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CPC Sunday School | The Lord's Prayer #6 (4-7-2024)
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The speaker discusses the fifth petition of the Lord's Prayer, "Forgive Us Our Debts." They explain that prayer is an offering of our desires in line with God's will, including confession of sin and thanksgiving. They go through the first parts of the Lord's Prayer, explaining their meanings. The speaker then focuses on the word "debts" in the fifth petition and its translation from the Greek word used in Matthew and Luke. They explore the concept of debt in the ancient world and how God's law offered an alternative through the year of jubilee. They mention the parable of the unforgiving servant to illustrate forgiveness. The speaker quotes Thomas Watson, a Puritan pastor, who argues that sin is the worst debt, highlighting our inability to repay it and the offense it is against God. They discuss forgiveness as the removal, covering, and blotting out of sin through Christ. Thanks for the opportunity. I'm going to be speaking about Forgive Us Our Debts, I believe the fifth petition of the Lord's Prayer. I thought it might be helpful to start by just recapping the parts of the Lord's Prayer that we've discussed already and using the Westminster Shorter Catechism as kind of a way to summarize that. So question number 98, the catechism is what is prayer? And the basic point here is that it's an offering of our own desires that are agreeable to God's will in the name of Christ. And the two kind of pieces of that that are listed are confession of sin and thanksgiving and acknowledgement of God's mercies. So right off the bat, we see the confession of sin is, you know, on the short list in terms of what is prayer. And then just going through briefly the first parts of the Lord's Prayer, what does the preface teach us? Our Father who art in heaven basically teaches us to draw near to God with reverence and with confidence together based on the plural, use of plural throughout the prayer, the word us and our as opposed to me and my. Hallowed be thy name. The first petition is basically a request for God to use us to glorify him. The second petition is thy kingdom come. And this is a prayer for the destruction of Satan's kingdom, the building of God's kingdom and the populating of God's kingdom with his people. And prayerful that that will include us. Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven is a prayer to enable us to know, obey and submit to God's will. Give us this day our daily bread, which Daniel Sharpless talked about last week, is an acknowledgement that God has created many good things, that the world is a world of good creation and that we would be enabled to enjoy a competent portion of that. And then that brings us to forgive us our debts, the fifth petition. And so forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors is a prayer that God would freely pardon our sins for God, for Christ's sake and that we acknowledge that it's by his grace that we're enabled to forgive others from our hearts. So the first question that arises when we pray forgive us our debts is that the word debt may strike some as a bit unusual. And in fact, a lot of denominations will pray forgive us our trespasses. And so the question is, which of those is a more faithful translation? The Greek word that's translated as debts is used in both Matthew and Luke's version of the prayer. However, Luke also uses a different word that is translated sins. I'm not going to hold myself out as a Greek scholar by any means, but I did do a bit of Strong's Concordance work on this. And so Luke is using the same word that's highlighted in blue for the second statement for as we forgive those who are indebted to us. The first word is better translated as sins. And so I looked up just a few other verses that use the word translated debtors. And in Romans, it talks about workers being owed their wages. So there's a very much of a financial sense of an obligation. Romans 8 says that we're debtors not to the flesh, but to the spirit. Again, implying something that we owe to God. And then in Hebrews 5, it talks about the priest being obligated to offer sacrifices for sins. It's in all three senses, and there are others, but in all three of these verses, the senses of an obligation are something that is owed. And so a way we could pray this is, forgive us what we owe as we forgive others what they owe us. But the question then is, what do we owe? And the answer is in Deuteronomy chapter 10, verse 12, which is that the Lord requires that we fear him, that we walk in his ways, that we love him, that we serve him with all of our heart and soul, and that we keep his commandments and his statutes. So how far short are we of our obligation to God? I think it's hard for a lot of us to get our mind around the idea of debt as a big problem, because in our day, debt is a way of life. I think that probably none of us know anyone that doesn't have most, if not all, of these debts that are listed here on the left. Whereas in the ancient world, especially in the ancient Roman context where Jesus was ministering, debt was a tragedy. It was punishable by imprisonment. Oftentimes people would be sold into slavery to pay their debts. It was a disgrace for the entire family of that person, and sometimes they would be executed. But God's law also offered an alternative to that with the concept of the year of jubilee, which is all about forgiveness of debts. Jesus illustrated both of those paradigms with the parable of the unforgiving servant. There was a servant. It's a story. I'm sure it's familiar to all of us, but a servant who owed the king 10,000 talents, which is approximately a billion dollars. The king ordered him to be sold along with his wife, his children, and his possessions. I like to think about what if I'm involved in a business deal. I think someone is trustworthy. The deal goes bad. We fall into debt. I'm thinking, well, gosh, that's too bad. I'm going to have to declare bankruptcy perhaps or get some help. Then one day I get a knock at the door and someone says, hey, we're here about your debt. I say, oh, yeah, gosh, that's a big problem. I'm sorry. I can explain. They say, no, you don't understand. We're here to take you to prison. I say, your children are in the home. That's good news because we can sell them as slaves to help offset some of your debt. Not to worry. Best case scenario is we won't have to kill you. Anyway, the servant begged for the master to have patience because he promised that he would pay the entire debt, which is ridiculous. He's not going to pay off a billion dollar debt in his lifetime. The master, of course, recognized how silly it was to think that he could actually pay the debt. Instead, he chose to have mercy and forgive the debt. The servant didn't seem to get it. He seemed to think that he really could pay off this debt. The first thing that he did when he ran into one of his fellow servants was to shake him down to pay his debt, which was almost infinitely smaller than the debt he had just been forgiven. He choked the man. The man said the exact same words in begging him to have mercy on him. Instead of showing mercy, he threw him into prison. Pretty soon, he was summoned before the master. He was called a wicked servant. He was chastised for not showing mercy just as he had been shown. He did end up in prison after all. The way that Christ finishes this parable might be jarring to some of us because he says, so also my heavenly father will do to every one of you if you do not forgive your brother from your heart. I mentioned earlier that God's law, which is recorded in the book of Leviticus, has a very detailed description of the year of jubilee. There's a lot of richness to that that we could talk about probably for this whole time. A big aspect of that is proclaiming of liberty throughout the land. This was signified by the sounding of a loud trumpet that could be heard throughout the whole land of Israel. The sounding of the loud trumpet is a symbol that recurs throughout scripture. It's in the book of Isaiah that we've studied in the small group that I'm a part of. It's mentioned in the letters of Paul. It's mentioned in Revelation as a symbol for the freeing of captives and the canceling of debts. That's what Leviticus records, is that once every 50 years, everyone who had fallen on hard times and had to sell their property, firstly, they were not to be enslaved. They would work with someone as a servant, but they would not be made into a slave. Then on the year of jubilee, they would be set free. They would be returned to their ancestral inheritance. They would be returned to their family and their possessions, and they would be made whole. Their debts were canceled. Thomas Watson was a Puritan pastor in the 17th century. He wrote at great length about the Lord's Prayer. I found his meditations on this forgiveness petition to be very good. He made the case that sin is not only a sin a debt, it's actually the worst debt. He gave three points to support that. The first is that we have nothing to pay. Because of the original sin of Adam, we are completely bankrupt in the sense of righteousness and the ability to repay our debt to God. The second reason that sin is the worst debt is that it's an offense against a king, which is equivalent to the crime of high treason. He makes the really strong statement that the sinner would not only unthrone God, but un-God him. I think that this really helps to illustrate what a bad situation we're in as sinners. It's not a trivial debt that we have. We're actually enemies of the king. The third reason that sin is the worst debt is that it's a multiplied debt. Jesus prayed, forgive us our debts, in the plural. Psalm 19.12 says, basically, who can count their transgressions? Watson says that we may as well reckon all the drops in the sea as reckon all of our spiritual debts, because I don't think anyone can actually count the number of sins they've committed. What then is forgiveness of sin? Firstly, it's the removal of a heavy burden of iniquity and the placing of it on Christ. This is exemplified in Isaiah 53.6. The Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all. The sense is that of an incredibly heavy burden that can't be borne by mortals. Secondly, he covers the shame of our sin, which is referenced in Psalm 85. Thirdly, he blots it out. Watson says that God draws the red lines of Christ's blood over our sins, thus canceling them from the debt book or the ledger. Many Old Testament references are cited which support the concept of God's mercy. Micah 7.18, who is a God like you, pardoning iniquity, passing over transgression for the remnant of his inheritance? He does not retain his anger forever because he delights in steadfast love. But despite God's love, every sin, we know, deserves death. As established by Romans 6.23, the wages of sin is death. But we know also that the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus, our Lord. Again, following Watson, he makes the point that God is the only one who can forgive the debt, because it's an infinite debt, first of all, so only an infinite being can forgive an infinite debt. Secondly, he is the one to which the debt is owed, and the creditor is the only one who can forgive a debt. Jesus illustrated this very vividly, I think, in the story of healing the paralytic in Mark 2. He said that the man's sins were forgiven, to which the Pharisees scoffed. He said, well, which is easier, to say your sins are forgiven or to heal a man who has been lame since birth? Then he proceeded to do both, which caused people to praise God. That gives evidence that the Son of Man has the authority to forgive sin. The question now is the second part of the petition, which is as we forgive our debtors. The question is, is that a cause of God's mercy towards us, or is it a condition, or is it an effect of God's mercy towards us? Jesus seems to say something that's sort of hard to tell the difference. Right after the Lord's Prayer finishes in Matthew 6, he finishes the Lord's Prayer, and he then says, for if you forgive others their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if you don't, then God won't, which emphasizes, number one, this is a key point of the whole Lord's Prayer because he comes back and emphasizes it again. Number two, it really does sound like this is a condition without which we will not receive the Lord's forgiveness. Colossians 3.13 provides a slightly different angle when it says that as the Lord has forgiven you, you must also forgive. So Watson, I think of the three authors that I read on this topic, had the best solution to this. He talks about second table sins, which are breaking of commandments five through ten, basically sins against other people. And he says that with every second table sin, there are two distinct things that happen. Number one is disobedience to the Lord, and number two is injury to one or more persons. And when we're commanded to forgive our debtors, we're only forgiving the second part. We obviously can't forgive the first part. Watson cites Psalm 51 very frequently, and the verse that I found to be kind of fascinating when I meditated on it was, David says, against you and you only have I sinned. And when you think about what David is confessing here, which is adultery and the murder of the husband of the woman with which he committed adultery, it's rather astonishing for him to say that he's only sinned against God. And I think what that has to imply is that the sins against God, the category one sins, are infinitely greater than the sins against man. And so when we are called to forgive those who have wronged us, we're being asked to forgive something that is so insignificant compared to what God has forgiven us, that it's essentially nothing. So forgiving others is not a cause of our forgiveness, but it is a condition without which we will not be forgiven. And that's Watson's take on this. And I would say that the spoiler alert is that God's grace is the source of our ability to forgive others. So Watson then restates the servant's plea, and instead of saying, have patience with me and I will pay this $1 billion debt, he says, have patience with me and Christ shall pay it all. He has laid down an infinite price. And then to us, he says, believe in Christ's blood and the debt is paid. Through Christ's sacrifice, we have become the righteousness of God, according to 2 Corinthians 5. And Watson makes the point that through this, through the sort of justification and through taking on God's righteousness, we actually outshine the angels. They have the righteousness of creatures. We have the righteousness of God himself. Watson says that forgiveness is a main branch of the covenant of grace and a rare and transcendent blessing. And he gives three, he likes bullet points, and even in 1692 they still use bullet point lists. And he has three bullet points to support that forgiveness of sins is a rare and transcendent grace. And these are really rich. Number one is that Christ alone could do it, which we've already discussed. Number two, Christ could not even do it except by dying. And number three, that Christ could not even do it by dying except that it was a cursed death, and thereby taking the curse that our sins deserve upon himself on a tree. He then makes the rather audacious statement that forgiveness was an equal or greater work of God than creation of the earth itself, because in creating the world, God encountered no opposition. But in forgiving of sins, he encounters the opposition of both Satan and our own hearts. So, if we had just been declared bankrupt and our debt canceled, that would be a great gift. But God actually did more than that. He actually paid the debt by the sacrifice of his own son. And so Christ in this sense acts as a surety. And Watson's opinion is that this is an even greater grace and a greater evidence of free grace, that even though God purchased the price of our forgiveness, it is still to us free because it was the sacrifice of his own son. So, this allows us to have a certain kind of audacity, which is described in the book of Hebrews, chapter 2, I believe, and chapter 10, that basically gives us confidence to enter the holy places of God, even though we are rebels who have committed high treason against God. We don't do that meekly, although in a sense we do, but we also enter it with confidence based purely on the blood of Christ. In full assurance of faith, with our hearts sprinkled clean and our bodies washed with pure water. And so, we have the audacity to approach the Lord's throne of grace, but we also should avoid the audacity of not forgiving others after we've been forgiven so much. Ephesians 2.14, I think, provides a positive vision of this when it speaks about Christ breaking down hostility in his own flesh and unifying us, reconciling us to God, but also building us together, those of us who were hostile to one another, who were unforgiving towards our own brothers, our own fellow man. God has reconciled us together in his flesh and he's built us together into a dwelling for God. So, Watson then gets into a very practical discussion of repentance. Despite being forgiven of our sins by a free gift of grace, God will not forgive sins that are not repented of. And again, I think our ability to repent of sins is a gift itself of grace, but it's still a necessary and conditional aspect, just like forgiving each other is a condition. Repentance of sin is a condition of forgiveness, too. And Watson identifies three ingredients of repentance, which are contrition, confession, and conversion. So, contrition being brokenness of heart. Many scriptures cited to sort of give examples of that from the Old and the New Testament. I think one that I really like is from Ezra, I'm sorry, Ezekiel 3, 31, 19, and when, I believe it's Ephraim says, after I was instructed, I struck my thigh, I was ashamed, and I was confounded because I bore the disgrace of my youth. But God's immediate response to that is that my heart yearns for him and I will surely have mercy on him because he confessed his sin. Watson says that the seal of God's pardon is set upon melting hearts, just as the seal is set on wax when it melts. The second ingredient is confession, and so we must confess our sins in order to be forgiven. Of course, 1 John 1, 8-9, which we've studied recently, is a great verse on this. If we confess our sins, he's faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from unrighteousness. But if we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. So, Augustine is quoted by Watson saying that confession shuts the mouth of hell and opens the gates of paradise. And then the third ingredient is conversion, which is the turning away from sin to do good, turning not only away from sin but also towards God. And so that's exemplified in Isaiah 55-7. Let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts. Let him return to the Lord that he may have compassion on him, for he will abundantly pardon. So, all throughout Scripture, God's mercy is spoken of, not only in the gospel but even before the gospel, and it's very consistent in terms of the condition for repentance. So, Watson kind of summarizes this discussion on repentance by saying that a king will not pardon a rebel while he remains in rebellion, in open hostility. So, that is why those who have never repented have no grounds to hope or presume that God will forgive them. By repentance, we please God, we do not necessarily satisfy him. Obviously, Christ's blood is what satisfies God's judgment on our sin. He will not pardon for repentance, nor yet without it. So, the next discussion is about forgiveness, justification, and sanctification. Watson says that forgiveness is a leading mercy because it lays the foundation for other mercies, such as spiritual blessings, even physical blessings, even our daily bread, but also sanctification. Sanctification is, of course, the process of purifying and making us holy that occurs after we're justified by faith. 1 John 5-6, which Mark just preached on recently, says that Christ is he who came by water and by blood, not by the water only but by the blood as well. Watson interprets this as blood meaning remission of sins, water meaning sanctification or symbolizing sanctification. And if that's wrong, that was Watson that said that, not me. Watson says, let no man say he is pardoned who does not find an inherent work of holiness in his heart. So, again, the forgiveness of others is a necessary condition that must follow as an evidence that we have truly been forgiven. When God pardons us, he also sanctifies, adopts, and ultimately crowns us. Neither should we omit continuing to pray for forgiveness. Forgiveness is not a one-and-done situation, like maybe some of our favorite basketball teams in the tournament. Those whose sins are forgiven must not omit praying for forgiveness. Watson compares it to Samson's hair, which grows back every time it's cut. I just thought of Romans 7, where Paul talks about desiring to do good and yet continually being frustrated that he finds himself doing evil. It's the best sort of illustration of this principle that we can't just rest on God's forgiveness. We have to keep praying for it. We sin daily, ask for daily pardon as we ask for daily bread. So, I guess, just like everyone else, I ended early. But some questions for discussion, and I'll ask for y'all's questions. It strikes me that, arguably, in the 21st century, our Western civilization has abandoned the idea of mercy more than any other Christian principle. I wonder what your thoughts are on the consequences of that. Two examples I can think of. My son, Sebastian, asked me recently about the movie, The Avengers. He said, Is avenging a good thing? I had to stop and think about that for a minute. I thought of the verse that says, The vengeance is mine, and I will repay, says the Lord. The concept of humans, or perhaps mutants, taking on the task of taking on the task of avenging wrong is something that our culture very much celebrates, but is not really a Christian ideal. Also, we're all aware that we live in a very litigious society. I think that Canada gets a bad rap sometimes these days, but I will say that my Canadian in-laws will often tell me that the litigious culture in the United States is far and away worse than it is in that country, and that we have a system that really encourages vengeance in a monetary and a very punitive sense for people to never forgive, but always to demand and coerce repayment of the smallest slight. I'll just run through these and then can open the floor for discussion. What would our culture look like if we observed God's law of jubilee? What if we forgave debts every 50 years? I think about when I drive to Dallas and I see tents under every overpass and bridge, it seems like more and more people are homeless, and not just in Dallas, but every city I've been to. We know that our prisons are overflowing, and we have the population of a medium-sized nation that's a permanent resident of the prisons in this country. Would that look different? And then finally, why is it hard for us to follow Jesus's straightforward teachings on forgiveness? Why do we not rejoice and be glad when others slander and persecute us? Why do we have a hard time loving our enemies or turning the other cheek? Is it easy to be reconciled to our brother before offering a gift at the altar? Well, those are easy. Now you can ask me questions. I'd like to share your enthusiasm for a year or two years. I'd like to read about it and think about what that would look like. What do we not have in place in society today as far as the strictness of punishment, breaking the law, that might make that hard? It's a good statement, I guess, because you're right. The punishment for sins that you can read about in Leviticus and Deuteronomy are extremely harsh. People were put to death for many things that we would consider to be pretty minor sins. There's justice and there's grace alongside each one another. We have that in some ways, I suppose. The other thing about ancient Israelite society that I think complicates this is that they were a kinship-based society. They did not extend these privileges to any other nation or group. They permitted enslavement of foreigners in their own country. It's not so cut and dry. Scholars are not really sure that the Israelites really observed the year of Jubilee. God commanded it, but even they found it so difficult that they found ways around it. Yes, to your question. To your point, there was a lot more demand on debt in the first century than there is today. There's no penalty for debt today, so to have the year of Jubilee wouldn't even be as effective because we have this mindset of debt and you've got policy makers discussing debt forgiveness and now you're discussing the question of the year of Jubilee. I just don't think it'll... If anything, it'll be abused. I think one of the things that we've seen really in our time, maybe in the last 150 years, is that things that sound like very righteous and good principles can be distorted and used for incredibly evil means. That's what communism is. It's a utopian vision that sounds like utopia. In practice, it's used for the most evil societies that have existed, arguably. I hear your point. I'm not certainly trying to endorse the current discussions on debt forgiveness because I don't think that they're coming from a biblical foundation at all. But could it be possible? As far as vengeance, I think we have to take Romans 13 into consideration. God has set up deacons, ministers here to execute judgment in those situations so otherwise we would have chaos. As far as punishment, I've come to the conclusion that locking people away, in most cases, is not a biblical solution, just locking them up and throwing them away to keep. Certainly in favor, I think God's law is in favor of the death penalty. There has to be restitution made, and that's where it's really lost. In a lot of cases, there's no concept of trying to make the person who was wrong whole again in some way or trying to... Yeah, I mean, I think what I... I think the conversation I had with Sebastian about Avengers was if someone is in the process of harming another person, you are to intervene and stop that person using force if necessary. If someone did something to you a week ago, just to get them back. I don't know if that's directly what you're talking about, but yeah, certainly these are great principles. I mean, to Braden's point earlier, the law of God proscribes the death penalty for a great many infractions. That's to be carried out by people. It's to be carried out by a process of law, not vigilantism. I think we have the opposite problem. Years ago in California, I had a patient of mine that I'd become really good friends with. He was paralyzed, but he was through gangbanging. I grew up in that world, so I could relate. Even though it was a different culture, I could still relate to that guy. One of his friends, he had become a Christian too, but still a new believer. He told me he'd been in jail for four years. I said, what did you do? He said, murder. I said, murder? They let you out after four years? I went back to the story of the kids. I believe what the Bible says in application is that you should go to that family and say, what can I do for you? Can I cut your grass every week? Can I do everything? Who knows, but at least you try as best you can to say, I am so sorry for what I did. I want to try to make this right. He was shocked by that. Yeah, that's powerful. That's right. Yes. Yeah. At that point, both parties are suffering in isolation from one another. There's a net negative on both sides of the balance, I would say, to society, and no restitution in either way. Maybe there's a monetary penalty, right? The world I inhabit, I see a lot of lawsuits, and people are required to pay huge sums of money for damages. It's coercive. It's punitive. It's not cooperative. Yeah. Correct. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. On an infinitely greater scale than we do. Yeah. Amen. Isn't that amazing? Yeah. Yeah. Seven days, yeah. Yeah. Same, yeah, and it's really rich, and it just, I think, puts it into perspective. Don't take God's mercy for granted. It's a dear price that's been paid for it. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Hmm. Being forgiven. Amen. Yeah. Yeah. Hmm. Yeah. I think that that's true. I mean, I think it's true that by experiencing either being forgiven a great sin or being sinned against greatly and having to wrestle with and forgive that, that one can certainly deepen your appreciation for the greatness of what we've been forgiven by God and develop the ability of forgiving others. I think the hope would be that you don't have to go through something like that to get there, and that's where I think Jesus points us by highlighting this in the Lord's Prayer, making this a focal point of our kind of daily meditation. Yeah. Jeremy. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Is there also, do you think, another way of looking at that, that, you know, we have stolen from God repeatedly and, you know, that's... Yeah. Yeah, I mean, if you think about, like, David and his sin with Bathsheba, I think very much is a theft, right? He took something that did not belong to him. He took it from Bathsheba's husband. He took a life he also took from God. And I think that, in a sense, a lot of our sins, maybe all of our sins can be thought of as taking what's not ours. And so that feeling, and I've had that feeling. I've had my car broken into. And that feeling is how dare someone, you know, lay their hands on what's rightfully mine is probably, you know, an infinitely minor portion of what God would feel, you know, every time we take what's not ours. So that's a helpful perspective, too, because that's a very strong emotion that is unusual. It can help you kind of connect with that. Yep. Yeah. Yeah, that's right. With Absalom, his son, right? Was that the same story? Am I thinking of Abigail? Was that his daughter? Yeah. Okay. Yeah, no, I know the story you're talking about. Yeah. Right. Yeah. And he didn't, but then the Lord did, right? Just like the next day. Yeah, which is, you know, probably don't always get that lucky. But I think that's a great illustration of, you know, faithfulness. You know, I think like the first half of David's life is almost perfect faithfulness. The second half is almost perfect sin or perfectly unfaithful. And, you know, so it's a fascinating study. I'm surprised Hollywood hasn't made more movies about David's life, actually. But, yeah, that's a really good illustration of, you know, the value of allowing God to avenge. It doesn't fit the preferred narrative. Right, right. And he had many opportunities. Yep. No problem. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah. I agree with you that that's a great question. So will I. But, yeah, it's a great point. I mean, it's a standout verse, you know. I've been reading through the Old Testament with my kids. And, like, when you get to that one, you're like, oh, wow. Like we could probably just stop here because it summarizes so much. And you're right. It does. You know, when you stop and really meditate on the difference. I'll pull it up. Do we have time? Are we almost out of time? What do we owe? The different dimensions of, you know, walk in his ways, love him. That's different. Serve him with your heart and soul is, to your point, I think, kind of the moral law of sort of whatever God asks, we do. And then keeping his commandments is like it's not just the written law. It's the totality of dedication and commitment to God with the totality of yourself, your heart, your soul, your hands, your feet, your mind. So, yeah, I think it's a profound statement that just kind of arises right in the middle of Deuteronomy. So, anyways. I don't know. Maybe we have time for one more. Somebody can cut me off if need be. Or we can just wrap up. Thanks. I don't know if we close with prayer normally, but why don't we close with prayer. Heavenly Father, thank you so much for your word, your commandments, your law, and your gospel. We thank you for the grace that's been extended to us by the free gift and the bitter sacrifice of your son, Jesus. We thank you for forgiving our many, many sins. We thank you for sanctifying us, for teaching us and transforming us to do and be better. And we thank you for teaching us to forgive one another, that we would create peace within your body and within your world. That your kingdom may come. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen.
