Andrew Meher: you So let's read Psalm 32. It'll be up on the screen or you can follow along in your Bible or your Bible app and we'll continue from there together. Psalm 32 says this, ⁓ what joy for those whose disobedience is forgiven, whose sin is put out of sight. Yes, what joy for those whose record the Lord has cleared of guilt, whose lives are lived in complete honesty. When I refused to confess my sin, my body wasted away and I groaned all day long. Day and night, your hand of discipline was heavy on me. My strength evaporated like water in the summer heat. Finally, I confessed all my sins to you and stopped trying to hide my guilt. I said to myself, I will confess my rebellion to the Lord. and you forgave me. All my guilt is gone. Therefore, let all the godly pray to you while there is still time that they may not drown in the floodwaters of judgment for you are my hiding place. You protect me from trouble. You surround me with songs of victory. The Lord says, I will guide you along the best pathway for your life. I will advise you and watch over you. Do not be like a senseless horse or mule that needs a bit and bridle to keep it under control. Many sorrows come to the wicked, but unfailing love surrounds those who trust the Lord. So rejoice in the Lord and be glad all of you who obey him. Shout for joy all you whose hearts are pure. Let's pray. Father, we just ask that your kindness that leads to repentance will be in that you would give each of us the Spirit's gift of repentance and confession that we all need in our lives if we're going to acknowledge the mess and get free from the mess. We pray Lord that what we encounter in this text today would be most importantly an encounter with you and the living word, the risen Jesus that leads us into this confessional life. Would we taste your freedom this morning? and as we see your forgiveness. In Jesus' name we pray, amen. Amen, amen. ⁓ How many of you have noticed, especially in the last few years on social media, think primarily Facebook, Instagram, you'll see people who have profiles that are impersonating famous people. You ever seen that? There'll be like a profile and it acts like it's the real person or celebrity figure or whatever and they'll be like the real picture and if you were to actually look at the real ⁓ social media profile, you'll see the same picture on their profile. They even have some of the same pictures like in their Instagram ⁓ gallery in the social media. I'm like, wait, which one's real? It looks like the same pictures, right? And what they tend to do is they'll download the picture or they'll take screenshots of the actual account and then they'll upload them and create this new account. Has anyone seen this? You guys know what I'm talking about? Y'all gotta get hip with the times here like me, because I'm super cool. Y'all that know me know that's not true. ⁓ But I've noticed this and one thing that's really interesting and is funny about it is the real accounts, right, you can get up close and personal and you can notice that those profile pics are really high res images. and they're really clean and clear. But if you go to the fake accounts, the ones that aren't the real person, what you see there when you click on the profile, it's like a little bit of a pixelated image, because it's just like a screenshot, so the resolution's lower and stuff like that. And so it gets blurry, or you look through the pictures and they're clearly blurry, or you see one of the screenshots has like a little bit of like an edge on it, because they didn't quite crop it right. You know what I'm talking about? So it's a little goofy. When you start to get close, you notice that it's not the real thing and there's some pixelation going on. It's kind of fake. And I have found in the church, and I grew up in the church, I was a pastor's kid, scared to talk about things like sin or like if I made a mistake or did something wrong, you know, it's like there's no good place to talk about this kind of stuff, right? And I found myself living ⁓ most of my Christian life until I was about 20. 21 years old living most of my Christian life sort of like a pixelated fake profile account image if you got really close you would see the fakeness of it you would see that this isn't the real quality image where all you can see especially these nice high quality high-res images now you can see all the dimples and all the imperfections unless they you know airbrushed it and photoshopped it but you can see all of the stuff in the real image, but when you look up close to my life as a Christian at that time, my life would look kind of pixelated up close. It wouldn't have a deep resonance. Why was that? Well, I didn't really want people to look too closely because if they looked closely, they would see a lot of mess. In particular, they would see a lot of sin. Like early in my late teen years and early into my college years, I struggled a lot with pornography. It's a hidden thing. You don't talk about that in church. I had this other propensity that was in some ways even like bigger of a deal. I would just like drop these little lies because I was afraid of getting in trouble. and it would start with my parents and then go with teachers. And was just like little things. But it was just constant pervasive not telling the truth because I just didn't want to own up to the fact that I made a mistake or I forgot to take care of something. And so little excuses would just kind of pop up in my life. And for me, these were like two really big things. I was afraid of what people would think about me. And so I kind of had this fake low-res image of myself. But if you got too close, which I really didn't want you to do, you would see how fake it was. Anyone resonate with that? Anyone, we got a big resonate. Everyone had their coffee this morning and you know what you're saying. I feel like we fear getting close, especially in church, because we don't want people to see that we've actually kind of been living a bit of a pixelated life. We don't really want people to get too close because we know I've got some stuff I've never told anyone. I've got some stuff that like if I shared right now, know, man, I don't know that you'd want to see me again. You might kind of distance yourself from me. You might be like, I don't know what to do with you. We don't know what to do with you. None of us have that problem. Ha ha. We all think we're the only ones carrying these sin issues and these pixelated lives. And we keep everyone at a distance because we're afraid that if we were to live what I call a confessional life where it's open, it's high res, people see that it's really you with all of the flaws and strengths and sin and brokenness. If people see the real you, what we're afraid of if we live that kind of confessional life is that we will be sitting there drowning in our guilt all the time. So it's just better to ignore it. Or we feel like we're going to be exposed and ashamed and embarrassed, rejected by people maybe. And that will lead to another fear we have. We often believe if we live this kind of confessional life and just start being real, we're gonna be isolated and alone. Anyone fear that with the sin that they carry? Like, ⁓ shoot, pastor's talking about sin. Just lay low, keep your head down. We're gonna get through this. We're gonna get past this. But I wanna suggest that the enemy of your soul and the world. and your own sinful flesh would love for you to believe that if you confess your sin to God and to others in Christian community that it would be the end of you. They would love for you to think that actually it'll get worse if you talk about this stuff. Now initially it might be uncomfortable, there might be consequences, there might be those things that are just the reality. of when we bring things into the open, right? But I want to tell you today, and the Psalm 32 tells us, that it is actually the exact opposite that happens when we begin to live a confessional life and repent. What we actually see God does is we are rescued by God. We're saved out of the mess of our lives. We realize that we are actually, instead of hiding ourselves and hiding our sin, we actually are hidden in God. And that the fear of being isolated and rejected by everyone is not true. Actually, we get surrounded by the community of God. It is actually the exact opposite of what the world, our flesh, and the devil would love you to believe. Instead of being cut off, you actually get reintroduced into the heart of the community. Right in God's presence, hidden in God's heart, rescued out of the mess and the muck, and brought into a redemptive life. In short, what I'm trying to tell you is when we confess our sins and repent, we're filled with the joy of God. We are filled with the joy of God when we live a confessional life. And we're gonna unpack this a little bit from this Psalm. here today, but I just need to answer this question first. What do I mean when I say a confessional life? What does that mean? That might mean something to you. You might have a particular idea and we can't get like down into the depths of this too detailed, but I want to give you just a few kind of bullet points for you to think about. When I say that you need to live and we need to live a confessional life. First, what I mean by this is when we're living a confessional life, we are confessing specific sins. You may have heard this phrase before, but what the enemy of your soul loves to do is introduce condemnation into your life. And what condemnation is, is very general, vague things like you're doing a bad job. You're not very good. You're very sinful. You're a mess. Why can't you do anything right? You have so many problems. You hear the vagueness of it. Here is what conviction from God through the Holy Spirit introduces into our life. Hey, when you lied about situation X over there to make yourself look better or to make it look like you didn't make a mistake, that was a sin and you need to go say that you lied about that and confess your sin. Do you hear the difference? One keeps it very, very vague and general and you're always a terrible person. And what the Holy Spirit does is convict us of specific sins that we name specifically and say, I did this, this was sin, this was wrong, I need forgiveness. Do you see the difference? Do you hear the difference? So this is encouraging, why? Because we're not stuck in what is often called in the scriptures, condemnation. The apostle Paul says there's now no condemnation. for those who are in Christ Jesus. That doesn't mean that there's not conviction of sin, but it means we're not living under this, you're just a terrible person. Specific sins are being called to be confessed. Second, if we're living a confessional life, we confess both to God and to each other. This is massively important. You cannot confess your sins privately to God. I know that goes against everything in our very individualistic culture. I do this on my own. I can take care of myself. I love the words of the German theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer. He says, when you try to confess to yourself and on your own to God, it's a privatistic thing that happens and God cannot actually forgive you in that way because here's why. Christ has become embodied, if you will, in the church. And when the church, representing Jesus, hears a confession of sin, guess what Jesus told the church to do? Forgive as you have been forgiven. And so Bonhoeffer would say, when you confess to another believer, it is as if Christ himself has heard your confession. And you can be forgiven as if Christ himself has forgiven you. That's powerful. Just turn to someone real quick and say, did you know you get to forgive people like that? So this means two things. One, you need to take seriously the call to confess to one another. I know that gets, that's where this starts to get real. I actually got to talk about this with other people, but also take seriously that your extending forgiveness when someone confesses sin is powerful because it is as if Jesus is forgiving them through you. Another thing that we need to consider with a confessional life is we need to keep our accounts short with God. and others. Here's what I experienced in my own life before I learned this practice of living a confessional life. I just had so many things that I had sinned and never told anyone and they just compound and compound and compound in your life and there are moments in my life where I'm trying to live this life with God and I felt like the person in the Psalms whose body was washing away and day and night the hand of God's discipline was heavy upon me. Has anyone ever felt miserable about something they did wrong? That is the hand of God's loving discipline on you to say, you know that wasn't okay. You need to confess this and make this right. I got so much forgiveness for you, but you gotta own up to it. It's when we resist that that we start to engage in rebellion against God. And I've made that mistake far too many times, even like little things going like, ⁓ shoot. I need to share this and then I'd lie about it and then I wouldn't share it. I was afraid what someone would say to me and what would they do if I didn't? And then as soon as I confess, it's like God lifts his hand and there's a freedom there. And so we need to keep our accounts short. I went away with a friend once when I was learning all of this and was like, man, I've got a lot of stuff in my life I need to confess. And we went away on a retreat for two nights and we did a life confession. We literally wrote down everything that God brought to mind that we had done and sinned over the course of our lives. And we just like, we're gonna say everything. We're not leaving anything out. That's what I'm talking about. I know you're all like, what? But this is the kind of call that God's given us to confess our sin and live a confessional life. There is a freedom that comes. It's not just a cathartic thing where, ⁓ that felt good to get it off my chest. You are actually receiving God's forgiveness. And so we need to keep our accounts short. Another thing about a confessional life is we need to recognize that there can still be consequences for our sin. This is really important. Well, I confessed my sin and you forgave me. Why do I still have to do this? Well, because you did this. There are real consequences in life for things that we do, yes? That does not mean that we are not forgiven. It just means that there's a reality on the other side of what we chose to do. And often in life, we have to bear those, but I want to bear those things. If it were me, I wanna bear those consequences knowing that I'm living in the freedom that I'm not hiding anything. Another thing about a confessional life, to just be clear up front about here, is we confess because we do not have it all figured out. It should not surprise us when we sin. Some of us get really shocked when we have sin in our lives, and we're like, I can't believe I messed up. Why would you be surprised? We are broken, we are on this side of Jesus' return where we have not been redeemed in our new bodies that God has waiting for us in the other side of the resurrection and the life, we are in this space where we are still broken. And sometimes broken things don't work right. There is a way that we were shaped to live that was perfect and whole, but we are living in the fractured reality of sin, which means confession should be a normal part of our life because we don't have it all figured out. Somebody say amen. turn to the person next to you and say, you don't have it all figured out. Some of you liked that too much, so turn to the other person and say, I don't have it all figured out. Alright, so are you with me? This is a confessional life. At the end of the day, confession is about really this one thing. It's about us saying, God, I trust you with my life more than I trust myself. I trust you have a way better idea about how I should live than how I think I should live. And so confession brings us into line with that reality. I trust you with my life more than I trust myself. So let's look at this Psalm and understand a little bit of the background of why this is so significant. There are several Psalms in the Psalm book that. ⁓ These are the songs of the people of ancient Israel, 150 of them, and there are several throughout that are called penitential Psalms. These are Psalms that were about God, I messed up, I screwed up, I'm broken, I need forgiveness, I'm wallowing in my sin, help. Purify me, make me whole again. There was an understanding of the brokenness throughout the Psalms that needed to be addressed. How many of feel like we don't sing enough of these kinds of songs? God, everything is a mess, help. And that's the whole song. We don't need everything to end on this victorious triumphalistic note because that's not how life is. The reality is life a lot of times is messy. And so we need the penitential Psalms to help teach us how to pray when things are not right. To teach us how to pray when there is sin that needs to be dealt with in our lives so we can get free. But Psalm 32 is one of these penitential Psalms but it's a little bit different than the rest. because it offers us some wisdom and instruction to see what actually happens if you don't confess your sin or if you do confess your sin. It's a little bit of a different ⁓ Psalm than the rest. It teaches us and instructs us and gives us wisdom on what actually happens if we were to choose not to confess or to confess. And David, King David, is the one who wrote the Psalm. How many of you know? King David knows a few things about having a messy life and needing to be Confessional. We talked about it ⁓ on ⁓ Ash Wednesday when we read his famous Psalm 51. David wrote Psalm 51 as a confession of sin to God after he forcibly slept with a woman that he saw that he was attracted to and then to cover up that she got pregnant, murdered her husband and took her in as his own wife. That's a bad day. If any of you don't know, that's a bad day. There's a lot of mess in David's life and David lived a confessional life. Not always perfectly. Sometimes he needed to get kicked in the butt by God's prophets who said, you've got some confession to do. You've got some repenting to do. And so David knows a few things about living a confessional life. And so David lays out the instructions of this Psalm by saying this in verse one, what joy. for those whose disobedience is forgiven, whose sin is put out of sight. Most translations translate this as how happy or blessed are you when your sins are forgiven. Now this word happy or blessed or ⁓ what joy, the idea that's being ⁓ given here is this is the absolute pinnacle of life. This is what the good life looks like. How many of you have an idea of what the good life looks like? For me, it sometimes involved getting in bed as early as possible, because I'm always tired, and putting on an episode of The West Wing. That's a good, that feels like the good life right now, but I'd suggest maybe that David wants to bring the bar a little bit higher. Maybe a little bit. The good life, like as much as you can imagine the best life for your family, or for your... your material success or the home you live in or your career aspirations or how you're serving people in the community or what we can do as a church for the highlands. All of these things pale in comparison to what David says is the ultimate ambition of the good life. ⁓ what joy that we're forgiven. This is actually what Jesus said to his disciples. If you remember, he sent them out the 70, He gave them authority and power to heal and cast out demons. And they came back like their minds are blown. If you like went around and you're seeing people healed and all these demons cast out, all of these people's lives transformed, you'd come back pumped, right? God's on the move. And Jesus says, don't rejoice in this. Rejoice that your names are written in the book of life. In other words, rejoice that you have been forgiven and redeemed and restored. David says, what joy, happy, the blessed good life is when we are just forgiven and restored. That's it. Stop complicating it. It's really simple. To find the joy that God has for us is not, don't keep silent as the example does here and waste away and groan. Open your mouth, confess your sin, David says, and you will come into the joy. that God has for you because you will be forgiven and restored. So the question for us is, what actually does this psalm teach us about confession and repentance of sin? And why does David think it's gonna lead to so much joy? Well, I think the first reason is pretty straightforward and simple. And it's just that this, we're rescued by God. We're rescued by God. Verse six in another translation, it says, the mighty waters rise, they won't reach you. I love that verse in verse six, where it talks about, you're not gonna drown in the flood waters of judgment in the translation we read. Now in the Old Testament, especially when you see reference to waters or ocean, it generally is a representation of chaos. How many find when you sin there's some chaos that gets unleashed in your life? Either internally or it has some consequences externally. There is chaos, maybe not immediately, but sometimes the waves of chaos and consequences start to roll in. And the Hebrew people were not seafaring people, they were really scared of the ocean, so the water just represented the most terrifying thing they could think of. It's unknown, it's unpredictable, we can't control it, and if you're out there without a boat, you're just gonna sink. And this is how we're supposed to picture sin and the chaos of guilt and sorrow. We might drown here in this if we stay in this unconfessed. But it says that we are not drowned in the waters. The implication is that the Father lifts us out when we call on Him, when we confess, when we say, here's what happened, help. and we're rescued by God. We ⁓ live over on Greenwood Lake and ⁓ very early on, we were like, we need to teach our girls how to swim. Because if they don't know how to swim, we don't want them going near the dock or near the water or anything. That's going to be really dangerous. And so they've learned how to swim. They've done swimming lessons for the past like two and a half, almost three years. And they've gotten so good at swimming. But I remember when we were first letting them swim in the lake a little without like a floatie on or a life vest. And we're like, all right, give it a try. And they start going. And they're doing OK. And they're like, you're doing great. And then a boat goes by. and the waves start coming in and big, you know how the waves get on those, on the lakes there, right? And you're like, come on, I'm trying to teach my kid how to swim. And the waves come in and they start to come over their head and there's water going in their eyes and their mouth. And it's just, dad help! See, they can't stand in the midst of the chaos. You and I can't stand when the sin starts to come in and we're opening the door and we're leaving it unconfessed and we're not dealing with it. The chaos and the trouble and the waves come in, but your Father can stand in those waves. When we say help, and He lifts us out. children immediately are relieved and there's joy and they're okay and then they're ready to try again. There's so much joy simply because we're rescued by God when we live a confessional life. Nothing keeps us anymore in groaning. We're not wasting away and we're not drowning in our guilt anymore. We are rescued out of the water by God. Additionally though, there's joy because we're hidden in God. We are hidden in God. This is so fascinating to me. Verse seven, the first part of it says, you are my hiding place. You are my hiding place. You protect me from trouble. I think it's so interesting that earlier in the Psalm, he's trying to hide himself and hide his sin from God. But he realizes, actually, if I really want to be protected, I can't do it myself. I need to confess, because you will actually just hide me in yourself. We'll talk about that more next week with the story of Adam and Eve trying to hide themselves after they sinned in the garden. But there is something that is in us that needs protection and hiddenness. you might come in with a little bit of bread. This morning, some of you guys, and you might think, I don't need to be protected. I'm a breadwinner. I know it's going. Let me tell you, you need to be protected. We all need to be protected because we're human and we're frail. And we need to recognize that instead of trying to hide and protect ourselves and keep the sin that is in our lives compartmentalized, God is saying, just ask for help, confess and be forgiven and I will hide you in me. Don't try and hide yourself, that's pathetic, that's not gonna get you very far. Hide yourself in me, God says. You ever ⁓ had, I remember I had this bill. that was outstanding. I'm in the process of some continued education right now and I have these monthly tuition payments I've got to make and I make the payment every month and you're just like, oh man, I can think about eight different things this money could go for. You ever have that kind of experience? Where you're just like, I can think about eight different things that I'd love this money to go to, like real needs. I'm not even talking like frivolous things, right? Like, and you're just like, man, I could see this money. And I felt like I was like feeling this need to protect myself, cover myself. did, what am I gonna do in this situation what are we gonna do? It's just like feels so stressful. Out of nowhere, someone handed me a check to cover the rest of the year's balance of my tuition. It like $2,500. Not expected at all, I didn't ask anyone for it. And let me tell you, the sense of feeling like my debt was covered, like it was taken care of, brought such relief and joy and celebration and freedom. And as I'm looking at this text, God wants to cover you. God wants to hide you like that. You've got the debt of your sin, the weight of those consequences upon you. And what Jesus is saying right now is all you gotta do is confess and be forgiven and I'll cover. I'll cover you. I'll hide you. I'll protect you. Why are you trying to do on your own what I have for you in myself? So we have a lot of joy because we're rescued by God, we're hidden in God, but also, and this is so profound, I think, is that we are surrounded by the community of God. The second half of verse seven, it says that you surround me with songs of victory. And several commentators looking at this text say that this is not like God is singing a song. and it's just swirling around in some kind of like mystical fashion or whatever. What is literally being described here is someone coming to repent of their sins and confess their sins at the temple in the Old Testament. And they're coming to confess and when the crowd of worshipers, the community, the people of God see that person coming, they gather around and they begin to celebrate them and they begin to cheer them on and they say, God's redeemed you as they confess their sins and they're surrounding them and subduing that if and cheering them on this is the farthest thing from believing that it says that when we confess our sin we're actually surrounded and brought right into the middle of God's people not only are we hidden in God we're surrounded by the people of God Because as we said earlier, when we hear a confession from a brother or sister and we extend the forgiveness of Jesus to them, we've surrounded them. We've protected them. We've brought them into comfort. We've brought them into protection. We've brought them into community and we've said, you know what? I see this mess. You've confessed this mess. We in Jesus's name forgive this mess and we want you to know you're one of us. How many of you feel like if I tell them all the things I've done, they're gonna be like, you're not one of us? That's what people generally think about with church. But the reality is we are only gathered here because we're all doing the same stuff, bringing our sin to God and saying, Lord help. And God rescues us and God hides us and then God brings his people around us to say, you belong here. You belong here and God has forgiven you and you get to walk in this redeemed way with us. You are part of the people of God. We don't need to believe the lie anymore that if we live a confessional life that we're gonna still just be drowning in our guilt and that we're gonna be in shame, exposed and embarrassed or that we're going to be cut off and isolated. We need to step into the truth that because we're called to this confessional life, We will experience being rescued with God, hidden in God, and surrounded by the people. The end of the Psalm concludes with some instruction, because remember, this is teaching us how to do this well. And there's a challenge put before us at the end of the Psalm. So will you live a confessional life, essentially the Psalm asks? Do you want to live in this way? and it puts two roads before you. The Lord says, I will guide you along the best pathway for your life. I'll take you into the good life. I'll take you into the joy of being forgiven. And then comes the instruction, don't be like a senseless horse or mule that needs a bit and bridle to keep under control. What does that mean? There's a picture of a ⁓ horse or a mule with a bridle in its mouth. You know what that's like? They've got like a bit between their teeth and all the person with the reins has to do is turn it that way or that way, their head's gonna move. They have no control. They are locked into a strict, rigid way of living life to ensure that they go on the right path. And I want you to know that some of you may have thought that that is what Christianity is calling you to. And this is actually a bit in your mouth and you're just gonna be jerked along to make sure you do what's right. And this is actually God saying, I have no interest in you living your life that I have no interest in trying to micromanage and control you. Here's what I do desire. Look at this next image. I want you to see yourselves as loving children that are just adoring their parent and you just want to follow them. You ever seen geese? Little goslings with their mother? They are obsessed with their mom and they just follow her everywhere. You ever seen little human children with their parents and especially if they're out in public and they cling to them? They're like right on top of them wherever they go. And they don't leave their side. Do I need like a bit and a bridle in my daughter's mouth to make sure she stays with me when we go places? Especially when they're like really little? No, they're like obsessed with me. They like can't stay off of me. I'm like go play, go play, go play. And they're like I'm gonna stay here. They're obsessed because they know that I can rescue them. They know that I can hide them. They know they're safe and they belong with me. And it's the same for us. God isn't calling you to confess your sin so you can be jerked around by this rigid way of life. God is saying, listen, there's an easy way to do this. And it's simply this, open yourself up to the leading of my love. Open yourself up to the way I wanna lead you. And as you go through life, you are going to screw it up sometimes. You are going to make some mistakes sometimes, but instead of being rigid or just giving up and running away, just confess. Don't be surprised that you made a mistake. Just confess, and I will pull you in and rescue you. I will hide you and protect you. I will surround you with your people. Friends, this is the kind of community we wanna be here. We wanna be a messy church. can say amen twice. We want to be a messy church. It does not mean that we wallow in the mess, but it means we confess the mess so that we can be freed and restored to walk through it. That's our call. That's who we are as a people. So the question for us is, do you and I want to live a confessional life or not? You get to choose. No one's forcing you. But if we're going to be a people that experiences the joy of the forgiveness of our sins, we've gotta be a people who confess and repent and turn back to God and the way God is leading us. And there's a joy that waits for us there. So here's what I'm gonna invite us to do for a few minutes before the worship team comes up. What I'd like to do is I have a few people that are available to pray. If I could the prayer team come up and be available. And if needed, a few of our other leaders, I may ask if you can just be available in case more people want prayer. If one of you could come over here, that would be great. And just off the corner, these are some trusted folks. We have different people that are gonna be up here and available to pray with you throughout the rest of this series. Each week and beyond that, because we need to begin We have space to confess our sin, to ask Jesus to do things for us in our lives that we need, that we're longing for, that we're desperate for. And so there's space here for you to speak with someone, to ask for prayer, to confess sin if you need to do so, if there's something specific that is coming to mind that you need to confess. But also what we're gonna do during this time for just a minute in silence is we're gonna make space for you to ask the Holy Spirit to search your heart. To say, Holy Spirit, like as the Psalmist says, as David says in another place, search my heart and see if there's any wicked way in me. You know better than I do, Lord, what's going on in me. Point out what you think is sin in my life, not what I think is sin in my life. And so what we're gonna do is before the team comes up, we're just gonna have a few moments of silence for you to just ask the Holy Spirit. Holy Spirit, is there anything you need me to confess? Is there anything that you need me to get prayer for? Is there anything that I am resisting you doing in my life? Because I'm trying to figure it out myself. And so we're just gonna take some time to be still before the Lord. If you wanna come and receive prayer, you may. And then in a minute, the team's gonna come up and we're just gonna continue to make space for prayer as we enter into communion. But just for a few moments, let's be silent and still before the Lord and listen to what the Holy Spirit says.