love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your strength. That is the greatest commandment. And you also tell us to love our neighbor as ourselves. And sometimes the best way for us to love our neighbor is to expose the danger of false teaching. So, Lord, would you embolden us not with anger or bitterness, but would you fill us with truth so that when we hear those things that come out that are not aligned to your word, that we'd be able to not just know that that's what that is, but be able to point people to Jesus instead. So God, we thank you. We thank you that you've given us your word. We thank you that you have given us truth that lasts for eternity, and that we have a Bible in our language that we can read whenever we want. We don't even have to read it, we can listen to it in our own language. There's people around the world today that don't even have that. God, may we not take for granted the blessing of your word. Help us to know it more, to learn it more, to memorize it more, to live by it more. You deserve all the praise and all the glory. And we give that to you. Lord, would you teach us and would you shape us? We pray in Jesus' name. Amen. We learned a new song earlier, and we're gonna sing that again. So if you're