Pastor said when the big hand gets on the 12, it's been about 30 minutes. That's about right. It's pretty good. You must have done this before. I apologize, my voice is not kind of up to par today. I've got a little bit of a sore throat, and I had to do a little bit of speaking for work yesterday, and that didn't help, but God's got his hands in that as well. I wanted to make a quick just mention of the team ministry. I know just 60 seconds here, I know a lot of you guys have asked kind of about that, a lot of people have wondered. You know, I know my wife and my names have been thrown out on that, but you know, in all honesty, there's a lot of people who are instrumental in that. Many of the families in our church, the Conovers, have been very instrumental in bringing people out to there. Teens that don't come to this church, the Laveries have, you know, have also brought people out, teens that are totally uncharged, never really heard anything from the Word of God, and we have specifically a teen who comes out as a result of their ministry, and them bringing them out. And I'd encourage you, for the teens that are here, for those that know teens, to let them know, you know, just, if we were to, if, I know Jose and I, were to sum up the ministry, we would kind of sum it up into life touching life and really teaching the teens what servant leadership is and trying to lead them and to guide them through service as I think the Lord demonstrates for us. If you'd open up your text to Fleeman, pastor said, right after the T's, all the T's are together, it's kind of convenient. So, right after the T's, if you reach Hebrews or Revelation or the Johns, go backwards. We're going to be looking at verses 19 through 25. 19 through 25. You know, as I worked on the message and I prayed through the text here and had prepared the outline, and God really, really used this in my life. I really hope that, you know, he will in yours, and I know and I trust that for all of us, when we come with an open heart and we come before the Lord and we come to the Scripture, that he does work on us. I do hope that as God has really showed me something that quite frankly, as Christians, is so basic and so simple, but time and time again, God has demonstrated, at least to me in my life, it's not the big things that I have problems with. You know, it's the little things. It's the things that I should not battle with. The things that should be simple. You know, love. The things that should be simple are the very things that end up being the biggest problems in my life. Some of the real big things, at least for me, they're not a problem. It's the real simple, kind of fine things that are easy to overlook, where at least my flesh is kind of difficult for me to discipline my body there. That's kind of what we're going to look at tonight. We're going to look at the topic of forgiveness. Just a little bit of background here on Philemon. We're just going to cover here the end of the chapter, but we see a couple of characters here in the book of Philemon. We see one, Philemon himself. Philemon was a wealthy man. We know this. The church was in his house. He obviously had a house large enough to host the church. We know a little bit about Philemon. This is probably his wife, Athia, who's mentioned in verse 2. Potentially his son, Archippus, who's also mentioned in verse 2. potentially both involved in Christian ministry. Obviously Philemon himself was involved in Christian ministry. We also know Philemon was a wealthy man, not only because the church was in his house, we know that he had slaves. And we know one of those slaves, and the second character that we have here in our recorded history is Onesimus. Onesimus is a slave who did not know the Lord, who runs away from his master, ends up probably in Rome, with Paul, probably under Paul, comes to know Christ, ends up serving Paul in his imprisonment in Rome, and Paul finds out that he was a runaway slave of his dear friend Philemon. And Paul is now faced with what to do. It's an odd letter that we see here in the text. Typically, when we see Paul, we see Paul writing very theological letters. We see Paul penning many of the epistles that we write. Much of the doctrine that we would cling to, much of the doctrine that those that have come before us have clung to, and even to their guests, has been written. God used Paul's hand to write that. But not in this letter so much. We see very little doctrine in this letter. Potentially, verse 18, maybe the one bit of theological, you know, kind of heavy doctrine. We see the atonement there mentioned, but for the most part, this is not a letter to correct bad theology. This is not a letter to instruct in good theology. But this is really a letter that we see from the heart of Paul to another brother in Christ. It really gives us, I think, some insight into Paul, and it gives us some insight into just dealings of a spiritual leader that Paul was to another potential spiritual leader, certainly another brother in the church in this time. Talk a minute about slavery in these times, because I think there's some confusion here. Philemon is not written with the intent of abolishing slavery in those times. And there are those that would take it that way, and I'm not saying for or against them. I'm not saying for or against slavery in those times. All I'm saying is that Paul is not arguing against slavery here in this letter. And in many ways, it's a little different in these times. In Roman times, the bulk of people who lived within Roman city were slaves. Most of us, in the jobs that we hold, may have been slaves at that time. I mean, as far as your normal everyday worker, I mean, they worked, they got paid, you had to earn a living for your family. And this was, it was not set up like our government, it was not set up like the economics that we are at least used to here in this country. It was very different. So even, you know, it's really not a one-to-one comparison when we think of slaves. The reason I bring it up is I just don't want us to get caught off guard as we look at Philemon and as Paul sends him back and he sends Onesimus back to Philemon with the idea of going back to his master and going back to where he was supposed to be. In some respects, what Onesimus did, if he had a job to do, this is where he was supposed to be. He was being a bad testimony as he was not being obedient to the one that was over him. He was not being obedient to his earthly master, to the one who he worked for. In many respects, there's some application for us, too, as all of us hold jobs. Forgiveness is really the topic as we talked about here. And I know, you know, nobody is sitting here in this room that's going to say, well, you know, I didn't realize that the scripture told me that I'm supposed to forgive. It's a very basic concept. And we're not going to talk about what forgiveness is so much today as much as we're going to talk about why must I forgive? What are the motives behind why the Lord wants us and desires for us to forgive others? Doing the right thing for the wrong reason is just as bad as not doing it. I have illustrated this, and Jose and I have both illustrated this many times to the teens. My oldest son, Aristotle, I ask him to take out the trash. He could do it two ways. He could stomp his way out, or he could take it out and obey. And if you ask our children what obedience is, they will hopefully tell you something for the nature of obedience is doing the right thing. It's doing what you're told, but it's doing it for the right reason. Because obedience with the wrong heart attitude, even external forgiveness, while I didn't say anything to him or someone's wronged me, but hey, I just let it go. But in your heart, you're It's just grinding on you, in your mind. You cannot get that thing. That thing has not been let go. I don't know, maybe you guys aren't like me, but I suspect there are people in this room who can relate with that idea. You know, doing the right thing for the wrong reason. is not obeying the Lord. Doing the right thing for the wrong reason does not help us. Forgiveness is the most God-like and Christ-like act a Christian can do. Never are we more like Christ. Never are we more like God than when we forgive. It is a magnificent virtue. Let me give you an illustration. Sir Thomas More, many of you may have heard of him or know who he is, but this is what happened. The Lord Chancellor of England at one point, and after having been tried at Westminster and condemned to death without any just cause, he spoke to his judges these famous words. As St. Paul held the floors of those who stoned Stephen to death, and as they both now sink in heaven, and shall continue their friends forever, so I verily trust, shall therefore most heartily pray, that through your lordships have now here on earth been judges to my condemnation, we may nevertheless hereafter cheerfully meet in heaven an everlasting salvation with those that condemn them to die. John Huss, same thing. As he forgave those, and you read some of the writings of those that were there in so many history, as they burnt him on the stake, and they say that he sang hymns to God until his tongue literally burnt. Those over there penned that, and he had written before about forgiving them. William Tyndale, very similar situation. Oh, the beauty of forgiveness, if we can just get that, if we can, you know, the smallest things, at least for me, and I know I've talked with some of you guys, you know, it seems to me that as Christians, the smallest things get to us. You know, we're not talking about being condemned to die. I mean, the smallest things get to us. Petty things. Little things. And they just rub us. That we would be like Stephen. That we would be like the Lord here. Those that have gone before us. So we know that we must forgive. But why? What motivates us to forgive? And that's what we're going to look at tonight. Four motivations on why we must forgive. Four motivations. First, we possess and unpayable debt. Look at verse 19. Paul writes this with his own hands. Paul usually wrote with his secretary. He usually writes with his secretary here. He says, I am writing this with my own hand. I will repay it. not to mention to you, that you owe to me even your own self also. Paul had a way of signing his letters this way. This would be very similar to our signature today. You know, you can type a letter, we can have someone else type a letter, but you print that letter, you sign it, you put your stamp of approval on that letter. This was Paul's way of signing his letter. And this is where he chose to do it, as he tells to lean in here, that I'm writing this with my own hands. I will repay it. Now on one hand, Paul is saying that financially he'll pay the debt if necessary. Now we can look back at the letter to the Philippians and we can see how Paul had received a fairly large financial gift at that point. He very well may have had that money and been willing to pay here. He certainly was willing to pay for that debt. to make restitution here for Onesimus. But now you notice there's something very significant in verse 18. It says, if Onesimus has wronged you in any way or owes you anything, charge that to my account. The issue here is restitution. Paul knows Onesimus has nothing. He can't repay what he stole. It's not like Paul sends Onesimus back there knowing he could repay it. He can't repay the 500 denarii that Philemon had to spend to get someone to take his place. Onesimus doesn't have it. So Paul says, instead of trying to get it out of him, he doesn't have it. He says, just put it on my account. And then most interestingly, Paul says, I, Paul, am writing with you. If my own hand, I will repay it. And Paul picks up the pen and kind of signs an IOU here with his own name. Paul reminds Philemon, though, of the unpayable debt he owes. And who does Philemon owe debt to? Well, I think you see two people here. First, you see Paul himself. Onesimus owed Philemon a material debt, but Philemon owed Paul a spiritual debt. God had used Paul to deliver the gospel to Philemon. That was the tool that he chose to use. I'm not saying there was anything great about Paul, but there is a certain point here that because of Paul's ministry here, there was an embeddedness that could never be repaid to that Philemon had to Paul. Paul's point, there's no amount of money equal a right relationship with God. Paul is challenging Philemon to maintain an eternal focus, not one that's temporal. To be focused on that which is spiritual, not that which is material. Secondly, to God. Philemon, even more so than Paul, had an unpayable debt, an insurmountable debt that he owed to God. Too often, we don't realize just how much we as Christians Oh God, we do not realize the gravity of our debt. Why is that? Why is that debt? Why do we continually miss that? Well, I have two thoughts for you here. One, I don't think we realize how bad our sin truly is. You know, and I think the most, I'll be honest, I think the most holy of us, I think the most theological, theologically gifted, the most scholarly of us here, I really think miss this. I think I miss this. And even when I think I get it, I forget it. Because I miss the mark. Because internally I just don't get it. Because my mind just does not react. with this in mind. We can never make up for our sin to God. James 2.10 says that if we kept the entire law and stumbled in one place, we're guilty of the entire thing. You know, I think even as Christians, you know, we would never say this because we know theologically we shouldn't say it. But, you know, I still think in our minds, we kind of look at people and we're like, you know, We're not as bad as those that would terrorize others, as those that would blow up buildings. There's a difference between me and them. I'm not saying that we all say that, but I really believe that in our hearts and our minds sometimes, I think that kind of gets muddy. We don't really think of ourselves in that light. We don't think of ourselves in that way. We kind of justify. Ezekiel 18.20 says that the soul that sins must die. We only understood truly how wicked our sin is in God's sight. And you know, one of the problems here, and this brings us to our second point, is we have a wrong view of God. We tend to, you know, do like political cartoons. We put caricatures on God. You know what I mean? They draw the cartoons and, you know, big ears, big nose, and a lot of us do this. And in some respect, and there's many caricatures people put on God, but in this One of the reasons why we miss sin is a lot of people look at God and they get a wrong emphasis, they get a wrong view of God's love. I'm not saying God is love, I'm not saying God's not loving, but they get a wrong view of God's love and we tend to look at God as like a grandfather. What I mean by that is the grandparents are typically the ones that kind of, oh that's okay because the kids go home afterward, that's why by the way. But they're the ones who kind of tend to overlook the sin. They're more willing to let, you know, the, oh yeah, he usually can't have candy, but maybe he should now. That's no offense to your grandparents that are here, by the way. But I think, as a whole, we tend to look at God sometimes that way. But you know what? And Jose and I have also mentioned this to the teens many times. There is no sin ever committed by you, by me, by anyone, who's ever lived in the last six to eight or so thousand years from the time of creation. There is no sin ever committed that will not be paid for. That individual sin, everyone that we committed today will commit tonight and will commit tomorrow. The point is Did Christ pay for that sin, or is that person going to pay for that sin, even though they can't? We miss it. We don't realize it. God is not the grandfather in the respect of overlooking of sin. Secondly, we don't realize how bad our sin is and how God sees it because we kind of are in time. We are linear, so to speak. God is not. I kind of enjoy science and math, which I know makes me odd in general. But I think you could think about it this way. When we see light, and a lot of us know, we see light from stars that are very, very far away. Say a star is, you know, three light years away. When we see that light, we're seeing the light that actually was coming off that star three years ago. That's why it's three light years away, because it took three years for the light to travel to us. Here's the point. When it comes to forgiveness and our sin, a lot of times, you know, when someone does something wrong to you, time heals old wounds is kind of the expression. But, you know, that's not so of God. God's not in time. All of our sin is in God's face, always, that we've ever committed. All of it. God is not in time. And in the same way that that light kind of takes travel of us, well, God can see all of it throughout all of time. There's no distance there. God is at all places, at all times. He's omnipresent. He's everywhere, always, so to speak. I was talking to a friend the other week about this. We just miss having the right focus here. We miss it as parents. We just have, we have sometimes a wrong thinking. We miss it with our kids. We think too earthly. We're too earthly minded. Many times we don't forgive because we have a temporal focus. We forget about that which is eternal. We forget about that eternal debt that we had. We forget to think in eternity. Forgiveness must be at the heart of every true Christian. We can easily forgive when we are focused on what's truly important. We can easily forgive when we realize how insurmountable our sin was. Many of us know the story in the Old Testament, Hosea and Gomer, and the forgiveness that was given there. And we see the picture of Hosea as God, the picture of Gomer. We must be forgiving people, not only because we realize that our debt is unpayable, but secondly, because we desire to bless others. Look again at the text, if you would, with me, in verse 20. It says, Yes, brother, let me benefit from you in the Lord. Refresh my heart in Christ. If I can forgive, I can become a blessing to others. That's Paul's point. If I forgive, I could be a blessing for others. Onesimus is his name. And Paul's kind of doing, I think obviously in English you kind of miss it a little bit, but Paul's kind of doing a play on words here. Onesimus' name means benefit. So he's saying, let me benefit from you by forgiving our brother Onesimus, by forgiving our brother benefit. It's kind of the idea behind what he's doing. Paul is fairly witty, and I think here you see he's pretty clear, he's kind of doing a play on words here. But let me benefit, let me be blessed by you forgiving him. Our desire to please others. If we only remembered the principles that God laid out for us. Philippians 2, verses 3-5, you don't have to turn there, Let me just read this to you. It says, do nothing from selfish or empty conceit, but with humility of mind, regard one another as more important than yourselves. Do not merely look out for your own personal interests, but also for the interests of others. Have this attitude in yourselves, which was also in Christ Jesus. Life is not about you, and life is not about me. is about God. And that's the point. We should, we need to realize that one of our motives to forgive others, it's not just this insurmountable debt we have, but it's a desire to bless others. And really It's about others. The forgiveness of Onesimus by Philemon will bring spiritual joy and refreshment because Paul loves both of these men. Because Paul loves the unity of the church. Because Paul wants Colossae as a church to see that forgiveness as a great object lesson. If we truly regarded others as more important than ourselves, forgiveness wouldn't even be an issue. In some respect, if we really look for others to receive the blessing, then forgiveness ceases to be an issue. It's our own selfish desire, our own focus on ourselves, and our flesh screaming out, what about me? That stops us from forgiving here. We must be forgiving people not only because we realize that our debt is unpayable. Not only because we desire to bless others. But you know what? We need to realize that we are called to be obedient to God. We are called to be obedient to God. Verse 21 says, Having confidence in your obedience, I write to you, since I know that you will do even more than I say. Now, so, if Paul commanding Philemon to forgiven? I don't think so. Earlier in the text, we read that Paul said, I'm not going to command you to forgive me. Although I can, I have the authority to do that, I am not going to do that. He is reminding Philemon of his call to obey God. He is reminding Philemon, who he saw as a godly man, if we went back and again in the chapter in Philemon, you read verse 7, 8, 9 later on, and reread what Paul says about Philemon and the type of character that Philemon was. Paul is challenging a godly man here to say, I know you're going to do what's right because you desire to obey God. And he's kind of saying, just in case you forget about it, let me remind you. If you don't forgive, You're disobeying the Lord. Colossians 3.13, bearing with one another, forgiving each other. Whoever has a complaint against anyone, just as the Lord forgave you, so also should you. Luke 17, verse 3 and 4, be on guard. If your brother sins, rebuke him. And if he repents, forgive him. And if he sins against you seven times a day and others, if he just keeps sinning against you, what do you do? In return to you seven times saying, I repent, forgive him. Matthew 18, and we're not going to read all this, but you can turn and you'll be able to read later on if you want. I'm sure many of you are familiar with this text. Verses 21 to 35, and we see the parable there of the man who owed a big debt, and he was forgiven of the debt, and then he goes out for a much smaller debt and tries to choke the man, and goes after someone who owed him very little after he was just forgiven, and he is called the wicked slave. What a wicked servant he is. That's how God looks at that person. When we don't forgive, that wicked slave is us. When the Christian does not forgive, the Christian is that wicked slave. And again, remember, this is not just external stuff. This is our heart. Because that's really what his application is, you know, when we talk about us. And what about us? What about our heart? Where are we? We've got to get that. It's not just external. Again, I hate to keep referencing, but you guys aren't always there Friday night, so I can keep using the same illustrations I use with the team, so it works well. But, because if I ever have to preach again, I'm in trouble. I don't have any more. But, God does not care what you do. God cares why you do what you do. We could come to church every Sunday morning, every Sunday night. We could pray every day. We could go on Wednesday. We could do all the right things. And quite frankly, God is not concerned about that, but God is concerned about why we do what we do. Now, I'm not telling you not to come to church. I'm not saying that that's not right. Because if you're not here, there's no motivation. And you can be. then there is a heart problem. But the point is, it's not about what we do. It's about why we do what we do. And it is about the heart. It's about the motivation behind that. It's an issue of love for God. Fourthly, and our motivation here, we have an unpayable debt we've looked at. We have a desire to bless others, which we also We know that we're called to be obedient to God, but fourthly, we see in the text that we are not alone. We're not alone. Life is not about you and I, as I already said. It is about God. And life is about others. In the Sunday school, Jose and I have been going over with the team, we've been going over spiritual gifts. And what are spiritual gifts? And one of the things that we've talked about, and we see this in three different texts, there's always like three texts that really say spiritual gifts are for this. And they say they're for the common good. They're for the edification of others. And they're for the good of the church. And the thing that's left out there is that God has given us those for us. The point is, God has gifted and talented us for others. And the point is that we are not alone. We do not live Christian life in a vacuum. We do not live our Christian life in a box, is what I'm saying. And there's two parts to this. Firstly, we are accountable to spiritual leaders. We are accountable spiritual leaders. You see that is also here. Paul says, at the same time, also prepare me a lodging for I hope that through your prayers I will be given to you. So Paul says, by the way, I'm going to come visit. There's an accountability issue here, and there's a reason that Paul put it right here after he reminds Philemon about being obedient to God. There's an accountability issue. Prepare for me a lodging. I am going to purpose to come and see you. There's an accountability issue here of Paul. Now, for what it's worth, just a side note on prayers, and it does tie into our text here a little bit. Paul was in prison. Paul didn't know when he was going to get out here. But Paul trusted that through the prayer that he asked for of Philemon, and the prayers that we see from Philemon's friends that also greet him here, which we're going to look at in verse 23 and 24, Paul trusted that by the answer of those prayers, he would get out. And in some respects, you know, Philemon's kind of praying for Paul to get out of jail. And Paul's saying, when I get out of jail, I'm going to come see you. To make sure that what needs to be done will be done here. Paul says, I'm coming. Prepare a lodging for me. You will be accountable to those who are over you in the Lord. We are accountable. This is one reason why we must forgive. And this certainly applies to more than forgiveness, but for sure, that is Paul's point here. Secondly, we are part of a fellowship. We're talking about that we are not alone. And we said that we're accountable to spiritual leaders. But the other idea here is in verse 23 through 25. And we see these lists of friends. Many of which, for the sake of time, I'm not going to go through. I had some notes here on the five different ones. But these are people that many of which knew Philemon very well. And these lists of friends, and they are writing, many of these people stayed with Paul willingly in his imprisonment. They chose to stay there in his imprisonment to serve him, and they greet Philemon here once again. And we see that kind of as a reminder to Philemon of needing to forgive. We do not live our Christian life in a box, and our Christian life is not about us. If he doesn't forgive, Philemon will destroy the bond that he has with these men. I mean, there's an issue there. There's an issue of discipline that would come up. You see, you don't do things in isolation. Don't fool yourselves. There is no victimless sin. There's no victimless sin. And basically, to Philemon, if you hold a grudge, you're going to fracture your fellowship with these men. I mean, Paul is writing here as a loving spiritual leader and encouraging Philemon. We possess an unpayable debt. We desire to bless others. We are called to be obedient. And we don't live our Christian life in a vacuum. We are not alone. Kind of to conclude the story. We know from one writer, Ignatius, who became a martyr about 50, 60 years, potentially, after this was written. He writes, as he's on his way, potentially, to be martyred here, he actually writes another letter to Colossae. And he writes a letter and kind of uses the same play of words with Onesimus, but in this letter he's addressed as Bishop Onesimus. Whether it's the same one or not, it's hard to tell. But he does make references to, again, the name and benefiting and the benefit of it. He had to have been familiar with the letter of Philemon. And again, hard to really say dogmatically whether it's the exact same Onesimus, but it certainly would seem very possible and many believe potentially likely. You know, how about you, though? What is your natural reaction? Someone rubs you the wrong way, and for you it's different than me. You know, I could give you a list of the things that irk me, and my wife could probably give those to you. Your guy's spouse is right. The more you know someone right, you know how to push those buttons. But, you know, when your spouse pushes those buttons, when our fellow, when our better friends, those at work push those buttons, okay, how do you react? And I'm not talking about your reaction back to them. In here we're talking about forgiveness. And we're talking about the internal, your heart. Where is your heart to them? Is it like God who takes our sin and separates it as far as the East is from the West, which will never catch each other? Many of us know, I don't know, maybe not, Fukada, if you know a lot about World War II, you read about him all over the place. This man led the attack on Pearl Harbor in World War II and was a big, big instrument in the war. He kind of got shot up and he lived through it. He lived after the war. And here's the point. Afterward, there were all these Japanese POW camps and the leaders of the Japanese military And they were being accused of all these crimes against humanity and the way they treated the POWs and the soldiers. And he wanted to prove that Americans did the exact same thing. And this isn't something of Japanese and America. But listen to what happened here. He goes on a quest to prove this. And he starts kind of poking around. He finds these 150 Japanese POWs returning home. And he questions them and asks them about it. And he finds out there was this 18-year-old girl. who ministered to these men, who was very kind, American girl, who ministered to these men and just did everything for them, anything they wanted. And he couldn't understand why. So he now gets off his other question, dedicates himself to find out why was she doing this? Well, it turns out that her parents were missionaries in the Philippines. Her parents were killed by Japanese soldiers while they were praying. They were down praying, they were killed and run through by Japanese soldiers because they were believed to be American spies. The daughter saw that happen to her parents. She, as a Christian, ministered to these Japanese soldiers because of a love for Christ that so touched this man. who eventually just had to find out what this was about. This man gets saved. This man who kind of has preached before he went to be home with the Lord in Grace Community Church, which is where John MacArthur preaches, for what it's worth. He has a book that is entitled From Pearl Harbor to Golgotha. You can read it. You can check it out. It's a great story of forgiveness. We must be forgiving people. And as we close, let me just give you a couple of thoughts here. Because we're all in one of two places, right? You've heard this said before. There's only two religions in the world. There's a religion of human achievement. There's a religion of divine accomplishment. We all belong to one. We either have saving faith or we don't. for the person who is not a believer here, for the person who does not have that relationship of knowing God, as Pastor Gonzalez talked about this morning. John 17.3, just a couple of verses earlier in this text, says, and this is eternal life, that we should know God. The definition of eternal life, according to Christ, as He prays in the garden, is knowing God. That intimate, intimate relationship with God is what the word know communicates, as we heard this morning. The person who lacks that cannot forgive. So you might be sitting here and, you know, saying, you know, you're right, Jason. I am unable to forgive. But you know what? You need to make sure that you are forgiven and you have that restoration with God and that you can have the Holy Spirit dwell within you, because without his power, you're unable to forgive. But you know what? Many of us in this room probably are saying, well, that's not me. You know, I know the Lord. And I know Christ, but what about us? You know, we need to make sure that we express to others and that we give to others the exact same love, the same grace that God gives to us. And not that God just gave to us once, but think about it. You know, I mean, I look at my day today. I look at my day yesterday. I don't know about you, but I know I know I need to confess my sins before God, 1 John 1, 8 and 9 and go and continually have to go to God and make sure that I'm right with him. And he continues to be patient and long-suffering and extend grace. And we need to make sure that we extend that grace to others. And may God help us to extend that grace to others. And may God forgive us for when we don't. Let's pray. Father, we do thank you for your grace, for your love, for your mercy, and Lord, I just pray for all of us in our hearts and our minds, Lord, that you would help us to truly be forgiven people, and that, Lord, we would do it because you loved us, because we really don't deserve in ourselves to be forgiven, Lord. And I pray that you would help us to just get that. and that you would help us in our hearts to have proper motives behind what we do. And Lord, give us safety as we go home tonight and help us through the week, Lord, in our relationships with you. We pray in Christ's name. Amen. so so so so