In 'The Law of Retaliation,' Paul Carrington explores the teachings of the Sermon on the Mount, focusing on how Christians are called to live in God's kingdom with a righteousness that exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees. The sermon emphasizes that these teachings are not rules to earn God's favor, but principles for those already transformed by God's grace. Carrington discusses the reinterpretation of the law of retaliation, emphasizing that it was meant for civil authorities and not for personal vengeance. He highlights the concept of meekness, explaining that it involves enduring injury without resentment, a trait that is supernatural and against human nature's impulse for revenge. The sermon also addresses how believers should handle personal insults, legal disputes, and oppressive demands, encouraging a spirit of generosity and non-retaliation. By living out these principles, Christians demonstrate a righteousness of the heart, which is distinct from mere outward adherence to the law. The sermon calls believers to rely on the Holy Spirit to cultivate a Christ-like character, marked by humility, self-control, and love.

Preview of pursuit. All right. Well, we are going to be back this afternoon, back in the Sermon on the Mount. So if you have your Bibles, I would ask you that you please open up to Matthew chapter 5. And Just as you're getting there, I want to remind us what we're doing here in this part of the sermon on the Mount, because we want to see the big picture.

We don't want to lose sight of the forest for the trees as we dive into these few verses. And even tying in with this morning, which was a wonderful sermon on Cornelius, as well as with Peter, what we're going to be dealing with today are not so much rules that if you do these things, you will somehow earn God's graces and enter into his favor. But if we go all the way back to the beginning on the Sermon on the Mount with the very first words, blessed are the poor in spirit. Remember what we talked about that they were descriptions of the man who is already He's regenerated and you go down blessed are the those who mourn and those who are meek and so on and so forth And as a result of the work God has done You have now the principles of life that we are being instructed in, how to live as a Christian in God's kingdom. You know, when you look at something like the Constitution, the United States Constitution, the first 52 words of that, the preamble, it gives you kind of an overview of who we are, right, how we are to live, what's expected of us, that kind of thing.

And when we come to what's happening here, the Lord Himself kind of has started that whole process. He's laying down who we are in Christ and as a result of that how we ought to live. And so the difference though between this King and every other ruler and kingdom is really captured in Nebuchadnezzar's vision. You remember the vision that he had with that head of gold and all the way down to the feet of iron and clay that were mixed together. And this is what's really going on in this Sermon on the Mount.

This is what Daniel tells him you saw. He says, you watched while a stone was cut out without hands, which struck the image on its feet of iron and clay and broke them in pieces. And in the days of these kings, the God of heaven will set up a kingdom which shall never be destroyed and the kingdom shall not be left to other people it shall break in pieces and consume all these kingdoms and it shall stand forever The dream is certain and its interpretation sure." This is the kingdom that we're talking about here this morning. And so what do we have? Well we have the words of the King laying the foundations for his kingdom right here.

And So I'm gonna read to us here in Matthew chapter five, but remember, we're starting in verse 20, and then I'll jump from verse 20, and we'll read from 38 to 42, because 20 kind of sets the, kind of the interpretive key, let's call it, for the rest of this chapter. And so verse 20 says, for I say to you that unless your righteousness exceeds the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees, you will by no means enter the kingdom of heaven. And then verse 38. You have heard that it was said an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth. But I tell you not to resist an evil person.

But whoever slaps you on the right cheek, turn the other to him also. If anyone wants to sue you and take away your tunic, let him have your cloak also. And whoever compels you to go one mile, go with him too. Give to him who asks you, and from him who wants to borrow from you, do not turn away." Let's pray. Oh Lord, we come before you in the name of our King, Jesus Christ.

Lord, we pray that you would give us good understanding of how we ought to live in your kingdom, how we ought to conduct ourselves, how we ought to be. And Lord, we pray that you would give us good understanding of how we ought to live in your kingdom, how we ought to conduct ourselves, how we ought to be. And Lord, we pray that you would just open up your word, that you would continue to help us to see it. And then Lord, More importantly, just to walk in it as well. We ask you to make us doers of your word, Lord.

We need you. We pray that our hearts would be just riveted to your word and that you would instruct us and help us. Amen. Amen. Well, here we have before us really a doctrine that is so strange.

It's so unlike anyone in the world really believed at that time. These five things that we're going to be looking at. And remember, I read verse 20 for a reason. It's our interpretive key because it really is pointing at something that God is aiming for that is much deeper than what everyone was used to at that time. The religion of the scribes and Pharisees, their righteousness was an outward righteousness.

But what the Lord, when he says, accept your righteousness, exceeds the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees. He's aiming at something altogether. He's not just saying, again, do just a little bit better, like you're in a foot race and you beat your friend and you exceeded him in the race. But what he's talking about is a whole other quality of righteousness. And that's what we're going to be talking about here today.

We're talking about heart religion. And how do those that are filled with the Holy Spirit, those who have been made citizens of this new kingdom, how are they to conduct themselves? How are they to live in this world? Because we haven't been taken out of it, but we're here. Well, this, what we're looking at this morning or this afternoon, This is really what, as we saw in Daniel, breaks the rock in pieces.

This idea that consumes all the other kingdoms when the Lord says, blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth. What we're going to be talking about today is really putting flesh to that, to that beatitude, blessed are the meek. What does it mean to be meek? What does it mean to actually be persecuted, blessed are the persecuted, who are persecuted for righteousness sake? And so we've got these five cases here in these short few verses.

And meekness is what I would like to just bring before us here. What is meekness? Meekness is the ability to endure injury without resentment. So it's one thing to endure injury but to do it without resentment, without something rising up inside of me. This get back spirit is something very unusual.

In fact, it's supernatural And that's really what we want to do, you know, being very, very practical. Here are some illustrations that we have set before us by our Lord that we can test ourselves by and see, are we increasing or are we decreasing? Is Christ increasing in us or is it the other way around? It's just a way to think about these things. And they're not necessarily fixed rules, but these are broad principles by which we're gonna be exploring.

So the first one here is verse 38, and it says, this is one dealing with the law of retaliation. So there's five, we'll go through each one. So number one, the law of retaliation. You have heard that it was said, an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth. Well if you go back, this is actually taken directly from the law.

If you go back to Leviticus, for example, in 2420, or you could read it in Exodus chapter 21 or Deuteronomy 19, in Leviticus 24 verse 20, it says this, if a man causes disfigurement of his neighbor, as he has done, so shall it be done to him. Fracture for fracture, eye for eye, tooth for tooth. As he has caused this figment of a man, so shall it be done to him." And so what is the Lord now doing? Is he going into the law of God and changing it? Because we just read in Leviticus very, very plainly, an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.

And we've been saying all along that the Lord isn't coming to change the law, but to give the true interpretation of it. And in fact, that's exactly what's going on right here. Because in Leviticus 20, or in Deuteronomy, or in Exodus, really what we're seeing is that what was being established was that this was a law for the civil magistrates to act upon or to execute. And what the scribes and Pharisees had done is they had now rendered it a law of retaliation by the individual, by private persons like you and me, right? And so what was intended to be basically executed by the decree of judges, the civil magistrate, he's to weigh in, he's to look at all the evidence and all of these, strip the emotion out of it, and then make a judgment, yes, this man lost his eye because of this man's reckless act, he should now lose his eye.

See, there's a judicial setup. But the scribes and Pharisees, of course, didn't take that route at all. And when you think about these laws of God, by the way, aren't they just amazing? You know, I'm looking at this one law and notice the goodness of this law on at least three fronts. I was just looking at myself and I'm like, this is really amazing.

Number one, the law of God on this particular piece. Look at how it checks unbridled passion by the first act. So something happens, but before something happens, if I know if I do something and I injure my brother, that now the same thing could be enacted against me. It's gonna put a little bit of a caution and a bridle on me. I could end up losing my own eye for doing this thing, right?

This is really one of the beauties of God's law. But not only does it awaken in you a consequence, what it's also doing is it's limiting excessive punishment. It's an eye for an eye, not a head for an eye. There's this limitation that's intentional that God is also putting in play here. And then of course, the beauty is that the penalty is also carried out by not the individual, but by a third party, in this case, the state.

And this design is to limit vengeance and clan warfare and all these types of different things that can take place. But of course, as I've just mentioned here, the Pharisees and scribes, they went the exact opposite way and they taught this get back pound of flesh spirit that carried resentments to the greatest extent that was possible. And so rather than avoiding the spirit of revenge, which was what this law was intended to actually do, the scribes and Pharisees were encouraging personal vengeance. We have among us today, I would say, some of Appalachia's finest in the church. But there were some bad apples in history.

And, you know, I was looking at a particular story of two clans called the Hatfields and McCoys you probably heard of them going all the way back this is fascinating all the way back to 1863 you had these two families they're living somewhere in the hills of Appalachia. And this dispute arose over the ownership of a hog. And things escalated from there. What started kind of very small resulted in little tit-for-tats going down the line. Started with a pig and then it escalated to land disputes and then timber rights and things like that from 1863 all the way to 1891.

These back and forths, almost three decades of skirmishes between these two clans. And reflecting on the whole episode, the New York Times, back before it was corrupted, it reported that there were 60 deaths between these two families, many of them children, because of this back and forth all the time. In fact, nine of the Hatfields ended up being imprisoned. Seven of them went to prison for life. One was actually executed because of this activity.

And it wasn't until 2003, so from 1863 to 2003, that there was an official truce made between these two warring families. They signed a truce and brought an end, an official end to this feud. Well you've got to love our modern-day psychology. I was researching this and it actually turns out according to modern-day psychology no one was at fault. What had happened was This whole dispute was caused by a new disease called the von Hippel-Lindau disease, which is a genetic disease, especially found in the McCoy family, which caused a predisposition to anger.

You can't make this stuff up. A type of tumor in the adrenal gland associated with too much adrenaline. So no one was to blame. But 60 people died because people just put another log on the fire. And another log on the fire.

Before, what started like a hog ended up to be a massive, raging forest fire. This is what happens sometimes even in our lives and on smaller scales. Little things you can't even remember what was I even arguing about. And it's escalated into something that was so unnecessary. Slaps lead to punches.

Punches lead to shootings. Petty insults into full blown riots. And the Lord, he's teaching something different. We're going to get to it shortly, I guess, in Romans chapter 12. But this is what the apostle says.

He says, repay no one evil for evil, beloved. Do not avenge yourselves, but rather give place to wrath, for it is written, vengeance is mine. I will repay, says the Lord. You see, what the Lord is saying here when he says, an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth in the Sermon on the Mount, he's not saying just, there's no penalty or there's no punishment for crimes, but that as the individual who's been sinned against, it's not your duty now as a newborn Christian to go and seek vengeance. But follow the proper channels if it indeed can escalate that.

But sometimes you can also, and we'll get to this in a minute, absorb what you would normally want to get back on, you can absorb that yourself and say, I'm going to let that person go, depending on the extent. And this is what he says in verse 39. He says, but I tell you not to resist an evil person. You know, this beginning of verse 39 has caused all sorts of problems and trouble in Christian understanding, even by very sincere people. You know, and I want to say up front here that the law of God and the law of nature justify self-defense when you're in danger.

So the Bible allows you to defend yourself when in danger. It's not a pacifistic teaching at all. You know, I did have, we have one friend actually, and we had this philosophical debate where his whole argument was, hey, if somebody breaks into my house, I'm not gonna kill that intruder if he threatens my wife and children and all of this, I'm not going to do it because I know I'm saved, my wife is saved, and my children are saved, and I know where they're going if they're killed. This was his reasoning. But the home invader doesn't know the Lord, and so to kill him is to send him directly to hell, and he doesn't even have the opportunity.

I think that would be morally wrong, is what this whole argument is for. And this is a total bastardization of your duty as a man, which is to be a defender and to not just simply allow these types of things. This is not what Jesus is saying. He says, I tell you, do not resist an evil person. But is it that we should now banish our police forces?

Why do you have police? To resist evil, right? So he's not talking about that. Should we just say, let's get rid of the courts and let all offenders go free? Is that what the Lord is saying?

I don't think so. Or you're driving home after church and you see a woman being attacked on the side of the road, and you wind down your window and shout, don't resist. That's not what it's teaching us at all. No, men are defenders, physically. We're also defenders judicially.

You make laws that defend, like we were talking about, about abortion and different things like that. In every respect, we resist and we expose evil. For the world though, and for the nation We live in, right, the law still... This law should apply an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth. In other words, if somebody commits murder, what should happen as a result?

They can repent and all of that, but what should happen as a result? They should now suffer capital punishment. It should be enacted and carried out by the actual courts. And so, so what is happening? What, what is this?

It seems so confusing. Well, the Lord is, if you back up a little bit and look at it, what's he really dealing with? He's dealing with this impulse for revenge. You know, if we're honest, there's a little bit of Hatfield and McCoy in all of us, isn't there? But as a Christian, are you able to personally suffer wrong?

Or will you go all Appalachian on somebody who steps on your toes and does something against you and harms you? This is really the thing here. So we all know something of this spirit I think and Jesus is telling us don't seek retribution yourself there's gonna be proper channels but but more than that even living in a higher plane is again I just want to keep using that word are you able to absorb evil when it's done to you, and put it on Christ's account. Not in every matter, but in certain matters, personal, affronts, and so on. Well, that's only possible for the newborn man to do.

And so the idea is that this newborn man, he can do something so unusual, really so otherworldly, that's so against human nature and its desire for vengeance, with the indwelt power of God that's living inside of him. And so it's really about increasingly becoming like Jesus. You notice when the Pharisees attacked him and the scribes attacked him, he would respond. But it wasn't like with this personal vindictiveness and so on. He was always proclaiming the truth.

In fact, many times it says he'd loved them He was just as much eager to see the Pharisee saved as the harlots he would go to Simon the Pharisee's house and others and basically seek to win them but To be like Christ to be able to absorb when I want to slap or hit back is really something from another realm altogether. To take wrong rather than to enter into all sorts of strife, as I mentioned earlier, to just put another log on the fire and watch it blaze tit for tats, lawsuits, and then to do it not like you're gonna explode like a volcano, but to do it meekly. I'm speaking this and I wish I had more of this spirit, honestly. But really, what does it require? I think what the Lord is driving at, this really requires a death to self.

How else can I do this? And so the second point we have here is what about personal insult and humiliation? This one is a tough one. He says there in 39, he says, but whoever slaps you on the right cheek, turn the other to him also. What goes, what goes through your heart or on in your heart when something wrong is is done against you perhaps I would think one of the hardest things To meet with a meek spirit would be a slap on your right cheek, a full-blown slap.

Because what it does, it just, you're met inside with a flash of anger, right? This desire to humiliate you. That's really what a slap in the face is, this desire to demean you. And what is the reflex to throw a blow, maybe much, much harder, at your persecutor? And if you have brothers, you young men, you probably know something of this.

Someone, one of your brothers does something to you. What happens? You do it back, but only a little bit more hard, right? I was a brother as well. And I know that impulse very, very well.

And so what Jesus is saying though, you're to use another weapon. And this is what's going to keep your adversary up at night. This is what's gonna trouble the conscience of others. It's really the same thing that Peter advises wives. Remember in 1 Peter when he talks about how a wife with her meek spirit can win her even unsaved husband.

It seems impossible, but it's a very, very effective weapon. And so it can make massive impact. There's a man by the name of Billy Bray. He was a well-known evangelist in the 1800s in England. And before getting converted, he was a very good boxer.

And there was one particular man, He was down in the mines preaching to the miners, and one man in particular knew Billy Bray from his old days, and he was terrified of Billy Bray in the past. Billy Bray abused him, beat him up, and all sorts of stuff. And so this man's listening to Billy Bray proclaiming the Gospel. And without any provocation at all, he walks up to Billy Bray and stands in front of him, slaps him right in the face. Nothing more humiliating and insulting.

Everyone's looking. And this was a test, is this faith real? You just finished telling us the gospel. And everyone knew Billy Bray could have instantly crushed this man with a single blow. But instead he looked at the man and he said, may God forgive you as I forgive you.

That was it. Except it it wasn't. That man, he was floored, he was baffled, He was he was confused. He knew what should have happened to him and that kept him up at night and after a few days of wrestling he came to Billy Bray and Confessed and asked him to forgive him. But more than that he actually became a Christian as a result of this man's example, a new man himself.

And I wonder, you know, what is it that God is after in us? It's a spirit that doesn't take offense so easily. You're increasingly growing less preoccupied with yourself and the things people maybe say or do to you because something else has happened to you And now you have a new Lord. And he wants to banish the spirit of being so self-protecting in the sense of my own reputation and all the things that somebody might say about me or whatever it is. And this is what the Lord is after, something much deeper, the religion of the heart.

And then he gives us a third example, number three, we're taken into a courtroom, and here's this tendency for us to insist on our rights. And this is what he says in verse 40, he says, if anyone wants to sue you, and take away your tunic, let him have your cloak also. The idea is this man wants your tunic, which is really the less expensive item, and then you're to also give him your cloak, which is more expensive. It's kind of the principle that the Lord is painting here. And this is really something else because it's what's the Lord saying is that the new man, he can allow himself to be defrauded in some situations and yet not really lose, meaning you've lost your tunic, okay, you've lost your outer garment, but you've really gained something else has happened in this whole exchange.

And of course, I would just, again, people go wild with these particular statements in the Sermon on the Mount. Just throwing a caution, would this apply to your house? You know, you go away for a week and you come back and you found it overtaken by squatters? Do you say, well, not only gonna let them have my house, but here's the keys to my car, and you take your family down to the bus stop, and no. That's not really the situation.

I think what we're dealing with here, the Lord is talking about trivial, more trivial type matters. When I say trivial, you know, I'm not saying that it's unimportant. I'm just saying relative to providing for your family and things like that, right? Principles that you can take and live by that somehow gives glory to God in ways that make meekness actually visible and seen and causes a man who's an unbeliever or even someone in church to ask, well, what principle, Just like Billy Bray, must this man be living by? That allows him to act like this.

So don't see these as just out and out rules that you've got to, okay, now I've got to do this, I've got to do that. I think he's, how does the new man live in the kingdom of God? And Paul had to deal with this too, right, in those personal relationships that were going on in the Corinthian church. You know, he's rebuking them and he says, why do you not rather accept wrong? He says, why do you not rather let yourselves be cheated than taking these so-called private matters that could be dealt with and now you're escalating them out into the public and the unbelievers looking at believers carrying on in such a way and then if that's a Christian I want nothing to do with this.

This is kind of the idea but if a Christian can take certain wrong and absorb it because of Christ that will baffle and confuse and confound and ultimately bring maximum glory to our Lord. And so there are times to register a protest like Paul did when remember we'll get to it in Acts where when he was arrested in Philippi first time venturing over into Europe and he's imprisoned and you know the story And then the next day he insists that those come, the people who put him in prison come, and get him out personally. And I think, you know, the idea is, is that Paul was calling those, it wasn't because of a personal affront, he's just bitter because he ended up in prison, whipped on his back and all this stuff. He doesn't bring any of that up. But I think what's going on there is he's, It's a call to those that were supposed to uphold the law.

He's calling them to account. Perhaps so this law isn't flouted or flaunted again. But it's not with vengeance or this preoccupation with, look at my back, and all these types of things, with his own rights, as much as ensuring that the law is not violated. So that's one way to also think about it as well. It doesn't mean that you never protest when something wrong is done.

You can have zeal to uphold the truth and the law of God, but he's more talking about a personal thing. How do you take it? Are you offended and upset and bitter and all these types of things? Well, four, how do we deal with oppression? He says, and whoever compels you to go one mile, go with them, too.

And here we're dealing with an attack on our natural liberty, right? It's a reminder here in the days of the Jews that they were a conquered people. And the law was, as a subjugated people, that you could be commandeered by a Roman soldier, for example, to transport baggage from one place to another. I mean it's really an affront to their national pride if you if you want to look at it that way. There you are, you're working in your field in the heat of the day and a soldier shouts from the road, hey come here come carry my stuff and you were obligated as a subjugated person to leave your whatever you were doing in the field and go and pick up that thing and carry it at least one mile.

And remember what we're talking about here is meekness. This is what the Lord is after. He's not simply after, fine, I'll go to, but oh, can't wait till... He's talking about something that's going on inside the heart and really asking the question, are we prepared to submit ourselves to unreasonable demands rather than to escalate into quarrels? And submitting but doing it grudgingly, That would be just falling back into the same scribe and Pharisee trap.

We've just got a new law, but we do it grudgingly. And we're not really able to see it and what the Lord is after. He's after death to self. He's after a spirit of meekness. Blessed are the meek.

That sounds so good. But then when he starts to expound on what that means, boy, it's hard. These are hard sayings in a sense. And so it's a doctrine again, so unusual, so alarming or disarming, so otherworldly. If the cheek is turned or the cloak is yielded or the second mile, trudge with a lowering, glowering face and all these types of things, a look of anger or just anger boiling over in the heart.

Again, we've broken what the Lord is actually trying to teach us. He wants your righteousness to be of an entirely different quality than that of the scribes and the Pharisees. Like the example of Billy Bray, the result will be that when you arrive at your end destination, the soldier, he will be forced to say, who is this person? We went the first mile and then he insisted on going the second. What is it makes this man act like this?

Why would he do this? And he's doing it cheerfully and going above and beyond in his duty. That's going to trouble the soldier. I think that's kind of what the Lord is after. And then we end really in verse 42 with this whole idea of lending and giving and he says this he says give to him who asks you and from him who wants to borrow from you do not turn away and so here here again is one of those verses that if we again take it rigidly, we're going to end ourselves in all sorts of problems and it's going to lead us further away from God than towards God.

And what do I mean? Well, were we to give to all men that ask of us, we would end up bringing cursing upon their heads, wouldn't we? Not blessing them with our gifts. We're not to blindly give to the idle. And rarely is it wise to give to a man who isn't working, an able-bodied person who could work.

Yesterday we were driving home through Raleigh and we came to an intersection and we looked across and there's a man dressed up in a like a spider-man suit and he's dancing and doing all this stuff up and down. I mean, he looked more agile than like 90% of us. And he's going up and I'm like, why doesn't he get a job and work, but he's instead panhandling, trying to get money from people when they stop at the light. Are you to give money in a situation like that? I don't think so.

Paul tells us that if a man won't work, he shouldn't eat. So this principle of what Jesus is saying, give to him to ask of you, doesn't contradict what Paul is saying. If a man doesn't work, he doesn't eat, right? The circumstances, I think, and using discernment and wisdom, are going to dictate the right action. For example, we have wise men that have been put in positions of deacons, for example, where they're to assess a need and look at it and examine it and then come to a conclusion.

They're not here just to write checks every time there's a request made, but there's wisdom to be brought into play and all sorts of other things that will go on underneath. And so what is the Lord teaching? Well, I think what he's doing, and we saw this this morning, Cornelius. What did it describe him as? He gave alms generously to the people.

I think that's what the Lord is teaching here. He's warning against us, this tight-fistedness, and he's encouraging a generous spirit. Be a generous individual. You know, I loved what Pastor Trent said. He said he acknowledged what he possessed did not possess him.

Speaking of Cornelia, I thought that was a really beautiful statement. What he possessed did not possess him. That's such a tricky thing because oftentimes our possessions really get into our hearts and possess us. And so this unhealthy attachment to things can grow. And I think that's what the Lord is addressing.

The man most free. You can give. Sometimes you might be deceived and give to someone who tricked you and so on, but probably better to be a generous man than a miser. You know, Proverbs 11 says it like this, there is one who scatters. Look away that God does math.

There is one that scatters, he gives, yet increases more. And there is one who withholds more than is right. He doesn't want to share, but it leads to poverty. The generous soul will be made rich, and he who waters will himself also be watered. I think that's what the Lord is encouraging here.

So we've come to the end of Christ's doctrine really on meekness. He's shown it to us here in these verses and this is the doctrine, remember, that the meek will inherit the earth. This is the doctrine of the little stone that we read about in Daniel that spreads, it smashes the feet of iron and clay and goes out into all the earth. And so may our righteousness be of a totally different quality than that of the scribes and Pharisees. Just a couple of things just to remind us of what we've looked at.

You know, war against your tendency to retaliate. You want to retaliate, but by the grace of God, war against it. In Christ, can you absorb the wrongs that are done to you? The words perhaps said or the things unjustly said about you. Be very slow to take offense.

These are really practical. Overthrow evil with good. And be generous. This is the truly free man because this is the truly Christ-like man. Let's pray.

Oh Lord, we come before you again here, Lord, and just ask you for your help. Lord, the practical implications of living life in the kingdom, Lord, we can't do it alone. I think that's what you're showing us here, Lord. We don't have it in ourselves, but thank you for making us new men and new women. Thank you for indwelling us with your spirit, Lord, and we pray that we would be changed, that gradually and little by little more of Christ, Lord, that you would take more and more ground in my life and in the lives of my brothers and sisters, and that we would decrease.

Lord, be glorified, be magnified. Cause, Lord, even those that we have interactions with to ask those questions. What is this person drinking from? What is their source that allows them to respond in such ways? Lord, I pray that you would form more of the Spirit in us.

In Christ's name, amen. Amen.