1 La meta del ministerio Cristiano.

June 20, 2004

I Timothy 1:3-5
The Goal of Christian Ministry

Turn with me to I Timothy, chapter one, and the third verse.

I Timothy is a book about the church. If we ask the question What is
the Church supposed to be like? this is one of the best books in the
Bible to go to, to find the answer. Of course, its companion letters in
the Pastoral Epistles, II Timothy and Titus, all address very
specifically the questions of, What the local church ought to look
like? What should the local church be doing? What should be the
priorities of the local church? How should the local church be
ordered and administered? How should the local church focus its
resources? and How should we relate to one another, in the life of
the local congregation?
You see, in these three relatively short letters, I and II Timothy and
Titus, we find both a description and a prescription for church and
ministry in a local Christian congregation. That is, we find not only a
description of what life would have been like in a local Christian
church some thirty years after Jesus Christ ministered and died, was
raised from the dead and ascended upon high in the first century-what a glorious privilege to have a peek at how early Christians live-we not only see a description of a local congregation just a few years
after Jesus, but we also have here instructions for a local
congregation just a few years after Jesus lived. In other words, we
see here Paul's mandates, his directives, his instructions for how
these Christians were to live and serve God together.

Now, not only do we find here instructions for how they were to serve
God together, we find here instructions for how we are to live and
serve God together, because Paul is not simply writing these words
to one particular local church, but he's writing these words to one
particular local church knowing that God intends them for every local
church. So when you ask questions such as What should the
church be like? there's not a better place to begin in your Bibles
than
I and II Timothy and Titus, although all of the Scripture speaks to
what the church ought to be like, especially these letters show us the
Apostle Paul's teaching about life in the local congregation.
Now we commented last week that as we look around us in America
today, we see three basic models of how church is being done,
how to be the church in the world. We said last week that there is
what we might call a Liberal Model of how to be the church. This
model of church life says, look, if you want to be successful, if you
want to be effective reaching out for Christianity in this world, you've
got to change the Gospel message. The message needs to be
updated. The message doesn't connect with this generation. It
doesn't answer their needs. In some parts, it's offensive to them, and
they have ceased to believe other parts of it. Therefore, if we're
going to be successful in reaching out and impacting and influencing
the culture, the message is going to need to be changed. And there
are churches all over this city and state and nation that have done
just that. They've changed the message. They've done it, perhaps,
with good intentions: they wanted to reach out, and they didn't think
this message would work. And so the message has been updated.
And that's the Liberal Model of how you do church.

Now Evangelicals have always rejected that. We've rightly seen that
the message is God's. Who are we to change the message? He
wrote it! And we've also seen that the message still works, it answers
man's deepest needs. It glorifies God. It brings sinners to the Savior,
and it sets them on the path of eternal life. And so Evangelicals have
always said, we're not changing the message. Were not going to
monkey with the message.
But many Evangelicals have said, the message is not the problem,
our methods are. And if we could just change our methods and use
new, better, more creative methods, then the old message would be
more effective in this world. And that's the second model. We said
it's a Modern Evangelical model of how to do church. We won't
change the message, but well update the methods. And if we get the
right methods, the message will work better. You see, behind that
model is the assumption that God gives us the message and leaves
the methods up to us.
But the third model, the Biblical Model that we see today--and we
see, again, this model in many parts of the world--in fact, in every
part of the world... It is the third model that I'm interested in, because
it's the model of the Pastoral Epistles. That model says that both the
message and the method for building the church come from God.
He's not given us a message and then left us on our own to figure
out how to do life together as Christians. No, He has given us a
message and a method.
Paul and the Gospel say that the message works. The message
doesn't need to be updated. It needs to be clearly repeated every
generation, because it is eternally true. And so the message stays
the same. But furthermore, the biblical model says the Gospel
works, the message works, and God has told us how we are to

do ithow we are to share it, how we are to live it together in the

life of the local congregation.
So God has given us both the message and the method, and we see
this beautifully in Paul's letter. In fact, last week when we looked at
Paul's greetings we learned things about how to live together and
minister together as Christians, even looking at his greetings to
Timothy.
We noticed that ministry in a local church should be God-appointed.
Paul ministered in the consciousness that he had been appointed to
that ministry by the commandment of God and by Jesus Christ. He
never could forget that encounter with Jesus on the Damascus
Road. He was on the way to Damascus to kill Christians! And Jesus
came and not only converted him, but made him a preacher of the
Gospel. Now, you never had to convince Paul that he was in the
ministry because God put him there! He knew it! It tingled in every
aspect of the nerves of his body and down to the very core of his
being. He knew he was appointed by God. He was in the ministry
because God had appointed him to be there.
And Paul's God-consciousness is a second aspect that we see in his
greeting to Timothy. He's serving in the ministry according to the
commandment of whom? God our Savior, and of Jesus Christ, our
hope and our Lord. Paul is conscious of who God is. He's our Savior,
He's our Lord, He's our hope. And the reality of who God is
empowers Paul's ministry.
But we also see in that greeting the encouragement that Paul gives
to Timothy, and interestingly, even the encouragement is Godconscious. He encourages Timothy first of all, by pointing him to who
God is: our Savior, our Lord, our hope. But also by pointing us to

what God does. Youll perhaps look at verse two where he says to
Timothy, grace, mercy and peace. So, not only who God isSavior,
Lord and hopebut also what God does that encourages us. Grace,
mercy and peace that He gives us. And out of that he encourages
Timothy in the ministry. So even reading his encouraging words of
greetings to Timothy reminded us what we ought to be doing in the
church. Ministry in the church is according to God's appointment.
Ministry in the church is always conscious of who God is. Ministry in
the church is always trying to encourage one another by pointing us
to who God is and what He has done for us. So even in the greetings
we learn something about how life ought to be in the local church.
Well, if that's the way in the greetings, how much more in the stuff, in
the substance of the letter? Well, youll get to find out today as we
turn to I Timothy 1:3/ Before we do, let's look to God in prayer and
ask for His blessing on the reading and hearing of His word.
Lord God, You have given us Your truth and revealed Yourself to us
in order that we might be conformed to the image of Your Son.
Grant, then, as we hear Your word read and preached, Your Spirit
will form and mold our hearts in the very inner man, by the word and
to the word. We ask this in Jesus' name, Amen.
This is the word of God:
As I urged you upon my departure for Macedonia, remain on at
Ephesus in order that you may instruct certain men not to teach
strange doctrines, nor to pay attention to myths and endless
genealogies, which give rise to mere speculation rather than
furthering the administration of God, which is by faith. But the goal of
our instruction is love from a pure heart, and a good conscience and
a sincere faith.

Amen. Thus ends this reading of God's holy, inspired and inerrant
word. May He write its eternal truth upon our hearts.
If you had four pages to write a young preacher to give him a
theology of ministry that would last a lifetime and impact literally
millions, where would you start? What would be the first thing that
you would say to him? Ill bet you it wouldn't be what Paul said to
Timothy. Now, I can see you starting off by saying, Now Timothy,
love your people. Love them like theyre your own, love them with all
your heart. That would be good counsel. That would be biblical
counsel. Paul's going to give that counsel to Timothy elsewhere, but
that's not how he starts.
You could say, Timothy, whatever else you do, pray for your people.
Love them so much that youre praying for them constantly. Lift them
up before the throne of God in prayer. Realize that your intercession
for them will be crucial in their growth in grace That would be good
counsel for you to give a young minister. It would be biblical counsel.
Paul's going to give that counsel to Timothy later on, but that's not
how he starts.
I. We must actively check false teaching as a regular part of our
ministry.
Paul starts in such a surprising way, doesn't he? He says something
that you and I never would have started with! We might have put it in
somewhere down the line, but we wouldn't have started there. Just
shows you how important the truth is to Paul that he starts where he
starts.
I want you to see in these three verses a negative exhortation and a
positive exhortation. Paul starts with a negative exhortation in verses
three and four; then he moves to a positive exhortation in verse five,

which summarizes his whole approach to Gospel ministry. And I

want to look at both parts of his exhortation.
His negative exhortation is this: Timothy, teach them not.instruct
them notto teach falsely or to listen to false teachers. He begins
by calling Timothy to actively check false teaching as a regular part
of his ministry. It's the last place that you would expect Paul to begin.
Now, here's your first key to ministry, Timothy. Oppose false
teaching. You see, it just shows you how important truth is to Paul.
Paul knows that false teaching ruins lives, because false doctrine
always leads to error in living. Whereas true doctrine, the truth of
God's word, is designed to flower forth in the life of the Christian and
the congregation with a rich, biblical experience of God's grace and
walk with God. And therefore, false teaching hurts people.
And so he says, Timothy, here is the first thing I want to do. The
very reason I left you in Ephesus is so you could keep men from
teaching falselywho are teaching falsely thereand so that you
could persuade them not to listen to the false teachers from whom
they have gotten these ideas. He characterizes false teaching this
way. He says, let me tell you what false teaching does. It leads to
idle speculation. It leads to endless disputes about myths and
genealogies. Paul is saying that false teachers first and foremost are
about getting people to follow them, and getting people to agree with
their bizarre, speculative ideas.
Ill never forget coming home from seminary my first semester, and
being greeted by a man who was teaching in my home congregation.
He was leading home Bible studies without the knowledge of the
elders, and I met him at the church, and his first question to me was
this: Who do you think the little horn of Daniel is? I should have
known something was wrong, right there! Not hello, not how are

you, not hi, I'm Tom, what's your name? --Who do you think the
little horn of Daniel is? Bad sign! Why do they always start with
eschatology?! And he proceeded to go into this half-hour discourse,
monologue, about the fact that he was the world's leading expert in
the little horn of Daniel. Another bad sign. His teaching on
eschatology, however, was having a soul-killing effect on certain
people in the congregation. Sounds crazy, doesn't it? But it was. He
had started off with a vulnerable woman in the congregation in a time
of need, and he had gotten her to gather together a little group of
people in her home, and then it had begun to spread. And finally, the
elders had to remove him from the church, because they were
following Paul's instructions: Timothy, teach them not to teach false
doctrines. It's a strong word. He uses a military word. It's instruct
them not to do thislike an order from a drill sergeant to a buckprivate. Don't allow them to corrupt my people's hearts with false
teaching.
You see, this shows us how important the truth is to Paul, in ministry.
The disaster of false teaching is that it always sidetracks people from
the central elements of Christian discipleship, and so Paul knows
that it is vital to a minister to distinguish truth from falsehood, and to
protect his people from falsehood.
I was at a Bible conference in another country, a conference
designed for ministers, and about four or five hundred ministers were
gathered for that conference. And one of the speakers was a very
well known Baptist minister. He was a Baptist minister who was
Reformed in his theology. He loved the doctrines of grace, and he
was very famous. He had ministered to me on many occasions. It
was the first time that I had met him, and so I thought that as we
talked together that we would find some sort of point of commonality.

And I knew that I had a friend who had studied under another
famous Baptist minister who also loved the doctrines of grace and
was Reformed, and so I just mentioned this to him. I mentioned this
other man, and this other friend, and immediately fire flashed in his
eyes! And his brow furrowed, and he said to me, Let me tell you
something about that teacher. Hell draw a horse and say to his
students this is a horse, but he won't draw a cow next to that horse
and say to his students this cow is not a horse!
Now, my friends, I was completely baffled! What are you talking
about? I walked away ten minutes trying to think about horses and
cows and what the message was that this guy was giving me. It
finally dawned on mewhat he was saying is, This man is true in his
doctrine. He will draw the truth for his students and say yes, this is
the truth. But he will never draw falsehood next to the truth and say
to them, this is wrong.
Now, I'm not sure whether that assessment is completely right of the
other man, but the point is an important one. In other words, he was
saying it is pastorally important for a Christian minister not only to
teach the truth, but also to inoculate his people against error, and
help them to understand the difference between the two. Because
you see, my friends, the truth doesn't just win by being put out there.
You know, we often live under that illusionaw, just put the truth out
there, itll do fine. History has shown otherwise. We must contend for
the faith. Some of our greatest heroes are men who stood up and
they not only announced the truth, but they also said, what is being
taught here is wrong, and it must be opposed.
Paul is telling that to Timothy. It's the first thing that he says to this
young minister! Teach them not to teach falsely, or to listen to those
who do.

II. We must minister with a view to the apostolic goal of

ministry.
But the second thing is what I want to focus on especially with you,
and you see it in verse five. In verse five, Paul is giving us a glorious
summary of the goal of his discipleship program. He tells you here
that in the local congregation the ministry of truth aims for this goal in
you: love. The ministry of truth is not designed simply to get you to
sign a card or pray a prayer. The ministry of the truth in the local
congregation is not simply to arm you with Bible facts. The ministry
of the truth is not simply designed to get you to believe certain
things, although the design of truth is that you would believe and
embrace biblical things. The ministry of the truth is more than that. It
is to produce in you, love. Of course, ultimately the ministry of truth
all aims to do what? Bring glory to God. But inyou, the aim of the
ministry of truth is to produce a heart of love. Is that not glorious?
And Paul sets it over against the false teachers, and he says you
show me a false teacher and Ill show you a guy who's trying to do
two things. He's trying to get you to follow him, (a); and, (b) to agree
with him. He's not reallyhe doesn't really care about your life. He's
not really interested in transforming grace. He wants you to believe
speculative things that he teaches, and follow him. That's what he's
after. And Paul says to Timothy, that's not what we're about. What
we're about is seeing the truth so worked in the hearts of people that
they live the life of love to God and love to neighbor. Isn't it glorious?
He says the goal of our instruction is love from a pure heart, and a
good conscience, and a sincere faith.
Now, what's Paul saying? Is he saying that we have a three-fold
goal? The goal of our instruction is love from a pure heart; the goal
of our instruction is a good conscience; the goal of our instruction is

a sincere faith. Or, does he mean the goal of our instruction islove,
and that love can only come from a pure heart, a good conscience,
and a sincere faith. I think it's the latter that he's saying. Look at the
structure of the sentence again: The goal of our instruction is
loveand then look at the fromwhere does that love come from?
It comes from three things: A pure heart, a good conscience, and a
sincere faith.
You see, Paul is pointing to something that Jesus said. Turn with me
back to Matthew, chapter 22. In Matthew 22, a teacher comes to
Jesus. He was a lawyer. Not like our secular lawyers, but a religious
teacher of the law. He was a trained theologian who understood the
instruction, or the Torah, or the law of the Old Testament, better than
just about anybody, and thus taught the people how to understand
their Bibles, their Old Testaments. And he came to Jesus, Matthew
22, in verses 35 and 36, and asked Jesus a question. And the
question was this: Jesus, which is the greatest commandment in the
law?
In other words, Jesus, in all of the instruction that God has given to
us in the Old Testament, what's the most important thing? And
Jesus response is absolutely breathtaking. He sums it all up. He
says, Love God and love your neighbor, for the whole of the Old
Testament hangs on this. Now Paul is confirming that here. He is
saying the goal of all of our instruction, the goal of all our teaching, is
to produce that kind of Christian, gospel love, for God and neighbor.
The way we are saved is not by love. The way we are saved is not by
loving God or neighbor, or we're in trouble! But having beensaved by
grace through faith, the goal of God's grace at work in us is to cause
us to love God and neighbor. And so the whole of the law and the

prophets hang on this. The proof of God's grace at work in us is this

love to God and neighbor.
Now, Paul draws attention to that here. It's not the only placePaul
talks about this quite frequently. For instance, turn with me to
Ephesians, chapter five. Paul does not define this love, but he does
describe it. Paul says in Ephesians 5:25, you want to know what love
is? This is love: Christ's self-giving. That's love. And so he says to
us, Husbands, love your wives as Christ loved the Church, and gave
Himself for her. Paul, you see, sets up Jesus as the paragon of what
it is to love. He says, You want to learn about love? Look at your
Savior. Look at how He lived. Look at how He died for the church.
That's love. That's the self-giving of love. For Paul, love is seeking
the best interests of another person in accordance with God's truth,
despite the personal cost that you must bear in seeking that other
person's good. And so he gives an example of that in Ephesians 5.
That's not all though. Paul will say in Romans 13:8-10 you may
want to sneak a peek therethat love can also be described as the
fulfilling of the law. It's the goal of the giving of the instruction of the
law, to work the grace of love into our hearts and lives. And then in
I Corinthians 13, of course, he says that it is a sine qua non, an
essential element of the Christian life. It's a without which not of the
Christian life. In the Christian life, there is always, Paul says, a
manifestation of love. Love to God, love to neighbor, love to our
brothers and sisters in Christ, because when God works the grace of
faith in us and we trust in Jesus Christ alone for salvation as He is
offered in the Gospel, what flows from that in the Christian life is a
life of love. And so Paul is saying, in contrast to the false teachers
who want you to believe a few speculative things and follow them,

he's saying our truth is designed to bring about a life transformation,

so that it issues forth in a life of love.
And so he teaches here that there are three interior realities which
resource this kind of love. If the goal of the apostolic preaching is to
see you transformed and living a life of love, then what are the things
that produce the circumstance that enables you to love that way? He
tells you. This love is from (1) a pure heart; (2) a good conscience;
(3) a sincere faith.
Paul is teaching that we preach, we minister, we teach, we speak the
truth to the heart. And when Paul speaks about the heart he's not
talking about the emotion as over against the intellect. We often use
it that way. Mind intellect; heart emotions. That's never how
Paul uses the language. When Paul says heart, he's speaking
about the deepest part of who you are, and in that deepest part of
who you are, there are at least these four things: your mind, your
thinking, your believing, your conscience your understanding of
what is right and wrong according to God's word. Your willthat
volitional force that helps you to make choices and to decide to do
things, and your affections. Not your emotions so much as your
desires: the things that are most deeply important to you. And Paul
says, when we preach, we preach truth to the heart! To the mind! To
the conscience! To the will, to the affections. We minister to the
whole person. We don't just aim for outward responses or activities.
We preach to the heart, the mind, the conscience, the will, the
desires, with a view to cultivating Gospel love. And if Gospel love is
going to be cultivated, these three realities must be in place because
of the effect of the Holy Spirit using Gospel truth.
First, what? The pure heart. Again, as we said, for Paul the heart is
the very center of the person. Why would we need a pure heart

before we could love? Because we're sinners! And our hearts are
deceitfully wicked. Our hearts are corrupted, theyre depraved. You
know, there was a time when David thought he was in love with a
woman named Bathsheba. And he took her, though she was married
to another man, and he had her husband killed. It's very loving,
wasn't it? He thought he was in love. He was not. Love must come
from a pure heart. When he was convicted of that sin, do you
remember what he prayed? Create in me a clean heartWhy?
Because David knew that he couldn't love unless God did a prior
work of grace in his heart! That's one reason we can't be saved by
loving God and loving our neighbor. We can't be saved by keeping
the commandments, because we're deceitfully wicked! We need to
be changed by God before we are able to respond in love. And so
David prays for a clean heart. You can't love unless God, by the
grace of His Spirit, has given a new heart and a new spirit.
Secondly, a good conscience. What's a good conscience? Uniformly
in the New Testament this refers to an awareness of rightness and
wrongness according to God's standards, and along with that a selfawareness of where we are right or wrong in relation to God's
standards. That's a good conscience. Youre not flying by the seat of
your pants; youre not making your own rules as you go. Situation
Ethics began to be taught in the 1960's, and it argued that love didn't
obey things like arbitrary, prefabricated standards that have been
imposed upon us by societylove just does the best thing in the
situation in which it finds itself. Paul reminds us there is no such
thing as love apart from truth, because love knows that there is a
right and there is a wrong. Go back to the story of David. David, I'm
sure, felt that that relationship with Bathsheba was a supremely good
thing to do. He enjoyed it intensely. And yet, in the end it was shown

to him to be a very wicked thing. So a good conscience is necessary

for us to love, because love is not just doing whatever you feel like
doing in the spur of the moment; love is expressing the standards of
God in our treatment of one another. And so you need a good
conscience to do that.
And a sincere faith. Not a lazy assent to the doctrines of the Gospel,
or a merely formal profession of faith, but a whole-hearted embrace
of the promises of God in the word of God. These things are
necessary for love. And so Paul says the goal of our instruction is
love. The goal of our discipleship is to see Christians loving God and
neighbor from the deep center of the human person. That's the
supreme goal of preaching with regard to the transformation of
human behavior. We always aim for the glory of God. We always aim
for the conversion of the sinner. We aim for the sinner to come to
trust in Jesus Christ alone. But what is our desire in preaching to the
Christian? What is our desire in discipleship? It is to see you become
like your heavenly Father! And what is your heavenly Father like?
God, John says, is love.
So what are we aiming for here at First Presbyterian Church? Is our
goal, when we preach to you, that you would know more stuff than
any other Christians in Jackson? We do want you to know more
Bible truth than any other Christians in Jackson! We want to spoil
you rotten with Bible teaching! But that's not our ultimate goal. We
want that truth to be so wrought in your heart, Christians, that your
lives are transformed so that your neighbors and your friends say,
that brother, that sister knows the Bible and knows God, and loves
like the God of the Bible. So that you are fully embracing the truth of
God, and fully living a life characterized by the love of God. Our goal
in discipleship is that transformation of union with Christ by faith that

leads us as a congregation to love from a pure heart, and a good

conscience, and a sincere faith. May God bring that about in our
discipleship in this congregation.
Let's pray. Our Lord and our God, do this work of grace in us not so
that we would be saved by love, for our own love will never save us.
Only Your love can save us, only Your Christ can save us, only Your
free pardon can save us. Nothing in our hands we bring, simply to
Your cross we cling. But, O God, You have created us in Your grace
in Christ Jesus for good works that You have prepared beforehand.
So we pray, O God, that You would cause those good worksYour
love, love to God, love to neighborto abound in our lives by grace,
and that we, thought never trusting in them for one iota of our
salvation or resting our assurance upon them, would nevertheless
live in them for Your glory. We ask it in Jesus' name, Amen.
*****************************************************
A Guide to the Morning Service
The Sermon (Notes on 1 Timothy 1:5)
The goal of our instruction (torah). Paul comes frankly forward
here, by way of anticipation, and proves that his doctrine is in perfect
harmony with the law, and that the law is utterly abused by those
who employ it for any other purpose. In like manner, when we now
define what is meant by true theology, it is clearly evident that we
desire the restoration of that which had been wretchedly torn and
disfigured by those triflers who, puffed up by the empty title of
theologians, are acquainted with nothing but vapid and unmeaning
trifles. Commandment is here put for the law, by taking a part for the
whole.

Love out of a pure heart.

If the law must be directed to this object, that we may be instructed in
love, which proceeds from faith and a good conscience, it follows, on
the other hand, that they who turn the teaching of it into curious
questions are wicked expounders of the law. Besides, it is of no
great importance whither the word love be regarded in this passage
as relating, to both tables of the law, or only to the second table. We
are commanded to love God with our whole heart, and our neighbors
as ourselves; but when love is spoken of in Scripture, it is more
frequently limited to the second part. On the present occasion I
should not hesitate to understand by it the love both of God and of
our neighbor, if Paul had employed the word love alone; but when he
adds, faith, and a good conscience, and a pure heart, the
interpretation which I am now to give will not be at variance with his
intention, and will agree well with the scope of the passage. The sum
of the law is this, that we may worship God with true faith and a pure
conscience, and that we may love one another. Whosoever turns
aside from this corrupts the law of God by twisting it to a different
purpose.
But here arises a doubt, that Paul appears to prefer love to faith. I
reply, they who are of that opinion reason in an excessively childish
manner; for, if love is first mentioned, it does not therefore hold the
first rank of honor, since Paul shows also that it springs from faith.
Now the cause undoubtedly goes before its effect. And if we carefully
weigh the whole context, what Paul says is of the same import as if
he had said, The law was given to us for this purpose, that it might
instruct us in faith, which is the mother of a good conscience and of
love. Thus we must begin with faith, and not with love.

A pure heart and a good conscience do not greatly differ from

each other. Both proceed from faith; for, as to a pure heart, it is said
that God purifieth hearts by faith. (Acts 15:9) As to a good
conscience, Peter declares that it is founded on the resurrection of
Christ. (1 Peter 3:21) From this passage we also learn that there is
no true love where there is no fear of God and uprightness of
conscience. Nor is it unworthy of observation that to each of them he
adds an epithet; for, as nothing is more common, so nothing is more
easy, than to boast of faith and a good conscience. But how few are
there who prove by their actions that they are free from all hypocrisy!
Especially it is proper to observe the epithet which he bestows on
faith, when he calls it faith unfeigned; by which he means that the
profession of it is insincere, when we do not perceive a good
conscience, and when love is not manifested. Now since the
salvation of men rests on faith, and since the perfect worship of God
rests on faith and a good conscience and love, we need not wonder
if Paul makes the sum of the law to consist of them. (John Calvin)
The Psalm and Hymns
Crown Him with Many Crowns
Our opening hymn exalts Jesus Christ, our reigning King and Savior.
Let us sing it with zeal, as those who have been redeemed by His
precious blood ought.
Immortal, Invisible, God Only Wise
Our reading in Proverbs this morning pertains to wisdom. But the
Lord Himself is wisdom and the source of all wisdom. Let's
acknowledge that as we sing this song in response to the reading of
Scripture.
The Tender Love a Father Has (Psalm 103:13-18)
It's Father's Day today. Let us praise the One who is the archetypal

Father our heavenly Father, who is the pattern of all true earthly
fatherhood. We sing this song to the beautiful tune Winchester Old.
I Love Thy Kingdom, LordWritten by the famous Timothy Dwight,
for many years president of Yale, this is thought to be the oldest
hymn still in common use written by an American. Its theme, the
kingdom of God, fits well with the content of the Pastoral Epistles:
the kingdom of God as it finds expression in the local church.
This guide to worship is written by the minister and provided to the
congregation and our visitors in order (1) to assist them in their
worship by explaining why we do what we do in worship and (2) to
provide them background on the various elements of the service.