And my prayer for you, church,
is that you would truly engage the word of God. And he would
recognize the sublime that you would see. The superbly majestic
and powerful God. I want you to see him. To look
and to see. And then when you see him, I
want you to love him, I want you to be alive in Christ that
you might cherish and treasure. Friends, I'll tell you, this
life is wasted if it is not lived in love with the Lord Jesus. If you don't believe me, just
take 30 minutes and go do something else. Do anything. Rake the yard,
watch. Focus your efforts on the futility
of that labor. apart from Christ. You will see. Imagine a lifetime
of that, of working for nothing. You rake the yard and the breeze
blows, and we love the breeze, but we hate the leaves. We love
them on the trees. We love them in other people's
yards. We hate them in ours. And we rake them. And as we're
raking one half, then the wind comes and blows the pile into
the other half. of where we're just going to
have to write the same leaves again and do a different direction.
It is a futile labor, laboring to worship and to rest in Christ
is never futile. It is always productive. It is
always beneficial. And Paul is painted a picture,
not for the sake of painting a picture, but for the sake of
showing who we are in Christ and that we indeed have been
given these things in his spirit, through his spirit. And so. Remember. Remember that which
he's taught us already and that who we are and whose we are in
Christ is that we have been paid for through the flesh of Christ. who, as a human being, fulfilled
the righteous requirements of the holiness of God. Therefore,
now, we who are in Christ have been justified in Him. We are
made right, adopted as sons. God does not adopt wicked people
in hopes they would change. He changes wicked people and
calls them sons and daughters. So look here. Chapter four, I'm just going
to begin in verse 30 and read down through verse 32. Last week,
let's just look at verse 29, let no corrupting talk come out
of your mouths, but only such as is good for building up as
fits the occasion that it may give grace to those who hear
and do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God by whom you were sealed
for the day of redemption. Let all bitterness and wrath
and anger and clamor and slander be put away from you, along with
all malice. Be kind to one another, tenderhearted,
forgiving one another as God in Christ forgave you. Now, there
is. I may not move beyond that for
next week, but we want to. This text ought to make you weep. It ought to bring you to a tender
place to where you rejoice with tears because of the great love
in which God has loved you. And sometimes we miss it, but
if you know what Paul is doing, Paul is coming to this to this
text. It's part of this whole argument,
part of this whole picture that we actually have to have to take
word for word and sentence for sentence. We break it down so
that we receive it fully. And in just a few breaths, he's
about to say, therefore, be imitators of God as children who are loved. And walk in love as Christ loved
us and gave Himself up for us, a fragrant offering and sacrifice
to God. So you see the point in that those verses go with
chapter four. So I'm going to take a snapshot
of them, but next week I want to really sit on them. And what
we've seen Paul do is he's saying, here's the old man who Christ
has killed. And He's created you to be the
new man. And the new man then still has
the aroma sometimes of this old man, but it's no longer alive. So brush off the dead stuff.
Matter of fact, let the brushing off be done by the Spirit. Because when we try to take off
what is fleshly, we fail. But Christ has done that in His
own flesh. He has destroyed our flesh in
the destruction of His own flesh. That's why it's so important
for us to understand the centrality of the gospel is requiring of
justice and requires judgment. It requires redemption. Or yet
there is hopelessness in the world. And in the body of Christ,
we know that discipline is of utmost importance. Christians
cannot allow other Christians to walk in sin, walk in selfishness,
walk in scoffing, walk in gossip, walk in just irrational fears. For we love one another, and
if we don't care, we are sitting in the direct judgment of the
holiness of God. John says in 1 John that if we
don't care about the sins of our brothers, that we are not
in Christ, we are judged and guilty and condemned under the
righteous judgment of God. And so we come and we see when sin rolls up
into our lives and in the church and it's unrepentant, Paul says
in 1 Corinthians, to take the brother who is sinning and if
he will not repent, to throw him out of the fellowship of
the flock for the destruction of his flesh. As a matter of
fact, he says this, he says, turn his flesh over, turn him
over to Satan for the destruction of his flesh so that he might
be saved. Because there's two places in
life here. I want you to see what Paul is doing. He's showing
the old and all these arguments, and then he's showing the new.
He's saying the old is dead. It no longer exists, though it
may smell. You brush it off or you allow the Lord to brush it
off. The new will shine in you, for you are a new creation. And
so in that, there's the comparison. It's not just don't do these
sinful things, but it's that you are in Christ and fill up
those holes with righteous things. that is able to be done in the
power of God and His Holy Spirit. So with that, now, we understand
that there's two positions to be in. Today, there is a position
A, which is the position of most of the world, of many people
who sit under the teaching of God's Word every week. And those
are those people who still have their judgment coming. Because
every sin in this world, from the beginning days of Adam and
Eve's transgression in the face of God to the very last breath
of this world, every sin will be paid for. Every sin will be
answered. Every sin, every lie, every frustration,
every disobedience, every run red light, every no-click, every
unpaid tax, Every stolen item. Every hateful thought. Every
sigh of discontentment. Every unbelief. Every doubt.
Every single disobedient child. Every single person who commits
adultery in their heart. Every single person who sits
and feels the victim because no one cares to see how much
it hurts. Every sin will be punished. And we need to see that. And
so here, there are two places. We either sit in seat A, which
is we are awaiting that punishment for our sin. Or we sit in seat
B, in that Christ has already taken the punishment for our
sin. But God hasn't let any sin go.
No sin has been let go. Every sin in the life of the
church has been paid for through the body of Jesus. Now friends,
I don't know about you, but for me, that gives me a lot It gives
me great hope. It gives me sorrow, but it gives
me joy and it gives me a reason to continue to fight against
the flesh. Why would I? Why would I want to engage in
the flesh when it's been paid for? So brutally. Judicially, it's
been atoned for. I spit in the face of grace,
absolutely not. Do not spurn the Son of God. Friends, we cannot
spurn the Son of God and subject Him to public shame with our
sin and say, oh, it's paid for. We are guilty of that. And by
God's grace, He shows us that, He grows us in that. And so here,
here is the... Why are you going there? Pastor,
this is not even in the... Well, it is in the text. It's
been building to here. Because then the holy requirement
of the law is to be imitators of God, be holy for I'm holy.
And that's verse one of chapter five. It's coming. So we've got
to rev the engine up so we can jump the chasm of impossibility. For that which is impossible
with man is possible with God. See, no one can come to the Father
except the Father draw him and give him to the Son. And all
who come, all who he gives, they come. And all who comes, he'll
never cast away. No one can snatch him out of
his hand. He'll never let him go. And we will fight and strive. We will plant. And so we will
succeed. We will succeed for God is faithful. So you don't have a hopeless
situation, you look hopeless in some circumstances, church,
you are not hopeless, you have hope. And what we think the outcome
must be in order for it to be successful. God, I want you to
remedy this. I want you to take the cancer from my body. I want
you to take and put money back in my bank account. I want you
to bring my family back to me. That's not necessarily the way
God's going to do it. Because that's not success. Success
is when God is glorified for the divine purpose of his decree
that he put in place before the world began. To create worshipers
for himself. See, that's the beauty of what
Paul is showing. Don't read the Holy Spirit. So
we've got we've got this thing happening here. We've got these
two ends. And so what Paul now is is saying
in verse thirty one left. Now, see that word left there
in the in the tense and the way those verbs are set apart, it's
it's actually saying you need to allow. You need to allow all bitterness. To be put away from you. What? He just said don't grieve the
Holy Spirit. You know what it means to disallow bitterness
from being put away from you? It's when you know and you're
convicted and you feel that rising up in your heart and you know
what bitterness is. You know what bitterness is? It's the
root of most sin. It's the root of most sin relationally. Jesus
says the greatest of all commandments is to love the Lord God with
all your heart, mind, soul and strength and the second of equal
value. It's to love your neighbor as
yourself. If you do not love your neighbor, then John says,
we lie, do not practice the truth and the love of God is not in
us. And so when we look at this and
we see this, let this be put away, what does it mean? You
know what it means, Christian. You know when sin is in your
life and you know when you hold it in and you hold on to it and
God and His Holy Spirit is rising up with conviction and grace
and it is fleeting from you and you know the Spirit of God is
moving and you see it just about out and you snatch it by the
foot. No, I want to be bitter because I deserve to be vindicated. See, that's the point. We feel
that sometimes. How can we deserve to be vindicated
when it's already been vindicated, especially if it's a brother
in Christ? And if they're not a brother, if it's the world
offending us and if the world's in it against us, if we're if
we're hurt, oh, if we're hurt and we can be hurt and there
are some hurtful things, but oh, in comparison to what we've
been set free from, are we truly even being hurt? You know what
I believe? I believe it's part of growing holy when we're hurt. How could you ever forgive and
show the power of the gospel if you're never hurt? Everybody, pagans get along.
When everything's good. And I don't want this unity,
but the greatness, the great thing is, is when disunity comes,
God heals it in the church. That's why John is able to say
that those who were not of us, they left because they weren't
of us. They were just among us. They weren't of us. They weren't
part of the body of Christ. Let them go. Let them go. We pray for
them, we we grieve for them, we beg them, we plead, we say,
please repent, see the light, the gospel is stronger than this.
And they want to law your up, or they want to go here, or they
want to go there, or they want to say this, or they want to separate, or
they want to divorce, they want this. And you know, there's nothing we
can do about it, because if they're not filled with the Spirit of God, if they're
not a child of God, they will not have the power of the Gospel
in their lives to overcome the bitterness in their heart. And so here in this now, we see
it. Look. Let all bitterness. That means that in our ability
that God has given us, in our new creature, in our new man,
the Spirit of God is at work moving away those sins. Taking
those sins away. It's not saying work hard to
get bitterness out. No, it's already out. We just
have to continually and be disciplined to understand when the Spirit
of God speaks to us, we let him take that away. And even when we can't, he's
faithful to remove it anyway. How does that work? Because the works
of God are manifested in his church. His wisdom is seen and
displayed in his church. And so let's look at these for
a moment. Let all bitterness, look at the list, and wrath and
anger and clamor and slander and malice. Let it all be put
away. So Paul is saying all this is
going to be put away, let it be put away and fill it up with
this. Be kind. Tenderhearted, forgiving. I got that. You say, no, no,
we don't. Friends, I'll tell you, this is one of the this
is a good sermon in this text. It's a good message for our ears. It's a good message for our heart
that we might evaluate who we are, that we might see really
that there's always that remnant of flesh rolling around, trying
to trip us and deceive us. And so here now we see a little
bit of conflict with verse 26, which says, remember this two
weeks ago, we be angry and do not sin in your anger. And so
with that, we need to realize that. We see that we're supposed
to be angry in some sense. But do you remember how that
looked? Do you remember that sermon? I started to print that list
out again. And I remember what I said and how we concluded that
is that when anger is good and righteous in us, it's not anger
that comes from what Paul is about to say, bitterness and
wrath. But it's anger that comes from the spirit, which is when
God is angry, then we in the spirit are angry and it's a good
anger. And I want to tell you that I have had to change a theological
position and be more precise this week. I have changed some
things and I want to share that journey with you. When Jesus
and we're in John and two weeks ago on Tuesday, we went through
the cleansing of the temple. We saw as he as he fulfills that
which David spoke of in which the prophet spoke of that he
will have zeal for his father's house. And we saw Jesus go in,
and the first time, and in the synoptics we see Him go in a
second time during the last week of His ministry, the last few
weeks of His ministry. This is in the first few weeks
of His ministry in John chapter 2, where He cleanses the temple. Or John chapter 1. And He goes
in and He cleanses the temple. He turns over the money changers
tables. He whips them out. He whips them
and He shoes out their animals. And He tells them to get the
doves out. Take them out of here. Because he saw the dishonesty
or the dish or what is it? He saw the unintegratable worship
of these people. They weren't there to work. They
were there to profit. And the people, the poor Gentiles
that were allowed out there were not even allowed to worship because
it was a marketplace. It was a it was a place of business
and and it was necessary for worship. But it didn't need to.
And it did not need to intersect with worship. And I've always said this, and
I've preached this at the top of my lungs, and I remember in 2009
preaching this exact thing this way, is that God, according to
John, He says that God is light, holiness in 1 John. He says that
God is love. And so I take that to see that
no matter what God is doing, that God is acting in love and
in holiness. For He is these things. He doesn't
have these things. He is these things. And so, in
that, I actually said the statement that when Jesus went into the
temple and whipped people and kicked them out of the temple
and ruined their lives, if you will, economically the second
time by throwing their money around, that He was acting in
love. No. I misspoke in that. What
I should have said was this, that Jesus was still love, but
at that time He was wrath. There's a difference. Friends,
there's a difference, there's a difference when we deal with
people, and I have fallen prey at thinking that sometimes harshness
is loving. It's not. It could come from
a root of love for when we have to get harsh with one another,
when we have to get, let's use a better word, severe. It ought to flow from a heart
of love, but that's not loving. And there's a time for that.
There's a time to be angry and not sin. There's a time for harshness.
So I believe in Romans 11, 22, you can listen or you can turn
there. I'm not going to read it once, then I'm going to go
back to Ephesians. Listen to this. It says, note then. The kindness and the severity
of God. Severity toward those who have
fallen. But God's kindness to you, provided
you continue in His kindness, otherwise you too will be cut
off. And so what I see there is that God has a time when He
exercises kindness and a time when He exercises severity. But I believe it's all rooted
in His love. And see, this is where your theology has really
got to come to light. How can that be? Because God
is worthy to love himself fully. God is not moved by his desperate
affection for us, but he's moved by his desperate worthiness for
himself. And in that worthiness and in
his self affection, he gives us life. We don't deserve God's love.
We do not deserve his kindness. We deserve his severity. And
when Jesus speaks to the Pharisees and he calls them snakes and
vipers, when John the Baptist calls the Jews at his first day
out of his ministry and he's baptizing people and he says,
hey, you brood of vipers. When Jesus calls people dogs
and thieves and wolves, whitewashed tombs, it's being severe. He's
being severe. He's pointing out the reality
of the judicial blindness, and he's calling for repentance and
he's commanding justice. And I believe in our unsinful,
righteous anger, that's the point, but here's not what Paul is talking
about. Paul's not talking about that anger. He's talking about
the bitterness, anger. The selfish, you hurt me and
now I'm mad. You offended me. You did not
think of me. And now I'm mad. That's what
Paul's saying. Get over it. I couldn't see him
doing this if he'd known what a violin was at that time. Get
over it. We are dead to that. All these
things about anger. And we ought to let it all go. For if we don't. We can't be
kind. You know what kindness is? Do
you know what it looks like? Kindness is joyfully putting
yourself out for the sake of the joy of another. That's kindness. Kindness is being quiet when
you've been offended because your offense is a sin to your
own heart. Kindness is when someone hurts
you, you die. that they may see Christ. Because the opposite of that
is malice and bitterness and anger. I mean, look at this.
Bitterness is this root of deceit. It grows deep in the heart and
it comes and sprouts up this tree of disgust. And it infects
everybody. We saw last week about our words.
Our words are not gracious when they're embittered. Even when
we're careful to say the right thing in the right tone, we're
acting. The Greek word for acting is
hypocrite, by the way. So when Jesus speaks
to the Pharisees and says, you hypocrite, He says, you're acting
the part, but you are not Mine. So even when we don't say the
wrong thing, This text wants to show us the root of our heart
and encourage us to walk in kindness toward each other. Bitterness
and wrath. That's a personal vengeance.
That's a personal thing. I'm going to show her just how
it felt. I'm going to treat them just
how they treated me. I'm going to ignore them. I'm
going to say this. I'm going to do that. Employers. I'll show that guy for coming
in late again. I'll lock the door. You can't
get in. I've had professors do that to
students. And while they're banging on the door, everybody laughs. Put away vengeance. Put away wrath. Put away anger. Put away clamor. You know what
a clamor is? I don't know if you have much aluminum in your
house, but if you've got aluminum pots and pans, And you put a
child in there and let them clamor. A clamor is a God-forsaken noise.
And you know what clamor is? An out-of-bitterness clamor is
talking about something that's ungodly, out of frustration. That's why Paul, in Philippians,
says to do all things without grumbling or complaining. What
do you mean? All things! Dig a ditch? Don't
open your mouth. How guilty are we now? Testimony
time? We'll cancel the party and just
be here until tomorrow. No, we're not. We're all guilty,
even under our breath. The stupid leaves. We complain, we grumble, because
we fail to see and remember the fullness of the forgiveness of
God. And see, it's frustrating to me because Paul should have
got the first part first, then the second part, the first part
second, the first part third. But he puts it last, be kind
to one another. What does it mean? It means be
tender hearted, be kind, be gentle, be tender hearted, feel, be empathetic. Whether it's real or not. Hurt
when people hurt. That's the point of the Gospel,
is that we are able to see when Jesus saw the unbelief of the
Pharisees, it says He grieved. He wept. He hurt. But He was angry with their unbelief,
but He grieved. He grieved. So we can have righteous
anger and tender heartedness in the same heart. How? Well, look, we're starting to
be kind to one another. You know, put away the slander. We know
what that is. Talking about people. Be put
away from you along with all malice. Malice is wrong intentions. A better translation or another
translation for the word malice in the Greek would be wickedness,
which is one of my favorite words. I don't know why, but I think
it just has a wicked sound to it. When you say wicked, people
know what you're talking about. If you say bad, it might mean
good. If you say dirty, it might mean a bad connotation or it
may mean physically dirty. If you say wicked, unless you're
a heavy metal guy and we're playing a solo, you probably mean wicked. Not cool, not rad, not awesome,
but wicked. Malice. The heart of malice. We don't exercise relationally
toward each other out of wickedness, out of a fleshly heart. We exercise
out of a what? A forgiven heart. Be kind to
one another. Be kinder hearted. Be forgiving
one another. Forgive. That is the best way
to show the power of the gospel and that we forgive. Now, how
is it done? Look, let me just give you the
let me give it away. As God in Christ forgave you, that's how
we forgive. So we're to be kind. We've seen
in Romans that God's kindness and God's severity is different.
God's kindness. Is given to us in Christ. God's severity is given to those
who were not in Christ. And they are awaiting a judgment.
That Christ took on himself on the cross. This morning, my grandfather
preached out of Philippians chapter three. Where Paul talks about
the enemies of the cross of Christ. And that popped into my head
and I thought to myself, wow. The enemies of the cross of Christ
are not just those who purvey a false gospel or have no joy. But they're those who are not
tender and forgiving toward each other. Not forgiving. And what I believe
is that we've missed the point. And that God has forgiven us
in Christ and in that same way, we all to forgive others. In about 24 verses, Paul is going
to start a picture of marriage as the picture of the gospel.
He's going to say things in verse 25 that says, Husbands, love
your wives as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for
her that he might sanctify her. Remember, Ephesians 1. Even as he chose us, verse four,
in him before the foundation of the world, that we should
be holy and blameless before him. And so what's happening here
is that God has forgiven us by placing our guilt on Christ and
judging our sin, counting it paid. In order to make us holy. So God has made us holy at the
cost of Christ. And in the same way, church,
we are to forgive one another. We're to forgive one another
in the same way. We're to be tender in the same
way. Forgiveness requires us to think
about things. Forgiveness requires us to see.
We must see certain things. And the first thing we must see
is the holiness of God. We must see where God is and
who God is and what God is. And then we see ourselves in
light of who God is and we see our sin. And then we see the
holiness of God and we see our sin. And then we look back up.
And the third thing we see is the holiness of God again. And
then we recognize there is no hope now, for God's holiness
demands justice, and our sin is definitely the object of that
judgment. And so where is our hope? Holiness, sinfulness, holiness,
sinfulness, holiness, sinfulness. And so it's an eternal seesaw
of hopelessness. But in the middle of that triple-dipple
take, God places Himself as Jesus. And now there's a man that walks
among us who is worthy to be with the father. Who then takes the sin of all
who believe. And who will believe. And who
have belief. And puts it on himself and becomes
sin that we might become the righteousness of God. Oh, see the what kind of love
the father has given to us that we should be called the children
of God. And so we are first on three
one. Here, we must see the justice
of God. And recognize. That Christ has
taken that judgment. How are we to forgive one another? In Christ. If I hold sin against you, I'm
spitting in the face of Christ. I'm saying that what you've done
to me, Christ has not warranted on His flesh. You know what Jesus says about that?
The measure in which you forgive will be given. Jesus says that those who cannot
forgive cannot be forgiven. Well, what if they're not a Christian?
Vengeance is mine. I will repay, saith the Lord. Dearly beloved, do not avenge
yourselves, but do not repay evil with evil, but overcome
evil with good. tenderness, kindness. It makes
sense now when you see the martyrs. It makes sense when you see those
who just in our lifetime today. Have been attacked. And one gentleman
was shot and nearly beheaded because of his mission work.
And he did not die, he recovered and he went into the prisons
there in that land. And he found, not looking, but
discovered the very man who tried to cut off his head. And he embraced him and he forgave
him. And God saved him. He'll die in prison, but he's
going to live forever. And now every week, these men
eat together and fellowship together. Because that's what God did. We've sinned against His holiness.
We deserve to be smited forever. And He became one of us and took
that so that we could be righteous. And then the very Christ that
took our sin will serve us at the marriage feast? I thought
we should be serving Him. He's going to serve His bride. He's going to serve his church. The stress is, is that when we
try to take this power and think that we have the ability to walk
in this way without Christ. So how do I do it? Can you just
give me an outline, a couple of things that will help me walk
this way? Church, it's simple. Faith. I can do it. I'm good. I've got
it. God saved me so I can do it. Stop. You can't. Faith. Christ alone. His work alone. His holiness
alone. And we don't wallow. Oh, woe
is me! No, we rejoice. Is it kind when we're bitter? And we recognize we're bitter.
How is kindness employed there? Repent. Believe the gospel and
repent. Repair that relationship. When you ask your children to
forgive you for things or your spouse to forgive you, one of
the worst things that we've done as Americans, I don't know if
it's just Christians, but as Christians in this land, is that
we say, oh, it's all right. It's not alright. It may be okay
now, but that sin is not okay. The difference is that we have
been forgiven and are no longer now bound to the penalty of that
sin. So we can forgive one another
and it is gone. So can you test yourself in forgiveness? Are you forgiving? Are you tender?
Well, when's the last time you've been offended? When's the last
time you felt sinned against? When's the last time you were
hurt? When's the last time... Is it still there? Is it still
raw? Are you still feeling entitled
to some type of vindication, to some type of public reprieve?
What do you want from those people that Christ has not already paid? And what do you want that could
be worse than the judgment of God on His enemies. Being vindictive and unforgiving
in this life toward unbelievers is like offering someone who
murdered your family a piece of cake. It's nothing. Nothing. The vengeance of man is like
feeding cake to the offender compared to the vengeance and
the wrath of God. So let them have it. And don't
become a slave to unforgiveness. And for Christians, yes, your
sin was vile, but in Christ you're forgiven. How do you know? When you do think about it, it's
joyous. Because it reminds you of the
grace of God in your own life and where you have been able
to exercise that same grace in your life toward others. Well,
knowing that someone has already numerous times exercised it for
you. And towards you. You don't get upset. You forgive,
but here's one of the kickers that a friend of mine told me
years ago about forgiveness. He says, don't clamor, talk about
it, because that's a guaranteed sign, even if it's inside your
own head, that you've not forgiven them. And when we live in unforgiveness,
you know, our worship isn't received. Our prayers are not heard. Our
service is worldly and godless. Our teaching is powerless. Our
lives are miserable. But here's the one tea that was
told to me, and it really does help you think. Because when
that same person offends you in that same way just a few days
later, It needs to feel to you like it's the first time. Because if there's a record of
wrongs, you haven't forgiven once. Scripture says that the. Record
of our debt of our sin has been nailed to the cross in the flesh
of Christ. And Church Christ and his Holy Spirit empowers
us to be tender and kind and forgiving. I believe one of the
greatest hindrances to true intimacy in the body of Christ is a fear
of harm. Get over it. If you're not even
willing to journey in order to be hurt, in order to see the
gospel at work in you. Something's wrong. Perfect love. Cast away fear. God's love is seen in his giving
of his son, for God loved the world in this way, that he gave
the only son he had, that all the believing ones will not perish,
but have eternal life. You know that text. Jesus says there is no greater
love than this, that a man lay down his life for a brother. So. Is there a problem with intimacy? It's probably a fear. A fear
that you won't be able to forgive. Friends. See the power of the
gospel. It is not life when we're living
behind a wall. We should bust down the wall
and stand bold before God. Let's pray. Father. We thank You for this privilege
and honor to worship You. I thank You, Lord, that through
Your Word that You will save men and women and children. You
bring them to faith. They'll see the power of Your
love and forgiveness in Christ. Father, many of your children
may sit under this teaching today, enamored with unforgiveness and
with bitterness and with fear. And Lord, thank you that you've
given us the grace to walk away as you and your Spirit remove
these things from us and replace it with kindness and tenderness
and forgiveness. Let us be ever mindful of your
grace. Help us to grow deep in our knowledge
of that grace and our knowledge of Jesus, whose face reveal your
perfect, holy heart. And whose body reveal your perfect
and holy judgment and grace. And from the fullness of Christ,
we all receive grace upon grace. And we pray these things in the
name of Jesus, our beloved King and Savior and Lord. Amen.