Good morning, Veritas. Hope you all are doing well. I have missed you. It is exciting to know that. It is exciting to have the opportunity just to come back and hang out and preach the word of God with you. Sharon wasn't able to make it. She is filling in for a bunch of volunteers, but she says, hello. We miss you guys. Love you guys. And again, just excited to be a part of a church that plants churches or spreads people to plant churches, and it's a part of growth. And so in the last couple weeks, we have been talking about corinthians. And what's interesting is you guys just got out of a couple week series, or whatever you want to call it, short series of kind of discussing what the church is. And today, like, Paul is talking to second corinthians. And I'll confess to you that second corinthians up until now hasn't necessarily been one of my favorite New Testament books. Notice I just left out the Old Testament because we all know that one's numbers. But anyways, because there's so much angst, I feel like there's so much angst in the book of second Corinthians. Like, you read it and you just have a sense of almost like a tension or an angst or a chaos that's kind of going on in the first couple chapters. But what I love about the Bible, and I love about God's word, is that God doesn't hide things from us. God addresses sinful issues as they're happening in the world. God doesn't just write a book where he's just going to talk only about the heroes. He talks a lot about what even the heroes went through to get to where they were at. And we see that again here in two corinthians. And so we have this world where sinners are gathered in the church. Like, we're all struggling in some areas, and we're all striving to follow Christ, and we struggle. And so the question that we have today is, how do we balance upholding truth and maintaining unity when there's so much chaos, even in our own building, in our own church? How do we strive to hold unity when there's sin, when sin prevails or sin sneaks in and destroys unity. And it does, it seems like Satan's number one tactic is to come in, especially to churches, right, and chip away or create tension or give them something to talk about, you know, something that we can chit chat about and hide and gossip about and slander. And we can be so guilty of that. And Paul is here addressing this church once again. We think he's written a few different letters to them, but we have two of them, and it seems like he's going back and addressing them because something has happened and there's a lot of talk going on, but maybe not a lot of action following the talk, which can always be a dangerous thing. So if you have your bibles, turn with me to the book of two Corinthians. And I'd love to dive in with you to discuss what Paul has to discuss here as he writes to this church. So we are in two Corinthians, and I want to turn to chapter two and start in verse five. Second Corinthians, chapter two, starting in verse five. Now, if anyone has caused pain, he has caused it, not to me, but in some measure, not to put it too severely to all of you. For such a one, this punishment by the majority is enough. So you should rather turn to forgive and comfort him, or he may be overwhelmed by excessive sorrow. And so as we dive in, we're kind of, again diving in on the middle of a thought, all right, someone has created tension. And a lot of the commentators go back to first Corinthians chapter five, where you have a guy caught in a devious relationship with actually his step, and Paul rebukes the church. It's like the church had grabbed onto that situation and said, hey, look at how gracious we are. Look at what we tolerate there. And Paul's like, yeah, no, no, we do not tolerate that. Remove that guy from among you immediately. That is not okay in any stretch of the imagination. In fact, Paul even says to them, like, in the world, that's not okay. So your tolerance, your grace, is totally inappropriate. So a lot of people go back to that, too. But just before that scenario, in one Corinthians chapter five, Paul also brings up people who are breaking up people, disunifying people. And it seems like throughout Paul's letters, you see it later in two corinthians, he alludes to somebody who really dislikes him. He alludes to somebody who keeps speaking poorly of him. And so it could kind of go both ways there as to what Paul is addressing or who Paul is addressing here. But nonetheless, the principles that Paul is using to address the person either caught in sexual immorality or the person who might have been stirring the pot against Paul or disrupting submission to authority, the principles are still the same. There's the same principles that must be lived out. You can't just walk in sin and be that way. And so Paul has told the church, like, you need to remove this guy from the church. And that's a mind bender for all of us. I mean, to some of us, more so than others. When you think about, like, what is church, that you would remove somebody. You're going to remove somebody from church? Are you kidding me? What do you got to do to get in that, that boat? Get to get that ticket? You're going to remove someone from church. But we see Paul talk about this really a number of times, and I think a lot of it stems from our view of church itself. Okay? And then I think a second thing of it for us, that the challenge is, is that we're. Midwest nice. Anyone in here? Midwest nice. Anyone in here? Hate conflict? All right, I'm not going to dwell on that part because I think we know. Okay, but let's go back to the church. Right? We have a wrong view of what the church is. And so I want to grow us in our view of what the church is. The church isn't merely a place to necessarily entertain you or keep you busy on Sunday morning. That is a wrong view of the church. And again, I don't say that to be insulting to us, but if you just view church as like, oh, man, I gotta get up, man. Sunday morning, I have to have this layout so I can get there on time. And we do this, and then we just go home and just like, huh? We did church. All right, who's playing this afternoon? Right? Right. And I think so many of us come into this meeting with kind of that mentality. And even having been around there Sunday mornings, I don't want to go to church. It's like we could just sleep in, just pretend like we're like all the other people. Go biking, enjoy the morning, catch the pre game show. Right? We can have these tensions that come up in our life, but the reality of this church, the reality of this meeting is that it isn't just a passive meeting where we check the attendance, but it's about belonging to the body of Christ. This is the body of Christ. So elsewhere, Paul talks about the church as a body, or he talks about it as a family, comparing the bride. The church is the bride of Jesus Christ, even. It's a unit of Christ followers. And hence, when we talk about church membership, it involves a testimony. When you go to give to become a member of Veritas Church, one of the things they ask you is like, how has God moved in your life? And you have the opportunity then to share. Like, it's not a quiz or a test to see if you'll get all the Bible answers right. It's an opportunity to say, like, I was dead in my trespasses and sins, but God, he made me alive. In Christ, by grace, I have been saved, and we have that opportunity to share. So the testimony of salvation is crucial to becoming a member of the church. And it's like a stomach. Your stomach was given to you by God sometime as you were being knit together in your mother's womb. And this is foolish, this is ridiculous, but at no point has my stomach said to me, hey, I'm going to take the week off, good luck, and just leaves my body. I mean, how weird would that be? Don't think about it. Okay? Right? Your stomach just doesn't say, hey, man, I'm taking Tuesday off. I'll be back maybe on Wednesday. If you deserve it, you don't. You didn't wake up one morning and be like, ah, my right arm is gone. He must have just left me. I wonder when it was coming back. It's a foolish and ridiculous example, but, but so it is with the church. There are people that are called together into this group. It's not supposed to look like a club. There are a lot of negative attributes to a club, but there's this group that's unified on the same topic, each one of us having gifts and abilities that should be plugged in and used within this body. The arm wouldn't say, because I'm not the brain, I'm out of here. The stomach doesn't say, well, I wanted to be at the foot and you made me the stomach. I'm leaving. It's just incomprehensible to think about it that way. This meeting isn't just to hang out and be entertained or to have something to do on Sunday mornings or to get a notch in your morality belt. This is an active body. This is a group that is representing Christ to the world, and especially as a member. You're saying that I am in Christ and Christ is in me. And this is the unity that we use to hold each other accountable. We as a church body, those in particular as members, all are welcome to this church gathering. But there are some of us who have said, I'm a member, I'm part of Christ. And it's this unity that we have anchored in Christ that involves caring for one another. And caring for one another isn't just helping you move or mowing your grass. The depth of caring that the church can go for is the pursuit of souls. It's the pursuit of souls. It's the deepest level of care a human being can have to minister to the soul of your friend, to minister to the soul of a brother or sister in Christ. When we see a believer going astray, we ought to raise a warning flag. I think about this time at my old church in Grand Forks, North Dakota. We would have a picnic in Cox park right across the street afterward. And one of the streets that ran east west was 24th Avenue and 24th Ave in Grand Forks, North Dakota. It's kind of busy, and we were behind the grills flipping burgers for people, and they're going through line and off in the distance, this little chunky two year old, who knew everything that the world had to offer him, said, I'm going for that street. I'm going, I'm doing it. And he mustered up all his little jiggly strength and he bolted, right? And no one saw it at first, but that guy was going for 24th Avenue. And as the moments progressed, finally started, somebody's people started to notice. And there was this murmur that was sort of like, oh, my goodness. Oh, my goodness. And you see the parents, like, drop their stuff, drop their plates, and they start running. And one of the men from our men's ministry drops what he is doing and he just starts running after this child. And the child ran and ran and he's going, and he's like, eee, I'm going. And he crosses the sidewalk, which, you know, means he's got about 10ft left before he hits the curb and before he hits the street. And this guy from our men's ministry dives and grabs his leg and trips him. And we rejoice. There was this audible sound of like, oh. And the child cried, got up. You know, he's a child, he doesn't have a filter, right? And he's like, who do you think you are? I'm going across the street, right? And no one was upset. This man grabbed a child by the ankle and the child fell over, could have broke his arm. And parents rejoiced, and the church rejoiced at the saving, really, of this child. And we as adults have greater filters than a child, but sometimes we get caught in these areas where we're like, I'm going to the street. For whatever reason, it is deception. We think there's something greener on the other side of the street. And we start to go. And that picture that day in Cox park was of the church running after, and the church threw this man grabbing an ankle, not abusively, but for safety, because that child might have scuffed his hand or his wrist or broken his arm, but, oh, it was so much less than being hit by a bus. The damage caused by a man diving for the child was so much less than being hit by a car. And that's this picture that we see in church discipline. It's this picture that we see in pursuing our friends and our neighbors. It's not just dealing with visible sins like sexual sins and drunkenness. Certainly they must be addressed, but it's this picture of walking in community and fighting hidden struggles, like bitterness, like anger, anxiety, greed and dishonesty. Those are as concerning as mega addictions. Those are as concerning as adultery. Those are heart issues that reveal, I'm not worshiping God. And yeah, it doesn't look like there's a bus coming, and it doesn't look like a toddler racing, but it looks like someone who's blind or foolish, who doesn't understand the bigger picture, going to a place that could result in permanent damage. And this community pursues them. We ask the question, are they a part of the body of Christ? Like you bore testimony to us in your membership that Christ saved you. And these actions, they don't add up. They don't add up. Are you okay? Not in an antagonistic way, not in a judgmental way, but in a way of pursuing them, in a way of revealing to them, in a way of raising a yellow flag to them. We say, are you okay? Is your soul okay? And Jesus gives us direction. If you go to Matthew chapter 18, he gives us an outline for addressing this. And Matthew 18, starting in verse 15, says this, if your brother sins against you, go and tell him his fault. Between you and him alone, if he listens to you, you have gained your brother. But if he doesn't listen, take one or two others along with you, that every charge may be established by the evidence of two or three witnesses. If he refuses to listen to them, tell it to the church. And if he refuses to listen to the church, let him be to you as a gentile and a tax collector. Let it be to you as an enemy, as somebody who's gathering up taxes for the enemy. He's not a part of the church. Sure, he might attend the place and attend the meeting, but when pressed into, when watched, it's revealed that they're not apart. Their life is not marked with the fruit of the spirit. Sure, they can put it on. You can cooperate for a day. I've seen guys muscle it out for, like, two months in a row. I will not. And they don't. And then they burn out because they're trying to cooperate from the outside in rather than being changed from the inside out. And they burn out. And this is the order we're to approach one another, right? We do it privately. We don't broadcast it. I don't need to go and get Jeff's permission to see what happened in Aaron's life. No, it's between me and a brother. It's between me and a person. Right? And if they won't listen to me, like, mind your own business, stay away from me, then I go get a brother, and I say, I've addressed this issue. I don't need to bring Jeff along to see someone steal. I need to bring Jeff along to say, when I confronted him about theft, he responded poorly, sinfully. And we grow our concern, and we take it up. We do it privately, we do it with witnesses, and then we do it before the congregation. It's a difficult process, but it's done out of love for the individual and for the church. Okay, like, if you look at that verse there at the beginning, back in two corinthians, right? Paul was talking like, it's not harming me, but it's harming you. In fact, he says, in one corinthians, chapter five, a little leaven leavens the whole lump. No one goes to the doctor and says, you have a little bit of breast cancer. We'll leave it and we'll see what happens. No, we need to take it out. It needs to be removed. You can't have just a little bit of infection that just goes unaddressed. It will create harm. It will create damage. It could lead to death. And we see this in one corinthians two, throughout the older testament, too, God warns his chosen people, Israel, like, don't associate with those who worship false gods. Don't. It's not that they can't engage the people, but to just hang out with the people, somebody's going to influence one. You're always preaching a gospel. Is it a false gospel or is it a true gospel? When you're at work, they're preaching a gospel and you're preaching the gospel, whose gospel is winning, whose good news is winning, and those you associate with are going to have an impact on you. And in the older testament, particularly Leviticus and Deuteronomy and Jeremiah and Isaiah, and pretty much every book, God continually warns the Israelites, hey, don't associate with them. Don't associate with them, purify yourself from them. And I'm not talking about us as a superior person. I'm talking about us as a desire to be holy. Let's not walk out of here saying, we're better than everybody else. Let's walk out of here saying, I'm just like you and I need to fight for holiness. I get angry just like you do. I get bitter just like you do. But God has called me to respond in this way. And the Israelites weren't to hang out with the pagans, but they did. And indeed just what God said would happen to them happened. They worshipped other gods. They worshiped other gods. They were polluted in their worship. But so this guy has been confronted, and it seems like this guy has changed his page, right? The church rejected him. And in biblical counseling world, we deal with this all the time. Because usually when it comes to a time to remove someone from fellowship in the church, people always say to us, well, that's when they need community the most. And that is the exact opposite message of every discipline situation that is in the Bible. There's a picture of something greater coming. It's a bus, and it's going to be eternally damning. I'm going to remove you to try to help you grasp the significance of your sin. It's a bus. It will kill you. And we warn and we plead with them, right? So this guy has been in that discipline, right? Verse six. For such a one, this punishment by the majority is enough. So you should rather turn to forgive and comfort him, or he may be overwhelmed by excessive sorrow. So again, this picture, maybe reading between the lines a little bit, is that this guy has repented of his sin. He's been called out by his church and he has repented of sin. And now the church in Corinth is called to forgive him his sin. Forgive him. He has recognized his sin, whether it be the sexual immorality or whether it be the lack of humility and submission. Either way, whatever, this guy is repentant. He has responded well to the discipline, so now he can re engage the church. This punishment is never meant on earth to be eternal. It's meant to restore him. He can be restored. He has recognized his confess and confessed his failure. And Paul urges them that you must forgive him. Discipline in the church exists for growth. It exists for growth. What will a child learn when he realizes the sacrifice of a parent to stop them from running into the street? They learn that there is something significant about the street, though they might not philosophically understand it. Confrontation is intended to heal, not to harm. It's intended to heal. Certainly a poor response to the confrontation might reveal a heart that is headed for destruction. When you open the can of worms, you might find more worms. That's a reality. And that leads to destruction if they do not repent of. But if we're loving one another, we're going to raise the warning flag and we're going to seek restoration. Jake always says, if we're going to deal with sin seriously, we must take forgiveness seriously. There's a both. And if I'm going to confront you, I must be able to forgive you. In fact, some say we need to forgive before we even confront. So it's not on us. But in Christianity, sin can be forgiven and the broken, they can be restored. This is the heart of the gospel, that enemies can be friends. And so Paul goes on, go to second corinthians, chapter two, verses eight through eleven. So I beg you, he begs them to reaffirm your love for him. For this is why I wrote that I might test you and know whether you are obedient in everything. Anyone whom you forgive, I also forgive. Indeed, what I have forgiven, if I have forgiven anything, has been for your sake in the presence of Christ, so that we would not be outwitted by Satan, for we are not ignorant of his designs. So it's fun to be a Christian and come and worship Jesus. It's harder when we know we need to confront our friends in their sin. It's harder when we need to raise a flag. And folks, let me be clear, when I talk about confronting, I'm not talking about yelling, I'm not talking about screaming at anybody. But often in midwest nice, we're just like, I'll ignore them until I realize there's some kind of a problem. That is sin to say, I am just not going to bring anything up. I am just done with that person. I will walk away to not approach them and say, hey, there's a problem here. That's sinful. To not tell them why you're ignoring them, that's a problem. That's an opportunity to speak truth into their life that you're like, nope. And what does this reveal about us? I love to worship Jesus, but Jesus isn't going to walk with me when I confront my friend. Jesus is like, good luck, go confront him. I'll see you on Tuesday. It'll be fun. That's not who Jesus is. In fact, in Matthew, chapter 18, the text right after that, it says, for where two or three are gathered in my name. There I am among them. The actual context of that verse is confrontation. It's not your Bible study or your worship service. In reality, God is with us everywhere all the time. But Jesus chooses to remind us, like, hey, if you have to go confront a friend for their behavior or they're caught in a trap, like, I want to remind you, I'm going to be with you. I'm not going to send you out there alone. You're representing my truth. I'm going to go with you. And if you and your witness have to go and confront a friend where you're gathered in my name to represent the truth, I want to be with you. I'm going to be with you. It's not just a text about worship or Bible studies. This is the context of, like, if I have to confront, Christ is going to be with me. And so one commentator says that in two corinthians here, Paul is maybe addressing this church again because maybe they've swung too far. They've been like, oh, this person is doing wrong. He's out. We're going to confront him and we're going to kick him out of here. We don't need him in this church. No way, no how. And Paul's like, hold your horses here. That's not the calling in this church discipline thing. You see, in doing this, you're praying that the Holy Spirit would work in their life. None of us can say in our hearts, God, judge him. He's out because God might do something. I think about Jonah. Jonah was called to Nineveh and he had quite a ride getting there. Fish. And he gets there, and at the end of Jonah, he says, God, I didn't want to come here because I knew you would save them. And I think for a lot of us, when it comes to this, and especially when it comes to forgiving the person who may have sinned, we're like, I don't want to forgive them. Why did you forgive them? It really puts me in a bad spot when God of the entire universe, the forgiver of sins, forgives them because I don't want to forgive them. How dare you? God, forgive them. How dare you offer them forgiveness? And then on top of that, you ask me to forgive them, too. How dare you? It really reveals in us maybe where our own heart is. And we see here that Paul has forgiven this Mandev. If this man has been against Paul, if he's one of the guys that was stirring up the church in Corinth, Paul has forgiven him. And this is a deeply spiritual matter, because Paul forgave him, not for his own sake, but for the presence of Christ, or in the presence of Christ. He forgave him as a representation, as a teaching tool to this church of, like, man. If I can forgive, you can forgive. And forgiveness is hard, because it's like I have to untangle my desire to judge, and I have to trust God to judge if judging is necessary. But I have to trust God with his growth or her growth. I have to take my hands off. And brothers and sisters were called as a church that clings to truth and holiness, to forgiveness, to not only point out the sinner, but to challenge them to repent, and then be there with arms wide open to invite them back. That's the point, not destruction. The point is, I could be in your shoes, too. Come get me. When I'm blind and I'm looking across 24th, and I just want to run and be free in my two year old fat body. Come get me. Come and get me. Grab my ankle, pull me back. And you know what? I might not get it in that moment, but, oh, then disciple me and teach me. Come get me. It's not just the pursuit of you. It might be the pursuit of me. And if we're gonna do it, let's challenge. Let's send them off. But if there's repentance, let's bring them back in. It's a beautiful picture of the gospel. And Jesus illustrates this in the book of Matthew. After he talks about confrontation, jesus says, well, jesus, how? Peter says, how am I? How many times do I have to forgive this guy? Seven times, which was pretty generous in Peter's day and age. And Jesus says, hey, let's take it up a notch, 77 times. Which the implication there, we believe, is forever forgive. Right? And to illustrate this, Jesus told a parable about a king settling accounts, and the first man that comes before the king owes him too much money. He can never pay it. And the king's like, I'm going to sell you. You're going into slavery. Pay the debt. And he's like, dude, no, I got a family. No. And the king has compassion on the man who owes way too much and forgives him. And that man runs out onto the street, finds another servant who owes him, and says, you pay me the $50. Pay me now. And the guy's like, dude, no, I got a family. I can't afford that right now. And he's like, into prison. And the other servants are like, am I seeing this? Did this just happen. And they go to the king, the main dude, and says, this is what the guy did. That king grabs him and condemns him to prison forever because of his lack of willingness to forgive. And friends, like, when we look at this concept of forgiveness to whoever it was, whether it be this sexually immoral man who from first corinthians five is a little crazy, or whether it be to the obstinate, the rebellious, to stand in opposition to this idea of forgiveness is to really stand in opposition of what God has done for you. Because the debt we owe a holy God is infinite. It's impossible to cross, it's impossible to pay back. And yet we demand from that person, pay me now. This cannot be. It doesn't match that of a believer in Christ. Just as we have been forgiven much, we too can forgive much. And this can be a challenge for us. And I believe that's why Paul warns us in verse eleven, second corinthians, chapter two, verse eleven says this so that we would not be outwitted by Satan, for we are not ignorant of his designs. This is a spiritual battle. How subtle and dangerous it would be if we pursued holiness but neglected forgiveness. What if we continued driving sinner after sinner away and failing to embrace those who sought forgiveness, who showed fruit of repentance? And I do want to say too, I think, from other biblical material, and we would be here till three if we went there, that forgiveness is not just, hey, I'm sorry, sorry, sorry did it again. It's not this witty. Like, hey, I know I'm going to screw up again and you're mad at me now, so sorry. Sorry, did that. Sorry is something you say when you bump into somebody like, oops, sorry, I bumped into you. Forgiveness is deeper than that. Like a warning to you who say sorry, and you think you're gonna, I'm pretty sure I'll do it again by three. That's not a changed heart. Your actions, be it your words, be it your anger, be it your lack of control, those are coming from your heart. And as much as you're offending maybe your spouse or your best friend or your boss, you're offending your creator. And that's the concern. You can offend me and one day I will perish. No big deal. But there's a holy God that beckons his people to holiness. And I need community to pursue holiness. I need people to point out in my life where I'm doing this. So I don't think it's just like, oh, man, he said sorry. I have to forgive him. I think we should forgive. The object of wrath is not us doling out wrath. Let's let the Lord. Let's trust the Lord to judge and take care of those things. But it doesn't always look like best friendship with the person who offends me every day of every week. I feel like there's so much to go there. But the nature of a Christian is grace and peace, longing and waiting for confession and repentance. It's a picture of the gospel in us. And to walk away from forgiveness, folks. And disconnect it from holiness is the wrong way to go. I think for us, it's easy. Again, Midwest people, we're nice. We don't like conflict. It's easy to remove the bad guy and think the problem is solved. Whoo. It's out of. But that isn't the heart of the gospel. So here's our big idea for today. Gracious discipline. And discipline is gracious repentance turning from sin. Forgiveness. I forgive you and love our building blocks. To guard against the schemes of the devil. Now, that's a whopper. So get writing. All right. It is a gracious thing to catch the two year old that's going to run onto the street. Not only does it say, protect his life, imagine the blessing to his parents. And on a much different level, but imagine the blessing to all. I don't know, 150 people who are standing there watching. I mean, at a different level, right? It's a blessing to the church. Sin has no part. In a believer, sin has no part. Then, therefore, in the church, we're all sinners. The pursuit of holiness in all of us is necessary. It's gracious for you, it's gracious for me. Repentance turning from sin is holy. It's a calling. Forgiveness. That example of what Christ did for us on the cross, shedding his blood in our place, rising again. That we might have life and love. This picture of God, to these people, they're building blocks. And when the devil sweeps in with his chisel and hammer to break us apart, we're like, no, I'm going to address this issue. I'm going to confront this issue. This chisel, this hammer, this crack, it can be mended. With God, all things are possible. So what would it look like for us, church as a community? What would it look like to truly pursue holiness in our lives and the lives of those around us? Not only to confront sin which must be confronted, but to hear it confessed, to watch it be turned away from and then to extend forgiveness to those who are struggling to make amends as a church with those who are struggling, not just get them out, but pursue them, certainly getting them out might be a part of it. If you will not turn from your sin, you are not part of the body of Christ, but, oh, that you would turn from mercy and reveal a heart that is soft and teachable. Oh, that we would forgive and restore those that we address. It's a picture of the gospel. And as we think about this practically, this is kind of a hard one, because I just don't want people out there. Just, we're not out there punching people. Like, that's not the goal. The goal is not our superiority and holiness to beat down that wicked person. What does it look like for us to confess our sins? Is there any sin in this room in your heart that needs to be addressed? Are there any brothers or sisters in Christ that you need to lovingly confront privately? You don't need to tell mom or your sisters about it. Don't need to run it by your coworker. Is there somebody that you need to address? So we check our own hearts for logs in our own eyes, and then we go out and say, I'm worried about this. Are you doing okay? And then lastly, have we confronted anyone and just left them out there, though they might be repentant? Have we just built a wall? Has Satan gained a foothold in any of our relationships in that way that we have confronted and we've condemned, in a sense, and we've said, there's no way that God's going to work in your life. It's not a them issue. It's a God issue. God can work in that guy's life. God can bring him back. Is there a way that he might come back? Is there room for forgiveness? And, folks, as we get to communion, as we focus in now communion, we realize that this is a picture of what happened to us. Like, hear what I'm saying? But in forgiveness, we display Christ. We are Christ followers. We are little christs. Hear what I'm saying? All right. When we forgive somebody for their sin, it is a picture of what Christ did for me. Romans says that while I was still in sin, Christ died for me. And so when we come to this table and we take of the body and drink of the blood, in a sense, we're saying, like, this is what you did for me. I was outcast. In fact, I was condemned. I was your enemy. I was working against you. And yet you rescued. It's a picture of the greatest act of forgiveness ever, that the God of the universe would reconcile a people who were so stuck on themselves, so unsubmissive, so perverse in their actions, that he would forgive. And so those three questions there toward the end, how is our heart? Is there anything we must confess? Are there any brothers or sisters that we need to lovingly confront? And is there anyone that we've left out there saying, certainly God can't change them? We need to address those things. Let's pray, and if we're able, let's take communion together. Father God, we're thankful for your church. God, I pray that we would be a church that loves you, God, and that loves your character, of which is holiness. God. That we would desire in our lives to eliminate sin, that we would hate sin with a passion first in our lives, God. That we would be reconciled to you. And then that we would lovingly, caringly love our friends enough to confront sin in theirs. God and I pray that that would reveal hearts. God and I would pray that hearts would be mended, Father, that people would wake up from perhaps how they've been caught, that they would not face the wrath of the bus or eternal wrath from their God. God, I pray that you would reveal areas in our life that we've hidden sin or give someone the boldness to speak into our hidden sin. God and may we be a church that practices a pursuit of holiness and loves to forgive as you have forgiven us. God, thank you for forgiving us. May it motivate what we do in Jesus name. Amen.