 We're going to continue through starting at verse number 9. We looked at verse number 8 on Sunday morning talking about Joe Rogan. But we're going to look at verse number 9 on, and especially at this point in the Sur, in Colossians chapter 3, the Bible really starts talking about relationships between brothers and sisters in Christ here for the next few verses. It gives some very specific advice on how to handle your relationships with your fellow Christians. So let's go ahead and look at that. We've done a couple of these things we've talked about before, but there's one thing specifically that I'm going to spend some time on this evening that I don't think I've actually preached an entire sermon on. So we're going to look at this idea tonight. But let's go ahead and look at verse number 9 and get into the sermon right away. Colossians chapter 3, look at verse number 9. The Bible says here, now we're talking about relationships with each other. So here we had some advice on putting off anger, wrath, malice, all these things, that you should do. Now Paul is going to start talking to you about how you should be treating each other, how we should relate to one another in the church. Look at verse number 9 where the Bible says, lie not to one another, seeing that you have put off the old man with his deeds, and have put on the new man which is renewed in knowledge after the image of him that created him. So there's some pretty specific advice here. And now it just basically says don't lie to each other. Don't be liars. Now look, lying is one of those things that we use this sin all the time out soul winning. I think it's one of these things that we talk about so much that we kind of pass over it sometimes. We use it all the time just to prove everybody's a sinner because everybody has lied. Everyone's done it. But the thing is, we don't ever want to get to the point where we're like, we talk about it so much. We use it as a sin that everybody has done where we're like, yeah, it's no big deal. So first of all, look, is it ever okay in the Bible? I was having this discussion with my family. And there is a couple points in the Bible where somebody lied. And it's not that God in those points actually turned to Exodus chapter 1. It will look at one of those points this evening. But there is actually a point in the Bible where somebody lied. And it never says that God was okay with it. But it did say God didn't judge it. Look at Exodus chapter 1. The two points in the Bible that I can think of specifically, I think there's some other minor issues where people lied in the Bible, where God didn't judge it, but where the midwives in Egypt, they lied to the Egyptians saying that they, we'll look at that here in a second, but they lied to save the children of Israel. They were supposed to kill the male children and they lied about it so they wouldn't have to kill the male children. And then of course there was Rahab who also lied to get the spies out to help the spies. So let's just look at one of these examples. Look at Exodus chapter 1 in verse number 15. Exodus chapter 1, look at verse number 15. The Bible says, And the king of Egypt spake unto the Hebrew midwives of which the name was one was Shephra and the name of the other Pua. And he said, When do ye do the office of a midwife to the Hebrew women and see that this sit upon the stools? If it be a son, then ye shall kill him. But if it be a daughter, then ye shall live. So of course Pharaoh was worried that the Israelites were just like they were spreading and they were just like they were growing too fast. Their numbers were getting too big. So he wanted all the male children to be killed. But the midwives feared God and did not as the king of Egypt commanded them but saved the men children alive. And the king of Egypt called for the midwives and he said unto them, Why have ye done this thing and have saved the men children alive? And the midwives said unto Pharaoh, Because the Hebrew women are not as the Egyptian women for they are lively and they're delivered ere the midwives come in unto them. They said basically the children were born. They didn't need the midwives. They delivered the babies without midwives. Therefore God dealt with the midwives and the people multiplied and waxed very mighty. So look, this was a lie for good, you could say. It was a lie that stopped murder in this case, right? It was a terrible time of oppression. Look, it doesn't say that the midwives, I mean just think about the situation. It doesn't say the midwives saved all the Hebrew male children. But I mean they saved some of the children. But look, the point I'm trying to make is people justify lying because they say oh it's a small lie or oh I had to lie. But the point I'm trying to make is the two points in the Bible that were what you want to call lies that God was okay with. Maybe you could make that argument. They were saving people's lives. I mean they were saving people's lives against an oppressive government that was there to murder people, okay? So let's be real, these are very extreme cases that none of us have been in, right? So the point is that lying is actually a big deal in the Bible. So it's not that we should go out and just talk about it so much, soul winning, that it just becomes a small thing to us. The Bible here is saying don't lie to each other. Look, if you want to have good relationships, don't lie to each other. But the fact is that people don't lie today to save people's lives, to stop an oppressive government from getting people. They lie to cover sin. They lie to turn to Proverbs chapter 6. They lie to lift themselves up. They lie to destroy. They lie to, you know, make other people look bad. Look at Proverbs chapter 6. Let's look at what God thinks about lying. It's not a small thing. Look at Proverbs chapter 6 and verse number 16. The Bible says, These six things doth the Lord hate, yea, seven are an abomination unto him. And then we're going to see seven things listed here. The Bible says, A proud look, a lying tongue, and hands that shed innocent blood, and heart that devises wicked imaginations, feet that be swift in running to mischief, a false witness that speaketh lies, and he that soweth discord among the brethren. It's interesting to note that out of these seven things, at least three of them, I could argue more than three, but at least three of them have to do with lying. And these are things that the Lord hates. So my point I'm trying to make is, this is an easy one and it's not the point of the sermon, is that lying just because we talk about it all the time out, soul winning, is something that we should strive to not do in our lives, obviously, especially to each other. I mean, just embrace truth in your life is all you have to do. And look, all you have to do to not be a liar and to embrace truth is just embrace this idea that, because look, you're going to make errors in your life. You're going to mess things up in your life. You're going to say things that you shouldn't have said in your life. You're going to do things that you shouldn't have done in your life just own those things. That's it. That's how you're not a liar. Just own those things. And guess what? If you go through your life where you're just like, you know what, whenever I make a mistake, I'm just going to own that mistake. And first of all, I should own that mistake as quickly as possible. There's a time factor in there. If you hang on to the sinking ship, you're obviously much more likely to drown. If you hang on to a bad idea, you hang on to a lie, you hang on to something, some sin that you've done or you're into, the quicker you get in the truth and the quicker you just own that mistake, the better it's going to be for your life, the people around you, all of that. And guess what? If you become a person that owns your mistakes and you're just like right away, you're just like, ah, I'm sorry about that. Yes, I did that. I'm sorry. Guess what? You're going to think twice before making those mistakes. You're going to think twice because look, owning your mistakes isn't fun. Nobody thinks it's fun. They'll go up to people and be like, hey, you know, I'm sorry that I did that to you or I'm sorry that I said these things or I'm sorry I did these things. Look, that's not a good time for anybody. Even though that's what you should do, it'll make you think about doing things like that in the future. It'll make you think about that. It's just like this person just covers everything up and just never wants to take responsibility for anything. They're just going to become known as a liar, unfortunately. So embrace the truth in your life. And look, lying, especially about sin, will just make things worse and worse and worse. Think about David. Think about David. He starts out, you know, with lust and that ends up into adultery. Then he starts lying. Then he starts lying to cover things up. And then what happens? Now we have murder. Now we have murder of multiple people. Multiple people were murdered to cover up David's adultery. So back to, you know, Colossians. The point is don't lie to each other. Turn to Proverbs chapter 12. Turn to Proverbs chapter 12. Yes, I get it. We've all lied. But look at Proverbs chapter 12 and we'll close the book on lying this evening. But look at Proverbs chapter 12. We have all lied. It is true that we are all liars. We go out soul-winning and we read that to people and we're like, you know, and all liars. I get it. We're all liars. But guess what? Look at Proverbs chapter 12 and look at verse number 22. The Bible says lying lips are an abomination to the Lord. But they that deal truly are his delight. Yes, we have all lied. But guess what? There are some people that would be known as honest and some people that will be known as liars. That's what Proverbs chapter 22 is saying. It's saying, look, lying lips are an abomination to the Lord. But there are people that deal truly. There are people that deal truly. And you want to have that name that you deal truly with your brothers and sisters in Christ. Look at Colossians chapter 3 in verse number 10. So that's pretty Christianity 101 right there. Let's go on to some more complex relationship advice from Colossians chapter 3 this evening. Look at verse number 10. And the Bible says, And put on the new man which is renewed in knowledge after the image of him that created him where there is neither Greek nor Jews circumcision nor uncircumcision Barbarian, Scythian, Bonn or Free but Christ is all and in all. So what are we dealing with here again? We're dealing with people from all different cultures all different places. Paul is saying there's none of that. He's like there's none of these nationalities. There's none of there's Greeks nor Jews. There's none of that. He's like we're all in Christ. He says put on therefore as the elect of God you're saved. You're all saved. That is what you all have in common. That is your culture now. Put on therefore as the elect of God holy and beloved bowels of mercies, kindness, humbleness of mind, meekness, long suffering, forbearing. And then we see a semicolon. Okay. So we see all these things separated by commas. These are all characteristics that we're to have to do what? So we can forbearing one another. This idea of forbearing one another. We're supposed to have bowels of mercies, kindness, humbleness of mind, meekness, long suffering while we're doing this forbearing one another and forgiving one another. If any man have a quarrel against any even as Christ forgave you so also do ye. So let's look at this idea. All these characteristics that we're supposed to have so we could forbear one another. I'm supposed to look. I'm supposed to forbear you. You're supposed to forbear me. You're supposed to forbear each other. What does it mean? Shouldn't we understand what it means to forbear one another? Forbearing, turn to Romans chapter 2. Forbearing and look, you should appreciate forbearing. You should appreciate forbearing. I'll show you why in Romans chapter 2. But forbearing means to behave in a patient way at a time where you would have a right to be upset or angry. It means that you have a right to be mad. You have a right to pass judgment but you don't. You withhold that. You just, you have patience. You have, that's why it says long suffering right before it goes into forbearing. It's basically to be, to be forbearing means to hold back judgment, to be patient, to have self-control. And here's why it's important why you do your very best to be forbearing. Look at Romans chapter 2 and look at verse number 4. Romans chapter 2 and verse number 4. The Bible says, Or despises thou the riches of his goodness. So this is, Paul here is talking about the riches of God's goodness towards us. Okay, he's saying, Do you despise the riches of his goodness and what? And forbearance and long suffering. See how those two go together? Just like in Colossians chapter 3. So God has forbearance and long suffering not knowing that the goodness of God leadeth thee to repentance. So the Bible here is saying is that God is forbearing towards us. That's God's goodness towards us. It's his forbearance towards us. He's, that means God is delaying his judgment towards us. Forbearance means we deserve it, but he's, he's just delaying. He's holding back that judgment that he could righteously pour down upon us. He's just being patient. He's being long suffering with us. I mean, think about, this is like our country right now. Our country you could easily say right now because we look at all the wickedness going on in this country. We look at all the horrible things that our country is doing and we, you could say rightly so looking at Romans chapter 2 and verse number 4 that we are under the forbearance of God in this country right now. I mean, look, we're running on God's forbearance of his judgment. Look, we deserve it. We deserve it, but we're operating, we're operating in the red. Think about, you know, think about a tachometer on your car. When you get in your car tonight, you'll have a tachometer on the, on, you know, it shows the RPMs of your engine and there'll be a red part. When it gets up to, you know, four or 5,000 RPM, there'll be a red part. Guess what? If you rev your engine into that red zone, your engine is not going to explode right away. You can operate for a certain amount of time in that red zone, but eventually you're going to be in trouble if you're running your car in that red zone. Look, because of the abortion in this country, because of the blasphemy in this country, because of turning our backs on God, because of the normalized sin, because of the perversion, because of all these things in general, just, just rejecting the word of God, rejecting Jesus Christ. We are operating in this red zone. We are operating in the forbearance zone of God in this country. We're redlining the engine in this country. And look, you know, I don't know. Here's what I do know. If you run your engine in that red zone constantly, you will blow up the engine at some point. Judgment's coming on this country. The forbearance is just a delaying of judgment. It's not a taking away of judgment. If you know anything from the Bible, if you know anything from the Old Testament especially, it's that judgment, if it's deserved, is coming. God is just giving us more time. And I like to think that ministries like this and, you know, ministries like ours, I like to think that we're maybe delaying that judgment. That we're maybe, you know, helping God be more forbearing, helping God be more long-suffering. Just convincing God in some small way, give us a little bit more time. Every single week, we get more people saved in this ministry. And then, you know, just God looked down, and I'm just hoping he says maybe another week, maybe another two weeks, maybe another two months. But we are definitely operating in God's forbearance zone. And I'm thankful as a Christian for God's forbearance towards us. So what is Paul saying? In Colossians chapter 3, he's saying we should have that same forbearance towards each other. So I'm going to give you two steps tonight on how to be forbearing to your brothers and sisters in Christ. Turn to Ecclesiastes chapter 7. Turn to Ecclesiastes chapter 7. I'm going to give you two simple steps to be more forbearing in your life. Hopefully, you're a forbearing person, but you should be more forbearing. Step one is this. Turn to Ecclesiastes chapter 7, and I'll explain to you step one. Step one is this. Here's how you become more forbearing in two simple steps. The first step is this. Stop being offended by everything. That's step one. Look, give people the benefit of the doubt in your life. You know, there's a lot of things that people get offended about that, you know, maybe people should just think, you know what, maybe they didn't mean it that way. Some people just think the worst of every situation, and these types of people, look, every, they, you know, they're so easily offended, they think every little thing, was that talking about me? These people that are offended by every little situation, they're just, they're never going to have any friends if you're this type of person. Somebody didn't say hi to me, or somebody didn't smile at me the way that they smiled at me last week. Look, there's people that operate their lives this way, and they're never going to have any friends because they're not forbearing. If you are so sensitive that you get offended by everything, that is the exact opposite of forbearing, folks. Look, I mean, I don't know, when I walk in here on Wednesday, I don't know what you've gone through for three days since I saw you, or two days since I saw you on Sunday. You don't know what I've gone through. I don't know what Brother Matt's gone through. Maybe just like horrible things happen to you, and Brother Matt comes in and he just doesn't, doesn't really say hi and click his heels together like he usually does or whatever. Maybe that's just something that I should just be like, man, maybe he just had a bad couple of days, and I shouldn't just take everything so personally in my life. People are too sensitive today, and they're forbearing nothing. So let it go, forbear it. Not forbearing is actually selfish, actually, and that's why it talks about humility and meekness. In the words right before being forbearing. It talks about mercy, kindness, humbleness of mind, it says. Meekness in verse number 12, long suffering. Now look at Ecclesiastes chapter 7, look at verse 22. Ecclesiastes chapter 7, verse 21, I'm sorry, verse 21. This is such a brilliant piece of wisdom right here. If it, you know, you would never know this if it wasn't in the Bible. Look at Ecclesiastes chapter 7 and verse number 21. The Bible says, also, take no heed unto all the words that are spoken, lest thou hear thy servant curse thee. For oftentimes also, thine own heart knoweth that thou thyself likewise have cursed others. You know, the best way I can explain these two verses is, I was thinking like of an analogy I could give you to explain these two verses. I mean, hopefully you understand those two verses, but think about like road rage. This is such a great way to explain this. Road rage, I had this friend one time that I used to work with like 15 years ago. He was like, you know, he was the quietest guy, but you get in a car with him? Like I never wanted to ever get in a car with him because the guy was crazy. You get in a car and he was like the worst road rage person ever. I don't know what his problem was, but think about road rage for a minute. Think about road rage. You get these people and they pull up behind somebody at a stop light and the stop light goes green and the person doesn't like take off like they're in a NASCAR race, right? And like a second, maybe two seconds, three seconds goes by and they're just like, they're ready to run over the person in front of them. They're ready to smash cars. They're ready to, I mean, this guy, you would get in a car with this guy and before he would let somebody merge, he would get in a car accident. He actually said that. He's like, I'm not letting this guy in, brace for impact. He told me one time. I'm just like, man, what's the deal? You know, because he's like, this guy he should have got in back there. You know, and it's just, you know, what's that guy thinking? He's thinking idiot, moron. This guy doesn't know how to drive. He's thinking, this guy, he's thinking, I would never do this, right? This is the road rage guy. He says, oh, never do this. I would never do this. And then he gets to the light, the next light up ahead after he just berates somebody and honks at somebody. He gets at the next light and he's the front of the light and he's texting on his phone and the light goes green and here's somebody honking at him. He's all, hey, hey, hey. And he just did it to somebody else. You know, this is Ecclesiastes chapter 7 in verse 21 and verse 22. Look, don't be offended by everything that you hear is what it's saying, because if the things that you have said would probably offend other people as well is what it's saying. And it's this crazy correlation. It's this crazy correlation that Ecclesiastes chapter 7 in verse 21 and 22 makes that, look, if you didn't have life experience and or the Bible, you would never make, you would never guess this correlation. But the people that are offended by everything in verse 21, you should make a note of this in your Bible because this is so true. The people that are offended by everything, verse 21, are the same people in verse 22 that are constantly saying things that offend or would offend other people if they heard those things. It's so true. Solomon's wisdom just pops right out of the Bible here. It's just the greatest thing. It's look, it's the same. If you live in a glass house, don't throw stones, right? But the truth is that people that live in a glass house are walking around with shotguns, blasting shotguns everywhere. That's how it works. And that's what Ecclesiastes chapter 7 is talking about. Look, you just can't be offended by everything that you hear because if everybody heard everything that you ever said, ever in your house or wherever, they would be offended as well. Just think about that. I mean, as a pastor, I just can't allow certain things in a church, but let me tell you something. If I was obsessed with things that people said to me constantly, if I was just constantly offended or annoyed, I just couldn't be in the ministry. It just wouldn't be possible, you know? So look, if you can have mercy on people in these cases and just give people the benefit of the doubt, just be like, you know, I'm sure they didn't mean anything by that. You know, before bearing, you will have great relationships if you can do this. That's what Paul is talking about in Colossians chapter 3. We live in a society today, actually, look, this is actually a term now. It's actually a term. I think it's in the dictionary now, but we live in a society that is convincing everyone that they should be offended at everything constantly. It's called, there's a generation called the snowflake generation now. If you became an adult in 2010, you're called the snowflake, the snowflake generation. The actual definition is someone who has an inflated view of their uniqueness, of their importance. It wasn't humility part of being forbearing. Was it, you know, having an inflated view of how important you are is the opposite of meekness. It says a snowflake is a person who has an inflated view of their uniqueness, of their importance. They have a sense of entitlement. They're overly emotional and they're easily offended. This is the snowflake. So look, we should have no part of that. We should have no part of whatever culture is popping up in this country. We're not taking part of anything that this country, this culture moves to, we're staying where we are. We went over that on Sunday morning. So basically step one is don't be a snowflake. You know, don't be offended by every single little thing you hear and, you know, you've probably said worse is what it comes down to. So that's step one. Just don't be a snowflake. Don't be offended by everything. Turn to 1 Corinthians 6. So if you want to be a forebearing person, just let things, you know, give people the benefit of the doubt. It must have had a bad day. You know, Brother George comes in and he's super rude to me. It's just like, hey, he had a bad day, whatever. Okay, I mean, it's just the way you have to be before bearing to people. Look at 1 Corinthians 6. What are things like more than words? You know, what if there's like actual like business relationships or something like that that go bad? Well, what do we do then? Look at 1 Corinthians 6. This goes for, you know, comments and things people say as well. But look at 1 Corinthians 6. Look at verse number seven. So here Paul is talking about, he goes into this church and this church, they're just like, they're just like taking each other to the law for everything. So they're, they have conflicts in the church and they're taking each other to like the, you know, the civilian authorities outside the church. And he says, you know, he basically says like, why would you go to the godless for these things? He's like, can't you judge yourselves? He's like, you're saved. You're, you're saints. Now therefore, look at verse seven. There is utterly fault. Now therefore, there is utterly a fault amongst you, among you, because you go to law one with another. Why do you rather not take wrong? Why do you rather not suffer yourselves to be defrauded? So I understand the conflict here that Paul's talking in this specifically is about, you know, they're basically suing each other is what's going on. They're basically ratting each other out to the authorities. He's saying, hey, handle things in house. But the main thing he's saying here is just, just suffer yourself to be wronged. Just suffer yourself to be wronged. Look, if you can, if you can, just suffer yourself to be defrauded. Say somebody just did say something that was just blatantly rude to you or to me or to whoever. Look, if you can just suffer yourself to be defrauded. I mean, sticks and stones may break my bones. Words will never hurt me. You know, what about, what about like this one where you could actually take somebody to court though? What about, you know, brother, you know, so-and-so, borrows brother, so-and-so, a thousand-dollar tool and he just destroys it. And he, he just wrecks the tool and he's like, you know what, I just don't have the money to pay you. So I mean, literally you could end up with a situation like that in the church where one brother could actually take another brother to small claims court and ensue him for that tool. And the Bible here is seeing, Paul is just seeing, he's just let it go. Just suffer yourself to be in front. He's like, oh, it's a thousand dollars though. Yeah, but here's the thing, is who cares? It's just money. And if you can't afford to lose something, like if you can't afford to lose something, you should never borrow it to somebody in the first place. If you can't afford to, you know, borrow somebody $500 and never get that $500 back, don't give it to them in the first place. Just assume that it's gone when you borrow something. That's a good, safe practice, especially within a church, you know, if you're going to borrow somebody your car, you know, look, whenever I borrow and throw somebody the keys to my car, look, if you total it, I mean, I hope no one gets hurt, but if you total it, like literally, there will be zero problems between us. Because I mean, who cares? It's a car. And hopefully, you know, nobody gets hurt in this situation. It would be the main concern. But the point is, if a car, if something that I had was so important to me that borrowing it to you would literally endanger our relationship because I couldn't forebear that. I couldn't suffer myself to be defrauded from that thing. I should never, look, I should never be in that position anyway with material things. But if I am, I should never borrow it. Because what I'm doing is I'm taking risk with our relationship. And I should never do something like that. You should never do something like that. Now, look, if somebody, you borrow somebody money and they just don't pay you back. Look, let it go. Forgive it, forget it, move on. That doesn't mean you have to keep borrowing them money. That doesn't mean that you think that that person's trustworthy or you think that they're responsible. That's, that's not what it means. It just means that you're going to move forward with no ill will about that situation. Okay. Go back to Colossians chapter three. Go back to Colossians chapter three. So those are the two steps. Just basically, don't get offended by every single thing that happens. Everything, single thing that's said. We've all said plenty of things that would offend plenty of people if everybody knew everything that we ever said about everybody. I mean, that's ridiculous. Just don't be offended. Sometimes people have a bad day. Sometimes people don't get back to your text right away. Sometimes, you know, just all these things that people can get so easily offended about, just, you got to, you got to forbear people. If you want to have long lasting strong relationships with your brothers, sisters, and Christ, you got to be a forbearing person. The first one is just not be offended by every little thing. The second one is to just suffer yourself to be defrauded. Suffer yourself to be defrauded. Okay, especially material things. Look, folks, they don't matter. None of it matters. None of it is worth just a friendship. We'll get Colossians chapter 3 in verse 13. So we're going to forbear. We're going to forgive. We're going to let things go. Look at verse 13. And above all these things put on charity, that's love, which is the bond of perfectness. In verse 15, and let the peace of God rule in your hearts. To the which also you're called in one body and be thankful and be thankful. Here's the reasoning behind it right here in verse 15. The reasoning between all for all this advice that we're getting from verse nine up to verse 15 is so peace can rule in our hearts. It's so the peace of God can rule in our hearts. Who would want to live with strife and contention in their life? Why? Why would people want that? You want peace with your brothers and sisters in Christ. And look with honesty and forbearance that's what you will get is peace. I mean the other choice is what we saw earlier. Anger, wrath, malice seems an easy choice on which one that we should choose. Now here's the last thing I want you to remember tonight. Turn to James chapter two. So why, why? I mean why doesn't everyone choose this? Right? I mean when we're, you know, why shouldn't we just all forbear each other, all forgive each other, all be honest with each other? This is the last thing I want you to think about right here. Look at James chapter two. This is a philosophy that God operates on and you need to understand this. Whenever we are asked to do something with our brothers and sisters, our neighbors, when we are asked to treat them in a certain way, this is a super important methodology that is throughout the Bible. When you are asked to treat your brothers, your sisters, your neighbors, those around you in a certain way because God treats you that way, there's something that you need to understand. Look at James chapter two. There's a philosophy that you need to understand. Look at James chapter two in verse number 13. The Bible says this. It says, For he shall have judgment without mercy. Oh. So here's a guy, here's a guy that's going to get judgment with no mercy. Who wants to be that guy? Raise your hand. That just when he does something wrong, whether it's your brothers and sisters, whether it's God, it's just judgment right away. Look, forbearance isn't about. Look, forbearance is not about the absence of fault. Forbearance is being patient and long suffering even though there has been a fault. The Bible says, For he shall have judgment without mercy that showed no mercy. And mercy rejoices against judgment. So the point I'm trying to make is if you are going to be this type of person that is going to bring down the world on people and have no mercy on people, no forgiveness on people, no forbearance on people, God is not going to grant you those things. That's what you need to understand. We are all operating individually in the forbearance zone of God. Romans chapter 2 in verse number 4. We are all underneath God's forbearance. So if you decide I'm just not going to forbear other people and I'm just going to forget about this, you're at a major risk in your life. So humble yourself and forbear because the more you grant, the more will be granted to you. In your life. Now people do this. People do this with people's kids. People do this with all. I mean, people are so judgmental about other people's kids. This is a perfect example. You know, it fits in right with the road rage. People are so judged they have no mercy on other people's kids. Look, they have no forbearance. Think about it. It's not that kids don't do anything wrong. But when somebody else's child does something wrong, they just like come down on them like a ton of bricks. But then it's like my children can do no wrong in their life. Look, those people will be given no mercy by God. And look, all of our kids are going to do things wrong. So I mean, grant mercy and forbearance and you will get that back to yourself. It's literally, look, it's literally we're talking about a win, win, win here tonight. We're talking about you win, your brother wins and God wins. You got to embrace those situations in your life. Look, it's hard. It's hard to do because you get in the flesh. You get in the flesh and you get mad that somebody did wrong to you. You get upset that somebody did wrong to you. Forbearance, like I said, somebody has done wrong to you or you perceive that they've done wrong to you. Forbearance is just is letting that go. It's letting it go. You got to recognize these win, win, wins and take them in your life. And the better you can get at this and the better you can you can shut off your flesh and just, you know, kill that inner that person that wants to just have no mercy on people and be super judgmental on people the better you can do it the better friends you're going to have. The longer friendships you'll have in your life the closer friendships you'll have in your life you'll have friends that trust each other the stronger church we will be and we need to take advantage of these things in our lives and guess what? The more mercy God and the more forbearance God will have on us as a church individually. So let's recognize these lessons. Let's bow our heads and have a word of prayer.