Please remain standing and take a look at the text out of Proverbs 25. Proverbs 25, verses 1-27. These also are Proverbs of Solomon, which the men of Hezekiah king of Judah copied. It is the glory of God to conceal a matter, but the glory of kings to search out a matter. As the heavens for height and the earth for depth, so the heart of kings is unsearchable. Take away the dross from silver, and it will go to the silversmith for jewelry. Take away the wicked from before the king, and his throne will be established in righteousness. Do not exalt yourself in the presence of the king, and do not stand in the place of the great. For it is better that he say to you, come up here, and that you should be put lower in the presence of the prince, whom your eyes have seen. Do not go hastily to court, for what will you do in the end, when your neighbor has put you to shame? Debate your case with your neighbor, and do not disclose the secret to another. lest he who hears it expose your shame and your reputation be ruined. A word fitly spoken is like apples of gold in settings of silver. Like an earring of gold and an ornament of fine gold is a wise rebuker to an obedient ear. Like the cold of snow in time of harvest is a faithful messenger to those who send him. for he refreshes the soul of his masters. Whoever falsely boasts of giving is like clouds and wind without rain. By long forbearance, a ruler is persuaded, and a gentle tongue breaks a bone. Have you found honey? Eat only as much as you need, lest you be filled with it and vomit. Seldom set foot in your neighbor's house lest he become weary of you and hate you. A man who bears false witness against his neighbor is like a club, a sword, and a sharp arrow. Confidence in an unfaithful man in time of trouble is like a bad tooth and a foot out of joint. Like one who takes away a garment in cold weather, and like vinegar on soda, is one who sings songs to a heavy heart. If your enemy is hungry, give him bread to eat. And if he is thirsty, give him water to drink. For so you will reap coals of fire on his head, and the Lord will reward you. The north wind brings forth rain and a backbiting tongue and angry countenance. It is better to dwell in a corner of a housetop than in a house shared with a contentious woman. As cold water to a weary soul, so is good news from a far country. A righteous man who falters before the wicked is like a murky spring in a ruined well or polluted well. It is not good to eat much honey, so to seek one's own glory is not glory. You may be seated. All right, so we're in collection five now. This is the last long section. Collection six is a single chapter, the sayings of Agur, son of Jaka. And collection seven is the sayings of Lemuel, which is more famously known as Proverbs 31. And the Proverbs 31 woman takes up the last two thirds of that section. Collection five is thoroughly planted in the chunk of text for fathers and leaders. The chapter we're looking at today, chapter 25, except we're not looking at the last verse, the text here is focused on those who are in significant authority. It is a chunk of text that's focused on the conflict of the wicked and the righteous in the court. And by the court, it's not just meant the courthouse where a judge is, but the idea of being at court with a king. So there's judgment, there's conflict in terms of conflict resolution, and public judgment, but we're talking about being in the presence of a king. And so this is for those who are in authority, dealing with higher authorities, exercising authority. And so there's this engagement with that. So this is written for courtiers, for those who are in authority, interacting in the public sphere. Now, we get to the beginning of the section. and the first verse chapter 25 verse 1 says these also are proverbs of Solomon which the men of Hezekiah king of Judah copied so we're looking at a few hundred years separation from Solomon and Hezekiah Solomon is the author of these proverbs but Hezekiah's men have ordered them and organized them on. Hezekiah, as a prophet king, is exercising a Holy Spirit-inspired editorial work. He is adding to the book. And he is saying, these are Proverbs of Solomon. So he, by the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, is authenticating these as Proverbs of Solomon and ordering them to be placed where they are placed. Now, Hezekiah played a particularly important role in the compilation of the scriptures. Hezekiah was one who, there are old manuscripts of the Psalms, for example, that have a royal marker from Hezekiah's court on them. He was a compiler of some of the Psalms. He is responsible for some of the work of organizing some of the later books of the Psalms. He was a reformer of the church, and he is known for having brought about reformation in doctrine, worship, and practice in the government of the church and the state. His work of reform is remarkable. and things are said of him that are of such high honor when you read about him in the second book of the Chronicles or in the second Kings. And so when you read about Hezekiah, this great reformer and this prophet king, some of the liberal higher textual critics will look at Hezekiah and say, ah, he's a redactor of the scriptures. He's one who altered the scriptures. And they will actually read the Old Testament as principally a propaganda work of the house of Hezekiah, justifying the Davidic line and his own reign. Now, this is an absurd way of reading the scriptures. The prophets The prophets do not get explained away by trying to say that the scriptures are a Hezekiah conspiracy. You don't get to eliminate the fact that Daniel prophesies the entire successive order of empires in the world, and the leading up to the destruction of the temple, and the ending of the Roman institution, the Roman Empire, and the collapse of what happens with the Roman war in Judea, the end of the Greek empires, the four Greek empires, the destruction of Persia and the destruction of Babylon, the whole succession of things, the coming of Messiah and the timeline prophesied in the book of Daniel. None of that is explained away by trying to make Hezekiah into some leader of a conspiracy to make the Bible for his political ends. The many other prophecies, if you go through any of the major prophecies, the prophets, or you go through the minor prophets, you look through things, the construction of the scriptures as a whole, when you look at it, to try to make it into a conspiracy of Hezekiah is absurd. And Hezekiah wasn't trying to hide anything. He wasn't trying to pretend like he wasn't involved in the restoration of the scriptures, and that he wasn't involved as an editor to bring in things. He plainly claims Hezekiah's men are the ones who compiled these Proverbs of Solomon. If you're trying to hide such a thing, stating it plainly is not the best way to do it. In addition to that, Hezekiah was not the only one with copies of the Scriptures. The Scriptures had been copied and spread And there was already a political division between the Northern Kingdom and the Southern Kingdom. So he didn't even have unified political control to take all of the manuscripts or to try to control the publications of things. So he wasn't able to change old texts and make it so he could get away with it. There's not some grand political control that he had over the region to be able to control all the copies of the Old Testament. So, when we come to Hezekiah, what we need to do is we need to acknowledge that he was a Holy Spirit inspired prophet king who has a compiling role. On the other side, we need to be aware of the fact that that is sometimes twisted to try to put forward a grand plan of the scriptures being for a justification of the Davidic line to support Hezekiah's power as he's seeking to reunite Judah under his crown. Now, one thing I want to point out there is also this. There are a lot easier ways to unify a wayward people who have bucked God's authority over and over again than to seek reformation having a strict adherence to Yahwehism. If the people have already shown themselves to tend to be willing to go after other gods, if it is already the case that it is difficult to get these people to stop worshiping Baal and to stop worshiping Asherah, then Why not just go with the winds? Why not just go with the popular movement of things? Why kick against that and exclude possible sources of political support? Basically, every religion in the region, except for biblical Judaism, allowed for syncretism, the mixing of religions and alliances with people who are outside of that religion. Why would Hezekiah, to bolster his power, exclude all possible allies and make enemies of every religious group except for those that worship Yahweh? So the story is a silly story. It does not resolve the things that liberals would like it to resolve and does not explain away the scriptures. But here's the thing. We are faint of heart. And when we hear anyone put forward a brave lie, we are inclined to cower. And so we need to know the Bible well. And we need to know liberal lies so that we can defeat them. And so I wanted to bring that to your attention as Hezekiah is brought forward. Now this section, chapters 25-29, these are Proverbs of Solomon, and they are focused on those who are in leadership. Go to verse 2 on page 3. I want to give you an argument for why I think this is a chunk of text that fits well together, why I'm stopping a verse short from the end of the chapter. It's not just to be an annoying person. Why do you have to ruin the chapters? It's because verse 2 is the first part of the section. We have the superscript above. These are the Proverbs of Solomon that were put together by Hezekiah's men. Verse 2, it is the glory of God to conceal a matter, but the glory of kings is to search out a matter. Now I want you to go to the very last verse that I've got printed out, verse 27. It is not good to eat much honey, so to seek one's own glory is not glory. The structure begins and ends with the statements about glory. Glory of God, glory of the king, And then here's the false glory. So that sandwiches the section. It's these catch words here for weightiness or glory. So that's the structure. Now, the other thing that's interesting is you see this whole thing is structured in groups of sayings and admonitions. You remember before we talked about the indicative things versus the imperative things, the statements versus the commands. And so I've given to you with the very limited time I had between the services after the governance meeting, headings that say sayings, admonitions, sayings, admonitions. So that's going down there. So that's about what I could pull together for you. Now, that shows you that breakup. And you then have subject groupings that occur. And when you go to verse 28, there's a clear way in which it connects down. And we'll talk about that later. And so this is the structure that's here in these verses. And what we have here is the thematic of court hierarchy and the conflict between the righteous and the wicked. So let's look at it chunk by chunk now. Verses 2 through 5. It's the glory of God to conceal a matter, but the glory of kings is to search out a matter. As the heavens for height and the earth for depth, so the heart of kings is unsearchable. Take away the dross from silver, and it will go to the silversmith for jewelry. Take away the wicked from before the king, and his throne will be established in righteousness. So we begin here. with the consideration of the structure of hierarchy in terms of God is master of all and kings are his servants. Now God has made all things for his glory and yet at the same time even though the universe exists to display his glory It is a glory to God to conceal things. And so God conceals things. He places things in koate. He puts things in seed form. He makes them without form and void. And then there is a progress of giving form and replacing void with filling. there is a progress of forming and filling that occurs. And so what happens in the creation, when God made all things, he hid, he concealed the end. And history is this unveiling. It is this making more clear, more full, more plain, more evident the design of God. It is the glory of God to conceal a matter. But he's made kings. What did he make kings to do? The glory of kings is to search out a matter. You are all prophets, priests, and kings. Every man since Adam has been a vice regent of God. given dominion, authority to rule, responsibility to govern. It is the glory of kings to search out what God has hidden. God has given to us a book, and that book is not the easiest book on the planet to read. Have you noticed that it's easier to read every other book on the planet than the Bible? You pick up any book, and you can read 100 pages, one sitting, no problem. Eat while you're doing it. You pick up the Bible, I'm a half page in. I'm not lazy, I'm just tired. Why? There's something weighty about it. It's like picking up weights. Empty boxes was easy. This thing, this is hard. There is a weightiness to the scriptures. And as you engage in it, as you dig into it, to search out a matter, Truth is revealed there, but because you need to understand scripture to interpret scripture well, there's this beginning process where you feel like you're spinning your tires. You start to read one part of scripture, and you go, oh, this seems crazy. You read another part, and you realize it kind of helps you to understand that. It doesn't seem as crazy, but that part seems crazy. And you figure out there's something else, and it starts to round off the edges of your totally inept interpretation. there is this running around of the bible that it takes a while to search it out some people don't go very far they just give up neglect books if you spend a while there you begin to find riches and when you stated for a long time you find that the riches are unbelievable. And when you stay for a long time, a lifetime, you find that the riches there are unlike the riches anywhere else. They are so much better, so much more pure. The lines of ore go so much longer. It is the glory of God to conceal a matter, but the glory of kings is to search out a matter. One of the things that kings do when they go into a wilderness is they tame it, they order it, they put it into a place of provision to make it so that others can work there. You know, the work of logistics. And in the work of logistics, they make it easier for others to come along and to support. The work of the church in its maturing is to gather the materials of scripture and to systematize, to organize, to make it easier to be able to learn, to put together all the verses on the Trinity, all the verses on the First Commandment, all the verses on the Doctrine of Justification. You organize those together so you can view them more easily and see the common locations. Those places that should be searched out to understand a matter. And so we make it so others can go faster, farther, and leave it as a heritage. systematization of the doctrine of scripture. It's the glory of God to conceal a matter, but the glory of kings is to search out a matter. We are all prophets, priests, and kings, and it is our duty to search the scriptures to see if these things are so. It is our duty to seek to understand the deep things of God. It is our duty. It is our joy. It is our birthright as Christians to take greater and greater possession of the inheritance that is the knowledge of God. And so it is the glory of kings to search out a matter. That glory, that is what gives kings glory. It is to know what God has concealed. It is to learn the things that God has delivered to us. that by knowing God, by possessing the attributes of God's glory in our own minds and looking upon them, being transformed by degrees, we become more like God. Now on the other end, back at verse 27, the very end, it's not good to eat much honey. You can eat sweet things, but if all you eat is sweet things, it won't be good for you. It doesn't end well. You don't feel well for long. It's not good to eat much honey. So to seek one's own glory is not glory. If you seek after your own glory, rather than seeking after the glory of God, it won't really result in glory. There's a vanity to the pomp and circumstance of self-glory. There are emperors. There are kings of kings who have been forgotten. There's a great poem that talks about a man who's walking in a desert and he finds this plaque basically in the middle of the desert. And the plaque says, behold my works in despair. I'm king of kings, Ozymandas. And there's this broken statue with a face that looks pretty mean, like he believed what he was saying. But all that's left is a wilderness. A broken statue and a plaque that says to look upon his works and to despair. So much of human glory is that. This emptiness, this desolation. Something that lasts a generation, two, or if you're particularly skilled, maybe three, and then it collapses. The city of man does not last. The eternal cities of men don't last. But the city of God lasts. If you want your work to be established, if you chase after your own glory, it will fade, it will diminish, it will not last. But if you chase after the glory of God, He will not forget it, and He will not fail to reward it. He will cause it to be known. On the last great day, there will be nothing so public as the commendation of God to His servants. To chase glory for itself is a folly for man. God is infinite glory, and to glorify anything other than himself would be foolishness. It would be wickedness if God were to say, I'm going to glorify this other thing rather than myself, as higher than myself. He would be lying about the nature of reality. is the glory of God to conceal a matter, but the glory of kings to search out a matter. So we are called to search out mysteries, to look into the things that God has hidden. And what He has given to us is a book for kings. The book of the New Covenant is a book that lays bare things that were hidden, things that angels long to look into. We have a book for kings. A book that unveils mysteries and makes plain things that philosopher kings could not arrive at. And so, in the New Covenant, in the New Testament, in the 27 books that are given to us as the capstone of the Scriptures, we have a great and glorious book for kings. Now, verse 3, "...as the heavens for height and the earth for depth, so the heart of kings is unsearchable." You don't spend much time around a person with significant authority. One of the things that's difficult is that when you have a lot of authority, you can't talk about a lot of things that you have to think about. There's a lot of things you have to think about, and you're not able to just lay them out. A few reasons. One, you have information that you are responsible to be discreet with. And two, there is no time. No time. You don't have time to explain all of the key facts. You don't have time to do the bouncing back and forth and the arguing, going, no, no, no, well, here's some more. Oh, yeah, I get why you think that, but here's some additional context. Thank you for that, but OK, here's more. There's no time. And you begin to realize so often that when you're trying to get counsel, you're just going to control what counsel you get by who you pick and what information you reveal. And so there's a certain amount of despairing about laying bare your heart, that the more responsibility you have and the more you wish you could get counsel, the more you just can't. And so what you have to lean upon is the wise counsel of God in the scriptures. But as the heavens for height and the earth for depth, so the hearts of kings is unsearchable." So this is a book that's for courtiers, those who have to be around kings, those who are around people in significant authority, and perhaps have delegated authority from them. These people realize that kings are supposed to glorify God and find out mysteries, and at the same time, When working for kings, you find that you often cannot figure out the mystery of the heart of the king. Wives, I imagine, frequently feel like that. They have to interact with husbands and be under their authority, and to try to figure out how to help that king to glorify God, and yet long to be able to know more of the heart of their king. So you can't. You can't know the fullness of anybody else's thoughts. You don't have time for it. Thoughts grow faster than the conversation. It's the glory of God to conceal a matter. The glory of kings to search out a matter. So the question is, which things should we search out? What we need to search out is the knowledge of God. The knowledge of God is the principal thing. And that is grown. We grow in the knowledge of God. We grow in wisdom. by being careful to remove from ourselves falsehood and to remove from around us sources that cause us to act upon and believe in falsehood. And so how do you refine this pursuit of glory so that it's not a vain seeking after false glory? Verse 4, take away the dross from silver and it will go to the silversmith for jewelry. You remove the impurities from silver and then that silver can be a magnificent display of glory. The point of analogy, take away the wicked from before the king and his throne will be established in righteousness. Kings display the glory of God when they rule with justice. right judgments, searching out a matter. I don't know how much time you've read about Solomon in the scriptures, but if you haven't been doing it, you've been missing out. You read about Solomon, and he engages with people about problems, and he finds quick ways to solve mysteries. To women, One of them has a child that dies. One has a child that lives. These two women come before Solomon. One says, it's my child. The other one says, that's my child. Neither of them wants the dead child. They both want the living child. Solomon's trying to figure out, how do I determine which one is telling the truth here? One of them says, you know, I had a child. My child's living. Her child died, she stole my child. How do you figure out whose child it actually is? No DNA tests. It's about 1,000 BC. How do you figure it out? Solomon's response is to say, OK, cut the baby in two, and each have half. And one woman says, she shrieks and says, no, she can have the baby. The other one says, sounds fine to me. Solomon easily figured out who was the mother. Being able to tell the hearts of people, being able to ask questions, being able to put forward propositions and read reactions. There's a work of kings, and in the work of ruling with justice, there is an unveiling of wickedness and a displaying of justice in a way that glorifies God. These kings search out a matter so they can judge rightly, and it displays what God concealed. History is a story that displays the glory of God. So these sayings lead into a set of admonitions. We have these statements about the nature of reality. God's glory is to conceal a matter. The king's glory is to search things out. Kings are complex. Their hearts are unsearchable. You know, if you take away impurities, you have something that's more pure and more beautiful. And what's the impurity to worry about for kings? The unrighteous who counsel them wickedly and influence them wrongly. So these are statements about how reality works. And by the way, let me pause for just a second on five and think about an application here. The wicked can destroy so much good, so much beauty, they can ruin so much progress, slow things down, destroy things, undermine reputations and credibility, ruin whole projects. Carefully guarding the gates of households and churches, is a part of the process that's necessary for making it so that those institutions run well. It's also true of government. Removing the wicked from the places of power and removing their influence makes it so that there's stability, makes it so that the righteous are far more likely to come to the right conclusions. And so one of the things that you should seriously consider in life is what can you do to reduce the influence of the wicked in your domain. So if you're watching a bunch of smut, if you're listening to a bunch of foolishness, if you read idiocy, you are undermining the work of making it so that your domain does not have wicked counselors. If you spend your time with foolish companions, they will corrupt you. Take away the wicked from before the king, and his throne will be established in righteousness. Do you want your rule over your domain to be established in righteousness? So now, here are the admonitions. Do not exalt yourself in the presence of the king, and do not stand in the place of the great. For it is better that he say to you, Come up here! and that you should be put lower in the presence of the prince, whom your eyes have seen. Do not go hastily to court, for what will you do in the end when your neighbor has put you to shame? Debate your case with your neighbor, and do not disclose the secret to another, lest he who hears it expose your shame and your reputation be ruined. So we have verses six and seven. They go, that's sort of a saying collected together. Do not exalt yourself in the presence of the king and do not stand in the place of the great. This is sort of another way of saying, don't honor yourself. Let others honor you. But here's the thing. Sometimes we can kind of just choose preferences and not really think about whether or not we're kind of usurping honor. or that we're putting ourselves in a place where it's possible that we're going to be dishonored. And so what he's saying is, be mindful. Be mindful about what you're doing. And think about, is it really wise for you to take this preference in this setting? Don't exalt yourself in the presence of the king. Or when you're around somebody else who's of a higher rank, be careful to not take the preferential thing. Don't exalt yourself in the presence of the king. And do not stand in the place of the great. For it's better that he say to you, come up here." Have you ever been in a situation where you weren't really expecting some honor, and then some person who had the power to honor you, all of a sudden, they called you forward, or they gave you the thing, or they brought attention to you in some positive way, or said, oh, what are you doing over there? Come over here. person hosting the party or whatever. You ever been to the other place? They've had to say, oh, sorry, actually, so-and-so is going to be here. Do you mind? Can you just scoot down like 20 seats? The difference between those two is pretty dramatic. Being called up draws attention, gives you positive honor, being pushed down Not so much. It's better that he say to you, come up here, than that you should be put lower in the presence of the prince whom your eyes have seen. Notice the two things there. A lot of the times, princes will have somebody to deal with the unpleasant things. And the prince gets to do the fun things. You need to learn to do that more. But when you have the person who is in authority calling up and giving the honor, That's great. When they send somebody to you and say, yeah, we're going to need you to move, it's not the prince. The prince has sort of looked away. He's said, can you move that guy? I need to get this other person up here. Send somebody to go do it. There's this distancing that's occurred. And so the idea of having somebody else come to you and move you lower versus the king directly calling you up So those are the kinds of differences what can occur being distanced and being dishonored versus being honored and being drawn closer. One of the rules for diplomacy that Henry Kissinger would talk about We talk about how, you know, it's not really so much about how influential you are or your country is. It's not about so much what you have to offer in the negotiating. What matters is, can you get in the room? Kissinger had the option, he had this great office that he could take. He had a corner office in the White House where he could take this like broom closet next to the president's office. And he said, I'll take the broom closet. I need to be able to get in the room. It's just the rule of propinquity. Those in the room make the decisions. Those who are there, when the thing is being discussed, influence it. And so there's this thing here. One of the benefits of being called up is not just that you receive the honor, but you also receive closeness to the king where he's the one who's giving the honor. So not presuming to take honors has many benefits. If you outdo each other in honoring each other, It gives you honor. Verse eight, do not go hastily to court. For what will you do in the end when your neighbor has put you to shame? So this is an arresting question. I don't go quickly to court. You know, why is that? I got a good case. I'm going to win this thing. Now, what are you going to do when your neighbor puts you to shame? Well, what do you mean? I think I'm going to win. Yeah, okay. Think everything goes to plan? Is it possible there are things you haven't thought about in this situation? Sometimes it's worth the risk of battle. There's still battle. You can think you're going to win. Bigger guns, more people, better training. It's not the mighty of victory. We're always the better prepared. The Lord grants victory. He does it in the courtroom, too. And so if you're in a position where you're the ones in power, and you're engaging in power, and there's things to dispute over, you might think, let's go to battle quickly. Don't go hastily to court, or what will you do in the end when your neighbor has put you to shame? I've got a lawyer friend. He tells me all the time, a bad settlement is better than a good judgment. You settle things out, resolve things, save time, save effort. That's generally true, right? It's not always true. It's a generally true statement. Better to settle things than to fight out. It's a lot of expense in fighting. Sometimes you've got to fight. But the question is, don't do it hastily. Have you thought about what could happen if you lose? So you have to think about things seriously. Verse 9, debate your case with your neighbor and do not disclose the secret to another. You try to talk with the one that you're in conflict with. Try to present the information to them. If you escalate it, if you bring it to other people, if you take it to court and all of a sudden you've escalated the publicity of it, if you think there's still reasonable hope of resolving a matter through discussion and debate with the other party, consider holding up. lest he who hears it expose your shame and your reputation be ruined. What if the judge asks a discerning question about some point that you weren't ready for, or it's the weak point, and then it unveils for you your own weakness and makes that public? Because the courts are public. And in it being public, the decision is focused upon that information. You can tell the judge what you want to tell the judge, but you can't make the judge pay attention to what you want the judge to pay attention to. Do you have any times you can remember where you brought some conflict to somebody in authority, and you thought, here's the main thing. This is the thing that matters. And that person wouldn't focus on that. And you're like, no, no, no. But I want you to pay attention to this. And they focus on something else. That's the danger. And that goes back up to verse three. As the heavens for height and the earth for depth, so the heart of kings is unsearchable. You don't know what a judge, what a king, what an authority will latch onto. You don't know what they will focus on. You don't know what they will give the focus to. You don't know what's come across their desk in the last week or day or whatever. You don't know which things their attention has been drawn to, and therefore, how they might see the situation differently than you. So you be careful. Don't go hastily to court. Comments, questions, objections from voting members and those with speaking rights? All right. Mr. Price. So 27. is the one that sticks, it's the end of the section. So obviously we haven't even gotten there. But verse 27, it says, so to seek one's own glory is not glory. Those are catchwords you can often find in the structure of chiasms, for example. You'll have linguistic things at the beginning and the end that match up. And so the idea of vainly pursuing your own glory is talked about at the end. Whereas the top talks about God concealing his own glory, and at the same time, it being the duty of kings, the glory of kings to search out matters. And so you have sort of these bookends of glory are a part of it. There's more structural elements as well that I didn't have time to lay out in a way that would be easily digestible because of my limits today. But I'll probably will be going through this next week further and I'll be showing some of the more some more of the structural elements of the text All right, let's pray Father we ask that you would bless your word to our souls. We ask that you would nourish us and build us up in I pray that you would help us to be ready to oppose liberals that seek to criticize the scriptures, that you'd help us to have wisdom to be able to consider matters and to search things out. Father, we pray that you would help us not exalt ourselves, but instead to be humble and to be honored. Help us to not be litigious or quick to fight battles, but to rather seek to work peace between us and our neighbor, but also we ask for courage to not back down when we have a fight that needs to be fought. And so we pray for boldness and courage and decisiveness, and we pray for wisdom to know what battles to pick. We pray this in Christ's name. Amen.