The Wonder Of His Love III, The Wonder Of Forgiveness

Keep at hand your outline because you're going to want to take a couple notes today, I believe. It was big news for about a day. One of the President's closest political advisors, the one credited with building his re-election campaign strategy, was on the cover of Time Magazine September 2, 1996. The man who has Clinton's ear, he was called. That man was found to be carrying on an illicit affair with a supposedly high-priced call girl. Cotton videotaped the whole thing. So juicy was the story that Time Magazine, this very high-profile news piece, carried his photograph a second consecutive week, if you can see it here, called After the Fall with his wife. The only way I can interpret her look is that she's about to slip her hands down around his neck and strangle him. You can imagine him calling his mom saying, hey mom, I'm on back-to-back covers of Time Magazine, first time ever. Once because of my power, the next because of the mess that I'm in. But the mess that Dick Morris got himself in was really not much different than the mess which a young woman found herself right out in public in front of a crowd of people. With her were the Pharisees, the political power brokers of the day, and this new prophet on the scene named Jesus of Nazareth. It's all there, isn't it? The politics, you know, the Pharisees kind of looking to make a move to put Jesus away. The crowds watching to see who was going to fall first. And the seductive woman, I mean, this is like soap opera stuff, caught in something she had become, unfortunately, a lifestyle of being involved in sexuality with other people. This is an adult story. This isn't something, by the way, that you're going to hear in the Sunday school rooms. There's no first grade puppet show about the woman caught in adultery. You know what I mean? We do Daniel in the Lion's Den and Noah's Ark and those kind of things out there. This is an adult story for people like us. But isn't it also a very touching story? Isn't it? What's touching about this story to us? What gets our emotions if you were following Paul as he read this story? I mean, everything's here for a real nasty confrontation and suddenly what is just electric with tension suddenly dissipates. Why? Because of the mercy of Jesus Christ shown to this woman who in fact was guilty, caught in the act of her sin. I want to answer three questions raised by this particular passage of scripture that give us some insight into the character of God and the nature of his forgiveness. We've been talking in these weeks about the wonder of his love, the wonders of his love. How about forgiveness? How well do you understand it? What questions are these? Number one, please in the overhead. Why is this story here? If you're taking notes. Number two, what is the greatest sin? And number three, how can we respond to such grace in our daily lives? Why, what, and how? Let's answer those three simple questions about this passage. Why is this story here? Why did God include this story, Roman numeral one, in the scriptures? A sizable number of you may have noticed something as Paul was reading that. Did you notice that there's something of a qualifier on this text? How many of you noticed that? Did anybody notice that? Okay, yeah. If you look just before he began reading in my Bible, there's a little bracket and some of your Bibles, the whole thing's in italics. In some places it's even footnoted. My Bible, it says, the earliest and most reliable manuscripts do not have John 753 through 811. Do you see that? How many have that in your Bible? Okay, most of you are with me. You may not be a Bible student in the sense of really studying scriptures, but when I read that, it immediately, being a little bit analytical, I was a chemistry major in college, not a philosophy major, I say, well, wait a minute. Maybe that, I don't know, is that supposed to be in there? I mean, if most of the ancient manuscripts don't have it, then why is it in there? Did you ever ask that question? I've asked that, but it's the same thing in Mark 16 at the end of Mark 16 as well. Same little, it's the only two places it appears. Maybe someone's sitting here thinking, well, I just kind of thought so. This is, you know, this whole thing about Jesus forgiving this woman bothered me anyhow. I mean, she deserved to get hammered. And there may be a few of us on the other end of the spectrum thinking, you know what? I really pray this is so, but it seems too good to be true. But let me share with you something I discovered in studying on this. First of all, make sure of one thing. Those of you who are newer, the Bible can be trusted as authoritative. It isn't just a collection thrown together when some people made up their minds, in fact, I did a sermon on September the 17th of 95, what you really needed to know about the Bible, in which I said, one of the things I said was, of all the manuscripts of antiquity, of all the things you study of Aristotle and Socrates and all the, you know, the Iliad and the Odyssey and all those things, the most that you'll find in terms of parchments and pieces of those documents is 5, 7, 10, or 12 pieces. The Bible has 13,000 plus parchments remaining from the original tome. I mean, it is the most authenticated document from history by far. It is, you can be secure, you're not a fool for thinking that this is just some collection of random fairy tales. Nobody comes close in terms of authenticating their word than God in his holy word. But in this particular passage, something very interesting takes place. I call it the mystery manuscript there in your outline. It turns out that there are four major manuscripts where most of the Bible translators by the year 300 or 400, when this final translation emerged out of the early church, three or four mainstreams, only one carries this story. But here's the interesting point. Two of the remaining manuscripts of the top four have a long blank where the scribe, and a scribe by the way was a man who gave his whole life to translating and just passing on in writing the tradition of the scripture, okay? They left a blank from John 7.53 to John 8.11, large enough that if you penned in the characters in Aramaic or Hebrew, they would fit right in there. Only one just skipped right down and closed the gap and went from John 7.53 to John 8.12. Remember, the numbers and all that weren't in there at all. That's all added later. But the rest of them left a gap. Now, why did they do that? Why would they leave a gap in the Bible where they just didn't write in the story where one of them, and remember they weren't working together, one was one part of the nation, another another part of the nation, so on. But when they compared them, one had the story just like we read it, one had it or two of them had it with a blank where you could have filled the story in and one just jumped down. Now, I've thought about that, read some things about it. Here's my theory. The church of the fourth century is still very fragile. It's in the middle of a decadent Roman society, immoral and pagan in its orientation. And the scribes, I believe anyhow, feared that if they all put that in there, it would be very easy for the people of the day to presume that they could do anything that they wanted to do and God would just basically say, it's okay, I forgive you, go ahead. Is that hard for us to accept? Not hard for me to accept. How many of you don't believe that our world is full of people just like that today? I mean, in the end they think, you know, doggone it, I think that's the way I ought to live. I could live my life, do what I want to do, and in the end the Lord will kind of look at me and say, I don't condemn you either, it's okay. And these scribes feared that if they did that, the message of Christ and his suffering on the cross and what he did to free us from sin would get lost. This story is so overwhelmingly gracious, so dripping with forgiveness, that spiritual men of integrity like the scribes were afraid to tell it because of the potential of men to misinterpret it and use it to their own ends. I see that point, I really do. I know there's something in me that's just that way too. If I feel like I can get away with something, I try to get away with it, don't you? A couple of months ago, there was a feature on one of the evening news programs about the Pennsylvania Turnpike, which I travel now and then. And on this story, they were saying that the state patrolmen were not writing many tickets on the Pennsylvania Turnpike, and they put a stat up. They said 8,000 tickets in 1995 and like 1,200 or whatever it was in 1996. They went on to say that the patrolmen were just letting people go on by because they were basically protesting some of the duties they've been given by the administration. And they figured, well, we'll stop the flow of the ticket money and that'll get their attention. Well, I saw this story and I said, honey, you see that? We can get in the Turnpike and we can go as fast as we want to go. I said, where do you want to go? Let's go for a ride. Where do you want to go? Well, Somerset. I bet we get to Harrisburg in an hour and a half. Now, here's the interesting thing. Within two days after that story was on television, somebody, one of the big bosses said, all right, we'll change things. Why? Because once it got out there publicly, it was just basically they were going to turn the other way. Too much grace with the Smokies, you know. People got, they just couldn't risk that. And so they caved. Because they knew once people found out they could get away with it, everybody would get away with it. It's human nature. It's what we're like. Which raises another question. Why tell this story at all then? Why not just leave it out? Wouldn't, wouldn't, listen, wouldn't God be safer? Wouldn't people be less likely to fall, particularly as we're going to talk about in a moment, sexual sin? If God just didn't taught me, just leave this one out. Let's jump over that story. But here's the truth, friends. God must reveal his heart. You have to understand God's will is that we know him as he really is. And if you take scripture as a whole, two truths kind of emerge up out of the ground of the truth of the word of God. And these are the twin towers of truth. Number one, God is holy. He is without sin. He is perfect. He cannot be in the presence of sin. And his eternal glory will be secure by his holiness. And number two, the twin tower is that God is merciful. He is in a way that we by our human nature are not able to comprehend, able to coexist in perfect holiness and perfect mercy at the same time. But we make a major mistake if we somehow presume, and that's the word, that his mercy will overrule his holiness. We must come to him on the terms of his holiness to receive his mercy. There's one of my favorite authors, D. A. Carson, who's a professor at Trinity Seminary in Chicago, where actually Paul went to school. Here's what D. A. Carson writes. Listen to this. God's holiness is so spectacularly glorious that it demands that he be wrathful with those of his creatures who defy him, who slight his majesty, thumb their noses at his words and works, and insist on their own independence, even though the breath they breathe, not to say their very existence, depends on his providential care. If God were to gaze at sin and rebellion, shrug his shoulders and mutter, well, I'm not too bothered. I can forgive these people. I don't really care what they do. Surely there would be something morally deficient about him. Should God care nothing of Hitler's outrages? Should God care nothing about my rebellion or your rebellion? If he acted this way, would ultimately he discount his own significance, sully his own glory, besmirch his own honor, soil his own integrity? That is why in Scripture, God is sometimes portrayed as blisteringly angry, blisteringly angry in the face of sin. Moreover, it is important that we reject the common evangelical cliché on this subject. Listen carefully now. We've got to reject this cliché. God hates the sin but loves the sinner. Now, you've heard that a lot of times, haven't you? Oh, he hates it. The second part may be true, but as it stands, this antithesis is fundamentally mistaken and is clearly refuted by Scripture. For example, 14 times in the first 50 psalms alone, the text insists that God hates sinners, abhors those who tell lies, and so forth. Make no mistake, we cannot presume upon the holiness of God. We will be called to account for our lives. And yet, next to that tower of God's holiness rises the tower of his mercy. And everything in our fallen nature desperately somehow needs to melt those two together. And you see, friends, it's only in the infinite character of God that perfect holiness and perfect mercy can merge. We in our humanness cannot possibly do it. We have to fall at God's feet and say, oh Lord, I receive your grace and your mercy as you are. God is holy. That's why it says in John 1 14, in your outline right there, that Jesus comes full. He manifests God full of what? Grace and truth. Only in Jesus do you see the perfect merging of those two characteristics of the nature of God. Truth, yes, the straight, the perfect, the right, but yet grace overflowing in who God is. Friends, the wonderful thing about God is that he can blend those two things in who he is. And yet, when he encounters you and I in our sin, how many of you know that he makes it clear, just as he does with this woman. He says to her, I forgive you. I don't condemn you, but go and, yeah, cut it out. Stop it. Sin no more. And I'm so grateful as I stand here before you, friends, that even though I may sin again and again and again, and we may, the Lord never tires in forgiving us. You know, he never runs out of forgiveness. Isn't that great? Are you glad for that today? That's not true about a lot of things in life. I paid into an insurance company for 20 years for my automobile insurance. You have to do that in Pennsylvania, right? Well, a while back this, earlier this year, I got notification from them, actually verbally, that, well, they've been reviewing our files, and we have five drivers in our home, and we had a few fender benders amongst those five drivers. Minor accidents, really. I mean, no airbags, you know, no, nothing was total, anything like that, just fender benders. I'm not going to mention any names of who was involved in the accidents. Not going to be any gender battles going on today about who better drivers are, but the insurance company comes on and says, we're not going to renew your policy, looks like to us, just want you to kind of know that. I said to my, I said, well, wait, hold on, help me with this now. Silly me, you know, I've been paying to this for 20 years. I have a couple little accidents, you pay them, and now you say, well, we really shouldn't be doing that. Do you see the fault? I somehow, the logic breaks down there, you know, for me, but it's not for them. You say, yeah, you're right, so we're going to dump you. That wasn't their word, but that was mine, okay, we're getting ready. Imagine if God did that with us and our sins, you know, what if, what if God got to a limit with us and said, well, here's the news, we're not carrying your policy anymore. Here's a letter from the heavenly underwriters. Dear Mrs. Johnson, I'm writing in response to this morning's request for forgiveness. I'm sorry to inform you that you've reached your quota of sins. Our records show that since employing our services, you have erred seven times in the area of greed, and your prayer life is substandard when compared to others of like age and circumstance. Further review reveals that your understanding of doctrine is in the lower 20 percentile, and you have excessive tendencies to gossip. Because of your sins, you are a high-risk candidate for heaven. You understand that grace does have its limits. Jesus sends his regrets and kindness regards and hopes that you will find some other form of coverage. I'm actually glad that that's not the way it is. We do fall into sin, and we do stumble, but God, as we come back to him, forgives again and again and again. That's the mercy of God. That's the mercy of God. So number two, what is the greatest sin in this passage? Number two, what is the greatest sin? Friends, I could argue forcibly it's the sin of adultery. This woman, the Bible says, was living a life of sin. It wasn't that she was just caught once, you know, and just slipped once, but she was living a life of sin. It's difficult for me in just such limited time to really do justice to this subject, but I want everyone's attention. Because whether or not we want to admit it, sexual sin is still a big problem, even in the church. Lots of people in the church fall into sexual sin, and it's a huge problem outside the church. And I can't begin to describe to you the pain that people endure because of what they allow themselves to do with their bodies. That's why Paul says in the scripture, and if you have your outline there, I'm looking for mine someplace in here. He says, flee sexual immorality, doesn't he? All other sins are outside of a man's body, but when he commits adultery, he sins against himself. If that's a little too spiritual sounding for you, how about this one? This is in the message translation of the Bible, 1 Corinthians 6. Let me read this. You got that one? It begins, there is a sense. There is a sense in which sexual sins are different from all others. In sexual sin, we violate the sacredness of our own bodies. These bodies that were made for God-given and God-modeled love for becoming one with one another. You see, God knew when he described the parameters, the boundaries of our sexual lives. He knew how very, very delicate and fragile it was all connected. And so those in the masses today, Christian and otherwise, who kind of just basically say, you know what? God couldn't possibly know what I'm going through. He couldn't know how difficult it is for me to stay pure. So I'm just going to go ahead and indulge myself. I'm just going to, or look, I'm going to go ahead and do this because I know in the end, God's going to forgive me. It says right here, and they presume upon that friends. The mistake that most people make is they kind of think that sex is just the physical part, and it's really just kind of taking care of a natural drive. Read the next passage, please, that Paul writes. Here's what he says about sex. Same thing in 1 Corinthians 6. There's more to sex than mere skin on skin. Sex is as much spiritual mystery as physical fact, and friends, that is so important. It's as much a spiritual mystery as it is physical fact. As written in scripture, the two become one. Since we want to become one with the master that is Christ, we must not pursue the kind of sex that avoids commitment, lifelong commitment, and intimacy, leaving us more lonely than ever. The kind of sex that can never become one. I have people tell me, well, you know, I struggle with this, and they say, but to be honest with you, Jay, I don't feel that guilty about it. I kind of just do it because I love the person, and God created me with these drives, and on and on they go, but you see, friends, guilt really has nothing to do with it. Your feelings about guilt. God clearly says in scripture, these are the boundaries, and he puts the boundaries in there not to squash you and give you a miserable life. I want to make a real important announcement. God is pro-sex. God thought of the idea. He designed the parts. He knows how everything works. I mean, within the confines of marriage, God's boundaries, he's pro-sex, and in fact, you know, I don't know what God's going to do in heaven. I mean, how do you follow up in God's order of things if orgasm is the highest thing we can achieve? That's okay to say in church, isn't it? You're all busting. Okay. What's heaven going to be like? Somehow God has this all figured out, friends, but he says, while you're on the earth, listen, young people, listen, because so many of you could be spared so much sorrow in your life. While you're on this earth, you do it my way. You're a whole being, and when you rip the physical side out and just play around with it, it affects the soul, and it affects the spirit, and you carry it with you. You don't just watch what, can you be forgiven of sexual sin? Absolutely. I don't want anyone hearing my voice today to think, well, if you've had affairs or if you're in bed with someone right now that God doesn't love you or doesn't, he'll, he loves you, and he'll forgive you, but he'll also say to you in the clearest of terms, stop what you're doing and sin no more, and in the end, you'll be the one that will be blessed because you obeyed the will of the Lord, but sexual sin is not the greatest sin in this passage, and I don't have time to develop this. I just want to go right to the chase here. The greatest sin is what I see in the attitude of the Pharisees, because friends, think about this story. How did this happen? How did this woman, here's Jesus kind of teaching in the temple, and they bring this woman in. Where did they find her? How did they catch her in the act? Were they peeping through door holes and windows? The only conclusion you can draw is they set the whole thing up. They told some guy, they said, look, you know so-and-so, she's pretty loose, pick her up, get into bed with her, we're going to come knocking at, you know, whenever it was, 2 p.m. When we knock, you bolt out the back door, we're going to grab her, and that's it. We want to catch this Jesus guy, because friends, where's the guy in this passage? Huh? I mean, it was just as wrong for him. The law said the same thing. He should be stoned just like the woman should be stoned, but somehow he's not there. They cut a deal. He got out, and they were using this woman and her spiritual poverty to pursue their own control, and that's the operative word. The real sin in this passage to me is spiritual blindness. The Pharisees using the word of God, the law of God, to control other people, and when that control was threatened, they'd do anything, even to the point of seeing another person stoned to death to keep control. And friends, all I want to say about this to us today is, please ask God to show you in your heart, if you're using your spiritual perception, maturity, or understanding in any way as an instrument of control, as an instrument of domination, as an instrument of judgment over somebody else. We have to understand spiritual arrogance is when you place your perception above someone else and just simply seek to keep them underneath because of it, and it happens a lot. It's a sin. It's spiritual blindness to one's own condition. That's the greatest sin in this passage. Finally then, how do we respond to the incredible grace of Jesus? And by the way, who knows what he wrote in the sand? Who knows what Jesus says he knelt down and started writing. If you've ever been to Israel, there's a lot of sand and a lot of dirt to write in. I don't know. Some say the Ten Commandments make a lot of sense. Some say he was writing the names of the women that some of the Pharisees had been hanging out with on the side. Did you also notice that they left from the oldest to the youngest? Did you pick that up? Read it again. It says they started to leave from the oldest to the youngest. What does that tell you? The older you are, the more you realize how little righteousness you really have. The young bucks hang in there till the end, and then they realize, you know what? Everyone's bold in here. I think it's time to get out. We don't know what Jesus wrote. All we know was that he looked up and he said, I don't condemn you. Can you imagine the relief in this woman? What an incredible experience. She received the love of God. How did she respond? Well, you know what? A lot of us parents, we know what it's like to give something and not really get the kind of response we hope to get or expect. I mean, we got Christmas coming right around the corner here. How many of you parents are knocking yourselves out right now? I mean, your little kid, your five-year-old has not, they don't have a clue the extreme edges you're going to to make them happy on that morning, right? I mean, I remember when the hot toys were whatever. I mean, like today, it's the 64-bit Nintendo processor. You know, well, I'll wait in line to get her. What is that? The Slobber Me Elmo or whatever it is that thing called. What is it? I mean, I've seen pictures of women beating each other over the head with it. You know, Slug Me Elmo, whatever. Just, I need this thing for my kid. But our kids, they don't have a clue the measures, really, we'll go to, to try to make them happy. And I'm not sure that sometimes the Lord looks at us and He says, you know, you don't have a clue all that I do for you, how much grace I've poured in your life, how much I've covered you. We don't see any evidence of this woman falling in Jesus' feet and saying, oh God, my Lord and my Master, I love you. And yet, the good news is, as you look through the scriptures, there is evidence. Don't turn there, but look in your notes. Luke chapter 7, verse 38, a woman, a similarly sinful woman, a prostitute, when she discovered the forgiveness of Jesus, the Bible says, she poured perfume over Him, expensive perfume, a year's wages worth of perfume, and then washed His feet with her hair. Worship, and friends, please listen. When we stand and lift our hands and say, oh Lord, you are more precious than silver and more costly than gold and more beautiful than diamonds, and nothing I desire compares to you, when we worship Him and say, Lord, knowing you, you're my all, you're the best, you're my joy, my righteousness, we're not just mouthing cute choruses, we're expressing the deep appreciation of our soul. We've been redeemed, we've received forgiveness, we would be doomed eternally if it weren't for the grace of God. The only response is worship, and then number two in your outline, a life of obedience, or let her be as it should be, a life of obedience. Let me end with this. You see, Jesus said to the woman, go and sin no more, or go and don't do it again, it's over. And friends, what I've discovered with people in 22 years of full-time pastoral ministry is, lots of people come to the moment of crisis. Listen carefully. Some of you are here today, and in the last month, not unlike our friend Peter, you've made a decision. You met eyes with me on this platform, or maybe you prayed at home at night, and asked Christ into your life. You came to the point of a decision, but friends, listen, salvation is not a prayer. Salvation is a life that comes when you open your heart to the presence of Christ, and then you make a decision, day by day, by day, by day, by day, by day, by day, to live for him. Every morning you wake up and say, Lord, I receive again today your life and presence, your forgiveness and your grace, help me to live for you today. And you stumble and you fail, but forgiveness abounds, and you keep, and then you've discovered that you start to grow in that. But if you don't take those steps, you'll never come to a sense of peace. Let me end with this illustration. A man came up to me a couple of months ago now, after the service, and he started with my favorite opener. He said, do you remember my name? And I said, I'm really sorry, I don't. I remember your face, but I can't remember your name. And he said, well, eight months ago, we met eyes in the service, and I prayed that prayer you talked about. I said, that's great. How are you doing? He said, well, to be honest with you, I'm not doing very well. He said, so I lifted my eyes and my hand again today, and I remembered that he had. And he said, I just don't have any peace. And I said, well, what did you do eight months ago? He said, well, I mean, I prayed that prayer. I said, did you mean it? He said, yeah, I meant it. He said, well, I told him, did you do the things I asked you to do? Did you start reading your Bible? Well, not really. I didn't understand it. Well, did you get connected with another Christian who knows a little bit more, who could show you how to understand it and to pray a little bit? He said, well, no, I didn't have time. And then I remembered a situation he'd been in with his girlfriend. I said, did you and your girlfriend separate? Did you get out of the living together situation you were in? And he said, I said, friend, so you made the mistake of thinking that just the prayer would save you. And you don't have peace with God because you haven't done what you need to do. You need to take a step of obedience. You don't have to clean up your whole act, but you have to take a step and God will help you with that. And then another, and he'll help you with that. And another, and pretty soon that life begins to overflow and you get a hunger. You start to just anticipate God and he redeems you and restores you. And I want us to close reading this one simple little quote together. As the story, this passage ends, look at this with me. Let's read it together at the end of your outline. Because he loved us, he came after us in Christ. He pursued us even to the desolate anguish of the cross where he bore sin and guilt and judgment and death. It takes a hard and stony heart to remain unmoved by a love like that. It is more than love. Its proper name is grace, which is love for the undeserving. Let's stand up. Lord, right now, your presence is here in this place. And as we prepare our hearts to receive the cup and the bread today, I pray, oh God, that you'd shine the light of your truth in each of our hearts and you'd show us what your plan is for us. Heads are bowed, please. Only the answers are moving around to prepare communion. I'd like to ask this question this morning. Who's here today that knows that you need to get right with God? That maybe you've tried and maybe you've even prayed a prayer now and then, but you haven't really come on God's terms to receive forgiveness and open your life to Christ. Friend, no one here is any better than you. We're all the same. We come on the same grounds, the grounds of the cross. If you know today that you need to receive Christ, I'm going to lead you in a prayer. That's the invitational part of this. You say these words and God will hear them and he'll begin that work in your life. Please just say this prayer right where you are. Heavenly Father, say the words to him. Heavenly Father, I need your presence in my life. Please forgive my sin today. I receive Jesus Christ as my sin substitute. Come into my life now. In your name, I pray. With heads bowed, please. A very powerful prayer that would begin the process of God changing your life. If you prayed that prayer, allow me the privilege of agreeing with you today as many have over these last weeks. Yes, today. You mean it today. You're going to walk with God today. Heads are bowed. If you prayed that prayer, I want you to lift your head and look this way and let our eyes meet and just look right up here. I'm going to agree with you. I won't embarrass you, but hold your hand up at the same time all around the room. Hold it up high and let me just see right where you are and I'll agree with you. Okay, so near the back, I agree with you receiving Christ today. I confirm that decision with you in the name of Jesus. Other others today, just lift your hand up high, look right this way and let our eyes meet and I'll agree with you. Anyone else today, I need Christ in my life. As I look around, if I miss you, just wave. Okay, God bless you. I agree with you in the name of Jesus and understand the Lord will never leave you or forsake you now. He's in your heart. God bless you. Is there another? I'll wait another moment. Wave your hand. Just catch my eye. Anybody else? Lord, we bless you and thank you now and we pray, Lord, for our lives as we receive now the cup and the bread that you'd minister to us the magnitude of your love and forgiveness in Jesus' name. Look up please. If you prayed that prayer and you looked up at me, I praise God for what you've done as a decision and as you're being seated, I want you to tell the person next to you, I pray with Pastor Jay. And if you didn't look up, but you wanted to, just tell the person, I prayed that prayer. You can just tell them, I prayed that prayer. And we can all whisper another