The epistle of Paul to Philemon. Alright, however you want to pronounce it. Philemon. What? Philemon. Philemon? Yes, we'll go with that. Alright. Philemon. Paul, a prisoner of Christ, Jesus, and Timothy, our brother, to Philemon, our beloved brother and fellow worker, and to Apphia, our sister, and Archippus, our fellow soldier, and to the church in your house. Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. I thank my God always, making mention of you in my prayers, because I hear of your love and of the faith which you have toward the Lord Jesus and toward all the saints, and I pray that the fellowship of your faith may become effective through the knowledge of every good thing which is in you for Christ's sake. For I have come to have much joy and comfort in your love, because the hearts of the saints have been refreshed through you, brother. Therefore, though I have enough confidence in Christ to order you to do that which is proper, yet for love's sake I rather appeal to you, since I am such a person as Paul the agent, now also a prisoner of Christ Jesus, I appeal to you for my child whom I have begotten in my imprisonment, Anesimus, who formerly was useless to you, but now is useful both to you and to me. And I have sent him back to you in person, that is, sending my own heart, whom I wish to keep with me, that in your behalf he might minister to me in my imprisonment for the gospel. This is the word of the Lord. Heavenly Father, thank you very much for everything you've done for us and everything you've done for this week. I do want to pray for the family of the person who was shot at that rally. I know that this is a horrible time for them, and I think it's easy enough to forget them and their time of need during all of the political stuff. So, Lord, I just pray that, as you have taught me this morning, that we would We've had a prayer for the little people as well, that you would do that. Lord, while we are here today, we ask that you would just open our ears to hear, open our hearts to receive your truth, and open my mouth to speak. In Jesus' name, amen. All right. So, Our last stop in the one chapter wonders Which was supposed to have gone very quickly and then Jude happened And now I can't quite seem to make it through even this tiny book in one lesson. So it is what it is So unless you want to hear me talk for two hours today, which nobody does we're gonna have to just go through the first 13 verses and So what is this book? Who is Philemon? Who is this Anisimus guy? Why are we even reading this? Well, A, it's in the Bible, so therefore it's beneficial to us. So we should read it. But why did Paul write it? So let's start with this first up paul a prisoner of christ jesus and timothy our brother. So this indicates that this was paul Uh who was in rome? In what is probably the first? Imprisonment, he was actually thrown in jail twice and he was in rome twice. So this is the first one most likely Uh, because timothy was there with him which really puts that in the first imprisonment. So we're talking here This is late 50s early 60s As in the year 50 and the year 60 not like 1950s we're talking about like 5050 like 050. Ah, so this is one of the later books that was written And we have here this letter that is talking about this runaway slave named Onesimus, right? So Philemon was apparently a wealthy enough guy. He had his own house. He had two people living with him who might have just been part of his household. He had a church with him as well. But he was obviously wealthy enough to have his own place, big enough to host a church. and to own a slave, namely Onesimus. Onesimus ran away and probably took, probably stole something from Philemon while doing it. And he somehow in all of this made it all the way to Rome. like Onesimus did. And while Paul was in prison, he preached the gospel to him, he came to Christ, and then became Paul's servant while he was in jail. So that's weird. So then Paul then has to send him back to Philemon for reasons we'll get into, but that's essentially where we are in this, right? So What's interesting is that Omnissimus is mentioned in one other place in the New Testament. And that is in the book of Colossians. Colossians 4. Now, this is an interesting start to this. It goes, Masters, grant your slaves justice and fairness, knowing that you too have a master in heaven. Devote yourself to prayer, keeping alert in it with an attitude of thanksgiving, praying at the same time for us as well that God may open up to us a door for the word so that we may speak forth the mystery of Christ for which I have also been imprisoned." Right? So this is kind of in the same situation where he's imprisoned. And then he talks about who he has with him. Right? Verse 7. As to all my affairs, Our beloved brother and faithful servant and fellow bondservant in the Lord will bring you information. For I have sent him to you for this very purpose, that you may know about our circumstances and that he may encourage your hearts. And with him Onesimus, our faithful and beloved brother, who is one of your number. They will inform you about the whole situation here." So Onesimus was sent back to Philemon with Ty, kind of just to make sure that he gets there. Now this Tai guy is also mentioned in one other place and that is in the very end of the book of Ephesians where he or Paul says that I'm sending this letter to you with Tai so that you'll have this, right? So Imagine, if you will, this situation. This dude named Ty, Ticketious, I can't pronounce his name. He is heading out with former slave, well, still slave, Onesimus. In his hand he has a letter to Onesimus' master, which is the letter that we read today. He also has a letter to the church of Colossae, which we just read. And he also has a letter to the church in Ephesus. So this guy is walking down the road with three books of the Bible, possibly in his backpack, delivering them to churches throughout Asia Minor. That's the situation this guy was in. One of those books was the letter to Philemon that we are reading right now. So Paul sends him off to go to Philemon. Presumably that means that Philemon is somewhere in the neighborhood of Colossae. because that's where Onesimus is mentioned is in the book of Colossians, saying, I've sent you also Onesimus. Also, Paul is treating Onesimus as though he is like a fellow worker in Christ and introducing him to the people of Colossae as their fellow worker. Ty is with him, and he is a fellow bondservant in Christ. So this is the situation we find ourselves, a very sticky moral situation. Here we have a slave who has now come to Christ, perhaps even he is a thief, but now he has become one of the movers and shakers within the Christian area. Now the reason why I bring that up is because this story here, of what we're talking about in Philemon, lends itself so much to the imagination, right? Like you can just kind of imagine like what Onesimus looks like and how he would have kind of slumped back home, right? You can almost imagine Ty showing up at Philemon's door with the letter from Paul in his hand and you're almost like you could kind of see Onesimus kind of sitting there going It's like I don't know you kind of wonder like maybe Maybe he just like hit around a bush or something. I just said, you're just, just stand here. I'm going to go deliver this letter to him. Um, you could all, you can kind of like see final amounts, big house. He's got a couple of people there and you know, And so like the story lends itself so well to the imagination that I figured I might as well bring this up because the question is whether or not we should be doing that kind of a thing with the Bible. Should we be imagining things that the Bible doesn't tell us about the situation that it's in, right? Now, In one sense, I think that's a great idea. And I do, I do tend to do it myself. Uh, when I first came to Christ, I went to the library. Um, this was before the, like, this is literally before Google. All right. So, uh, I went to the library as one does to look up a book on Christ. I thought this is a great idea. I, this new Christian thing, I don't know anything about it. Let me go to the Now, so I typed Christ into the little computer thing and the only book they had was called The Passion of the Christ. And I'd heard of that book before, so I was like, sure, I'll grab it. Now, if you haven't read this book, then you won't know that this is an entirely horribly blasphemous book that says that Christ was not actually God, and that he was married to Mary Magdalene, and that he was nailed to the cross for a misunderstanding. He didn't actually want to be the Messiah. and that it even specifically mentions that Matthew is sitting next to him writing down lies in his book that would later become the Gospel of Matthew. That was the book that I read. That was day two of being a Christian. However, God Works in Mysterious Ways, that book was a novel about first century Judea, and it made everyone really human. It was incredibly well written. You actually could be in those rooms with Jesus and the disciples. You could actually kind of walk down the streets with them because the prose in it was incredibly well done. And so ever since that day, despite the fact that this book is really just awful, I have been able to imagine Jesus walking down the streets while reading my Bible. And I find that has been a really huge help because it makes everyone in the stories human. And I think that's huge because it is very, very easy to get yourself caught up in the idea that you're, that the Bible is this big, holy thing out here. And then you've got the apostles who are just these big old saints and that they have no problems whatsoever. But instead you kind of see the people in the Bible for who they are, sinners just like you. However, There is a danger in that, and it's something that I've had to watch out for, is that while you do not want to ever teach or learn or preach less than what scripture says, you definitely do not ever want to preach more than it says as well. There have been a number of very popular Bible studies that one can spend quite a lot of money on for your church study groups, you know which ones I'm thinking of, that the entire lesson is based on something that isn't in the text. Because they, in their imagination, made up a situation in which you look at it and say, well, this, I mean, this might've happened. So like, for instance, it would be me preaching this story on Onesimus hiding behind a bush and how he then was taken back like the prodigal child into the household of Philemon and how that shows the gospel and how Jesus takes us even though we were out of like, and that would preach. It really would. It'd be a great sermon, except that that's nowhere in the text. And not only that, we don't actually know if Ayleemah took him back or not, because we don't have that in the book either. So you've got, while I do recommend to you to really put yourselves into the situation, feel free to like, imagine what it would be like if you were there watching this happen. But at the same time, I would recommend not building your Christianity off of that, because frankly, if it was that important, God would have mentioned it in the text. So there's that. And because this is the book of Philemon, we have to talk about the elephant in the room. Yes, Onesimus was a slave. No, the Bible does not condemn slavery. And that is something we just have to look straight in the face because As we go out into this world, a lot of Christians will bring up political issues that are clearly biblical. One of them, of course, being abortion. And while I do believe 100% that the Bible teaches that abortion is murder, the arguments against someone like myself would be, yes, that's fine, but your Bible condemns slavery and you think that's bad. right and this is an excellent argument um it's nice to see atheists finally coming up with an argument from the bible that is a good argument against Christians, and I commend them for it. So we do have to look this one straight in the face. In the Old Testament, there are laws concerning how a Jew was to treat their slaves. First off, they could only keep them for seven years, but that's beside the point. There were all sorts of very strict laws for how they were to keep them. It never says don't have them. The New Testament also does not say you shouldn't have slaves. However, I think you will agree with me that after reading the book of Philemon, you will find that while it doesn't condemn slavery in that letter, certainly the logic of it does. Like, you cannot have a New Testament attitude and also have slaves. Because Jesus himself said that the truth shall set you free. And Paul would continually say that there is neither Jew nor Greek, male nor female, slave nor free. It would also say that it would continually tell masters that they are to treat their slaves as though they were their own sons. Now it's hard to maintain the attitude that we have all been freed in Christ and go except for this one he's mine. That's a difficult one to see. that this is true is you look at the last 2,000 years of Christianity, you will notice a progression towards less and less slavery. Now, the idea that somehow the white race is responsible for all the slavery on earth, which you will hear constantly coming out from today's media, is obviously a lie. I mean, obviously a lie. For instance, the Muslims have been every bit the slavers that the Europeans ever were. In fact, they still have slaves. Today, you can go to Libya and you can purchase an African The same way that you could purchase a slave back in Charleston in the 1800s. Today, if you would like an African slave, you can go to Libya and purchase one right now from a Muslim. So, obviously slavery has been the uniting factor of all humankind. The Europeans though, I won't say white because it isn't white, it's just Europeans, are unique in their treatment of slaves in that they're the only culture that ever willingly, of their own accord, freed slaves. In fact, There was an early Pope who declared for all Europeans that you could not have a Christian as a slave. So all the people who had Christian slaves, they had to give them up, at which point they started getting non-Christian slaves. So Saxons were a good source of slaves. Well, until they became Christians, then that became a problem. The Norse were also a good place to grab some slaves until they became Christians, and then they couldn't. But for the longest time, Eastern Europeans, the Slavic people, steadfastly remained non-Christians to the point where our word in English, slave, actually comes from the word slav. He's like, whenever you would refer to your servant, he would, you would say, well, this is my slav. And that's where we get our word slave from. So, but then they became Christians. And we couldn't have them as slaves anymore. So that left a quandary that became quite a problem, actually, because, well, see, the Bible also condemns capturing slaves. Like, that actually is a law in the Old Testament. You weren't to go out and capture a slave. and bring them back to sell them. So we couldn't do that. But turns out all of these Africans were selling slaves, right? And that was okay. So we bought a whole bunch of slaves from West Africa and we used them for a good long while. That was just the last crop that we had because it was really the only ones left. in the last periods of slavery, Europeans had almost exclusively black slaves is because they couldn't have other Christians and they couldn't capture slaves. So, uh, the Africans were just selling them. So that's where we bought them from. Um, eventually it was Christians who also said, okay, guys, we really, really care. Obviously as a Christian, we are not supposed to own another image of God. So I just throw that out there, and I think if you read through the book of Philemon, you will see that that is absolutely the logic of the New Testament, and the reason why the West no longer has slaves, even though a lot of other places do. All right, so Paul calls Philemon two words here, which I think are kind of cool. He calls him a beloved and a fellow worker. Now these two words in Greek are Agapeto, which is agape person, right? So he is a person who is of the brotherly love of Christ. So that would be beloved brother. And the other one is kind of funny. It's a Sunergo, which if you kind of switch it up a little bit, you'll see that this is the word that we get the word synergy from, which has become quite a big buzzword in work circles, you know, having lots of synergy. You talk about how, like, when somebody is really, you know, gelling with you, he says, we've got a lot of synergy. Well, it comes from this word. So this fellow worker guy, he's saying he is my beloved brother and the guy I work really, really well with, that we synergize together, right? So it wasn't like Paul was just writing to some random dude. And also to me is interesting that somehow a slave of one of his, of one of Paul's best friends, He just met his buddy slave while he was in prison, right? So that's kind of where we are on that, right? So Odysseus had a church at his house. And Paul would later say in this thing that Paul was the one who brought Philemon to Christ. And so Philemon, who was the disciple of Paul, had a church in which they were running things in there. It would mention that Timothy would go there, this Thai guy would go there, the people who, uh, from that area would have, uh, gone there. So if you were in that area, you would be going to Philemon's house on Sundays for your love feasts, right? So that's who this guy was. And, um, I had two people who apparently were living with him. You got, um, Arquebus and Apophia. And, uh, you know, like Apophia is our sister and Arquebus is our fellow soldier. Do you think, like, I kind of, like, had this picture of you know, like a husband and wife together. And like, one of them is like, I'm marching on for Christ. And the wife is just sort of there, you know, like really encouraging him and encouraging everyone else. I imagine this was kind of a fun house to go to, honestly. But again, you gotta be careful of this imagination thing. But that's sort of what I have in my head. It's kind of a big house where kind of everybody goes in and out of. And you gotta wonder if he had any other slaves that were there. And to the church in your house. So this this letter was not just being delivered to philemon It was being to deliver to the church in his house Which is kind of embarrassing when you get into the rest of the stuff where paul says, hey, man Could you just maybe forgive phoenicis and like he's reading it to the rest of his church and they're all looking at him it's like um He's yours. I'm just saying. So that's always like in my head the funny thing though in the book of First Corinthians it says that you should protect the weaker brothers because they don't understand that you can have you can sacrifice to a demon and it's okay to eat that meat because demons are nothing. But because they are the weaker Christians you should you know you should drop down to their level to protect their conscience. Now remember These letters were not read by the congregations. They were meant to be read out loud to the congregations. So this guy is reading a letter to the church and saying, all right, all you stronger Christians, you got to be careful because the weaker Christians are having a problem with this. So y'all need to be nice to them. But it's like the weaker Christians are sitting there going, but I'm right here. So that's the situation we find ourselves with this letter as well. But apparently he was a real stand of God because in verse 4 it says, I thank my God always, making mention of you in my prayers, because I hear of your love and of the faith which you have toward the Lord Jesus and toward all the saints. Another way of reading this is actually that every time Paul prays about this guy, he thanks the Lord. Right? So this guy comes up in his head as he's praying for the various churches that he's planted throughout Asia Minor, and every time he comes to this guy Philemon, he smiles. It's like, oh yeah, Philemon. I love that guy. Right? There are probably people in your life that you know like this, where every time you're praying for them, assuming that you pray, which I would assume that you do. You're kind of rolling through the, you know, you're praying for this guy. You've got nothing nice to say. You're praying for this guy and you're asking for Jesus to forgive him. You're praying for this person here in which you're hoping that some relationship will be renewed. And then you pray for this one person. Thank you, Jesus, for him, right? That's finally him, right? So he's a nice guy. And I tell you what, I would personally like to be that guy on people's prayer list. Then some of the other ones, although i am sure it has been a mixed bag in my case um take what you get yeah you know what any prayer is a good is a blessing we'll go with that So then he hears of his love and of the faith which you have toward the Lord Jesus, and toward all the saints, and I pray that the fellowship of your faith may become effective through the knowledge of every good thing which is in you for Christ's sake. Now you may be wondering why that sentence is so awkward. You also, if you have your own Bibles that you're reading through, may know that it's being worded completely different. In fact, it may even kind of change the meaning of what you're saying, what the difference is. And that's because this is actually an incredibly difficult sentence to translate, and no one is exactly sure precisely what it meant in Koine back then. Apparently, every single word of this sentence is a disputed word. If I might take a stab at that, in It says, and I pray that the fellowship of your faith may become effective through the knowledge of every good thing which is in you for Christ's sake. I personally believe that Paul is congratulating him. or at least acknowledging that this guy overflows with faith, so much so that the fellowship that is around him kind of catches it like a cup. And that makes, it just sort of overflows and increases everyone's faith around him, especially since you followed up with this verse, for I have come to have much joy and comfort in your love because the hearts of the saints have been refreshed through you brother that word refresh is actually a military term it refers to when the armies would be marching and then all of a sudden like okay guys let's take a 15 minute break sit down you know take care of any bio needs that you have like drink some water, maybe eat some food. That's the term that we're using. So like this guy is the kind of person around whom that the saints can take a break from their worries and their troubles and assuming the persecution that they're under. And when they're around this guy, or at least in his house, they get rest. They are strengthened for the march, for the race, and for the ministry that comes across. So, this is a good guy, right? It's easy to miss that in all these words. But Paul is writing to a dear friend who is a tremendous Christian, a man of faith, whom everyone around him is blessed just by virtue of the fact that he's there. He runs the house, he provides all these things, and he's a good guy. Well, assuming he had more. But this guy, yeah. And so in the middle of all that, Onesimus takes off. from this guy. Now, we don't know the timeline of it exactly. It's possible Philemon came to Christ afterwards and became this stand-up guy, and Onesimus had left before that happened, but I don't think you can see that from the text. It appears as though Onesimus ran away from this guy after he had a church, is kind of how I'm seeing it, at least in the timeline. But yeah, to that guy, whom Paul has nothing but praises from, Onesimus, ran off, most likely having grabbed a bunch of his stuff while doing it. We see this because Paul would later say, if he owes you anything, you can pay it out of my account. So it does appear as though Onesimus was not only a runaway slave, he was also a thief. So in verse eight, therefore, though I have enough confidence in Christ to order you to do which is proper, yet for love's sake, I rather appeal to you since I am such a person as Paul, the agent, and now also a prisoner of Christ Jesus. So Paul asserts here his apostolic authority. Now, it's important to note that we do not have any apostles anymore. The apostles were a special group of people specifically appointed by Jesus himself that were sent out to preach his message, and we don't have those anymore. So a lot of times you'll go around and you'll see a church that says the Apostolic Church, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, right? And then they'll have like apostles that are within. You'll see these guys. It's like, these guys are a little deluded. We don't have these guys anymore. They were specific people. We know who they were. We know their names. I mean, and there are plenty of places that are named after these guys, like Peter, Paul, John, James, these guys, right? These were the apostles of Christ. Today, and Paul says, even though I am an apostle and I could command you, Remember we were reading in Jude where one of the big things that he was talking about where these guys were not uh were against authority like they weren't just listening to things this is the kind of thing that we're talking about where paul had authority over this church to command anyone he wanted by the authority of christ jesus himself and the people that jude was talking to were listening to people like paul and like peter who had the authority to tell them what to do we're saying no nah you can't you can't tell me what to do. Today though we have the words of the apostles and we have them in this book. So we are also under an authority but it is the authority of these words from the apostles. This word of scripture are now our authority. So Paul is at this point acting as the Bible and saying, you know, as the Bible, I could command you instead. I would rather actually just ask you. Like, I'm not going to force you to do this. I would rather you came to it on your own, which I find is interesting because that does seem to be the general attitude of Jesus and the New Testament. He would make a command. Yes. But he's not gonna force you to do it. Instead, he would rather have you, of your own free will, decide to obey. And I see that running through here. So that's why I don't think it is out of left field that Paul is talking to Philemon, who's this giant of the faith. And he said, look, I could command you to let him go. But I'm not going. And I'm not going to command you to do what is proper with him, which would have included all sorts of things, you know, like forgiveness, accepting him back into the household, all these other things. He could have listed it. But he didn't. He said, look, I know you're going to do the right thing. So let me appeal to you, my Christian brother. Yeah. And then he drops, well, having said that, he does seem to drop a whole lot of Credentials towards him right now. I don't know how many Jews you guys have actually heard, right? I'm from upstate New York. So I ran into a bunch of them And I knew a bunch of you know, like people from New York as well. So, you know, too It's like this letter is just about the most Jewish thing ever All right. He's basically saying, look, I'm not going to command you to do it, but you know, I am an apostle. Also, I'm in jail. You know, you kind of owe me your life and I know it's like, it's like, but, but I'm not going to command you to do it. Right. So I, I just, I could hear, I could just hear him saying this. And it's it's just glorious. But anyway, so that's what he's doing. He drops a bunch of stuff So he said Paul the agent that word is actually almost the word for ambassador So he might have just dropped that in as well just to kind of like let him know who he was Just but he also that I'm a prisoner of Christ. So, you know like I'm this guy who's about to be martyred here You know, I'm just saying this is I'm just saying, I'm just saying, I could command you as the ambassador of Christ, as the one who is in prison for the sake of the gospel, but I'm not gonna. I'm going to appeal to you, my brother, knowing that you will do the right thing yourself. Yeah, yeah, yeah, you gotta love it. But. So then he's gonna look like a jerk. It's about the church. Yeah, yeah, also, yeah, remember, this is being read in his church, in his house. Anyway, but so he lays out the situation. I appeal to you for my child, whom I have begotten in my imprisonment, Onesimus, who formerly was useless to you, but now is useful both to you and to me. Now this is actually kind of funny. Onesimus literally means useful. This guy's name was useful. Now, he says that Useful used to be Useless to you, which makes me kind of wonder. All right, so the irony of this is, is he had a slave named Useful who wasn't, who then took off and ran. Now it makes me wonder, did his name change? Like was Philemon, Philemon's called him Useless. Right? Like when he was in the house, like, Hey, useless, get to work. Right? And then when he, and so when he introduced himself to Paul, again, this is just in my imagination. When he introduced himself to Paul, he says, yes, hi, I'm useless. And then like, uh, and then when he came to Christ, Paul says, you know what? Now you're useful. Maybe, or maybe it was just an irony that he kind of sucked as a slave and his name was useful. And regardless, he says, I am returning to you my child, whom I have begot, just like you, by the way, useful. And I know once he was useless, but now he is useful to you and also to me. Now, clearly what had happened is that the gospel changed this man. Onesimus went from being a useless individual to a useful individual. And this happens quite a lot, by the way. When you see someone who comes to Christ, they change. They stop being the useless layabout that they used to be, and they start growing into a man. I've seen this a number of times. I've seen people who were basically nothing become Onesimus. They This is a thing which the gospel does. Remember in the book of Proverbs it says, wisdom cries aloud in the streets and yet no one listens. And also that Jesus is called the wisdom of God. Jesus is wisdom personified. So those who follow Jesus and continue in his ways are going if they have more and more Jesus, to be more wise. And by becoming wise, you become more useful. And this is the change in the gospel. I think I've gone long enough, so let me go ahead and write this up here. The thing that I have seen in so many people whose lives have been touched by Christ is a change. They go from being whatever they were to being something new. That's why we call it being reborn. It's not just a matter of, I used to be this way and now I'm a little better. It's not a, I used to be these sort of things. I came to Christ and nothing changed. Coming to Christ is a change from an old state of being to a new creation, a new thing. And Onesimus obviously caught the bug. He came to Christ and under Paul's tutelage became someone whom Paul would recommend to the church in Colossae as someone they could go to as a fellow worker and a brother. He became immensely useful to him in his time of jail, to the point where Paul was telling Philemon, hey, I kind of want him back. Now you should be seeing this in your life. You should be seeing, as a Christian, someone who is going from a state of not being, if you will, to a state of being. And if you don't see that happening, then you have kind of a thing maybe you should start questioning. And if you find yourself questioning this, just remember that when Jesus came to earth, he came as a baby, grew into something else, too, and that his life was lived for and that he died on a cross so that you could go from being a sinner to being a beloved of God. And so if you're not seeing these kind of changes happen in your life, you're not seeing yourself growing more and more towards righteousness, you're not seeing yourself growing into a more and more useful person, just remember that Jesus died for you. Look to that cross. Put yourself down at the feet of that cross. Look up to him and say, hey, maybe I haven't been serving you the way that I should. Could you please help me? Remember, as the centurion said to Jesus, Lord, I believe. Help me, my unbeliever. And let that be the lesson we'll stop with here, that Jesus is not only a wonderful savior, but he is a life changer. And that life changer makes you from a person who is useless to a person who is useful for the gospel. And that is what you should be looking for. And so, Lord in heaven, we just pray that you would help us all to become useful. that you would see us become daily more and more like you, understanding there will be setbacks along the way. Lord, we just pray that as we fall and stumble that you would pick us back up, that you would continue to remind us to look to the cross, look to the sacrifice that you made, and help us to live our lives knowing that we didn't have to take that punishment. You took it for us, that we would live thankfully for all that you did. And I pray this in Jesus' name, amen.