I'd like call your attention to Philemon verse 20. Philemon verse 20 beginning. Let's read there. It says, yes, brother. I want some benefit from you in the Lord.

Refresh my heart in the Lord. Confident of your obedience, I write to you knowing that you will do even more than I say. At the same time, prepare a guest room for me for I am hoping that through your prayers, will be graciously given to you. Epaphras, my fellow prisoner in Christ Jesus, sends greetings to you, and so do Mark, Aristarchus, Demas, and Luke, my fellow workers. The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ be with your spirit.

So far as we've looked through this letter, we've looked at the various perspectives of the men who were involved here, Philemon and his need to forgive and to receive Onesimus and Onesimus' deep humility, his intense desire to restore enough so that he leaves the comfort of where he is and heads back to a place he probably doesn't really wanna go, to see someone he doesn't really wanna see, but it was the right thing to do. And then Paul as the mediator, the one who has worked between these two men to work out this problem and help them restore and begin the process of healing. As we began this, we thought about the awkwardness of that moment. You know, Onesimus shows up on that morning, and he's got a letter or two in his hand. Tychicus is with him, and everyone's shocked.

And this is a unique circumstance. They never thought they were gonna see this guy show up, and he's changed his life. He's different, and now he's seeking forgiveness. But the reality is, and what we're gonna talk about tonight is, that is just the beginning. The process has just started.

And while many good things can happen at the very beginning of that process, The truth of life is that we continue on day after day, and we have decisions to make as that takes place. We don't know exactly how this all played out. It's a bit of a kind of cliffhanger. We're just left. Paul says, I think you're gonna do the right thing.

I think you'll do even more than I say, and all these people with me wanna greet you. And then it just ends. We don't know anything else about what happened. I think we can assume things went pretty well, but we don't know exactly. But what I know, because I'm a human and you're a human, is these things don't just resolve immediately.

There's something that comes after this. And if we assume that Onesimus was humble and repentant and we assume that Philemon genuinely forgives, there's still room for growth and healing and need for this reconciliation to actually be what it's supposed to be. The question tonight is not how do we forgive or how do we repent. Those things are kind of the foundation of everything else we've already talked about, but how do we restore trust? Some of you may not have been here for other nights, so I wanna at least take just a second to say, this is a secondary question.

We've already dealt with the foundation. If I haven't had the heart of forgiveness yet, if I haven't had the desire and the humility to admit wrong and to seek forgiveness, then trying to build trust back really is nonsensical. It doesn't really work. However, so often, that seems to be what people wanna do. They wanna jump a past the difficult things to get back to the expectation that everything should now be fine.

Everything should now be okay. And so I don't want us to lose sight of the fact that there must be a foundation first of forgiveness, repentance, humility, the various things we've already talked about. But even with all of that, there's more that's needed. And that's where we wanna go tonight, the reality that Christians are committed to transformation. We're committed to changing our lives, to being something different, to being something better.

And this may seem like a bit of a redundancy, but that's okay. Just stick with where we're going and you I think it'll make sense as we move through this. But if we're going to restore trust, if we're going to build this to something more than just a cold war that existed and then we say, forgive you, and now we still drift apart in our cold despite we've said a few words, it means we're going to have to keep practicing forgiveness. The danger in all of this is that sometimes we imagine that forgiveness is is just a moment. You know, we've talked about some of those moments as well already this week.

You know, we realized the need to admit wrong or to say we forgive somebody, and that's uncomfortable, and we gotta get together and there's a lot built into that, and we're and we're nervous and we're stressed. And we get there and we do the thing and we feel good about it, but it doesn't just happen in a moment. That's not how people work. I know that's not how I work. Do you work that way?

Someone has wronged you and they say, I'm sorry, and you say, okay. And then we just never think about it ever again. Is that how things happen? No. That that's not the way our minds work.

That's not the way we function. The pain is still there. There's been a decision, and we need to recognize that decision and stick with that decision, which is what we're talking about. The memories may be fresh. Right?

The hurt may resurface. We are emotional beings, and so the emotions may return unexpectedly. Even though we've had that moment and we say, I forgive you, there may be a moment in the middle of the night when we're not sleeping and we are pained by what that person did to us still. Is it still there? How are we gonna handle that?

What are we gonna do with that? That doesn't mean that forgiveness has failed necessarily. It just means that we have to keep practicing the forgiveness that we chose to grant. It must continue on. I think Paul's description of love in first Corinthians 13 is helpful here.

There's a lot of what I would say are kind of erroneous concepts about forgiveness that are pushed around kind of in meme culture. Right? One of them is forgive and forget. We'll come back to that here in just a minute. That's just not a reality.

And people misinterpret things like Hebrews eight. But when when God says, I will remember your sins no more, that's just he's not gonna keep account of them. Right? He's not gonna keep bringing them back against you. That's the idea.

That's even the concept of the term there in Greek. It's not that somehow they just disappear and God can no longer know the things I've done. That's unreasonable. He certainly does, and we see in scripture that that's a reality even when he forgives people. For instance, Israel, he knows their history, and he'll bring it up at other times.

But what forgiveness is about is not keeping a record of wrongs. Right? And this is what Paul talks about in first Corinthians 13 and verse five. In this text, it's all about love, that love is patient and kind. It's not self interested.

Right? It doesn't keep records of wrongdoing. Ain't that hard? We kinda we talked earlier about how sometimes when we're gonna go and admit wrong, we kinda like to have those bullets with us so we can fire those things too. And so it's kinda nice to get that notepad out and write the things down that have been done to us.

So if we need to pull those back up at some point, it makes us feel a little bit better. And Paul says, don't do that. Don't live that way. Don't be the kind of person who's keeping records of wrongs. And what I need to do if I'm the person who has offered forgiveness, I need to understand what Paul says here about love and realize even though this might enter my mind, I might be troubled by things that have happened.

When I've offered forgiveness, that is a choice I need to continue to make. So the idea of forgive and forget, it makes it sound easier than it really is. The question is whether I'm going to allow the past wrong to impact my present actions with somebody. Imagine the scenario. Philemon is seeing Onesimus day after day.

I mean, assuming he comes back to his house because he's a servant in his house, he's seeing him all the time. He's seeing him every week at worship. He has received him as a brother, assuming this went well. But you know what else he's gonna do? He's gonna see him at the potlucks and the birthday parties.

It's kinda awkward, isn't it? When you're at odds with somebody, ugh. I hope they're not gonna be there. Have you ever thought that? If so, that's why this series is important.

It's dangerous when that is our mentality. Maybe we have dealt with whatever the issue is, but there's still this bit of uncomfortableness or awkwardness between us. And that is natural. I'm not gonna say it's just gonna evaporate immediately, but that's the whole point of what we're talking about, the need to restore trust and the way to think through this. Forgiveness does not mean that we just pretend there's no consequences and that we just abandon all wisdom and we just act like nothing ever happened and we just go back to how it always was before.

That's not a reality. On the other hand, it also doesn't mean that the person now becomes a second class citizen and that we can mistreat them and not be hospitable and exclude them from things and try to not be around them. That's not what brothers and sisters do. And I already talked Sunday about not everybody has to be our best friend, and we're naturally gonna gravitate towards some people, and all of that's fine. But we are still family.

We're brothers and sisters in Christ, and Paul emphasizes that in this letter, and this is an important aspect of who we are. And this factors into how we build that trust and how we get back together as people who are working together in the Lord as Ephesians four talks about. Every joint supplies. If we're gonna grow the body, we're gonna be what we need to be as a congregation, that means everybody's a part of that. And I should value the contribution of each person.

Even if our personalities don't always match or even if we don't always get along, we can still see the value in each other and not hold each other at arm's length. I think the classic example here, this is a sermon that Jonathan did in the series at at home, and he brought this up, and I think he's exactly right, is the embezzling deacon. Right? You know, you've heard the examples about this. Well, it's real life that's happened a few places that I'm aware of and probably more that you're aware of.

And say, well, you know, relationships change. And it's really easy to then just use this, you know, the guy repents and says he's sorry, and there's natural consequences. Right? I mean, he's not gonna be watching the money anymore. That would be foolish.

And so there's some natural consequences that go along with the mistakes that we make in life, and I think we should all understand that. At the same time, the man who has repented and admitted his wrong and we have welcomed him back, we don't keep him from the get togethers. We don't kinda walk by him and just keep him at a distance because we know what he did. That is damaging. That's not the way that brothers and sisters should treat each other.

There's a difference between recognizing a consequence and maintaining some kind of punishment. There's a definite difference between legitimate reasons to change maybe a responsibility or what someone's doing and permanently holding this person outside of acceptance, marginalizing them in the group, and keeping the practice of forgiveness can be very difficult. It's easier to say the words I forgive you and then just to kinda go on with life no longer dealing with whatever that issue was, continuing to sit on opposite sides of the building and pass each other and say, how are you? I'm fine. And then going about not really having any kind of relationship.

But that is not actually what Paul asked Philemon to do. Remember, he doesn't say just forgive him. That's important. Forgiveness is important. But what he actually says is receive him as you would receive me.

That's not just a transactional concept. You know, we got this problem. We gotta take care of it. Let's do the transaction. Now we're good, and we can move on.

It is a relational idea. If you consider me a fellow, if we're in fellowship, I want you to receive Onesimus just as you would receive me. That is about a relationship with this person. It's considering him a brother, The importance of their bond. Right?

And this is what's happening in Ephesians four were to be eager to maintain the unity of the spirit and the bond of peace. That's not people sitting across the building not talking anymore. And that's not what Paul is promoting for Philemon or for Onesimus. And in all of that, I think we have to admit that this is difficult. It's way easier to just kinda partially go through this process.

We do it maybe we think it's a moment. Maybe it's this moment where we say we forgive, but then it's also can just be kind of a name only. Right? This danger that we say the words, but then the actions don't necessarily back it up. But there's plenty of places in scripture, serious places.

We have the teaching of Jesus and the parable here of the prodigal and the father, which is a hypothetical story, but there's also the real story of Hosea, a powerful story of Hosea who fully receives his adulterous wife back. I mean, that is a powerful story of forgiveness. That is not forgiveness in name only. In the other stories here, the prodigal and the unforgiving servant, the wicked servant of Matthew 18, really, it's the same picture. Jesus is actually telling the story in Luke 15 because of the Pharisees and their behavior.

If you remember what's actually going on there, they're disgruntled, and they don't like that Jesus is going to these unholy people and talking to them. And so Jesus tells the story about the prodigal who runs off. He comes back. The father receives him, and he brings him back into the home. He's fully restored.

Now there's some natural consequences. He's already received his inheritance. And when he rebukes the other son, he reminds him of that. But it doesn't mean he's gonna hold him at arm's length and not care about him and say, well, now you're a second class child of mine, and you're just gonna be a servant, which is what the son was willing to do. No.

He fully receives him back because that is what happens when forgiveness is offered in reality. The son isn't interested in that. He's angry. He's angry about the father's love and his mercy and his grace. And of course, sometimes that can be the danger we fall into too.

Oh, that per they did it again. Look, that's what they do. That's how they act. They just keep doing the same things. Right?

Jesus addressed this. When Peter said, how many times do we have forgive? Matthew 18. Right? The out of a line nature, the incongruity of what happens with the forgiveness offered to the servant, and then he goes out with much smaller debt and is ringing his his fellow's neck.

But before all that, the master brings him back in. He has pity on him, and he fully restores him because that's the way god forgives. So true forgiveness is one that we continue to practice. I told you last night we're gonna talk about vulnerability. This kind of forgiveness comes with risk.

That's just the reality. Forgiveness makes us vulnerable. The word vulnerable actually comes from a Latin term that means to wound. When you are vulnerable, it means you're open to being wounded. That's the choice we make.

When we forgive somebody, we are open. We're we're being sincere with them, and there is the real possibility that they could wound us again. That's the risk we take. The risk god says we should take, but it is the risk we take. It's part of it.

And that vulnerability is is powerful if you've worked with someone who has struggled with sin, maybe struggled with addiction, whatever the case might be, the willingness to be open with that person and then be open with you, that is when transformation actually can happen. When we hold them arm's length, then we marginalize them, we consider them kinda second class, And when they come forward and they admit their sin, we all kind of stay away from them because they're unclean for a little while. That's not how true healing happens. That's not how trust is built. And so there is just the reality that to do this the right way involves risk.

It involves the reality that we could be hurt again. But there's a positive side of this. You know, in marriage, one of the great things about marriage, when we think of the closeness of our bond with our spouse, if we're truly open, if we're really vulnerable with our spouse, it's such an amazing thing. You can't really have intimacy if they don't really know who you are. And the power of it is if my spouse really knows who I am and she still loves me, That's powerful.

And I want us to see the same principle works in our family bond, in our friendship. When we're willing to be open and this vulnerability can exist on both sides, by the way, and it should, that's when we're really gonna have intimate relationships. That's how we're really gonna be close with one another. We really know each other, and you still love me even though you know the problems I've had or the mistakes I've made. We can go through all sorts of things in life if we have that kind of closeness.

We should have it in our marriages, and we should have it in our friendships, in our family relationship within the congregation. That's gonna be what makes a strong, thriving church. The willingness to go through this the right way even though there is risk and potential danger so we could be hurt again. So to restore trust in a relationship that was broken like Philemon and Onesimus', it just involves the continuation of this decision to forgive. It's gonna be a decision that is continually made, Not because the person has wronged us again necessarily, but it's just the reality of life, the dealing with the pain and the hurt and deciding I'm gonna continue to deal with this, to work through it because I love that person and our fellowship matters more than even the pain and the difficulty that has been inflicted upon me.

But then there's the other side of this, and that is when I'm the one who has wronged somebody, how do I work in this ability to rebuild trust, to make this work the way it should? Sometimes we're we're tempted just like we can be tempted to kind of weaponize truth and beat people over the head and demand they do things. We can do this on the other side when we are the one who's wronged. We can kind of weaponize forgiveness. Some of these verses we've already looked at, like, if you don't forgive others, you won't be forgiven.

You know, mercy triumphs over judgment. You know, we can say, hey. I said I was sorry, and you said you forgive me. And how could you still be treating me? You should be forgiving me.

That's what God said to do. I mean, I said it. I said I was sorry. What else do you want me to do? I want us to understand when we've wronged somebody, we are in no position to demand anything.

When I have wronged someone, my job is to bear fruit, to bear fruit in keeping with repentance. It's not my job to tell somebody else what their timetable is to get over it and to move on and to no longer feel pain. That's not my job. I was the one who wronged them. And the thing that I need to be doing is working to show visible change in my life.

Christians believe in transformation. They believe it can happen through Jesus Christ. And if I am a repentant sinner, if I admit my wrong, I believe that I can be transformed by the power of Christ, and that's what I need to be working on. It's more than just saying I'm sorry just like it's more than saying I forgive you. There's more to it than that.

It's about bearing fruit worthy of repentance. This is the words of Jesus himself. This is what he says we ought to be doing, and Onesimus is an example of this. He's someone who had been useless in the words of Paul. Now he has become useful.

He is someone who's now serving, and he's working in the purposes of the Lord. He's changed his life. He's become a new person. And Paul actually wants to make this clear to Philemon. There's a similar example with John Mark.

Actually, he uses the same term. John Mark, you might remember, abandoned Paul. Right? They're on a trip. He heads back.

He abandons Paul. Paul's not very happy about this. And for a time, he doesn't really wanna include John Mark. But later on in his ministry, some things have changed. And Paul recognizes this and he says, get Mark and bring him with you for he is very useful to me for ministry.

Same term he's using here for for Onesimus. And so the fruit that is born really, it relates to the damage that was done. That's what I want us to see here. If I lose my temper, right, if that's if that's what I did, I was angry and I lost my temper and I hurt people, or I said horrible things to them or about them. I need to work deliberately towards self control.

The fruit needs to be the opposite of what damaged. If I gossiped, if I was a slanderer, I need to become especially careful with my words, and we'll come back to that thought here in a minute. If I created division, if I was the kind of person who who went around and created problems and got upset and got other people upset, kinda like that medal that we talked about last night, I need to work to become the person who builds unity at all costs. I'm the one who I'm not trying to cause problems. I'm on the other side of that.

I'm trying to unify people. That is bearing fruit worthy of repentance. If I was deceitful or a liar, I need to become intentionally transparent and truthful. Now I get caught doing something I shouldn't have been done, hiding things I shouldn't have been hiding. I need to go above and beyond to make sure I am being straightforward and transparent with the people around me so they know I'm not a deceitful person anymore.

I'm not seeking to be a deceitful person. And the point is not to perform for people or to spend the rest of our lives trying to prove that I deserve forgiveness. That's not really the idea. And sometimes we can really beat ourselves up about that. And there's so many nuances to how all this works that make it really difficult.

Some of you beat yourself up about the mistakes you've made. It's not your spouse or people in the church that can't get past it. It's you. You can't get past it. You know the thing that you did, the sin that you committed, the person you offended, whatever it might be, and you're such and I want you to understand this.

You're such a sincere, honest person that it's eating you up. And so sometimes, what needs to happen is I need to forgive myself. You need to forgive yourself because the Lord has forgiven you. And the people around you have forgiven you. But sometimes it's very difficult to look past some of the things that we've done.

Paul seems to understand the need for this, even in this letter to Philemon. You know, as we've already talked about, he doesn't just say, hey. Onesimus says he's sorry. Forgive him. No.

There's more to the letter than that. He makes a point to say some things about Onesimus to Philemon. He's a child. He's my child in the faith. I'm his father.

Now he's useful. I'm sending you my very heart. I mean, this is the way Paul feels about him and how he values him now. He's now serves Paul faithfully in the work of the Lord. Paul here's what Paul's doing.

Paul is giving Philemon evidence of fruit. Whatever exactly the wrong was, we don't know. I mean, we know that Philemon considered him useless at one point. We don't know all the details. But whatever that was, Paul is saying, here are all the good things about Onesimus, how he's changed, the fruit that's been produced in his life.

Now that he's a brother in Christ, he is a new person. He has been transformed. And I want you to see all that because if we're going to rebuild trust, we have to bear fruit fruit worthy of repentance. And then maybe this last one is the most important. And that is if we're going to rebuild trust, we need to protect the healing process.

So we've talked about, in some ways, what is Philemon's side of this, continuing to forgive, which can be very difficult. And we've talked about Onesimus' side of this. Right? He did wrong. There were some problems.

He needed to bear fruit worthy of repentance. Demonstrate I'm a changed person, and here's the evidence of that. Here's how my life is different now. And that was important. That's important to the process of healing and restoring trust, but what is also important are the other people around us.

This letter was to the whole church. It was read before all of them, and everyone is involved. Fellowship is a responsibility we all share. We're talking about preserving fellowship. What is it I can do or not do to help this process of fellowship being preserved for us to have unity that is maintained?

And part of the job of everyone else is to not make reconciliation harder. Conflict attracts attention. To some extent and in some way, we all like to be in the know at times, Maybe some more than others, but we all have that little bit of interest. Right? Did you hear what happened?

Whatever the situation is. And the Proverbs, wisdom literature talks about this lot. We kinda get drawn in by, oh, I wanna know what happened. Tell me more about what happened. We get bits and pieces, and we begin to make assumptions, and some of us really like to kinda psychoanalyze.

Well, that's kinda how that person is, and they probably did this, and here's how that went, I think. You know? And then we're so proud of all the story we put together that we go tell other people about it. This is probably what happened. You know what that is?

That's slander. That's gossip. Even though we've talked to nobody involved in the situation, we hear some things and we begin, oh, I know what that person's like. Right? This is what we looked at the other day about.

What happens when we allow the assumptions and the stories to build, and then all sorts of bad things take place because no one actually has the real information. They're just making all sorts of stories up and then spreading them around. This is probably what took place based on the little bits of information I got about this story. Be careful what you believe. Be very careful what you believe.

I learned a long time ago to be really careful about that. When I was younger, I was preaching in a place that I won't name, and we were friends with some people, and there were some things that happened. And we only knew one part of the story, which is often what happens. There's always two sides to the story. Actually, that's not true.

There's actually more than two sides to the story. There's the one person's story and then the other person's story and then the truth because people are biased and they have their own perspective. I mean, I was really upset. My wife and were really upset about how our friends were treated by these other people, and there was some truth to it. It wasn't like we were completely oblivious.

But what we didn't know and what we weren't aware of is what our friends had also done. Be very careful what you believe and the assumptions you make. Be careful what you believe with what you hear through the grapevine. The information that comes from place to place and the network or the information spreads, and I heard this happen, and then I heard this peep these people did this. And did you hear what happened at this church?

We love those things sometimes. The interesting information that we can share and be in the know. But yet, scripture warns us over and over about this. Proverbs 16 and verse 28, a dishonest man spreads strife and a whisperer separates close friend. Better be really careful if I don't know the whole story about what I believe, about the judgments that are made and the assumptions that are made and about spreading the info to somebody else when I might not actually know all of that.

Not too long ago, I had a preacher friend email me, asking me. He said, why? I just wanna know why Decor Prairie, took Church of Christ off their name. I thought that was interesting. So I snapped some pictures of our signage around the building and sent that to him and said, we didn't.

I was like, you know, there's it's not the only sacred name in the Bible, but we actually haven't changed our name. It's the name we still have up there. And he wrote back he was apologetic. I mean, we're good friends. He wasn't trying to create problems, but he had just believed what somebody else had told him.

The gossip that had spread from some people who were spreading that message around. It's just the information that flows and people begin to believe it and they don't question it. Be very careful. About what you believe. Scripture tells us over and over again.

Proverbs 18 talks about when you when the first person speaks, what they say sounds so good until it's checked by what the next person says. When we only listen to one side of the story, we're getting a very skewed story about what actually took place. Proverbs 17 and verse nine, whoever covers an offense seeks love, but he who repeats a matter separates close friends. Sometimes the most helpful thing that we can do is just let something die. I know.

That sounds strange with everything we've talked about so far this week. Right? We talked about facing conflict and dealing with the problems, and, yes, I'm not now changing what I say. We should do that. But when that's been done and forgiveness has been offered, repentance has happened, and people are seeking to restore the relationship, we don't need to keep talking about it.

We don't need to keep spreading it all around and creating more problems. Jonathan taught me I guess the young people talk about this, the deep lore. Right? Is that a term? I don't know.

A term the young people use. The deep lore of the church. That's like the backstory. When I went to a church one time, when I first got there, one of the members brought me back to the picture board. You know, we had this picture board directory and then proceeded to tell me all the things that happened to all the people in the church.

That's what I'm talking about. Then every church kinda has that deep lore behind it, like, you know, who is upset with who, and maybe it's better now, but, like, this is still a situation that existed from a long time ago. And these families, they sometimes don't get along. This is what I mean. This is the deep lore.

You know why that exists? Because people keep talking about it. If we want to rebuild trust, sometimes the best thing to do is just let things die. To realize, I don't need to keep bringing that back up. And the real sad part of that is, sometimes these people have done the work.

They're trying to work this out, and the meddler comes along and begins gossiping and telling people and reopens the wounds. How terrible is that? The person in the wrong and the person who's been wrong, they've done the work and they're working through it, and yet people can't keep their mouths closed. And the part problem continues and the wounds are reopened and the emotions begin to flow again. Let conflict die.

And then maybe similar to that is just valuing the peace that we have. Not constantly feeling the need to stoke the flame, to put wood in the fire, to keep something burning. Right? It sort of connects to the last point about letting something die. Right?

Let the fire die down. But there's people who they just wanna throw the wood in the fire. They wanna keep things burning. For lack of wood, the fire goes out, the wise man says, and where there is no whisperer, when people stop gossiping and slandering, quarreling ceases. Imagine that.

As charcoal to hot embers and wood to fire, so is a contentious man to kindle strife. Proverbs 26. Meddlers don't value peace. They don't cherish the unity that is created by Christ and the bond of peace that we have. They're interested in their own things and their own gain, and so they stoke the fire and they stoke the flames for whatever reason.

Don't be like that. Cherish the peace that we can have in Jesus Christ. Then this is just really about what I value. What is it that I value? Do I value unity more than knowing every detail?

Do I value unity more than knowing enough to choose which side I'm gonna be on and whatever conflict happens? Do I do I value unity more than becoming the unofficial historian of someone else's conflict? You know, the one who can go tell everybody what happened. We need to be careful with what we believe and with what we say. What I want us to see in all of this is that everyone has a role.

We've talked about the offended person and what has to happen with them and forgiveness and the one who did wrong, demonstrating true and genuine change, but also with the people around the conflict, protecting the process of healing so that trust has the ability to be rebuilt. We don't need to keep talking about that. Let's let those people move on. Let's allow them to be transformed in Christ and to build this beautiful relationship that they should have because they are one through the blood of Jesus. Maybe tonight you don't have that.

If you're not in Christ, if you haven't given your life to him, then you are at odds with God. And that's not his doing. He hasn't stepped away from you. Just like all of us at some point through our sin, you stepped away from him, and he wants to restore that. He sent his son to make that happen.

And you could admit that the reality that Jesus Christ is the son of God, and he came and he died for the sins of all humanity. And if you wanna give yourself to him, you can die to self, and you do that through the water of baptism. You give up who you are. You're buried. That old man dies, and you come up a new person transformed, ready to walk in newness of life.

Can we help you do that tonight? Why don't you come now as we stand and we sing?