House Rules: Week 2, 1 Timothy 1:12-20

Pastor Jesus Aviles
Recorded July 5, 2026

Every house has its own rules—and God’s house is no different. In 1 Timothy, Paul writes to a young church leader about what life in the family of God should look like. From the way we lead and worship to the way we treat one another and live out our faith, the values of God’s house often look very different from the values of the world around us.

In House Rules, we’ll walk through 1 Timothy and discover what it means to live, lead, and serve as the church God designed us to be. Because when we belong to the household of God, the rules are different here.

Transcript

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SPEAKER_00 0:01

Welcome to Celebration Baptist Church Podcast, where we help people connect with God and others. Each week you'll find biblical teaching, practical encouragement, and conversations designed to help you follow Jesus in everyday life. To learn more about Celebration Baptist Church in Tallahassee, Florida, visit iCelebration.org and let's get started.

SPEAKER_01 0:25

I do want to say how grateful I am to be here. This is, as you know, a unified uh service with uh our Spanish congregation as well as with our English congregation. This message will be in English, as um our good friend Um Elvis Suarez had mentioned. But there will be a couple points, I'm sure every now and then a word will slide out that's like La vendición pan convite. You're gonna you're gonna you're gonna sense some of that because that just happens to be my particular style. So let me just start off by saying my name is Jesus Samabiles. I am one of the pastors here at Celebration Baptist Church, and I have the privilege of continuing a series in the first letter written to Timothy, and we at the church have entitled it House Rules. Now, last week, Pastor David and Pastor John, who is here with us, kicked us off in our congregations, and we were informed both of the task Timothy had and the approach Timothy was supposed to take. So let's look at the task just a little bit. Um, last week we reviewed chapters 1 through 11, and it's sitting there in verse 3. It says here, instruct certain people not to teach false doctrine. Right? That is the problem affecting the Ephesian church at that particular point. Right? If you go back just 10 years, if you go back and you open up your Bibles to Acts chapter 18, 19, and 20, you see that Paul made his way to Ephesus, did his work there, obviously was attempted to be killed multiple times. But now we're at the point where Paul himself is on his way to Jerusalem, but before Paul gets to Jerusalem, he stops. He asks for the Ephesian elders to come down so he can have one last conversation with them, knowing this will be the last time Paul himself speaks to the church. And he says to them, gentlemen, fierce wolves will be stepping into your church. They will be coming from the outside and from the inside, and they will be introducing false teachings. Be aware. And Paul moves forward. I need you to fast forward 10 years. This is where we're at. 10 years after that warning, after that conversation, Paul has a conversation and reminds Timothy, this is why I've sent you here. So we know the task. The task is to fight against false teachers and false teachings that are leading the church astray. But let's look at the approach, right? Because there are right or wrong ways to do things. The approach, it says there in verse 5, the goal of our instruction is love. This is with a mindset and a heart posture to correct and restore. We as believers, we're not in the business of simply crushing others. We are here to restore. So Paul has Timothy sent there to restore. Now, if you listen to Pastor John's message last week, he said multiple times, we all, right, must guard the gospel against false teachers. That is our responsibility. Pastor David even took it a step further in his message where he talked about the church knowingly had leaders in the church leading it astray. If you dig into Pastor David's sermon last week, he informed us or he reminded us, better said, that the gospel produced hope. A hope that shapes who we are, what we believe, and how we should live. So before I dive into my particular message, if you don't mind, hey, watch out with that stand there. Let's pray before I dive into mine. Lord, we love you, we need you, we thank you so much for this wonderful opportunity. Thank you so much. We pray that you go forward. Señor, gracias por este día, Señor. Bendiga este tiempo junto, Señor. Auremo por toda la familia que están aquí. Bendiga los to, Señor, in the name of Hijo Padre Espiritu Santo. Amen. Alright, so every now and then when I when I pray, it'll be a little bit of English and Spanish, but the message will definitely be in English. Now, many of you may not know this, but my dad is a retired professional baker. Right? My dad came to the continental United States in 1970 from Tamuy, Puerto Rico, right? He was 15 years old, had only an eighth-grade education, right? Moves in with my aunt uncle, Titi Rosin Theo William, right? Just want to give them a little shout out. And my uncle, Theo William, is a professional chef at this particular point in the very famous Fountain Blue Hotel in Miami Beach. So what does he do? Man, this 15-year-old, you can't leave him out in the street. Miami's dangerous. Gets him a job. He gets him a job, not necessarily at the Fountain Blue, but at one of the other prestigious Miami Beach hotels. My dad's a bag boy. He's taking bags from cars, taking them into the rooms, right? But soon he gets transferred to the bakery department. Right? Fast forward two years, it's now 1972. And my dad loves baking, so he gets another job, right? Because you know, at that particular age you get multiple jobs, right? My dad gets another job at the Pumpernick restaurant. Now the Pumpernick restaurant is on 67th in Collins, just two and a half miles from the very famous South Beach. And the Pumpernick restaurant is known for its like oversized corned beef pastrami sandwiches, very Jewish neighborhood, right? Fresh breakbread, pumpernickel bagels, right? It's called Pumpernick restaurant, right? My dad would say to you, this is where he fell in love with baking. Now, what I'm about to say next or soon, um, my dad might not be too happy with. Let me ask you a question. Who here has ever eaten a sandwich? Sandwich? Right? Okay, Philly cheesesteak, po'boy? Hey, like it, like it, like it. Hey, medianoche, let's slide in some different medianoche, okay? Pancombite steak sandwich, very good. How about a good old American hamburger? All right, psh, hey, you gotta love one of those. Fantastic. Now we all know that a sandwich is incomplete without bread. But no one really orders the sandwich for the bread. We order it for the meat, for the filling, for what's inside, for what's in the middle. And it's with that mindset that I'm going to introduce to you the structure for today's message. Now, as you can see, we're going to be reviewing verses 12 to 20. Eight verses. But I won't be reviewing it in order, right? First thing you need to understand is verses 12 to 14 and verses 16 and 17, look at them as two great pieces of bread, are talking about Paul's joy. Paul's joy tied to his salvation, Paul's joy tied to his call to ministry, right? Just Paul's joy. But between those two slices of beautiful bread, you have verse 15, and that's the trustworthy saying. Right? Let me read it to you because I don't have it up there. It says here, this saying is trustworthy and deserving of full acceptance. Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, and I am the worst of them. Right? So so now we have the reason for Paul's joy that's on top and in the bottom of that meat. But listen, listen, no, no, no sandwiches is complete without an accompaniment. Right? And so in this particular case, we don't stop just on verse 17. We go all the way to verse 20. So, verse 20, now we have Paul reminding Timothy of his task to fight the good fight, and we're gonna go into that. So, this is the whole gear, right? You see it? Everybody see the sandwich. Everybody see the sandwich? Everybody hungry? Not yet. Okay, okay, okay. My wife said, hey, listen, let's not get too caught up. My my beautiful wife here in the front is our anniversary yesterday, and I got a chance to just simply two days ago, Saturday, July 3rd. Hey, listen, every day's a holiday at the obvious family, okay? Every day we're anniversary. That is not in my notes, but it just that just happened. That just happened. So um we're going to begin today, but how about we immediately jump into the meat, right? I told you it wasn't gonna be in order. The reason why I gave you the structures we're gonna start off, we're gonna start off on verse 15. Let me read it to you just one more time. It says here, we're still fighting the good fight. There we go, here we go, go. It says, verse 15. This saying is trustworthy and deserving full acceptance. Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, and I am the worst of them. I am the worst of them. Listen, that statement, simply stated, yet deeply profound. Why is it deeply profound? It's deeply profound because in it you you grasp the entire gospel, the entire story of who Jesus is, what this plan of salvation is, which Jesus accomplishes. Let's dive into it just a little bit. Let's start off with the first one. Christ Jesus. Next slide. Christ Jesus, right? So if the trustworthy saying is Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, and I am the worst of them, let's start off with the element, right? Since I just told you it grasped all the gospel. Christ Jesus. Here we go. We've now identified the hero and hope for all creation. This is the long-awaited savior, right? Very simple, right? This is the person who's going to carry out the plan. You see, sometimes the word gospel can seem a little abstract. So you can look at the gospel as a plan, the Lord's plan to save his creation. But you could also say gospel being Jesus Himself, the person who executes this plan, right? So we have that piece. So we have Christ Jesus, but we also need to understand that Jesus being our Savior goes all the way back to Genesis 3. The first time it was said, let me read it to you. It says here, this is the Lord speaking to the serpent. I will put hostility between you and the woman, and between your offspring, that's singular, and her offspring. He will strike your head and you will strike his heel. That whole concept of the offspring striking the head, that's that's the whole idea of crushing Satan, crushing evil, actually destroying death itself. And then the whole idea of the heel being bruised, right? We know that Jesus, that's Jesus' pain and suffering at the cross. Do you see that? I put that on there because it's it was it was like Babe Ruth's shot call, right? I used to play a little division two baseball. Babe Ruth points the bat out there and then he hits it. That's actually been filmed. But in this particular case, we go back to Genesis 3, where the offspring, the hero of this story, was first mentioned. Let's go to the next point. Christ Jesus, we covered that, came into the world. So we have the focus on came into the world. This is the incarnation. He came into this world. Right? The miracle himself, God coming to earth. Listen, God speaks to us. Before he sent prophets and visions and all other manners of communicating with his people, it finally got to the point where he had to come himself. This is what was needed. God had to step down from heaven itself to come and speak to us. Right? It says there in Philippians 2, 5 through 7 Christ Jesus, who existed in the form of God, did not consider equality with God as something to be exploited. Instead, he emptied himself by assuming the form of a servant, taking on the likeness of humanity. The incarnation. Right? So far we have the hero. We have the hero appearing on earth. Next. Okay, great. Now we've identified the mission. Now we've identified our hero who came from heaven. We have identified the mission. But now this God-glorifying act of rescue required a couple different things, right? This whole idea about saving, right? For in the room we have believers, right? And we have some that are not yet believed, right? But this concept of saving requires a perfect life to be lived. Understand this. The penalty for sin is death. So to pay that penalty for any transgressions any of us have ever, ever, ever done, the requirement or the payment is death. So I'm on the to save piece of our hero, right? And so to save requires living a perfect life, then dying a sacrificial death. Now, that sacrificial death or that sacrifice had to be accepted. How do we know? How do we know that sacrifice was accepted? Anybody? The what it involves bunnies and Easter eggs. Easter, the resurrection, right? So the concept of being saved, when you read that, again, simple statement, very profound. The concept of saved requires a living of a perfect life, dying a sacrificial death, and having that sacrifice accepted. And how do we know it was accepted? The resurrection. Let's look at this. 1 Corinthians 15, 3 to 6 says, For I passed on to you as most important what I also received, that Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day according to the scriptures, and that he appeared to Cephas, then to the 12, then he appeared to over five hundred brothers and sisters at one time. Did you know that? I mean, you heard resurrection. Did anybody see him? Was it just the twelve? The Bible makes it very clear. He spent time here in his resurrected body. Over 500 people saw him. Now, Jesus now ascends to heaven, right? Because we're still going through the concept of being saved. He ascends to heaven and sends us the Holy Spirit. Anyone in here that's ever wanting to grow in your faith, you can't do it alone. This is a walk, a sanctifying walk with you and the Holy Spirit, right? Since that's what we're talking about, right? So then all of a sudden, finally, Christ Jesus, right? We're still going through the trustworthy saying. The trustworthy saying that's simply yet profound. It says here, Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners. We've now identified the beneficiaries of this gift. Who's eligible for this gift? Sinners. Who's eligible? That's a question you should ask. Who's eligible? What's the standard? What's the requirement to be saved? Be a sinner. That's the requirement. Now, what you need to understand is that concept, we should all fall into that concept. We should all, that category called sinner, we should all fall into it, right? But just in case, just in case, you know, Paul, God using Paul, just in case we don't see ourselves, right? As sinners, let's go to the next line. Paul says, and I am the worst of them. Listen, I need you to understand Paul. Paul wrote almost half of the New Testament. And he is saying, He is the one in greatest need of this savior. And if this guy can say that, now I have no objections. Now there's like, yeah, I fit that category. Right? So to the believers in the room, don't complicate things. Don't complicate things. Don't listen to anyone that ever steers you away from making this complicated. Don't teach your children a Jesus plus parents. Don't teach your children a Jesus plus gospel. That doesn't exist. Simple statement. You can memorize it. Actually, that's gonna be what I'm gonna ask. One of the things for us to do. So so believers, don't complicate things. Now, in the room this size, right? Because thank the Lord, you know, people that came, 4th of July, weekend. We have those not yet believers. Yes, salvation is that simple. Salvation is that simple. And so if in your mind you thought otherwise, you thought being saved was overly complicated, you need to delete that. You need that erase that fallacy from your mind. Remember what we're fighting here? False teachings that have entered the church, both from outside and from within. It's that simple. If you're in this room and you're not saved, it's that simple. It says there in Romans 10 9, specifically for those that are not believers in the room. If you confess with your mouth Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. Simple yet profound. If in the past somebody's tried to make it more complicated, delete that. Remember, this is what Paul is asking Timothy. This statement needs to be the center of the church. It is not right now. This is why I've sent you. The fierce wolves are here. I warned them 10 years earlier. It's go time. Right? So now he has that. Celebration Baptist Church. We've remembered the task, right? We're combating false teachings. I had mentioned it before. Ephesus is being invaded, it's being led astray. And in Acts 20, 29, we talk about these fierce wolves stepping into the equation. Next slide. But this is the trustworthy saying that deserves full acceptance. I will ask simple statement, deeply profound, grabs every element of the gospel. If believers, you're ever speaking to a non-believer, that's a nice starting point. What's all that mean? Christ Jesus, hero came into the world. Yes, God really came to earth. This is what was required to rescue you. Came in to save. You talk about that perfect life. You talk about the sacrificial death, you talk about the necessary resurrection. Talk about how he raised in heaven to save, right? Got that. Sinners. Yeah, you don't agree with you're a sinner? Okay, great. Listen, this guy who wrote half of the New Testament called himself that. Yeah, you're eligible. Congratulations, you're eligible. The false teaching that was taking place was that the gospel was getting manipulated and twisted. You see, in the Ephesus church, they were creating almost like an exclusive type of Christianity. Anytime it's Jesus plus, you begin to add practices and beliefs and knowledge sets that kind of separate some people from others. And when you develop a church where false teachings have stepped in, you begin to, you know, generate a group that has access and knowledge, and they're the ones that receive the blessing. Paul is saying, that's a lie. Timothy, I need you to go correct that. You see what this one statement, the trustworthy saying, the meat of this particular sandwich, preach that. Make that the center point of your church. The church is bound to be at this point unfit for its purpose. But you put this back in the center. Now we're getting ready. Now we're back. Now we're aligned. So we had a great opportunity to talk about the meat, right? The part that my dad uh wouldn't be necessarily happy, me talking about being the most important part of a sandwich. But now it's time to talk about the bread, right? The joyful bread that goes on the top of this meat and into the bottom. Remember, in both elements, 12 to 14 and 16 through 17. We're about to step into Paul's joy. I pray that you kind of uh gotten my energy a little bit, how excited that I am. But Paul, when we read what he wrote, that's a that's next level joy. So let's take a look at it together. Paul begins in verse 12, joy, right, the top slide, says, I give thanks to Christ Jesus our Lord, who has strengthened me because he considered me faithful, appointing me to the ministry, even though I was formerly a blasphemer, a persecutor, and an arrogant man. Listen, some of your Bibles won't say arrogant man. Some of your Bibles say insolent man. There's a little bit of a difference there. Paul was insolent. When you think about what that term means, what does that term mean? That term means excessively rude or brutal. He was. In what Paul did before he was called Saul, young Saul, he was brutal. Paul had a hall pass. I used to work in the public school system. You had hall passes, you showed me that hall pass, I'll leave you alone. You don't show me that hall pass. Paul's walking around with a hall pass that allows him to step into anyone's house, pull them out because they are a follower of the way, and imprison them. Take them away, hall pass.

unknown 23:20

Boop, boop, boop.

SPEAKER_01 23:23

As he wanted, brutal, relentless. He even saw the death of some Christians, right? We have the famous Stephen incident, right? Little pause with regards to Stephen. If you remember Acts, Acts talks about the word going from Jerusalem, Judea and Samaria, and then what? To the ends of the earth. Paul, very interestingly, was the reason why the word jumped out of Jerusalem. He was savage. But Paul was also then the reason that it was taken out of Judea and Samaria and taken to the ends of the earth. Right? So he was a bad dude. And he did well by describing himself as the worst of sinners. Right? So we look back, so Paul's self-description, absolutely great. But you know what's great? Even though blasphemer, persecutor, right? What was the other one that I had there? Blasphemer, persecutor. That isn't the end of his story. Let's look at it. Verse 13, that was verse 12. But I received. Didn't say I found. It didn't say I earned. It didn't say, you know, whatever I statement could have promoted a self-righteousness, a self-salvation, right? He says, but I received mercy because I acted out of ignorance in unbelief. And the grace of our Lord overflowed with the faith and love that are in Christ. You know why Paul is just joyful? Because he's received mercy. He's received overflowing grace. Mercy, I need you to think of that as forgiveness. He received forgiveness. He received mercy. Next, what else did he get? He received overflowing grace. What's grace? Grace is unearned, unmerited favor. As a sinner, if I'm forgiven, right? We can talk money at this particular point. If I'm a sinner and I need forgiveness, I need you to understand that I have a debt. And forgiveness gets me back to zero. Zero. I mean, I don't know about you. Debt free is the way to be. But aside from being debt free to go to heaven, you need a billion dollars in the bank. So you need not only forgiveness that gets you back to zero. Man, you need grace. You need a deposit of anything and everything Jesus had for you. This is what he gives you. Paul, a blasphemer, a killer of Christians, says, I was forgiven, zero, and I have overflowing grace, a deposit in the bank account that it's incalculable. Anybody feeling that joy yet? Anybody feeling why uh Paul is just this is this is why Paul needs a second slice of bread. Why Paul has to continue to talk to you and I about his joy. So we got that top joy, right? So let's slide over to the bottom slice of bread because you know we're in the joy business here, right? It says here, but I received mercy. He goes back. Remember, he talked about his joy, and then he gave us this meat, this trustworthy saying, and then he leads it back off on verse 16. But I received mercy for this reason, so that in me, the worst of them, Christ Jesus might demonstrate his extraordinary patience as an example to those who would believe in him for eternal life. Paul pauses just for a second to tell you why he received grace and mercy. It's actually the same reason you, if you're a believer in this room, have received grace and mercy, so that you can be an example to others. That this gospel isn't exclusive to some, it's available to all. This is what Paul's fighting. Paul's fighting a church that's getting super exclusive because it begins to add things to what's required to walk through those doors. Paul's saying, no way, and here's the Spanish, Jose. No way. Right? But I received mercy to be an example, so when you step out, next, verse 17. Now, now now this is this is the end of that bottom bread. I'm gonna read it. Now to the king, eternal, immortal, invisible, the only God, be honor and glory forever and ever. Amen. Okay, I got some that felt the momentum in there. Now I didn't read it with that momentum because you know, part of my message is I'm gonna read it twice. This second time when I read it, I need you to sense the momentum in it. I need you to sense the cascading, right? The cascading joy that we find in here. I'll read it again. Now to the king, eternal, right? Paul has I want you to imagine you being so thankful and so joyful that you're running out of words. And so you just begin to just spew out God's character. King, eternal, I mean, just this is where we're at here. It says here. Now to the king, eternal, immortal, invisible, the only God, be honor and glory forever and ever. Amen. Now we sense the momentum. Now we've got the top and the bottom slice of the bread. Oh, I'm so hungry, I'm ready to not ready yet. Got more, more Bible, more Bible. Let's get more Bible in this, right? So we spent some good time. Well, let me go back. Believers in the room. The joy that we just experienced or we heard Paul have, that's the joy we're to have. If you have anything less than that, let's ramp it up. Just reflect on the mercy, the forgiveness you've been given, and the grace, the favor you've been given. I mean, reflect on that, meditate on that. When you're around the table with your family, think about that, talk about that. Then you'll grasp that joy that we talked about. Unbelievers, well, I'm not gonna use that. How about this one? How about not yet believers in the room? For those of you that are in here that are just curious, haven't quite given your life to Jesus just yet. Is this the joy you've been looking for? I know you've been searching. The world provides all kinds of options to pursue this joy. But this joy and this peace surpasses understanding. You can't buy this joy, you can't meditate and profound and think deep and psychology. That's one of my degrees. You can't you can't make your way into that. You can't find this, you can't discover this, you can't make this, you can't purchase this. So, we finish talking about Paul's joy, the top and bottom slices of the bread. If that is the joy you want, it's simple. It's here. You don't have to leave today searching any longer. Simple statement. Christ Jesus came into this world to save sinners. That's simple. Don't overcomplicate it. We're not leaving just yet, but just outside those doors, we have a connection card. And when you leave, if you want to continue this particular conversation about this joy that somehow I spoke about, but that you've been searching for, and something tied to the simple statement, we're ready to have this conversation. If you just simply want to go outside and schedule a baptism, we can do that too. Right? We'll we'll have a little bit of a conversation, but you know, we'll do that. Right? So, okay, so now we go now. Um, and now we have uh the sandwich set, right? We got the top slice, bottom slice, you got the meat, everything's ready to go. But then we got the accompaniment, right? Our scripture, our day, doesn't end on verse 17. We have verses 18 to 20. And in 18 to 20, that's the bag of potato chips there. It says here, we need to fight the good fight. Paul goes back, because you understand, Paul was entrusted with these saving words. And now Paul slides over and is about to entrust Timothy with these saving words at this site. And so let's dive into uh verses 18 to 20, shall we? He wrote, Timothy, my son, I am giving you this instruction in keeping with the prophecies previously made about you, so that by recalling them you may fight the good fight. Verse 19, having faith and a good conscience, which some have rejected and have shipwrecked the faith. Verse 20. Among them are Hymenias and Alexander, whom I have delivered to Satan, so that they may be taught not to blaspheme. They may be taught restoration we're looking for here, right? So that they may be taught not to blaspheme. Now listen, what should have stuck out in those three verses is fight the good fight. Any did that stick out to anybody? Fight the good fight? Great. What does that mean? Fight the good fight. Some of you may immediately have generated a mental image of a massive to-do list. Fight the good fight. To-do. Hmm. Some of you might have not necessarily generated a massive to-do list, but might have recalled there are some spiritual disciplines that we got to dust off a little bit. Maybe we need to reactivate a couple different things. That's how I fight the good fight. Achieve that to-do list or start initiating. Listen, if there was anything that you can do to get saved, yeah, Jesus didn't have to come. So when we're talking about fighting the good fight, what does that mean? I'm gonna point to what the scripture, the text that we're reading today, kind of points to. Just two things, just two things that our text right here, right now, have us do in response to fight the good fight. Let's look at that. The first, it's it's centered in verse 19. It says having faith and good conscience, which some have rejected. So the two things being asked is to hold your faith and live your life in good conscience. We're about to have a little conversation of what that means. Hold your faith, true faith, true gospel, not that whole twisted Jesus plus stuff. And live your life in good conscience. So hold your faith. We have that single statement: Christ Jesus came into this world to save sinners. You really need to hold on to that. You really need to work hard. I mean, it's a fight. It's a fight. I mean, listen, all of us at some point want to participate in our own salvation. If it's just like 1%, you know, you know, I mean, I've never had a problem receiving gifts, but some people do. Some people in this room, if I'm gonna get this, that means I'm gonna owe you a little something. That is a lie that doesn't belong in the church. A church that is fit for its purpose, man, keeps it simple. Jesus Christ came into this world to save sinners, right? And you need to hold on to that. This is what Paul is speaking to Timothy. How about this? It isn't me, Paul, speaking to Timothy alone, right? Hey, Timothy, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop. You have a little conversation here, right? It goes this way: me, Paul, having a conversation with Timothy. Timothy. This is the trustworthy saying, deserving full acceptance. Christ Jesus stepped into this world, right? To save sinners. And then he steps away and he looks around. Because in the text, there is an expected audience that should be listening in. Just to address the elephant in the room. Many of us can pick up this particular letter and say, hey man, this is a Paul written from Paul to Timothy, from one pastor to the other. What's this got to do with me? It's fully expected that the church is listening to this letter. Now live your life in good conscience. That's that's a that's a good one. That's a good one. Live your life in good conscience. I need you to understand that in order to live your life in good conscience, you need to have the meat and you need to have it, and you need to allow the gospel to tell you what is your identity, what is your purpose, and where do you belong. The gospel, for you to walk in peace, so that anything and everything that you do aligns to what God says, you got to grab this very simple statement, and it must answer the question, who am I? Your identity. The simple statement also needs to answer the question, why am I here? What's my purpose? And the simple statement needs to do the third thing: where do I belong? It needs to answer that. You want to walk in good conscience, you want to make decisions that honor the Lord and remain and allow you to remain in peace and experience joy. You want that? I want that. So, how do you do that? You have to allow this very simple statement to talk about your identity, to talk about your purpose, and to talk about your belonging. So, have a couple of challenges here, right? It only makes sense. Right? You go to church, you're left with something to do, not the massive to-do list. Not, hey, here's another sermon coming right at you, another 30 minutes about, you know, you know, it's not that. Let's look at that. Here's my first ask. I would love for you to memorize and believe in the trustworthy saying. Simple statement, grabs the entire gospel. You can use it to initiate any conversation, and you're there for an hour because you have to explain it all, right? Here's request number two. I would love for you to memorize, believe, and align yourself with the gospel of truth found in the trustworthy saying. Align yourself. Align yourself. What's the Lord ask us to do in light of this trustworthy saying? Receive. Um, yeah, no, no to you to do, you receive more. We want this to be overflowing. We want your grace to be overflowing. So I would love the band to come back up as we transition. I would love to pray for all those that are here. It is a holiday, a beautiful holiday where tons of things are being celebrated. And I would love for this simple statement to be celebrated more profoundly with a. I think we have one more song after that. But I just want to ask all the believers in the room. Oh, let me move this out of the way. All believers in the room. This simple statement should help guide your conversations, guide your ministries, guide your households. For those that are unbelievers, for those, I go back, have yet to believe. Here's the joy. Here's the simple statement. I invite you to when we walk outside, we'll be there. I'll be there. Let us pray. Lord, we love you. We need you. Lord, you hold us in your hands. You hold us in your hands. You provide. You care for. You simplify. You make things simple, profound. We are in your hands. Lord, we love you. Lord, we need you. Lord, you go before us, you stand behind us, you're to our left and you're to our right. You're above us and you're below us, Lord. We are inside you. Lord, your grace and your mercy. The mercy that exists that you freely give, the grace that exists that you freely give cannot be found or discovered or paid for. Lord, we stand before you grateful, thankful, just as Paul was joyful when we sensed that momentum, when he ran out of words at the simple yet profound, trustworthy saying, Christ Jesus came into this world to save sinners, of whom I am the worst. So we pray for the joy that you shared with us that we may have it. And we pray for those in the room that have been searching for this joy, a joy that only comes when the relationship of God and the individual person is reunited. That is death, that is what's broken, that is what you came for. We love you, we need you, Padre Celestial. Señor, tu nos aguantas en tus manos, tú nos bendigas, nos das la misericordia y la gracia. Señor, bendiga nuestro tiempo hoy, bendiga el resto del día, Señor. Oremos por nuestra iglesia que siempre, Señor, Jesucristo está en el centro y nada más. Lord, we pray for the church. We pray specifically for Celebration Baptist Church. Lord, it is fit for purpose. What is that purpose? That purpose is to hold fast to the truth, to proclaim it, to be the light in the dark world. I pray for the leaders at Celebration Baptist Church, from its pastors to its deacons to all of our ministry leaders. But Lord, you are talking to us collectively. This is not a you, the individual, this is you, plural, you, the church. You're speaking to the church. You're asking that the church believes in this trustworthy saying, have it guide you, Lord. May those that come from the outside, Lord, from those of us that are here inside, Lord, getting it twisted, getting confused, Lord, we ask for all that to be straightened out. We thank you for your love, we thank you for your mercy, Lord. May we leave this 4th of July not only happy that our country turned 250 years, but that you came down from heaven yourself, lived a perfect life, died a sacrificial death, and that death was accepted. Thank you for the cross, thank you for the resurrection. I pray for all that are here. Señor, or those who are the música que vamos a tener ahora mismo, Señor. In the name of the Hijo Padre, Espiritu Santo. Amen.

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Amen. Thanks for joining us on the Celebration Baptist Church Podcast. We hope today's conversation helps you take another step in your faith journey. For more resources, upcoming events, and to join us live, visit iCelebration.org. Until next time, keep connecting with God, connecting with others, and living on mission.