Acts 13:1-3
While they were worshiping the Lord and fasting, the Holy Spirit said, “Set apart for me Barnabas and Saul for the work to which I have called them.”
Sermon Transcript:
Invite you to take your Bibles. We’re gonna be looking at acts chapter 13 this morning. I did not get the page number of the pew Bible there, but it’s, it is acts 13. Uh, gonna be looking at verses one through three there. I wanna welcome you back to our series. Entitled to spirit at work to the ends of the earth.
It is basically a series of many episodes. Penned created ultimately by the spirit of God, but penned and chronicled by Dr. Luke tells the overall story in a flowing mini series. Of three seasons. The outline for the series was given by Jesus before he left this world. When he spoke to his, his disciples, this statement in acts one eight, but you’ll receive power when the holy spirit has come upon you and you will be wi my witnesses in Jerusalem and in Judea and Samaria.
And to the end of the earth in that verse, Jesus told us how the seasons will be organized season. Would be acts chapter one through seven and in acts chapter one through seven, the holy spirit would be at work in Jerusalem among, among both the Hebrew and Hellenistic Jews. It is a series that began on the day of Pentecost.
It will culminate in the martyrdom of the first Christian martyr named Stephen. And it will end with the, a great persecution that is breaking forth in Jerusalem. That first series acts chapter one through seven lasted somewhere between six and seven years. Season two began in acts chapter eight, acts chapter eight through 12.
And this particular series, as we’ve mentioned, focused on three guys, Philip, Peter, and Paul or Saul as he is called at this time. their story is, is, is like a typical miniseries. You know, you, you, you follow one for a little bit, and then all of a sudden the, the next episode, or even part of that episode is the, the, uh, the other guy’s story.
And, and you have these parallel tracks going on of Philip and Peter and Paul, and they’re going they’re ministry primarily now is expanding into Judea and Samaria. Peter is the first to see a convert. That is a Gentile. It’s an astonishing moment. It’s actually the house of a, a Roman Sentian named Cornelius.
He goes there and he and members of his household believe on Jesus. And even though they have a pagan Gentile background, Peter is astonished to see that they received the holy spirit in the same way that the Jews did at Pentecost. And he realizes that people can now embrace Jesus. As their Messiah as their savior and Lord, without having to become a Jew, it is a dramatically shocking and transforming moment in the understanding of the gospel and what Jesus came to do for the early church.
Peter’s ministry continued. And so did Paul and Paul’s ministry along with other leaders extended up into the Northern areas. As a matter of fact, what happens in acts chapter eight through 12 is you begin to see two centers for the early church being developed, certainly at Jerusalem where it all began.
But a second one is 300 miles north in a city called Antioch. Uh, it may not sound that far away. I mean, 300 miles is Pittsburgh, right? I mean, how long does it take you to get to Pittsburgh five hours, but these guys walked. And so between. Jerusalem and Antioch, a distance of 300 miles by foot. There were many other scores of other smaller churches in smaller towns and villages, but these two churches became the center of the early Christian faith.
In the early Christian movement. We find acts chapter eight through 12 ending after a period of now an additional nine or 10 years with the church beginning to we see the church at Jerusalem ending in acts chapter 12, with another period. Of persecution this time, not by the religious leaders, this by the civil authorities, Herod himself takes James, the brother of John, one of the three main apostles of Jesus.
And beheads him. He has Peter on the docket for the next morning to be beheaded as well. And God’s angel miraculously rescued him. As we saw last time, we looked in acts chapter 12. Meanwhile, in Antioch, the church has been flourishing. The church has sent a guy named Barnabas to go up there and he has gone and grab Paul and they have begun to disciple the church and they are now the prominent leaders and teachers in the church.
And we see the emphasis is beginning to move from the center epicenter of Jerusalem, 300 miles north as this church in Antioch. Now 16 years after Jesus, death and resurrection. 16 years after the day of Pentecost, Antioch has now become the epicenter for the enterprise that is going to fulfill be season three, the spirit at work, literally to the ends of the earth up until now.
There’s been no designed strategy for how to do world evangelism. As a matter of fact, even the church at Jerusalem has just been doing reactionary work. If you remember, and again, I’m giving you some background here. Don’t panic. I know you’re thinking, wow, there’s a long introduction of when, uh, well I’m trying to bring up speed.
The church in Jerusalem has basically been doing reactionary work. When they hear of something, they respond to it. Like for instance, in acts chapter eight, they hear about some of the Samaritans, the, the Northern area above Judea and Jerusalem. There are people believing. They, they send Peter and John to go and check it out and they find out, wow, Samaritans are turning to faith in Christ, in acts chapter 10.
Peter has this visit on the, on the coastal town of Caesarea, where he meets and, and, and sees this Roman Centurian belief and the church then sends individuals to talk to Peter and, and try to get a feel what’s going on. What’s God doing in acts chapter 11, when they heard that people were believing all the way up in Antioch.
They send Barnabus say, well, find out what’s going on. Check this out. Barnabus gets there is overwhelmed with the beauty of what God is doing, grabs Saul. And they, they now continue their ministry here. But in each of those cases, the role of the church has basically been reactionary. They’re responding.
They don’t have a strategy. They don’t say, you know, let’s go let’s, let’s start our missionary enterprise. No, the reason the church spread beyond Jerusalem is cuz persecution drove everybody out. But there’s a big change in acts 13 in acts 13, the spirit of God now is going to begin a movement, a strategic movement, which involves planning and, and directives.
And we’ll see that as Paul carries out a very clear strategic ministry in his missionary endeavors, in the chapters to come. But what we find now is that the church is going to expand. It has been operating from the safety of a monotheistic belief system where there’s belief all along that Eastern side of the Mediterranean, basically within the Jews and the Samaritans and with one goddess creator, and Lord of all sending them now into the heart of the Roman empire,
a culture that’s filled with multiple small gods controllable Deese, because the true deity of Rome is actually power political power, national power, middle military power, and the deity of Greece, which permeates the Roman empire as well. Is man’s intelligence and philosophical reasoning, but it’s a whole different view of God than they have had.
And so now the church is expanding into a whole new world and they’re taking forth the gospel to do it. We come to a local church that God entrusts with the launching of this third stage of gospel expansion, the church, a Antioch stands as a model of embracing the mission of Jesus into the world. It is not a model because they have the right programs in Antioch.
It’s not a model because they have the right style of music or the right ministry methods. Antioch is a model of what the church should be because of its people because of the priorities in their lives. because they are a people that incarnate the vision that Jesus proclaimed and that the holy spirit empowers.
They are a people passionately committed to the gospel. I’d like to read versus one through three now, and we find, and this is gonna form the outline of our study. There are three things that are true about this church that became the epicenter of sending and fulfilling the mission of Christ into the world.
Number one, there are people that have received the gospel. We’ll see this in verse. Well, actually let me read the passage acts chapter 13. Now there were in the church at Antioch prophets and teachers Barnabas Simian, who was called Niger Lucious of CRE Manion, a lifelong friend of herd, the te. And Saul while they were worshiping the Lord and fasting, the holy spirit said set apart for me, Barnabas and Saul for the work to which I have called them.
Then after fasting and praying, they laid their hands on them and they sent them off. Let’s pray,
Lord, I go back to that song. We just sang the love of God that pursues the relentless, reckless love of God. That is unrestrained
Lord. It is that love that compels us to take time this morning, to come to this building, to watch online this service, because we have experienced a God who loves passionately, relentlessly.
And Lord it is you to whom we come. God, thank you for John’s story this morning. I too, with Josiah, thank you for the picture of faithfulness on this, that your preeminent calling on our lives. That we’d be faithful, Lord. I pray that would continue to be the hallmark of John’s life. Guide him, direct him.
Use him. Thank you for the courage and the strength that he had to come here today and how much easier it would’ve been to just send a video, Lord, thank you. That you are faithful to us and thank you for his messaging to that end this morning. Now Lord, in these few moments, we have left God, I love this church in Antioch.
I wanna live like they lived, I wanna love like they loved. And I ask you Lord, that you would speak into our, our hearts and these few moments together. Lord show us the Christ that they loved so much
that we too might be people by God’s grace on mission in Jesus’ name. Amen. There are three things we find about these believers, devotion to the gospel. Number one, they receive the gospel verse one, number two, they are realizing the gospel in their lives. And then in verse three, they are releasing the gospel to others.
They received the gospel. I wanna just take a minute to read some verses some acts chapter 11, to just highlight that and how this church began. We read this in verse 19 to 26 of acts, chapter 11. Now those who were scattered because of the persecution that arose over Steven, this is all the way back in chapter seven, as far as Venetia and Cypress and Antioch speaking the word to no one except Jews, but there were some of them, men of Cypress and Cyrene who on coming to Antioch, spoke to the Hellness, also preaching the Lord.
Jesus. And the hand of the Lord was with them and a great number who believed, turned to the Lord. The report of this came to the ears of the church in Jerusalem, and they sent Barnabas to Antioch. When he came and saw the grace of God, he was glad. And he exhorted them to all remain faithful to the Lord with steadfast purpose for, he was a good man full of the holy spirit of faith and a great many people were added to the Lord.
So barman Barnas went to Tarsus to look for Saul. And when he had found him, he brought him to Antioch for a whole year. They met with the church and taught a great many people. And in Antioch, the disciples were first called Christians. He gives us the history of this church and, and how this gathering we’re reading about and acts 13 verse one came together.
It says they turned. To the Lord. That’s the phrase that’s used to describe them. It’s a phrase that’s continually used in the book of acts. It’s it, it talks in some passages, they turned from their sins to the Lord in other passages as, as they turned from their useless beliefs and practices to the Lord.
But the idea is for these people in Antioch, the entire trajectory of their lives had been transformed by the gospel. They turned to the Lord, they turned away from other sins, other things, and they were transformed by the gospel, but that isn’t all that happened to them regarding the gospel. It’s a second thing verse.
And I’m gonna come back to, to, to this, um, talking about these guys in verse one, but if you notice in verse two, something else happened in acts chapter 13, it says this verse one, while they were worshiping the Lord and fasting, the holy spirit said set apart from me, Barnabas and Saul for the work to which I’ve called them.
Then after fasting and praying, they laid their hands on them and sent them off. They were living out the gospel, they had imbibed it. They were not only recipients of the gospel. Like they had embraced the gospel message. They were realizing its impact in their lives to them. It was not just a ticket to heaven.
It was. and utterly transforming reality that happened in their view of life, in their values, their goals, their aspirations. I’m landing on this for a moment here, because this to me is the greatest cry
that I think we need to have. As we look at the church of the Western world, there are countless people that would believe I have received the gospel, but they are not realizing the reality and the transforming power of the gospel. This is the crisis in the Western church today. America, certainly Europe, both in Europe and the United States in generations past the gospel foundationally challenged people’s lives.
It transformed them. but now in many ways, being familiar with the gospel, being familiar with the name of Christ and the realities of Christ has been inoculation. It’s just, we we’ve had some and, and, and, and it, but it’s inoculated us against the real disease. Yeah. I, I, yeah, I get all that. I know all that.
I’ve tried all that. I’ve, you know, I’m familiar with it now, once political allegiance is more central to millions of professing, evangelicals than living as Jesus did, the issues they are passionate about are decidedly. What is best for me financially, personally, rather than realizing that the glory of the church has always been its concern for the marginalized and the broken and the needy.
Most of the church, the hospitals that have been started in the Western world were started by Christians. There has always been the orientation toward the needy. The gospel puts our hope in Christ’s power and our passion for his purposes. These people realized the transforming reality of the gospel in their lives.
They did it in two ways. Number one, they embraced their unique sameness. That sounds like a contradictory. And I’m saying it that way deliberately in verse one, we read about these guys and we find five leaders that are, that are mentioned. And they’re, they’re interesting characters. I wanna highlight them quickly.
These five individuals that are said to be prophets and teachers, we don’t there doesn’t say, which is which, but number one is a guy named Barnabas and he’s the one that had been, uh, uh, sent here. Commissioned here by the church in Jerusalem. Barnabas was Aite from Cyprus, the island and the Mediterranean sea.
He has a Jewish background. He was Aite of the priestly class of Judaism. He was from the island of Cyprus. A wealthy man gave land to the church to shell, to provide for others. The second guy that’s mentioned is Simian, who it says, who was also called Nigel. The word Niger means black. Most commentators, uh, believe that it, he was a black man, probably from somewhere in Africa.
And for some reason that was part of his nickname. It was a guy named Lucius of CRE, probably a founding member of the church in Antioch, because we are told in acts chapter 11, that it was from sire, that a bunch of Jews that had been converted towards Christ came to Antioch and started the church.
Cyrene actually was on north Africa. It’s in contemporary Libya, it’s on the Western side of, uh, Northern Africa. There was a population of a hundred thousand Jews at this time that lived in, in Cyrene. Apparently he had been led to Christ maybe at Pentecost, maybe since then. And he has now come. He is among that group.
That probably were the starters of the church. He’s a founding member of this church, likely a guy named Manion who is just a fascinating character. You see how he’s described there? A close friend of her, the te rock, who mean her? The te rock is the guy that took the head off. John the Baptist. Herd the te rock or, or also called herd anus was the guy that interviewed Jesus and sent him back to pilot man ins his good buddy.
The word actually means they were nursed together. We don’t know if that actually means they were babies and their families were close, but, but he had a Royal background and no he’s he’s of nobility. He’s a prominent person in the culture and he’s also a member of the Antioch and church. The first fifth guy is Saul, a Jewish scholar who had become the Hitman for the religious establishment.
And here they are in Antioch, a city who literally had this slogan. This actually was, I don’t know if we’d call it a jingle. I’ll call it a jingle today, but it was actually their slogan. Their slogan in Antioch in the first century was all the world in one city. It was a church. It was a city that was filled.
With cultural backgrounds of all different types. We see that even in the leadership of the Antioch and church, but we also see, as we look at this leadership in the Antioch church, some remarkable sameness, they had a same awareness, a hang with me here. The apostle Paul writes a letter in Romans 15, and he’s talking about the gospel going forth.
And he says, this is what the gospel does. And he describes it in, in, in chapter 15, verse eight and nine. I tell you that Christ became a servant to the circumcised to show God’s truthfulness. In order to confirm the promises given to the patriarchs. He says, I, I Christ became a servant to fulfill for you Jews, what he promised to the patriarch, but also the other in order that is in order that the Gentiles might glorify God for his mercy.
Basically he says, Christ did this for both of you, all of you, Jews Gentiles, what did he do? He brought mercy. And he says you had that promised in your patriarchs, your fathers, but they’ve experienced it now as well. And Paul says, this is why there are guys at guys like me out there. We’re trying to say that everyone Jew Greek, Roman Egyptian, atheist agnostic, communist American, Russian, Chinese malt, Democrat, Republican conservative, liberal black Panther, white supremacists stand in need of the same measure of mercy and the same abundance of compassion from almighty God.
This vision is what led this church to be the launchpad of modern missions. They had a common awareness. Of themselves
years ago, there had been a guy named Jonah who was a prophet of Israel who was a terrible missionary he was a great teacher, a prophet, but he didn’t have a heart for missions. I believe he didn’t have a heart for missions. And we, we read it wasn’t cuz he was scared of the, as Syrians and vis matter of fact, in the last chapter of Booker Jonah, we find out that he wasn’t didn’t want to be a missionary to them because he despised them.
He was bitter towards them. I believe the reason he didn’t have pity on them was that he did not sufficiently realize that he was nothing but a sinner save. By grace. So he ran away from God. And of course, you know, the story gets in a boat in choppa, wants to go the other direction. He’s heading towards Spain.
Whereas he’s supposed to go to the east. He went to the west and God has a way of superseding our plans. And he has him end up in the water of the Mediterranean sea. A big fish gets him, is in the bottom, in the belly of the fish in chapter two, he pray and he culminates his prayer of crying out to God.
With this phrase, salvation is of the Lord. It actually is a central verse of the old Testament. There’s so much theology in it. It’s emphasizing the fact that from start to finish God is the pursuing God. He, he, he is the God of that. Reckless relentless pursuing love. Jonah forgot that. Or Jonah had never really imbibe that deep enough of what it meant that God had come after him and God had come after him.
Not because he, he was, he was somehow worthy to be his prophet, but because he too was a broken sinner in need of mercy.
We still have, um, the vending machines today, but back a few years ago, vending machines were more prominent than they are now. And I can remember doing vending machines all the time. And you just learned the art to doing these babies. So many times you’d put your coins in and nothing and you’d press and you’d just, oh man.
And you, and you, you learned, you had to rattle that thing a little bit out. Now, if you own a vending machine company, I’m really sorry. Um, I’m sure you, we won’t, you’re thinking no, it breaks the machine, but, but you, you rattled it and you learned pretty soon that if you rattled it, that was a lot of times how you got the coin to drop in.
You know, it gets stuck somewhere and there and you, and you rattled it and all of a sudden, then you could push it and you could get your soda or your candy or your gum or whatever it was. That’s somewhat of a picture of pastoral ministry. Pastoral ministry is constantly saying, we believe the gospel.
But it’s gotta go deeper. It’s gotta go in farther. We gotta rattle it a little bit. Matter of fact, I’m in good standing here. Martin Luther made the statement that the purpose of ministry was not only to make the gospel clear, but to beat it into your people’s heads and your own Jonah needed the gospel to get into his head.
He needed to get into his life. He needed to be rattled. And so he ends up in the belly of a, a great fish. And when he is there, he says, oh my goodness, God’s a God of salvation for me. That God’s a God of mercy. For me. There was an awareness that he didn’t have, even though he is a prophet, these guys had a sense.
We’re gathered together, but we’re gathered together, not because of our cultural backgrounds, which are incredibly diverse. I mean, he only tells us five of the people at church, be fascinating to hear the whole membership list, but what joined them together, they had the same awareness. They were broken people that needed forgiveness from God.
They were people that needed a Christ who would be central in their lives, a God that did pursue them and desire them. The second thing they had is they had a same allegiance. They were part of this church at Antioch, the called out group, but they’re so identified publicly with Jesus Christ that were told in acts chapter 11.
I believe it’s verse 26. That for the first time believers were called Christians. at Antioch. Why? Well, the I a N S means you belong to, I mean, think about it. Philippi NS, people from Philippi, Salone, Neen. They’re from Philip they’re from Tessa, Karen Fien, but they didn’t call them. There’s the, the there’s those people that believe in Jesus and they’re anti kins anti IANS.
Now they called them Christians, Christians. Why? Cuz they said these people belong to Christ he’s central in their lives. Pleasing him is most important to him. Their passions for Christ. Their goal is the advancement of Christ and his glory. This was the allegiance to a person that was astonishing in its impact.
Jesus Christ was their Lord, their master, their king of their lives. And they were made up of Jews and Gentiles. They were made up of, of, of black men from Africa. They were made up of, of Levis of the priestly class. They were made up of friends of, of herd, the te rock. They were made up of all kinds of people, but they were people that had a same awareness that they were recipients of grace.
And it had rattled down into the very soul of their lives. And so they looked at other people differently and they had an allegiance that United them. They’d fallen in love with this Christ who had pursued them
verse two and we’ll move faster here. They lived as worshipers. Not only did they embrace their unique sameness. They also lived as worshipers. Verse two says this while they were worshiping the Lord and fasting, the holy spirit said set apart from me, Barnabas and saw then after fasting and praying, they laid their hands on them and sent them off.
They lived as worshipers while they were worshiping. It says the Lord, the spirit of God spoke to them. Who’s the them, who’s the, they that were worshiping. If you’d asked me that before I started studying for this sermon, I would’ve said it was the five guys. I don’t believe it was. I don’t believe it grammatically.
And I don’t believe it. Theologically. I believe it is saying these were the five men that were prophets and teachers in the church, but it was the whole church that was. Praying. It was the whole church that was worshiping and God, the holy spirit came among them. It’s interesting that in acts chapter of, uh, 14, at the end of the passage, it says that they returned and they reported to the church who had sent them forth.
The idea is they’re going to the people that have released them to whom the spirit has spoken.
The word worship in the new Testament actually means to give weight to that’s. It means it, it, you give weight to it. You, you give significance to it. You, you honor it it’s something weighty to you. What he’s saying is this to these people in Antioch, there was one thing that was most weighty to them.
It was Christ. They worshiped him. They weren’t praying and they weren’t worshiping and fasting because they knew this might be the day that the missionary enterprise start right here. They had no idea. They were just seeking God hungering for God, thirsting for God, as a people. That means that they gave way to him more than anything else.
It means that Barnabas, a wealthy man did not give weight to his money. Wasn’t the thing that drove him. Matter of fact, he demonstrates it by giving fields away, selling the money and giving the proceeds to the needy in the church. He gave weight to Christ. It means that Lucious, the church founder did not give weight to the fact that this is my church.
Oh, it’s Christ church. It means that Manion did not give weight to his position in the culture as the friend. I mean, this is a prominent dude, big time guy. He’s the, he’s the, he’s the childhood friend of, of her that anus, who I’ve told you before was also a friend of the emperor that whole herd family was, he didn’t give weight to his position.
It wasn’t what drove him. He wasn’t making his mark. He wasn’t looking for his esteem. There. He wasn’t, their identity was not found Barnabas in his money was not found in his position, in the culture. For Simian, he did not give weight to his minority status as a, as a black man in this culture, Saul did not give way to his intellect and his education.
They were all broken sinners needing daily grace, and they gave weight to Christ. They worship Christ. This is the kind of people that God entrust to be the starters of the modern missionary movement. This is the kind of people that are on mission, a same awareness, a same allegiance, a same adoration.
You see, you won’t be passionate about the mission of Christ. If you are not passionate about the worship of Christ, the reasons. The reason for missions is worship to make worshipers. It’s why John Piper says missions is not God’s. Ultimate goal. Worship is missions is just temporary. Missions is with the purpose of bringing people into being worshipers, which we will do forever.
So the third thing they released the gospel verse three, they released it by their own witness. If you’re a worshiper, if Jesus is your heart’s delight you long for others to know him that way, the passion of missions is to see others become worshipers.
My most consistent prayer for people that I am most. Passionate come to Christ. I almost never pray Lord deliver him from hell though. I believe that is the fruit of, of rejecting Christ in this world. God enable him to go to heaven. No, my most consistent prayer for the people that I love most and want to see, come to Christ is Lord bring them.
So they know you. So they taste you the safest person they will ever experience in their lives. The God that is for them, bring them to you. But you don’t pray that way if he’s not for you. Right? I mean, if you’re not worshiping, when we say all right, I want everybody to we’re. This church is gonna become a mission minded church.
So we’re gonna find five people and we’re gonna say, we’re gonna fully support you. We’re gonna get you to the mission field. We’re gonna be a missionary people. And our hearts are not gonna change a, a stitch. What will change our heart and make us passionate about missions locally in our homes, in our neighborhoods, in our towns and in our world
is that we are so in love with who Jesus Christ is. We want others to know him like that. We want other to experience him. We want him to know how good he is. The loveliness of Christ. Worshipers
become people on mission. It’s why we read in the book of acts that they constantly says they did this for the sake of the name, for the sake of the name, for the sake, it means for the sake of the reputation of Christ. Often it says they were willing to suffer. In the book of acts, what does that mean?
They were willing to go out there and be persecuted and reject because Christ was so lovely that they, that they wanted people to know him. They wanted people to experience the gospel that he came to provide, but it came out of being worshipers. They released it by their own witness. They released it through the ones they sent in verse three, it says they sent, but actually it is the word released.
They didn’t technically send these guys in verse four. It’s the spirit that sends Paul and barn. they released them now. They could not have, you know, they could, I mean, they couldn’t have really stopped pulling Barners from leaving, but they could have said no, no, no, no, no, no. These are our two big cogs. I mean, they’re the big dogs here.
We can’t afford. They’ve only been here a little over a year. We, we, we need them. I say, no,
it’s the Lord’s purposes that we wanna align ourselves with. And so they joyfully released these men to the work that God had called them to do. We’re gonna see that work in the next number of weeks as we go through the remainder of the book of acts and see these journeys of Paul and all the strategy that’s involved and all the ways that God works as they take the gospel into a world that is just like ours.
pluralistic. Uh, there’s so many humanistic, all the things that are there, but where it all started going into the Roman empire is from a group of people. The shared awareness that there were recipients of grace and nothing more that shared an allegiance, that they were passionately desiring that every part of their lives would be lived under the Lordship of Christ that shared an adoration that said, you know, what’s waiting to me.
It’s not being successful in my job. It’s not killing it with sales. It’s not having body beautiful. It, it, it, it’s not having a relationship that I’ve got to have. No, what kills it for me? What is weighty to me? Is knowing Jesus Christ, it’s glorifying Jesus Christ and everything else. And anything else that’s standing in the way that that honestly is more weighty.
God, take it away. God change it. This was the people to whom God entrusted this great mission and work. Let’s pray together. Lord,
we love the gospel. We love not only that it’s delivered us from separation and judgment, but that it’s brought us into a relationship with the Christ who we are coming more and more and more to love. Lord, make us.
people that would look at our lives and would say if they’d never even heard the word, those are people that must belong to Christ. It, it it’s just what drives them. It’s who they belong to in Jesus name. I pray. Amen. Now go in peace to love and serve and enjoy the Lord.