Let's turn together now to our sermon text this morning from the Book of Acts, Chapter 9. Acts chapter 9, as we conclude this morning, our little three-part series within a series looking at this extraordinary account of the conversion of Saul. If you take a quick cheater's glance at the sermon outline, you'll see that the introduction is entitled, From Murderer to Messenger. And that's what we have seen. And for all intents and purposes, Saul is a terrorist bent on breathing threats and murder against the disciples of the Lord. And yet we see here in Acts chapter 9, the chief of sinners become the apostle to the Gentiles. As Paul himself says, we are to look at this wonderful account of his own conversion by the grace of God and to remember the grace by which we have all been saved, the sovereign power by which we have all been claimed from the kingdom of darkness and transferred into the kingdom of God's beloved Son. And so, one last time in our series through the Book of Acts, we will linger here with Saul in these infant days of his Christian life. We've been focused mostly in the last two sermons on verses 1 through 9. We'll pick up at verse 10 this morning and read through to Acts chapter 9 in verse 31. And so again, let us now attend to God's Word. Acts chapter 9. And we'll go ahead and begin in verse 1 and continue through to verse 31 this morning. Acts chapter 9, beginning in verse 1. But Saul, still breathing threats and murder against the disciples of the Lord, went to the high priest and asked him for letters to the synagogues at Damascus, so that if he found any belonging to the way, men or women, he might bring them bound to Jerusalem. Now as he went on his way, he approached Damascus, and suddenly a light from heaven flashed around him. And falling to the ground, he heard a voice saying to him, Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me? And he said, who are you, Lord? And he said, I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting. But rise and enter the city, and you will be told what you are to do. The men who were traveling with him stood speechless, hearing the voice but seeing no one. Saul rose from the ground, and although his eyes were opened, he saw nothing. So they led him by the hand and brought him into Damascus. And for three days he was without sight, and neither ate nor drank. Now there was a disciple at Damascus named Ananias. The Lord said to him in a vision, Ananias, And he said, here I am, Lord. And the Lord said to him, rise and go to the street called Straight. And at the house of Judas, look for a man of Tarsus named Saul. For behold, he is praying. And he has seen in a vision a man named Ananias come in and lay his hands on him so that he might regain his sight. But Ananias answered, Lord, I have heard from many about this man, how much evil he has done to your saints at Jerusalem. And here he has authority from the chief priests to bind all who call on your name. But the Lord said to him, go. For he is a chosen instrument of mine to carry my name before the Gentiles and kings and the children of Israel. For I will show him how much he must suffer for the sake of my name. So Ananias departed and entered the house. And laying his hands on him, he said, Brother Saul, the Lord Jesus, who appeared to you on the road by which you came, has sent me so that you may regain your sight and be filled with the Holy Spirit. And immediately, something like scales fell from his eyes, and he regained his sight. Then he rose and was baptized, and taking food, He was strengthened. For some days, he was with the disciples at Damascus. And immediately, he proclaimed Jesus in the synagogues, saying, he is the Son of God. And all who heard him were amazed and said, is not this the man who made havoc in Jerusalem of those who called upon his name? And has he not come here for this purpose, to bring them bound before the chief priests But Saul increased all the more in strength and confounded the Jews who lived in Damascus by proving that Jesus was the Christ. When many days had passed, the Jews plotted to kill him. But their plot became known to Saul. They were watching the gates day and night in order to kill him. But his disciples took him by night and let him down through an opening in the wall, lowering him in a basket And when he had come to Jerusalem, he attempted to join the disciples. And they were all afraid of him, for they did not believe that he was a disciple. But 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 had preached boldly in the name of Jesus. So he went in and out among them at Jerusalem, preaching boldly in the name of the Lord. And he spoke and disputed against the Hellenists, but they were seeking to kill him. And when the brothers learned this, they brought him down to Caesarea and sent him off to Tarsus. So the church throughout all Judea and Galilee and Samaria had peace and was being built up. And walking in the fear of the Lord and in the comfort of the Holy Spirit. It multiplied. We pray to you, the God who speaks. We pray to you, O Lord, the God who has been pleased to reveal Himself to us by His Word. And we pray now, Father, that the Word of our Lord Jesus Christ would come to our hearts and by the inward ministry of the Spirit be made effectual to our salvation. Father, save us by your Word. Sanctify us by your Word. And by that Word, Father, we pray that all glory and honor and praise would be yours and would be your son's, and that by the Spirit the glory of Christ in his Word abide in our hearts and bear fruit for His name's sake. We pray this for the glory of our Savior. Amen. Well, in our last sermon on Saul's conversion, we spoke at some length, about the danger and the folly of making the sudden and extraordinary circumstances of Saul's conversion absolutely normative for every believer. And in our introduction this morning, I'd like to add one more reason to that list. The circumstances of Paul's conversion are orchestrated by the Lord in the particular manner in which he orchestrated them to signal that he is consecrating this man for a unique calling, that he is setting him apart for a unique and extraordinary prophetic, and in this case, apostolic ministry. And there are echoes of this throughout the text. Remember with me Moses' call in Exodus chapter 3. The double vocative. Moses. Moses. Just as we have here in our text. Saul. Saul. And just as the Lord proclaims the I am that I am to Moses, so he proclaims the I am Jesus here to Saul. Or think of Daniel. Daniel chapter 10. And I, Daniel, alone saw the vision. For the men who were with me did not see the vision, but a great trembling fell upon them, and they fled to hide themselves." Or think of Ezekiel, who himself was sent to the ground on his face in response to a vision of the glory of the Son of God, not that unlike the vision of the glory of the Son of God that Paul receives here in Acts 9. And so what we have in the record of Paul's conversion is not only the record of his conversion to Christ, but also his consecration to the service of Christ as well. I briefly turn with me to Acts 26. Acts 26, keeping your finger back in Acts 9. We've read from this passage before, but remember that here in Acts 26, Paul is testifying before King Agrippa, and he divulges a fuller account here of what Jesus said to him on the occasion of his conversion. Acts 26 there in verse 15 and following, I am Jesus whom you are persecuting, but rise Stand upon your feet, for I have appeared to you for this purpose, to appoint you as a servant and witness to the things in which you have seen me and to those in which I will appear to you, delivering you from your people and from the Gentiles to whom I am sending you, to open their eyes so that they may turn from darkness to light and from the power of Satan to God. that they may receive forgiveness of sins and a place among those who are sanctified by faith in me." So again, Paul's experience in Acts 9 is not meant to be normative for every Christian believer, no more than it is normative now for all Christian believers to be considered the apostle to the Gentiles. The wonderful uniqueness of Paul's conversion is directly linked to the wonderful uniqueness of his calling. As Jesus will say to Ananias in verses 15 and 16, go, for he is a chosen instrument of mine to carry my name before the Gentiles and kings and the children of Israel. For I will show him how much he must suffer for the sake of my name. Now all of that being said, as we have seen in weeks past, the extraordinary circumstances here have to be balanced with the ordinary. Yes, Paul was the apostle to the Gentiles. But we also must come back around and readily acknowledge that he was also but another sinner saved by grace. just like us, chief of sinners, though he certainly was. And that being the case, yes, we should expect to find elements of Paul's experience that do not necessarily apply to us. But we should also find elements that very much should intersect with our own Christian experience. And so from this point forward, And my goal for us this morning will be to specifically focus on the elements of Paul's early Christian experience that do, in fact, intersect with our own Christian experiences, while being careful to yet distinguish those elements that are not necessarily normative for us. Acts in the ensuing chapters will provide plenty of opportunity to focus on those unique, unrepeatable elements of Paul's calling. But what I want us to see this morning is the fascinating way, I think, in which Paul's immediate post-conversion experience is so wonderfully ordinary, the way in which it is so applicable to each one of us in our own relationship with the Lord Jesus. And you can see from your sermon outline that we have a one-point sermon this morning. Don't let that fool you. It does break down into a number of different sections. But this one-point sermon that we will consider, Saul joins the way. Saul joins the way. And to know precisely what I mean there by the way, look back with me at Acts 9, verse 2. Acts 9, 2, so that if he found any belonging to the way, men or women, he might bring them bound to Jerusalem. Saul set out to persecute those belonging to the way, that is, Christians, those belonging to Jesus Christ, who is himself the way, the truth, and the life. But again, according to the sovereign power and grace of God, he ended up himself being claimed, by the way. Saul meets Jesus. He is struck blind by the glory of Christ. And he is then led into Damascus by his travel companions turned guides that he might begin an entirely new life devoted to Christ and himself belonging now. to the way. And so the question our text this morning, verses 10 through 31, answer for us is simply this. Now what? Now that Saul has been claimed by the Lord Jesus, how do we see Saul's Christian life begin to take shape in this newborn phase? Well, if you look At our one point there in your outlines, you'll see that there are five elements I'd like us to consider, the first of which is prayer. Verse 11, the Lord said to Ananias, rise and go to the street called straight. And at the house of Judas, look for a man of Tarsus named Saul, for behold, he is praying. Behold. He is praying. There was Saul, blind and fasting, newly converted, and what do we find him doing? Well, he is praying. Now, we can be rather sure that Saul had prayed many, many times in the past. But he had never prayed like this. Because now, for the first time in his life, he prays with the spirit of adoption in his heart. For the first time in his life, he prays not simply as a tool to somehow obtain favor from God, not as a way to put God in his debt, not as a way to appear righteous in the eyes of others, as we read from Matthew chapter 6. not as a way to climb the religious ladder. For the first time in his life, Saul prays as a child, a child reconciled to God by the blood of Jesus Christ and filled with the spirit of adoption. Now, I'd say that we shouldn't speculate What kinds of prayers and what kinds of emotions must have filled up those three days of praying and fasting? But I think that all of us who have been walking with the Lord, really, for any length of time can easily imagine at least some of what Paul must have been experiencing in these three days. joy of communion with the risen Christ, inextricably mixed together with the repentant grief of knowing how far our lives are from the standard of His perfection. Imagine how these two things must have been so amplified in Paul's first Christian prayers The Lord that Paul had read about his whole life. The Lord that Paul knew so much about in terms of that head knowledge of the Scriptures. He has finally met Him. He finally now has a saving relationship with Him. And the grief that the knowledge of Christ must have brought to Saul. The grief of having been party to the murder of God's people. But it is now the grief of true repentance. The grief of the kingdom of God that ever leads us back into the loving and forgiving arms of our Father. Think back in your own life to some time of active, vibrant spiritual growth. Perhaps you're in the midst of that growth right now. Is it not the most glorious thing in all the universe to pray knowing that God is with you and that God is for you? Knowing that God is with you. I won't say Feeling that God is with you because this is something that transcends feeling knowing his presence and knowing his promises To know the joy of fellowship with the Lord Jesus Christ And to know that repentance unto life that only the Spirit of Christ can give But life trudges on doesn't it And that sweet joy, and if I can say it in this way, that sweet grief of true repentance, they can fade, can't they? And over time, our prayer lives can become routine. And when they become routine, the temptation then creeps in to begin again to pray as slaves and not as blood-bought sons. to pray as a means to get something from God or from others, instead of as a means of simply communing with our Heavenly Father and pouring ourselves out at the throne of grace. We must never forget the unspeakable joy of being saved, the unspeakable joy of being a child of God, As we see Paul praying here in Acts 9, we should be praying like this every single day. For the realities of our salvation do not change day to day. But it's a fight, isn't it? It's a fight to resist the desire of the flesh to distract us from the unspeakable joy of knowing Christ. It is a daily fight to resist the desire of the flesh that we would forget who we really are. Our sonship, our union with Christ, that we are temples of the living God according to the indwelling of his spirit. May the Lord free us in our prayers from the distractions of the flesh and from the forgetfulness of the flesh. that we might ever abide in this blessed place, the joy of knowing Christ, the joy of repentance and of faith, the joy we see here with Saul, the joy of the kingdom. Well, that's a bit too much on prayer. We have to continue onward. What are these other elements that we see taking shape in Paul's early Christian life? He is praying to the Lord. You can see there in your sermon outlines that the second element now is church membership. That's a bit tongue-in-cheek. I realize that we don't see Paul joining a church the way that we practice, or exactly the way at least, that we practice receiving people into church membership. But my point here in this second element is to make sure that we see Paul actively, energetically pursuing a relationship with the church of Jesus Christ. The Lord sent a member of the church in Damascus to Saul, quite possibly and very likely one of its leaders, and Ananias responds, and she goes to Paul, and he lays his hands on him, and ministers to him, and baptizes him, and then introduces him to the fellowship there in Damascus. We know from Paul's testimony in Galatians chapter 1 that he spent three years in and around Damascus. And from the reference we have in verse 25, of Acts 9 to his disciples, we can be sure that he came to have an important and prominent role in the church. And then after those three years, Paul goes to Jerusalem and immediately seeks out fellowship with the Jerusalem church. In other words, as we continue on with Paul and his Christian life, we see that he never viewed himself either as an individual believer or as a teacher and a leader, he never viewed himself as functioning apart from the church that already existed before his conversion. He didn't take it upon himself to start a new denomination or to set up some self-titled ministry organization. It could have been pretty flashy, right? The Apostle to the Gentiles Ministries.org, LLC. Can you imagine if all of the resources here in America being diverted away from the church to all manner of para-church organizations was turned back into the edification and the building up of the true church of Jesus Christ. What that might look like if they were all employed. And I mean material resources as well as human resources. If we were all brothers and sisters in Christ dedicated to serving the ministries of the true church. Paul's example here is normative. It's normative that we don't seek to serve the Lord outside of the church. We seek to serve him in it and through it. That one divinely instituted organization that will last beyond the confines of this passing evil age. I think it's important that Saul, even knowing now the incredible role that Christ had for him. He still, he seeks out the church, he joins himself to the church, and he seeks to minister from within the bride of Christ. Well, third, we also see brotherly encouragement. And here in this third element, the centerpiece of these five elements of Paul's early Christian life, we will consider now something that Paul receives rather than something that Paul gives or that Paul does. Paul, of course, is not the only fellow that we meet in these verses. We first of all meet this remarkable man named Ananias. And the Lord Jesus calls on Ananias to be the human instrument to bring Saul into a relationship with the church to confirm all that the Lord has said and to bring him into the fellowship of the body. And my experience with this passage is that Ananias can get a little bit of a bad rap. I've come across those who would make quite a big deal out of verse 13, if you'll look there for a moment. Well, Ananias was resisting God's call, like Moses resisted initially, and Jeremiah resisted. He should have submitted and gone immediately. Well, perhaps, but I actually don't read any explicit protestation here. It's perhaps the subtext of verse 13, but the main feature here is astonishment. Ananias is expressing astonishment. Saul of Tarsus? You mean the guy we've all been dreading? The guy that very likely has my own name on that little list of his? I suppose we'd all be a little astonished and perplexed by such a divine announcement as this. Jesus simply says to him, yep, that's the one. But you see, he's mine now. He's mine. Go and fetch him. I've got plans for him. Verse 17, Ananias goes. And here's what I want us to focus on for a brief moment. What are the very first words? that Saul hears from a fellow believer. Brother Saul. Isn't that wonderful? Brother Saul. And what is the very first action that he receives? Well, it's the touch of Ananias' hands, perhaps on his shoulders or on his head or on his blind eyes. And what is the very first gesture that he receives? What gesture of service does Ananias then extend? Yes, he baptizes him, but what else do we read? Saul gets a hot meal. Perhaps it wasn't hot, we don't know. But it was a good meal, because we're told that Saul is strengthened by it. When we remember Ananias, I think we do him a bit of a disservice when all we remember is our own perhaps overblown version of verse 13. What we should remember above all is that when Jesus told Ananias that Saul now belonged to him, how does Ananias respond? He responds, okay, if Saul now belongs to Jesus, then he also belongs to me. He is my brother. And I must love him and care for him. Presumably, it's Ananias who then introduces Saul to the other believers in Damascus. And so let's think of Ananias when we're tempted to withhold love or to withhold care from someone in the church. If they belong to Jesus, they belong to us. He is my brother. She is my sister, and I must love her and take care of her. And then, of course, after Ananias, we meet with Barnabas in Jerusalem, verses 26 through 30. Now, we met Barnabas first back in Acts chapter 4, where we learn that his name means what? Son of encouragement. And we see him living up to his name here in Acts 9. And this is the beginning of what will prove to be an incredibly fruitful ministerial partnership. As we read the coming chapters of Acts, we'll read about how the Lord used Paul and Barnabas together to great usefulness in the expansion of the kingdom of Christ. But it starts here with Barnabas courageously and lovingly taking Saul to the apostles, when everyone else was, again, pretty understandably cautious of what all this might mean. Here is Barnabas courageously and lovingly taking Saul to the apostles and bridging the gap between former persecutor and persecuted. And the one thing about Barnabas that I want us to focus on is One important aspect of that name he receives that we see on display in these verses. The Greek word for encouragement there in Barnabas' given name has the distinct elements of advocacy to it. In other words, yes, it means encouragement by way of subjective comfort and strength. But it also means encouragement by way of objective, even legal advocacy. And that's precisely what we see Barnabas doing in these verses. He's advocating for his brother. He's advocating for him. And again, oh, that we would think of Barnabas. For example, perhaps the next time we're tempted to gossip or slander or otherwise speak ill of a brother or a sister. Yes, there are times when sin must be spoken of plainly. But when it is not such a time, shouldn't love cover a multitude of sins? Should we not be advocating for one another. Should we not rejoice to advocate for our brothers and sisters in Christ just as we know that the Lord Jesus is at the right hand of God advocating for us. And so it is that in this remarkable way we see the Lord Jesus using these two men to minister to Paul and to bring Paul fully into the life of the church and into the fellowship of the body. May we earnestly desire to so be used in one another's lives as these two men were used in Paul's life. Well, fourth now, we are told that Saul, having prayed, having joined himself to the body, immediately, verse 20, immediately goes out and proclaims Jesus. And now here we need to be careful because the normative feature here of Paul's witness is not that he is immediately going out and preaching publicly. In other words, Paul's example doesn't mean that it's okay for people to get saved and to immediately enter the pulpit and start preaching and pastor. In fact, Paul says very explicitly in 1 Timothy 3 that pastor-teachers shouldn't be recent converts. Lest what? Lest they become puffed up with conceit and fall into the condemnation of the devil. And what we have to remember here is that Saul is already a preacher. As, remember, a star student of one of the greatest teachers in Judaism, Gamaliel. There would have been great expectation. Oh, Saul is coming to Damascus? Well, when he visits the synagogue, let's be sure to have him teach. Let's be sure to have the star students of Gamaliel bring us a teaching, a teaching from Torah. And so that's what he does. He goes to Damascus, he visits the synagogues, and he uses the opportunity to preach Jesus, to preach the Son of God. I've heard stories and have even met some former PCUSA ministers who were saved after they had already been functioning in the church for years as an ordained minister. You know, what do you do? You've been preaching to people for years and all of a sudden God saves you. Well, you start using your pulpit to preach the gospel. and to lift high the name of God's Son. And that's what we see Saul doing here in our text. And Luke tells us that Paul had an amazingly developed Christology, even as a baby believer. Some of the central features that will come to dominate Paul's later, more mature understanding of Christ are already being written By the finger of God on Paul's mind and on his heart, verse 20, he preaches Jesus as the Son of God. Verse 22, he is proving from the scriptures that Jesus is the Christ. Verses 27 and 28, his preaching of Jesus is already characterized by the boldness of the Holy Spirit. So then, what is normative? Well, what's normative here about Paul's example is that the new birth of the Spirit ought to immediately issue forth into Christian testimony. The new birth of the Spirit ought to immediately issue forth into Christian testimony. Not that we ought to be preaching either in pulpits or on street corners, but that we should now be speaking of this Christ with whom we have this new glorious, saving relationship. As He is now in our hearts, so He should be on our lips as well. There should be an impulse to self-identify now with Christ in an explicit, open manner. There should be a desire that others would know you as a Christian believer, that the grace of God in you might be magnified. And I think that it's often the case, as it is with prayer, that the impulse to proclaim Christ as individual believers is something that can burn hot within us when we're first saved or during some period of concentrated spiritual growth in our lives, only then to cool off and be all but forgotten. Again, life trudges on. And because of the dullness of the flesh, we can begin to forget the great joy that comes with owning Christ and speaking of Christ with others. I've never spoken of Christ with someone, no matter the outcome, and not felt joy afterward. I may have bungled it up and spoken weakly and feebly, but the Lord has always been pleased to attend those occasions with joy. We would do well to remember our Savior's words, so everyone who acknowledges me before men, I also will acknowledge before my Father who is in heaven. But whoever denies me before men, I also will deny before my Father who is in heaven. We may bungle it. Our words may be weak and feeble. That's not our concern in the moment. But may we speak of Christ and own him. Yes, that he might use those words to the salvation of others, but that also he might fill our hearts with the joy of acknowledging Christ, before men. Which brings us now to the fifth and last element of Paul's new relationship with the living God that we see here in our text. And it follows from everything we've spoken of. We pray to the Lord. We actively seek out his body. We receive the ministry of the brethren. We begin to speak of Christ and to own him publicly before men. And then what happens? that fifth element that we see suffering. The Lord assures Ananias, as Ananias is being commanded to shepherd Saul into the fellowship of the body, the Lord assures him that he would indeed suffer for the sake of Jesus. And it doesn't take long, does it? We see in due time that Paul so confounds the Jews in Damascus that they plot to kill him. And then in Jerusalem, the Hellenists cannot stand against his testimony of Christ. And so they plot to kill him as well. And I want us to focus briefly on the opposition that Paul receives in Jerusalem. Because remember, we've already encountered these Hellenists. Acts chapter 6. They are those who belonged, those Greek-speaking Jews that belonged to the synagogue of the freedmen. And remember, we spoke about the fact that Saul, being from Tarsus, one of the nations included in that enumeration of nations that attended that synagogue in Jerusalem, Paul may have well been a part of that group of Jews, but at the very least, These are men and perhaps women who would have well remembered his former stature in Judaism. And this tells us quite a lot about the true nature of unbelief. The true nature of unbelief. Remember, Paul was their star. Saul was the hottest thing going on the young scene of teachers coming out of conservative Judaism. You'd think, wouldn't you, that Saul's complete, utter, 180-degree transformation would have given them pause. You'd think that they would have stopped in their tracks. You know, the best and the brightest from our ranks has submitted himself to this Jesus. Perhaps we too should give careful, thoughtful consideration to this message that he is now bringing to us. That's not what happens, is it? What happens to Saul when he returns? He meets with the same reception as did Stephen. Paul receives the same treatment that he once gave Stephen, which was this, if the Christian can't be beaten, then he must be silenced. If the Christian can't be beaten in arguments, then he must be silenced. I quoted earlier from Matthew chapter 13, and I'll quote again from that chapter. Brother will deliver brother over to death, and the father his child, and children will rise against parents and have them put to death, and you will be hated by all for my namesake. But the one who endures to the end will be saved." Now, Jesus spoke those words to the twelve, and praise the Lord, the familial betrayal that Jesus speaks of there is not a normative feature of the Christian family. But brothers and sisters, the hatred is normative. The hatred that we receive simply because we belong to Christ, simply because we represent the reality of his saving grace, the hatred is normative. Carrying Jesus' name means suffering. Again, Matthew 13, a disciple is not above his teacher, nor a servant above his master. It is enough for the disciple to be like his teacher and the servant like his master. If they have called the master of the house Beelzebul, how much more will they malign those of his household? Carrying Jesus' name means suffering. And that is a call for us to strengthen ourselves for what may come. For brothers and sisters, the more our nation and our culture stops up its ears to the message of the gospel, the more it refuses to hear anything of the name of Jesus, the more willing they will become to do whatever it takes to keep us quiet. It is the pattern throughout church history. If the Christian cannot be beaten, then he must be silenced. But we must not remain quiet. We must obey God rather than men. Come what may, we must carry the name of Jesus to those around us. Which brings us now to verse 31 and to our conclusion. So the church throughout all Judea and Galilee and Samaria had peace and was being built up. And walking in the fear of the Lord and in the comfort of the Holy Spirit, it multiplied. Now, we talked at some length about this verse last Lord's Day. So I'll keep our concluding thoughts short. Who is this Savior who saves the chief of sinners? Who is this Savior who takes murderers and transforms them into messengers? This Jesus who so mysteriously and sovereignly conquers his enemies by the sword of his mouth. The Jesus who so loves us and cares for us that not a hair can fall from our heads, but He ordain it for His glory and for our salvation. Let us fear Him, and let us be comforted. Let us walk in the fear of the Lord and in the comfort of the Holy Spirit. Let us walk in the fear of the Lord and in the comfort of the Holy Spirit, that we too might experience this peace, this edification and this multiplication. But above all, let us walk in the fear of the Lord and in the comfort of the Holy Spirit, because along with Paul, along with all believers from all ages, we all, with unveiled face, Beholding the glory of the Lord We are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another the same Jesus who called to Saul calls to us. He beckons us into his grace. He unveils his glory to the eyes of our faith and He holds us fast in the palm of his hand that we might abide with him forever Let's pray together our God and our Father. We praise You that this work of salvation that we see in Paul's life is the same work of salvation that You have brought and are bringing to our own lives. And so, Father, let us now, as the Church of Jesus Christ, In monuments, in the Tri-Lakes area, may we too walk in the fear of the Lord and in the comfort of the Holy Spirit. May you build us up, and may you multiply us, and may you give us peace for Jesus' sake and for Jesus' glory. We pray it in Jesus' name. Amen.