All right, at this time, would you turn with me to Galatians 5? Galatians 5, and that is our text for this morning, verses 7-12. Galatians 5, verses 7-12. I thank John for catching my error. We were in chapter seven this morning and I had chapter eight in the bulletin for some reason, but John got us on track. Sometimes I edit the bulletin and then I go back and I forget what I've edited and then I'll bump it ahead. So anyway, appreciate that this morning. again, Galatians chapter number five for scripture or for our Message this morning and if you found that in your able would you stand with me in honor of reading God's Word today? Galatians chapter number five verses seven through twelve for context sake I'm going to read the first six verses as well Galatians chapter number five beginning to read in verse number one the Word of God says for freedom Christ has set us free stand firm therefore and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery and Look, I, Paul, say to you that if you accept circumcision, Christ will be of no advantage to you. I testify again to every man who accepts circumcision that he is obligated to keep the whole law. You are severed from Christ, you who would be justified by the law. You have fallen away from grace. For through the Spirit by faith we ourselves eagerly wait for the hope of righteousness. For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision counts for anything, but only faith working through love. And here's our text for today. You were running well. Who hindered you from obeying the truth? This persuasion is not from him who calls you. A little leaven leavens the whole lump. I have confidence in the Lord that you will take no other view, and the one who is troubling you will bear the penalty, whoever he is. But if I, brothers, still preach circumcision, why am I still being persecuted? In that case, the offense of the cross has been removed. I wish those who unsettle you would emasculate themselves. This is the word of God. Shall we pray? Father, we pray that you would bless your word today. and Lord, that you would give us help and understanding from this text. Lord, there is some profound truth here and some things that are hard to swallow, so to speak, but God, we pray that you would give us understanding and wisdom and also clarity, Father, that our faith would increase, that our love for you would abound, and God, that your glory would be manifest. Lord, as your servant today, I pray you would cleanse me of sin and empty me of self and help me, Lord, to be a blessing to these your people. Fill me with your spirit, I pray. And Father, for it all, we'll give you the thanks and praise. We ask it in Jesus name. Amen and amen. Thank you for standing. You may be seated. The title of the message this morning is Dangerous Detours, Dangerous Detours. And I was thinking about this first phrase we see in verse seven, where Paul says to the Galatians, you were running well. You were running well, implying that they are currently not running so well. And it's also clear from the phrase that follows that there was some influence on that. Many of us today knew a time and a period of life where there was no such thing as GPS Amen, you remember pre GPS when you had to get out? What was it called Rand McNalls? World Atlas or something like that or whatever they have what what is it? So somebody help me out. Oh, is it? Oh and I remember Tracy telling me years ago that her her grandpa would sit down and he'd take his marker and and they were going to the beach, and he basically would retrace that every year. But along came the World Wide Web, and the first thing that I can remember using was something called MapQuest. I don't even know if that's a thing anymore, because now we have apps on our phones that you don't need to visit a website. You just punch in your destination, and it'll tell you turn by turn. You can even choose the voice. You're gonna listen to to get there. It's pretty neat. It's pretty neat But anyway when GPS just began one one interesting day We were in the strawberry patch and I don't remember if Aaron was there or not but he may certainly have been but we're in the strawberry patch and We look up, and here comes a car. And it was a very nice car, and it was low. And we're on a field lane where we're picking strawberries. And there's large pieces of shale and lots of rocks. Snyder County has plenty of rocks. You folks that live over in the promised land of Union County, you may not understand what I'm talking about. But we have shaley, gravelly ground over here. And anyway, this car comes. past the strawberry patch and going down a field lane, which used to be, years ago, when they traveled by horse and buggy, it was indeed a township road. But then through the progression of time that the township gave up on maintaining that and it became The maintenance of the farmer our neighbor takes care of the majority of it. The remainder is on our farm but anyway, this car was heading towards the neighbors farm towards Middleburg and they just they just went right on by and and we all just sort of waved at this this woman and and we thought we all sort of giggled and said where she going and because we were certain she had no idea what she was in for. The further she went, the worse the road would get. And I was concerned that she might not make it out the other side. So I called the neighboring farmer and I said, hey, just a heads up, some crazy lady just went past us and she's headed your way. She may be hung up in the hollow. You might have to go pull her out after a bit. If you don't see her come in the next 10, 15 minutes, you might wanna go look. And well, he gave report that she did in fact make it, but I don't think she went that way ever again. Because it certainly was a dangerous detour. I'm sure that the right driver and right car, there could have been a oil pan with a hole in it or a transmission, whatever, but nevertheless, she made it. Well, some detours in life are less threatening than others, and the detour that the Galatians were considering if they had not already taken it, was one that was in fact dangerous, dangerous eternally, that they would turn away from the one true gospel to follow a gospel that was no gospel at all, a gospel that would just simply lead to more slavery. And it would make big promises, but never offer a true reward, which is our eternal destination. And Paul, Paul in the first, Two verses here, 7 and 8, he really identifies for us three kinds of dangerous detours that can affect us in the Christian life. He says again to the Galatians, he says, you were running well, who hindered you from obeying the truth. This persuasion is not from him who calls you so the first the first of the three dangerous detours that can be taken is Begins with you personally you were running well you were But in fact now you are you're not and and the direction again that they were headed towards Was proof or we could say would would have proved that they were not truly in the faith at all But you know, the reality is that sometimes, sometimes we can't blame anyone else for the detours that we have taken in life. Sometimes they're our own fault, right? Let's just be honest. There are times when we are our own worst enemy. And so we choose, wrongly at times, and at the end of the day, it all points back to the reality that we are not believing rightly. If you're not believing rightly, it's going to show up in how you live your life. Beliefs affect behavior. Doctrine is directly connected to devotion. Amen. I can say it in a whole bunch of different ways But but at the end of the day the truth the reality is if you are believing wrongly It will be showing itself or it will manifest itself in your practices and so the threat of them leaving the true gospel was in fact affecting the way that they were living. In other words, I'm not sure at this point that there was any believers in the Galatian church that had gone under the knife yet and had submitted themselves to the Judaizers' suggestion that you weren't truly saved unless you were circumcised and obeying the law of Moses. But certainly it was something that I'm sure many of them were contemplating because of the influence that had been brought in. So there is this element of we ourselves, we ourselves have an obligation to direct our minds to the truth so that understanding properly, believing accurately, believing faithfully, that we would in fact practice accordingly. But then there's also the source of others. And that's what Paul points to specifically here. You were running well, who, not what, but who hindered you from obeying the truth. While sometimes we can point to a particular personal issue that has caused our believing and behaving to veer off course, other times it's because of an outside source Besides our own sinfulness and here Paul is identifying that there were indeed some there was indeed someone it could have been multiple But he's laying his finger on someone responsible for the Galatian detraction notice the character of this person the phrase is translated they hindered you from obeying the the truth. They hindered you from obeying the truth. Now, those two phrases, hindered you and obeying the truth, or from obeying the truth, are actually only two words in the Greek. The first, hindered you, is the word enkapto. And it means to prevent progress. Okay. So he says, who is preventing your progress now, not, not saying progress in the sense that you can somehow go beyond the gospel itself, but rather there is a growing in the gospel. There is a growing in the depth of your understanding of the gospel. There is a depth in the growing of your obedience to the gospel. Right? We are saved and we are being saved. We are progressing in our sanctification, becoming more and more like Christ. And so Paul is pointing to the reality that someone had hindered them. It prevented their progress. And why or how did they do this? Well, from obeying the truth. And that is simply, he's saying that they were being persuaded that the course they were on was incorrect, and the one that they were suggesting was in fact the true, okay? So we have these two competing Gospels, if you will, And the one is saying that the other is false. And so here is the conundrum that the Galatians were faced with. Who do we believe? What do we trust in? Where do we go to understand what it is that we are to believe? Paul is saying that you're not obeying the truth. You're not obeying the true gospel. And as we have already detailed long and hard, Paul's gospel was the gospel of Jesus Christ that was Declared to us all the way back in the book of Genesis that that God made a covenant with Abraham and that Covenant was an agreement first and foremost between the Godhead father son and Holy Spirit had determined how they were going to save man and then God comes to man and gives that covenant in a form of a promise to Abraham that Abraham's life would be blessed and that from his loins would come forth the promised offspring and with this promise there was a land and there was an eternal inheritance and there would be so many people that would come to partake in this covenant through what? through the promise that God had made to Abraham, not according to Abraham's works. It was an unconditional covenant, an unconditional promise that God gave to Abraham. And it was to be received simply by faith. In other words, the whole argument of the book of Galatians is that you're justified by grace through faith in Christ. And so there was though these outside influences that were coming in and hindering hindering the Galatians from obeying the one true gospel. Literally, it means that they were persuaded in a way that prevented progress. In other words, the persuasion was to disobedience, specifically as it pertained to the grace of God. Persuasion and disobedience is nothing new. The devil himself persuaded Eve to disobey God. and preventing mankind from experiencing the gift of eternal life from the beginning. Another example that come to my mind when I'm thinking about the way that these hinderers of obeying the truth were operating was the life of one of David's sons, Absalom. If you want to turn back quickly to 2 Samuel. 2 Samuel 15 verses 1-6. And I just want to show you, give you an example of how someone can do exactly what the Galatians were being influenced by. How someone could hinder you from obeying the truth. Because I think at times we think to ourselves, well, I'm quicker than that. I'm more clever than to take the bait, if you will. and to veer off on a dangerous detour. But notice how I want to show you in 2 Samuel 15 how David's son was pretty clever in the way that he was trying to take over his father David's throne. And so that's what's happening. Absalom was devising a conspiracy in order to overthrow his father as king because Absalom wanted to be king, okay? So let's see what Absalom did in order to persuade the people. Verse 1 of chapter 15, 2 Samuel, it says, after this, Absalom got himself a chariot of horses and 50 men to run before him. And Absalom used to rise early and stand beside the way of the gate. And when any man had a dispute to come before the king for judgment, Absalom would call to him and say, from what city are you? And when he said, your servant is of such and such a tribe in Israel, Absalom would say to him, see, your claims are good and right, but there is no man designated by the king to hear you. Then Absalom would say, O that I were judge in the land! Then every man with a dispute or cause might come to me, and I would give him justice. And whenever a man would come near to pay homage to him, he would put out his hand and take hold of him and kiss him." In other words, David running this conspiracy operation to try to steal the kingdom away from his father, he did so through flattery, he did so through the appearance of virtue, and he made big promises to the people. And all for what? All for what? For selfish gain, so that Absalom could become king. And he was just simply telling the people what they wanted to hear. He was tickling an itch that they already had. And this is exactly what Paul has already pointed out to us back in chapter 4 and verse 17. Look back again in Galatians 4 and verse 17. It says, they, speaking of those who are hindering the Galatians from obeying the truth, They make much of you, but for no good purpose. They want to shut you out that they may make much, or that you may make much of them. In other words, it was the exact same tactic that Absalom was using that these Judaizers were using. So there are people with selfish motivations who will hinder you in obeying the truth. That's the second source of dangerous detours. The third source, though, is found in verse eight. And that is the enemy himself. Notice what it says. This persuasion is not from him who calls you. In other words, Paul says the one who's persuading you to disobey the gospel, it's not the one who called you to salvation. As a matter of fact, there's only one other option, right? Paul doesn't need to identify it by name, who he's talking about. He is saying that this was from the devil himself. And Paul points out the reality that the root of this is not the work of God, the Holy Spirit, but rather the work of the devil through his children. And it's a battle between good and evil. So these are things that have the potential to trip us up, to point us in a wrong direction, and we need to stick to the one true gospel. Notice, though, where Paul goes next. He identifies that with this potential to lead one astray, that it happens in a very subtle way. Look at verse nine. He says, a little leaven leavens the whole lump. A little leaven leavens the whole lump. And he says, I have confidence in the Lord that you will take no other view, and the one who is troubling you will bear the penalty, whoever he is. So Paul introduces to this conversation, the idea or the principle of leaven. And in the Bible, specifically in the New Testament, is where we find a lot of this talk about the leaven. It's used in both a good connotation and a negative one. And here, I think it's pretty obvious, Paul is using the illustration of leaven in a negative way. The picture Paul uses here teaches a general principle, though, a general principle of influence. The ancient world used fermentation as a means of preserving food. So that was a good thing. However, the illustration is not being used in that sense. Instead, Paul is pointing out the reality that for good or evil, this is the way that it works. What you put in is what will come out. And here he identifies that it does not take much to make a really big impact. And so, Paul was simply taking the advice of the Lord Jesus Christ when he points out this reality of the leaven that is going to leaven the whole lump. In other words, this little bit of influence, this slight variation on the gospel itself, it's not going to have small and slight Consequences. No, the consequences are going to be drastic. So much so that it becomes a different gospel and there's no salvation in any other gospel. Jesus himself gave this same warning. He said this in Luke chapter 12 for one instance. And there he said, beware of the leaven of the Pharisees. And then he identified what it was. What is the leaven of the Pharisees? He says, which is hypocrisy, Luke 12, 1. This applies so directly to the Judaizers. Their message of faith plus works was nothing more than a hypocritical message of self-righteousness. They did not and furthermore could not obey the law of God, and therefore they were not and never would be justified by their own works, the same works that they were calling the Galatian church to adhere to. And remember Jesus' words in John chapter five in verse 20. He says, unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and the Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. Right. unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and the Pharisees, the most religious people of society. In other words, Jesus was pointing to the necessary righteousness that comes from Him received by faith, right? And so this is a really good reminder to us that small influences can have a large impact, specifically, Paul also tells the Corinthian Church in chapter 15 verse 33. He says do not be deceived Bad company. I like the King James Version best bad company corrupts good morals the ESV translated this way bad company ruins good morals You show me you show me who you spend the majority of your time with and I'll show you who you are right now or soon will be Amen It's the truth It's the truth now this is this is where it's difficult because Jesus said that we're to be in the world, but not of the world and So hey if you're not regularly Brushing arms with those who are outside of Christ. I think you're doing it the wrong way. I really do but at the same time think you need to be the one with the steering wheel. Amen. Because if they are, you're just the passenger. And sooner or later, you're going to end up wherever they're going. The Judaizers were leading the Galatian church in a wrong direction and it didn't take much to get them to go that way, right? And so we have to be ever so careful about who and what, right? Who it is and what they are saying, who it is and what their influence is. I'm thinking of somebody right now that I can't get out of my mind. And ever since I've, I've been aware of it. I've been praying for this person because I know that they are being impacted by somebody who does not have their best, uh, their best intentions. In his mind, right? And, and it's leading this person to make extremely bad choices. It's, it's leading this person down a road that I think is going to end up with either one of two things. One, they're going to apostatize. They're not, they're going to reject their faith or two or two. They're going to go through the punishment of God, correcting hand of a loving father, who's going to do whatever it takes to get them back where they need to be. Because listen. You can act a fool all you want, but if you're his, he's not going to let you go. Amen. He'll hunt you down and bring you back. And he'll do so by whatever means he needs to. Sometimes it's not all that pleasant. But it must be necessary, right? Or God would not do it. But it's a demonstration of His love. It's a demonstration of His love. So this principle of leaven is one that we need to be reminded of over and over again. But notice what Paul's emphasis is. He's going somewhere. Verse 10, he says, I have confidence in the Lord that you will take no other view. In other words, Paul is pointing out this reality. He's pointing out this problem, and he's angry. He's angry at the false gospel's presence. He's certainly angry with those who are propagating this false gospel, but nonetheless, he's hopeful and encouraging to the Galatians themselves. He had confidence, it says, and he doesn't say, I have confidence in you, right? He doesn't say that. What does he have confidence in? I have confidence in the Lord. That is in God Himself and His ability to preserve you, that it's God's ability to finish what He starts. And so His confidence is in the Lord, and that's not only in God's ability to preserve the Galatian Church, but also in the sense that Jesus declared in John chapter 10 verse 5. He said this a stranger speaking of of of true and false shepherds Jesus says a stranger they will not follow His sheep will not follow a stranger but they will flee from him for they do not know the voice of strangers right, so this is How do I, how do you and I come to a place where we can rest in, in whether or not somebody is going to ultimately obey the truth or not? Right. How do we, how do we wrestle with that? Because sometimes I think that, that we push ourself to a place where we do things that are not necessarily good or not necessarily a biblical example of how we should approach someone who we're concerned about. I think that we should do all we can, as James, I think it's 5.12, says that if you lead somebody to repentance, you snatch them from destruction or from condemnation. So I think that we must pursue people that are heading in this deadly or dangerous detour. But at the same time, but the same time, listen, it's not your persuasiveness. It's not your faithfulness. Ultimately, that's going to, to bring them back to the truth. God may use that. Yes, indeed. But at the end of the day, the reason why they will hear your voice, if it's the voice of truth is because they're his sheep. Amen. Because they're his sheep and his, his sheep are ultimately going to rest in a place of obedience to his word. And so gospel, Paul's priority in dealing with this was first and foremost, the purity of the gospel itself. And then he tacks on the end of that statement in verse 10. He says, and the one who is troubling you will bear the penalty, whoever he is. In other words, Paul says, I'm not the one who has to settle this score, right? At the end of the day, the apostle Paul's not the judge. At the end of the day, the Pope's not the judge. The preacher's not the judge. You and I are not the judge. Right? At the end of the day, God is going to settle the score. They're going to bear the penalty. They are going to, to reap the consequences of their false gospel. And Paul says, whoever they are, meaning it doesn't matter what your name is or the title before your name. Amen. God is no respecter of persons. And furthermore, God is not, or doctrine itself is not a respecter of persons. This book will either save or condemn whosoever will obey Christ or reject Him, right? And it doesn't matter. It doesn't matter who you are, where you're from, where you've been. There's salvation in no other but the Lord Jesus Christ. And so Paul, he doesn't need to mention names here. He certainly probably could have, but maybe he wasn't sure. Paul at other times will mention names, and I think it's helpful. But in this case, he just wants them to know, the Galatians and the one propagating the false gospel, that there is indeed a consequence for what they're doing. And then finally, verses 11 and 12, Paul gets to the heart of this thing, and here we have one of the most difficult things in all of Scripture. Paul says, But if I, brothers, still preach circumcision, why am I still being persecuted? In that case, the offense of the cross has been removed. I wish those who unsettle you would emasculate. So, first of all, I want you to see that there is a comfort in preaching false doctrine. There is a comfort in preaching false doctrine. In other words, if you want to avoid persecution, Preach a works-based, self-righteous gospel where you are the hero of your story, right? Because you've done this, you've done that, you've been here, you've not been there, and at the end of the day, you're the hero. You want to avoid being persecuted? Preach that gospel. If you want to... Uh, tickle somebody's ears, right? This is the gospel to preach faith plus works. Why, why, why do you think that that resonates with people? Why is it? Why is it that somebody would rather hear a gospel of believe in Jesus and do this and you'll be saved? Why? Why? Because isn't it a whole lot simpler to say, trust in the sufficiency of Christ and in Him alone, right? Well, it may sound simpler, it may sound easier, but the truth of the matter, it's not, because there's this one huge problem that man has, and it's called pride. pride. It's the pride of man's heart that prevents him from accepting the gospel of free grace, right? Because we want to do something in order to take credit for it. Probe into someone's thinking and specifically probe into someone's thinking who doesn't actually believe the gospel and ask them why they should go to heaven rather than to be punished in hell. And they will tell you a long list of good things that they have done, right? Paul gets right to it. In that case, he says, he says in that case, in the case of preaching a gospel, that is not offensive to this offer of free grace. But in that case, he says the, uh, the, the gospel itself is robbed of its power. And, and notice, notice the phrase that he uses there. He says the offense of the cross has been removed. It's completely removed. Listen, the cross of Christ is offensive, and it's offensive to self-righteous people. It's offensive because of what it stands for. The cross is a reminder of the depth of the depravity of man's heart. The cross is offensive because it takes us to the place where sinners should have been placed. But instead, instead of the sinners nailed to the cross was the sinless one who was nailed to the tree. The cross is a reminder of our sins. The curse is upon everyone who hangs on a tree. And to remove the cross for salvation and place it within the bounds of circumcision and good works is to completely disregard the holiness and the perfection of the Lord Jesus Christ himself. Remove the cross and now suddenly man is his own savior. Why? Why is it not offensive? Or I'm sorry, why is the cross offensive? It's because it stands for the sinfulness of you and I. People don't want to admit it. They'd much rather do something than just simply believe something. Believe something about God, His perfectness, His holiness, His righteousness. And secondly, believe something about their selves, right? That they're actually as bad as the Bible says they are. That's the difference. It's pride. Pride is what brings offense to the one true gospel, the gospel of the cross. And then notice, I guess I'm going to call this the intense hatred that the apostle Paul has for false teaching. And, and also I'm going to say it this way, not just for false teaching, but the intense hatred that Paul had for false teachers. Notice what he says. Wish I wish pause the word wish here It's the word Ophelion and it's used to express an unattainable wish in other words Did you ever wish something that was so so big and an outlandish that you knew it would never happen, right? That's that's the kind of that's the kind of hyperbole that Paul is using here. He says I wish Those who would unsettle you would emasculate themselves So, I certainly don't mean to be grotesque, I don't want to make this something that's beyond G-rated, but the reality is this. What Paul here is saying means exactly what you think. He's saying exactly what you think. The Judaizers were imposing circumcision upon the Galatian church as a necessary means of justification. Circumcision is the cutting away of the foreskins of a man's reproductive organ. Okay, that's what it means, right? We understand this. Paul is not suggesting that they cut away the foreskin. He's wishing that they would remove the entire organ That's what he's saying the word there that Paul uses to a mask that in the ESV. It says emasculate themselves It literally means to cut off or or it could also mean to mutilate Okay, so that's the imagery that Paul is using now so if You're like me you would stop and you would say wait, why would Paul say such a thing, right? Uh, I remember a couple of weeks ago, a man came up to me after service and he, and this is what he said. And I appreciated it because I, I believe he meant it. And I agreed with him. He said, you know, Paul was a pretty good guy. And I said, yeah, he really was. Paul really was a great, he was a great guy. I mean, he seen himself in the reality of truth that he said he identified himself as the chiefest of sinners, right? But when we say somebody is a good guy, it means that we believe they're genuine, right? We believe that they're authentic, that they're real. They're not living behind some kind of a curtain or whatever. Paul was a good guy in that sense and and Paul is certainly a good guy I mean he was a a divinely appointed apostle of the Lord Jesus Christ and Here Paul comes across as not all that kind, right? I love driving around today and seeing these signs in people's yards It says be kind and I know I said this before but I must say it again I want to go around and stick a sign right beside all those signs and say be kind that says be honest and Right? Be kind. Yes. Amen. But also tell the truth. Well, Paul is not, he's not being unkind. He's telling the truth. And what he is doing here is, is, is getting to the heart of the matter. And, and that is this, that Paul was concerned for the gospel itself so much so that he wanted to remove any chance of the Judaizers reproducing themselves is essentially, I think what he's saying here, but there's more to it. There's more to it. And I think that there should be a tension in our hearts when we consider this. The tension of scripture is this. Paul was obviously concerned about the lost and desired that all should repent and believe the gospel. That's clear to us. Paul would go to great lengths, travel far and wide to preach the gospel so that people would be saved, right? That's what he did. But at the very same time, why would he ask, why would he wish for such a thing? The reality is this, number one, not everyone will be saved. Amen. Not everyone will be saved. That is without a doubt. Number two, there is an enemy of the Lord Jesus Christ. There is. There is a genuine enemy of the cross of Christ. There is a genuine enemy of the gospel. Thirdly, through salvation and through judgment, God will be glorified. God will be glorified if you're in heaven. And God will be glorified if you're in hell. Period. He will be glorified. He will be glorified for the glorification of those who trust in His Son, and He will be glorified in the judgment of those who reject Him. Period. Perhaps Paul was thinking in these terms. If their reproductive part is removed, maybe then they will realize that salvation has nothing to do with the removal of physical skin. But instead, instead, that they need the removal of their sin, and that, my friend, can only come through the loving kindness of the grace and the mercy offered to you through the finished work of the Lord Jesus Christ. That's it. Hey, this is not the most glamorous text in the world, but it's here. It's here, and I think it shows us, I think it really, really shows us just how important the one true gospel is. Amen? I believe so. I pray to God that He would help each and every one of us to be committed to that gospel, but also I pray to God that if there's somebody here today who has never trusted in the Lord Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior of their life, that today would be that day. There is no other way to be saved except through the righteous gift of Christ himself who loved you, who lived for you, who bled for you and who rose from the grave to save you from your sins. And there is no other way. There's no other way to come to God except through him. Let's pray. Father, we thank you for your word today. And I pray to your God that you would just continue to help us, help us to understand the depth and the truth of your gospel. And Lord, I pray that you would help us to, uh, to live and to, uh, to walk in this truth. Father, I pray that you would help us to have a righteous kind of, uh, anger towards false gospels and those who propagate false gospels. Lord, we pray that you would save. but also God that you would also remove those who would pervert your gospel. Lord, we see this tension between loving kindness and loving judgment. And we know that Your judgments are true, and Your righteousness is good, and You're holy. And so, Father, I pray that You would continue to help us, Lord, to have this right balance. Father, a love for the truth, and that You would help us to be committed in it. And also, Lord, a hatred for false doctrine. Lord, I pray that you would now bless our time as we move to a time of a fellowship around your table Pray God that you would just prepare our hearts as we've received your word Now help us to receive these sacraments Lord and memorial of what Christ has done. We pray this in Jesus