Purged to Purify - 1 Corinthians 5:1-13

In 2018, a movie was released called A Beautiful Boy, has any, did anyone see that movie? Didn't have wide theatrical release. I think it was put out by Amazon. It's the true story of David and Nick Sheff. David's Chef is played by Steve Carell, and Nick, his son is played by Timothy Chalamet. So pretty A-list actors. But the story is a true story based on David and Nick's life. Nick as he got into his teenage years. got addicted to methamphetamines, and was struggling with his addiction, and David, as his father, was wrestling with how do I help my son? How do I deal with this situation? How do we help him get better? And I watched it. My wife said, hey, you should watch this. It's good. And I kind of didn't know what was going, what it was going into it. And I sat down by myself watching it and as a dad, I had 2 young daughters at the time. And I was just like, gut punched, watching David, the dad, go through this situation with his son as his addiction became worse and worse. And eventually there's a scene about 2 thirds of the way through the movie, where Nick has become like dangerous to himself and to everyone else in the house. And David has this confrontation with him. where he basically says, you can't live here anymore. It's this intervention moment. And it's just gut wrenching to watch his father have to say to his son, You can't stay here. That what you're doing is so dangerous and so damaging to you and the family that we can't allow you to kind of stay in this situation enabling you to be this way. And just watching this dad go through this. The story ends. So if you haven't seen it, go see it, but Nick ends up in recovery by the end of the movie. And I just looked up today to say, how are they doing? He's still in recovery, but this moment where a father has to say to his own son, that you can't be here. Your actions are so destructive that you need to leave. That's tough love. And I imagine all of us in our life have experienced tough love to some extent, growing up at some point, maybe a parent had to show tough love to discipline us, to help us change our actions. If you're a parent, maybe you've had to show tough love to a child as they were growing up. But that kind of love, it gets harder and harder, right, as we get older and older, that tough love becomes even more difficult. And we're going to see in our passage today, 1st Corinthians 5 that Paul has a similar word for the church in Corinth. of tough love of how difficult it is, how painful it is, what he's writing. And I want you to keep David Chef and Nick Chef in your mind, this idea of a parent having to say something so heartbreaking to himself, to his own son, for his own son's salvation, to get away from this addiction. If you take nothing else away from these 13 verses today in 1st Corinthians 5. Take this away, loving someone. And that's the key, start with loving someone, sometimes means grieving. and taking hard actions for the good of the person, and others. Little background on Paul in the church in Corinth. Paul had planted this church in Corinth. He was deeply committed to them, had a deep love for them in the last chapter of this book. 1 Corinthians chapter 4. He writes this in verses 14 and 15. I do not write these things to make you ashamed. He was calling out some of the behavior in the church. It wasn't appropriate, but to admonish you as my beloved children. For though you have countless guides in Christ, you do not have many fathers. For I became your father in Christ Jesus through the gospel. Paul writes another letter to the church in Corinth and in 2nd Corinthians 12, 14 and 15. He says this. Here for the 3rd time, I am ready to come to you. And I will not be a burden, for I seek not what is yours. But you, he's saying, I don't want money from you. I want you as people, for children are not obligated to save up for their parents, but parents for their children. I almost gladly spend and be spent for your souls. If I love you more, Am I to be loved less? These are the words of someone like David Sheff, who's a father, thinking of his children. This church in Corinth that he's planted. It's with that background that we need to read this passage because in our culture, what Paul is going to say to the church in Corinth and to a man in that church, who is engaged in a heinous sin, can come off as hateful and mean. But Paul's context is one of a church family that's connected with each other that deeply loves each other, not like some kind of detached organization with a bureaucracy that's attached. And Paul's trying to say, get rid of this troublemaker so we can be better. David's chef in no way when he said to his son, Nick, you need to leave the house was saying, if you'll just leave, life would be so much easier. We would enjoy our life much more. We could all go out and have a good time if you were just not part of us. He sent him away because he said, I so want you to be a part of us. And this sending you away, Nick, is so painful to me. But if I don't, your life is on the line. Look what Paul says in verses one and 2 where we see the man's and the church's sin. He says, it is actually reported that there is sexual immorality among you. And of a kind that is not tolerated even among pagans. For a man has his father's wife. What Paul is encountering here is, and we don't know the whole backstory, we don't know about this woman. She's probably not a member of the church. She's not mentioned at all. We don't know about her former husband, this man's father. We do know that she's the stepmom. We can go back to Leviticus 18 in this command of appropriate relationships. Stepmoms are forbidden. We in our own culture have taboos on relationships and laws against certain relationships. And Paul is saying there's a thing going on in the church of Corinth, a relationship that is so outside the bounds that even the Corinthian culture is shocked by it. Now, Corinth was a wicked city. Corinth wasn't Mayberry from Andy Griffith. Corinth is Las Vegas. And probably worse. It is a horribly wicked city. So Paul's saying, look, guys, what's happening in the church is worth so bad that even the Corinthian people are like ashamed of this type of activity, they wouldn't condone it. A man has moved in with his stepmom. We don't know if his dad had passed away. We don't know any of the situation, but we know this is happening. And Paul calls it out. He said, it's been told me this is going on. And that was the man's sin. But the church also has one says, and you are arrogant. That word arrogant means puffed up. You've been puffed up. We don't know if the church is arrogant about the action of this man. Like they're going, this is a good thing. I think that what's happening here is the church at Corinth, at least a segment of the church, was already just kind of arrogant and puffed up about how good they were, how amazing they were, how wonderful they were. How everything was going great. And Paul says, you're arrogant as a church about, like, how wonderful you are, and this thing that's so destructive is going on, and you've done nothing about it. You're not saying anything about it. You're accepting it. He says, ought you not rather to mourn? Instead of being puffed up about this, being arrogant? Like everything is okay? You should be in mourning over this situation. You should be grieving what is going on. And then Paul says this, let him who has done this be removed from among you. And that's the line that in our culture, feels so unloving. It's like, remove this person. And again, it would be unloving if the church was simply like a business. And you're saying, just get rid of the person. When I go to the AMC theater to watch movies, If someone's chattering in the theater and talking and not being quiet, I just want an usher to come and take them out. Could you just remove this person? They're ruining my show. They're ruining the movie I want to see. I don't care about that person. I just need him to go. I need him to go away. That's not what Paul's saying. Paul is writing to a church that would have been a small group of people in a hostile city. And he's saying that you're arrogant over what's happening in the church and it's so destructive. You need to remove this person. He doesn't just say remove them and move on though. If you keep reading in verses 3 to five. He says this removal. The reason he is saying this is aimed at restoration. Look what he says. For though absent in body. This is Paul writing. I am present in spirit. And as if present, I have already pronounced judgment on the one who did such a thing. Now you may ask, who is Paul, that he gets to pronounce judgment on someone. Well, 1st of all, Paul's just taking God's own word from the Old Testament and saying this type of relationship is prohibited. Now, we live in a culture and a time where sexual ethics are all over the place. The Bible's very clear on this. There's no gray area, it's no black and white. That sexual relations are reserved for one man, one woman, in the confines of marriage. Anything else is off limits. That's the clear word from scripture. And so Paul is 1st of all just landing on scripture. Paul is also an apostle of Christ. He's been appointed by Christ to proclaim Christ's message to the church. So when he speaks, when he writes, he's writing God's words to us. So he says, I've already pronounced judgment. This is what needs to happen. If the church in Corinth decides not to follow Paul, it would be like tomorrow night when the chiefs play, if the rest throw a flag, and just both teams go, yeah, we're not paying attention to that. We're just not going to listen to the referees anymore. At that point, the game's over in a sense. Now, referees can throw bad flags. We know that. But Paul, writing under the inspiration of the spirit, is not throwing a wrong answer here. And so if the team said, we're just not going to listen to you, it all falls apart. So Paul says, I've already said what needs to happen. When you assemble in the name of the Lord, so when you come together as a church, And my spirit is present with the power of our Lord Jesus, you are delivered this man to Satan for the destruction of the flesh, so that his spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord, what does Paul mean? deliver this man to Satan? For the destruction of his flesh? Is Paul saying that what he wants to have happen is, hey, remove this guy from your fellowship. Satan get a hold of him and kill him. Maybe give him a disease. Wreck his body. That's not what he means by flesh. When Paul writes a flesh. It can mean just our physical body at times, but often when Paul writes, he uses the word flesh to talk about the sinful part of us. We all have that. We all experience it that moment where you go, I know that's wrong to do, but there's something in me like a magnet that's wanting me to do it. That's pulling me towards it, that's leading me away from what God wants, to what this other thing wants. That's the flesh. Paul in Romans 8, 5 through 8 says this about the flesh. She says, for those who live according to the flesh, set their minds on the things of the flesh. But those who live according to the spirit set their minds on the things of the spirit. For to set the mind on the flesh is death. But to set the mind on the spirit is life and peace. For the mind that is set on the flesh is hostile to God, for it does not submit to God's law. Indeed, it cannot. Those who are in the flesh cannot please God. So what Paul is saying here is he tells the Corinthians, I've already said what you need to do. You need to enact it. That's hard, by the way. If it was easy, they would have already done it. He says, this is what you need to do. You need to hand this man over. To Satan. And what he means by that is just outside of the protection of the church. So that, the flesh, this desire to do what's wrong. And he's committed to that. He, living in that relationship, is destroyed. Why? So that his soul, his spirit can be saved. Paul is recognizing that what he's dealing with here is actions and behaviors that can land this man in hell. And he says, we need to bring him back from that. Away from that. So that his spirit can be saved, that the mindset on the flesh is hostile to God. And so Paul says, this is what you need to do. You need to hand him over so that he becomes aware of what he's doing. David's chef did the exact same thing with Nick Chef in the movie. Well, he said, you can't live in our house as if what you're doing is okay. As if what you're doing isn't destroying you, as if what you're doing isn't destroying the family also. Nick was in denial about his actions. At times in the movie, you could see that he went, I know it's bad. It turns bad. I' just in denial. And then he was removed from the house. And he eventually realized that, yes, his dad was right. Now, his dad was back at the house grieving deeply over what he had to do. But he said, if I do nothing, if I allow this to continue, Nick, you're heading down a path that's going to kill you. You're heading down a path that leads to death, just as Paul says here about the flesh. And he says, we need to have that destroyed. So this man can find life and peace in Christ. The removal is aimed at restoration. But we also see Paul is concerned about this man's life, but he's also concerned about the church's worship of Christ. Look what he says in verses 6 to 8. says that sin harms the church's worship. He said to the church, your boasting is not good. He says you've been arrogant. You've been puffed up and he uses this word, I think, intentionally here because he's going to talk about leaven in bread that's been puffed up. Since your boasting is not good. You're celebrating a thing that is destructive. Imagine if David Sheff was actually celebrating his son's meth addiction, celebrating his descent into death and going, this is a good thing. Everything's wonderful in our family. If his dad was denying the reality of the situation, we would go, something's wrong, David. something's wrong with you. Wake up, your son is in jeopardy. Says your boasting is not good. Do you not know that a little leaven, leavens, the whole lump? Now, leaven is kind of like yeast yeast in our day is safe for the most part. Leaven, though, would be you take a piece of dough that's already been has risen, and you take a piece of that dough and separate it out and keep it. And then when you make another batch of dough, you add it to it, and it helps leaven or raise the bread, so that you have a puffed up bread. And Paul says, don't you know that a little leaven? When you put it in a batch of dough, it puffs up the whole batch, and he's saying that this sin that you're tolerating, you're boasting about, can work its way through the whole church and bring destruction and suffering to the whole church. So it says, cleanse out the old leaven, that you may be a new lump as you really are unleavened. So he tells them this, this is interesting too. He's saying to the church of Corinth. It's not that you need to kind of get rid of this guy, so that you're holy. He tells them, you're already holy. He says you're already unleavened. Now in the Old Testament, in Exodus 12 and 13, when the Jewish people came out of Egypt, they celebrated the Passover. And when they were celebrating it, God told them, God told Moses to tell the people, hey, look, when we come out of Egypt, make unleavened bread, you're not going to have time for the dough to rise. You need be ready to go at a moment's notice. And then every year after that, when they celebrate the Passover, they were to get rid of all the leaven in their house. Every bit of 11 that existed, they would have to get rid of, and then they would celebrate the Passover with unleavened bread. It's why when we take the Lord's supper, You have this cracker that's not soft, it's hard, it's unleavened. And he says that you as a church are already unleavened, that the sin that is part of our life is removed by Christ, not by anything we do, it's not that I've made myself holy. It's not that I set myself apart for serving God, it's that Christ is set apart for God. And when we trust Christ, we get what he gets. We get his life, and he gets our death. Our punishment for our sin. And so he makes us holy. And Paul says, you're already holy. You already are a new lump. Now live that way, behave the way that you already are in reality. It says, for Christ, our Passover lamb has been sacrificed. In the Exodus, when the Jewish people were leaving Egypt, God told them, he says, I needed you to take a lamp and sacrifice it and smear its blood over the doorpost of your house. And that way when the destroying angel comes through. God's judgment comes through. It'll see that blood and not go into that house. The destroying angel was from God. And God's saying, this lamb protects people from God's own wrath at sin and death. Jesus has done that for all of us. So he says, therefore, let us celebrate the festival, this idea of Jesus being the one who saves us, not with the old leaven. That's the leaven of malice and evil. The word evil here in the original language is the same as the word sexual immorality in the 1st verse. So don't celebrate that way. He says, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth. That is when we give ourselves to Christ, to follow him, to listen to his teaching, to strive to be like him, to be transformed into his image, that we can then celebrate in a way that is honoring to God. And then he writes in verses 9 to 13 that the reason this purging is happening is to purify. So Paul had written a previous letter to the Corinthians. And in that letter, he had said, in some form or fashion, We don't have that letter, that they shouldn't associate with sexually immoral people. And he says in verse nine, I wrote to you in my letter not to associate with sexually more people. The Corinthians, it seems like, may have taken that to mean anybody. Paul explains this, not at all meaning the sexually memorial of this world. Or the greedy in swindlers or idolaters, since then you would need to go out of the world. He's saying, I'm not saying, don't hang out with people who aren't believers. Who live this way. What else you'd have to leave the whole world. Jesus, when he was on the earth, ate with sinners regularly. In fact, the religious leaders were always saying, your master is always hanging out with the lowlife stuff society. He's always hanging out with the sinners in society. Now, when Jesus ate with them, he was always calling them to repentance. He didn't eat with them and said, man, your lifestyle is awesome. It's really healthy for you. It's good to be a prostitute. It's good to be this way. It's good to be a swindler or a chief. He didn't say that. He said, I'm here for the sick and you're sick and you need to get better. Come and get better. When the woman was caught in adultery. He told her to go and sin no more. So we didn't condone their actions, but he ate with them. Paul's saying the same thing. I'm not telling you not to go be with and have interaction with people in the world who aren't claiming to be Christians who live lives that don't look like Christians. We shouldn't expect them to. He says, verse 11, but now I am writing to you not to associate with anyone who bears the name of brother. That means they have the name of Christ. They're saying I am a follower of Christ. If he is guilty of, in the original language, the word guilty of is not in there. The original language is say, if he is. And he's these things. And this is important because there's this list here. And if you think guilty of, you think, well, that's just one time, right? If you're caught speeding, I actually said, I was wrong. I said, imagine everyone who's driven for any length of time has gotten a speeding ticket already, had a guy come up after the 1st service, he goes, I haven't had a speeding ticket yet. I was like, well, good for you. I've had a few. Um, But if you get a speeding ticket, right, you're guilty right away. It's like, I sped once, I got a ticket. I'm guilty. If you get a lot of tickets, like 10, 15, 20 speeding tickets, you're a speeder. That's that's who you are. What Paul is saying here is not kind of describing someone who had a one off thing they did. He's someone, this is what they are. If someone is sexually immoral or greedy or as an idolater, worshiping other guards, is a reviler, a drunkard, or a swindler, not even to eat with such a one. It's not that someone, this man, had made a one time mistake and then repented and said, I'm so sorry, I messed up. That was wrong. I shouldn't have done that. Paul would say that's what the, that's how we kind of confess. When someone confesses and says, I mess up, we take them back. That's not what's happening. This man that he's talking about is defiant in his sin. He's speeding repeatedly, repeatedly. in light of people saying you shouldn't. He's speeding repeatedly. says, anyone who's a believer, who's a follower of Christ, who claims the name of Christ, and they're doing this kind of thing, this is their lifestyle. This is how they would be recognized in the society. Right? And we get that, there's attention there. I can have people come over to my house. Luke Zimmerman came over a few weeks ago to an Alabama game. He's not Alabama fan. He just came and watched. He cheered for that game and went on about his day. I'm an Alabama fan. You probably know some folks who aren't Chiefs fans, but they'll watch the Chiefs game. But maybe you're a Chiefs fan. you're like, no, I'm a fan. This is a different thing. Paul's saying not even to eat with such a one. Because that's so harsh. That's so hard. But David Sheff with his son, Nick. He said, we can't behave like everything's okay. You can't just come over for family dinner and act like what you're doing isn't destroying you and us. And he says, Imagine as a father. Saying to your child, you can't come eat. You can't come over and eat unless you decide to change your ways. How hard that is. That's what Paul's talking about. When he makes this declaration, he is not saying this is easy. Don't even that person who would want to anyway, they're horrible. That's not what he's saying. Says, for what have I to do with judging outsiders? Is it not those inside the church whom you are to judge? God judges those outside. And then he takes the Old Testament passage that from from Deuteronics has purged the evil person from among you. This comes from the Old Testament, where someone was doing something that was threatening the health of the whole community and says you have to remove that person from the group because they're threatening the entire health of the community. And so he used, I says, do this. Now that, again, you could pull that out of context and read it as, get rid of the person, and then everything will be better. But we can't read it that way. We have to read in light of Paul's deep love for the Corinthian church. His language of, I'm like a father to you. And the fact that he is wanting to purge in order to purify. In 2nd Thessalonians 3, 13 through 15. Paul, writing to a different church says this. As for you, brothers, do not grow weary and doing good. If anyone does not obey what we say in this letter, take note of that person and have nothing to do with him, that he may be ashamed. It's not just have nothing to do with him. It's for a reason that he may be ashamed. Do not regard him as an enemy. But warn him as a brother. And so Paul gives this really hard command in one Corinthians 5 to a specific situation in Corinth. We think that when we read 2nd Corinthians, Paul says to a guy they had removed from the church. He says, hey, he's changed, take him back. We're not sure if that's the same guy, but it could be where this discipline worked. It was 2000 years ago. What do we do today here at Northland as a church in light of this? Remember, the main idea of my message was this, loving someone. Sometimes means grieving. That's David's chef, loving his son Nick. And taking hard actions. That's David removing his son, Nick, from the house, for the good of the person. And others. So how do we do this today? Well, here at Northland, um, if you're a member at Northland, so we welcome people. We love people visiting and having visitors here. But if someone plants their life here and says, I want to be a member of Northland. We agree as members to a covenant of how we want to function together, how, like what we, how we hold each other up to follow Christ. Let me read that to you. We want to live out our Northland Church covenant. It says this, having been led, as we believe by the Spirit of God, to receive the Lord Jesus Christ, as our Lord and Savior, and on the profession of our faith, having been baptized, in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, we're going to have a baptism after I preach, we had one in the 8 o'clock, we have another one in the 1045. Also, we do now in the presence of God, in this assembly most solemnly and joyfully enter into covenant. A covenant is just a binding agreement. With one another, as one body in Christ, by the grace of God and through the power of the Holy Spirit, to do certain things, we will promote unity within our church by demonstrating love toward one another in our words. And actions. We will partner with one another to accomplish the mission of the church. We will pray regularly for the ministries, members, and leaders of our church. We will provide for the financial needs of our church by giving regularly and generously. We will pursue the advancement of the kingdom of God by exercising our spiritual gifts and talents to spread the gospel and build up the body of Christ, and we will protect the testimony of our church by attending regularly. Living godly lives, keeping Christ as a center of our families, and raising our children in the discipline and instruction of the Lord. I want to highlight 2 of those, the 1st and the last. We will promote unity, and we will protect our testimony. The promoting of unity is done by demonstrating love for one another in our words and actions. And that is the beginning of everything we're talking about. Paul in 1st Corinthians 12 and 13 is going to say, if I can do all sorts of miracles, and I speak the most fluently than anyone's ever spoke, but I don't have love. I'm nothing. I'm just a clinging symbol. that the foundation of who we are, as followers of Christ here at Northland is, people who love Jesus and people who love each other. And that love can often mean we have to make hard choices. Because of the love. Without love, then absolutely. The thing Paul's saying would just be kind of mean, dismissive. Let's get rid of this person, their annoyance. We would be better without them. help them to move on. But with love, it's like David Sheff with his son, Nick. that we want to promote unity, and we want to protect the testimony of our church. of who we are as followers of Christ, that we want to live out this covenant. I think 2 ways we can do that is one, recognize that you and I, we are not our own. We are the body of Christ. Paul is going to say later in this letter that as the body of Christ, we need each other. We're connected with each other. That what I do isn't just me doing my own thing. Religion. Following Christ is not simply an individual choice I make between myself and God and it's a private thing in scripture. If you're going to follow the Bible. If you're going to pick up God's word and study it, then our following of Christ is a community event that I'm not meant to follow Christ all by myself. I'm meant to follow Christ in community. And so my actions impact, not just me, but others. We intuitively know this in our families, father, sons, mothers, daughters, brothers, that my actions impact my kids, my wife, my parents. We get that intuitively. The church is a family. That we are not our own, that we are the body of Christ. And the question we can ask ourselves says, what am I going to spread in the body of Christ? Am I going to spread leaven? that leads to destruction, or am I going to spread life? What am I spreading within the body of Christ? What am I spreading here at Northland Church? Is it leaven? Is it disunity? Or is it life? That you're not your own. If you've joined here at North as a member, you've committed to being a part of a group that's seeking as a family to accomplish this. And then third, love each other enough to discipline each other. And that word discipline has kind of 2 meanings, right? One of them sounds harsh, like you've been disciplined, but one of them is, I want to be disciplined in life. I want to be able to do the right things. I want the football team that I cheer for to be disciplined, not to have penalties against them, but to not get penalties. So that they work and train so that they don't make mistakes. They encourage each other. They support each other not to make mistakes. That's the positive side of discipline. We gather for worship on Sundays. We gather in small groups, life groups, to talk about the message and how it applies to our life. We gather in smaller groups called discipleship groups, where we can really get into each other's lives and say, how are you doing? What are you really struggling with so that we can be disciplined? In that we want to be faithful to Christ. And we're getting rid of those habits that don't line up with Christ so that we can do those things that lead to the peace and life. We want to get rid of the leaven. and have more life in our actions. So we just want to be disciplined. That's us encouraging each other and challenging each other on that kind of one on one level, small group level. But there is a place where discipline can mean removal. And again, here in Corinth, the guy was doing something so heinous that even the pagans were shocked by it. The church was arrogant over it. It wasn't doing anything about it. It was spreading. Much like David Sheff. We're not kicking our children out of the house because they didn't make their bed in the morning. We all do things in life as follows of Christ, where we've messed up. What was happening here was so heinous. that it was infecting the whole church. And it was an arrogance about it, and this man was defiant about it. And Paul said, there is a time where if someone's not waking up and hearing how their actions are bringing destruction to themselves and others, we need to help wake them up, not to just ignore it. In the same way that we wouldn't ignore it with our kids. In the same way David Sheff didn't ignore it with his son, Nick. But if we can have someone removed where we go, I just can't eat with you anymore. until you wake up and see what you're doing is so harmful. If we can say that and not care at all, then we've done church wrong. We as a church, If you could remove someone from fellowship of a church and no one cared, then church has been done wrong. Church has just become the place you go watch a show. Like the AMC Theater, I said, just take the person out so I can watch the movie. They're distracting me. But church is a family. And it may come to that at some point. Well, we have to make those kind of decisions. But it's done in love for the person, for restoration, and for the health of the whole body. That loving someone sometimes means grieving. If there's no grief, then we're not doing it right. And taking hard action, sometimes we have to take hard actions. For the good of the person. And others. So I challenge us today, church. to be life, to spread that around at Northland. The people you're around, spread life, and not leaven. Work together to be disciplined. And I'll walk with Christ so that we don't have to be disciplined because we're not following him. Will you join me in prayer? Father, we love you. We know that you love us more. That you sent your son to die as our sacrifice so that we could be holy in your presence, not because we are holy, but because your son is holy and he cleanses us. Father, we pray that you would Strengthen us as a church to love each other more and more. You would bind us together deeply. In ways that are so evident and real. Father, we pray that in our lives, we would be disciplined as we follow you. That we would work and strive to be conform to your image as your spirit empowers us. to be pleasing to you, to be life to those around us. And father, if there's leaven in our life, things that aren't pleasing to you, remove them. Use others to show me the things in my life that are pleasing to you. Convict me through your spirit and help me to change, to turn away from destruction, and turn to your life. Father, we love you. We pray that your spirit will strengthen us. It's the name of your son Jesus, we ask this. Amen.