This evening's Bible reading is Hebrews chapter 11, verses one to 19. And you can find this on page 1209 of the church Bible. Hebrews chapter 11, beginning to read at verse one. Now faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see. This is what the ancients were commended for. By faith, we understand that the universe was formed at God's command so that what is seen was not made out of what was visible. By faith, Abel offered God a better sacrifice than Cain did. By faith, he was commended as a righteous man when God spoke well of his offerings. And by faith, he still speaks even though he is dead. By faith, Enoch was taken from this life so that he did not experience death. He could not be found because God had taken him away. For before he was taken, he was commended as one who pleased God. And without faith, it is impossible to please God, because anyone who comes to him must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who earnestly seek him. By faith, Noah, when warned about things not yet seen, in holy fear built an ark to save his family. By his faith, he condemned the world and became heir of the righteousness that comes by faith. By faith, Abraham, when called to go to a place he would later receive as his inheritance, obeyed and went, even though he did not know where he was going. By faith, he made his home in the promised land like a stranger in a foreign country. He lived in tents, as did Isaac and Jacob, who were heirs with him of the same promise. For he was looking forward to the city with foundations, whose architect and builder is God. By faith, Abraham, even though he was past age and Sarah herself was barren, was enabled to become a father because he considered him faithful who had made the promise. And so from this one man, and he as good as dead, came descendants as numerous as the stars in the sky and as countless as the sand on the seashore. All these people were still living by faith when they died. They did not receive the things promised. They only saw them and welcomed them from a distance. and they admitted that they were aliens and strangers on earth. People who say such things show that they are looking for a country of their own. If they had been thinking of the country they had left, they would have had opportunity to return. Instead, they were longing for a better country, a heavenly one. Therefore, God is not ashamed to be called their God, for he has prepared a city for them. By faith, Abraham, when God tested him, offered Isaac as a sacrifice. He who had received the promises was about to sacrifice his one and only son. Even though God had said to him, it is through Isaac that your offspring will be reckoned. Abraham reasoned that God could raise the dead, and figuratively speaking, he did receive Isaac back from death. Well, my normal greeting doesn't quite seem so apposite. I normally encourage you to say good evening. And yet, it doesn't seem quite right, does it? Let me say it does me good to see you this evening. I hope this evening does you good. But it's not a good evening. And I certainly hope that as we listen to what I believe God wants me to say this evening, that we do indeed see good and find good and take something good from it. So, when I was doing the 10-3 rite of this sermon, I was looking at it, and of course, with any sermon, you've got to try and remember all the different contexts of a passage. There's always more than one context here. We're in Hebrews 11 verse eight, so at the very least we know that we've got the rest of the chapter and the rest of the book to think about for our context. We also have the context of Abram in Genesis 12, so we've got a whole other book to be thinking about when it comes to context. We've got to think about the people that were being written to in the book of Hebrews, these people who were really, really struggling. We also have to be mindful of our own context when reading this, so it's not just an academic exercise, which would be my comfortable default position. We have to think of our own context. We're in Aberdeen, we're in the 21st century, but more than that, we have to think of our own context and where we are as a church when we come to the text in order to hear what God is saying to us. It's a context eloquently articulated this morning by our minister, our outgoing minister, Dominic Smart. Now, I'll be honest with you. If this was to be my last sermon after years and years and years, I'd think that I'd earned myself an easy time of it. I think I'd earned myself something straightforward, simple. Everyone could say it was nice, and then I could go. that wouldn't have been the right thing to do. It would have made it easier, it certainly would have made this sermon tonight easier. But instead we had final words that were said as a pastor to us. It makes me think, you know, if I saw someone in danger, would I tell them? I certainly hope so. If I saw a child wander into oncoming traffic, would I do something about it? Or a toddler fall into a loch, would I do something about it? Of course I would. I would certainly hope so. I certainly wouldn't want to do something worse, which is maybe to distract the would-be rescuers, telling them there was nothing to see here, that everything was fine. Maybe even worse. And so we get a message. And we can't expect a message of peace when there is no peace. We can't expect a message of comfort. And if we receive one, In that place, we should be suspicious. Following the murder and adultery that King David was involved with, he writes Psalm 51. Psalm 51 verse seven states it very clearly, that the need, the deep need that he felt within himself for cleansing, a cleansing that reached his very soul, a cleansing with the record books of God, and a cleansing that meant that he could once again experience the presence of God in his life. And he sort of sums it up a few times through the text. But if we look at verse seven, it says this. Purge me with hyssop and I shall be clean. Wash me and I shall be whiter than snow. Well, the hyssop was certainly there for us this morning. If we take it, if we use it, then it bodes well. I think there's a more pointed way to describe our situation, found in the heartbreaking chapter of Isaiah chapter one. Now Isaiah chapter one, if you read it with different tones, it can sound very different. Some people read it as if God is angry. And if you almost read it in an angry voice, it gives a certain flavor to the whole text. But that would be erroneous. The tone for Isaiah chapter one is heartbreak, pain. The backdrop to it is God weeping. Let me read a little bit from verse 12 that speaks to our present situation. When you come to appear before me, who is required of you this trampling of my courts? Bring no more vain offerings. Incense is an abomination to me. New moon and Sabbath and the calling of convocations. I cannot endure iniquity and solemn assembly. Your new moons and your appointed feasts, my soul hates. They have become a burden to me and I am weary of bearing them. When you spread out your hands, I will hide my eyes from you. Even though you make many prayers, I will not listen for your hands are full of blood. wash yourselves, make yourselves clean, remove the evil of your deeds from before my eyes, and cease to do evil. Learn to do good. Seek justice, correct oppression, bring justice to the fatherless, plead the widow's cause. Come now, let us reason together, says the Lord. Though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be white as snow. Though they are red like crimson, they shall become like wool. If you are willing and obedient, you shall eat the good of the land. But if you refuse and rebel, you shall be eaten by the sword, for the mouth of the Lord has spoken. It's a very stark choice that has been placed in front of the people of God. And it's not the first time. It's not as if we are in uncharted territory. It's not as if we don't have many texts replete with what we need to do next. In some ways, I feel like Jonah in the whale. The wonderful thing about Jonah in the whale is that that is God giving him another chance. a chance he doesn't deserve, a chance he was doing his utmost to avoid, and yet God gives him another chance. It's a mercy that only God provides, and we need to take it. Now I'm saying this as someone who has great affection for you, and great concern for all of us. My children come to this church, so I have a vested interest in it, and the direction in which it goes. So, as someone who loves you, I plead with you to hear what God says. So, as we turn to Hebrews 11, it's not a case of let's just carry on like normal. It's not a kind of a case of saying let's continue with what we were already doing and we can quickly forget some of the things that were said earlier. It's not business as usual. Instead, we actually have a text which should speak to us where we are if we listen. You see, we have a wonderful text here with Abraham and Sarah. Incredible text. And yet before we get there, remember the context, the context of verse one, the context of verse two. Faith is a substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things unseen. As we heard a moment ago, that faith is confidence in what we hope for and assurance about what we do not see. This is what the ancients were commended for. And so we're looking at this list of ancients. We've already looked at Abel and Enoch and Noah. Today we're gonna look at Abraham and Sarah and we're gonna look at them, we're gonna see their moments where they stood up and they acted in faith. And the wonderful thing about this text is that it is pointing us towards those moments, not all the failures that lie behind there, but those moments where yes, they stood up and they took a step in faith. This whole list about people who will take God at his word and will step out and they will act in a way that shows that everything is based on the faithfulness of God. As we read a few weeks ago, faith is the only way to please God. There is no other way of doing it. There is no other way to live that have a commendation of God. There is no other way to have confidence in the present because of a future. There is no other way to be other than living with faith, active, doing faith. Anything else will not do. We certainly cannot give God the scraps in our life. or give his glory and honor a sort of a secondary place to anything else. It has to be real faith. And it has to be right now. Now Abraham is cited as a perfect example of faith quite often in the New Testament. Most New Testament books will refer to him in some way as a wonderful paradigm of faith, but he's actually a pivotal piece of understanding the faithfulness of God. So yes, perfect, wonderful examples in his life of faith, but in actual fact, when we look at it, when we look at his story, we see what it means to have a faithful God. I want you to think about the Genesis context first of all. You see, we have the fall. And then it gets worse. Rebellion turns into murder, which eventually turns into the state where the whole world is in uproar, where humanity is not just described, but defined as ra'a, great and desperate evil. It says that twice in Genesis 6-5, that humanity is defined by that. And then we have the flood. And throughout this continual decline, we have a gracious and merciful God. So we have Adam and Eve who reject the lordship of their creator, who deny that he is El Shaddai, the all-providing one. They reject it all. They bring sin into creation. They ruin everything. They bring in death and destruction. And God's response is to dress them like children. to give him a message of hope in the future. Cain murders his brother and God saves his life. Exiled though he is, his life is spared. And it gets worse and worse until eventually we get to Noah and the great evil that is around him and you see the heartbreak of God. God saves him. and his wife, and his children, and their wives. And he gives a wonderful message of hope when they come out of the ark. He talks about the rainbow, but he gives a promise that this is not how it's always going to be, this decline in your hearts. It's not always where it's going to be. It can be better, because there's one to come who will change everything. It's a wonderful depiction of God in the face of the hardness of man, in the face of rebellion and the worst that we can do. We see this grace and mercy and hope given by God. But then we come to chapter 11. Then we come to the Tower of Babel and yet again man stands up. He's going to reject the Lordship of God. He's going to stand there. He's going to build his tower. He's going to be equal to God in his own strength. And in this rebellion, God judges again. And he's gracious in his rebellion. He doesn't wipe them out. He scatters them. But what's really interesting is that there's no message of hope. There's no reconciliation like there is in all these other instances. If we had been listening to the stories from chapter one, you see rebellion, mercy of God. Rebellion, mercy of God. Rebellion, mercy of God. Rebellion, silence. It's a cliffhanger in the narrative. You can't help but sit there and think, is this it? Is this when God has finally had enough? It's as if when God says, you know what humanity, I am wiping my hands of you, I have had enough. That's what chapter 11 ends. And into this terrifying context, this lack of hope, this lack of reconciliation with God, we have the opening words of chapter 12. The Lord said to Abram, God's got a plan. God knows what he's doing. He's got a plan and he's going to reach out through Abram, through Sarah. And there will be hope for all of the nations that God is not done with humanity. And you see how the cliffhanger has held you and all of a sudden God says to Abram and all of a sudden we begin to see where there could possibly be hope and reconciliation and everything else between man and God because of this person that is listening to what God is saying. So, in the face of the tower, God has judgment, and God will move. God will do something. It's a salient point for us. Are we going to be the ones building the tower, protecting the tower, or are we going to be the ones who hear what God says and responds? That is our choice. It blows my mind that we are allowed to have that choice. But quite starkly, that is where we are. But what is wonderful here is that we see despite it all, despite the fact that God should have just been done with us, he reaches out with Abraham. And because we have a couple who believe, because we have a couple of faith, just two people of faith, we have the line of the Messiah ushered in. So, when we're introduced to this couple in Hebrews 11, we discover not just one example of faith, we actually find three. Three examples. The first, of course, is that Abraham immediately goes when God calls. Genesis 12 can be compressed, I suppose. You've got the call of verse one, the Lord said to Abram, go, and then you've got the conclusion in verse four, so Abram went. In the Hebrew's text, we see it quite clearly, but this idea of God saying go, Abram going. It can be quite easy, you know, when we know the rest of the story in Genesis, we can think, you know, God calls, he goes. I mean, imagine the cost. He's saying to Abram, Abram, leave everything you know, everyone you know, and step out into the unknown with nothing but my promise. And he goes. He doesn't prevaricate, he doesn't plan in case it goes wrong, he doesn't make other arrangements, he goes. He takes himself, he takes his wife, he takes his dependents, all those people reliant upon him, he takes all of his possessions and he throws them onto the promise of God. The writer in Hebrews says that's faith. Abram didn't sit back and say, well, I think God can be trusted. He didn't just sit back and make it some sort of theological principle by which, you know, it's a good thing to do. Abraham went. He threw everything onto the promise of God, 100%, and that was it. And so the Hebrew writer picks Abraham out and says, that is faith. Now I have to point out that the Greek version of this, the original language it was written in, conveys a little something that's slightly missed in our translations. It says that he went immediately. There's a very strong sense of Abraham going the second that he is told. So I suppose a better rendering would be by faith Abraham, or Abram, as he was being called, obeyed immediately by departing for a place he was to receive as an inheritance. And he set out not knowing where he was going. There's a sense of immediacy behind it. He doesn't have time to make God wait. He goes immediately. He does something immediately. He doesn't just immediately think about doing something, he does it in the strength of the promise of God. That's faith. How on earth can you live a life like that? How is it that you can possibly live like that and be like Abraham, 100% faith in the moment, in the moment that God calls? Well, the Hebrew author explains it. He goes on in verse 10. For he, and that's Abraham, was looking forward to the city with foundations, whose architect and builder is God. Again, the Greek adds a certain emphasis there. He continually looked forward with certainty toward the city. His motivation is not just that he's gonna have a child. His motivation is not just that he's going to inherit some land, or more likely his descendants are gonna inherit the land. His motivation is his citizenship of a city. His motivation is an eternal reward that all children of faith inherit. Now Abraham, he leaves, he's gonna live a life that God calls him to live. As a tent dweller, as a migrant, as someone who wanders about and will have a stigma attached to him for his whole life. He does it. Doesn't second guess God, he does it. That's why he's on the list. That's why he makes this hall of heroes, as it were. It's fascinating, this man who has no foundations, as it were, doesn't need them, because of the foundations of the city that he is a citizen of, a city he has never seen. How's that for a wonderful explanation of the opening verse? Things unseen, things hoped for, the city that he is a citizen of. That's how he can step out and live a life was not easy, but ordained by God. He doesn't look back. He doesn't blend in. When offered money and power and status, very often he'll reject them, because that's not his motivation. That's not what he is doing. That is not what his life is all about. He is not seeking the approval of others. He's not seeking the wealth of others. He is commended by God. for living the life of faith. It's an alignment that we're all called to have. It's an alignment we're all called to make sure that we live by, to live by faith and not the approval of another, not the barriers or bars or lines or of anything else, purely for God. No matter what. So Sarah, Sarah comes in next. We've got Sarah and Isaac, the birth of Isaac. So verse 11 says, and by faith even Sarah, who was past childbearing age, was unable to bear children because she considered him faithful who had made the promise. Now when we're retold this, we'll be thinking of Genesis. We think of a woman whose faith did waver, a woman whose faith was blighted by doubt. There's no other way to describe Genesis 18. where she laughs. Or Genesis 16, where she uses Hagar to bring in a child. There's no other way to describe it. There are times in the years of waiting, in the barrenness, in the grip of old age, we see her faith waver. You see, despite all the promises, she's only ever getting older and less likely to have children. She waits 25 years. But because she believes, she's in the right place at the right time So when God moves, she's there If she hadn't been living by faith, she wouldn't have been in the right place at the right time when God moved I want to be at the right place at the right time when God moves I don't want to be left behind I don't want to be sidelined because I don't want to be where God is calling me. But what we have is we have this couple, slightly dysfunctional at times, and a faith that wavers for the pair of them. But through them we see the line of Messiah because at the right time, right place, Because of faith, God moves through them. Now as if two examples wasn't enough, we've got a third example in the text as well, in verse 17. By faith, Abraham, when God tested him, offered Isaac as a sacrifice. He who had embraced the promises was about to sacrifice his one and only son. What is incredible about this is the immediacy of his response. If I think of Genesis 22, verse one to three, it says this. Sometime later, God tested Abraham. He said to him, Abraham, here I am, he replied. Then God said, take your son, your only son, whom you love, Isaac, and go to the region of Moriah. Sacrifice him there as a burnt offering on a mountain. I will show you. Early the next morning, Abraham got up and loaded his donkey. So, early the next morning. It doesn't say, and so Abraham prevaricated until after lunchtime, knowing that this may be the very last opportunity he could have with his son. It doesn't say Abraham put it off for a few days. Early the very next morning, he goes. There's an immediacy. When God calls, we have to answer then and there. This is an example of a man who sacrificed his past, gave up everything that he had, and now is willing to sacrifice his future, his heir, his child. It's a really heartbreaking command from God. And the very thought of it, maybe it's particularly poignant because I have my own son, Isaac, but the idea of taking my son, Isaac, to a mountain. I can't even really express how that makes me feel. But therein lies the corrective, my son Isaac. When Isaac was born, and same with his brother Elijah, I did a curious little thing, because I got to hold the child first, and I held up the child to myself, and I whispered into his ear, the Shema from Deuteronomy. So for Isaac, Shema Yitzchak, Yahweh Elechinu Yahweh Echad, et cetera. The Hebrew people would do this to their children. It'd be the very first words that their child would hear. It was also supposed to be the very first text that they memorized. It was supposed to be the text every Hebrew person said when they got up and when they went to bed. And it's such a wonderful corrective because at that moment, it's not because these are magic words that will do something to the baby. It's for me, the father. At that precious moment, to underline in my heart and in my mind, this child, first and foremost, is God's. God should be first in his life. God should be last in his life. God should be everything throughout his life. The child does not belong to me. He is God's. I've been loaning him for a while. To look after, to protect, to nurture, to nourish, to love. But he's not mine. He belongs to the Lord God. And I need it, reminded of that. at that moment, that precious, precious moment when I first held him, and every day since. And so Abraham, who has waited all these years for his son, takes him with him. And when I think about it, you know, my life is not my own. Every breath that I have has been given to me by God. The lives of my children do not belong to me. This church doesn't belong to me. It's God's. My children are God's. My life is God's. And anything that I ever do, I try to pretend otherwise. It's like the rebellion of Adam and Eve. who thought that the garden wouldn't be God's. Those who build the Tower of Babel, it's the same thing. It belongs to God. So Abraham, the faithful father, molds a wonderful example for his son, Isaac. I want you to bear in mind that Isaac is old enough to ask questions. But as they're quite insightful questions, that might be slightly older than we may envisage. He's also able to carry all of the wood up a mountain. Any notions of him being an infant should be dispelled. He's certainly, if he's able to carry all the wood up a mountain, he's certainly strong enough to get rid of an elderly man. Abraham, the man of faith, has brought up Isaac, a man of faith. And together, their line is going to see the Messiah. It's a wonderful thing. Abraham who acted immediately. Abraham who did not for a second prevaricate, but did what God called as a son who is the same. So faith and the faith of Abraham is used throughout the New Testament. It's an antidote to many of the failings that we have and we will have. Faith tells us that we cannot earn our salvation, no matter what we do. We are citizens of a country, of a city. It has nothing to do with us. Faith stands against legalism. More often than not, Abraham's example is used to dispel any notions of legalism, as if we could please God through some rules, as if we could create hoops for other people to jump through. Galatians 3, Romans 4 being two of the obvious examples. Faith rejects pride. When you catch a glimpse of who God is and who we are before him, there's no room for it. of a God who looks at us as rebels and who dresses us in righteous robes like a parent dresses a child. Faith stands up against fear because we're assured of where we're going if we are living in faith. Faith stands up against evil when all too often it would wish for us to be its vessel. Faith, you see, stands up against all the basest desires that lie in our hearts, in our minds. But we need to be focused on the heavenly city and the faithfulness of a God who has built it. And faith also resists the potential we have for harm. I mentioned the Shema just a wee bit ago. The more famous bit of it, of course, is love the Lord your God with all of your heart, soul, and might, strength. Or love the Lord your God with everything that makes you you, to the very last breath that you have, and to your strength and potential, the Moed meaning potential as well. It's a wonderful thing. You see, we have got potential for great harm or for God. We've got incredible potential. A few months ago, this church had huge potential. When we were thinking about where we were gonna go, what we were gonna do. I think about what we could have been. Now where we are, I wonder if where we could still be. If we have ears to hear. if we listen to what God is saying. And if we have faith, that means act upon it. I don't mean act upon it at some point in the future, but like Abraham, act immediately tonight. Act. We are in a difficult time. And as James 2 makes clear, faith is all about the actions that we take. Faith is not the purview of the silent. It's not an intellectual exercise, it's what we do. Abraham responded immediately with nothing but a promise from God. And we cannot delay. Whatever towers we have built, we need to take down. Or God will. Whatever things we've put in the way between each other, Whatever lenses we've put on, whatever critical eyes we have used, need to be put away today. So, a word of warning. For the word of warning, we're gonna go back to the Old Testament again, no surprise, but I wanna take Solomon. Wonderful Solomon. We know the story of Solomon. As a child, he knew God. He chose well as a child. And as he grew up, he kept making wonderful and wise decisions. The things that he did in his life were incredible. He got to build the temple, have justice in his realm. He got to make wise decisions all the way through until the end. Solomon's not a happy ending. You see, Solomon starts to collect wives. They're like a status symbol for him. They inflate his importance, and he collects and he collects and he collects them. And in his old age, his heart is turned away from the Lord because of all these wives. His pride, seen in this collection of women, destroyed him. Some of us might look back on our lives and think, yeah, we could give Solomon a run for his money, which would make me slightly uncomfortable, but we may think that. We think, look at what I've done with my life. I've known God since I was a child. Look at all the great and amazing things that I've done. I've built this temple for him. I've done this, I've done that. And the moment we stop listening to God, the moment we stop being God's, belonging to God, The moment that we allow such thinking to take over, I'm afraid in the Bible there is only one end to that. There's a coldness of the heart and a departure from the presence of God. I mean, let me ask, what has our faith produced? The adage, the Christian adage, you know, if Christianity was made illegal, would there be enough evidence to convict you? Very famous adage. It's a good one. But it's not quite enough. You see, what we really need to be asking is, is there enough evidence this month, this week, today, is there enough evidence today that in a court of law, we would have to be banged to rights, Christian? If our faith And I don't mean the stuff of the past. If our faith, our actions of today hurt and cause harm instead of building up, then we need to worry. And we need to repent. And we need to come before God. We need to use Psalm 51 as our own personal prayer before God. Galatians 5.6 states that for in Christ Jesus, neither circumcision nor uncircumcision counts for anything but only faith working through love. So neither circumcision nor uncircumcision counts for anything. Whatever status you have, whatever prestige, whatever your tribe, whatever your group in this place, whatever your history here, counts for nothing. If the faith that you have, the actions that you do, Only ever wound. Only ever tear down. Faith through love. So, there are a number of hurting people here. There are a number of hurting people outwith this building. From here. You have been here. simply those who know us who are here. And there was a lot of pain. And yet, that can be a chance for good. This can actually be a wonderful opportunity. And I'm gonna plead with you not to waste this opportunity. You see, in some ways, the cliffhanger of Genesis 11, you know, when there was that great silence and we're thinking, is God done with humanity? I'll be entirely honest, that's where we're sitting right now. after everything, and we say here, is God done with us? Have we finally done it? Have we finally ignored all the warnings of the last few months? We're sitting here, it's 11. Is it too late? And we know that God's not finished, we know that God's gonna be busy, but I mean with us, I mean with this church, I mean with you and me. Has he had enough? And so we come back to the message this morning. And the fact that God, through a difficult message, has given us another chance. That God is still saying something to us tonight. How many more chances will we get? I don't know. But he is calling us right now. He is calling you right now. And if we do not answer immediately, then we'll be like Solomon. God will write, Echabod, the spirit has departed above the door. And I'll be that. We cannot continue to hear faithful things and do nothing about it. But if we tear down the towers that we have made, the edifices to our own name, our own prestige, if when God speaks, we hear and we act, we listen, we do, without any prevarication, if we act in faith, we can please God. So this evening I'm gonna stand here and I'm gonna say, as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord. I don't serve Gilcomston. I don't serve any individuals. I serve God. And there are many times, and this evening is one of them, that God has told me what to say and I've asked Now are you really sure about that? I'm not entirely comfortable with that one. Could we not go for something slightly lighter, happier? I serve God. And no matter how many times I get told to stop, I'm gonna serve the Lord. No matter how many times I get told to stop, Even from within here, I will serve the Lord. So I'm gonna ask you to do something really odd. Something we don't normally do here. Because it's not really enough for me to say, I in Hepburn will stand here and I will repent of all the things that I have done and thought, and I will seek to live a life of faith. It's not enough. Though I mean it with all my heart, it's not enough. We have to ask ourselves, who will we serve today, tomorrow, the next day? We'll get it wrong. Who have I offended that I need to see before the end of the evening? What do I need to tear down? What towers are built around me that have allowed to be built? Or what towers have I built? And we need to be able to say that we declare anew, rededicate ourselves anew to God and accept nothing else. I'm gonna pray in just a moment. If you want to stand with me and say that you too will serve the Lord, then do so. If you can't stand, put up your hand. If you want to sit there and wait, that's between you and God. Let's pray. Gracious Heavenly Father, before you, we repent of anything that we have taken part of. We humbly apologize for any shame that we have brought to your name by the things we have done, but also by the things we haven't done. Lord, as for us and our houses, we will serve you. Lord, we have the faith, and help us, Lord, when we waver, and help us, Lord, when we come short of the standards that You want, that You demand. Please, O Lord, do not wipe the hands of us, but instead, fill us again, cleanse us with hyssop, and make us clean, O Lord, we pray. In Jesus' wonderful name, amen. All right, look at this.