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Amen, so keep your place in Proverbs chapter 16. So Proverbs chapter 16 is a great chapter on many different things, but it's a great chapter on humility and pride and the dangers and the benefits of those two things. And this morning I wanna talk to you about something that's been on my mind for a while and was really just really enforced over the last few days. I wanna talk to you about your relationships and how I'm gonna help you with your relationships this morning. Your relationship, you say what kind of relationships? Say all your relationships. I wanna help you with your relationships with your family members. I wanna help you with your relationships with your spouse, men, women, help you with the relationships between your spouse, with your kids, your relationships, and even with your brothers and sisters in Christ. So I mean the thing about us, and I was thinking about this all weekend long, I was thinking about this. The thing about our relationships that we have, especially with our friendships, there's a lot of really shallow friendships in the world today. People just have friendships that are just based on sin, based on nothing, just based on nothingness. Maybe we both are fans of the same sports team or something stupid, so we're friends, right? Or we both bought the same brand of motorcycle, so we're friends. These are very shallow things, but the thing with us, and I was really reminded of this as I saw people this weekend that I developed friendships with over years of our lives. The thing with us is that these aren't friendships that were developed in shallow ways or means. These are friendships that have very deep roots. They're friendships where the things that we have in common are the things that are in the depths of the word of God. I mean, that's a deep, meaningful relationship right there. The problem is is that we live in this, to maintain, to keep a relationship is a lot of work at times, it takes some maintaining. And the problem that I see is that we kind of come into this culture of this era that we're living in where I'm seeing it with the generations that are coming up with the young people in the workplace and just out there in the world. And even amongst Christians, this idea that nothing's really my fault, this idea that we have a really hard time admitting fault, I mean, we have this idea over the last several decades of this, I'm sure you've heard of it, of no-fault divorce in this country. I'll prove from you from the Bible in a sermon at some point in the future that there is no such thing as no-fault divorce. And so much more the same in relationships just between ourselves, our family members, our spouses, there is no real arguments that really have no fault on one side. Most of the time, the vast majority of the time, I can think of a problem that I've had with someone, there's fault on both sides, my side and the other person's side. And whenever you have a situation where someone just can't admit fault, that's when you end up with a damaged relationship. So I wanna give you just a few tips, a few reasons this morning that you should learn how to admit fault, admit when you were wrong in your Christian life so you can build and maintain and keep relationships with your Christian brothers and sisters, with your spouse. Here's the thing about your spouse, men and women. Here's the thing about your spouse. Relationships and marriages don't get destroyed in one day. Marriages don't die in one week. Marriages die over the period of years, over the period of somebody doing something to their spouse again and again and again and not making those things right and just moving on and that relationship just keeps coming to a lower level where finally it reaches a breaking point and then people end up, many times in today's society, getting divorced. So look, your marriages can either be, I've talked about this before, they can either be getting stronger every day and every week and every month or they can be dying every day. A marriage is very similar to your spiritual life. It's not just like cruise control. You're either going forward in your spiritual life or you're falling back in your spiritual life. You need to think about your marriages the same way and a big part of strengthening your marriage is just admitting that you're wrong. Admitting when you've done something wrong. So the first thing that I wanna point out this morning is if you can't admit that you're wrong or you have a hard time admitting fault, you're gonna destroy relationships. That's the first danger. You're gonna destroy relationships. Turn to Ephesians chapter four. Now here's the funny thing about admitting fault and admitting that you're wrong in your life. It really makes no sense from a Christian perspective because Christians themselves and I assume, look, I'm assuming that your relationships, your friendships are with other Christians. If they're not, that's a sermon and that's another sermon but your relationships, your friendships should be with other saved people. So look, the first thing is this. I mean, not admitting fault is really kind of foolish because Christians, your brothers and sisters, your family members, your wife, they're commanded to forgive you. They're commanded to. Look at Ephesians chapter four in verse number 32. Ephesians 4, 32, the Bible says, and be kind to one to another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God for Christ's sake hath forgiven you. So here we say, you know, the Bible is telling us you need to forgive your brothers. You need to forgive your sisters and right away, they don't just, it's just not just a command. It's like, hey, because Christ did that for you. It's like Christ, you know, who saved you, forgave you. So that's why you're commanded to do so for others. Turn to Colossians chapter three. I like how the Bible just doesn't say just do this. It says do this because of this major reason, it says. Look at Colossians chapter three in verse 13. The Bible says this, it says, forbearing one another and forgiving one another. If any man have a quarrel against any, here we are again, even as Christ forgave you also do ye. Say again, do this, do this because Christ did it for you, buddy. It says if somebody's quarreling after you, look, someone's quarreling with you. They're fighting with you, they're contending with you. It says forbear them, you know what that means? That means be patient with them. It means be patient with them. Turn to First Timothy chapter three. This is actually one of the major qualifications for a pastor, is to be patient with people. You know, if you're a pastor and you're just like, you just jump down people's throats and just tear their heads off immediately, look, the Bible says that that's not, you're not really qualified to be a pastor if that's who you are. If you're just ready to just rip people's faces off, I'm not talking about from preaching the word of God, but I mean, you're not patient with people. People mess up one time and you're just like, that's it, I'm done with you. That's not a good attribute to have because the Bible says in First Timothy three, look at verse number two. A bishop, bishop, pastor, elder, those things mean the same thing in the Bible. A bishop then must be blameless, the husband of one wife, vigilant, sober, of good behavior, given to hospitality, apt to teach, not given to wine, no striker, not greedy, a filthy lucre, but patient, the Bible says. Turn over to Second Timothy chapter four. Look, so forgiveness, in Colossians chapter three, it says forbearing, forbearing one another. It first says forbearing one another, it says be patient. And then it says forgive. So if you're gonna be a forgiving person, you must first be patient. So you can't be a forgiving person and not be a patient person. Because it says first you must be patient with people and then you can forgive those people and forgive one another, the Bible says. So I'm talking about it makes no sense to not admit things to people. Remember the context of where we're going here. It makes no sense to not admit fault to your brothers and sisters or your wife or your children or whatever. Yes, even your children. Because they're commanded to be patient with you and forgive you, the Bible says. Look at Second Timothy chapter four. Again, the Bible says, talking about pastors, preach the word, be instant, in season, out of season, reprove, rebuke, exhort. You're like yeah, just give it to them. Just exhort and rebuke people. But with all long suffering and doctrine. That means that if you ever have thought men in this room, I don't know if there's men in this room that think that one day they would wanna go into the ministry or not, but if you just can't handle people and you just fly off on people immediately, the Bible says that that is not something that's good for the ministry. You must be long suffering and patient with people. Not just, I just wanna reprove people. I just wanna rebuke people. It's like no, you must be long suffering with people as well. So pastors must be patient. And after being patient, you are to forgive, as Colossians chapter three says. So look, that's a really nice attribute of a pastor, by the way. That's one thing, if I could describe Pastor Jimenez over the last several years to people, one of the first words that I would use is long suffering because the things that I have seen him, and I don't wanna say too much, but the things that I have seen him put up with, they would blow your mind if you knew. And it's just long suffering, just long suffering, just long suffering, but really it's a decision. Really it's a decision that a person needs to make that goes into the ministry that says, you know what, I'll just suffer myself to be defrauded. I will just, you know, that means that people are gonna, Pastor Joe had a great sermon. That means that, you know what, if you just give people the benefit of the doubt, you're just long suffering with people, you know what that means as a minister, as a pastor? That means you're gonna take a few knives in the back. And you just have to be okay with that, to be long suffering. That's what it means is gonna happen to you. Or you could just take this preemptive strike on anybody you think is ever gonna cause a problem for you, but that's not long suffering. That's not what the Bible says. So you can't be like that as a pastor. So back to, back to the point of the sermon. Look, you could offend, I mean, look, you could offend a pastor and he will be long suffering with you. Look at 1 Timothy chapter five. Go to 1 Timothy chapter five. I mean, let's think about this idea from the perspective, like this ideal perspective, because guess what, when you read, by the way, when you read the attributes of a pastor, the qualifications of a pastor in the Bible, you can apply those to yourself as well, because those mean that, everybody is supposed to be like this. All the Bible is saying in 1 Timothy chapter three and elsewhere where it talks about qualifications for a pastor, all the Bible is saying is that if you don't have these things, you can't be a pastor. If you don't have these things, you can't be a pastor. It doesn't mean you as a lay person sitting in the church shouldn't have those things. You should still have all those things. So when you read that, you remember, this is for me. This is for me. If you don't have those things, you can't be a pastor, but it doesn't mean that you are not supposed to have those things just as a person sitting in the church. Okay, look, look at 1 Timothy chapter five. Let me, I actually have to turn there. 1 Timothy chapter five and verse number one. The Bible says, rebuke not an elder, but entreat him as a father and the younger men as brethren. So elder here, go to Acts chapter 14 and verse number 23. Elder here, I mean, it's talking about it in kind of two different aspects. It could mean an older person, but really when it talks about elder in the church, Timothy was a young man, he was an elder, he was a pastor. Okay, in Acts chapter 14, look at verse number 23. The Bible says, and when they had ordained them elders in every church and had prayed with fasting, they commended them to the Lord on whom they believed. So the elder is talking about the pastor of the church. So look, you could rebuke a pastor, you could offend him, and guess what? He's commanded to forgive you. He's commanded to be long suffering and to be patient with you. That's what the pastor is commanded to do in his qualifications. But like I said, we should all act this way. So not apologizing, not owning your mistakes in your life with your relationships, it makes no sense from a Christian perspective because Christians, your pastor, all Christians, all saved believers are commanded to forgive their brothers and sisters. So it doesn't make any sense to not do it. It's literally all reward and no risk in the Christian life. To own your faults, because aren't we, think about it, the world today, you don't ever want to admit anything. You know, if I admit something, I could be in trouble or I could get sued, or this is the attitude everybody has. You see somebody make a mistake at work, in the workplace, and it's how can I cover this up? How can I get out of this? Not in the Christian life. In the Christian life, if you're somebody in the Christian life that won't admit fault, you're somebody that has no ability to calculate risk reward ratios. Because it's all reward, no risk. It's like the COVID vaccine. Seriously. People that get, I mean, I know so many people that have gotten COVID, didn't even get sick, and yet went and got the vaccine. There's no reward, there's all this risk. It's like, I didn't even get sick, there's no risk. I'm gonna go modify my DNA anyway. It's the same thing with not owning your mistakes in your relationships in this Christian life, because Christians in the Bible are literally, Christ is literally commanding them to forgive you, and to forgive me, and to forgive us. It's the same thing. There's no risk, it's all reward. What are the other risks? So you could do, you'll literally, you will literally, for this one reason, you will literally destroy relationships in your life. What's another thing that'll happen? You will destroy yourself. That is another thing that will happen. Turn to 1 Peter chapter five. If you can't own your mistakes, you will destroy yourself. Turn to 1 Peter chapter five, and look at verse number five. The Bible says this, the Bible says, in 1 Peter chapter five, five, it says, likewise, ye younger, submit yourselves unto the elder, yea, all of you be subject one to another, and be clothed with humility. For God resisteth the proud, and give grace to the humble. You know what apologizing does to you? You know what apologizing does to you? It's an extremely humbling experience, apologizing. So apologizing, it humbles you. You know what humility is? It's the opposite of pride. You know what, you know what, brother? You know what, brother? I did wrong here. I did wrong here. I'm sorry I did that. You know, that's humbling. That's humbling to do that. I mean, look, these are people, the Bible says, in 1 Peter chapter five, that they'll receive a lot of grace. From who? From God. And their brothers and sisters, their family, their spouse. These are people that will receive grace. Now turn to Proverbs 16. Or just look at the front of your bulletin. It's the verse of the week. Look at Proverbs 16, 18. Pride goeth before destruction, and in haughty spirit before a fall. Notice how it doesn't say pride can cause destruction. Notice how it doesn't say pride can cause destruction. It says pride goes before destruction. Meaning, if you're proud, and you remain proud, destruction is coming to you. It's coming. It says pride comes first. Well it's kind of nice because it's a warning. It's a warning. So if you get this disease of pride and you don't fix it, destruction is following. But here's the irony. Here's the irony of this whole situation. People that are prideful and don't ever apologize, or think nothing is ever their fault, they're also horrible at taking apologies. Have you noticed that in your life? People that don't ever apologize or don't think anything is their fault, they're also terrible at receiving apologies. These are the people that if you ever apologize to them, they'll take it as a chance to lecture you. I'm sorry brother that I offended you in that way, and then they take it instead of just being like, I forgive you. They're like, you know what, well maybe you should think about that next time that you want to go and do something like that, and here's the thing about you, and here's the thing about your family, and all this kind of stuff. And they take it as just an opportunity to just dress you down for that apology. They throw in that lecture. Because look, they think they are without fault. Because they're proud. Because they're proud. And thus they're in a position to give everyone else advice. Pride, look folks, pride is such a terrible thing. It is such a terrible thing. You know what pride, I mean think about it at its basest. Think about this. Think about this. Think about it at its basest level. Pride has made reprobates feel good about themselves. Pride has made people who are complete reprobates feel good about themselves. Yet, I mean, you got all these homos out here that are just like, oh we're proud that we're this way. I believe you are pride, prideful. You know, destruction's coming. Notice how other people don't have that same pride though. You know I always think about this, I always think about people that are proud of their kids. See a lot of bumper stickers. My son is a Marine. That's a big one, right? I mean people are, I mean, if you're a Marine it's hard, you know, it's hard to become a Marine. You don't just become a Marine like, ah I think I'm gonna be a Marine today. You know it's a known hard thing to do. You become a Marine, you're known to be tough. You become a Marine, people are just like, that's something, you're a Marine. That's why you see so many bumper stickers like that. Like my son's a Marine. I mean, my brother's a Marine. I've seen every single, my cousin's a Marine. My second cousin's, you know, brother's friend is a Marine. Because it's something that they're proud of. You never see like, you know, my son is a homo. Where's that bumper sticker? I mean what in the world? You know, somebody go manufacture that one. Let's see how many they sell. Somebody's like great idea, you won't sell any. No one's like, oh, you're baby born. You can be an astronaut or an engineer. I hope he's a homo. It just, anyway, what are we talking about? Pride. Look at its basis level. At its basis level it has the worst, the worst feeling great. Think of it, the worst feeling great. Turn to Galatians chapter six. Did I tell you to go there? Galatians chapter six. Pride is a terrible thing. As a Christian, you don't want to catch this disease of pride. And the Bible warns you again and again and again of, you know, pride. There goes our YouTube channel by the way. Might as well just get rid of it as we're ready to go get another one. So anyway, Galatians chapter six. Look at verse number three. Galatians chapter six and verse number three. The Bible says, for if a man think himself to be something when he's nothing, he deceiveth himself. Look, the Bible says if you get proud and you think that you're something, like you're lying to yourself, you deceive yourself. Imagine thinking, imagine thinking that you're super awesome at something that you're terrible at. I mean, imagine being like, you play baseball, right? You're baseball and you've never hit the ball. You've never one time connected the bat with the ball. Not once. You go around to all these major league baseball teams and you go up to these guys and you're just like, I need to try out. I need to try out. And they let you try out. You convince them or you pay them money to let you try out. You just get up there and you strike out every single time. You're like, see, look at how great I am. And they're like, get out of here. And then they kick you out of the stadium. They kick you out of the tryouts and you're just yelling at them. You bunch of idiots. And you never touch the ball one time with the bat. You can't catch. You put the glove on the wrong hand. You don't even know what you're doing. And you're like, I'm the best baseball player ever. That's what pride will do to you. I mean, I've seen people like this. I mean, they think they're the greatest and you're just like, they're so proud they can't see any of this. It's crazy. It's crazy. You don't want this. You don't want this. But it's what pride will do to you. It will literally destroy you, personally. Pride. Here's another thing that pride, or not pride, that not owning your mistakes will do to you. It will destroy your allies. It will destroy people that are with you. Turn to Numbers chapter 16. If you can't own your mistakes and you can't make things right in the relationships that you have around you, you will destroy those around you. You will destroy those people with you. Look at Numbers chapter 16. Moses. Moses had a bunch of troublemakers in his camp amongst the people. They were stirring up trouble. Look at Numbers 16 and verse number one. The Bible says, Now Korah, the son of Ishar, the son of Kohath, the son of Levi, and Dathan and Abiram, the sons of Eliab, and An, the son of Peleth, and the sons of Reuben, took men, and they rose up before Moses with certain of the children of Israel, 250 princes of the assembly. There's a lot of people here. It wasn't just Korah. It wasn't just these couple people. There was a lot of people that came and they gathered themselves together against Moses and against Aaron and said to them, You take too much upon you, seeing all the congregation are holy, every one of them, and the Lord is among them. Wherefore then you lift up yourselves above the congregation of the Lord. You know what these guys are saying? They're saying, you know what? I think it's time that somebody else is in charge, is what they're saying. I think it's time that you think you're so holy. I think it's time that somebody else starts taking over the leadership here, is what these guys are saying. So you have these guys and they brought these 250 people. So it's not a small group of people and they rose up against Moses. And Moses said, verse 28, skip down to verse 28. Moses said, Hereby you shall know that the Lord has sent me to do all these works. He's like, I'm gonna show you. He's like, I'll show you that God wants me in charge for I have not done them of my own mind. If these men die the common death of all men or if they be visited after the visitation of all men, then the Lord hath not sent me. But if the Lord make a new thing and the earth open her mouth and swallow them up with all that appertain unto them, underline that right there, they go down quick into the pit, then you shall understand that these men have provoked the Lord. And it came to pass as he had made an end to speaking all these words that the ground clave asunder that was under them and the earth opened her mouth and swallowed them up and their houses, and again, underline this, and all the men that appertained unto Korah and all their goods. And again, verse 33, and all that appertained to them went down alive into the pit. Look, it was not just Korah and his closest two buddies. It was all that appertained. You know what that meant? Anybody that had anything to do with them is what that meant. Look, everything rises and fall, men, you listen, everything rises and falls on leadership. Because did you know that you could lead your family into destruction? You could lead your family, look, Korah, he led these people into literal destruction. Look, you can lead others into folly. You can lead others, look, in this case, literal destruction, but, and here's another thing, by simply just not leading, by simply just not leading, you could end up in destruction. Let me tell you something, or following the wrong person, or you as a leader following the wrong person. But look, here's the thing, you don't wanna be appertained to Korah. You don't wanna have anything to do with him. But here's the thing, here's something I've seen again and again and again and again. It's getting to be an old story for me. The man that doesn't lead his home, the man that doesn't lead his home, the man whose wife leads his home, so many times this ends in destruction. But here's the thing, the guy whose wife leads him, or here's another thing, or just goes unchecked, or just goes unchecked so many times leads to destruction. I've seen people thrown out of churches for this reason. And here's the thing, you look at the wives and you're like, I don't even think in many cases that they were bad people. It's just, they're just unchecked. They're just unchecked, the wrong person is in charge. Look, I'm sorry, I mean, we value women, we value wives here, I've preached sermons on it, please don't misunderstand me, but women are emotional beings. There's a reason that they're to submit to their husband and the man is set up to be the head of the family. I have seen people ruin their spiritual life for their family because, you know, a wife who isn't even a bad person in my view, maybe other people would think she is or whatever, but I've seen this again and again and again and again and again, just ruin the family. Look, the woman is the weaker vessel who needs guidance and direction. Is what the Bible says. And if that gets out of control, there's gonna be major trouble. Look, men, you don't even, like you don't have to be wrong, men. I don't mean to scare you, but you don't have to be wrong in your leadership. You just have to be weak. And this can happen. And it can do a lot of damage. I mean, it's a sermon in and of itself. But look, own your mistakes. Own your mistakes in your life and look, or you could destroy those around you as well. Just like Cora. So in conclusion, let me just talk about this for a second. I want you to look at your life this morning. I'm gonna give you a challenge at the end of the sermon. I want you to think about your life for the last several months. Let's do a check throughout the whole church as we're getting ready to go become our own church. Let's do a check through the church. I want you to think about the relationships in the last just several months of your life. Think about your families. Think about your brothers and sisters. Think about your wives. Think about your husbands. Think about these, how's it going? How's it going? Are you constantly having trouble with people? Are you constantly, you know, I mean, are you constantly fighting in your marriage? Are your children, you know, many of you, I mean, don't, I mean, if you have two year olds, that's not what I'm talking about. How's it going with your children? How's it going with the relationships with your brothers and sisters that you know, your friendships? Here's the thing about, you know, going back to, you know, people getting kicked out of churches, by the way. You know, you should never really, because I heard this story several times over the last couple days. Like, you know, people that are in a bad church and they get kicked out or whatever. Here's the thing, you should never get kicked out of a church. I mean, that's my opinion. My opinion is, you should never get kicked out of a church. I mean, you should leave, if you don't agree with something, if you have standards, doctrines, and you don't agree with what's being preached in the church, maybe it's just a heretical church. I still think you shouldn't get kicked out of there. I was like, you should just leave, you should just leave. So I mean, I always kind of wonder when people are like, oh yeah, you know, I got thrown out of this church and I got thrown out of this church. You know, I'm just like, hmm, kind of thinking, it's kind of the same thing with relationships in your life. Like, you know, I'm the kind of person that just has a different friend every two months. You know, the friend of the month or whatever. If you're that kind of person, here's the thing, you're getting kicked out of churches and you're that kind of person that has a different friend every month because they did this to me and they were doing this and now it's like, here's the thing, it's you. It's you, you're the trouble. You're the trouble, you're bad at relationships is what it is. And most of the time, it's that you keep doing things wrong and you just keep destroying relationship after relationship after relationship because you don't think you're doing anything wrong. You can't own your mistakes. Own your mistakes. Here's the thing, a lot of people think, here's another thought, a lot of people think that apologizing puts them in a position of weakness. It puts them in the mercy of other people. But here's the thing, that's not true. That's not true, a lot of people think that me apologizing to you makes me less than you. That's not the case at all. Look, the opposite is true actually. If I apologize, if we're in a relationship dispute, Jeremy and I, and I apologize to Jeremy, look, I'm in the moral high ground now. All of a sudden, I got God's grace. God's not resisting me, the Bible says. I mean, look, there's no strained relationship because it's only strained on one side. There's almost always fault on both sides, just remember that. Just own your portion. That's all you can do. And it takes God out of resisting you, and it takes you out of the category of God resisting you and the proud category. That's the category you wanna be out of. And no matter what the other person does, no matter what the other person does, you don't wanna be where they're at. Because you've owned your mistakes. So here's the thing, if you take responsibility for your mistakes, here's another thing that it'll do for you. If you're the one that you make a mistake, and immediately you just own it right away, guess what you're gonna do? You're gonna make a lot less mistakes in your life. Yeah. Because apologizing, it's not a fun thing to do. It's a humbling thing to do. To go to somebody and apologize to your spouse and say, you know what? Even when you think, say I ever got in an argument with my wife, say this theoretically ever happened, it never happens, because we have a perfect marriage. Because I'm the leader of this church and my marriage is perfect. And I've never made a mistake and neither has my wife. Imagine, imagine if I went to my wife and we got in a relationship dispute. And I'm thinking of just all the things that she did wrong, but that makes it harder for me to go and admit what I did wrong. It's a humbling thing to know somebody did you wrong if you have a friend and you know they did something wrong to you, to go and just own your portion of that. That takes a big man to do that. But that's what we're supposed to do. That's what we're supposed to do. But if you never own your mistakes and you get proud, you will get to a point. Instead of making less mistakes, you will get to a point where you don't even know you make them. And that's bad. You don't wanna be there. You will think, you'll be like that baseball player. You will think that everything I do is right. And you will think that it's just people just wronging me again and again and again and I never make mistakes. That is a terrible place to be. You will destroy your relationships with other people. You will destroy relationships with those around you and you will destroy yourself if you become that person. Look, you will lose all your friends. Think about that. I mean, I think about just like these people, I mean, there was 504 people in church the last night we were there. And I mean, just think about it. We know a lot, you know, a good portion of those people. And I'm not saying we're very close friends with all those people. See Joe Jones' sermon, Pastor Joe's sermon. I mean, look, those are friendly people to us. And amongst those people, you know, we have close friends amongst those people. But look, that didn't, you know, that's very valuable is what I'm trying to say. That's very valuable. And you know, you think about that situation and I mean, Pastor and I have had many conversations where Pastor is talking about, you know, the vision going forward and, you know, I think about these conversations as we go forward as a ministry and you know what I've said to Pastor many times when he just, he throws out all these, I mean, the man has all these different visions and it's stressful to even listen to some of these, you know, visions that he has and just these plans for the future because you're just like, man, he just got all these different things. And you know, I've said to him a couple times when we've been having conversations like that, and you know, because we're usually having conversations like that in the church late at night and most of the church is still there and all the kids are together and playing and the teenagers are fellowshipping and singing around the piano and all that. And I say, you know what, Pastor though, but if this is all it ever is, that's great. Amen. Amen. Because you know what we have? We have these relationships here. You know what we have? These kids have these strong relationships. You know, that is the beauty of a number of different churches able to get together that are in like faith and doctrine and practice, being able to get together like that is building these relationships over years. There is so much value there. There's so much value there, but you know what? Relationships, folks, they're a machine. Think of them as a machine. They need maintenance. You know, machines need oil. In our relationships, we need mercy. We need mercy if you wanna have relationships that last a long time. Go out and drain all the oil out of your car and go drive your car and see how long it goes. It'll go for a while. For a little bit. And then it won't go anymore. Relationships are the same thing. They need maintenance. Relationships, machines need oil. Relationships need mercy. You know what, your engine, go drain your engine of all its coolant and see what happens. And go drive it around. You know what, it'll drive for a while. You know what, relationships, they need forgiveness. They need forgiveness like your car needs coolant. Without, you say, I don't wanna have forgiveness. It'll go for a while, but then it'll stop. It'll stop. If you have no forgiveness, it'll stop. That's that long suffering. That's that patience. You say, I have a temper, and I snap immediately. You will never get to forgiveness. Because first comes the long suffering, then comes the forgiveness. But you can't run your car without coolant. You can't run your relationships without forgiveness. Go out and run your car and never put gas in it. Go out and drive your car and just say, you know what, I'm not putting, gas is five bucks a gallon. I'm not putting any more gas in this thing. And see what happens. It'll run for a little bit. It'll run for a while, and then it'll stop running. Relationships need confession. Relationships need confession like the machine of your car needs fuel. Say, I don't wanna have mercy. I don't wanna have forgiveness, and I don't wanna have what we're talking about today, which is confession. You're not gonna have any relationships. You're gonna have, you might have them for a little bit, but you probably already don't have many if you don't have this. Because if you don't have these three things, the machine won't run, folks. So here's a challenge to you this morning. As we go forward for the rest of this year, here's a challenge for you this morning. Fix your relationships by owning your mistakes. You say, I'm thinking back over the last six months, and I don't have any mistakes. You're gonna fail. You're not putting fuel in the machine. We all have mistakes. We all have mistakes. Even with your kids, you know how many times, look, I don't apologize to my kids every two hours. If you apologize to your kids every two hours, you're a bad parent. But you should apologize to your kids. When you make a mistake with your kids, you should apologize. You say, you know what, I lost my temper, because most of the time I've apologized to my kids, this is the apology right here. Say, you know what, I just, I should've been more long-suffering, I should've been more patient with you, I'm sorry. Especially when we were raising animals. I mean, my goodness, nothing gets me more insane than working with animals. I mean, Garrett lets 200 sheep out in the pasture, 200-acre pasture, and we gotta get them all in before something bad happens, and we're up till four in the morning. I'm telling you, I was not very patient at that moment, and there were some apologies the next day. But, look, you gotta apologize to your kids, too. Say, I'm in charge, I don't have to, no, no, no. It's good leadership. It's good leadership. Make the confessions you need to make in your life. Let's get these relationships in this church as strong as we can possibly get them. Let's get the relationships in your family as strong as we possibly can get them. And then, you know what, that'll be a nice little springboard to becoming an independent church. Try this, see if it works. I bet you that the Bible's right, and it'll work. Let's bow our heads and have a word of prayer.