Transcription downloaded from https://sermons.highlandparkbaptist.net/sermons/95655/the-transformed-life-part-3/.

Disclaimer: this is an automatically generated machine transcription - there may be small errors or mistranscriptions.
Please refer to the original audio if you are in any doubt.


[0:00] All right, welcome everybody. Good to see you all.

[0:16] I do have an announcement to make that this Sunday we will be going back to one service. So we'll meet at 1030, like we normally do, for one service here in the sanctuary as normal.

[0:34] We'll do that through June, and then elders will meet and talk some more about when we will have Sunday school, which we're planning to hopefully be able to do in July.

[0:44] So at this point, we can go back to one service and get used to being back here in this place at our normal time. So we'll continue to share and spread that information from now till Sunday.

[0:58] I encourage you as you're talking to other church members to pass that word along as well. That'll be good, because that'll be the first time in a long time that we've all been able to be together to worship the Lord.

[1:13] 1030. So that will be this Sunday at 1030. We'll go back to our normal time. Okay, so we've been in the book of Acts and in chapter 9 and the conversion of Saul, the conversion of Saul who became the apostle Paul.

[1:33] And so I'm going to go ahead and read chapter 9, verses 1 through 31. Tonight's study will cover verses 18 through 31, but this way we can kind of have a refresh over what has transpired, what has happened before.

[1:54] The verses we'll cover beginning in verses 18 through 31. So Acts chapter 9, beginning in verse 1, it says there, 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.

[2:17] Now as he went on his way, he approached Damascus, and suddenly a light from heaven shone around him. And falling to the ground, he heard a voice saying to him, Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me?

[2:35] 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.

[2:51] 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.

[3:04] 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.

[3:26] 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.

[3:42] 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.

[4:01] 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.

[4:16] 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 synagogue, saying, He is the Son of God.

[4:34] And all who heard him were amazed and said, Is not this the man who made havoc in Jerusalem of those who called upon this name? And has he not come here for this purpose, to bring them bound before the chief priests?

[4:48] 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.

[5:00] 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 led him down through an opening in the wall, lowering him in a basket.

[5:12] 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.

[5:32] 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.

[5:46] So the church throughout all Judea and Galilee and Samaria had peace and was being built up in walking in the fear of the Lord and in the comfort of the Holy Spirit.

[5:57] It multiplied. I've spoken to some pastors, quite a few pastors, about reopening our churches. And all have done so, at least at this point in our association that I'm aware of.

[6:13] We've all opened up our churches to have people back in some shape or form or another. And, you know, roughly between 30 to 50 percent of the membership has returned.

[6:28] And we're thankful that we're at that 50 percent mark, if not higher, of those who have come back. But, you know, we anticipate and we hope that in time, hopefully sooner than later, that everybody will be back in church as they were before all this went down, hopefully within the next month or two.

[6:55] And hopefully, along with that, we'll see some new faces. Some new people darken our doors as well. But some are still concerned that, you know, for human beings, I think it takes us, they say, eight weeks to form a habit.

[7:12] And so it's been longer than that since many have been out of church. And I know it's been comfortable, I'm sure, for many of you, to wake up and to have church in your living room, in your pajamas, and in your recliner or on your couch or whatever, or watch it whenever you feel like it.

[7:31] You don't have to turn it on at 10.30 or 11 or whenever it was being posted. But anyhow, there is a sermon illustration, and I've shared it here recently before.

[7:43] It's one that many pastors have used. I'm sure, Willard, you've probably used this sermon illustration before. I could be wrong. But it's a story about a pastor who goes to visit one of his church members who hasn't been in church in a long time.

[7:59] And so this happened a long, long time ago. A pastor noticed that a gentleman in his church hadn't been there for quite a while. And so he was concerned about that, so he went to his house.

[8:12] And so he entered through his door and walked in the house, and he saw the man sitting in his chair facing the fireplace. And so without saying a word, the pastor enters, and he takes a seat next to the man, and they together look into the fireplace at the fire without any of them saying a word.

[8:33] And then the pastor takes some tongs, and he reaches into the fire, and he pulls out one of the hot embers. And he pulls it out, and he sets it on the hearth.

[8:45] Again, without saying a word. And together, the pastor and the man watch as that ember begins to lose its heat, lose its light, and before long, it's completely cold.

[9:00] And so the man says to the pastor, Pastor, I'll see you at church next Sunday. And the pastor gets up, pats him on the back, and leaves.

[9:13] Obviously, the point of the story is that when we are out of fellowship with other believers, we lose our brightness, we lose our heat for the Lord.

[9:27] And so Christian fellowship is a very important thing for believers. So before we continue on, I want to review quickly.

[9:38] Thus far, again, we've been studying what the Bible says about true conversion and the transformed life that results from conversion. And we've been looking at the conversion of the apostle Paul.

[9:56] And so the main idea for this study, same as last week's, is this, if you have your hand up, that Saul's conversion, Saul's conversion reveals several features of the transformed life.

[10:12] Anyone who is genuinely saved today will exhibit the same features. And so we saw in verses 3 through 9 that the first feature of genuine salvation is faith in Jesus Christ.

[10:27] First feature of genuine salvation is faith in Jesus Christ. That genuine saving faith is something that God initiates. He is the one who makes the first contact in salvation.

[10:39] Also that genuine saving faith involves conviction. Conviction over your sin. And as a result of your realizing that Jesus Christ died for your sins on the cross, in your place.

[10:54] That also genuine saving faith results then in true conversion. The second feature of genuine salvation is fervency in prayer.

[11:05] Fervency in prayer. Saul lost his sight after he met Jesus on the road to Damascus. After our Lord initiated that contact and he was saved and he was fervent in his prayers during that time.

[11:18] The third feature of genuine salvation is faithfulness in service. Now this was displayed more so in Ananias than it was in Saul. Remember Ananias realized who Saul was, what his intents were when he came to Damascus, which was to come and to close down the church, to drag away believers back to Jerusalem, where they would be tried and arrested, possibly executed.

[11:43] And so Ananias didn't know that Saul had been converted. He knew that God had called him to go to Saul. And so he was faithful in his service, though he knew that he was probably at the top of Saul's hit list when he came to Damascus.

[12:00] And he still went and was faithful to what the Lord had called him to do. So now we are ready to see, as has been pointed out already, that there is a fourth feature of genuine salvation, as demonstrated by the conversion of the Apostle Paul.

[12:16] And that is this. The fourth feature of genuine salvation is fellowship with believers. Fellowship with believers.

[12:26] So again, in verses 18 and 19, it says, 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.

[12:41] So Saul's sight was restored at this point in response to Ananias' faithfulness and his coming and praying for him. His next step then as a believer, as a recent convert, was to be baptized.

[12:55] And with his baptism, he openly united himself with those whom he formerly hated and with a Savior whom he formerly persecuted.

[13:07] And so now, in Saul's life, his enemies had become his friends. And that was all a result of Jesus having become his Lord and Savior.

[13:18] And so we see here that Saul's baptism came after his conversion. And that's the consistent pattern throughout Acts.

[13:29] So we understand from this that nobody is saved because they are baptized. You don't have to be baptized in order to be saved. Baptism does not precede conversion as some denominations teach, but that teaching is not in line with what Scripture says.

[13:50] Now, I had a conversation once with a teenager whose mother really wanted him to be baptized. And so at the time I was his youth pastor and she had told me early on, you know, the other youth pastor in her point of view had failed to get her son baptized.

[14:12] And so she asked me if I would hopefully be more successful. And so I talked to him about it. And his whole point was that the thief on the cross was not baptized and was saved.

[14:24] And so he didn't have to be baptized. And I said, well, that's true. That's right. But, you know, I think if the thief on the cross had the option to, which he didn't really have the option, being strapped, nailed to a cross, that he definitely would have been baptized.

[14:40] So all this to say that a genuine believer should not have to be persuaded to be baptized. They want to be baptized and they want to be baptized because that's one of the first acts of obedience as a follower of Christ is you want everybody to know it.

[14:58] You want to give witness. You want to show that you identify with Christ and his death and his burial and in his resurrection.

[15:08] So baptism does not save you, but certainly I think it's evidence that you have been saved. When you say soon after your conversion, I really want to be baptized.

[15:21] You're taking that first step in letting the world know that you are a follower of Christ. So Saul did that. And then he enjoyed with that his first taste of Christian fellowship.

[15:35] As it says there that he took food and was strengthened. So Saul is baptized. Then he participates in a way, I guess, in his first church potluck, which is also not essential for salvation.

[15:51] But again, that's something that we as church members really look forward to doing, aren't we? I'm still waiting for the time when we're able to do that. I'm glad we can meet together in one service.

[16:04] I'll be glad too whenever we can eat together and share a potluck. So Paul does that. He's got the Southern Baptist experience here, I guess.

[16:15] Then for several days, he remained with his disciples after that who were in Damascus. And that was a time of celebration. They were celebrating the fact that he was converted.

[16:26] And so likewise, as a church, we continue today to celebrate whenever somebody comes to faith in Jesus Christ. Whenever somebody enters the waters of baptism. That's something that we should make a big deal out of.

[16:38] And so again, certainly they were amazed at Saul's radical turnaround of his radical conversion. And so again, this was a great moment of celebration for those believers in Damascus.

[16:52] One sure mark of a transformed life is the desire to be with other Christians. So if you've been genuinely saved, there is within you a desire to be with God's people.

[17:05] 1 John 3, 14 says, And so again, a mark of genuine salvation is this desire to be in fellowship with God's people.

[17:24] And so you have to think, if you go to your church begrudgingly every Sunday, and you have to drag yourself out of bed in order to get there, and then once you're there, you scowl at everybody and give them a dirty look or whatnot, then maybe you're not truly saved.

[17:42] Or maybe you need to go to church somewhere else, right? So whatever the case may be, we should understand that, yeah, we are, we're a family. And you don't always get along great with everybody in your family.

[17:53] And there's some people in your family that you're closer to. But in a family that's functioning properly and healthily, there's love and respect for everybody in the family. And so it's the same case when we come to church, is that we get up, yeah, maybe we've had a hard week, but we are looking forward to seeing our brothers and sisters in Christ in church.

[18:13] And likewise, if we don't see them, then that upsets us, and we wonder where they're at. And then we try to find out, because we desire to have that fellowship. So that was the fourth feature of genuine salvation.

[18:27] The fifth feature of genuine salvation is flourishing knowledge of the truth. Flourishing knowledge of the truth. That comes from verses 20 through 22.

[18:41] And there again it says, So again, those who have been saved, genuinely saved and transformed, they want to talk about their salvation.

[19:18] They want to share their testimony with other people. And so that's what Saul does. After a few days of fellowship, he was ready and he was eager to now, as a disciple of Christ, to take part in the great commission of Christ, to go and make disciples.

[19:34] And so he was eager to share the knowledge that he had. And likewise, he was eager to learn and to increase in knowledge of Christ in how all of Scripture pointed to him as the Messiah.

[19:49] When the Jews who heard him preaching in this way, they were, again, equally as shocked as the Christians were about his conversion.

[19:59] In the very synagogues to which Saul had come with warrants for the arrest of Christians, he was now entering them instead. And he was proclaiming Jesus as being the Son of God.

[20:11] And so here, the most zealous defender of Judaism now had become a bold spokesman for Jesus Christ. And this drastic change in Saul confounded those who were hearing him preach.

[20:26] And so they were wondering how this radical change could have come about so suddenly, seemingly overnight, this person had been completely transformed. But again, Paul did not let their shock or their doubt deter him in any way.

[20:42] He kept on flourishing in his knowledge of the gospel and in his ability to both preach it and defend it. Just like Stephen before him, whose death, remember, that Paul, Saul, participated in, Saul now found himself in a similar place where he was now debating and proving that the Scriptures said that Jesus is the Christ.

[21:09] Saul was able to use his vast knowledge that he already had of Scripture being a Pharisee. And he was able to bring that together with now his new understanding that Jesus is Lord of all in order to unlock spiritual truths in his mind that had been hidden before.

[21:28] The Spirit was able to control and add to the brilliance that he already had in making him a very powerful man, a very powerful weapon in the hands of the Lord to spread truth.

[21:41] And we saw that that's exactly what happened. Paul was a great pastor, church planner, missionary, you name it, apostle. So the sixth feature then, as we continue on, of genuine salvation is fearlessness in suffering.

[21:55] Fearlessness in suffering. So flourishing in knowledge, now fearlessness in suffering. And that comes beginning in verse 23, going through the end to verse 31.

[22:07] And so Luke begins by saying, when many days had passed, and he uses that phrase to mark out a period of time which is defined or is further revealed in Galatians 1, 17 through 18, when Paul is writing to the Galatians about that period of time.

[22:32] It says there, he says there, nor did I go up to Jerusalem after this conversion, his conversion, to those who were apostles before me, but I went to Arabia and returned to Damascus.

[22:44] Then after three years, I went up to Jerusalem to visit Cephas, who's Peter, and remained with him 15 days. So here, we have to understand between verse 22 and verse 23, three years' time has transpired.

[22:58] So kind of like you're watching a movie, and all of a sudden it ends at a dramatic part, and then it picks up, you know, and you see in a new scene or location, three years later. So that's what we have here, three years later.

[23:11] And so it implies that Saul spent that time, that three years, continuing to learn, continuing to flourish in his knowledge of the Lord while he was in Arabia.

[23:22] And then he returned again to Damascus, where he again was preaching with boldness, with greater boldness, I should say, and greater clarity, as he had increased in his knowledge and his understanding of the Lord over that period of time.

[23:38] His precision with the scriptures had been sharpened. He was a good preacher before. Now he was a great preacher. And this concerned many of the Jews who heard him again.

[23:51] And so this time they began plotting his death. In verse 23, by God's providence, though, Saul found out about their plot, and he was able to escape, which he details in 2 Corinthians 11, 32.

[24:07] There he says that at Damascus, the governor under King Aretas was guarding the city of Damascus in order to seize me. And so like many ancient cities back then, they had these big giant walls that were up for protection.

[24:23] And the only way in, the only way out, was to go through the city gate. So there was only one escape route for Saul, or so it seemed. And then these Christians were pretty smart and clever people.

[24:36] And they devised this plan, we're gonna lower you down through a window in a basket. And that's exactly what happened. And he was able to avoid that situation.

[24:49] So then from there, he immediately went to Jerusalem and attempted to join the disciples who were there. And they understandably, again, prior to Facebook and social media and the telephone and all of the forms of communication that we have now, word didn't spread quite so fast.

[25:10] And so they saw him, and they too were understandably afraid of him because they knew the reputation that he had and that he was trying to put it into the church.

[25:22] And so they were not believing at first that he was a true disciple. And we can't really blame them either because remember how many times have had the Lord told them, beware of wolves in sheep's clothing.

[25:38] And so they see this guy and they think, okay, that's a pretty, that's somebody who's pretty suspicious. I'm not going to quite trust this man automatically. But however, eventually they did begin to view him as a brother when Barnabas took him and brought him to the apostles in verse 27 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.

[26:05] And so Barnabas was highly regarded believer at the time. He was regarded by the apostles and so his witness of Saul gave credibility to Saul's testimony that he had genuinely been saved.

[26:20] And so having finally gained their acceptance, it says in verse 28 that Saul went in and out among them at Jerusalem. And again, he was continuing to preach boldly in the name of the Lord.

[26:33] And what's neat here in how the Lord works is that Saul in a way actually picked up where Stephen's ministry ended when he was martyred because Saul goes back and he is like Stephen was.

[26:45] He says there, it says there in verse 29 that he was disputing against the Hellenists who then were seeking to kill him just as they had sought and did kill Stephen. The church soon discovered that it was almost as bad as having Saul with them as against them.

[27:03] Wherever Saul went, the gospel was going to be shared boldly and that often created tense moments of conflict. And so that's exactly what had happened here.

[27:14] He was in Jerusalem and he was preaching boldly and he was stirring things up, which is something as Christians that we're called to do at times.

[27:26] We are called to stir things up and we stir things up by sharing the gospel boldly. According to Galatians 1.18, Saul's stay there lasted 15 days.

[27:36] In verse 30, it says, and when the brothers learned this, they brought him down to Caesarea and then they sent him off to Tarsus. So Saul's going was mostly likely due to his own vision though, recorded in Acts 22.

[27:53] It wasn't that he was just stirring things up and they were concerned or anything like that. It was God who was telling him that it was time to move on. And so in Acts 22, verses 17 through 21, Paul writes there, when I had returned to Jerusalem and was praying in the temple, I fell into a trance and saw him saying to me, make haste and get out of Jerusalem quickly because they will not accept your testimony about me.

[28:20] And I said, Lord, they themselves know that in our synagogue, after another, I imprisoned and beat those who believed in you. And when the blood of Stephen, your witness, was being shed, I myself was standing by and approving and watching over the garments of those who killed him.

[28:35] And he said to me, go for I will send you far away to the Gentiles. And so from this moment on, Saul disappears again from the scene for about a three year period.

[28:49] But again, though he's going to kind of go into the background as we move on in Acts here for a while, he was not idle at all.

[29:00] He wasn't taking a sabbatical or a vacation. And we can tell from Saul, wherever he went, he had to preach the gospel.

[29:11] He had to share the good news of Jesus Christ. And so while he was away between this time and when he and Barnabas returned to Antioch in Acts chapter 11, we know that Paul was aggressively doing again what the Lord had called him to do.

[29:28] And so again, according to Galatians 1, 22, it tells us, Paul tells us what he was doing. He says, I went into the regions of Syria and Cilicia. And so at least some of the churches in that region mentioned him also in Acts chapter 15, verse 23, which means that he was most likely the founder of those churches, if not one of its founding members.

[29:51] So Saul was at work here, planning churches and sharing the good news of Jesus Christ. Was Saul gone then? Things quieted down in Palestine, at least for a time.

[30:05] And then Luke summarizes in verse 31 the progress that the church was making by stating there again, 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 in the comfort of the Holy Spirit.

[30:21] It multiplied. And so what had changed, some of the things that had changed, again, God is sovereign and so it's ultimately God who moves people in and people out and so Pilate was gone.

[30:38] By this time, he was no longer governor and so that, accompanied with the expansion of Herod Agrippa's authority, restricted the Jews' freedom to persecute Christians as they had been before under Pilate and under a different situation.

[30:55] And so now that that wasn't an issue, they were able to have a little bit more peace than they had before and the gospel continued to go and it continued to multiply. Believers were being made and added to the church.

[31:09] Saul's life, again, was dramatically and totally transformed that day on the road to Damascus and from that moment, so also was the history of the world as we'll see when he returns truly to center stage in Acts chapter 13.

[31:26] So we'll bid Paul adieu for a little while but, you know, he'll be back and have a lot more to say. So now let's look at application.

[31:38] What should we do with this truth? Well, first of all, I think that we see the importance of being present.

[31:48] So first point of application, be present and active in the church and its ministries. Paul desired that fellowship and yeah, he was called and set aside as an apostle and he had an important task to do but truly as we look and read God's word, we see that every church member is called to be involved in the ministry of the church.

[32:10] Every church member is called to be a part of the Great Commission. God has given each church member spiritual gifts and he asks you to use those spiritual gifts for the benefit of other people within your church and so it's important that you be present and active in your church because we need you to be here and I think that that's something that church members need to understand is yeah, we want you to be here obviously but when you're not here it does hurt us and it does impact us in a way because you have a special set of spiritual gifts that God has given to you and we need you to use them here.

[32:46] God needs you to use them here so be present and active and I'll say as a pastor and I'm sure I speak for other pastors as well and people, you know, it's nice to hear words of encouragement that's really nice to hear other things that are encouraging but nothing encourages me more than when people come to church.

[33:09] That encourages me more than anything whenever I can look around and see in our sanctuary that people are here because again, a desire of that fellowship to know that you're here and you're hopefully going to be equipped and learn and grow and becoming more like Christ and loving him more as a result of our time of worship so be present.

[33:32] Secondly, be in the word so we see genuine believers from Saul's example that he was increasing and flourishing in the knowledge of the word and so we need to be in the word.

[33:44] 2 Timothy 3, 16-17 says that all scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction and for training in righteousness that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work and so it's so important that believers be present in church but they also be present with the Lord every day, that they're in the Bible, that they're reading his word, that they're being fed upon it themselves and that has a great benefit for any church whose people are actively in the word of God and they're growing in their knowledge and their understanding of it.

[34:29] And then third, be steadfast in suffering. Be steadfast in suffering. So be present, be in the word, be steadfast in suffering. 1 Peter 5, 8-10, it says there, be sober-minded, be watchful.

[34:46] Your adversary, the devil, prowls around like a roaring lion seeking someone to devour. Resist him firm in your faith knowing that the same kinds of suffering are being experienced by your brotherhood throughout the world.

[35:03] And after you have suffered a little while, the God of all grace who has called you to his eternal glory in Christ will himself restore, confirm, strengthen, and establish you.

[35:16] And so in our suffering, we need to be steadfast, being reminded again that this world is not our home, that ultimately we are looking forward to the Lord's return or our going to him.

[35:31] We know that our suffering is not in vain, that God has accomplished and will accomplish much when Christians suffer. Suffering has a way of making the gospel explode in areas.

[35:47] And so, you know, I know that you're paying attention to what's going on in our country, as am I. And, you know, we've always kind of talked about how we realize that Christian persecution here is increasing and that's something that I know has caused a lot of us to fear.

[36:06] And I don't think it's something that we should be looking forward to. We shouldn't have some kind of a martyr's complex. But it could very well be that we've been praying, I know I've been praying, I'm sure you have been praying too, for some kind of revival to take place in our country.

[36:24] And so maybe the way that revival is going to come is by the Lord purifying His church. I could see that He's been using this time as a way to purify us and to help us to have greater focus on what really matters in this life and in this world.

[36:43] Why do we have church? Why are we here? What is important about our coming together? I think that I know for me and I'm sure for you too, this has been a time for you to kind of rethink and reevaluate some of the things that we've been doing as believers, some of the things that we've been doing as a church and it's been a time of refocusing and hopefully maybe it's a time of purifying because we could see and I think that we will see increased persecution against Christianity in our nation.

[37:09] But we aren't anticipating that, I guess, the word. Maybe there's a better word. But we are not afraid either. We shouldn't be afraid because we know that we're with the Lord, right?

[37:23] And we're going to stand with the Lord and be steadfast and we know that in our suffering it will not be in vain, that the gospel will be spread and it will go and people will hear the good news of Jesus Christ.

[37:35] Okay, let's pray. Heavenly Father, we thank you for this time that we've had to be in your word and to examine the features of genuine salvation by looking at the conversion of the Apostle Paul.

[37:54] Lord, it's amazing what you can do in a person's life that here was a man who hated you intently, who despised your church and wanted it to come to an end. And Lord, if any of us were in your place, I think that we would think that the best thing to do would be to just wipe out such a person, to eliminate their existence from this world.

[38:16] Yet you, Lord, demonstrate your amazing love and grace and the fact that that is not what you do, but you had mercy and compassion on this man. You saved him. You radically transformed his life.

[38:28] And Lord, he was a mighty and powerful weapon and man of God in service to you whose ministry continues to have a great impact today.

[38:42] And so, Lord, we pray that we'd have the same attitude as you, that we would be gracious as well, that we wouldn't look at anyone and deem them as being unworthy or impossible of saving, but that we would go and that we would go boldly, that we would speak the truth and love to everyone, that they'd have an opportunity to hear the gospel and we hope and we pray that they would believe it.

[39:06] And be saved. Lord, we pray that moving forward as a church, that you would help us to have clarity in what our mission and purpose is and that we would let our light shine brightly for you as we seek to do what you've asked us to do in taking part in the great commission of going and making disciples, making much of the name of Jesus Christ.

[39:29] And we pray and we ask these things in Jesus' name. Amen. All right. Don't forget, 1030 on Sunday. 1030 on Sunday. Nursery will be open. We will have nursery for the kiddos.

[39:40] So I look forward to seeing you all at 1030 on Sunday morning. God bless you. Have a great evening. See you then. Thank you.