Acts 22:1-21

So thankful for another Sunday morning the Lord has given to us to come together and worship. A warm welcome to all the guests worshiping with us for the first time. We welcome you to our church and even if you’ve been here before, we welcome you back. We’re really grateful that you’ve chosen to worship the Lord with us this morning. We are so grateful for time of worship the Lord has given to us. We are going through the book of Acts, church on the move and we find ourselves this morning in Acts 22:1-21. I have a tall task in front of me to cover 21 verses in a matter of 30 to 35 minutes. So I’ll be going rather quickly but thankfully these are very familiar story and passage in God’s word but the Holy Spirit still wants us to learn a lot of things from this passage and I thank God for his word.

We ended last week end of chapter 21 where Paul is in Jerusalem and he has been taken captive by the Jewish people. They have tried to kill him, rescued by the Roman commander and he is about to be carried over to the barracks and in the wisdom that God would give to him but also in the great urgency that he feels towards the people who were literally trying to kill him, he asked for a moment to speak to them. We ended chapter 21 verse 40 by reading this verse, as he started to speak to them in Aramaic there was a great quietness that fell upon the crowd, spoke to the commander earlier in the Greek language. Here he talks to the common people, assembled his own people in the Aramaic language and then in that context we come to chapter 22 verse 1, brothers and sisters listen now to my defense. He starts his talk to them the same way as he had, Stephen had done when he was in front of the Sanhedrin as well. Brothers and fathers is a term of endearment where he’s making himself known that the people that he’s speaking to are closely related to who he is as a person. They’re brothers just like Jewish people and fathers much older and people that are very near and dear to his heart. And then he says, listen now, this is a term of urgency here. There’s two reasons for that. One, you had imagined what just happened to him. He had been beaten to a pulp just moments ago and almost left to die. So there’s an urgency in what he has to say to them. But I think more than that, there’s an urgency in his mind for the salvation of the people who are assembled over there. As he sees a mass crowd of people who had just beaten him and tried to kill him, he is not looking at them as murderers. He is looking at them as are all people who need to hear the message of the saving grace that is found in the Lord Jesus Christ. What a great perspective you have. And it’s something that only happens, as I told you last week, by the supernatural work of the Spirit of God in the life of man. Naturally, none of us would ever look at people who just try to kill us and try to share the gospel with them. But that’s what the Holy Spirit does. He strengthens you beyond what is naturally able. And this man, looking at the very people who had tried to kill him, wants to share his life story with them and wants to share the gospel of the Lord with them.

And so the Bible says to us in verse 2, when they heard him speak to them in a Hebrew dialect and in some translations, as we read here, it says, Aramaic, they became very quiet. Verse 21, verse 40 told us there was already a silence that had come upon them. But in chapter 2, verse 2, there is even more of a quietness that Luke writes about, where the people are eager to hear what he has to say. And so he starts his discourse where he recounts to them his personal testimony of coming to faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. There are six different times in the New Testament where the Apostle Paul recounts his testimony in front of different audiences. Three different times he writes it in his own episodes. Three other times he says it in front of people. We will see that again in Acts chapter 26 as well. And he starts in verse 3. Then Paul said, I am a Jew born in Tarsus of Cilicia, but brought up in this city. The first thing that he says to them is that, I am not a stranger. I am a Jew just like you. The very person that you’re trying to kill is a Jew just like you. He is proud of his Jewish heritage, but it’s also because of the fact that he wants the people to know that he is one of their own. When I was reading this passage of him saying, I am a Jew, my mind kind of went to a speech that was given by the only person to ever be the prime minister of England and still be Jewish. He was a man by the name of Benjamin Disraeli. By his last name, you know that he was Jewish, Disraeli. And he, when speaking at the British government parliament, was speaking so fervently and eloquently. And then one of the people who opposed him, who was a Lord in the house, stood up and said, I don’t care what all you’re saying, you are still a Jew. This is a time when anti-Semitism and Jewish hate was as a Zenith. But Disraeli, it is written, he drew to full height, even though he was a man of short stature and he replied with these words, he says, my Lord, you accuse me of being a Jew. And he says, I am proud to answer to that name. And I would remind you, sir, that one half of Christendom worships a Jew and the other half, a Jewess, talking about the Catholic church. And he says, I would also remind you, and I love this line, that my forefathers were worshiping the one true and living God while your forefathers were naked savages running around the woods of Britain. What a way to come back. Here’s a man who was really proud of his Jewish heritage. And here is Paul also, not shying away from it, but in the case of Paul, it is because he’s trying to make sure that the people there identifies with who he is. And then he tells them the same thing that he told the commander earlier as well.

I’m not only a Jew, I’m not also, I’m also a very intelligent person. I was born in Tarsus of Cilicia, Tarsus, as I mentioned to you last week, known for his highest ranks of education, his sophisticated culture. It was a proud thing at that time to be born in Tarsus. He says, I am not an ordinary person. I was born in Tarsus of Cilicia and guess what? I was brought up in this very city where I am talking to you in. And then he says, I studied under Gamaliel, well-known to all of them, considered to be the greatest Jewish teacher of that time. It is thought that the apostle Paul came from Tarsus when he was a teenager, probably after his bar mitzvah, probably at the age of 12 or 13, that he came to Jerusalem to study under Gamaliel. He is the same Gamaliel that we saw in Acts chapter five, who would stand in defense of the apostles and would tell the Jewish people not to persecute Christians because if they are from God, you cannot oppose them, but if they are not from the Lord, it will fall away by the wayside, just like every other way that has ever come forward. But Paul wanted to remind them, I had the highest education that your place could afford and I studied under Gamaliel who they know is very thoroughly trained in the law of our ancestors. Remember the accusation against him. He is against Jewish people. He says, I am a Jew. Remember the second accusation. He is against the law of Moses. He says, no, I am trained under Gamaliel who is the best teacher of the law that he could ever find. Not only the best one, the strict one, the one who taught the law as he was supposed to be taught. And then he says, I was just as zealous for God as any of you are today. He’s looking at that saying, you are beating me up because I am against the law. Guess what? You have nothing on me. You should have seen what I was like about 20, 25 years before this. I was a totally different person. And then he tells them what he did, verse four, I persecuted the followers of this way to their death. If there was any doubt about what the Apostle Paul did, Acts chapter 22, verse 4, dispels that notion. He was not just beating them up. His blood of many Christians are on the hands of the Apostle Paul. He has killed many of them. Who is standing before them is a murderer. He’s looking at the very people who wants to murder him and he’s telling them, guess what? I have done much worse for what you are fighting for in my life. I have killed many Christians with my own hands. I have arrested both men and women and I have thrown them into prison with these very hands that I have. And he tells them, and I love the word that was used over there to describe Christians, followers of this way. Why did that come out to be the description by which Christians were known in the first century? Because they are the ones who went around telling them that the only way to go to heaven was to follow after Jesus, that Christianity by definition was exclusive in nature.

So Christians were being made fun of in the first century as narrow-minded people, the people of the way. And guess what? Even in the 21st century, we are still narrow-minded people. We are still narrow-minded people because we still believe in the narrow way to heaven. There’s only one way. There’s only one Lord. There’s only one Savior. There’s only one name that is given under the heaven above the earth by which we might be saved. That is true in the first century. That is true in the 21st century as well. People might call you a bigot. People might call you narrow-minded, but that does not change the truth of who we are. We still proclaim the same gospel message that only one way to heaven, and that is the way that we proclaim by which the Lord Jesus Christ has opened the way to heaven, and that is the only way to be saved. Any other dilution of that message, anything else that dilutes that way, you are not being loving. You are doing a disservice to the people that are listening to you because if you truly love them, you will always speak truth to them because if you truly love them, you really want to see them in heaven, the same place where you are headed as well. It is the people who have a false sense of what love is that would dilute the pure gospel message of the fact that Jesus is the only way to heaven.

Then he further told them, verse 5, as the high priest and all the council can themselves testify, now remember some of these people are still alive. It’s only a matter of 20 to 25 years. Many in the audience would have been there at that time, and they remember this zealous young man who had done this very thing. I even obtained letters from them for their associates in Damascus, and went there to bring these people as prisoners to Jerusalem to be punished. This is something that was allowed by the Roman government. They allowed the high priest and the people who were ruling over the Jewish people to have jurisdiction over their people, especially on matters of their own religion and had to do with their faith. But in order for Paul to arrest people in Damascus, he could not just go and arrest them if he wanted to. He had to get that letter of authority that authorized him to be an agent of the high priest in Damascus. What is so interesting about the fact that he went to the high priest to get this letter is that the high priest is a Sadducee. He is a Pharisee. But you know the old phrase, the enemy of my enemy is my friend? That’s exactly what is happening over here. They cannot stand each other, but they have a common enemy. You know who that is? The people of the way. So when it comes to that, the Sadducee is more than willing to give the letter to the Pharisee. You go and do whatever you want as long as we stop these people. And then he tells them, about noon, as I came near Damascus, as I told you when I was preaching through Acts chapter nine, this journey was not a short journey. It was a journey of almost 160 to 175 miles. If you travel by foot, at that time, you would travel about 30 miles in a day. So he had already traveled for more than five days before he reached Damascus. Look at his zeal to persecute Christians. He’s traveling by foot and a caravan of people are traveling with him for more than five days in the scorching heat of the Middle East to find people in a faraway land. That is how zealous he was for the law of Moses. And then something happened. I love the description in God’s word. About noon, as I came near Damascus, if it was in the middle of the night, this would not have been such a startling event when the noon, when the sun is shining at its brightest. Suddenly a light that is more brighter than the sun is at its height of its brightness shone from heaven and flashed around me. It had to be an amazing light for it to outshine the sun at the height of noon. But God did that to show that this was not any natural light. This was a son of God himself shining upon him on the way to Damascus. The one who is in blazing glory, whose glory that we cannot describe, the one who created the sun himself is now shining upon the servant of God on that day, outshining the sun that he has created so that he will look to the sun, S-O-N sun, and see the true savior of his life. Bright light flashed around me. I fell to the ground, heard a voice say to me, and this person, this voice knows him very nearly, soul, soul, why do you persecute me?

Many time in God’s word, God really wants to get your attention. He repeats your name twice, Moses, Moses, he would call out, Jacob, Jacob, he would call out, Samuel, Samuel, he would call out. And so he would do it so many times in God’s word because that means God really wants your attention. Abraham, Abraham, he would call out on that mountain. There God cries out, soul, soul, and for the first time in his life, he heard something, why do you persecute me? Later on, this man would write to us that we are the body of Christ. Later on, this man would write that Christ is living in us and we are in Christ. The first revelation of that glorious fact that we are undeniably tied to the person of the Christ was in the first words that he ever heard as he traveled towards Damascus when the Lord says, why do you persecute me? He could have easily asked, why do you persecute the church? Why do you persecute these disciples? But Jesus says, why do you persecute me? Why? If the body is hurting, the head feels it very well. If anything that happens to the church of the Lord Jesus Christ is felt by the head, the one who is connected to us, it is Christ in us, the hope of glory, and we are in Christ. That is a great revelation of the new covenant that we find in God’s word. This cannot be said in the Old Testament. In fact, the closest thing that you would come to this is in Zechariah where God would call his people Israel, the apple of my eye, and God would say, when you’re hurting them, you’re hurting the apple of my eye. But in the New Testament, it goes further where the church and Christ are undeniably without any breakage connected to each other. That’s why the church matters to the mind of God. That is why the church is the most important thing in the body, in the mind of God, and that Christ is so concerned about the church. If you think that the hundreds and thousands of Christians around the world who are being killed every single year, that’s not matter to our Lord. Think again. He grieves with them. He is in the midst of them, in their suffering. He knows what they’re going through. Even you are suffering the problems that you’re going through, and everything that you suffer for the Lord is known to the Lord. He is not ignorant of it. He is persecuted. When we are persecuted, when we suffer, he suffers. We have a Lord who is compassionate, who is gracious, who feels every pain that we face, and he’s a God that says, why do you persecute me? He knew this much when he come to verse eight, that the voice that he heard, and the light that flashed, and the person that struck him down was worthy to be called Lord. So he asked the question, who are you, Lord? I asked. And then the last answer he would have ever imagined in his life on earth, I am Jesus of Nazareth, whom you are persecuting, he replied. I love the way Jesus introduced himself. Remember what I told you a couple of weeks ago, the term Nazarene was a bad term for Christians. It was used to make fun of Christians because they were followers of the one who came from Nazareth.

Nazareth was a bad part of town. Nobody wanted to live in Nazareth. Nazareth was the place that the poor and the people that did not have anything went. The criminals lived in Nazareth. Nothing good ever came out of Nazareth. And that’s why Christians were called as Nazarenes. Here comes Jesus and says, I am Jesus of Nazareth, whom you are persecuting, he replied. In the midst of the shamefulness that they were suffering, Jesus comes and says, I am the one that you are persecuting. This Jesus of Nazareth that you have been making fun of and the disciples of him that you’ve been persecuting is not on earth. He is up in heaven. And the voice from heaven is the voice of the Jesus of Nazareth. Imagine the people on that day, many of them were instrumental in crucifying our Lord. And here comes this man standing before them saying, I heard a voice from heaven. And that voice was the voice of Jesus of Nazareth. Can you imagine their surprise? They thought they had killed him on the cross. And here’s a man testifying, I heard a voice that came from Jesus of Nazareth. Moving on, verse nine, he continues with his testimony and he tells them, my companions saw the light, but they did not understand the voice of him who was speaking to me. The sovereignty of God, the way in which God was there to reach Paul on that day, surely many of the people that came that day also became believers. The Bible does not tell us what happened, but can you imagine the surprise of the high priest when these men came back and told him what happened? But probably in his pride, he never acknowledged what happened or the Bible does not tell us of any conversion such as this. And then here comes what everyone should do after an encounter with the Lord. Verse 10, what shall I do, Lord, I asked. This is the posture of every person, should be the posture of every person who has been transformed by the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ. Before he went to Damascus, he did not ask this question, what shall I do? He had been living his life the way he thought was right up until now. But immediately after the encounter with the Lord, his questions start changing. He is no longer making decisions on his own, he’s asking the Lord, what shall I do, Lord? Get up, the Lord said, go into Damascus, there you will be told all that you have been assigned to do.

Oh, wait a minute, assigned by who? Even before you’re saved, there’s an assignment task that’s already filled out for you? That’s what the Bible is saying. When God chose you before the foundation of the earth, you know what that choosing had? Even assignments by your name as well. Make sure you do every single one of them before you leave this earth, whether it be 20 years or 30 years or 40 years, always ask the question, did I finish all the assignments for which I’ve been called? Have I been faithful to obey everything God wanted me to do? Always ask the question, Lord, what shall I do, oh God? What shall I do this week? What shall I do today? What shall I do in 2025, oh God? We heard this morning from Stanley in Sunday School this as well, a lot of people make 10 year plans and they want God to align with their plans. That’s not what God is asking us to do. God is asking us to surrender our life and say, Lord, you tell me what to do. It is not my plans, but your plans that should be fulfilled in my life. Lot of times we run into problems in our life because we try to align God with our plans. And we never ask the question, what shall I do, oh Lord? Even if you never hear the audible voice of God, I know one thing, and that’s a testimony of my life. If you surrender your heart unto the Lord and earnestly cry out to him and say, Lord, only lead me where you want me to go. Only put me in the path where you want me to travel. Only let me take the job that you want me to take. My God will never, ever, ever lead you astray. But for that to happen, your heart has to be a humble heart. Your heart has to be a humble heart that recognizes that my God knows better than I do. I do not know what is best for my life, but I serve a God who knows what is best for me. And it is my own peril, it is my own foolishness to live my life the way I want to live. I need to be cautiously asking the question, what shall I do, oh Lord? What shall I do, oh Lord? And I pray that our church will be a church that cautiously asks the question, what shall we do?

Individuals, families, collectively as churches, ask the question consistently, constantly in your life, what shall I do, oh Lord? You serve a loving God, a faithful God who will circumstance us through people. He will lead you in the path he wants you to go. Because why? Look at Ephesians 2 verse 10, we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works which God prepared in advance for us to do. You think the good works you’re doing are something your idea? No. God prepared them beforehand for you to do. The gift things that are in your life are based on the work that God wants you to do. Do not waste your gift things and the calling that God has placed in your life. God has prepared certain things for you to do. You need to be faithful in doing them. Just like we are created in the image of God as a human being, we are newly created in Christ Jesus with a wonderful purpose to do good works unto the Lord that God himself has prepared for us to do. When we do that is when we hear his voice that says, well done, good and faithful servant.

So we ask, what shall we do? Look at verse 11, my companions led me by the hand into Damascus because the brilliance of the light had blinded me. The one who was absolutely in control of his own life has lost all control. Even needs the help of other people to walk into Damascus. But something supernatural had happened inside of him. He left Jerusalem physically all well, but spiritually blind. His walking into Damascus, spiritually enlightened more than ever before, but physically blind. Oh, I once was blind, but now I see even though his physical blindness is taken away, his inner man has been regenerated by the power of God. And he sees things that he never saw because God’s light had fallen upon him. And the light of the knowledge of the glory of Christ Jesus was shining so brightly in his soul on that day. Verse 12 continues, man named Ananias came to see me. And he again tells them, he was also a devout observer of the law. The man who prayed for my healing was also a devout follower of the law and a Christian at the same time. And he was highly respected by all the Jews living there. All of this, remember the common thread in it, he’s trying to tell them, I’m not against the Jewish people. I’m not against the law. Everything that happened to me was in accordance with the law. Verse 13, he stood beside me and said, brother Saul, receive your sight. And that very moment I was able to see him. Verse 14, then he said, the God of our ancestors has chosen you to know his will and to see the righteous one and to hear words from his mouth. What is Paul saying here? Who chose me? The God of Abraham, your father, Abraham, the God of Jacob, the God of Isaac, the God of Moses is the one who has chosen me. It is not any other God. We are talking about the same God here. The God of our ancestors has chosen me, but he has chosen me for a glorious purpose. You know what that is? To see the righteous one and to hear his words. Who is the righteous one? We see that in the book of Jeremiah. He is the righteous branch. He is the righteous one of Israel. Even Peter in his sermon would allude to that by saying, you crucified the righteous one. They all knew who the righteous one was. He was the promised Messiah of the Old Testament. Now God in his sovereignty has chosen the apostle Paul to see the Lord by which he would become an apostle and to hear words directly from the Messiah.

Verse 15, you will be his witness to all people of what you have seen and heard, which is exactly what he’s doing. Verse 16, now what are you waiting for? Get up, be baptized, and wash your sins away, calling on his name. I will touch on this verse. Time doesn’t allow me to go into detail on it. This is a verse that is used by a lot of people to justify the belief that baptism saves you. But if you understand it in the original language, the correct way to read this verse is this. Get up, be baptized, wash your sins away by calling on his name. You always interpret scripture with scripture, and the Bible makes it very clear. By the works of man, no one is saved. Baptism does not save you. Baptism happens after salvation. Baptism is a sign of what has already happened in your inside. The washing away by water does not wash anyone’s sins away. If you are a sinner not cleansed by the blood of the Lord and you enter into the baptism pool, you come out of the baptism pool just a little bit more clean in your physical body, but your spiritual state is still the same, and our baptism water has just become a little more dirtier by the dirt on your flesh. But nothing else has happened. But truly, baptism is something that happens when the soul has been regenerated by the power of God. Romans chapter 10 verse 13 tells it very clearly. Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved. It is the calling of the name of the Lord that saves you, not any kind of works or righteous acts on your part.

Chapter 17, when I returned to Jerusalem and I was praying at the temple, I fell into a trance. He said, I really wanted to come back to Jerusalem, and I did, and I came to the temple and I was praying there in the temple, I fell into a trance. We saw this with the case of Peter as well. As he was in the house, he was praying and fell into a trance. The vision of God came to him to go to the house of Cornelius. What does it mean by trance? Trance that I explained to you at that time is when the conscious state of a human being is kind of almost taken away and you get to a subconscious state where you are seeing visions from God. This happens when we are in prayer and when in communion with God. It’s not any kind of a fantasy or any kind of illusion. It is a real vision that happens to God’s people. But in that trance, verse 18, I saw the Lord speaking to me, quick he said, leave Jerusalem immediately. Why? Because the people here will not accept your testimony about me. Paul protested. Verse 19, Lord, how can they not believe what I say? These people know that I went from one synagogue to another to imprison and beat those who believe in you. He says, my testimony is a dramatic testimony. These people know what I did. Surely they would believe my testimony and turn to you. And he said to them again, verse 20, and remember when the blood of your martyr Stephen was shed, I was the one who stood there giving my approval and guarding the clothes of those who were killed. He said, I was right there approving what they did to Stephen. Surely these people would believe my story. But in verse 21, he says to them, the Lord said to me, no, go. I will send you far away to the Gentiles. Paul never wanted to go to the Gentiles. That was the last thing on his mind. The Pharisee of the Pharisee did not want to go to polluted land, did not want to enter into a house of an untouchable, did not want to eat with the Gentile. But here, remember what he asked of the Lord on the way to Damascus, what should I do? Here is a heart that is transformed, that is now willing to do the unthinkable, that is willing to be uncomfortable, that is willing to go to places he never wanted to go because it is not his will that matters anymore, it is the will of the one who encountered him on the way to Damascus. This is what really being a follower of the Lord Jesus Christ is all about. Doing what he wants us to do, only doing what Christ wants us to do. That’s what Christian life is all about. And so he goes on to the Gentile. Many things I want to leave with you and then one illustration and I’ll stop. Why first is this, Paul repeated his testimony over and over again, why you should never forget your life before Christ.

Most of you were born in Christian homes, so you don’t have a dramatic testimony of living without the Lord, just like the Apostle Paul had. But don’t forget what you got saved from. Even as a child, when you received Christ, what happened to you was the work of resurrection in your soul where God made you alive. Remember what you were before you were lost. If you are a person who was an adult or maybe backslided from the Lord, lived for the world in your college years, but God transformed your life and brought you back into the fold of God, all your days, never forget what you were before Christ changed you. Finally, never lose the wonder of your salvation and the fact that you are part of the eternal plan of God. You are not an accident. You are created in Christ Jesus by the handy work of God and you are given certain works in your life that God himself has prepared for you to do. Finally, the right and most blessed posture for the believer will always be one of surrender. The one that says, Lord, not my will, let your will be done in my life. What shall I do? Oh God, I don’t really want to go here, but in your word, I will go. You want me to cast the net? It doesn’t make any sense, but at your word, I will cast the net, a posture of surrender before the Lord. In one of his sermons, John Oudberg compares submission to Jesus to driving a car. He says, when it was time to take our first child home from the hospital, we put her in the car seat in the back of the car and then I got in the front seat to drive. She was so small, even the baby seat was way too big. She looked so fragile to me that I drove home on the freeway going 35 miles per hour with the hazard lights flashing the whole time. That first day, we all have done that. When your kid is in the car with you, it’s a scary day, but there’s another day that is more scary than the first day that you drive home from the hospital. And we have experienced that twice now, is the day when they turn 16 and now you’re handing over the keys. Now they are moving from the passenger seat, from the ride along seat into the driver’s seat. Oh, that’s a scary moment. Remember this, I chose the destination. I chose the route. I choose the speed. You are in the drive along seat, but when they are driving, you no longer have the control. A lot of people find Jesus handy to have in the car as long as he is in the ride along seat because something may require, come up to require that his services. Jesus, I have a health problem. I need your help. I want you in the car, but I’m not sure I want you driving my life. See, I need you for certain things, but I really don’t want you to control my car. If Jesus is driving on the other hand, I’m not in charge of my ego anymore. I no longer have the right to satisfy every self-centered ambition that I have. No, it is his agenda. It is his life. Now I’m not in charge of my mouth anymore either. I don’t get to gossip, flatter, cajole, deceive, rage, intimidate, manipulate, exaggerate. I get out of the driver’s seat and hand the keys over to him. I am fully engaged. In fact, I’m more alive than I’ve ever been before. You know why? Because it is not my life anymore, it is his life. And the person who does that daily, surrendering and saying, I’m going to give up parts of my life over to you until I’m completely yours and you are completely in control. That’s where you find the ultimate goal to which life has been called, to become a believer. That’s where you achieve the ultimate goal to which Christ has called you. And I become less and less and less every day and he becomes greater and greater and greater every day so that when that day comes and he calls me home, when I walk there, all that my heavenly father will see is his son walking through the doors of heaven because I’ve been transformed by the power of God. To that end, let’s surrender our life. Let’s ask the question, what shall we do? In the week ahead, live your life dependent upon the Lord, asking this question over and over again in your life.

Heavenly Father, we thank you for your word. We thank you for the amazing work of salvation in each one of our lives. We thank you for your grace by which you have saved us, oh God. Help us to walk after you, following your precepts, obeying what you have called us to do. Thank you for everything the good Lord has done in our life. It’s in the name of the Lord Jesus that we pray, amen.