Spend a little bit of time in the book of Philemon this morning, and then we've got a lot going on today, don't we? We've got Lord's Supper, we're celebrating Titus, we're celebrating the choir and doing choir practice, just lots of stuff. And though we're a small congregation, we do a lot, and that's good, right? That's a good thing. But let's go ahead and let's start off with a word of prayer. Dear Gracious Heavenly Father, we thank you so much for your word. We thank you for all that you've given us in Christ. We ask that as we spend time in your word, that your word would mold us and shape us, that your spirit would mold us and shape us and renew us and rejuvenate us so that we're more like your son, Jesus Christ. We thank you for the example of your of your servant, Paul. We thank you for the example of this book, Philemon, and as we wrestle through a lot of things in this book, we ask that your spirit would be leading us and guiding us so that we may know the right way that we should act in Astoria, Oregon at this time. We just thank you and love you for everything you've given us in your son's name, amen. So I don't know if you've ever heard of such a thing, It's a prayer competition. Now when I first heard it, it was laughable, right? And all I could imagine was two guys up on stage doing like a dueling banjo type of thing with prayer, right? And this guy uses King James language, this guy doesn't, and they're praying, and the first one that taps out, he loses, and the guy who's left standing, he's the winner. That's what I heard, and it's laughable, right? And you would go, who would be so, Silly to have a prayer competition. Well, the Presbyterians Writer Guild has done such a thing. I'm not kidding. It's a real thing. You can look it up. So what they did was they hosted a competition. and you could write in, and now this was much more than just prayer, it was also scripture readings and poems and how you would craft a church service. And lo and behold, a submission from Beaverton actually won. Isn't that neat? Somebody just right down the road from us is a champion prayer. The winning entry I found very interesting. The title of the service was The Hill We All Climb. Doesn't that sound, doesn't that give you a warm feeling inside? Makes everything cotton candy and unicorns, doesn't it? Interestingly enough, they do actually talk about Jesus, but it's not until halfway through the service, and it's simply just mentioned in the scripture reading, and the scripture reading is just one or two verses, but don't worry, just in case you were concerned, they did have a large reading from Nelson Mandela's biography. So that's important. So anyways, you wanna hear the prayer that won this competition? What kind of people would put on a prayer competition? Their prayer started off like this. Our father and mother and I just stopped. It doesn't really matter what the rest of the prayer says. You've already lost. There's no way that could win a competition. because we know that God, in the Bible, describes himself as our Heavenly Father. Now, as ludicrous as this is, because this is pretty ludicrous, to have a prayer contest, it's perplexing, it's weird, it's sick, it's blasphemous, we here would say, no, prayer is not a competition. You're not in competition with anybody when you pray. No, that's your communication with God. You're talking with God. And no, you should not go on the Presbyterian Writer Guild to see what a championship prayer looks like and model yourself after the championship team down in Beaverton. No. We have incredible examples found in scripture of how we should pray. And this morning, we're gonna see Paul, as he prays for Philemon, he offers this incredible, incredible blueprint for us, an incredible example in the way that we should pray. By the way, I did find it really interesting, when Jesus talks about prayer, he says, don't pray in such a way as to be applauded by men, but go away privately and pray, and you'll have your reward with your Father. That's the kind of, that's the type of prayer we should have, right? That which is pleasing to God, not pleasing to men. So, not the Presbyterian Writers Guild, but the book of Philemon does offer us a really good example of how we should pray for one another. So go with me to Philemon, verse four, By God's grace, we'll get to verse seven, and I wanna show you three things about prayer, how we can pray for one another, and that's what I wanna do. I wanna encourage us to pray for one another. Let's pray for one another. Let's commit to this. And there's three things that need to be in our prayer life when we're praying for each other. The first thing we're gonna see in verses four through five is that our prayer should have constant gratitude. Our prayers should be so filled with gratitude and thankfulness to God. Thankfulness to God for my brother and sister, what he's doing in your life. You should be thankful to God what he's doing in my life. We're thankful to God that he saves people and there's evidence of that salvation. Praise the Lord. There should be millions and millions of amens and thank yous. There's another one, in verse 6, there needs to be this concerted intercession, serious intercession. Now, we'll touch on this when we get to verse 6, but though there's lots of things that go on in the life of the believer each week in which we should pray for one another constantly and intercede on behalf of others, We're going to see that Paul has a singular focus when he prays for people. He is more concerned for somebody's spiritual health. That's really all he's concerned about. I mean, he's concerned about other things, but Paul's not a heartless robot that if somebody's sick, he's not going to pray for them. But in Paul's mind, he would go, yes, we need to pray for the people who are sick, yes, we need to pray for the things going on in people's lives, but do you understand that there's something greater, your walk with the Lord? And that's what I'm concerned about, is your walk with the Lord. And then, verse seven, we're gonna see this, we need to pray with a clear perspective. There's lots of times where we will pray, and we will ask for things, and we will ask for things on the behalf of other people, not thinking clearly, not having the right kind of joy, not having the right kind of perspective. And we're gonna see Paul's perspective as he prays for Philemon, and his perspective is far greater, it's a far greater reach than just this isolated situation. He is wanting the church to be rejuvenated through the life of Philemon, and that's his perspective. His prayer is for the church, for all the believers, and Philemon fits himself inside of this, and so you have this divine perspective of the church, this divine, what is God doing with the church? You have this idea of this is God's will, and so he's praying from this perspective, seeing all of this and praying for all of this. So, let's look at this. By the way, as we go into this, this was not the easiest text in the Greek to translate. In fact, this was surprisingly difficult. Christa came into my office last night at seven, In the evening, I'm still in my office. She goes, how's it going? I said, I don't know, I'm still on verse six, and there's five different ways to interpret this thing, and I have no idea. So, by God's grace, we'll get to verse seven. We'll wing it. No, I'm kidding. I do have my own translation, but be full aware that there is at least, at least five different ways to take Paul's prayer to Philemon, and it was a very difficult challenge for me, and I hope that I'll make it easier for you But if you're interested in this type of thing of translations and how people translate and all this, this is a great text to get your teeth wet, because it is really difficult. So let's start off first with when we pray for one another, how should we pray? We should pray with constant gratitude. Notice what Paul says to Philemon in verse four. He says, I thank my God always. He's thankful to God. He's constantly thankful, right? I thank my God always. Think of this, Paul's prayer is always first with thank you, thank you, gratitude, deep sense of gratitude. Now how does Paul get this idea of deep sense of gratitude for what God's doing? Paul understands God's grace. Remember last week when we talked about grace and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ? It's that grace and peace when we understand that or begin to get a deeper understanding of those things that there is more and more gratitude to God for what God is doing in my life and in your life. And so as I look at your life and I see your growth, I go, wow, look at how incredible God is as he's working in your life, as he's lavishing all these blessings upon you. I'm thankful to God for you. It's incredible what God's doing. It's incredible the work that he's doing. And we could go around the room and we could ask each person and talk to each person and we could walk away going, wow, God is doing incredible things. He's doing incredible things. They might seem small. compared to other problems or other breakthroughs. That doesn't matter. God's working. Do not think that God's working somewhere else over there. He's working somewhere else. He's working right here. It might be small. Praise the Lord. He's working, and he's working through the preaching of the word. Somebody might be praying a little bit more these days than they were last year. Praise the Lord. Somebody's reading the Bible more. Praise the Lord. Someone's being nicer to their spouse. Praise the Lord. Someone's acting with wisdom. Praise the Lord. Someone didn't say the thing that they normally would say, but now they have a little bit more self-control. That is all a work of God. And when we see that, what should our response be? Praise the Lord. Amen. Amen! That's incredible! Now, are we a finished work? Of course not. But we're not thanking God for the finished work right now. We are thanking him for the ongoing work in the life of the believer. Amen! And when we look around this room, we should say thousands of amens. We should look at each person and go, amen for that, amen for that, amen for that. And so the Apostle Paul, he says, I thank my God always. This is constant. And then notice what he says, he says, when I remember you in my prayers. Now this isn't that Paul forgot about Philemon and the church in Colossae and he goes, oh yeah, you know who I didn't pray for? Philemon. Now that probably does happen and that probably happened in the life of the apostle Paul. He's not God, he is human. But the word for remember here is not forgetting and then it coming back to your mind going, I didn't necessarily think of that, now I remember it. It's kind of a weird word to translate. The idea here is deep reflection upon something. And so it's the idea of specifically thinking about this thing. So it's not that Paul forgets about Philemon. It's that he is specifically thinking about Philemon as he's praying. So think about this. He says, I thank my God always when I remember you in my prayers. Now realize the Apostle Paul has traveled quite extensively at this point. He knows lots of people. And imagine you're Philemon. Here's the great Apostle Paul who knows lots of people, lots of situations, and you get a letter, and Philemon goes, wow, the Apostle Paul took time out of his busy schedule to pray for me? By name? By name, by circumstance. And the way that you read this and the way that you read other letters from the Apostle Paul, you get the sense that Philemon isn't the only one that he prays for by name. I don't know how this dude did any ministry apart from praying for all the people. When did he have time to prepare sermons? I'm being facetious. Of course, he was able to do this, but he was also able to pray. Martin Luther had a famous statement whenever somebody said, what do you got to do today? He goes, well, I have lots to do, therefore I have lots of prayer, right? I have to spend a lot of time in prayer. He would spend significant amount of time in prayer. And so here, that's the same sense you get from the Apostle Paul. I'm praying, but notice it's personal. It's thinking of, and it's starting with this, I am thankful. I am so thankful for you. I know you by name. I say I thank you by name. I just don't say, hey, thank you for the church in Colossae. You know who they are, Lord. He goes, I'm thankful for Philemon. That's incredible. That's incredible. That's how we should pray, by the way. I know sometimes we don't. I know that sometimes it's easy for us to throw up a blanket prayer. Pray for everybody. I'm thankful for everybody at church. That's okay to say from time to time. But I think the example here would be going by name. Taking the church directory and going by name. Specifically thinking about what's going on in each person's life and praying for them specifically. Now you might not know everything that's going on in their life. That doesn't matter. That doesn't matter. This is what we're called to do. We're called to be thankful for our brothers and sisters who are here, and Paul demonstrates that. Now, Paul just hasn't heard about Philemon through various means, and he has, and is just saying a blanket, hey, I'm praying for ya. He actually gets into why he prays for Philemon. Notice verse five, he says, because I hear of your love and faith. Very interesting. So here we know now why Paul is so thankful. Why is he thankful for Philemon? It's because Philemon has an international testimony. He has an international testimony. Paul's in Rome. He's listening about something that's happening in Colossae from the pastor of Colossae. And Paul goes, I've heard about you. I know about your work. And I guarantee you, it wasn't just Epaphras that talked about his love and faith. It was world renowned. Isn't that incredible? He knows specifically what's going on. Now, this word for love and faith, We could translate this, this is where the first difficulty comes in, translating even these phrases. We could translate this idea as love and loyalty, or faithfulness and loyalty, okay? So the word your here applies both to your love, and then not, and of the faith, but of your faith, okay? So the your goes to both of them, your love and your faith. And here I understand faith as your faithfulness, your steadfastness. So here is Philemon, Paul hears about his love, his loyalty, his steadfastness. It's incredible, I wish that all of us, when people would think of us, they would go, hey, you know what I think of them there at Lewis and Clark Bible Church? Their love and their faithfulness. Their love and their faithfulness, right? What an incredible thing to be known for, right? So we're not talking about some guy who's just going through the motions, we're talking about somebody who is committed to the Lord and committed to the local church. Now, let me show you why I say that, because notice what he says next. He says, I've heard of your love and of your faith. that you have towards the Lord Jesus and for all the saints. So here also again is some of the difficulty of this translation. I understand this love and faith being aimed towards both the Lord Jesus Christ, and all the saints. So here is Philemon, he is faithful and loyal to the Lord Jesus Christ, and he is faithful and loyal to the church. Right? Here's a guy who's faithful and he's loving. He loves the Lord and he loves the saints. He is steadfast to the Lord and he's steadfast to the saints. He's not in and out. Church isn't just something he attends. Church is something he's a participant in. Now, let's think of this first. What does it mean to love and to be faithful to the Lord Jesus Christ? Think about this. We've been studying Colossians downstairs. The church in Colossae had a problem, didn't it? Had a serious problem. Had a theology problem, didn't it? There was a heresy that was weaseling its way into the church where they were de-elevating Jesus through plausible arguments, through all these crazy things of philosophy and misinterpreting the law and kind of putting this together with Jesus. And there's this really weird, inconsistent theology that's happening there. And the sense you get is there's possibly, probably people inside of the local church that are falling for such foolishness. But guess who doesn't? Philemon. He's one who is faithful to the Lord Jesus Christ. He's the one who understands the Lord Jesus Christ. He has love for Jesus, right? What does Jesus say? What's the great command? To love the Lord God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, with all your strength. Here was one who was letting the word richly dwell with inside of his heart, right? Here was one who was faithful to the Lord Jesus Christ, faithful doctrinally, upheld the doctrinal standard. Now, what does it mean to be faithful and loving towards the saints? Well, this would look like how Jesus loves people. This would look like 1 Corinthians 13, right? Let's just quickly go there. This is what it would look like. You wanna see what faithfulness to a local church looks like? You wanna see what love to brothers and sisters looks like? Yeah, 1 Corinthians 13. Here's a good description of Christ-like love, of love inside of a congregation, love within a fellowship, love that's worshipful. Let's start in verse four. Love is patient and kind. And it does not envy or boast. It is not arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way. It is not irritable or resentful. It does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. Love bears all things, it believes all things, it hopes all things, it endures all things. Love never ends. That's the type of love that Philemon had towards the church. Now, this doesn't mean that he's perfect. I'm not claiming that. He had his own troubles, as we all do. But the characteristic that Paul thinks of him when he thinks of Philemon is something like this. And you really see that loyalty, that steadfastness towards the end, right? Where it says that love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. That's what love does. Love is willing to stick it out with somebody, right? To get in the trenches with somebody, right? Okay, you got problems? I'm here. You got stuff going on? I'm here. I'm here, I'm for the long run. This isn't, I'm not just here and then gonna pop out of your life. I'm not a tourist in your life, right? I'm gonna be something that's in your life constantly. It's that thing that believes all things. It says, I believe the best for you. I believe that God's working in your heart and it hopes, I hope for the good things that are gonna come out of your life because of God and it endures, right? It stays the course. This is the type of love that Philemon has for the church. He has this faithful, and so when Paul's thinking of this guy, he is truly thankful. I'm thankful for what the Lord is doing in your life. What's the Lord doing? The Lord is causing you to be steadfast in doctrine, steadfast in your love for the Lord, steadfast for the brothers and sisters in Colossae. When we think about what's going to happen next couple verses, What Paul's gonna ask Philemon to do with Onesimus, we already know how Philemon is gonna respond. This man's a loving man. He's faithful to believers. So when Onesimus comes as a believer in the Lord Jesus Christ, what's he gonna do? He's gonna demonstrate that same love and faith. In fact, even Paul at verse 21, notice what Paul says in verse 21. He says, confident of your obedience, Paul is so confident in Philemon and his love and steadfast for the saints that he goes, I'm writing this confident that you're going to do the right thing and love your brother. So, when we pray for each other, there needs to be constant gratitude. Now notice this next thing. There needs to be this concerted intercession. So here we now have this prayer for Paul. I don't want to get too lost in the weeds here, but here is now another issue. This verse is fraught with issues for a translator. or anyone doing any Greek study, there's a lot of words that don't seem to make sense put together, and you go, how does this make sense? There's this connecting, and you go, what is it connecting to? What's the antecedent? Right? The thing, the subject of what he's talking about. And so if you notice in most of your Bibles, unless you have the King James, the King James does disagree here on this, though you could easily surmise what's going on. So notice in verse six, and it says, and I pray, that word and I pray is actually not in the original, but it's given to help you understand the sense of the sentence. And I think that's right. Even in the King James, you even get that sense that this is still part of his prayer, right? And so in fact, this phrase, you see that word and, it's actually connected all the way back up to verse four when Paul says, and I remember you in my prayers. That's where that word I pray is drawn from. And then he says, and I pray that the sharing of your faith may become effective for the full knowledge of every good thing that is in us for the sake of Christ. Now that's a humdinger of a sentence, right? In the Greek, Good luck, right? No. It's kind of interesting. It's kind of a difficult thing to translate. So you see that first phrase in the ESV where it says, and that the sharing of your faith, that's the correct word. It's the correct translation, but it doesn't necessarily help us understand what Paul's really trying to get at. Here is the Greek word koinonia. Koinonia really has the idea of fellowship. So that's where they get the idea of sharing, right? common bond that you have between two people. And so here's this common bond that they have in Christ. And so they're sharing together. Some think that Paul's use of the word koinonia here refers to Philemon as a financial supporter of Paul. Maybe, but as we're gonna see, that's a big stretch. I think here, we just take the word for what it means. Koinonia means fellowship. Some of your translations may say communication, right? Now, back in the day, when some of those translations were written, communication did have the concept of coming together in unity, kind of like fellowship. Today when people read it and they see the word communication, they think that this speaks of Philemon and his evangelistic endeavor in the city of Colossae. The communication of your faith gets a little difficult on the next part where it talks about all that stuff that is in us for the sake of Christ. So it seems to be something that's tethered to the church and inside of the church. And so the way I understand this is I translate this, I pray, I have the desire, this is my desire, that the fellowship of your faith, so it's speaking of this fellowship of like-minded believers of his dedication to the local church. Here's this one who is fellowshipping with Christ, he's fellowshipping with the saints, and they're together. And the basis of that fellowship is that second part, of your faith. So Philemon just isn't a good hangout buddy, he is somebody who is fellowshipping inside of the church. Now there's a lot that could be said about biblical fellowship. But let's be honest what biblical fellowship is. It's not just getting together to have a meal or have a game night. Now that's an aspect of fellowship, but that is not fellowship. Biblical fellowship must have this idea of association with believers. Has to be on the basis of biblical truth. It has to be for the purpose of us being unified together and encouraging one another to live for Jesus. So fellowship really is that community of coming together and encouraging one another to live for Jesus and encouraging one another to keep on keeping on. That's what fellowship is. There's an aspect of fellowship that is, yes, sharing physical needs. Of course, that's part of being part of a fellowship. But you also have to understand, too, that this is fellowship, what we're doing now. Now you go, but I'm not talking. You don't have to talk to fellowship. Fellowship is the giving of resources to another to help them live for Jesus. So even listening to a sermon is part of fellowship because it's encouraging you to live for Jesus. That's what biblical fellowship is. Today, unfortunately, a lot of people think fellowship is, we're gonna meet at such and such a restaurant, and we're just gonna talk. Now, that's important. I'm not saying that if you do that, that that's not important. That's an aspect of it. You have to get to know people. but you must realize that fellowship is much bigger, much deeper, much more involved, and it has to conclude in causing people, encouraging people to live for the Lord Jesus Christ, and it's based off of your faith. Now, Paul's desire for Philemon is this, is that he becomes effective. The idea is that He produces these intended results. Now, what are the intended results and where does that come from? Well, notice it comes from. Here the ESV says, become effective for the full knowledge. Rather, I see this as, you're effective because of the full knowledge of every good. That's how I translate it, the full knowledge of every good. Meaning this, that as Philemon comes together and fellowships on the basis of the faith and grace, and that mutual fellowship of people building each other up, His desire is that Philemon will go into the church, be encouraged, ministered to so that he is effective to understand fully what God has given him by his grace and that he can fully know what is his in Christ and what is good in Christ and that he can share what is good and what we've received from Christ with each other. So this good, these good things, refers to salvation to material goods. This is everything in between. So it's just coming together to understand how good God is and all the good things that he gives. So his prayer is, I want you to grow spiritually, Philemon. I want you to be involved in the church. I want you to grow in the church. I want you to be a participant of the church. I want you to become even more effective in the church and encouraging each other to understand who we are in Christ, to understand the good that we have. That's my prayer for you, Philemon. And notice the result. It says, the good thing that is in us, that's all the good things, for the sake of Christ. Paul is concerned that Jesus Christ is honored and glorified in the church of Colossae. So his prayer is what? That God is honored and glorified and that each member of the church is living for the Lord, growing in the Lord, so that Jesus is ultimately honored by the fellowship that we have together. That we remain steadfast to Jesus. That we remain steadfast to each other. That's His prayer. So when I'm thinking about how I intercede for you and how you should intercede for me, this. This. Pray for spiritual growth. That we all may become effective ministers to each other. so that Jesus is honored and glorified in our faithfulness to Jesus and our faithfulness and love towards each other. That's the prayer. That's how he intercedes. Now, is there other stuff going on in Philemon's life? Yeah, of course there is. But to Paul, yeah, all of that's important to talk about. But the ultimate goal is that Jesus is honored and glorified through the church. That's what's important. Now notice the right perspective that Paul has in verse seven. He says, for I have derived. That's a really good word. That's not the exact word that Paul uses in the Greek, but you get the sense. The sense is that Paul is continually having this great joy and comfort And how is Paul, why is Paul joyful? Why is he encouraged? Why is he comforted? Why is he edified? How is Paul edified by the life of Philemon? Notice, it's from your love. From your love. Now, we don't know exactly how much Philemon knew the Apostle Paul, or how well they knew each other, or what love was sent by Philemon to Paul. We don't know. Maybe it was a lot, maybe it was a little. But I guarantee you, we do know what Paul's thinking, because he says, I'm comforted by your love, and then the ESV puts in my brother. I wish they didn't put it there. That's actually the way that he ends his prayer, or ends verse seven, and it makes better sense to put it at the end, because it kind of puts a stamp on it, that he's saying, this is what I think of you, my brother. The ESV kind of makes it a little choppy, but that's the sense. Here, he views Philemon as a brother, and he says, because the inward part, the word heart, That's not the right word. Some of your translations might have the word. It's the word intestines. In the ancient world, the seed of emotions was the intestines. Think on that by yourself, on the full meaning of that. But I think we all understand what he means. It's that inside, that the inside, the inside. So he says, because the inside, the soul of the saints have been refreshed through you. So the Apostle Paul isn't necessarily thankful for all of the gifts that Philemon gave to him personally. What is he concerned about? The fact that the saints are rejuvenated because of his love for Jesus, his fidelity to Jesus, and his love and commitment to the local church. And as he sees that, he says, that is the greatest thing I've heard. I am so thankful for that. I have such great joy and great comfort and edified by seeing you rejuvenate each other. Now, it's really nice when people give each other gifts. I love gifts. I love opening gifts. I'm the weird guy that would rather open a gift than give a gift. I, yeah, I just enjoy that. And I understand the great joy that it is to give people gifts and to help people out. I do get that. And I love when people give my wife gifts and my kids gifts. I love that. I mean, that's the greatest thing to me. I love it. I love watching the joy on their face. Don't buy me a gift, buy them gifts. They have to put up with me. Have pity on them, have empathy and compassion on them, not on me. And there's joy that comes from receiving a gift. But our perspective needs to be like the Apostle Paul. We should get incredible joy as we watch each other interact with each other and say, you see how that one helped that one? Man, that's a real encouragement. They're getting it. They understand it. They understand what they're supposed to do. They understand the ministry that's supposed to happen. The church is ministering to itself, and I don't have to organize it. And people are being obedient to God's word without having to be told and watching them and bird-dogging them. Our joy should be complete and we should be encouraged just by watching other people be refreshed through another believer. Why, why? Well, it goes back up to verse six, for the sake of Christ. So this is the clear perspective. It's all about Jesus. It's all about how can I help you? How can I edify you? It's really sad. It's really sad. A lot of modern day believers globally view the church as what can it do for me? What does this church have for me? Not, what can I do for my brothers and sisters that are here? It's, what can you do for me? How can you, me, deal with me first? Here, Philemon didn't go to church going, well, how can the church that meets in my house help me? He goes, how can I help you? How can I edify you? And that's Paul's great joy. And that should be our joy. So as we think about how we pray for one another, we should pray for one another. Absolutely, absolutely. You wanna know who to pray for? The people in this room, of course. And the people that normally come that aren't in this room, pray for them. This is who we're praying for, right? We're working here together. We're ministering here in Astoria together, right? We are the missionaries in our mission field, and our mission field is our backyard. We're praying for each other. This is our ministry. Pray for the fellow ministers, right? We should pray for one another. And it needs to be constantly thankful, thankful. Needs to be constantly, I pray for their growth, that they grow in the knowledge and grace of Jesus Christ. And we need to say thank you to God when we see them being obedient to what God's word has to say, even if I'm not even affected by it. If they don't even give me a gift, but they give you a gift, I should walk away going, amen. Praise the Lord. There's somebody who's obedient. There's somebody who shows love. There's somebody who shows faith. Amen. That's what it looks like to do that. This morning I was reading a report about the role of churches inside of communities. And it seems that where there are more churches, there's less violent crime. And this particular report was about policing and how police should police areas. And one of the things that it said was, get people inside of church to pray. And you need to tend prayers. And they said, just go to every church and pray with them. And that will help the community be more safe. And there's a lot of statistics of people that just go to church, regardless of what the church believes, and coming together, how that makes a community safer. And to which I go, well, I'm very thankful for the safety, right? But not all prayer is equal, right? the Presbyterian Writers Guild prayer, that's not equal to Paul's prayer. Paul's prayer's real, right? It's actual real. It's actually in reality from God's word based off of God's grace. Other people, when they pray, they don't know God like we know God. They may believe in the existence of God. They may cry out to the God that they believe exists, but to us who know God through Christ, who are children who can boldly go into the throne room of grace. That's what I'm concerned about, is believers praying, and believers praying the right way with the right attitudes. And that's what I wanna encourage you with, to pray the right way, to pray for our brothers and sisters. And I know we all can get on each other's nerves, and it's really easy for us to go home and say, can you believe what the pastor said? Can you believe what so-and-so did? Can you believe that pastor's tie wasn't straight? And it wasn't even in the same color scheme? Who dresses him? Does he live in a barn? Can you believe so and so did? Can you believe so and so said? That's easy, that's easy, that's fleshly, right? Those things can become very fleshly really quick. That's not what we're called to. We're called to pray and we're called to be thankful to God for our brothers and sisters. We're called to intercede for their growth and we're supposed to be joyful when we see it. We are going to go over, I'm really sorry, and if you have to go, that's okay, but we are going to now celebrate the Lord's Supper. And so, if the musicians could come up.