Good morning. Good to see you this morning. And finally, we're getting a little bit of winter out there, but might not hang around for long. I have to confess, I did really enjoy the winter moving from Charleston, South Carolina up here in 1988. And now I get sick of it. I don't feel the same way about winter I used to. I really just went crazy and I bought coffee and donuts for everybody who attended our early service when we started the church. And they all thought I was just out of it. I don't know if it's age or if it's just customization. I don't feel the same way about it. And by the way, when Brother Elias was talking to you young folks, you know, I actually sought out a place that was really hot and that had lots of weird animals. And I would talk to Mrs. Talbert and I would ask her, you know, do you have any leading about a place? And she said, no, we'll go anywhere. So we checked out a place in the Amazon basin. We checked out several fields in Africa. And the Lord kept laying on my heart, China. And I actually told her, not China, the Lord laid on my heart, Canada. And I actually told her that they don't even have any wild animals there. And she just smiled. But I didn't find out till later that she really did not like snakes. And she did not want to go to a place that had snakes. And I've often looked back and wondered if maybe God was calling us to Canada just for her sake. Don't know whether the Lord would do that. Turn to Acts chapter 13, where we're going to have the basic part of our message from. But I want to begin by mentioning, when we get to this section, the fact that the practice of the church in the book of Acts is not what we call normative. In other words, there are a lot of things that the individuals and the leaders in the churches of the Book of Acts did that we don't necessarily do today. That's what we mean. The practice of the church in Acts will not necessarily be our practice today. You say, well, things like what? Well, we will not necessarily see the number of conversions or the consistency of the number of conversions that the early church witnessed. Acts introduces us to the inauguration of the church. That's when the church began, is at the beginning of the book of Acts. And inaugurations are by definition, they're not normative. That's not the way things continue to be. We will not see the same miraculous works of the Spirit as were seen in the book of Acts. And they were very common, very common for the apostles and others to perform. We also have no more apostles laying the foundation of the church. You don't just keep putting foundations on top of foundations until you get a very high building. lay the foundation, and what we're doing today is we are the Lord's servants to build the edifice of the church, but not laying the foundation of it. Number four, we don't have prophets in the church today for telling future events as Agabus did in Acts chapter 11 and 21. And we do not rely only on the Old Testament. Very often we get up here or the men get up here and read passages from the New Testament. But in the book of Acts, for much of the book of Acts, they had the Old Testament and only the Old Testament to evangelize people, to tell them about the gospel. However, this does not mean that nothing in the Book of Acts is normative. For instance, the gospel is the same for us as it was for them, and that's why we can preach through the Book of Acts and see some examples of their kind of preaching. Now, we probably do not have any or many full sermons written out in the Book of Acts. They're very short typically. You can read the Pentecost sermon in just a few minutes. Most of the sermons that are in the Book of Acts are what's recorded is very brief. There likely was more, and we have statements about that. For instance, at the end of Peter's Sermon on Pentecost, it says that he spoke many of the same kinds of words to them. So, that kind of thing is normative. The same necessity of repentance and faith in the Gospel message. That is normative. When people got saved, what was one of the first things they wanted to do or that the leaders of the church wanted to do for them? Baptize them. Very, very common. We don't have any instance specifically of any infants being saved. It's all those who were believers who were baptized. The same membership in a local assembly. You say, well, it doesn't use the word membership. How do you think they knew how many were converted on different occasions? They just kind of guess, look out at a big crowd. I think this is around 3,000 getting saved or 5,000 on the second occasion. No, they were added to the rolls. And so the idea of membership was the same and is for us. And missions are normative and we get to that part of the scripture today where missionaries went further than they have been going, at least as far as the record tells us, as far as the Holy Spirit moved Luke to tell us. But there is a great shift when we get to chapter 13 that I need to make you aware of if you weren't aware of it before. In Acts chapters 1 through 12, we have a clear focus on the ministry of Peter. In chapter 1, Peter led the discussion of who replaces Judas. Chapter 2, he preached at Pentecost. Chapter 3, he addressed the people at the temple when the lame man was healed. In chapter 4, Peter addressed the Sanhedrin. In chapter 5, both Ananias and Sapphira interacted with Peter. In chapter 6 and 7, well, Stephen is center stage there, but surely Peter had a lot of input in the decision or the solution to choose deacons on that occasion. In chapter 8, Peter and John went to Samaria when Samaritans received the word of God. In chapter 9, although Paul is saved, when we get to the end of the chapter, we see Peter again traveling, performing miracles on his way to Caesarea. In chapter 10, of course, it's Peter and six other Jewish Christians who take the gospel to Cornelius and his family and friends. In chapter 11, it's Peter who answers the circumcision party in Jerusalem, and in chapter 12, it's Peter who's arrested by Herod but rescued by an angel. Chapter 13, though, doesn't mention Peter at all. Chapter 14 doesn't mention Peter at all. In fact, the only time Peter's name is mentioned from Acts 13 to Acts 28 is when they had the Jerusalem Council. And it's only mentioned one time, and that's in verse 7. So there's a shift. Someone is named in those chapters, 13 through 28, 139 times. And that would be the focus of the second part of the Book of Acts, and that is Saul of Tarsus, who in Acts 13.9, fairly close to the beginning of their first missionary journey, his name was changed to Paul. And there's no official name change. God doesn't come down and says, now you will be Paul. The text just says, who was also called Paul, and then on they go. So the shift is in that focus of person, and the other part of the shift is most of what Peter did was in and around Jerusalem. But what Paul did was visit on three different occasions Jerusalem that we know of, but was not there very long until chapter 21 when he's arrested and from 21 through 28, he's incarcerated in Jerusalem for two chapters, in Caesarea for, let's see, 21 through 22, and then in 23, And 20 through 26, he's in Caesarea. And then in 27 and 28, he's either on his way to Rome or he's in Rome. So I want to kind of lay out for us this idea of a missionary journey. And our text this morning is only going to be the first three verses in chapter 13. But I want to sort of survey chapter 13 and 14 together to give you a sense of what Barnabas and Saul started out to accomplish. The first missionary endeavor was a constant journey, walking 1,220 total kilometers as though you were going to start out here on, well, let's do it on 118th, and you were going to walk past Lloydminster, past North Battleford and Saskatoon, all the way to the little town of Davidson, Saskatchewan. And then once you got to the little town of Davidson, you would turn around and walk back. That's how much they walked in those two years and we'll see the distances sometimes were quite extensive and what that tells us is there is a lot to being a missionary that involves just day to day living. There's a lot that involves, well, we got to get up, we got to put the fire out after we have whatever they had for breakfast. And then we've got to get going because we have 30 to 35 kilometers today that we have to cover. And they did that again the next day, and they did it again the next day. And in between, they certainly would have opportunity to give out the gospel. but there were distances like this between their destinations. From Antioch, they were 15 miles upriver from the port city of Seleucia. And so Barnabas and Saul left, went down the river. Maybe they took a boat or they just walked all the way and found a boat going over to Cyprus. They got on the boat, it sailed into Salamis Bay, and that's where they began their journey across Cyprus. But we only have them in Salamis and in Paphos, which is on the east or the western end of Cyprus. But if you look at the route they took, it's 180 kilometers. And I'm sure they stopped at other smaller towns or places where they could visit. From Paphos, they got on a boat and sailed across to Asia. They came to the city of Perga and on to Antioch of Pisidia, a journey by foot of 195 kilometers, and this is most of chapter 13. The ministry in Cyprus was only verse 5 through verse 12, the ministry in Antioch of Pisidia was verse 13 to 52, the very end of chapter 13. It's the longest part of the explanation of their ministry in the entire first missionary journey. That's because it has one of Paul's longest sermons. And then they were chased out of Antioch by persecuting Jews, so they came to Iconium. And that was a journey of 154 kilometers, first six verses of chapter 14. Then they went on to Lystra, only 30 kilometers away. But guess what? Now they're in the region known as Cilicia. We might think of it as a county. in Asia and Cilicia and the town of Lystra, the town of Derby. These were the last two towns on their journey and they might have even gone further. In fact, it's a little bit surprising they did not go to Tarsus. since that's where Paul was born and raised, at least until the age of 13. But I think maybe Paul's stoning in Derbe or in Lystra had a lot to do with that. You know, that's just a fascinating thing. They carry him out and they stone him and the text just says, and he gets up. and goes back into the town where the people were who stoned him. And the next day, they get up and go on to Derby. And they preach the gospel there as though the stoning was maybe done with little tiny pebbles. It didn't really hurt that much. But we know that it did. He even talks about that in 2 Corinthians. But anyway, whatever the reason was from Derby, they turned around and headed back through Lystra, Iconium, Antioch, Perga, and then a coastal village of Atalia, 520 kilometers back, just on that last part. all the way back to the coast. And there they got a boat and sailed back to Antioch in Syria for a nice long rest. This mission lasted about two years. Aside from the eight cities that we know Paul and Barnabas started churches in, in that two-year period, There were likely more than a dozen more where they preached, souls were probably saved, churches may well have been started there, different from the last two mission trips. When he headed out with Silas after the Jerusalem Council, he stayed, Paul stayed in Corinth for 18 months, just that one place, ministering there. And in the third missionary journey, he stayed in Ephesus for three years. So the times of the journeys were longer, but there wasn't as much journeying going on. So now we turn to the first verses of Acts 13, where we learn that it's the Holy Spirit who supplies the missionaries. He works in them as we're going to talk about a little bit. In verse 2, he sets them apart or sanctifies them for mission work. I had no idea that the Lord had a specific place for me. was willing to go anywhere. And I was challenged, are you willing to go to a mission field? Yes, I'm willing to go to a mission field. And my idea of a mission field were snakes and tarantulas. And, I mean, all kinds of things. In fact, most of the missionary biographies I had read, one wife was killed, so he married another one, and another wife was killed, so he married a third one, or buried children on the mission field. And I was up for all of those things, as long as it wasn't the missionary himself who was buried. So there was a lot of misunderstanding about it when I actually went to a mission organization and said, where can you use people? Well, I mean, they were all over the world they could use people. So I didn't get any leadership from that, but God was working from the very beginning. I had really an acquaintance, we weren't close friends, but he kept writing me from Nova Scotia, where he was church planting, to me and saying, you need to go to Alberta. And it just never occurred to me, why didn't he want me to come to Nova Scotia? But he'd had some familiarity with ministry here, and for that year and a half to two years, I got multiple phone calls and letters and cards from him saying, this is where the Lord wants you to go. And I thought, no, no, they don't even have a foreign language there. That's how little I knew about Canada. So, I mean, at least I want to be able to learn a foreign language. And anyway, interesting that the first three verses of Acts chapter 13 lays out, overall, the work of missions is in the providence or in the understanding of the Holy Spirit. He's the one who spoke and said, set apart Barnabas and Saul for the work that I've appointed for them. He's the one who sends. He's the one who raises up and prepares for those ministries. So how did the Holy Spirit supply Barnabas and Saul for this work? Well, first of all, we have to go back to where they They are introduced to us as readers in the Book of Acts, but let me just hasten and say all we know is what Luke tells us. I'm sure we don't have all the information about all the things that God did to raise up Barnabas and prepare him for mission work or to raise up Saul of Tarsus and prepare him for mission work. We first meet Barnabas In Acts chapter 4, where it says Joseph, who was also called by the apostles Barnabas, we often don't remember that his given name was Joseph and not Barnabas. He was a Levite, a native of Cyprus. So he was Jewish in his background, born and raised on Cyprus. Now that ought to ring some bells because in the first missionary journey, where did they go first? His home. And who did they take with him? His cousin. So things begin to make connections early on. And it says that back in chapter 4 that Barnabas sold a field that belonged to him and brought the money and laid it at the apostle's feet. He was settled in Jerusalem. He was well respected and accepted as a disciple in the church in Jerusalem, not Cyprus. We first meet Saul of Tarsus at the end of Acts chapter 7. when Stephen is being stoned, and it says, the witnesses laid down their garments at the feet of a young man named Saul, and Saul approved of his execution, it says in Acts chapter 8 and verse 1. So, he was ravaging the church, and right in the middle of his preparation to ravage the church in Damascus, Jesus stopped him. Within view of the city, Jesus stopped him on the road, threw him on the ground, and said, I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting. If we ever endure persecution, People do it to Jesus before it ever gets to us. It is the way they regard Him personally. Well, Paul gets saved, or Saul of Tarsus gets saved and baptized, and he goes to Jesus' college in Arabia. But when he returns to Damascus and preaches that Jesus is the Messiah, Saul barely escapes persecution. Remember the basket? let down by the wall. You know, I've often thought this, and I'm sure I've mentioned this before. It would be great if there was a museum in heaven. And part of what they had in the museum was the very basket that they let him down, and the rope that was attached to it. And there are just so many things in the Bible, things that we see in museums. that would remind us of events this way. So when he is let down from the wall, he escapes to Jerusalem. You remember this? And it's in Jerusalem that Barnabas and Saul meet each other. When he had come to Jerusalem, talking about Saul of Tarsus, he attempted to join the disciples and they were afraid of him for they did not believe that he was a disciple. Would have been a pretty good deception. Oh yes, I'm saved now. Let me go to the church. And he's back there jotting down everybody's name in the church so he can persecute them. And they think it's something like this, and Barnabas, we don't know how he found out about Saul. But remember, the two of them were in Jerusalem for a long time. And Saul didn't make any attempt to cover up his activities. He was very proud to be a young member of the Sanhedrin and to be persecuting the people that the rest of the members of the Sanhedrin, or most of them, wanted to persecute. Well, we don't know how they met. In fact, Barnabas may have made a trip to Damascus and met Saul after his conversion. He may have met him some other way. We really don't know how they met, but lo and behold, Way back in verse 27 of chapter 9, Barnabas took him and brought him to the apostles and declared to them how on the road he had seen the Lord who spoke to him and how at Damascus he preached boldly in the name of Jesus. So whatever the reason is, the apostles believed him. So they extended fellowship to him. And Saul went in and out among the brothers in Jerusalem, preaching boldly in the name of the Lord. He even disputed against the Hellenists. And these are the ones whose execution decree he agreed with. He was consenting to their decision to execute Stephen. And now they want to execute him. And so when the brothers learned this, they brought him down to Caesarea where he could get a boat, send him off to Tarsus, and we don't see him again for 10 years or so, 10 or 11 years. Barnabas no doubt knew that he was there because they end up working together. So we meet them separately, they know each other and now Barnabas goes up to Antioch where a great work is being done among the Gentiles and the work is so big, it's so productive that he needs help and he knows who to get. And so off he goes to Tarsus. to find Saul, almost a 300 mile journey, one way, 300 kilometer journey, one way. And Barnabas went to Tarsus to look for Saul and when he had found him he brought him to Antioch and for a whole year these two men worked together. I'm sure that had a lot to do with them being able to work together on the first missionary journey. So the missionaries are supplied. They are brought together this way. They are called and trained and prepared in every way to work together. Now there were at the church, this is verse 1 in Acts 13, there were at the church in Antioch, or in the church at Antioch, prophets and teachers. Barnabas, Simeon, who was called Niger, Lucius of Cyrene, Menaen, a lifelong friend of Herod the Tetrarch, and Saul. We already know the first and the fifth of these men. But what about the three in the middle? Well, frankly, this is the only mention of them that we know of. And what do we know about Simeon? Well, he was called Niger. Niger is the Latin word for black. So it's likely that he was a native, although with a name like Simeon, he either was a proselyte or he was freeborn down in Africa. And he was one who either was a prophet or a teacher. We don't know which was which because we're not told in the text. which gift each one had. Lucius of Cyrene, you might remember that back at the beginning of the consideration of the evangelism at Antioch, There were men of Cyprus and Cyrene who, on coming to Antioch, spoke to the Hellenists also, preaching the Lord Jesus. And one of these Hellenist teachers may have been Lucius. You say, where is Cyrene? It's in Libya. In fact, there still is a significant establishment there. You know, one thing you realize by taking a trip to some of the places like Israel and in the Far East is their history goes way beyond ours. way, way back beyond ours. North America's relatively newly civilized, settled, and has at least a written history that we know of. compared to back then. Well, Cyrene is the northernmost city in Libya and it's just west of Egypt. It's the country still just west of Egypt. What about Menaen, a lifelong friend of Herod the Tetrarch? This Herod was also called Herod Antipas. He was the one who reluctantly beheaded John the Baptist, he was the Herod before whom Jesus stood when he was, just before he was crucified. So that's who this guy is, and Manan's a lifelong friend of this guy. So probably well-connected with Roman leadership. And what we see in this is that God saves and gifts and trains and calls and providentially brings together Barnabas and Saul, the two men whom the Holy Spirit has chosen to carry the gospel far hence to the Gentiles. But notice the second thing that the Spirit of God does in verse 2. of chapter 13. 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.'" So the Holy Spirit communicated to this band of prophets and teachers. that they were to separate two of their number, Barnabas and Saul, for a special mission. Now notice the word said. How did the Holy Spirit say? I know we read the book of Acts and we have the Holy Spirit talking to Peter. We say, well, sounds like he was just speaking audibly. Not necessarily. And in fact, he does not do that as far as we know since the church was inaugurated. That is not the way the Spirit communicates with people. So how did he do that? How did he say anything? Was it an audible voice? I don't think so, since it's not how the Spirit leads us today. There's no indication it was an audible voice, except when Jesus spoke to Saul of Tarsus on the road to Damascus. Because he heard the words, but the soldiers didn't hear words, they just heard a noise. So the text calls him, or excuse me, how did he communicate? Well, I want us to just think about the passage a little bit. Sometimes in our reading, we just need to get done by, you know, 7.15 so we can get to work on time and we do our reading, but oftentimes we don't take much time just to think through. Suppose the Spirit of God did to them what he does to us. He burdens our hearts. He gives us a sense of what we ought to do. It makes sense to us. And so that raises a question. Where had Saul of Tarsus been for the past 10 or 11 years in Cilicia? where Tarsus is. And Saul had grown up there. And my question is, the whole year he was teaching in Antioch, do you suppose he ever mentioned his birthplace? What they did at his birthplace? How, for the last 10 or 11 years, he was all over Cilicia, ministering the Word of God, perhaps planting numerous churches, I mean, it would be easy for him to think of a burden, the place where I have a great deal of experience. Now I have to share with you, personally, I have never had a burden to go back to Charleston. And the reason is really silly, I know, but I hate how hot it is there. Isn't that odd? But when it came time to go to the mission field, I wanted to go to somewhere that was really, really hot because that would make the mission feel hard and that's what the mission field is supposed to be like. You know what a professor said to me? He says, ''Oh, you ought to consider going up to Alberta because they have really good fishing in Alberta.'' I just scratched my head. Why would I pick a place based on fishing or hunting? I mean, that would be fine when I'm not doing what I'm up there supposed to be doing, but it does make sense, and a lot of people do. When you talk to people who are preparing for future ministry, oftentimes they'll go back to where they came from. What about Barnabas? Where was he from? And where do they go when they first leave Antioch? See? So it's not too difficult to lead or to come to the conclusion that perhaps anyway the spirit directed them by his use of their, burdened their hearts for their own regions of familiarity. Why Saul and Barnabas? Well, Paul says to us in Galatians 1 that he was set apart from his mother's womb. I'm sure that wisdom was a tremendous surprise to him when he got saved because what the Lord was allowing is his being raised as a Pharisee, being part of the Sanhedrin, being a persecutor of the church before saving him. In his introduction to Romans, chapter 1, he was set apart to apostleship even though the Bible doesn't call Saul and Barnabas apostles until chapter 14 of the book of Acts. So, thank you, brother. I was thinking about getting up and turning that on, but I appreciate you doing it. Alright, what about Barnabas? We don't have the kind of information about Barnabas that we have about Paul, but he gave Barnabas gifts that really complemented Paul's. And that helps when two men work together. Their gifts complement each other. He prepared him by putting him in the Jerusalem church to work there for a time, prepared him by the brothers sending him from Jerusalem to Antioch where he obtained or secured the help of Paul or Saul of Tarsus along with him. And the point of thinking through this is that God's plans for us are often laid out From God's standpoint, they are laid out. But for some of us, we know what God wants us to do. And so I think it's important for you young folks who were up here and heard the challenge to have in your heart to say, God, here am I, send me, that you, if it's what God wants you to do, you will have that burden on your heart nonstop. And the Lord will lay upon your heart the desire to follow the Lord. Are you willing to? Not just the young people, but everyone else in this room. The pastor that my wife and I sat under for 11 years had something he would say from time to time from the pulpit. Don't ever settle on staying here until you know God doesn't want you somewhere on the mission field. And I thought that's really good advice. So it is something I think that's helpful for us to recognize that God works this way. God's plans for us are laid out before our birth, and it makes me wonder whether there are some here today whom God is calling, is wanting to go in some kind of Christian, vocational Christian service. And if that's true of you, if you say in your heart, yes, this is true of me, and say, Lord, I am willing. By your grace, if this is what you want, here am I, send me. And then, Lord, we will obey you by your grace. Not just to go, but from now until whatever training the Lord has in view or whatever circumstances would lead up to that. But let's answer one more question before we move on to our last point. What were these five gifted men doing when the Spirit moved them to separate Paul and Barnabas, or Saul, rather Barnabas and Saul, for this mission work? Verse 2 begins, while they were worshiping the Lord and fasting. And I was really struck by a comment one man made. Everything about this event argues that mission is grounded in God's command and the response of a church which is engaged in devotion. Devoted members of a church. A church that's willing to fast and pray and be serious in worship. So our worship, our prayer, our fasting will provide the right setting for the Holy Spirit to set aside His people this way. And may He set apart some of us here. By the way, this is a regular prayer of mine. Pray ye the Lord of the harvest that he would send forth laborers into his harvest. Is that the will of God? Do you know who said this? Jesus said it. If he commands us to do this, do you think it's his will? And if we ask anything according to his will, 1 John 5, 14 says, what will he do? He will hear. And I am convinced it's not just the college over at Meadowlands that is preparing people for ministry. It is every church in this city, in this province, in this country. He is answering because he promised he would and he will never break his word. And he will send. The question is, are you part of that? So, we get to the last point. The Holy Spirit sends His missionaries. He supplied them. By the way, I do have alliteration here. He supplies them. He separates them, or I could have said set apart, but separates a little shorter. I mean, yeah, a little shorter. And then He sends. Two of them are based on S's in the text, so I don't have to strain too much for the first one. But anyway, after fasting and praying, this is verse 3 in chapter 13, after fasting and praying, they laid their hands on Barnabas and Saul and sent them off. Verse 4, so being sent out by the Holy Spirit, they went down to the port, Seleucia, and from there they sailed to Cyprus. And so it begins. In verse 3, it is the church's representatives, those five men who fasted and prayed and after commissioning two of them for the mission, they released Barnabas and Saul to the task. It uses two different words for sent. One in chapter 3, the church releases them with the commissioning. You are to go. And then in chapter 4, they were thrown out, cast or sent out to do the work that the Spirit of God led them to do. So who sent them? Well, the Holy Spirit did, the church did, their obedience did. responded to what God wanted. Reminds me of the circumstances of Adoniram Judson preparing to go to, what was the country called before they changed the name? Burma, thank you. And it was quite a process. There was a great deal of fasting and praying for them. So God the Father was the architect of this first Christian missionary work. God the Son not only accomplished the salvation, but he himself is the basis for all missionary work because he's the one who said, go into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature. And then the Holy Spirit is the agent to make it happen. And one of the best passages to end on this morning is Acts 14, 26. This is the end of their first missionary journey. They sailed to Antioch, where they had been commended to the grace of God for the work that they had fulfilled. And they stayed there a great while, probably so Paul could at least see a doctor. He said, yeah, you have cracks all over your skull. Where did you get those from? Yeah, I'm supposed to be dead, but God didn't allow that to stick. Okay? Well, let's pray for each other. Let's pray for our church to send out missionaries. Let's pray for people to be saved and trained and prepared for this kind of work. And let's pray for the missionaries we already are praying for. I mean on a regular basis, not just occasionally when we think of it or when we're reminded of it. But we make a point to hold them up in prayer. Let's ask the Lord's blessing on this. Heavenly Father, we thank you for your work of grace in our lives. We often wonder who was praying for us. Sometimes we know, but Lord, depending on how far back we go, we may not know. how much people were praying for us individually. And Lord, I know that not all of us are supposed to leave and go to some foreign nation and do the work of the Lord. But Lord, the need is great, but the laborers are few. The harvest is plenteous. And so I pray that you would help us to always say, Lord, will you send me? Here am I. I am willing to go. I don't feel ready. I don't feel worthy. I don't even know exactly how I would go about doing what I'm supposed to do. But I am willing. And I pray, Lord, that you would work that spirit in a church full of willing people who would seek your face for blessing even beyond these four walls of our building. We ask, Lord, for anyone here who is not born again, not a Christian, that you would work in their heart and help them understand the truth Lord, help them realize that sinners who are never born again by the Lord Jesus are lost forever. I pray, Heavenly Father, that you would be gracious in revealing yourself to them, working in their hearts, that they might be saved. Only then can we live a life that will give eternal consequence and eternal benefits. We ask in Jesus' precious name, amen.