In his sermon titled 'Liars, Evil Beasts, Lazy and Gluttonous People,' Scott Brown delves into Titus 1:10, addressing cultural issues in Crete such as lying, harsh behavior, laziness, and gluttony. These behaviors, prevalent in both ancient and modern societies, are countered by the transformative power of the gospel. Brown emphasizes that the gospel's ability to transform lives is a slow process that requires persistent faithfulness and engagement with the 'ordinary means of grace'—reading scripture, praying, and fellowship. The sermon highlights the importance of establishing a new culture within the church, contrasting it with the broken culture outside. Through examples of biblical figures who lied and cultural observations about trust, Brown underscores the challenges of living in a 'low trust' culture. The ultimate message is one of hope and transformation through the grace of God, using the metaphor of an old violin restored by a master's touch as a symbol of the potential for renewal and sanctification in the church.

Please open your Bibles to Titus chapter 1 and find verse 10. Titus 1 verse 10. This is the inerrant, all-sufficient, sweeter-than-honey Word of God. Titus 1 Tim. For there are many insubordinate, both idle talkers and deceivers, especially those of the circumcision, whose mouths must be stopped, who subvert whole households, teaching things which they ought not for the sake of dishonest gain.

One of them, 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 giving heed to Jewish fables or and commandments of men who turn from the truth the grass withers and the flower fades but the word of our God stands forever. Let's pray. Oh Lord come and and do all these things that we just sang about that you would come and lead us to Jesus Christ and all of his wisdom and all of his truth that you would come and feed your sheep today amen please be seated well when was the last time you heard a sermon on lying, being an evil beast, and being lazy and a glutton.

Well here you go. This is it today. Paul's letter to Titus really is a testimony. When you have people that have come out of a low trust, angry, lazy, gluttonous culture. The gospel comes into that culture and changes those people, but as everyone knows who's believed in the gospel, the changes come rather slowly often slower than you would hope for but these things still need to be confronted in the church and that's why the apostle is writing this to Titus and he's really he's explaining the power of the gospel to transform the culture of the people in the church really from from top to bottom in their lives every part of their lives and So you have this picture in the island of Crete of this landscape.

It's a culture that runs through this beautiful island of Crete, a not very beautiful culture. It's a culture of anger. It's a culture of uncontrolled appetites and laziness and gluttony. These kinds of things that you would need to be overcome in the church Because the gospel, it's a story of transformation. And we bring the things of our backgrounds and our cultures into the church.

And then God begins a slow work to sanctify us together. In the church, there's always unfinished business. There's a lot of unfinished business in my life, and there's a lot of unfinished business collectively in all of our lives here, and that's why we're here, to seek the Lord. But there's a transformation that was going on on the island of Crete a metaphor metamorphosis And this is the power of the gospel of Jesus Christ. But it's very important that we understand that a gospel that does not transform is not the gospel of Jesus Christ.

And the establishment of a new culture in the midst of a broken culture is what we find here and what we find in every culture. You might think of a violin that's been ruined and not able to play correctly. And it may look like a worthless piece of wood and broken strings. But if you put a master craftsman on that violin, it can be repaired. And it can be tuned.

And it can be made to sing again. I think that's what you find here. That's implied and this transformation begins with the receiving of the new of the news of Jesus Christ and there's this steady progress we've been talking about it particularly about this the teaching of grace the ordinary means of grace the steady progress in the Christian life that that happens as a result of the reading of the word of God, the preaching of the word of God, the singing, the prayers, the Lord's Supper, the fellowship of the saints, the evangelism, you know all of these things it's like a slow drip of the grace of God and you need it every day and you need it every week and that's that's why you should always gather for worship it's part of that slow drip this steady progress no drama just persistent faithfulness and that's what was happening in the island of Crete. You know the Apostle he begins this by saying set in order the things that are lacking. That's always true in a church and it begins really with the faith of God's elect in chapter one verse one according to the faith of God's elect and the acknowledgement of the truth which accords with godliness All of this transformation begins when God gives you faith and then you cleave to the word of God and you believe that his word is sufficient for everything and that's where you go to build your life and That's how things are set in order.

And then the apostle rolls on and he talks about what this looks like in a church, and that is that you set aside qualified elders with particular character qualities. And by the way, those character qualities of those elders are the same qualities that are commanded for every believer. And then he says this also means a transformation of the older men. We don't want crotchety, angry older men. We want the kind of older men that are here.

And then older women, what kind of older women? Older women that are certain particular character qualities and they're teaching the younger women to keep the home fires burning to love their husbands to love their children This is a revamping of the family and then you have transformed younger men. There's instruction about how young men ought to function and then how employees and servants ought to function. This is a transformation of society and then he says and don't forget it's the grace of God that is your teacher. You have a teacher, her name is Grace and you stand in the grace of God as you submit yourself to the ordinary means of grace.

We're practicing all of them here this morning and this is the kind of life that God has called his people too. But every culture carries within it its own traps as does our culture And what's so wonderful about God is he takes us when we're dead in our trespasses and he makes us alive. He takes our minds which were depraved and he transforms our minds. He gives us a new heart from a heart of stone. He gives us new clothing.

He takes off our filthy garments and he clothes us with robes of righteousness. This is what God is doing. He takes you off of the broad road and he puts you on to the narrow road and this is the transformational life in the church that you experience. You know, Jesus said that unless a seed falls to the ground and dies, it cannot bear fruit. That seed appears to be dry and lifeless and small, and then it breaks open.

Then it begins to grow and actually replicates new seeds. So this is the kind of life that you see happening here. Now, I'm just going to walk through these things here that were characteristic of Cretan culture. Lying, harsh behavior, laziness, and gluttony. How about that?

So the first, the people in the church in Crete were coming out of a culture of liars. You might just ask, have you and I come out of a culture of lying? There really are many low trust cultures in the world where people, they just don't believe one another, you know, and is this eroding in America? You know, years ago we sent you know, the Carrington's to Turkey. Turkey is a low trust culture.

It's said that about 14% of Turkish adults say that others can be trusted. And you have other very low trust cultures in Mexico and Brazil and Kenya, where people just, they just don't trust each other at all. They don't trust what they say. These are low trust cultures. Now, you know, since COVID particularly There's been a massive lack of trust throughout our society in politicians, in big pharma, and the big voices that flow over the internet.

You know, I was reading John MacArthur about lying, and one of the things he said was, no civilization has ever lived with lying like we do. He says that Back in the day, when you heard a lie, you heard it from the mouth of someone that you knew. But then the printing press was invented. Then you have lies that people are telling other people. Then you have the television, where a few people are telling millions of people.

Now you have the Internet, where billions of people are hearing lies. Now you have our new God, AI, to tell you what to believe. So we live in a culture where we're very vulnerable to lies, and we're very vulnerable to being manipulated by lies. Think of the conspiracy theories that fly around this place. You know, how much of our thinking, how much of our reading, how much of our listening is influenced by lies, by people who are liars.

Many of them, they don't live even live out what they say that they believe. Mark Twain said it's easier to fool people than convince people they are being fooled. That's so true. You know, with all the conspiracy theories and all these things, you know, I think we should really listen to what Paul told the Thessalonian Church. He said, make it your ambition to lead a quiet life, to mind your own business, and work with your own hands.

Deal with the people that you know. Love the people that God has given you. Listen to the ones that you know. You know back in COVID I ended up thinking the only people I really believe are the ones that I know And so we we live in a culture of tremendous deception. The devil is a liar by nature.

John 844 says he's the father of lies. The first question in the Bible You read it did not come from God. It came from the serpent who cast doubt on God's goodness. He was questioning the goodness of God. It was a deceptive question.

The serpent said did God really say? It was a leading question. God hates lying Proverbs 6 16. We've already read in Titus that God cannot lie. That's in Titus 1 verse 2.

He is the God who cannot lie affirming numbers 23 19 God is not a man that he should lie in other words men lie God does not lie there are lots of examples of people who lie in the Bible Some of our greatest heroes lied at particular moments in their life just like you have just like I have. Abraham lied out of fear in Genesis 12. Isaac followed his father's footsteps in Genesis 26. Jacob lied to obtain a blessing greater than his brother. Joseph's brothers lied to their father to cover up their sin.

Laban lied by deceiving Jacob, giving him the wrong woman to marry. Gehazi lied to Naaman and then he lied to Elisha out of greed. He wanted more silver. He wanted more clothing and Naaman had it. So he lied to him.

Ananias and Sapphira lied so that people in the church would think they were more generous than they were. Peter lied to a slave girl under pressure. You have false prophets who lie. Now, how many of you have raised children? Many of you.

Children tend to lie, and you have to help them learn not to lie, and you have to spank them for lying. You're teaching them not to live that way, and they need to understand that there are consequences to lie. Well, some children lie more than others, but they still need to be worked with as a result. There are different ways to lie. You know if you want to know all the ways to lie go to the Westminster Larger Catechism.

It gives the fullest treatment that you'll ever read. I think of what it means to lie I won't read all of them, but the larger catechism is dealing in lying according to the ninth commandment and it's you can lie directly you can give false evidence you can forge you can spread rumors you can be silent in other words withhold the truth in order to mislead flattery is a form of lying to manipulate exaggeration stretching the truth to impress hiding sense these are the kinds of things that the Westminster larger catechism says are in the family of do not lie The Apostle Paul told the the Ephesian Church something really similar. This must have been a problem in the ancient world just like it is in the modern world. Therefore Ephesians 425, therefore putting away lying let each one of you speak truth with his neighbor for we are members of one another. So you there you have a church and there are people they're still recovering from this lying culture And was the culture too far gone?

Were the people too far gone? Not according to Paul. Not according to his letter to the Ephesians and his letter to Titus. Sometimes you think that someone is too far gone and they're not too far gone. We just come through a big drought, so thankful for the rain, been praying for rain like crazy.

But because of the drought we had this last spring and summer, for about a month, I thought our pastors were dead. I didn't think they were gonna come back. And I wondered, and then the rain came. Little bit of rain, little bit of more rain. And now they're green, and now they are firing off.

It's great. There's hope when you have the rain of God coming down on his people and he begins to refresh them. What appears lifeless can be brought back and that's true. The Apostle Paul said this a very similar thing to the Corinthian Church in 1st Corinthians 6, 9. He said some of you were revilers and extortioners and all kinds of other sins homosexuals and things like that he says such were some of you but you were washed but you were sanctified but you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus by the Spirit of God.

Here's some here's some here just a couple things. Children if you've been lying to your parents you should confess that you've lied to them and clear it out and repent. And if there are any other outstanding lies in the congregation, you should consider those lies and repent of them and if need be, to make restitution for those lies that you were told. So it was a culture of lying. It was a culture of evil beasts.

I'm gonna call this harsh behavior. These were harsh people. You know there are some parts of the country where people are just harsher than others. Have you, do you understand that? I won't say where you have to go to travel to find these harsh people.

We all know, some of them are in this church. They came from those places, it's amazing. But Crete, you know, was a place where tempers ran hot. And there probably was a lot of yelling. You probably had people tempted to yell at each other.

Even in the church, how terrible that would be. It was a manifestation of lack of self-control. Well that was the culture and my guess, my guess is that people prided themselves you know at their forthrightness you know well I'm just telling the truth you know and you can be very harsh about if you grew up in that culture And you came into the church you might find yourself struggling with that You might Find it difficult you might get hot under the collar even when you talk to your brothers and sisters. It's something that needs to be sanctified for sure. If you're married and you grew up in a culture of harshness, you might spend years trying to get a handle on your anger in your marriage and the way that you speak to one another.

And the way that you speak to one another, the looks on your faces, the gestures that you use, you know these things don't help conversation at all and I found that often people who get married they need to learn how to talk again. They need to learn how to talk again. They need to learn how to talk the way that God has designed it. And you might find men who are angry in their jobs. They're angry with their fellow workers.

They're angry with their bosses. You might have, you know, brothers and sisters in a family who are always arguing and they're always, you know, fighting and contradicting one another and jumping all over one another verbally. You might have fathers who are too harsh with their kids. I think that's why James made it very clear where these fights and wars come from. He said, where do fights and wars come from?

Among you, do they not come from your desires for pleasure that wage war in your members? You lust and you do not have. You murder and covet and cannot obtain. You fight and you war. The fruit of the Spirit is self-control and I think perhaps this is why in even in Titus and in 1st Timothy elders this is required of elders to be in to have self-control.

It's required of all believers. We've already encountered it in Titus from older men and older women and for younger people as well. But self-control is required of fathers and I want to address fathers here. The apostle Paul in Ephesians 6 says, Fathers do not provoke your children to anger. Some of the other translations say fathers do not exasperate your children.

To exasperate you know is to stir someone up into anger to provoke in a way that pushes their buttons and Colossians 321 says it a little bit different it says fathers do not provoke your children lest they become discouraged. Other translations say fathers do not embitter your children lest they become discouraged. You know, it's easy to yell at kids. It's easy to become a barking father and you're always just commanding and it's harsh tones of voices. I'm just here to say this is not the kind of fatherhood.

God wants you to be sanctified and move out of that kind of fatherhood, if that is you. Sometimes you can see the harshness of a father in harshness of children, where they have angry outbursts or maybe a defiant child who's unkind to others in the family. Often this starts from parents and the way that they talk. Just be careful. Be careful with the way that you operate as a father.

John Calvin, he was writing about Ephesians six and fatherhood, he said, kind and liberal treatment has a tendency to cherish reverence for their parents and to increase the cheerfulness and activity of their obedience while a harsh and unkind manner rouses them to be obstinate and destroys natural affections. So this was this was a harsh culture and they probably prided themselves in it and congratulated themselves that they were just being so honest but they weren't being loving. So but what God but God he he says that his people are like clay in the potter's hands. He's the potter and we are the clay. And he takes, he takes the, the unseemly shapes of our personalities, and he shapes them.

And it becomes a vessel of beauty instead of uselessness. So a culture of harsh behavior and then lazy, lazy. Well the Bible the Bible gives very clear testimony of the goodness of work. Some have called this the Protestant work ethic, diligence. We should always be asking, I'm sure you do, Am I wasting time?

How much time do I waste? How many ways are there to waste time? Oh my, there's so many ways to waste time. But God put man in the garden to tend it, you know, with diligence. Work is not a curse, but it's a blessing.

But the Proverbs is a wonderful manual for diligence. It's actually a child training manual written by fathers, forefathers to train their children. He says, go to the aunt you sluggard and learn her ways. Don't you love that word sluggard? You don't even really know what it means but it sounds terrible and you don't want to be that.

It's characterized by the overgrown field. I pass by the field of the sluggard and the, you know, the fence is broken down and it's overgrown. The sluggard doesn't take care of his things. Maybe that's you. Maybe there are a lot of things that need to be taken care of that you're not taking care of.

Maybe maybe tomorrow you should start taking care of those things. You have the disorderliness. In 2nd Thessalonians 3 there's this person in the church who's living a disorderly life. You should avoid that person, he says. In contrast, you've got the Proverbs 31 woman.

What a diligent blessing she was. The Bible says a lot about laziness laziness leads to poverty in Proverbs 10 verse 1 lazy people are full of excuses in Proverbs 22 13 there's a lion outside I'll be slain in the streets that's an excuse Lazy people have wonderful desires, but they don't do anything about them. That's Proverbs 13 verse 4. They have great visions, but they never get finished people who don't finish jobs you know it's legendary lazy people don't take care what's entrusted to them. Proverbs 24, 30.

But the reality is lazy people are always very busy about something. They're doing something. I've had people come to me and say Scott you you're such a busy person. No I'm not. I'm not any busier than you.

I have the same number of hours. I use them in different ways. So do you. You're just as busy as I am. It just depends on what you're focusing your time on.

Jesus Christ had 24 hours a day, just like everybody else, and he used his time in a way that was profitable. And it's interesting, again, you know, the reformed confessions and the catechisms, they address laziness under the fourth commandment, the sixth commandment, the seventh commandment, and the eighth commandment. So if you go to the Westminster Larger Catechism and read what are the duties and the sins of these commandments, you'll encounter this matter of laziness. I'll just quote it's a reflection of thou shall not steal. It's characterized by idleness, prodigality, wasteful gaming, things like that.

You know it's very easy for kids to waste their time. Now, kids should be, obviously kids should have time to play. They should. But it's easy for kids to waste their time. Often, it's because parents are so distracted.

They're not directing their children to profitable activity. Children need parents to direct them to what's profitable, because they don't know what's profitable. It's not their default position. They need to be taught how to take dominion. And they need to be taught by their parents.

It's just easy as parents to let things slide. Are you letting your children, you know, drift into too much unprofitable activity and spending hours doing things that don't really matter? Children often don't clean up after themselves. I mean, I've seen it even here in this church during the fellowship meal. Sometimes you'll have, even whole families, they'll just leave their plates on the table dirty right there for somebody else to pick up.

It happens that our Father, Son, we were talking about this on Tuesday morning and one of the guys said, yeah, it happens that the Father, Son retreats two people, people leave their bottles all over the place, they pick them up, they throw them on the ground and this is called laziness, This is called not finishing what you started. People who don't lift a finger to help. That happened. You know, the reality in a church is that 10% of the people do 90% of the work. I don't know if that's true here, but that's just what they say.

And I think we have people who do work around here. But you have procrastination. You know, I'm constantly getting on young men who have filthy cars. I'm saying you'll never get married with such a filthy car. You get in this car, there are all these bottles and trash and wrappers.

Clean up your car, you loser. Come on. You want the woman of your dreams to get into this filthy mess? No, this is called laziness. You know, unfortunately, you know, our government subsidizes laziness all throughout the culture.

You know, when we were Romans, I don't know if you remember this, in Romans chapter 12 verse 11, this diligence, this spurning of laziness should be a cultural factor in the church fellowship. He says, don't be slothful, be fervent in spirit serving the Lord here's what he says Romans 12 10 be kindly affectionate to one another with brotherly love in honor giving preference to one another not lagging in diligence fervent in spirit serving the Lord rejoicing in hope in other words your affection toward one another you should be going after it like fervent in spirit. Your brotherly love, go after it. Don't just stand around and wait for somebody to love you. Why don't you go and be an initiator?

So laziness can manifest itself in a lot of different ways, you know, in a church and in a home. Well, and now we find ourselves to gluttony. How many of you have ever heard a sermon on gluttony before? I don't think I ever have. This is the category of older overindulgence in food.

And I think it's implied that there can be overindulgence and gluttony across almost any good thing. Food is a good thing. But for all, everybody says 74% of Americans are classified as overweight. America is overnourished. Just walk around.

Just walk down any street. The overnourishment is overwhelming. You know I've seen pictures of my high school you know in the late 60s and there's no one fat person in the whole high school. They just hardly, you might have some overweight, very, very few. Everyone looks fit.

You know, I think we probably ate less back then. I'm pretty sure that's true. I mean all kinds of organizations have studied this, the CDC and others. Like in the 1960s your plate was 9 to ten inches. Today your plate is ten and a half to twelve inches.

Like a nine inch plate has about 64 square inches of surface and a twelve inch plate has 78 percent more than a nine inch plate. 78 percent more capacity. Just this week I was talking to a cabinet maker and he was telling me that people are now requesting deeper cabinets to fit their bigger plates. I didn't know that until just this week. In the 1960s, when you got an order of fries from McDonald's, it was four to six ounces.

Today it's six to 12 ounces. A serving of Coke back in those days when I was growing up, six to eight ounces. Now it's 16 to 32 ounces. And you can supersize the whole thing. And now you've got a supersized America.

That's what you've got going here. It's really amazing. And then you go out to eat. It used to be a meat entree Was four to six ounces now at six to twelve and then you add chips and bread and all kinds of sauces So look at we're eating differently today, And I think that's how America got supersized. You know, you read about this.

What I'm reading is that the, you know, When you go out to eat today, you're getting one and a half to two times the amount of food on your plate than you did in the 1960s. So I think that, hey, look, people, it's making people very sick. You have remarkable rates of diabetes and heart disease and cardiovascular disease. CDC says that 57% of American adults, 3 out of 5, either have diabetes or pre-diabetes. I think a lot of it has to do with eating like this.

But now you can fix it all with GLP-1s and it'll reduce your hunger, it'll increase your fullness and slow your digestion. And then now you can become addicted to a drug and be enslaved by another thing to try to keep you the way you ought to keep yourself actually Richard Baxter said he wrote he wrote a treatise called the greatness of the sin of gluttony He says to know the greatness of the sin is the chief part of the cure. You need to know it's sinful. That's part of the cure. Then he says, glutton's are commonly called belly gods.

He's quoting the bible. Their god is their belly the apostle Paul says. He loves the pleasing of his appetite better than pleasing God. He says gluttony is self-murder though it kill not suddenly it kills surely It fills and kills by degrees. So gluttony, is it something that America has just kind of fallen into?

Probably, probably he's just kind of fallen into it as a result of the way the culture you know has moved along Jonathan Edwards made resolutions about this resolution number 20 you know his He gave many they're really remarkable resolutions. He did it when he was in his teen. He wrote these when his teens and 20s resolution 20 resolved to Maintain the strictest temperance in eating and drinking Resolute resolution 40 resolved to inquire every night before I go to bed whether I have acted in the best way I possibly could with respect to eating and drinking. In his diary, he talks about how he did experiments with eating and drinking and sleeping to determine how it would contribute to his energy and his wakefulness. And he would just do little experiments like that.

He writes this, that he felt more sprightly and healthy both mind and body as a result of these experiments with his food. And he also confessed his failures. One occasion he said, I am again grown too careless about eating and drinking and sleeping. Later he says, I have not been watchful enough over my appetites in eating and drinking. So bodily appetites can harm your body and they can be a reflection of your soul and temperance serves the body and the soul which was designed to serve God.

This is the only, your body is the only instrument you have. You should take good, you should take very good care of it and you alone are responsible. You know, You know, I was complaining some time ago that I was gaining more weight than I wanted to, and she said, Scott, no one is jamming that food into your mouth. You're putting it in your own mouth with your own hands. Okay, so the sermon has gone way off course, is all I can say.

You go through the food line and sometimes you see these plates that are piled so high, like five people could eat off of this plate. So the Bible speaks to this matter. Paul said it to the Corinthian church in First Corinthians 1031, whether you eat or drink or whatever you do do all for the glory of God. So you've heard a sermon about lying, harsh behavior, laziness, and gluttony. But all of this I think we should see it under the power of God to transform a person's life.

We all come into the church with baggage from our culture. We do come from a culture of lying. We do come from a culture of lying. We do come from a culture of harshness and laziness and gluttony. But God is not finished with us yet.

And through the ordinary means of grace, day by day, Sunday by Sunday, sermon by sermon, song by song fellowship by fellowship the Lord's Supper by the Lord's Supper over time God deals with his people. Now, open your Bibles to Titus 3. I want you to find verse 3, because here's what you find that the Apostle says verse 3, Titus 3, 3, for we ourselves were once foolish. There you go. Disobedient, deceived, serving various lusts and pleasures, living in malice and envy, hateful and hating one another.

But when the kindness and the love of God our Savior toward man appeared, not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to His mercy He saved us through the washing of regeneration and renewing of the Holy Spirit, whom he poured out on us abundantly through Jesus Christ our Savior, that having been justified by his grace, we should become heirs according to the hope of eternal life. We all are coming out of a culture that's a lot like that broken violin and it needs a craftsman. It needs to be repaired. All of us are in the repair shop of God. And these are the works of the grace of God in the church.

I'm gonna read you a poem that I heard a long time ago it's called the touch of the master's hand. It was battered and scarred and the auctioneer thought it was scarcely worth this while to waste much time on the old violin. But held it up with a smile. What am I bidding, good folks? He cried.

Who will start the bidding for me? A dollar? A dollar. Then two. Only two?

Two dollars. Who will make it three? Three dollars once, three dollars twice. Going for three. But no.

From the room far back, a gray-haired man came forward and picked up the bow. In wiping the dust from the old violin and tightening the loosened strings, he played a melody pure and sweet as caroling angels sing. The music ceased and the auctioneer, with a voice that was quiet and low, said, what am I bid for the old violin? And he held it up with the bow. A thousand dollars who will make it two?

Two thousand who will make it three. Three thousand once, three thousand twice, going and gone said he. The people cheered but some of them cried. We do not quite understand what changed its worth. Swift came the reply the touch of the master's hand and many a man with life out of tune and battered and scarred with sin is auctioned cheap to the thoughtless crowd much like the old violin a mess of pottage a glass of wine a game he travels on He's going once going twice.

He's going and almost gone But the master comes And the foolish crowd never can quite understand the worth of a soul and the change that's wrought by the touch of the Master's hand. That's the vision of Titus. That's the vision of hope in the Church of Jesus Christ. There's a bright future for the church for those who are being sanctified by the grace of God regularly imbibing themselves in the ordinary means of grace. This is the promise of God.

Let's pray. Lord, Lord thank you again for your word for its practicality, for its usability in every part of our life. And now Lord come and bless your people. Help us to make progress in all of these areas that you've identified that are part of our culture they're part of our lives every day and Lord we love the touch of the Master's hand amen Thanks for watching!