Youth need mentors

In the book of Titus, the epistle to Titus, the Apostle Paul wrote Titus a letter of instructions on how to carry out his pastorate, his ministry. And I want to do my best, I'll say, to wrap up the series that I started a while back on the subject of authority. This morning I almost, I almost moved on to another topic, but I felt in my spirit that I had to formally conclude the topic that I started on spiritual authority. What happens is that, as you know, other people's trips and preaching intervened and we had to suspend this topic for a few weeks, but I feel that we should close it in a formal way, so to speak, and then enter another topic as the Lord directs us.

Some of you who have recently come to church or who are visiting today, unfortunately you will not be able to have the amount of teaching that we have had in these last weeks on the subject, but I am going to do everything possible to give you a little bit of information. context at least, background so that you understand how this theme of spiritual authority fits.

Another thing that I can tell you is that this is a topic like, let's say, it's a slightly more advanced topic in spiritual terms. From time to time one has as a pastor, to choose topics that educate the church, perhaps it is not a topic that lends itself so much to general consumption, but I believe that we can all get something out of this topic, I assure you, and I believe that everyone will benefit from the teaching contained in this passage.

Chapter 2 of the epistle to Titus. Well, let me also tell you, the Apostle Paul is writing in a context here of correctness almost, one could say, against a spirit, against an attitude that he discerns in the culture in which this pastor, Titus, is carrying out his task, and So he writes to him so that Titus doesn't cower, but so that he speaks the truth, so that he preaches in a way with authority. And you'll see, as I read, you'll see how the issue of authority comes into play here. I will try to elucidate a little more. The Apostle Paul says in verse 1 of Chapter 2:

"... but you, speaking to Tito, remember you are a pastor who is raising churches, he says, but you, Tito, speak what is in accordance with sound doctrine...."

Let's stop there for a moment. That one, but you… is referring to the fact that there is a different way of doing things and Paul wants this pastor to preach in a different way. But you, meaning, if you look at Second Timothy, Chapter 4, I think it's verse 3, even before that. Paul is writing to another pastor named Timothy, look at verse 1, Second Timothy, if you help me brothers, he says:

"... I urge you before God and the Lord Jesus Christ who will judge the living and the dead at his appearing and in his kingdom..."

Wow, you're putting this in, like, a very solemn way.

"... that you preach the word, that you urge in season and out of season, reprove, rebuke, exhort with all patience and doctrine...."

He is telling him, look, preach the word, do not be afraid, speak clearly, exhort the people. If you have to rebuke in preaching, do it. Don't worry that you're preaching something that sounds a little strong to people. Says;

"...for the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine, but having an itching ear, they will heap up teachers, according to their own lusts, and they will turn away from the truth and turn to fables...."

What is the Apostle Paul saying in this passage that serves as background? Paul says that there will come a day in human history when people will want to hear the word. But despite the fact that they will thirst to hear the word, they will not want to hear the true word of God, but rather they will want to be preached what they want to hear and not the sound doctrine of God. And for this reason, Paul tells Timothy and Titus, but you as pastors do not let yourselves be intimidated by that attitude of the people. You preach the word, you give the people what the people need, not what the people want to hear.

You see there already involved the issue of authority in the sense that, brothers, the churches, the people of God require pastors who are not afraid to proclaim the truth, who are not afraid to use the authority that God has given them. and churches and people are also needed to give freedom to their pastors to preach sound doctrine. Amen. They understand.

God needs a Christian culture where people want to hear the truth, not what they want to hear, not what flatters their mind but the word that comes out of God's mouth because that is the only thing that heals our communities. And today, however, in the modern world, I believe that many pastors feel gagged, they feel prevented from preaching sound doctrine. Today, in countries like the United States, the church is so weak that many pastors are afraid that when people come to visit their churches and hear true doctrine on morality, on human relationships, on marriage, on political issues even, that if they preach what the word of God says, people are going to leave. They are not going to want to come to church because we are in a culture, in a society that is by nature rebellious, many professional people, many times, or very self-assured people come to church and say, well, if the pastor gets very personal or very intimate I don't go back to church. What they want is a teaching there that tells them that God loves them, that God has good things for them, that God blesses them, that they are worth it, that there is prosperity and that there is a blessing for them, but they do not want a deeper teaching. and more direct that goes more to the jugular and to the heart, to behavior, to morality, to human relations, to marriage, to work. We just want soft-boiled eggs on top.

But you know what, brothers? That the church of Jesus Christ is called to speak with authority, to speak properly and that is what heals the life of a church. Many times marriages are broken because the church is not stating the way to conduct a marriage. Many times the church lives exactly as the world lives because from the pulpits the truth of the word of God is not being taught and an educated, educated, humble people is required, subject to spiritual authority to come to the church and say, Pastors, we are here for you to give us God's advice. Amen. So that you tell us the word of God and if that word is true and legitimate and is sound doctrine, we are going to receive it as coming from God and not from man.

And he knows that when there is that attitude in people there is blessing, when the people of God come to the house of God and come with a contrite and humiliated heart, with a heart open to what God wants. Wow, that's tremendous because then the word of God can fall like a seed that falls on good soil and can do its work. Never come to church with a rebellious attitude, never come to church with a prove me attitude. No, come to church with an open heart, come to church as good land thirsty for water and good seed and let the word of the Lord instruct you and submit to your spiritual authorities.

I say the following, if your pastors are preaching the word of the Lord, and if you can judge that it is the word of God, because that is important. Nowadays, you need to know the Bible, you have to know the word to know if the people who are preaching the word are basing themselves on the Scripture. Now, once you confirm that the word that is coming out of that pulpit is biblical, look, even if you don't like it, even if it cuts you in half, even if you think the pastor is throwing hints at you, receive it. Amen. Open your heart to it, let that word settle in your spirit and you will be blessed, and you will be edified.

The churches, the communities, brothers, are healed by that sound doctrine. And we have to ask the Lord, Father, to free the pulpits of this nation and fill the churches with people eager to hear the healthy word of God, submissive people, people open to God's truth. The Lord Jesus Christ said, you will know the truth and the truth will set you free. Do you know what liberates and heals communities, brothers? God's truth. The Latino community, the Afro-American community has many struggles, many problems with our young people, with our men, with our marriages, our families, our finances, the educational system, there are many ties that we have and what is going to heal? our community? You know what? the word of God. When our young people learn to listen to the word of God, that word will heal their lives, our marriages will be blessed. When there is a people open and delivered and subject to the word of the Lord.

You know, how our communities going to be healed and blessed? How is the Latino community, the African American community and the Anglo community in another way, how are these communities going to be healed and delivered from all the difficulties and all the dysfunctionalities that affect them? Well, it's going to begin with a church that feels free to announce the wholesome counsel, the whole counsel of the word of God, and by people who come to church hungry and thirsty for the truth of God, who don't come to church just to be encouraged and to be patted on the head and to be told that God loves them and that God is with them.

Yes, I think that's part of the ministry of the preacher, but also the ministry of the word involves wholesome, deep, practical instruction that goes to the areas of life, the family, morality, work, finances, human relationships, marriage, all different areas are also areas that the word of God should go deep into and that the people of God, when they come to church should be open and submissive to the word of God and pastors should feel free to speak to our congregation and sometimes, you know, will challenge them. Sometimes we will confront them, sometimes we will exhort them, sometimes we will make people feel uncomfortable, but that's ok, that is the healing action of the word of God exercising itself.

You know, there's a prophetic dimension to the proclaiming of the word of God that when you utter the word of God in the spirit and from a prophetic stance, that word enters directly into the spirit of the individual. And I think it also even penetrates the community as a whole, that listens to that word and the word of God like a living thing begins to act upon lives and it begins to cleanse, it begins to sharpen, it begins to confront, it begins to realign and to straighten and to deepen itself in the lives of those who listen. That's an important ministry of the word of God and it requires a community that is open to it.

I hope that there will be young people in our church more and more each day, who will be hungry for the word of God. I speak to you, young men, young women right now and I say to you, I pray that the Lord will create a community of young people who are thirsty and anxious to hear the word of God, instead of saying, oh, you know the preacher started time to go and get a drink of water somewhere or to go and hover in some room of the church or something like that and forget. No, please, stay, listen tp the word and do the best that you can and pay attention to it. You will be blessed by it. You will be edified, your life will be strengthened. Even if you're 7 years old, 10 years old, if you are anxious to hear the word of God, God will enlighten. I tell you, God will activate your wisdom.

I think many young people don't understand the word, not because they are not capable of understanding it, but because they are not attentive enough to it. But if you say to yourself, you know, I'm here, I'm going to pay attention to the word, I'm going to hold my horses here and discipline myself, you will discover that slowly your mind and your understanding start opening up and you start understanding things that before you did not understand and the word of God is a living thing that extends your capacity to understand deep, abstract things, you know, and in turn that will bless you in your school work as well, it will bless you intellectually, it will bless you academically, and you will become a very, very powerful human being as a result of that. But you got to take the word of God seriously and I do pray that some day I'll see hungry eyes from young people and I will be like now, I'm doing I will be obliged to speak to you in English, because as I say, I got to give those young people something also. Amen.

Can I hear an amen from those young people. Praise the Lord, we need you. I want you as your pastor to be attentive, I want you, as your pastor, to be hungry for the word of God and to be growing in the word of God because I tell you, that is a privilege that you have that no other generation, or no other sector of the young people of this nation have, the capacity and the ability to sit at the feet of Jesus Christ himself as he teaches you through his teachers and pastors. So do not underestimate the importance of that privilege.

And since I lost the others who don't speak English, I'm going to come back again to talk to him. But I think it is important, brothers, that you also be tolerant while from time to time we speak in English as well, because we have many young people here, adults, and we are dealing with that. I ask you to pray that the Lord will clarify to us how we can also minister to our youth. Amen. How can we minister to many North Americans who also come eager to receive the word of God in our midst, and that it is important that we sacrifice ourselves for them because we are here to bless, not just to be blessed. You can say amen to that. Glory to God.

So, the Apostle Paul is saying to Titus, going back to Titus, Titus, he speaks what is in accordance with sound doctrine and then he breaks down that, he says, he addresses the elders. Now, not the elders as deacons, or spiritual elders, no, to the chronological elders, the older, older people, the older people, advanced in age, says:

“…. May the elderly be sober, serious, prudent, healthy in faith, in love, in patience...."

The Bible has something to say to each generation and to each stage and each state or activity of life. The Bible has word and advice for all dimensions of life. So he goes first to the elderly and tells the elderly to behave with dignity, to behave soberly, not to walk around like a 17-year-old boy, wearing jeans that are stuck there and all that, and the women there rouge on his face, too old for his age. No, old women, old men, behave with dignity, bless adults and young people with your gravitas, your experience accumulated over the years, be a model of sobriety.

How beautiful these old women are in the churches, and those old men already hardened by life who have already passed, are cured of fright as we say, they have gone through different experiences in life and they bless their congregation with their life of prayer, with their seriousness, with their commitment to the Lord, with their chaste and experienced behavior, and that they bless young people with their advice and example. I thank God for every elderly person, every old man or woman in this church.

God free us from a church only of young people and old people. No, we love the elderly. Amen. Give a round of applause to those elders here in the church right now. They bless us with their age.

I believe that one of the problems of this nation and of many Western nations is that they have become idolaters of the youth, as if the youth control everything. It is a culture of idolizing youth. Almost on television you hardly see old people and you know what? Ancient cultures have learned to value the elderly because they already know that the elderly person has an authority, has a life experience that must be venerated.

And I tell the young people in our church, young people, learn to greet your elders and to respect them and to kiss their hand if necessary.

Young people, respect your elders. Bless the elderly in our churches. Don't pass them by. You know, stop before them and thank them for their age, thank them for their counsel, seek the company of elders. There's something very beautiful about them. They have an anointing that is so beautiful.

So, the Apostle Paul tells the elderly to behave in a serious way, sober, prudent, healthy in faith, in love. To the old women, likewise, be reverent in your demeanor, walk like women since they are your age. Behave according to your age and use that old age as a blessing.

By the way, to the sisters who are already getting old, look, don't complain about getting old. Bless yourself and go into your adulthood and old age, if that's all it takes, with joy. Amen, sisters, don't be ashamed of those little dogs that are coming out there, they are a blessing.

Listen to me, each age has its beauty, each age has its attractiveness and has its dignity and its anointing and we don't have to apologize because maybe the muscles don't obey as much as when we were 20 years old, but there are other blessings that come: experience, strength , conviction about life. Who wants, I do not want to return to 20 years, brothers, I tell you the truth. I see myself at 20 years old and I am ashamed of myself, many times, the things I said and did at that stage. Glory to God for the young, but also entering adulthood and entering old age in the Lord is a great blessing.

And we all have to respect each other, the young respecting the old, the old exercising their old age and thanking God for getting them into that age. And a church that is thus guided by patterns of authority is the glory of God. Nations need the advice of the old, societies need the advice of the old. And I am going to use that word in the most respectful sense possible, there is no need to apologize for saying an 'old man'. An old person is a blessing to a community and I think our nation would benefit a lot from having a few older people in government and elsewhere because that old experience is needed.

It says that "... old women be reverent, not slanderers, not slaves to wine, teachers of good..." and I like what verse 4 says, it says, "... teach young women to love their husbands and children... ” the men say, glory to God.

Big sisters, and big brothers, you know what? youth need mentors. We have to invest in our young people, and by the way, young people have to look for mentors. I believe that there are many old and mature people who would love to bless a young person with a word of advice, but they feel self-conscious, because young people, when we give them advice many times, all the spikes come out, all the knives, all the defenses. once and for all, I don't need your advice, I know what I'm doing and that's where they go and lose.

Now, we too are ready to bless the youth with a word of advice. Our youth need mentors. How girls are going to learn to be wives, housewives, mothers. I tell you the truth, I ask the Lord to help us as a church every day to teach our youth healthy models of marriage, of being fathers or mothers and of being guides in their community.

Young people, you need to learn. Soon you are going to reach the age of 20, 22, 24, 25 years, many of you are going to get married, you are going to start a responsible life where you have to pay your bills, rent an apartment, get a job, the weight of life is going to fall on you, and you know what? In those days it would have been very good if you had people to teach you how to be a father, how to be a mother, how to be a wife, how to be a housewife, how to be the head of a home, the leader of a home.

And I believe that the current community has lost because these patterns of authority have been distorted, it has lost a millennial mechanism, very beautiful, very important for cultures, and it is the ability for the older, older generation to pass on their experiences and their wisdom to the next generation. Do you know that you don't learn to be a mother by experimenting on your poor children like guinea pigs? You have to at least receive a little teaching, modeling. Unfortunately, many of our young people have not had this modeling because they have lived in homes where the father is missing or there has been dysfunction in the home. Young people willing to be mentored by adults and experienced women or men and older people willing to mentor youth are required more than ever.

May the Lord break the generational divisions that the devil has established in our community. And I ask the Lord for a harmonious community: young, old, adults loving each other, respecting each other, recognizing their level of authority and blessing each other.

The last word in the Old Testament, and you're going to look it up later, is a word about the coming of Elijah. Do you remember the prophet Elijah? We don't know if that's going to be, it's probably going to be a person with the anointing, the prophet Elijah, but there is a very mysterious thing that says that when Elijah comes, he will reconcile the parents with the children and the children with the parents to may God not come and curse the earth.

The devil has established a division today between young and old, between children and parents, and that is not from God, that is from the enemy. And the church has to be the first to break that generational curse and unite the generations. I encourage young people in the name of Jesus to put aside all rebellion against parents and to love their elders and listen to their voice. And to the elderly in the same way, not to abdicate their great call to be mentors, to be an example. Young ladies, ask your mother or ask an older woman, if you don't have good communication with your mom, ask another old woman or a married woman, ask her for advice, look, I'm going to be a mom one day and I don't even know how to change a diaper, or I don't know how to discipline a child, how to run a house. That's nice, that's nice, and it's not like only women are going to do that, obviously.

But brothers, I believe that in the Bible there are certain patterns: women have certain gifts, men have other gifts, and we are not being taught how to develop those gifts. Let us ask the Lord for a united church, united families where the generations are in harmony with each other and that has to be announced from the pulpit. That kind of teaching has to be announced from the pulpits.

Do I still have them with me, brothers? I'm almost reaching the end. Says:

“…that they teach young women to love their husbands and their children, to be prudent, chaste, keepers of their homes, good, subject to their husbands so that the word of God is not blasphemed…”

Why does the Apostle Paul add that so that the word of God is not blasphemed? Because brethren, what if the world looks at Christians and examines their homes, and examines their marriages, and examines their family life, and sees that Christians are just as dysfunctional and just as neurotic as the people out there, what are they going to say? God's word is a lie. Why be a Christian if you look at how this family that is supposedly Christian lives fighting. See how their children live like any other member of the community. Look, all the messes and all the problems they have. Look at your finances in disarray. Look at his house completely, sleeve by shoulder, as we say. So the world is going to say, hey, if that's what Christianity is, it's useless. Why become a Christian?

So Paul says, that the family life of Christians and that their relationships of authority are so different that people have to recognize, ok, now I understand, the word of God is true because those people have a different order in their home.

We have to ask the Lord, Father, help us understand the true word of God and structure our homes in that way, brothers. And I tell them, today, we pastors are afraid to tell people, look, there is a pattern for a man, there is a pattern for a woman, there is a pattern for being a wife, there is a pattern for being a husband, because that clashes with the sensitivity of today's culture. Yes or no? They accuse us of being chauvinists, of being feminists or whatever, and so we are afraid to tell people the truth about how to run a Christian home.

So what we have is confused people, young people who don't know where to go, who are continually wandering around, they are afraid of getting married, they are afraid of starting a home, and if they do, it falls apart in a moment because there is no healthy education, no there is preparation, there is no basic, solid teaching and that has to change, that has to change.

The church of Jesus Christ has to announce the advice of God so that the world is convinced. I ask the Lord, Father, at least in this community that you have given us, let your shalom run, ordering the lives of our people, that our homes be places of peace, of harmony, that our marriages be places where the man knows how to be the head of the home according to the pattern of Christ Jesus, a servant leader who loves, who instructs, who exemplifies the character of Christ, who speaks with love, with meekness, with edification, who goes out of his way for his wife and children . Where there is a woman who does not resent her husband's leadership, but respects him and gives him his place and God runs through that chain of authority. Where children are subject to their parents and submit to their authority and honor and venerate them and where parents do not abuse their authority and treat their children with respect, as if they are from God, and advise them with a spirit adequate, not abusing, but not fearing his paternal or maternal authority either.

Brothers, such a family, what will happen? the glory of God will be in it. We do not live as the world lives, brothers. We know what authority is. I believe in the authority of man, I believe in the authority of women, I believe in the authority of the church, I believe in the authority of pastors, I believe in the authority of the elders. And I also believe in the value of young people and children. When we know how to navigate every aspect of authority, there is a blessing in the community. And the church of Christ needs to be announcing that blessing to the community. When that happens, the world will see churches healed.

Look, I believe that as I pronounce these words today, not only will that bless those who hear and understand it, but that living word right now is x-raying this church, it is running like electricity through you and it is running even through the community out there, and it is being announced in the power of the Holy Spirit and you are going to see changes and transformations in your lives, because that is the value of the living word of God, it is the value of sound doctrine when it is announced in the power of the Holy Spirit.

The corrected church, the church is rectified, the church is healed, the church is anointed by the blessing of the word of the Lord. That is water that blesses and refreshes the life of a community.

Verse 6 says, “…also exhort the young men to be prudent…”

Wow, young people, there's nothing wrong with being prudent, there's nothing wrong with behaving well, there's nothing wrong with not walking around with your pants falling off your ass or occasionally dressing up with a tie to come to church. Look, surprise yourself one day by dressing up and coming to church. It's not that they have to do it all the time, you understand me. Wow, but how nice it is when young people from time to time imitate adults.

Listen, there's nothing wrong with that, from time to time a young man puts on a suit or learns to behave in a different way. Today, again it's like the young have to be a completely separate tribe and have to go through a period of total rebellion and then later enter adulthood. I don't think so, I think that a young person can be lively, dynamic, creative, dress in colors suitable for his youth and with clothes suitable for his youth, but from time to time also try on the outfits of that adulthood that soon comes around. corner and also learn how to use those things. Because one day you are going to have to use it, at work or wherever.

Young people, start trying on your father's and mother's costumes now, start looking like adults now. I believe that many young people do not grow emotionally because they do not visualize themselves as adults, because the community, society is not teaching them how to visualize that. And one day adulthood surprises them, takes them by surprise and it's too late to learn what they have to learn. Young people be sober, there is nothing with a young man behaving in a certain way.

He says, and now he speaks to the pastor, to Tito himself and thus he speaks to each leader of this congregation, he says, "...presenting yourself in everything as an example of good works, in teaching showing integrity, seriousness, sound word and irreproachable so that the adversary is ashamed and has nothing bad to say about you..."

Brothers, leaders are also required, leaders of integrity, leaders who are living the word of God, leaders who are making an effort. We cannot speak from the pulpit simply by decree, we have to embody, and that is what makes the ministry so difficult, that we have to embody what we are preaching.

The church of Jesus Christ has to live what it preaches. I think the church has lost a lot of authority because we, the leaders, have failed them, and the Lord calls the leaders to take their own shot of integrity as well and say, hey, we have to talk, we have to teach, but we also have to We live what we preach.

There is a call, brothers, for the church as a whole today, many people accuse the church of always pointing out, always pointing out the sins of the people out there, but the truth is that the church also has its own sins. . We have our own faults that we have to bring before God and ask the Lord for forgiveness for all the things in which we have failed him.

That's why the church of Jesus Christ has to try to live according to these patterns and guess what? when we spoke that says that neither the world nor the adversary will have anything bad to say about us. How nice it would be if one day when people point to our life, when examining the interior of our life, they could say, you know what? We do not find anything. Like Daniel who tried to find something to accuse him of before Nebuchadnezzar and the only thing they found is that he was a man of prayer who disobeyed the order not to pray to God. May the Lord raise in us a great integrity, a capacity to live what we preach, that our lives reflect what we are preaching.

In verse 9 he says, "... exhorts servants to be subject to their masters, to please in everything, not to talk back, not to defraud but to be faithful in everything so that in everything they may adorn the doctrine of God our savior..."

I'm going to leave it there until that point. But look how the word of God has spoken to the elderly, to the old women, to the young, to the spiritual leaders, pastors below, and now it says here, exhort the servants.

Well, when Paul was talking about serfs here, he was talking about the slaves who lived in the Greco-Roman world under subjection. Today we don't have slaves here in the United States but we do have workers, we have employees. I would say that the closest thing in this case and what applies very well, those of us who work, who say that we are people who do not disappoint, that we are subject to our masters.

I believe that, brothers, Christian workers, Christian employees should be the best employees that a factory or firm has. Amen. We must be people when we leave a job, the masters or bosses start crying because the best employee they had left, people who give every minute of work, who earn their bread in an adequate way, people who are a help, a resource for their superiors, people who are not continually criticizing what is done to supervisors or employers, people who are peacemakers, peacemakers among those who are at odds at work, people who have a good word of advice in their mouths, every time something happens in the factory or at work, people who are not defrauding and cheating but rather give what they have to give and make it resources for their institutions.

Brothers, people like this are going to be a great blessing to the community. May the word of the Lord enter our hearts this afternoon and may we understand that, hey, we are going to live lives subject to God's truth, we are going to be a church hungry for God's truth. All generations, young people, old people, women, wives, husbands, we all know our place, what is the function, what is the reaction, what is the behavior that is our responsibility as members of a group to which we belong. That is something that has been lost in the community, the group conscience. Each group, each generation, the word of God addresses them in some way and each group has something to absorb from the word of the Lord, and when we function in that capacity, brothers, the glory of God will manifest itself in our church.

Let's stand up and let's receive this word. I hope that our brothers have been listening to that word as well, sitting there receiving that teaching from the word of God, because they too, all of us touch something from the word of the Lord.

We must always be people eager, hungry, thirsty for the word of God. In your spirit now receive the teaching, in your spirit receive the word of the Lord, in your spirit say, I want to be instructed, I want to be instructed by the word of God, I want to be a subject person, submissive to the word of the Lord . I need to be taught, I need to be disciplined, corrected. I need sound doctrine, the doctrine that heals is sound doctrine. The doctrine that corrects marriages, corrects families, corrects institutions, corrects churches, corrects schools, corrects government, or that the day comes when the word of God can run through all the structures of this nation. That will be the time when we will see the glory of God manifest in this nation.

Thanks, Dad. Lord, fill us with your word on this day. Fertilize us with your truth. I ask that this church, Lord, may be a place penetrable to your word, that it be populated with hearts of flesh, Lord, not hearts of stone, but hearts of flesh, open to your teaching. Father, humble us, break us, mold us and make us like Christ Jesus.

Father, I thank you for new families, new marriages, young people, people who are now entering your church for the first time and who are the first in many generations to know of the Gospel and that you are bringing them to this church. I bless you and celebrate your presence in our midst, Lord. I celebrate the single mothers, I celebrate the single men, I celebrate the elderly that are coming to church, Father, I celebrate young men who are just coming to know you and I ask you to work in each of those sectors, Lord, and that you raise up a young, exemplary generation, a young generation that has an appetite for your word, Lord, marriages in which the man and the woman are functioning according to your definition, not the definition of the world but the definition of the word of God, and a church, Father, a church that is not afraid or ashamed to announce your truth in practical, simple, understandable ways and a people open to everything that comes out of your mouth, Lord, that returns to their homes with new mental notes to meditate and reflect on how they will enter the next stage of growth.

Thank you, Father, I have declared your word, Lord and your word is alive and effective, your word is autochthonous, it is autonomous, it has life in itself and I ask that this life move like a transforming wave in this town, changing the course of their lives, Lord, teach us to love your simple word, Father, and to announce it every day. We promise, Lord, to be a community obedient to your word which we love and thank you for it.

Dismiss us in peace this afternoon, Lord. Send us off in peace to our homes, to enjoy the rest of this day of rest, Lord, with our family, our loved ones, our friends or even alone, if that is what you want, Father, but we will have you Lord, our partner. We love you, thank you for having us here today, in Jesus name. God's people say, amen. Glory to God, my brothers. Amen, amen. Greet one another and go in the peace of the Lord. God has good things for this town, so we know. Amen, amen.