“Look, Lord, I give half of my goods to the poor; and if I have taken anything from anyone by false accusation, I restore fourfold.” And Jesus said to him, “Today salvation has come to this house” (Luke 19:8-9a). Zacchaeus did not earn his salvation that day, he responded to it. His salvation became evident in the transformed disposition of his heart. The good news transforms our standing with a holy God, but also our disposition towards the effects of our sin and those affected. This change in disposition can - and often must - result in a desire to show repentance via biblical restitution toward those we have harmed.

As we proceed to our topic, let's pray and ask the Lord to help. God, please, please let it be so with us. Let the old things have passed away. Let all things be new with us. Let us walk in newness of life.

Let us grow in grace and in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. Let there be evidence. Let it be evident to all. Let us be people who bear fruit, we pray in Jesus' name, amen. I'd like to begin with a quick definition of restitution.

Restitution is recompense for injury or loss. I do something that injures another or I do something that causes them to lose. They have a loss as a result of my actions, my sin, and so there's recompense. I repay because it's me that has caused their injury, harmed them, caused them to lose. Or what about this simplified definition that really reflects the Christian perspective, making it right.

This is a simple way to think about restitution, making it right. We've done something wrong, we've harmed another because of our sin and we're grieved by that so we make it right. Lest I be misunderstood, this is not penance. This is a million miles away from penance. What is penance?

It's the Roman Catholic system of voluntary self-punishment. Restitution in no way is voluntary self-punishment to make up for it with God. No, no, no. Sins have to be dealt with God in a different way. Restitution is not for your dealings between you and the God against whom you've sinned.

Restitution is about making it right with your neighbor, acknowledging that what you've done has harmed your neighbor or caused loss for your neighbor and making it right. I'd like to make four main points about what I believe the Bible teaches in the category of repentance and restitution and how these two things are connected. Four main points. Number one, the foundation of biblical restitution is Love. This is what we're building on.

We're building on love. Turn in your Bibles to Matthew chapter 22. Matthew chapter 22. I'll be reading Matthew 22, 34 through 40. I hope you'll follow along.

It's one of the most important texts of the Bible. If you don't understand it, you don't understand much. Matthew 22, 34 through 40. But when the Pharisees heard that he, Jesus, had silenced the Sadducees, they gathered together. Then one of them, a lawyer, asked him a question, testing him and saying, Teacher, which is the great commandment in the law?" Jesus said to him, You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind.

This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like it, you shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets. On these two commandments, the commandment to love God with an all-encompassing love and to love your neighbor as yourself out of Deuteronomy and out of Leviticus, hang all the law on the prophets. Now What is the implication of that?

It's this, I don't understand any law until I understand how it relates to love. Loving God, loving neighbor, which means that I don't understand restitution and the biblical laws governing restitution until I understand how it relates to love, loving God, loving my neighbor. Jesus spoke about loving our neighbor as ourself in a little different way when he gave us the golden rule. Matthew 7 verse 12, therefore whatever you want men to do to you, do also to them, for this is the law and the prophets. When someone injures you or is the cause of loss for you.

Do you want them to make it right? Of course you do, and of course I do. So that's our rule. This is the footing for restitution and how it relates to repentance. Someone sins against us and harms us with their sin, causes us loss with their sin.

What do we want? We want them to make it right. So that's the rule for us. It's part of love. It's part of the laws of love.

So this is where we must start. Not what is the multiplier. In Luke 19, the multiplier is four. If I've cheated anyone, I give back fourfold. So we're times four.

Okay, but we don't start with the multiplier. We start with love. How do I love God? Having sinned against someone, how do I love God and how do I love that neighbor? It's not how do I go about the technical aspects of restitution.

There are technical aspects. They matter but they're not the starting point. Loving God and loving neighbor are our starting point. This is surely what we see in Luke 19 with Zacchaeus. This is a free man.

If you don't see a free man, a free man for the first time in Luke 19, go back and read. He's not begrudgingly giving away half his goods and saying he'll restore anything that he stole fourfold with trepidation. It's freely flowing in Luke 19. This rich man probably used to love money, you know, an hour ago. He probably loved money.

This rich man probably defrauded some people in the acquiring of his wealth, I think that's implied. And now his affections have changed. He doesn't love money. He loves Jesus. He loves God.

And it's given him a new disposition towards those he's harmed in the accumulation of his own wealth, his heart towards those people is now different because he's born again. The heart of stone gone, a heart of flesh given to him. So this is number one, the foundation of biblical restitution is love. Number two, the two kinds of biblical restitution are what I will call voluntary and imposed. There are two kinds of biblical restitution, restitution that we see in the Bible.

The first is voluntary, the second is imposed. And the key distinction is that voluntary restitution is when someone is coming clean. God has been merciful and shown them their sin and they're feeling the weight of the sin and they want to get free. And so they are proactively repenting. They are coming clean.

With imposed restitution, Someone's caught. This is not a response to a wanting to be free of sin and to repent, to turn and go in the other direction, they just got caught. And now others are saying, this has to be made right. We find an example of voluntary restitution in the early verses of Leviticus chapter six. I'm just going to summarize it for you.

In the early verses of Leviticus chapter six, if you've defrauded someone, and there's actually a list of different ways that you could defraud someone. You lie about something they entrusted to you and gain by that or you actually steal. There's a couple other things listed, but you've defrauded them. They've lost because of your sin. Then you restore full value.

You give back what you stole and you add a fifth to it. And you make a trespass offering. So, and really, the early verses of Leviticus chapter six is on the same day. You make it right with your neighbor and then you go deal with God and there's a sacrifice and animal dies. There are two things I draw from Leviticus 6.

First, restitution doesn't make you unsin. That's not a thing. When we sin, we have sinned. There might be forgiveness of sin, but there's no unsinning. Restitution coming and paying back full value and adding a fifth to it doesn't make it as if it never happened, and so there must be an offering.

The Bible teaches that the wages of sin is death, so there has to be death, either your death or a substitute in your place. Secondly, your blood sacrifice, the bringing of the animal as a substitute, doesn't make it right with your neighbor whom you harmed. In other words, if I just bring the trespass offering, it might deal with things between me and my God, but my neighbor's still out what was stolen from Him. And so the restitution, the restoring the full value and adding one-fifth is only half the picture. If you do that, you're not done.

And the sacrifice, the trespass offering, if you just do that, then you're not done Because it is dealing with God and it is dealing with your neighbor, making it right with your neighbor. Much of the modern Christian culture, now we're talking inside the church now, Much of the modern Christian culture acts like the gospel universally revokes the law of sowing and reaping. It does not. Are you following me? I'm going to say that again.

I think it's one of the most important things I'll say this morning. Much of modern Christian culture inside the church acts like the gospel universally revokes the law of sowing and reaping. It doesn't. Yes, in an ultimate sense, our sins are dealt with only by the blood of Jesus Christ. And in an ultimate sense, we are forgiven by God by being in Christ, but that does not erase all consequences of our sin.

Just ask your neighbor that you harmed. Do not be deceived. God is not mocked. For whatever a man sows, that he will also reap." So many today in churches would say, how dare you say that, you legalist? Wait a minute, I'm not quoting from the Old Testament.

That's Galatians, the most beloved book of every antinomian who ever roamed God's green earth. It's in Galatians. Sowing and reaping is post-resurrection, post-ascension, apostolic teaching. It just pulls forward what's always been true. God's not mocked.

Whatever a man sows, that he will reap. Here's what it looks like if you think that the gospel revokes sowing and reaping. You sin, you harm your neighbor, and you quote Psalm 51, David's wonderful great psalm of repentance against you. You only have I sinned and done this evil in your sight." And you assume that's all the Bible has to say, and so you say, sorry God, and you just keep moving. And to your neighbor whom you've harmed or caused loss you say, sorry pal, if we hadn't been born in the gospel dispensation I would have made it right but we're free in Jesus so you're out the stuff.

That doesn't sound right, does it? Christians of all people should be saying, who did I just throw under the bus? Isn't that the modern saying? We throw them under the bus. Oh, who did I just throw under the bus with my sin?

Wow, that looked like that hurt. Somebody should do something for him. Oh, wait a minute, I should do something for him. It was my bus. It was my sin.

I should make it right. Let this be in the heart of every Christian, voluntary restitution that bubbles up out of love for God, being free and having a new heart that has a changed disposition towards my neighbor, a disposition of love so that when I harm him I have a desire to make it right, not that we're drug into making it right. Let our restitution be voluntary restitution that comes out of joy over being cleansed. Isn't this Zacchaeus? Is anyone hovering over Zacchaeus in Luke 19 like, let's check the books.

You bring out your account books, look at item number seven, that one doesn't balance you fourfold. No, this is Zacchaeus, I give half my goods to the poor. If I've stolen from anyone, I return fourfold out of joy." This is what we have been and will be studying in 2 Corinthians Chapter 7. So turn there if you'd like. There are three sermons on this text.

Scott said that last night. This is not a fourth. I just want to draw out of one single verse in 2 Corinthians 7, verse 11. Paul, the setting is Paul has rebuked the Corinthians for sin, and now there's a discussion about godly sorrow and worldly sorrow, and he has observed Godly sorrow in them. Read with me 2 Corinthians chapter 7 verse 11, for observe this very thing that you sorrowed in a godly manner.

What diligence it produced in you. What clearing of yourselves. What indignation. What fear. What vehement desire.

What zeal. What vindication. In all these things you proved yourselves to be clear in this matter. When he says that, you proved yourselves to be clear in this matter, is he saying, oh, I was wrong about the sin. No, no.

He's saying that their reaction to His confrontation of their sin proved that it was real repentance. There was diligence and desire and a clearing of their name and vehement desire and zeal. It was their vindication. This is Zacchaeus. This is what we see in the life of this man.

That was an example of voluntary restitution. We find an example of imposed restitution. You were caught, right? That's the difference. You were caught, so now restitution is imposed.

You're not proactively repenting because of conviction of sin, but you got caught in it and now it's happening to you. It's being imposed. We find an example of that in the early verses of Exodus 22. Let me give you a summary of that. In the early verses of Exodus 22, If a person has stolen and they're caught, but they have what they stole with them, they give it back and then again as much, so times two.

200%. They stole a sheep, they give back that sheep that's still in their position, and they give another sheep. If they've stolen a sheep and they've slaughtered or sold it, I think the implication is here they've locked in the theft by taking further steps. They didn't just take and it was still in their position. They took and they either killed, made use of it, or they sold it.

They locked in the theft by taking further steps, then it's times four, 400%. I stole one sheep, now I'm caught, I have to give back that sheep and three more, so four sheep go back. If it's an ox and the ox is slaughtered or sold, again, kind of locking in the theft by taking further steps, it's times five, 500%. I stole one, I have to give back five. The text doesn't say why one kind of animal would be times four, the other kind of animal would be times five, but I think the principle is the more harm, the greater the penalty.

The more you harmed, the greater the penalty in imposed restitution. In other words, with ox there's the value of the animal and then the animal labors. So you've lost the animal and you've lost the labor. This seems to be what most of the commentators say about that text, even though the text doesn't explain why it would be more. That's verses one through four.

In verse five, if a man lets his animal loose to graze in another man's field or in his vineyard and that situation is discovered, then the restitution has to come from the best of my field and vineyard, from the best of it. In verse 6, if I kindle a fire and the fire spreads to my neighbor's field or to his stacked grain and consumes his harvest. The text says, he who kindled the fire shall surely make restitution. I'm responsible. Even if I didn't intend for the fire to go from my field to his field, it did and maybe I was just careless.

I'm responsible for my actions. I'm responsible to be careful. I'm not off the hook for being careless. I'm responsible for being careful. That's love for your neighbor.

Taking care that the fire that I kindled doesn't make it over and consume his harvest. Two last things on Exodus 22 and imposed restitution. One, there's nothing about a sacrifice. That's because that's not proactive repentance. We go back to voluntary restitution in Leviticus 6.

If I'm just grieved by my sin, then I might even go to Him before He's even noticed the loss. But Exodus 22 is not for that, so there's no mention of a trespass offering because this is just when you got caught. It has nothing to do with your repentance. Secondly, if I can't pay, meaning if I stole an ox and I slaughtered or sold it and now I owe five ox, but I don't have those kind of resources, I'm sold into slavery. What does that mean?

That means God is serious. God's not joking. If my sin is discovered and I don't have the resources to make it right according to what God says is equitable, then I just get sold into slavery. It matters to God. Here's the tricky part for us on imposed restitution.

Exodus 22 is primarily for the civil magistrate. It's not for me and my family. It's not primarily for our church. It is primarily for the civil magistrate, not exclusively, primarily. And We find this out a chapter earlier, Exodus chapter 21, the preceding chapter, is about murder.

Anybody want murder handled in-house in the church? I've never heard a case for that. This just lets us know what we're dealing with. So on the one hand, much is a matter not for the church but for the civil magistrate when we're talking about imposed, forced restitution. But on the other hand, the church upholds the name of Christ and we are to be a community of love.

And when that breaks down, upholding the name of Christ breaks down through sin in the camp. Being a community of love breaks down through sin in the camp. These things can become a matter of discipline, and the church ought to be using general equity to understand how to proceed. What do I mean by general equity? General equity is a phrase used in the Confessions, and it means taking the timeless, underlying principles from Old Testament law and applying them appropriately.

Here's the classic example of that. 1 Corinthians 9, 1 Corinthians 9, Paul points back to an Old Testament law about an ox treading out the grain. And the law is you don't muzzle the ox when he's treading out the grain to keep him from partaking of his labors. That's why you would muzzle the ox so that as he's treading out the grain he doesn't eat any grain. Okay, and the Old Testament law is don't do that.

Well, Paul takes the timeless underlying principle of that law and he says that law's really not about cows and grain. That law is about workers being worthy of their pay, so the men who are laboring among you in gospel work deserve compensation for that. The worker is worthy of his wages. That's general equity. Going to the Old Testament law and saying, even though it might not apply, we might not have a case where we're talking about oxes and grain, there is a timeless underlying principle and truth that can be rightly applied here.

So imposed restitution is like the thief in Proverbs 6. Listen to this. This is Proverbs 6 verses 30 and 31. "'People do not despise a thief if he steals to satisfy himself when he is starving.'" Right? If someone steals because they're starving, you don't despise them.

But here's the next verse. "'Yet when he is found, he must restore sevenfold. He may have to give up all the substance of his house. This is imposed restitution. It is not within the jurisdiction of the church to confiscate anyone's property that is the civil magistrate.

But nor can the church sit back when serious sin is in the camp and not address it. That was Number two, the two kinds of biblical restitution, voluntary and imposed. Number three, a case study, a real-life example that I believe shows the wisdom of God in restitution. If you've actually seen restitution happen, the outcome can be actually be wonderful. We think of restitution as negative.

It can actually be a blessing. It's intended by God to be a blessing. Do we believe that about His ways? They're intended to be a blessing. A number of years ago, we had a young man in the church who had stolen a significant amount, stolen a significant amount.

This didn't surface as a result of him repenting, he was caught. He was discovered. The elders engaged with this young man, We met with him several times and we were saying two things over and over again to make sure these two things were clear. One, this has to be dealt with. We cannot act like this didn't happen or that it doesn't matter.

We're going to find a way forward together that we can all live with or the civil magistrate is going to deal with this. Secondly we said to him over and over again, is there anything else? Friend, this is your chance to be free. Don't just deal only with what's been discovered and leave other secret things that will hang over you. Come clean.

And he took advantage of it. He came back the next day and said, you know what? There is more. It's this and it's this and it's this. And these were things that we had no way to discover, no way to track back to.

He just wanted to be free. So now we started with you're caught, you're discovered, but now we're moving towards a man who looks like he's genuinely repenting, these signs of diligence and the things that we saw in 2 Corinthians 7, a clearing of his name, a zeal for it. We believed that general equity from these Old Testament texts, the underlying timeless truths from the Old Testament texts, were what we should go to in determining how to deal with these things. That needed to be our guide. And what that meant for the young man was there was a deep hole because we were saying, hey, these things that you were caught in, a theft of a substantial amount, we think it should be fourfold." That's a deep hole.

And these other things that we had no way to know, you volunteered them, like we think it should be restore the full value and add a fifth to it, and that sort of adds up to this overall picture. It's a deep hole, but you know what? This young man, he dug out of the hole. He started slow, but he caught fire at some point, and he got a second job, and he just started paying it off in big chunks, making it right quickly. Here were the three results that came out of that.

Number one, He made it right. At the end, there was no one anywhere who could say, this man did me wrong and never made it right. Everyone was saying, though he sinned against me, He made it right. Number two, this young man won back his good name in our community. He won back his good name.

He had a good name and he lost it because he was discovered. And he won it back by making it right. And a little more than a year later, it was less than two years later, He married a young lady from within the church. Now think about that. Like we as a group, this group, We care who marries our daughters.

Like men with a reputation need not apply. Hang the sign. But this was a man, the family that this daughter was a part of, they had seen him embark on making it right with zeal. And he won back his name with this family and he married the daughter of this home. Number three, the message was clear.

If you steal around here, if you violate the law of God and you harm your neighbor around here, it's not just going to be a low interest loan for you. We might come up with other ways to deal with sin in the camp that seem more merciful to God to us. Just make him pay back what he stole. You've made stealing a low interest loan in your community. I hope you don't come away from this case study saying, oh, you're so wise.

Unless you mean this, you're so wise to see that you're not very wise and you should run to the Bible to find out what to do about these things. The wisdom that we need is here to handle these difficult situations and they are very difficult situations just to know what to do. Praise God that we have timeless principles to navigate by and we're not just stuck with our own thoughts. That was number three a case study a real life example that displays the wisdom of God in restitution. Number four is how we apply this biblical concept of restitution personally in our own repentance.

This is not a lecture for your interest. This is so we look at our lives and our sin and how our sin has harmed others and we decide how God would have us deal with that. How am I going to apply this personally in my own repentance is the question. First, Half the battle is awareness that our sin hurts other people. Often our sin harms other people and that the Christian ethic is to make it right as much as it's in our power to do so.

Like just like raising the sensitivity, my sin often hurts other people, not just about me and God. It's fundamentally about me and God, but it has impacts over here on my brother or my sister or my neighbor. And Christians make it right. So That's half the battle. If we just raise our sensitivity, my sin hurts other people and Christians make it right, we're halfway there.

Stamp those two truths on your soul. Second, What about the other categories? Many, many, many other categories. Anywhere where my actions can harm another is a category potentially for restitution, making it right. Any category.

Now, we've been talking about money because money's the easy one and the Bible addresses it specifically. If this, then that, we love that. Like we got a math formula. This is about money. No, no, this is about making it right anywhere where you've armed your neighbor.

So let me give you a few that I've thought of just to help stimulate our thinking, get us thinking about where restitution might be an appropriate part of our repentance. Here's a big one, sins of the tongue. Let's say I say something I shouldn't directly to you. I sin against you and I say it right to your face. I need to make that right.

At a minimum, I need to come back and humble myself and say, sister, I said this, I had no warrant to say that, I had no business saying that, it was sinful of me to say that. Oh, please forgive me." And then I should think because just like you can't unsin, that's not a thing, you can't unsay. Somebody can forgive you for saying what you shouldn't have said, but you can't unsay it. And sometimes those things ring in their ears years later. We should be aware of that when we've sinned by saying something directly to a brother or a sister or a neighbor that maybe there's more.

Maybe I need to go back in a week or a month and just encourage them in a way that I might have discouraged them by sinning against them with what I said. Or let's say I say something I shouldn't indirectly. That's more frequent, isn't it? Usually I don't have the courage to say it to your face, The hurtful things, I say it to your friend or better yet my friend. At least I need to go back to the person I spoke to and say, I said this, that was sinful.

Please don't hold what I said against that person. That never should have been said. This is a bad reflection on me, not on them. You should go back to that person that you spoke about to someone else and say I need to tell you something. I need to tell you something.

I was having a conversation with her and I said this about you and I've gone back to make it right over here, but you should know, and I'm so sorry. As God gives me grace, I'll never do it again." the question is, how can we make it right? How can we make it right? Or how about this? Jesus said that our yes should be yes, and our no, no.

Let's say, I say I will do something, and I don't follow through, and it harms you or causes you loss." Again, the gospel doesn't revoke the law of sowing and reaping. It doesn't mean that There's no consequences of that to you, does it? I'll be there, but I wasn't there, and it harmed you. It caused you to lose. I need to make that right.

Why? Because I'm a Christian. Because the Christian ethic is to make it right as much as it's in our power to do so. Or how about this? Instead of it being something that I didn't, I did that I shouldn't have done, this time it's something that I should have done but I neglected to do it.

Let's say I see a brother or sister going down a wrong track. I know it's a wrong track. I can see exactly where the track is going to take them. It's bad, and I know I'm the one to go speak with them. I know I'm the one.

But I'm chicken. So I chicken out and I let the fear of man rule me and I never say a word and they go down the track into harm. I need to go say I'm sorry to them and help them get back if I can. I'm sure there are many many other examples but I just wanted to throw those out there as hypotheticals because they're not very hypothetical, are they? Can you think of any examples that are close from your own experience, your own life?

I know I can. And to take us out of the category of money. We were talking about money because it's the easy one to talk about because we've got math formulas, but this is really in any category when we can harm someone. This is just to stimulate our thinking, get us thinking. Where do I need to make it right where I've harmed someone else because my disposition with a heart changed by the grace of God, my disposition towards other people makes me care when I hurt them.

Finally, let me address a few potential dangers. I think there are a few common misapplications to a good doctrine that get us in a lot of trouble, so I'm going to give you several. The first is an endless stream of driving friends and acquaintances crazy with self-identified microaggressions. So like you've heard the legendary stories of Luther and how before he was saved he would go to his confessor and confess hour upon hour and upon hour until his confessor is saying, go do a real sin. This would be the equivalent of that.

Like every little thing, I have to make everything right and so every self-identified microaggression against anyone is like there's a never-ending stream of it. That's highly unproductive. I don't think this is what the Bible is calling us to. I don't think there's any example of that in the Bible that you could point to. Don't do that.

Here's another one. This one's tricky, because this one could go either way. Reopening old situations that have been dead and buried. It might be cathartic for you. It might make you feel better.

Wow, I just had this weight on me. I knew I never made that thing right. And you dig it up and you do what you think is helpful and you just feel great but they feel lousy. It didn't help them at all in fact it might harm them. That is not restitution.

That is the opposite of making it right. Don't do that. Before you dig something up that's been buried and maybe they've healed from it. You should think about that. Because this really helped them.

It's them, right? Blessing them is the end. Not feeling better yourself. Finally, It could become a club, a club, a striking device for you to say, you owe me. You hurt me, you owe me.

And I want to preach about biblical restitution as something we apply to ourselves and our repentance. If I've harmed someone, I go make it right because that's the Christian ethic, not a club to go to my brother and say, you owe me. You hurt me, you owe me. Can I conceive of a circumstance in which it would be appropriate for you to go to someone and say you know what you never made this right? I can conceive of that situation But I want to say overwhelmingly let love cover a multitude of sins.

Apply restitution to yourself. When your sin harms others you go make it right but as for them let them off the hook you'll be happier. You'll be happier. Let me conclude with this. If I'm a Christian, I've been bought.

I don't own me. Jesus owns me. He bought me with His precious blood. And He bought me to transform me so that people could see in my life that He is a mighty Savior. This brings glory to Him.

And that the sin that I used to live with in harmony now grieves me. Isn't that true? For people who have been born again, you're living happily with your sin. Sure, every once in a while your conscience would bother you, but you'd get over it. Now it grieves you that you sin in this way after Christ bled and died for you.

So you go to Christ for mercy. And as a Christian, I'm also grieved over the harm for my brother because I have a new heart towards him too. It's not just a new heart towards God. It is a new heart towards God, but it's not just that. I also have a different disposition towards my neighbor.

I love him. I'm growing to love him. I'm growing in love for him. And my grieving over my harming him with my sin brings me to one conclusion, I have to make it right. Restitution is fundamentally about the new birth and love for God and neighbor.

Without that, we can tap into the math formulas and do some external things that might be helpful to people that we've harmed, but it misses the heart of it. It misses the heart of it. Are you born again? Friends, are you born again? If not, this is meaningless to you.

If so, If you're born again, are you cultivating love even in the way you repent? I want you to think about that question for a second. Christian, are you cultivating love even in the way you repent? Let the way you repent be an expression of love to God in your neighbor. Okay, express love for God in the way you repent.

It's not just getting free. Express love for God. Express love for your neighbor in the way you repent. If you need to go back and make something right through biblical restitution, let it not be a mechanical sterile transaction. Express love for your neighbor.

Oh God, oh God, make us into a repenting people who express love in our repenting. Who express love for you in our repenting. Yes, we want to be free, we want to be clean, but we love You. You loved us first, now we love You. We want to repent in a way that expresses that we love You, O God.

When we hurt our neighbors, harm them, cause them loss, let us make it right in a way that expresses love. May they see that we're a people of love. By Your grace, we pray in Jesus' name, amen.