God's Glory

Morning, we're going to be thinking about words. Doesn't that sound exciting? These things that are coming out of my mouth and are landing on your ears that are communicating something to you, we're going to be thinking about these things. And I want to first just begin by thinking about how all the things we do with words, how amazingly powerful they are. We make requests with our words. We're going to order food later with our words. We're going to ask for what we want. We correct with our words. Don't do this. Be warned. You're in danger. We correct our children, our loved ones. We teach our children. We communicate truths that they need to believe with our words. We communicate affection. We tell people, I love you. Such powerful declarations we can make. More than that, we sing praise to God. We declare the mighty work of God and talk about the glory of God. We make promises to others. These are some of the great things that we can do with words. And we also know there are some very dangerous things we can do with our words. We can lie. We can deceive. We can slander. We can promote our own praise. It's really amazing how much power we have in our words. And if we think about it, it all goes back to somewhat being made in the image of God, because think about all the things God does with His words. He speaks, and then things exist. He declares, you're righteous, and our sin is washed away. God has mighty, powerful words. And He's created us to be able to have words that greatly impact people. Now, we think about the world out there. I think we could say that the typical problem with the world is that they use their words to curse God and praise man. I think the typical problem with the church is that we use our words to praise God and curse man. We really want to think about what we're supposed to be doing. We're supposed to be using our words to praise God and to honor Him in everything we do. So as you just heard the passage for our sermon this morning read, you heard a lot of different ways in which words are used. They were used first to deceive. Words were used to deceive. Words were used to make a promise, when they should have been used to make a prayer. Those words of that promise were binding. And then we heard, I hope you heard, one of the greatest things words can be used for, and that is, to praise God, to declare Him great and mighty in all that He does. This morning, we're going to study this passage in Joshua. And again, as we've gone through Joshua, we kind of keep taking, you know, odd turns, really. They're told to go in and conquer the land, and then all of a sudden, Rahab is the center of tension. And then they go in and they conquer Jericho, and then Ai is this kind of weird side story that brings about destruction on Achan and his family. And as they're supposed to be going to battle, here are the Gibeonites. And they decide they're going to change their story. The passage of Scripture really has two main parts. Verses three to 15, this is what we call the Gibeonite description. So if you're gonna put in headings, you see there in most of the pew Bible, it's the Gibeonite deception. Really verses 16 to 27 is a second part of the story. It's the Gibeonite enslavement. The Gibeonite deception, 16 to 27 is the Gibeonite enslavement. first focuses on their deception, trying to make their way into the covenant, and the second declares they have become servants. A few things stand out in this story before we go through and retell it. Verses 1 to 2, notice here that the kings of the hill country in the lowlands They've all come together and they said we're gonna fight against Joshua and Israel because of what they heard. All the kings are going to decide they're gonna rage against God and what he's done. And look at verse three. The Gibeonites are different. They're not gonna come together and battle with all the other nations against Israel, but when the inhabitants of Gibeon heard what Joshua had done to Jericho and to Ai, they on their part acted with cunning. Instead of deciding they're going to go to war, they're going to act with cunning. So we see a little bit of a different story here. The Gibeonites, simply put, they lie so that they may live. Israel, they make a covenant that they are now bound to keep. The Gibeonites, they believe it is better to live under Yahweh as a slave than to try to fight for their freedom or to come to God according to his own way. I want to see one of the big pictures, and I hope that the service makes sense in light of this. God's great name is being heard of throughout the nations. This is the ultimate plan of God. For His great name and His glory to be known among all peoples. And we see all different kinds of responses to that name. Rahab believes. Jericho and others fought. The Gideonites, they decide to deceive. So look at this story. We see an odd response to what God has always planned from the beginning of time that His great name would be resounding all across creation among every people and every tribe and every nation. That's the big picture. So as we look at this, let's just walk through this story very briefly before we get to kind of our sermon points. The nations are hearing about God. The word heard is essential here. It's in verse one, verse three, verse nine. The Hivites and Jebusites, they heard of this. Look at that phrase at the end of verse one. When they heard. Look at verse three. When the Agibionites heard of this. Verse nine, they said to him, from a very distant country your servants have come because of the name of the Lord your God, for we have heard a report. What God has done is reverberating. The peoples are hearing about what God has done because it's amazing and it's great and there's different kinds of responses. Remember when Tim a while ago preached Psalm 2? Key phrase in Psalm 2, the nations are raging. That's what we see here in verses one and two. The nations have united together to rage against God. Think about it. They've heard that this God parts the waters and causes city walls to collapse in, and they decide, well, let's just unite together and maybe we'll be able to beat him. They're acting in sin. And then verse three introduces this whole new way of responding. They decide they're gonna act with cunning. Verse six, they actually tell the lie. We have come from a distant land, make a covenant with us. They're wanting Israel to believe that they're far off, they're of no danger, make a covenant with us because we've heard and we want to know more. Make a covenant. The lie is clear, we've come from a distant land. They say we're your servants. It's another key idea here. Notice Joshua's response in verse eight when they say, we are your servants. Joshua says, who are you? They've already said, we've come a different land, we wanna be servants, but Joshua, maybe he's revealing some suspicion. Who are you really? And so the Gibeonites, they double down on their lie. Verse nine, we are from a distant country. We've heard of all that God has done in Egypt. We've heard of this great God. We want to make a covenant with you. Now, if you want to get this story, verses 14 and 15 are the center, literally. It's what we call the turning point. All the Hebrew stories, sometimes they don't end with a climactic moment. Sometimes you want to see what the turning point is. It's the hinge event that changes the outcome of the story. And verses 14 and 15 represent the turning point of this story. We see how they've been clever and cunning. They've gotten old bread. They've gotten old shoes. They've gotten old wineskins. And they've really put on a ruse to make sure their lie is believable. Look at 14. So Israel, they took all the evidence. The evidence that the Gibeonites have created and are seeking to deceive them with, the Israelites take them and they decide they're going to judge for themselves from the evidence what they should do. So we see here Israel decides they're going to take the evidence and they're going to be able to judge. Look at what we have as a great divine narrative, narrator commenting to tell us what really should be happening. They took evidence to decide for themselves. They did not ask counsel from the Lord. If we flip back to chapter 3, Remember, or chapter four, rather. Remember, there was a commander presented. There's a commander of Israel's army, and Josh was to submit to him, and he's supposed to listen to all that commander says. And we know they failed at Ai, because they went ahead and attacked Ai without seeking counsel of the Lord. Here they are again, trying to make a judgment for themselves, rather than saying, God, what should we do here? Their failure isn't in being deceived, their failure is not asking God. So then, verse 15, Joshua made a peace with them. He made a covenant with them to let them live and let the leaders of congregation to them. So this is a turning point. They've decided they're gonna make a judgment. That's their failure. They decided they're gonna make a judgment without God. That's the key issue. They have not said we're going to trust God and let him command us in every way. Then we turn to verse 16. After three days pass, they realize we've been duped. They were lying to us. And then we see what takes place next. The people of Israel, they grumble against the leaders because they did not trust God. The people have to keep their word. This is very important as we think about what's happening here. Even though Israel was lied to, when Israel makes a promise, they have to keep it. Because they have made a promise and they are God's people and they must represent him. So think about this great story. God's people need to depend upon Him. That's something we can learn from this story. They failed because they did not ask God. God's people need to keep their promises. When we make a promise, we're supposed to keep it. But the big picture here is God's name, it's being heard. God's will is being done. So as we think about this sermon, I want us to think about three words, deception, covenant, and reverence. Deception, covenant, and reverence. I believe these are three key words that really capture the main points of this story. There's deception, there's a covenant, and then there's reverence. Will you pray with me? Father, we thank you for your word, that it's trustworthy, that it's reliable, that you are the God of truth, that you have not only given us this word of truth, but you've given us the spirit of truth so that we can understand it, so that we can believe it, so that we can be certain of it, so that we can obey it. Lord, as we gather to hear your word, I pray that you would convict us, help us all to see our need of you, how dependent we are upon you, so that we might proclaim you faithfully, and the nations will hear of your great glory. In Jesus' name we pray, amen. First, let's simply look at this word deception. Much of this story is emphasizing how the great pains that these people go through, and they're cunning, they deceive, they really make a big picture of it. And something we don't realize is this, and it's not a profound point, but it's one that we need to realize, Liars lie. When somebody is a liar, they lie. They bend the truth, they break their promises, they misrepresent themselves and others. Some folks, it's so scary that they get into such a pattern of lying that they actually don't even realize the difference between lying and truth anymore. This happens. We get so wrapped up in a lie that we've had to tell to protect ourselves that we start losing grasp of reality. The Canaanites, they're liars. Quite frankly, it seems like there's two basic options for a Canaanite, who doesn't have the grace to believe you either fight against God, or you try to trick your way to God. Really, this seems pretty pagan. The pagans believe that those who worship idols, they try to please God by giving them sacrifices. They try to please God and manipulate God by doing what they think He wants. And here, the Canaanites seem to be treating Yahweh just like any other God. Maybe He'll be tricked. Maybe I can trick my way into survival. Now they say they fear God, but to try to go through this kind of old sandals and old wine and old bread to trick the great one true God of truth seems foolish. But this is exactly what they did. We need to realize that this lie is sinful. This lie is wrong. And we need to be careful not to stand too much over this because I think what we need to first do is realize that we need to pray and think about if we should be convicted of how we don't always tell the truth. But before we start thinking about how bad these people are and how horrible this lie is in trying to deceive God's people, we need to think, are we liars? Do we always tell the truth? Lying says, I want my autonomous will to be protected. Lying says, I'm not going to trust God when I tell the truth to let the true outcome of whatever the truth is to be good for me. Lying is trying to manipulate the facts for my well-being. And I think if we're all honest with ourselves, we all do this. We don't want people to realize how bad we actually are, so we deceive in our weaknesses to not be as bad as they are. We deceive to make our good things better than they really are. No one's ever told a small fish story. Everybody wants things to look better than they are, or not as bad as they really are. Lying is dangerous. I said earlier, when we get caught in a lie, When we start a lie, it usually requires more lies. There's rarely just one lie. It takes a whole pattern of lying, and then when that takes place, you lose grasp of what the true reality is. So let me give a clear application. Children, children, do not fall into the temptation of lying when you're caught doing something you shouldn't do. Do not go into the mode of saying, I'm going to trust my ability to deceive my parents so that they do what I think is best. No, tell them the truth at all times and trust your parents are going to do what's best for you. We can go a step further and say, children, always tell the truth because in telling the truth, you are trusting God to actually bring the outcome that he desires for you. So when we tell the truth, it's a matter of trust. We're saying I'm going to trust the person I'm telling the truth to, and ultimately we're saying I'm going to trust God, who is the God of truth. Be warned, lies always compound. One lie always leads to more lies. Protect your mind, your heart, and your words. Christian, as we think about these Gibeonites, We can look and say, tis, tis, I mean, how can you lie? But we gotta be honest. We lie. And that demonstrates a lack of faith in the God who has given us the greatest demonstration that he loves us and all things will work out for our good. He's given us his own son. How can we not trust him to withhold, to give us everything that's good? How can we not say he would ever withhold anything good? When we lie, we're saying, I need to take control of this situation and not obey God. I pray everyone realizes we do bend the truth. We all take things and we all manipulate them to make ourselves look better or someone else worse, or we don't really represent God the way he should be represented. And I wanna get us there because I want us to realize the most amazing truths about God. The God who is truth shows grace to save sinners who lie. This is one of the most amazing things that we can see in scripture, is that God actually saves liars. God, who is committed to promises, the God who has given us the greatest promises, the God who always speaks truth, and the God who always expects us to speak truth, he shows grace to liars. This is good news because we have all bent the truth. We are all guilty and we should all be judged by God for every lie we've ever made. But then we can look to the cross and we can see that Jesus Christ suffered. He always told the truth. He suffered as if a sinner. He suffered as if a liar so that the guilt that should come upon us, the condemnation to come upon us, He suffered so that we can be forgiven. If we're honest with ourselves, we really sing the words of amazing grace. Amazing grace, how sweet the sound that saved a wretch like me. We're not just weak, we're wretched. We're not just dirty, we're disgusting and foul. But that's the beauty of the gospel. We're gross and untrustworthy, but God says, I'm going to love you. I'm going to forgive you. But you must believe in Jesus Christ. So we see here, there's a great deception, and we need to realize we're deceivers. We realize that God saves liars. Let's go to covenant. Let's go to covenant, our next key word. Again, we need to realize something here, verse 14. The Israelites, they make a covenant without consulting God. The Gibeonites are guilty of deception, but the Israelites, they're guilty of making a covenant without listening to their commander. Just as they're guilty of rushing to battle with Ai, they're now guilty of rushing to a treaty with the Gibeonites. Israel has been given clear instructions. The law makes no exceptions here. Trust God, listen to him. All these people are supposed to be put to death because God has been waiting for 400 years to showing mercy, but now judgment has come. Let's be very precise. Israel's failure was not that they were deceived, it's that they chose not to trust God. They made their own judgment. They assume they have the ability to make a judgment apart from God. When they make a treaty, Israel is God's people, they represent God. They're binding God not to do what he has said he's going to do, and that is wipe away the Canaanites. Their word is binding because they are God's people. And really, we need to realize that for us today as a church, the church is really no different. If anything, we represent the name that we know is above every name, Jesus Christ. When we as Christians and as a church make promises, we are representing God. We are telling the world something about Jesus Christ by the way we use our words and the kinds of words we use and the commitments that we make. Christian, we need to realize that the words that we use, the kind of promises and commitments that we make are representing Christ. As we think about that, I want to challenge us to think about the kinds of commitments and words we make. There's something true I just want us to recognize about ourselves as Americans, and it's this. We're overcommitted. Americans are really busy. We're regularly overcommitted, and when we're overcommitted, what that means is we commit to so many things that we can't keep all our commitments. And that shouldn't be so for Christians. Christians should be able to look and say, I'm going to have an orderly life, that I'm going to prioritize my commitments according to God's word. Because when we make commitments and we don't keep them, we're misrepresenting Christ. So let me just give a very kind of quick challenge to you. Fall is coming upon us. The season. There's gonna be a lot of commitments you can make. There's gonna be a lot of things you can sign up for, and I want you to pray and seek the counsel of God. What kinds of commitments should you be making so that you're teaching your children, you're protecting yourself, to the kind of commitments that matter most? Because this is what a Christian's supposed to do. We're supposed to say, God, I'm going to look to you and seek counsel from you as to how to order my life. I'm going to look to you, God, and I'm going to say, God, what do you say is most important? What should I prioritize? And that's what I'm going to prioritize. Something we know from the New Testament, from the letter of James. Our yes must be yes. When we make a commitment, we're supposed to keep that commitment. One of the things we get to do as a church, as Christians, we get to be led by the Spirit. We get to seek counsel from God, and we get to be led by the Spirit. So I just want to walk through four basic things we should be doing as we are making commitments and promises. First, when you're making a decision to make a commitment, to make a promise, you first should seek the words of God found in Scripture. The Spirit has given us these words so that we can know what God expects of us. So first, it's pretty simple. What does God's word say about this promise or commitment you're about to make? Second, you should trust other godly believers who have the Holy Spirit to give you wisdom and counsel if you haven't gotten the clear answer directly from Scripture. God uses others around us. When we forsake Christian counsel, we usually go astray. So I wanna first say, look to God's word, then look and listen for God's counsel. And as we're doing this, we have to be prayerful. That's the third thing. We have to be prayerfully saying, God, tell me what your word says about this decision. God, give me godly counsel about this decision. And the fourth thing is really just thinking about the big picture. Will the outcome of this decision help me glorify God more? Let's be honest. Sometimes we pray and we say, this must be the will of God because it's going to benefit us the most. Oftentimes the will of God isn't our comfort. Oftentimes the will of God ends with our discomfort, but in a way that's going to magnify the power and the kingdom of God's glory. So look to his word, look to his people, prayer in both of those, and then ask the question, in what way am I going to make most of the kingdom of God? Now, as we think about covenant, I want us to think about the new covenant that Christ has given us in his blood, because we're about to take the Lord's Supper. Before we move on from covenant, we need to make sure we're understanding our promises, but right now before us, in just a few moments, we're gonna be thinking about a covenant that's been made with us and that we've made with others. So the Lord's Supper is a reminder of something vertical and horizontal. The Lord's Supper is a reminder of the vertical declaration that God has said, I forgive you. My son died for you. You're justified by faith in the Son of God who shed his blood for our sins. But it's also something horizontal in that the church is supposed to be a people who are coming together as the forgiving community of Jesus Christ. You see, it reminds us vertically what has happened to us, and then it reminds us horizontally what we're supposed to do with one another and for one another. What's great about the Lord's Supper is it reminds us petty differences don't belong here. We're united all as sinners who have been redeemed by the saving work of God. That means we lay aside everything that hinders our unity. Jealousy, bitterness, anger, deception, They have no place here. Because we have been forgiven. We can meditate upon Ephesians four. Forgive as God forgave you in Christ. As we think about the Lord's Supper, we think about this. In Christ, none of my sins are counted against me. That's forgiveness. Therefore, because I'm forgiven of such great sins, I don't count other sins against me. I'm forgiven, therefore I forgive. You see, we made a covenant together, Jefferson Park. Listen to the covenant that we've read together numerous times. We will humbly warn a brother who is in danger of falling into disobedience or error. We will speak the truth in love, be slow to take offense, and be eager to seek swift and lasting Reconciliation. I want us to think about a covenant we've made. Two key words there, swift and lasting. Reconciliation is something we do because we realize we've been forgiven so much, we want to quickly show grace when somebody offends us. And we don't want to just do it quickly and then go back and murmur and grumble, no, we want it to be lasting. We want reconciliation. to declare the greatness of the gospel that forgives us. So here we see Israel, they enter into a covenant quickly, without consulting God. We need to realize the covenants we make, they represent God, and we are in a covenant as a church under Christ. Finally, and I'm going to finally get into some of the tricky parts of this text, the word reverence. The word reverence. I'm going to tell you that this has been a challenging passage. I have wrestled through this whole week trying to figure out how do I diagnose the spiritual state of the Gibeonites? What was the spiritual state of the Gibeonites? And here's some conclusions that I, here's some data that have to enter into the diagnosis. First, they're liars. They are deceivers, there is no question about that. They are liars. Second, they have heard of God. They've heard of his power, they've heard of his judgment. Third, they were convinced that it was certain. They were convinced that it was certain. Look at verse 24, this incredible declaration. Because it was told to your servants for a certainty. that the Lord your God had commanded his servant Moses to give you all the land and to destroy all the inhabitants. They're convinced. Judgment is certain. Fourth, they're willing to be servants to live. They're willing to lie to live. They're also willing to be servants to live. And then fifth, they do have a great fear of God. Again, verse 24, so we feared greatly. for our lives because of you and did this thing, referring to the law. Now I've wrestled with this because I think the key question is do they have a saving faith? Is there some kind of parallel between Rahab, the Canaanite prostitute, and the Gibeonites, the Canaanite nation, that they're both saved by faith? And with Rahab, we know for certainty she was saved by faith because the author of Hebrews tells us that. And I think if we're gonna think about parallels in the story of Joshua, Rahab isn't connected to the Gibeonites. And as much as she's actually connected to Achan. I believe God gives us a very strong contrast for us to think about Rahab and Achan. Rahab was not born of the right family. She was a Canaanite, she was outside of the promised people of God, and she was a prostitute. She's a sinner. Achan was born in the right family. Not just an Israelite, he's of the tribe of Judah. He is also a sinner, but the key difference is Rahab believes God, Achan rejects God. That contrast. Rahab, the Canaanite prostitute, she is clearly saved by faith. And Achan, the citizen of the kingdom of God's holy nation, he rejects God. This is a clear contrast in characters in Joshua. I don't believe the Canaanites are like Rahab. I don't think there's a comparison because it breaks down too quickly. Let me first say this. We don't ever see in scripture God saving an entire nation of people. Not even the entire nation of Israel was saved, only those who believed in Him. So we don't see a nation coming to salvation. Second, the Gibeonites, they don't come by faith, they come by deception. They try to trick themselves into safety. And third, they never truly joined the nation. It's very clear, they're servants. They cut wood, they carry water. They never enter into the nation like Rahab. Rahab actually enters into the genealogy of Jesus Christ as a citizen of the people of God. The Gibbonites never do this. Now, I wanna be very clear, what made me wrestle with this is this confession in 24 and 25. Let's read it again. Because it was told to your servants for a certainty that the Lord your God had commanded his servant Moses to give you all the land and destroy all the inhabitants of the land from before you. So we feared greatly for our lives because of you and did this thing. And now behold, we are in your hand. Whatever seems good and right in your sight to do to us, do it. It's pretty amazing. That is a very bold declaration. But here's where it breaks down, I believe. They're willing to be slaves to save their lives. Their motivation is to save their lives, it's not to align themselves with the true worship of the one true God, like Rahab. If you think about this, let's ponder it. They have a reverence for God, a fear, but it leads them to just simply say, I want to save my life, and I'm willing to be a slave. A fear that leads to servanthood sounds too far from the gospel salvation that we know about in scripture. See, God saves us not to be slaves, but to be his children, his people. He doesn't save us so that we're His slaves. He saves us so that we delight in His law and rejoice in Him, and we worship Him. This is not the Gibeonite testimony. I actually wanna challenge us today, and the testimony of the Gibeonites, it doesn't sound like a gospel salvation, but it sounds really familiar. Because I believe a lot of people hear about God, they hear about judgment, and they hear about hell, and what they wanna do is try to save their life. They wanna say, God, I'll believe in you, I'll do what you say, but it's the kind of fear and the kind of reverence and the kind of faith that James talks about in chapter two, he warns the church he's talking to, demons have a certain kind of faith and fear of God. They shudder. But it's not true faith. It's not a faith that aligns themselves with God to worship him. I wanna warn us today. Have we believed in Jesus Christ as a sinner who recognizes he has died for my sin, the lamb who is worthy of all honor and glory, he was slain for me, a sinner, so that I can now become a worshiper? Because there's a lot of so-called gospel that goes out and tells you there's a hell, and if you make a prayer and you do a couple things, then God's gonna appreciate you and accept you, and that's just not true. God accepts you when you look to Christ and you say, I am unworthy to be in the presence of God. But he who's worthy of all honor, he died for me a sinner, and now I no longer come to God as a sinner looking to make myself better. No, I come to God and I say, Jesus died for me. I believe in him. He's risen again. Let me delight in you, almighty God. We don't come to God and remain in fear. We come to God and rejoice in his love and his kindness. So here's a couple questions as we wrestle with this very important subject. Is your obedience burdensome? Is obedience to God and Christ burdensome? See, a disciple of Jesus Christ says, I realize everything I was doing was foolish and destructive, and I want to obey because I realize now the true words of life. That's not burdensome. That obedience is delight. Second, is our obedience compartmentalized? I'll obey God while I'm gathered at church for a couple hours, but tonight, anything goes. Is it compartmentalized? God, you can have this area of my life, but not this part. I am in control of most of this. You can have this part of my life. Third, Does our obedience cause us to boast? If asked, why would God accept you? Do we have a list of things that we have done that should impress other people in God? Do we boast in what we have done? Do we try to convince ourselves and even convince God, no, I've done so much, how can you not accept me, God? No, somebody who's a believer in Jesus Christ, they boast of Christ. They boast of what he has done. Now here we see these Gibeonites. I do not see evidence that they have truly believed in the merciful, saving power of God. They simply have feared and they've lied so that they may live as slaves. This is not the Christian gospel. God looks at us and he sees we're all liars. God looks at us and he sees we've all deceived, we've all had anger, we've all been guilty of murder, we've all been sexually perverse, we've all sinned against God and one another. And he doesn't say, if you come and you say the right thing and do the right thing, I'll accept you. He says, no, I'm gonna sin my son. He'll die for everything you've done wrong. Believe in him and you don't become a slave You join the family. You enjoy my love. You enjoy my delight. You become someone I delight in. And then we get to delight in Him. Friends, these words matter. Our words matter. We need to be truth tellers. We need to be making promises and keeping them. We need to be recognizing that the words of the gospel, they change lives. I want us to end by thinking about here, how much the nations have heard of God. As I wrestled with this, I immediately thought, you know, most of the people who hear about Jesus Christ, they hear all the wrong stuff. I think about how many people are misrepresenting the name of Jesus Christ, and it frustrates me. And then I just get convicted, well, how much are we who can represent him in the true gospel, how much are we making him known? They must hear in order to believe. We are responsible that they would hear the gospel that saves so that they might believe and become part of that loving family of God. If you think about this, God is our commander. We seek to live for him because he has died for us. Will you pray with me? Father, we thank you for what you've done for us. We thank you that we can know your love. We can know the great name of Jesus Christ. We can know he is slain for us sinners, and we can know that our hope is in eternity, and it's assured, because he is risen and ascended. We know we can be bold, not just in declaring to the world, but declaring you among ourselves as we forgive one another, because you've forgiven us. As we come and prepare ourselves for The Lord's Supper, help us all to reflect upon what Christ has done so that we can be a new kind of people and rejoice in forgiveness. In Jesus' name we pray, amen.