Welcome to Unveiled Faces, a Redeemer Presbyterian Church podcast. Please enjoy our feature presentation. The tongue of the righteous is choice silver. The heart of the wicked is of little worth. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, Lord, we thank you for the wisdom that you have given to Solomon, that you have ordained, you have inspired his pen to present to us this verse before us this morning. Father, we pray that we may see Jesus in this verse. We pray that we may see ourselves, that we may know better how we ought to respond to the challenges of life, and to the righteous call that you have placed upon us. We pray this in the name of Jesus Christ, amen. Well, we've come to the second division of the book of Proverbs. And this is the largest of the five sections or the five divisions of this book. And it runs from chapter 10 through chapter 24. Almost, Every proverb contained in this second division is written in a form of a couplet, that being two sentences in one verse with each sentence building upon the other. And sometimes these sentences repeat the same statement, saying the same thing with just different words. For example, Proverbs 11.25, whoever brings blessing will be enriched and the one who waters will himself be watered. That's saying the same thing twice. But more often, the two sentences that are coupled together in a single proverb contrast each other, showing two polar opposite situations. Not always, but most often, these contrasting couplets contain the word but at the beginning of the second sentence. A wise son makes a glad father, but a foolish son is sorrow to his mother. Each of these proverbs is intended to stand alone, all by themselves. This is the design of a proverb. It's a short, terse, little truism that's easy to read, easy to remember, and easy to apply. And then when the proverb is spoken, The proverb can then cogently apply God's wisdom to so many different areas of life. And amongst other things, the proverbs should act as a correction to our own behaviors and attitudes. For example, when you start to think a little more highly of yourself than you ought to, it's helpful to remember the proverb that says, pride goes before destruction and a haughty spirit before the fall. Or when you're experiencing a lack of motivation to be industrious in life, recall the proverb that says, a slack hand causes poverty, but the hand of the diligent makes rich. And when you're tempted to be unfair with somebody, just remember the proverb that says, a false balance is an abomination to the Lord, but a just weight is his delight. When Christians think of the book of Proverbs, it's generally these short, terse little couplets that are thought of. We have more than 400 of these Proverbs just here in this second division. And this poses somewhat of a challenge to the man who's preaching through the book of Proverbs. Given the independent standalone nature of each individual proverb, going verse by verse through each chapter, taking each individual proverb in a systematic manner would require about eight years just to get through the second division. Well, I don't know about you, but I have other parts of the Bible I'd like to preach on during the next eight years. So I'm going to take a little different approach to this second division. Rather than going and dealing with each individual proverb in the order in which they are presented, I'm going to handle them according to the most common themes that run throughout the book. And last week I had a conversation I spent about 10 hours on an airplane, total of 10 hours. And that gave me quite an opportunity to read through the book of Proverbs and to begin to identify some of those common themes that are in this book. And so over the next few months, we're going to look at those themes and my sermons will be founded upon those themes. And you can expect to hear sermons based upon things like finances, marriage, friendships, discipline, Honor, loyalty, planning, anger, pride, gossip, quarreling, bribes, and greed. I'd say there's others that won't get in that list, but that's the initial list. Today we're gonna look at what Solomon has to say about your tongue. Your tongue or your mouth or your lips or the spoken word is probably the most commonly referenced topic in the second division of the book of Proverbs. And just in here in chapter 10, there are 32 verses in chapter 10, 12 of those verses have some reference to our speech. That's nearly 40% of the verses in this one chapter deal with speech, the tongue. And God obviously wants us to understand the impact that our words have. It's not a stretch to say that the words that come out of your mouth are the most powerful tool for influencing the world around you. They are your most powerful tool for influencing the world around you, either for good or for bad, one way or the other. Just think about some of the major events that have happened in the history of the world. How many revolutions and reformations have been achieved because of the words of a compelling orator? Think about how many soldiers have been motivated into battle by the stirring speech of a military commander. Or how many people have been convicted of crimes, even put to death based upon the verbal testimony of an eyewitness, one or more eyewitnesses. What does a good coach do when his team is being defeated? He gives them a pep talk, words. He speaks words to them. Yet when he does this in an effective manner, he lifts the spirits of the team and he stimulates them to desire to go back onto the field and to win. The Apostle James, the beginning of the third chapter of his epistle is describing how the tongue, even though it's physical size, it's quite small, how it has such enormous power. He uses the illustration of a large ship, which has a single small rudder, and that single small rudder then steers the ship in all kinds of different directions. Well, James's point there is that your tongue is like that rudder. The words that come off of your tongue have the power to change the direction of other people's lives, including your own. So having been equipped with such a powerful instrument of influence, you would hope, you would really hope that the people, particularly people around you, would be mindful of their obligation to govern their tongue in a responsible manner. And many people do. Many people are diligent in controlling their tongue and to use it to bless God and to bless others and to praise the work of Jesus Christ. But other people are not so careful. Many others use their tongue in a manner that hurts people. They split friendships. They damage other people's reputations. They spread gossip and lies. And they call good evil and evil good. This is why the Bible has so many very strong statements about the use of your tongue. Not only today, but over the course of our sermon series through Proverbs, we're going to consider the warnings and declarations about both the righteous and the wicked uses of the tongue. Proverbs 10.20 is our sermon text for today. And I chose this proverb to begin with because in this one verse, I should say this one verse reveals to us a foundational truth. that we need in order to understand everything else that the Bible says about the tongue. Proverbs 10.20 is one of those couplets that contrasts righteousness with wickedness. And the proverb reads, the tongue of the righteous is choice silver, the heart of the wicked is of little worth. And what's obvious in this proverb is the different values that are placed upon the tongue of the righteous and the tongue of the wicked. The tongue of the righteous, Solomon writes, is like choice silver. That is to say it's highly regarded. The tongue of the righteous is especially valuable, but not so for the wicked. The second sentence of this proverb says that the tongue of the wicked is of little worth. At least that's what we interpret the proverb to be saying. That's not what Solomon actually wrote. What Solomon actually wrote is that the heart of the wicked is of little worth. And the foundational truth that I want all of us to understand from our sermon text is that the tongue is directly connected to the heart. That's the truth that's being revealed here this morning. This proverb is structured in such a way as to identify that there is a pertinent connection between the tongue and the heart. By substituting the word heart for the word tongue in the second sentence, Solomon is highlighting this pertinent connection in order that we can better understand the function of the tongue and how to govern the tongue and what the first steps to governance are. Whenever we study Hebrew poetry, and that's what this is, the book of Proverbs, these Proverbs are Hebrew poetry. Whenever we study Hebrew poetry, we need to be aware of the literary techniques that we encounter in this particular genre of literature. You've heard me speak in the past about the literary technique of parallelism, and I've explained it, but I need to explain it again in case somebody didn't catch it in the past or they weren't here. It is so prominent in Hebrew literature that we have to become very familiar with what parallelism is. All these proverbs that take the form of two sentences coupled together are the simplest form of parallelism. Here in Proverbs 10.20, there are three components in each of these two sentences. In the first sentence, the components are tongue, righteous, and choice silver. In the second sentence, the components are heart, wicked, and little worth. And these three components, I should say that the components of the first sentence parallel the components of the second sentence. And so we see here that the righteous is paralleled with wicked, only it's done so in a form of a contrast. And then we see as well that the choice silver parallels that of little worth, only this takes the form of a contrast as well. But you cannot have a meaningful parallelism if all the components contrast each other. You have to have at least one set of components that are the same, that are similar. And that's where the component of the tongue comes in. The way you would expect the proverb to read is that the tongue of the righteous is choice silver, The tongue of the wicked is of little worth. That's what you would expect. That's what you're anticipating when you read the first sentence. You think the second sentence is gonna say. But when the Holy Spirit inspired Solomon to write this verse, he did something rather profound. He substituted the word heart for tongue in the second sentence. And then this therefore creates an unmistakable correlation between a person's heart and a person's tongue. It's not in contrast, it's the same. And this makes the proverb much more rich in its meaning because it's not only contrasting the tongue of the righteous person with the tongue of the wicked person, but this proverb is telling us that the heart of both the righteous and the wicked is what ultimately controls the tongue. The words that you speak, they bubble up from your heart. I saw a TV program about a blind man who had developed the ability to perceive the location of objects around him within his immediate environment by making clicking noises with his mouth. He made these clicking noises and the man's auditory senses were so finely tuned that he could hear these clicks echoing off the surfaces of the objects around him and he can therefore detect the location and size of these objects based upon his perception of those clicks. This is called echolocation and it's the same technique that bats use to navigate as they're flying around. Well, when it comes to man's ability to see another person's heart. All of us are blind. There's not a single one of us that has the ability to take our eyes and to look into another person's heart and to see what's inside his heart. But what Proverbs 10, 20 is telling us is that we can hear what's going on inside another person's heart. If we listen to the words that are coming off the tongue of that person, those words will reveal the condition of that person's heart. The critical tongue reveals a critical heart, where the loving tongue reveals a loving heart. A deceptive tongue reveals a deceptive heart, whereas a truthful tongue reveals a truthful heart. Now you might be saying to yourself, yeah, but people have the ability to lie. Wicked people often know the right words to say. They can pretend to be somebody that they're not. So how can I know if the words that I'm hearing a person speak are truly a reflection of what's going on inside that person's heart? Well, Solomon addresses this question in Proverbs 26, verses 24 through 26. Whoever hates disguises himself with his lips and harbors deceit in his heart. When he speaks graciously, believe him not, for there are seven abominations in his heart. Though his hatred is covered with deception, the wicked will be exposed in the assembly. And the King James Version translates that last line, the wicked shall be shown before the whole congregation. meaning God will expose the liars and the hypocrites and the deceivers amongst the people of God. He will expose them. How and when God actually exposes them will always be according to his plan and his timing. Sometimes God will expose them right away and oftentimes he will wait a while, but God will expose them. And he can expose them in some of the most remarkable ways. Consider the death of King Ahab. Ahab was the seventh king of Israel. In 1 Kings 22, he was engaged in a battle against the king of Syria, and the king of Syria wanted Ahab dead, and so he instructed a special unit of his soldiers to pursue Ahab and to kill him. Don't fight with the common soldiers, he said to this group of soldiers. Don't even fight with the captains of the Israelite army. Your mission is to seek out Ahab and kill him. Well, Ahab decided that the best thing for him to do would be to disguise himself as a common soldier. So he took off his royal robes, he took off his royal attire, and he put on the same armor that all the foot soldiers were wearing. And then he began to make his escape. He went into battle to try to make his escape. And Ahab's plan was working brilliantly. The Syrian soldiers just rushed right past him, never knowing that the man that they were looking for was actually behind them. They're going in the wrong direction. This is because he disguised himself. But even though the soldiers were fooled by Ahab's disguise, our all-seeing God was not fooled. And as the story develops in 1 Kings 22, God providentially placed it in a certain man's mind to draw his bow and to shoot an arrow randomly into the air. Really no purpose, he may have just been goofing off, so he thought. We're not even told who this man was, whether he was a Syrian soldier, an Israelite soldier. All that verse 34 says is that a certain man drew his bow at random, and then the arrow flew into the air, and when it came down, it struck Ahab precisely in that one little spot where his armor met up with his breastplate and he had this little point of vulnerability, the arrow pierced into his heart and killed him. By sunset, everybody knew what had happened to Ahab. His body laying out and everybody could see it. He was eventually buried in Samaria. This is just one example of the remarkable ways in which God can expose anybody's attempt to disguise their true identity. While there may be ways that people can deceive you or deceive me, they cannot deceive God. And the assurance we derive from Proverbs 26, 26, is that God will not permit the wicked and the deceptive man to remain hidden from us. That's the promise. Though a man's hatred be covered with deception, Solomon wrote, his wickedness will be exposed before the whole congregation. When God sees fit to expose those who harbor hatred in their heart, you will perceive it. because the very words that the person had so carefully crafted to function as a disguise, those words will now reveal the true hatred and deceit that's really inside that person's heart. David wrote about it in Psalm 55, 21. His speech was smooth as butter, yet war was in his heart. His words were softer than oil, yet they were drawn swords. And notice how Dave writes in the past tense. At the time the words were spoken to David, he perceived, he didn't know that war was in the heart of this wicked man. What David perceived were the words that were smooth as butter, he says. But within time, God exposed the deception of this wicked man. And in hindsight, David now looks back and he has a much better perspective on those words. And he realizes that even those words that initially were smooth as butter were filled with hatred and vengeance and warfare. They were as drawn swords, he says. He now has a much better understanding of what their relationship really was about. His speech was smooth as butter, yet war was in his heart. His words were softer than oil, yet they were drawn swords. And the metaphor that David is using here is that of warfare and drawn swords. It's not that much different than the metaphor his son Solomon used in Proverbs 12, 18. There is one whose rash words are like sword thrust. There is one whose rash words are like sword thrust. And what these type of statements communicate. is that we ought not to think it's strange or unusual when somebody's tongue is used as a sword to stab you in the back. It happened to David, it happened to Solomon, and it will happen to you. I'm gonna make the assumption that You have firsthand experience with the deception and betrayal that David and Solomon are describing. I know that in my own life, I was pierced by these swords of deception many times even before I reached adulthood. You probably were too. If you can recall your parents ever saying to you something like, this person is not a true friend because a true friend would never treat somebody that way, a friend that way. If your mom or your dad has ever said that to you, then you know what I'm talking about. You know what it's like to be pierced by the verbal swords that David and Solomon are writing about. Yet when you consider the words of a true friend in comparison with the words of the person who's pretending to be your friend, the deceiver, It does raise a legitimate question. Proverbs 27, six is a familiar proverb, probably one that you have memorized. Faithful are the wounds of a friend. Faithful are the wounds of a friend, profuse are the kisses of an enemy. And the word profuse merely means abundant, many. And so the second line of this proverb is really a reiteration of what we've already seen in other parts of scripture. Many are the kisses of an enemy. Those who hate you will pretend that they love you and they will shower all sorts of flattery upon you. But it's the first line of Proverbs 27.6 that raises the question, faithful are the wounds of a friend. This might cause a little confusion because the wicked and deceptive person is somebody that you thought was your friend up until the time that he began to stab you with his words. How do you differentiate then between the deceptive man and the true friend? Both are wounding you with their words. So how are you going to know if the wounds that you're experiencing are from those who are truly your friend or from those who are pretending to be your friend? Well, this is where we need to acknowledge the principle that we learned from our sermon text, the principle that connects the tongue with the heart. The words spoken to you will reveal the condition of the person's heart, the person speaking to you. That's the critical answer to this question. The words that are spoken will reveal what's going on inside that person's heart. And it's the condition of the person's heart that will determine whether they are a friend or a foe. The heart of the wicked man, who only pretends to be your friend, does not love you. Therefore, his words are going to reflect his heart, which means his words are going to reflect the lack of love. He doesn't care if you are emotionally injured by what he says. He doesn't care if your reputation is slandered in the community. In fact, these things are often his intent. The wicked man receives some type of perverse sense of satisfaction when he injures you in this manner. The wicked man pierces you with his verbal swords and then he thinks to himself, good, you deserved it. You had it coming to you. The true friend, however, may actually have to speak some difficult words to you, but his heart loves you. His tongue, therefore, is going to demonstrate that love, the love which resides in his heart. He's going to be gentle with you. He's going to be kind with you. He's going to be patient with you. The evidence of love or the lack of love within a person's heart, the person who's speaking difficult words to you will distinguish whether that person is a friend or whether that person is an imposter. The true friend will not only identify the issue of concern, but he will also provide a reasonable solution to the issue raised. That's what love does. It doesn't just point out what's wrong, it points out what's wrong and then provides a solution. Whereas the wicked man will simply be content to levy his criticism and leave it at that. The true friend will want to be involved in the solution. The solution that he proposes will have the effect of building and strengthening the relationship between the two of you. The wicked man will not be, he will not want to be involved in the solution if there even is a proposed solution. He will more than likely use his criticism to justify the reason why he can no longer have a relationship with you. The true friend is going to work through the process with your best interests in mind. The wicked man is gonna exit the process with his best interests in mind. Knowing that there is a direct connection between the tongue and the heart helps us to distinguish the difference between the faithfulness of a friend and the harsh criticisms of a wicked man. And as God exposed the deception of the wicked man, it's his tongue that will give you the needed insight into his heart so that you can know his true identity. It will be the verbal swords of betrayal and hatred that give him away. But the sad reality is, is that as we grow older in this world, the swords of betrayal tend to penetrate just a little deeper into our heart. They tend to hurt a little more each and every time. In fact, it's not uncommon for one sword thrust to aggravate the wounds of a previous sword thrust. A sword thrust, a wound that was still tender, that was still in the process of healing. And it doesn't take long before we realize that the people who hurt us the most, who stick the daggers in the furthest, are the people that you've been the closest with. It's the family member that you trusted. It's the friend that you confided your most intimate secrets to. It's the people you've invested your love and energy into. You received their deceptive words at face value. You trusted them. You accepted them as people of integrity. And as such, you let your defenses down. You let them get close to you. And then they hurt you. Think about how much pain and suffering the deception of Absalom caused for King David. More than likely, the very words that David penned in Psalm 55 about the deceptive man whose words were smooth as butter and soft as oil, more than likely he's writing about his son Absalom. This is the son of David who would wait at the city gate questioning the people who came to David for justice and judgment. And when Absalom heard the verdict said his father David had given, he would then begin to make all sorts of comments about how negligent and unjust David was in the affairs of his kingdom. Oh, that I were the judge of the land, Absalom would say, then every man with a dispute or a cause might come to me and I would give him justice. Once Absalom had deceptively stolen the hearts of the men of Israel, he then tried to steal his father's throne. And at this point, the deception of his heart was exposed. His words were no longer soft as butter and smooth as oil, but they were open warfare and drawn swords. Absalom's wickedness was exposed before the congregation. Brutus wasn't the first man to betray a king. Had Julius Caesar studied the Proverbs of Solomon and the life of King David, he might have been a little more, had a little better insight into the heart of his nephew, who quite literally stuck a sword into his heart. The point is, the people who are closest to us can inflict the largest burden of grief and sorrow upon us. Who can read through the account of Absalom's uprising and the subsequent death and not be moved by David's weeping and intense mourning over the loss of his son? Which of us cannot feel the pain of betrayal as David cried out in a loud voice, oh my son Absalom, oh Absalom, my son? When the people You have loved and trusted, are exposed to have been liars and deceivers the whole time. You can rest assured that the burden of grief and sorrow will come upon you. And the closer that person was to you, the greater the burden of sorrow will be. The more love and time and energy and attention that you have invested into that person, the greater the burden of grief will be. And when it happens, Our human nature is to erect walls of defense to prevent this from reoccurring. We say to ourselves, this was my fault for having allowed that person to get so close to me. I trusted him, I let my defenses down, I made myself vulnerable, and he took advantage of me. But that's not gonna happen again. I'm not gonna make that mistake again. From now on, I'm gonna keep people at a safe distance I'm not going to let anyone get close to me anymore. But what's wrong with this response? Well, let's go back to Psalm 55, because the answer is found right there. We read verse 21, which described David's coming to the realization that Absalom's soft and smooth words were really laden with hatred and warfare. But the next verse, verse 22, David provides us with the righteous response to these type of situations. Cast your burden on the Lord and he will sustain you. He will never permit the righteous to be moved. The person who erects walls of defense, committing himself to keeping everybody at a safe distance away from him, that person's really trying to sustain himself. The promise of Psalm 55, 22 is that the Lord will sustain you. He will never permit the righteous to be moved. And notice the language of that promise. David wrote, he, the Lord, will never permit the righteous to be moved. David is resting this promise upon his understanding that God is entirely sovereign over all the affairs of his creation. God is in complete control of what happens, or in this case, of what does not happen. Remember how the book of Job began with Satan appearing before God in order to request permission to inflict harm upon Job? Remember the gospel of Luke, how Jesus told Peter that Satan had requested to have Peter, to sift him like wheat was the request. What assurance did Jesus give to Peter when he said that, to let Peter know that he was not gonna be sifted like wheat? You remember? Luke 22, 32, Jesus said to Peter, but I have prayed for you that your faith may not fail. I have prayed for you, Jesus says to Peter. And the reason the righteous will not be moved is because Jesus is praying for us. This is the same, to say the same thing in different words, the reason the righteous will not be moved is because Jesus is our high priest. He is continually praying and making intercession for his people. An example of Jesus's intercessory prayer is given to us in John 17. Throughout this entire chapter, Jesus is praying to his father that all the elect will be sustained while they're in this world. While I was with him, I kept them in your name, Jesus prayed in verse 12. I have guarded them and not one of them has been lost. But now I'm coming to you, Jesus continues to pray. I do not ask that you take them out of the world, but that you keep them from the evil one. It's because of this intercessory work of Jesus that we can have the confidence of knowing that God will never permit you to be moved. Whatever trials come your way, you need to have the confidence of knowing that God saw fit to permit that trial. He does permit such things. He permits trials in order to produce steadfastness in your life and to make you perfect and complete. That is to say God uses trials to sanctify people. But he will not permit you to be moved. He will not permit you to be sifted like wheat. He will not permit you to be tempted beyond your ability. In John 10, 29, Jesus said, my Father is greater than all, and no one is able to match them, referring to believers, out of his hand. When you embrace these promises, trusting in the intercessory work of Jesus Christ as your high priest, then you are casting your burdens upon the Lord. That's when you can say that you have truly given this situation over to the Lord. We use that terminology all the time. I've given this over to the Lord, but have you really? What does it mean? How do you know you've done that? You know it when you're trusting in their inaccessory work of the Lord, which is based upon the fact that God is sovereign, and he permits the things that happen in life. And if it's happening to you, it's because he permitted it for you, and he said that I'm gonna use that to work all things together for your good. But he will not permit you to be sifted like wheat. He will not permit you to be moved. And that knowledge is what allows us to cast our burdens upon the Lord. You should never shrink back from investing your love into the people around you and to seek to develop close relationships with other Christians. You should never, ever put up those walls of defense. If you seriously love your neighbor as yourself, then putting up walls of defense will be counterproductive. You will be acting in opposition to the calling that God has placed upon your life. Yes, There are gonna be those who sneak in, they deceive you, they get close to you, they take advantage of your love, and then they stab you in the back. But those burdens can be turned over to the Lord, and he will sustain you through those times. Besides, if you purposefully refrain from building close relationships with others, then you miss out on what our sermon text describes as choice silver. You will not enjoy the blessings and benefits of having righteous friends. Righteous friends do not deceive you. Righteous friends do not lie to you. They do not thrust swords into your heart. Instead, they are a blessing to you. Their words, their heart, their companionship, their very presence in your life is as choice silver. In other words, these are valuable friends. These are people who bring joy and gladness into your life. These are people who are willing to go the extra mile with you. These are, and hear me very carefully, these are the people who will pray for you. These are people who will intercede on your behalf, petitioning the Lord to bless you and protect you and preserve you and sanctify you. And this intercessory prayer offered by your friends is an emulation, albeit an imperfect emulation of the intercessory work that Jesus is doing, the very thing I just described a few moments ago. The words of intercessory prayer that come from our Savior's tongue, is a reflection of the love that resides in our Savior's heart. And that love is the evidence that Jesus is a true friend to all he intercedes on behalf of. And this is the model that he leaves us to emulate with one another. John 15, 12, Jesus said to his disciples, this is my commandment. And whenever Jesus starts it with, this is my commandment, we really need to listen. This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. You see, he holds himself up as the object lesson, the one to emulate. He says, in the manner in which I loved you, you love one another. And there are limitations in the manner in which we can emulate the love and friendship of Jesus. We cannot function as a high priest in the order of Melchizedek like Jesus did. We cannot, I should say does, we cannot function or we cannot make atonement for the sins of another like Jesus did. But we can speak words of encouragement to one another like Jesus did. We can speak loving words of correction to one another, like Jesus did. We can remind each other of the promises of God, like Jesus did. And all these are faithful words that have the value of choice silver. That is because these words flow from a heart of love. Love for one another and love for Jesus Christ. And this is the only sustainable foundation upon which friendships can be maintained. Anything else will soon be exposed before the congregation as an imposter. But for those of us who possess the love of Christ in our hearts, there is no end to the friendship that we enjoy together. It is an eternal relationship that was established here on earth, but will continue for all eternity as we reside in heaven above. Amen. Praise be to God. Let's pray. Our dear Lord and Heavenly Father, Lord, we thank you for the gift of love, the love. that you, our triune God, have had for your people, and the love that we can then reflect to one another as we have been united together in Christ. Father, we pray that our hearts would be molded together all the more and more that we may be one, as Jesus prayed in John 17, that we may be one in unity, and one in mind, in one accord, that we would worship you, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, And Father, that we would never be deceptive with one another, that we would never be harsh and critical, but that we would be loving. And in the context of that love, that we would be able to encourage and lift up and intercede on behalf of one another. And Father, where necessary, that we can speak words of correction and love, and that with that correction, we would provide a biblical solution. that we would be involved in that solution, and that we would have the best interest of those to whom we seek to bring correction to. And so, Father, thank you for showing us this love, and for then equipping us to demonstrate this love by giving to us your spirit. We pray that we may glorify you all the days that we live, and that we may enjoy this eternal fellowship of friendship as we look forward to our time in heaven. This we pray in Jesus' name, amen. Bye! This has been a presentation of Redeemer Presbyterian Church. For more resources and information, please stop by our website at visitredeemer.org. All material herewithin, unless otherwise noted. Copyright Redeemer Presbyterian Church, Elk Grove, California. Music furnished by Nathan Clark George. Available at nathanclarkgeorge.com.