So last week, I was gone, and we had some special things going on. Two weeks ago, we began to introduce ourselves to this chapter, so we're going back into it. We'll be here in this chapter, the first part of this chapter, this week and next. And we're moving into this last phase of Jesus' earthly ministry in the Upper Room Discourse. I want to start in verse 1, and we're going to read to verse 20. It's kind of a lengthy portion. We won't be studying the entire portion today, but I think it's important we get the entire context in our mind. Let's just look at it together, and we'll look to the Lord in a word of prayer. Now, it was before the Feast of Passover when Jesus knew that his hour had come to depart out of this world to the Father. Having loved his own who were in the world, he loved them to the very end. And so, during supper, when the devil had already put it into the heart of Judas Iscariot, Simon's son, to betray him, once again he says, Jesus, he reiterates this thought, Jesus knowing that the Father had given all things into his hands, He knew that he had come from God. He knew he was going back to God. And knowing those things, he gets up from supper. He lays aside his outer garments. He takes a towel. He ties it around his waist. He pours water into a basin. And he begins to wash the disciples' feet and to wipe them with the towel that was wrapped around him. came to Simon Peter. Peter said to him, Lord, do you wash my feet? Jesus answered him, what I'm doing you don't understand now, but afterward you will understand this. Peter said to him, you shall never wash my feet. You can imagine Jesus looking at him in the eye. Peter, Jesus answered him, If I do not wash you, you have no share with me. Simon Peter said to him, then Lord, don't just wash my feet. Wash my hands and my head. Jesus said to him, the one who has taken a bath does not need to wash except for his feet. but he's already clean and you are clean the word you is not you Peter it's a plural it's like saying y'all talking to the whole group you all are clean but not every one of you for Jesus knew the one who was to betray him and that is why he said not all of you are clean That, again, is a reference in Scripture. Judas was never a believer. He had not been cleaned by the blood of Christ. When he had finished washing their feet, he puts on his outer garments again, and he resumes his place at the table. He said to them, do you understand what I've done to you? You call me teacher and Lord. And you're right for saying that, for that is who I am. If I then, your Lord and your teacher, have washed your feet, then you also ought to wash one another's feet. For I have given you an example that you should do just like I have done to you. Truly, truly, I say to you. A servant is not greater than his master, nor is a messenger greater than the one who sent him. If you know these things, that if could be better translated since. Since you know these things, you are blessed if you do them. Don't just be a hearer of the word, be a what? Doer of the word. You're not blessed because you hear the Word, you're blessed if you do the Word. We are blessed that we get to hear the Word, but we are not blessed if we hear the Word and disregard it. And so he says, you are happy, you are blessed if you do it. I am not speaking of all of you. I know whom I have chosen. But the Scripture will be fulfilled. He who ate bread with me has lifted his heel against me. I am telling you this now before it takes place, that when it does take place, you may believe that I am he. Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever receives the one I send, receives me. Whoever receives me, receives the one. who set me. Let's pray. Father, thank You for Your Word. Thank You for this story. I pray that as we enter into this situation, Lord Jesus, where You washed the feet of Your disciples, You would help us to understand the importance of this for Your church, for us as individuals, for us as a group. Many lessons here. You've left us an example. May we understand what that means. May we embrace it. Father, may we embrace your word that we might find blessedness here in this life, that we may hear your word and do your word. Give us that by your spirit. Holy Spirit, teach us today. Open my mouth. to speak your word, open our hearts to receive your word, that we may leave here changed people by your word. Pray in Jesus' name, amen. Now last week when we began, two weeks ago when we began to study this, we talked about some of the things in the first couple of verses here that set the context, the things that Jesus knew. Jesus knew Judas was going to betray Him. Already had betrayed Him, but was going to come and actually do the deed. Jesus knew He had come from God. Jesus knew He is about to go back to God. Jesus knew that everything the Father had, had been given to Him. And it is in that context that the Scripture says, having loved His own who were in the world, He loved them to the very end. And it is from that sentence that I get the title to my message, Finishing Well. You know, it's one thing to start out well, it's another thing to finish well. Some people don't start well and they finish well, right? As they go through life, they get it figured out. But some people come into the faith young, and the Lord finds them and they're born again. And then somewhere along the journey, they just make bonehead decision after bonehead decision. They don't finish well. Jesus finishes well. He is at this moment, this apex, this climax of his life and ministry, knowing he is about to die. And having loved his own who were in the world, he loves them to the very end, and he gets up from the table and he serves them. He is pouring his life into others at the end of his life. And what I want you to think with me is this, Jesus died the way he lived, for others. Jesus dies the way he lived, for others. And I put a phrase there, to the glory of God. And I think that is a very important statement to make. There are some people in this world that live for others, and they live for others for themselves. Right? That is the motive of the world. There are many people who are servants of others, public servants, good public servants, who nevertheless are doing that public service maybe for themselves. And I don't mean that in a bad way, like they're thinking of it like I'm doing this selfishly. No, but they're doing it out of a sense of obligation and they're doing it out of a sense of, you know, desire to help other people. But in the end, it's kind of like this thing. I'm doing it for other people so that I feel better about myself. That's not why Jesus served others. Jesus did not serve others to make himself look good. Jesus did not serve himself to make himself feel better. Jesus served others for the glory of God. To bring glory to the Lord and He dies the way He lived. You can put your whole life into the service of other people and die and rot in hell. It is not enough to live for others. It is not enough to serve others. If it is not for the proper motive, in the end it means nothing. So Jesus died the way he lived. He lived for others, but he did so for the glory of God. And Jesus died for us. He did not die for any evil that he had done. He died for us. He finished well. Now, as we go into this this morning, I want us just to think about this as the motive that prompted his life and everything he did in his life. His motive was love. Having loved his own who were in the world. He loved them to the end What he was doing was out of love for God so loved the world Love I mean just think with me at first Corinthians 13 Just think about the beginning of that chapter We won't think of the whole chapter, but in the beginning of the chapters would say though I speak with the languages of man or even of angels. If I don't have love, I'm like what? The gong show. It's just noise. It's like a kid sitting in the other room when you're trying to think and you're trying to pay your bills and you're writing out checks. I guess nobody writes checks anymore, although we still do. You're trying to pay your bills, and you're trying to think, and your kid's sitting on the floor, you know, beating on pots and pans. And it's just, oh. Though I speak, though I can articulate with the languages of men and angels, if I don't speak out of love, it's just noise. If I understand all mysteries and I have all knowledge, I don't have love? Nothing. And if I give my body to be burned, now think about that. If I would give my body to be burned at the stake, or if I would bestow everything I had to feed the poor, if I don't do it from love, it's what? Nothing. Listen, love is not just acts of service. Acts of service can be prompted by love, but we can serve without love. That is the point of what he's saying there. Somebody could conceivably give their body to be burned. Somebody could conceivably bestow all their goods to feed the poor, and they could do it from some other motive than love. And when that happens, it profits nothing, nada. Jesus lived from love. And from that love, he gets up and he serves his disciples. There are three movements in the text that we just read. And we're gonna be working through these this week and next. We'll just go as far as we can today and then I'll quit. First of all, we see Jesus getting up. Just think with me at the table. They're sitting around at the Passover meal. You know, they're eating the lamb that's been roasted. They got to eat it all, so they're going to really fill up, because they can't leave any of it. None of it can go with them for lunch the next day. It's all got to be eaten that night at the Passover. They're filling up. They're sitting around the table. They're eating lamb. They're eating the bitter herbs. They're breaking bread together as we read in the Synoptic Gospels. Jesus takes the bread and he breaks it. And in breaking the bread, he says, this is my body. It is for you. He takes the cup and he says to them, this cup is the new covenant in my blood. When you do this, do this and remember me. And all these things that are happening as they're celebrating the Passover, and as they're going through that celebration of the Passover, all of a sudden Jesus gets up from the table. And I'm sure they're all like, I wonder what he's doing. And he gets up and he takes off his outer garments. And he's just down to this linen ephod that he wears kind of as an undergarment. And then he goes and he takes the towel that has been set by the basin and he wraps it around his waist. And so Jesus lays aside, there are beautiful analogies here that we're not gonna necessarily develop this morning about the incarnation, that Jesus gets up from his throne in glory and he lays aside all the independent prerogatives of the exercise of his deity in coming to earth, in becoming a man. You see that in Philippians chapter two. Let this mind be in you. which was also in Christ, who being in the form of God, did not think it something to be held on to, to be equal with God, but he made of himself of no reputation, and he took upon himself the form of a servant. He was made in the likeness of men. Being found, fashioned as a man, he humbled himself even further, became obedient unto death. even the death of the cross. So here, in Jesus getting up and laying aside his garment, there's almost a kind of a metaphor, almost a symbol of what he actually did in coming to earth in the incarnation. And so we see Jesus getting up. And as he is getting up, the text has told us he knew these things that we've already mentioned. The second thing is we see Jesus going down. Jesus kneels. You know, these men are reclined at table. They're not sitting on a chair. You know, we sit on chairs at a table. In the ancient world, in the Jewish table, the table was low, and there were cushions. And they reclined at table. So they're not like sitting on a chair the way we would think of sitting on a chair at a table. It's not like big Thanksgiving meal that we celebrate where there's a big table and chairs. It's a low table, there are couches, kind of pillows, and they're all reclining around the table, and Jesus comes and he kneels at the foot of each one of them and washes their feet. He goes around, he does them all. He does Judas. He does Peter. And in Peter, he has an interaction. And there's an important lesson there that we'll study as we go through this chapter. Then we see Jesus sitting back down, not sitting down, there I go talking like an Englishman, right? Like a modern day person. He reclines back at the table and Jesus explains to them what he has done. We will look at the explanation that Jesus gave to Peter And then when he is back at the head of the table, he gives a greater explanation to everybody. And he says to them, I am your Lord and master. And I have done this to you. And I've set an example for you to do to others. What does that mean? Next week, we're going to celebrate the Lord's table. We're going to celebrate baptism. But we're not going to celebrate foot wash. Why? Jesus said that we should do this. It's an example. So did Jesus mean that we have another ordinance of the church that we should be celebrating every month and that we are failing to do? We'll think about that for a few minutes as well. Let's just think about this for a minute. There is a striking contrast that sets the context. First thing is this. This is a worship gathering of gratefulness. It's the Passover. Now, they're not in church. They're in their homes. That's the way the Jews celebrate Passover, right? We've done it before. But they didn't go to church to celebrate Passover. They didn't go to synagogue to celebrate Passover. They went to their homes. And they did this with their families. They did it with a select group of people, like we see Jesus with his disciples. But they are in this upper room, and they are having a worship service, celebrating gratefulness for God's redemption in bringing the children of Israel out of bondage in Egypt. We already talked about the Passover two weeks ago and we won't go back and talk about Passover again today, but it's important that this is the context. They are gathered around a table and they are there specifically to worship God and to be grateful for what God had done in redeeming them. And what are they doing? What did we read in Luke chapter 22 this morning? Did you pay attention to the scripture reading? In Luke chapter 22, what are the disciples arguing about? What are they arguing about? Who's the greatest? Who got to sit the closest to Jesus? You know, this is carnality at its worst, isn't it? This is coming to a worship gathering to thank God for what He has done, and all they are thinking about is who? Themselves, and who is the greatest? Unless we all point our finger at them, let's just think back to how many times we come to church, and we compare ourselves to each other, or we wonder about greatness, we wonder about who is better, who is not, all those different things that go into human relationships. That is exactly what they are doing in this context when Jesus gets up to wash their feet. They're having an argument about who's the greatest. Now, I thought about that this week, thinking about who Donald Trump picked for his VP. There was a short list, right? That's got to go through the list, but guys like Marco Rubio and Vivek. And then they're all wondering which one of us is going to be the greatest, right? Isn't that what's going on there? Which one of us on the short list is going to be his choice to be his running mate so that when he's out of the way, I'm in charge? That's exactly what's going on. I mean, just think with me. OK, JD Vance gets chose. And everybody shakes his hand and slaps him on the back. And they walk away. And they're like, oh, I wish that was me. Right? Let's be human. I guarantee Vivek Ramaswamy, who was the guy who's running the entire time, And he's the youngest guy on the ticket, he's the newest generation and all that stuff. And now you got another guy, your upstart, JD Vance, and he's in my place. I mean, that's real life, isn't it? Isn't that what happens in our life? Isn't that what happens in your heart? And we nurse these, you know, kind of bruised egos at times. When somebody else gets chosen and we think that we should be the one? So there again, you know, it's sometimes easy to think, well, these guys were just really exceptionally carnal. Well, no, they're like a microcosm of all of us, because we do these very same things. So there is a carnal wrestling over greatness, and it is right in that. So I can imagine, you know, I was looking at Luke 22, And in Luke 22, when they're arguing about who is the greatest, Jesus says to them, the kings of the Gentiles exercise lordship over them. Those in authority are called their benefactors, but not so with you. Rather, let the greatest among you become as the youngest, and the leader as one who serves." And so I can imagine Jesus is reclining at the table, right? He's here eating. And all of a sudden, he gets up. And he says, you know what, guys? This is the way the world works. The world works like whoever's the greatest gets served. And then he's, you know, I won't go any further. And then he puts a towel around his waist and he says, you know, let you, you guys, be the youngest, be like the youngest, be like the one who serves. And so as he's talking those words in Luke 22, he's getting up from table, he's putting a towel around his waist, and now he's coming around them and he's washing their feet. And it's right on the heels of this dispute that they've been having as they've been arguing about who's going to be his VP. And then he comes to Peter. Lord, are you going to wash my feet? If I don't wash your feet. You don't even have, think about this, you not only are not the greatest, Peter, if I don't wash your feet, you not only are not the greatest, you're not even a part of me. You're not even on my team. And so Peter says, well then, wash my hands and my head. And so there's this condescension by our savior to serve. Okay, let's just think about the cultural context for a minute. When you read in the book of Exodus in chapter 12, you read the book of Deuteronomy, you read the book of Leviticus, you're not going to find that any part of the celebration of Passover prescribed that when you start that feast, you wash each other's feet. So this is not in the law, okay? It's not in the Mosaic law. It's not a part of the Passover. It also is not a church ordinance. just for time, I don't want to take a ton of time to kill that one, but three marks of a church ordinance. Now, if you're a Roman Catholic, there are what, seven sacraments that they observe? Okay, there again, not gonna go through that bird, but if we think about what are the marks of an ordinance or a sacrament in the scriptures, there's three. Number one, it had to be taught by Jesus. Did Jesus teach baptism? Yes. Did Jesus institute the Lord's table? Yes. Taught by Jesus. Number two, was it practiced by the early church in the book of Acts? When you read the book of Acts, what do you see the early church doing when they gather? Number three, do you have an explanation of the purpose of this ordinance by the Apostle Paul in the epistles? Romans chapter six, first Peter three, other places you see an explanation of baptism. You see baptism practiced by the early church in the book of Acts. You see baptism taught by Jesus. Same with the Lord's Table. Paul explains what the Lord's Table is all about in 1 Corinthians 11. You see the church celebrating the Lord's Table, but you do not see the church practicing as an ordinance in the book of Acts foot washing. You do not have a lengthy description of its importance and its meaning by the Apostle Paul in the epistles. Thus, when we come to this and we see Jesus saying, I am giving you an example that you do this to others, I'm going to suggest to you there is a spiritual reality he's talking about here. And we'll get to that in a minute. So hold that thought. So foot washing is a cultural courtesy. It's like hospitality. Today, somebody comes to your house, ladies, what do you say? That's where the pot is down the hall, right? Go wash your hands, go down there. But hospitality is to help people find a location and a place to refresh in themselves. And so this is kind of a cultural context and a cultural courtesy. So it's not prescribed in the law In most occasions, we will look at one exception to that. But it is more of an act of hospitality. So it's like come in and freshen up. Now what you will see in the scripture is most times when people had their feet washed, they didn't have somebody else wash their feet, they washed their own. The way this was done in the ancient world was it was either a self-service thing or it was a servant's task. But when you went to somebody's house, it is like unthinkable to think of the master of the house doing this service. And so when Jesus does this, This is completely out of any context that they have ever experienced in their life. So in the scriptures, in Genesis 18, when the angels, there were three of them, the angel of the Lord and two angels, come to Abraham's tent at the Oaks of Mamre. He tells his servants, go and kill a fatted calf and let's feed these guys. And then he says to them, Come on in and wash your feet. That's what it says specifically. Come on in, wash your feet, sit at my table. So he offers them the hospitality of being able to come in and wash their feet. In Genesis 19 too, when two of those angels, the angel of the Lord has departed, but two of the angels go down to Sodom and Gomorrah, they go to the home of a guy named Lot. And when they come to the home of Lot, Lot says, come on in, I don't want you to stay out in the streets, because he knows what happens in the streets at night in Sodom and Gomorrah. So he says to the angels, come on into my house, come on in and wash your feet. It's literally what it says in the text in Genesis 19. Genesis 24 32 when Abraham's servant is sent by Abraham to find a bride for Isaac he shows up at the home of Laban through a series of events of God's providence and Laban says to the servant of Abraham come on in and wash your feet There again, it's a symbol of hospitality. It's what was done. We see that with Joseph and his brother in Genesis 43. There are two other uses we'll look at. So this is a cultural courtesy because people, you know, I got my cowboy boots. Some of you got your sneakers on. I see a few flip-flops here. But even your flip-flops are nice compared to the standards of first century Palestine when it came to footwear. We've come a long way when it comes to footwear. You know what they did? They took either a board or some leather, and they took some string and a strap, and somehow they tied it together and made it stick on their foot to give them something to walk with. There were no insoles. And there was nothing to protect their feet. And as they walked through the dirty streets of Galilee and Jerusalem and Judea, their feet got dirty and sore. And everywhere they went, they walked. They didn't get to go anywhere in a truck. Everywhere they went, they walked. And their feet were bruised and battered. So it was a wonderful, nice thing to go into the house and to be able to sit down to take off your shoes and to wash your feet. It felt good. It was a way to freshen up. There are two other uses. It tells us specifically in the book of Exodus in chapter 30 that whenever a priest went in to serve the Lord in the tabernacle or in the temple, After going to the altar, and there was a sacrifice at the altar, the next thing he had to go to was this thing called the bronze basin. It was full of water. And before he would go into the tabernacle, he was prescribed by the law to do two things. One was he was to wash his hands. And secondly, he was to wash his feet. There is a symbolic thing there. Washing your hands, washing your feet, to go into the presence of the Lord was symbolic of cleansing from sin. This is what Jesus builds on in his interaction with Peter. To go into the presence of the Lord, to fellowship with the Lord, we need to have our feet washed. What does that mean? The second thing that's in the scripture is in 1 Timothy chapter 5 and in verse 10, there are qualifications for people that were regarded by the church as widows who are really widows. And you say, what does it mean to be a widow who is really a widow? What it means is this, it was somebody who had no family to care for them financially. And when there was a widow in the church who had no greater family outside of themselves to care for them, they were to be put on a list. And then the church would minister to their needs financially. For a widow to be regarded as a widow who was really a widow, who was truly in need, she had to be 60 years of age and other things. And one of those was she had to have been one who was willing to wash the feet of the saints. And so this was a qualifier. Let's think about nursing a servant's heart. Have you ever dealt with a public servant who was not a public servant? Bureaucrats? You know, I've dealt with some bureaucrats who are great people. I've got a good friend, he works for the Forest Service. He's a rain specialist Over in Caribou, on the Caribou Forest, a great guy. Every time he stops by, I enjoy our time. We sit and chat, we'll sit and chat for 45 minutes. Great guy. Great public servant. I've been dealing with Medicaid for a year and three months, and I have not found a public servant among them. I mean, they treat you like you're an outlaw. like you're trying to game the system. I was talking to somebody higher up in the state government. He was talking about what a travesty that is, and it's come to our help. But I guarantee everybody who goes into the work of being a public servant starts out well. Don't you think so? They go into that line of work to be a public servant because they want to help the who? The public. They want to serve. What happens? What happens to preachers? What happens to pastors? What happens to husbands and wives? You get married, loving each other, serving one another, and somewhere along the way, what happens? It is not always easy to finish well. It's easy to start well. With good intentions, when you're fresh on the job, and people haven't burned you, and people haven't hurt you, and you haven't seen all the scams, and you haven't heard all the sad stories, and you haven't gotten hardened, it's easy to start well. Kids start well. But we need to finish well. What happens to our heart? that so hardens it that we lose our care and our love. Jesus loved to the very end. What happens? Okay, we start out well. Here's some things that I think affect our servant heart negatively. Things like rivalries, things like bitterness, things like getting tired. And because we're tired, we become inattentive. We get burned out. Because we've been burned before. And we get jaded. And somewhere along the way, we become hard and we become callous. And that was not Jesus. Jesus goes around a table and he serves a man he knows has betrayed him. He serves another man he knows is going to deny three times publicly he even knows him. And he serves the other 10 who he knows are going to be scattered and are going to be hiding like chickens under a wagon when a bald eagle's in the air. and he serves them. There's a lesson here for us. There are two main reasons that Jesus does this. I'm gonna run through this really quick and then we're coming back to it next week to really dig. Jesus is establishing in this act, he is establishing the need for ongoing cleansing among his followers. Listen to me. It is not enough to be washed in the blood of the Lamb one time for the forgiveness of your sins and to think you're going to go from that event to glory without needing for Jesus to come sit before you and to wash your feet. Because you're going to sin. So am I. I'm not saying you're losing your salvation. I'm not saying that in any way. We don't. But this is what we lose. We lose the joy of the fellowship that we once had with Jesus. As we walk through this world and our feet get dirty. And then Jesus comes before us in our private prayer closet. And he kneels in front of us. And he washes our heart. And we need that every day. Every day. The second thing that is in this text is Jesus is showing us that God's people need to serve one another by washing each other's feet. And I'm not saying that we wash each other's feet physically. He is talking specifically about how we deal with sin among ourselves, that we forgive and we wash each other's feet. And that's tough. This band of brothers is about to go through its greatest test. These 12 guys are going through something they cannot foresee. Jesus is going to be crucified, and when He is crucified, one of them betrayed Him, one of them denies, and the other abandons. What's going to happen? What's going to happen? Jesus is taking this occasion with them to help them be prepared so they will find forgiveness from Him for what they are about to do. and so that they can forgive each other. Now, when Jesus gave the keys of the kingdom to Peter, he obviously is showing that Peter is gonna be his VP, right? That's what's going on. And we will see in the book of Acts, when you read the book of Acts, that Peter is the head of the disciples, the apostles. How much do you want to bet that Matthew struggled to look up to Peter after Peter denied Jesus three times? You want to bet he did? I guarantee you he did. Why do I guarantee that? Because I know how I would have felt. What? You want me to rank myself under Peter? After he did that? And what is Jesus telling Matthew he is supposed to do for Peter? He is to wash his feet. He is to forgive him. So daily, we wash the grime from our relationships to maintain them in love. Okay? Daily. We've got interpersonal relationships, you've got husband, wife, kid relationships. If you don't wipe the grain, the grime from those relationships on a daily basis, you know what's gonna happen? Those relationships are gonna be destroyed over time. We wash each other's feet. We forgive one another. That is why the scripture says love covers a multitude of sins. Love is not some abstract thing like, ooshie gooshie, I just feel love. Love is forgiving. Love is kind. The biggest reason for all failed relationships, all of them, you know, what is the number one cause of divorce? It's not money. Number one cause of divorce is nothing to do with sex. The number one cause of divorce is a bitter spirit that causes the relationship to fail because there is no longer forgiveness. And so daily we wash the grime from our relationship to maintain them in love. I'll tell you a little story and we'll close. How many of you read the story Chronicles of Narnia, The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe? Beautiful book. C.S. Lewis. Four kids go into this other world. There they are put on thrones. But as the story unfolds, you remember Edmund becomes a traitor, didn't he? Remember that in the story? He becomes a traitor. And the other three stay true till Aslan and to his kingdom, but Edmund was a traitor. Through a series of events, he is restored, and he comes in the story. He is brought to Aslan. And Aslan takes Edmund, who was a traitor, and he takes him into the tent. And they have this personal talk. And Aslan forgives him. But Aslan's going to go and die for him on the stone table. Remember in the story. Aslan, who is a picture of Jesus, and Edmund, who is the traitor, picture of Peter, and Aslan forgives him. They come out from the tent, and here's the other three brothers, or other brother and two sisters. And Aslan says this to them. Here's your brother. You need not talk to him about what has passed. What's he saying to him? Forgive him. Do you think that's hard for Peter and Lucy? Yeah. Forgive him. Here's your brother, wash his feet. That is what the church is called to do, is to wash the feet of one another by forgiving because of what Christ has done for us. Father, we thank You for Your Word. As we close our time together, I pray that, Lord, You would convict us by Your Holy Spirit of the need to extend to one another charity, kindness, love, by forgiving each other, love covering a multitude of sins, because You have forgiven us. Lord, as You taught us to pray, forgive us our debts as we forgive those who are indebted to us. So we pray in Jesus' name. Amen.