Second Kings chapter five. You're okay. Second Kings five. See, the book I'm using the hymnbook I'm using is this one. In the hymn book you're using, well, is that one.

And so sometimes, they get confused. But there's hymns in this one that are not in that one, and I put them up there. So that's why I use that one. Alright. Now that we have straight why I messed up, let's go to second Kings chapter five.

Second Kings chapter five, but I'm going to start by reading the verse on the screen, okay? Mark two seventeen. When Jesus heard it, he saith unto them, they that are whole have no need of a physician, but they that are sick. I came not to call the righteous but sinners to repentance. Let me read that again.

When Jesus heard it, he saith unto them, they that are whole have no need of a physician. In other words, those who aren't sick don't need a what? A doctor. But they that are sick do. I came not to call the righteous but sinners to repentance.

In this statement and with the metaphor, the those that are whole are those that are righteous. Those that are sick are those that are sinners. Okay? The problem isn't so much that those to whom Jesus was was speaking were not sinners. It was that they didn't recognize that they were sinners in need of a savior.

And so is the case with so many in the world. They need a savior, but they don't see and they don't recognize that they need a savior because only those that are sick call for the doctor. Those that think they're well, they don't. And such was the case with the Pharisees and so many also today. This brings us to second Kings chapter five and the story of Naaman.

It tells us a little bit about him here in the first few verses. Now Naaman, captain of the host of the king of Syria, was a great man with his master, which would be the king of Syria, and honorable because by him the Lord had given deliverance unto Syria. He was also a mighty man in valor, but he was a what? Leper. But he was a leper.

So we learn a few things about Naaman here to begin with. We learn his position, who he was, the captain of the host of Syria. He was a a great general of the army of Syria. Syria that was doing quite well for itself at the time. And as the writer of second Kings notes, even though they may not have recognized it nor given God the glory, indeed, all the glory goes to who?

All the glory goes to God. It was the Lord who had given them victory even though they did not recognize it nor Naaman but he sort of will by the end of our story this evening. So the captain of the host, the general of the army, captain of the army, a man of fame, the honorable, a man of power, obviously, leading either the entire army or a great portion of it, probably a man of great wealth, I would expect that also to be the case, and a man of great physical prowess, a great soldier, a great warrior, he was also a mighty man of valor. He was brave. He was mighty.

He he could take down the enemies. He was good with a sword, afraid of nothing. But one little thing, a man of riches in need of nothing, but maybe he was in need of something. A man of power, but his power couldn't arrest him, couldn't deliver him from this one little problem that takes up the last four words of the verse, and that he was a leper. All of these things all of these things are basically wiped out by those last four words.

Because being a leper, his power, his fame, his riches, his courage, his physical prowess were of little value. He had a problem. He was a leper. What do we know about leprosy? Well, a few things.

First, it was an incurable disease or at least it was in his day and and still in Jesus' day. Today, a form of it is called Hansen's disease and it can be cured by use of antibiotics. But when did they discover antibiotics? Penicillin, around the time of World War two, I think. My uncle I had an uncle that they were experimenting with penicillin and they pumped him full of it and it cured him of whatever was causing his a 105 fever, but his brain was never quite the same.

But yeah. So no antibiotics back in in Naaman's day. No cure for leprosy. For thousands of years, leprosy was incurable by human means. It was a death sentence.

Not only was it a death sentence, but it was a prolonged, excruciating, humiliating death sentence. A communicable disease, leprosy is contagious disease, therefore, those found to have it were ostracized from the rest of society, particularly in Israel. Not all countries treated it exactly the same way as Israel did. In scripture, leprosy is called an unclean disease. People who have it are unclean and sometimes represents to some degree sin, and we will go there here in a few minutes.

But it is a communicable disease, and so those who had it were often quarantined, so they didn't give it to other people. It was an insidious disease. It has an incubation period of up to twenty years. So one may be infected for years before becoming symptomatic. So and you can also pass it on to somebody else before you realize you have it.

But it can be brewing out of human eyes for years before it actually comes out on the skin and one realizes that they have leprosy, and then it's what? And then it's too late. It is a humiliating disease. Leprosy spreads throughout the body. Pale bumps and sores begin to show on the skin, particularly on the extremities causing severe nerve damage and eventually disfigurement.

In Jesus' day, once again, lepers would have to cry out when they came into town unclean, unclean, unclean, bringing humiliation upon themselves as lepers even though they had done nothing wrong to get it in Jesus' day and before all the way back in the book of Job. The Jews, Hebrews in particular, had this simple formula in your in their head that is not found directly in scripture, and that was this. Bad things happen to bad people, and good things happen to good people. So if you had leprosy, that meant that you were suffering because of something you had done. And so they generally did blame the people who had it, regarded them as having done something wrong that God cursed them with leprosy, which was not always the case.

As Job found out, as Job's friends found out, though he tried to tell them over and over again, I don't think I've done anything wrong. And and yet, they continued to try to dig up some terrible sin he had committed because certainly, if God was so punishing him, he must have done something terrible of which he needed to repent. So it was all of these things, incurable, communicable, insidious, and humility humiliating. The symptomatic individual was therefore easily identifiable and avoidable avoided. And Israel and his other side, these lepers were called unclean and shunned, adding insult to injury.

And at this point, it didn't matter so much who the person was. They could have been great great politician, a great athlete, but if they had leprosy, now they were they were just they were just a leper, and that's what they were known as. More than one place in scripture, it says a leper came to Christ. It doesn't say who the leper was because in their society, he or she was just a what? They were just a leper.

Mhmm. The end result is death, though it can take decades to kill you. You may say, thank God I'm not a leper, but people are infected by an ailment today, which is far worse than leprosy, and that is sin. Romans three twenty three, for all have what? Sinned and come short of the glory of God.

For the wages of sin is death. The gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord. Praise the Lord. Isaiah sixty four six, all our righteousness are as an on filthy, unclean rag. And apart from Christ, without Christ, that's that's what we are and what we will be.

You may not be a leper, but to be a sinner is actually is worse. The effects of leprosy are temporal. The effects of sin can be eternal. We were born with it. We succumb to its desires, powerless to change our condition.

We cannot beat it or get rid of it or be cured of it by human means. Wouldn't it be nice well, I don't really think so because I think Jesus is better, but just go with me for a moment. Wouldn't it be nice if there was a pill you could take and you would sin no more? Wouldn't that be nice? There is no surgery to remove it.

You know, it's it's not like a tumor that you can just take out and I'm free from sin. There is no treatment. There is no therapy. There is no diet. There's nothing human means to cure it.

You will face the consequences of it, and there is no escape apart from Jesus Christ. It doesn't matter how much money you have, doesn't matter how famous you are, doesn't matter how powerful you are, doesn't mean how strong you are, doesn't matter how many battles you've won. In the end, there's only one battle that really matters. That's the battle with sin and without Christ, the battle is lost. But with Christ, the battle is won.

Romans six twenty three, again, I quoted a moment ago, for the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ, our Lord. This man finally, eventually became came to realize that he had this terrible disease, and he needed to do something about it. When people are at the end of their rope, they will consider things that they had not before. And oftentimes, God uses desperate times to open people's eyes to the truth and get and gets them to see their need and consider his help because that that is what that is what we need. As we continue on in verse two, The Syrians had gone out by companies, brought away captive out of the land of Israel, little maid, and she waited on Naaman's wife.

She said unto her mistress, would God, my Lord, were with the prophet that is in Samaria, we would have he would recover of his leprosy. And one went in and told his Lord saying, thus and thus said the maid that is of the land of Israel. And the king of Syria said okay. In verse thus and thus he said to the okay. In the verse five.

And the king of of Syria said, go to now, and I will send a letter under the king of Israel. So Naaman heard from the maid. Naaman went to the king. The king said, okay. Go.

I will send a letter under the king of Israel. And he departed and took with him 10 talents of silver and 6,000 pieces of gold and 10 changes of raiment. What does he not yet understand? That money cannot fix his what? Can't can't fix his problem.

And when it comes to sin, money certainly cannot fix cannot fix our problem at all. So so next we see after Naaman's predicament, his problem, his leprosy, we see we see his hope. Life had played a cruel joke on Naaman, and despite all of his success and effort, he was reduced to a condemned and humiliated life by his leprosy. Sin has the same effect on us also. No matter what we accomplish in life, death will overtake you, sin will win, and you can do nothing to stop it apart from God's grace and mercy.

You are indeed without hope, without without Jesus. But like Naaman, there is hope. There is hope in God. How did he find it? How did he find that hope?

Who did he find it from? Who did he hear it from? The little girl. A little slave girl captured in battle. She told his wife, who told Naaman, who told the king, who sent him with a letter and a bunch of money to the king of Israel.

He found hope and he found it in a in a slave girl. When a cure is found and you're sick, you don't care who told you or where it came from. You're just glad that somebody that somebody called you. All of a sudden, where there was no hope, now there was hope. When you hear the truth about sin and the solution God has provided, the position of the messenger won't matter as long as you have the truth.

It doesn't matter to the one dying whether you are rich or poor or young or old. People need hope. People need to hear about the cure. People need to hear about Jesus Christ. And if a little slave girl can pass along a message of hope to Naaman, why can't we pass along a message of hope?

If she can pass along that message of hope to her master who has stripped her away from her family and made her a slave in his house, don't you think we can care enough or should care enough to tell our neighbor, our coworker, our enemy for that matter? Because that's what he was. And yet she opened her mouth. She showed love and concern for someone, even her enemy. Who else did that, by the way?

That would be Jesus Christ. He died for us when we were yet what? He died for us when we were yet sinners. He died for his enemies that he might save us, redeem us, that we might become his friends and his children. He found out from a little slave girl.

How did he respond? Well, he left Syria for Israel. He left with the letter of the king, and in verse six, he brought the letter to the king of Israel. He didn't hang around. He was dying.

There was now hope. So, he realized, okay, I'm I'm in trouble. I can't fix it but hey, now there's hope. So, he immediately left to head to Israel. Who did he go to?

Well, where would you go if the little girl didn't seem to know who to go to specifically or she didn't tell him? So he thought, well, the place to go is to the top. So if anybody can help me, it's gonna be the what? The king. The king will certainly know.

It must be the king. It must be the people with power and money and prestige and fame. And I'm gonna take a money and they're gonna bring me a cure. Was he right? Was it the king?

No. No. It wasn't the king. Verse six, and he brought the letter to the king of Israel saying, now, when this letter is coming to thee, behold, I have therewith sent Naaman, my servant to thee that thou mayest recover him of his leprosy. And it came to pass when the king of Israel had read the letter that he rent his clothes and said, am I God to kill and to make alive that this man does send unto me to recover a man of his leprosy?

Wherefore consider, I pray you, and see how he seeketh a quarrel against me. So the king, who by the way, was a man named Jehoram who was the son of king Ahab. Now, anybody know anything about king Ahab? Good king, bad king, bad king. Godly king or wicked king?

Wicked king. He was married to Jezebel and they turned the land to Baal worship. He was the epitome of a bad, wicked king. This is his son, Jehoram. He is not much better than his father.

He got rid of Baal worship, but he didn't get rid of calf worship set up by Jeroboam years prior. He continued the idolatry idolatrous worship and did not bow his knee to the true and living God. And so this is the king to whom this guy came and said, okay, I have a letter from the king of Syria and this letter says, you can heal me of my leprosy. And the king thought, what is he doing? Trying to pick a fight with me?

Because he sends me as general. I won't be able to help him. He'll go back and then he'll make war with me because I could have healed him and I didn't. And the king says, who do you think I am? Am I God that I can do this?

No. You are just picking. You are just picking a fight. You know, the the president can't heal you, can't heal people of sin, nor any king except one, the king of kings and the Lord of lords, Jesus Christ. The one who came not the first time with the clouds of heaven on a white charger, not with a crown upon his head, but in a little manger in Bethlehem.

The one who grew a up a carpenter's son, the one who owned no permanent dwelling upon upon this earth, the one who gave of his time and energy for the good of others and then died on the cross to pay the price for their sins. He humbled himself and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross. It is to him that we look who washed the feet of his disciples, who shed his blood for humanity's sake, a humble savior who is indeed the greatest of all. The king could not help him. But word somehow got to a a farmer turned prophet, and that farmer's name was Elisha.

He had become Elijah's protege and apprentice the last few years of his life and ministry. And now after Elijah had been taken up into heaven, the mantle had come to Elisha, and he had continued as a prophet in the Northern Kingdom of Israel. And so in verse eight, it was so when Elisha, the man of God, had heard the king of Israel had rent his clothes and that he had sent the king saying, wherefore hast thou rent thy clothes? Let him come now to me and he shall know that there is a prophet in Israel. So Naaman came with his horses and with his chariots, and he stood at the door of the house of Elisha.

Again, the death sentence hanging over his head, Naaman was willing to consider the God of Israel to be the one who would who would help him. He was he was desperate. He was desperate indeed. He had come to recognize his plight, and now he had come to the right place though he didn't yet quite understand it. Sometimes, it takes a while for sinners to find the truth, to being willing to accept the truth.

We need to be patient. We need to be willing to continue to tell them and pray the Lord will open their eyes because it isn't till God opens our eyes to our need that we're going to come to him. Because, again, those that are well don't need a what? A physician, but those that are what? But those that are sick.

In Ephesians chapter two, we read a little bit about that. Ephesians chapter two. And you hath he quickened who were dead in trespasses and sins. Wherein time past, he walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince and power of the air, the spirit that now worketh in the children of disobedience, among whom also we had all our conversation in times past in the lusts of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind, were by nature the children of wrath even as others. That sounds pretty pretty bad, doesn't it?

Pretty desperate. That is how God defines humanity apart from who? The saving power of Jesus Christ. But a very important word begins the next verse, and that's but. But God intervenes.

But God who is rich in mercy, for his great love with where he loved us, even when we were dead in sins, hath quickened us together with Christ. By grace are you saved. Look down in verse eight. For by grace are you saved through faith, that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God, not of works, lest any man lest any man should boast. So Naaman is in a predicament.

Naaman hears there is hope, and that hope, though he doesn't quite understand it yet, is in the God of Israel and the prophet, his prophet, God's prophet, Elisha. He comes thinking that he can buy his cure. Let's see what happens. Verse 10. Elisha sent a messenger unto him saying, go and wash in the Jordan seven times and thy flesh shall come again to thee and thou shalt be clean.

Okay. Simple. Alright? You wanna be cured? Just go to the Jordan River, dip in it seven times, and you will be cured of your leprosy.

Now, did he ask for any money? No. No. Did he did he ask for Naaman's credentials? No.

Did he ask him to do some great feat? No. He said, just go dip in the Jordan River seven times and you'll be clean. That's all he had to do. You would think Naaman would go say, okay.

Alright. I'll go dip in the river seven times. We'll see. I'll be clean. But is that how Naaman responded?

No. But Naaman was it says in the King James wrath. You you often use the word wrath, but you get the idea. He was in he was seething with anger. Okay?

He was angry. Well, why was he angry? He he was wroth and went away in his way and said, behold, I thought he will surely come out to me and stand and call on the name of the Lord his God and strike his hand over the place and recover the leper. By the way, does that sound Philip? Have you watched some of these people on TV?

What do they do? They come up. They walk up to somebody. They recite something, and they hit them in the head, and they fall down, and they wiggle, and then they get up and they're cured. That's exactly what Naaman was looking for the prophet to do.

He was looking for some big show. He was looking for some big ask of riches. He was looking for some great feat that he had to do and all he got was go dunk in a river seven times and you'll be healed. I mean, the prophet wouldn't even what? The one prophet wouldn't even come out to him.

So he was upset. You know, sinners are proud. And before you get upset with everybody else, we still have a tendency to that ourselves. The pride that almost kept Naaman from being healed of leprosy is the same pride that keeps many people out of heaven is the same pride that sometimes keeps Christians from opening their mouths like this little slave girl and telling somebody that there is hope and there is a solution and there is a savior and you don't have to be bound in sin the rest of your life. But pride is a terrible thing that trips us up.

It keeps some people out of heaven, and it keeps some Christians from stepping out in faith, speaking the name of the Lord, giving others the gospel pride. Naaman's pride. Well, he wouldn't do it. He said, I'm not going to do it. I'm not going to do it.

No man could save his life. No man could take credit for it. It was the message that was paramount and its reception by faith that would make the difference. It wasn't about the man. It was about the word of God.

What did Jesus say? You shall know the truth and the truth shall what? Set you free. You know, Elisha could have come out and he could have done that big show, but then he he wouldn't have sent the right message that God wanted him to send. Naaman needed to be humbled, and Naaman needed to know that it wasn't a man that cured him.

It was God who did. And so Elisha didn't even come to the door. He just sent the message. Just dip in the water. Just dip in the water.

The the the nasty river of Jordan. I've stood on the banks of Jordan. I have I've stood there. And I can imagine why Naaman thought that was a bit odd. When I was standing beside the banks of the Jordan, it was terribly muddy.

And guess what? From what I'm told, it is always terribly muddy. The Jordan River is never nice and crisp and clear and clean. It's always full of mud, that it's slowly washing down to the Dead Sea. And basically, at such great concentration that no life lives in the Dead Sea.

That's why it's called the Dead Sea. If you stick your hand in it, you feel like you've stuck your hand in a bottle of oil. And you're like, how do gotta get that off my hand? Is this just so so oily? That's what he was told to do.

Just go dunk in the river and you'll be clean in the dirty river. Water cleaner otherwise could not save Naaman's life. It wasn't the river water of the River Jordan. It was faith and humility. He needed to humble himself and he need to put his faith in the word of God.

The nasty water of the Jordan River symbolized the nasty condition that wracked his body, leprosy. But it also represents the filthiness of our soul without Jesus Christ, which with with which we need to be cleansed. We talk about what can wash away my sin? Nothing but the what? The blood of Jesus.

But think about it for a moment. Blood isn't something you really want to be washed in. But you see, it represents our sin. Our sin is filthy and our sin cost Jesus his blood on that cross. And he bore that shame there as he hung and as his blood dripped to the ground from the cross as he paid the price for our sins that we might be cleansed from that which dish was destroying us.

He took on the cross. And you can only come to Christ in repentance and faith. We must humble ourselves to receive his word. Verily, verily, I say unto you, he that heareth my word and believeth on him that sent me hath everlasting life and shall not come into condemnation, but is passed from death unto life. Naaman at first didn't want to do it.

But next, we see Naaman's cure. Naaman's cure. His pride almost pushed him away, but he was cured. Look, if you would, in verse 13. And his servants came near and spake unto him and said, my father, if the prophet had bid thee do some great thing, wouldest thou not have done it?

How much rather when he saith to thee, wash and be clean? Then went he down and dipped himself seven times in Jordan according to the saying of the man of God, and his flesh came again under the flesh of a little child, and he was clean. Finally, at the bidding of his servant who pleaded with him, he said, okay. I'll do it. I'll do it.

And he did it. And what happened? That he was cured. The minute he dipped that seventh time and came up, he was no longer a leper. A true friend will, at the risk of being hated or scorned, plead with the ill to take the cure, so also the friend of the sinner to repent and place their faith in Christ to save them from their sins.

Your coworker, your friend, your neighbor, your relative may not like they may not want to hear what you have to say. It's worth taking the risk to tell them anyway in love because whether they know it or not, they're sick and they need the cure. They need Jesus. They need to humble themselves and put their faith in the living word who is Jesus Christ. And he can heal them, save them, deliver them, forgive them.

Praise the Lord. He had a servant who told him what he needed to hear rather than telling what he wanted to hear. And we need to be that servant, and we need to be that friend because our neighbor may not want to hear, but they need to hear. Our relative may not want to hear, but they need to hear. Our coworker may not want to hear, but they need to hear.

And so often, we and everybody else in their life will just go ahead and shake our head and go along because we don't wanna rock the what? We don't wanna rock the boat. We don't want them to to think badly of us. We don't want to mess up the relationship. And so we tell them what they want to hear.

Not just with sinners who need a savior, but sometimes with Christian friends who need to hear that, yeah, that decision probably isn't the right one. Maybe you ought to consider this, but we tend to keep our mouth shut out of the fear of man when we would be a much bigger help if we would tell them. Tell them the what? The truth. The truth.

Because that's what they need to hear. Praise the Lord for a little servant girl who told Naaman's wife the truth. Praise the Lord for a prophet who was willing to share with the enemy because, hey, he was the captain of the host of the enemy, the cure, and told him the truth. Praise the Lord for a friend who was willing to say, hey, wait a second. You know, I know he insulted your your pride here, but get over it.

You know, just go dip in the water, you know. Well, he did. He showed just a little bit of faith, and he did, and he was cured when he followed God's instructions, when he put his faith in God, not in the muddy rivers of the Jordan River. And I can dunk you 70 times in this baptistry up here and it's not gonna save you, whether it's clean or muddy or whatever. Hebrews eleven six says, but without faith, it is what?

Impossible to please him. For he that cometh to God must believe that he is, and he is rewarder of them that diligently seek him. Not only was Naaman healed of his leprosy, but he changed his tomb toward the God of Israel. Something happened not only that day to Naaman's skin, something happened to his what? To his heart.

And that's what he needed most of all. Remember the man that was brought by four of his friends to Jesus and they couldn't get inside the house, so they tore through the roof and let him down? And when he was before Jesus, Jesus said, be healed. Get up and walk. Well, he did.

But first, he said something else. He said, you're what? Your sins be forgiven you. Because that was what the man really needed. And sinners really need a savior.

They need a change of heart that only God, only Jesus can bring. Only Jesus can make you a new person, can make us a new person. Only God can turn a sinner into a what? A saint. And by the way, every believer in Christ, every born again believer in Jesus is a saint.

You don't have to wait for some church to declare you a saint. You are a saint in Jesus Christ. You are a chosen one. You are set apart in Christ because you, in faith and humility, heard the cure. You came and you laid yourself in the arms of Jesus and said, I need you.

Please save my soul. And he did. Jesus said to the Pharisees that he spoke to in Mark two seventeen, he later said, unless you repent, you shall all, what? You shall all likewise perish. Unless you humble yourself the Pharisees were talking and others were talking about some other people.

This bad thing occurred happened to them. This bad thing happened to them. They must have been terrible sinners. And Jesus pointed them and said, unless you repent, it's going to happen to you. But worse, because you'll perish.

But praise the Lord, they're secure. There's an answer. For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son that whosoever believeth in him should not, what? Perish but have everlasting life. Naaman was cured that day.

Not only did was he cured of his leprosy, but he was cured altogether of his leprosy. And I believe that God began to change his heart. Why? Because, well, look in verse 15. And he returned to the man of God.

He and all his company and he came and stood before him and said, behold now, I know that there is no god on all in all the earth but in Israel. Now, therefore, I pray thee take a blessing of thy servant, but he said, as the Lord liveth, before whom I stand, I will receive none and he urged him to take it and he refused and Naaman said, shall there not then I pray thee be given to thy servant two mules burdened of the earth so thy servant will henceforth offer neither burnt offering nor sacrifice under other gods but under the Lord. And this thing the Lord pardon thy servant that when my master goeth forth to the house of Ramon to worship and he leaneth upon a hand, I bow myself to the house of Ramon. When I bow my when I bow down myself in the house of Ramon, the Lord pardon thy servant in this thing. And he said unto him, go in peace.

So he departed from him a little way. What was Naaman saying in verse 17? He was saying this. He was saying, I will there is only one God who deserves my sacrifice and my worship, and that is the God of who? That is the God that's the God of Israel.

That's the God of Israel. He had a change of heart. He had a change of heart. And that's what everyone needs is a change is a change of heart. You can cleanse the skin.

You can wash it. You can change your actions and your behavior, but only Christ can change the what? Only Christ can change the heart. When the sinner comes in repentance And by the way, Christian, you say, well, praise the Lord. I'm a saint.

I'm not a sinner. But is repentance just for the sinner? No. Sometimes saints need to repent too. The church at Ephesus was full of saints.

But saints who had left their first what? Love. And what did Jesus what did God say? He said, repent. Repent.

Repent and do the first works. Sometimes there's some confession that needs to go on in the life of Christians. We too must humble ourselves and recognize the areas that need to change and allow God to change them. Let's close in prayer. Dear heavenly father, thank you Lord that you heal this man out of love, by your power, and through your word.

Lord, we thank you that you have saved our souls through Jesus Christ. We pray Lord if there be one here tonight that is yet to come humbly to accept what only you can do for them. I pray they would as we give this hymn of invitation this evening. Lord, I pray for us who have already done that. Lord, I pray that you would point us to someone else who needs to hear the word.

That we would be desperate to introduce them to the one who can save their soul, Jesus Christ. That we would get out of the way, so to speak, and allow the word of God and the Holy Spirit to do the work. That we would be patient and loving. And Lord, as you show us things in our life that need to change, that we might be more like our savior, that we too would continue to have a heart of repentance toward our God. And Lord, to allow you to make those changes, to trust you to make those changes.

For you are always there for us and you will never lead us astray. In Jesus name, we pray. Amen.