These people need Genesis 1-11

Good morning, and a merry and blessed Christmas to all of you. As Randy was there leading Hark the Herald Angels Sing, it makes me recall a number of times during my childhood when I wondered about different things, and one of them I never could figure out is why all those angels were named Herald. That was just very confusing.

Anyway, so we'll be studying here Acts of the Apostles 14.8-18. And so as we go through that, one of the things we're going to see is here's Paul and Barnabas.

They're going through these cities and we'll see them going as they have been through Antioch, Iconium, and now Lystra and Derbe. And what we're going to find is they actually go back through, they loop through later in chapter 14 through these very same cities. When Paul writes to the church at Galatia, He writes, in fact, to the churches that are in these cities. And as he comes back on his second and third missionary journeys, he goes through these same cities again. So we're going to see these cities come up repeatedly as we continue through the Book of Acts. Then we're also going to see, this is going to be chapter 16, Timothy will come from this area as Paul's helper. Timothy, as it turns out, is either a co-author, listed as a co-author, or is mentioned in just about all of Paul's epistles. So this place that they're at now, it turns out to be pivotal in the rest of the New Testament.

We've been looking at a larger map, and you have this on some of your earlier handouts. We're going to zero in on this area, which we have as a slide on your handout. And so this zeroes in on the areas that Paul and Barnabas have been in this first missionary journey of the Apostle Paul. and shows the places Antioch, Pisidia, Iconium, Lystra, and Derbe. And it shows also their return route through these same cities. And we're going to be seeing them again as we see the subsequent journeys of Paul. Now, one of the things we're going to point out here is parenting principles from the pages of the Book of Acts. And you may be saying, wait a minute, parenting principles? Yes, parenting principles.

Starting in chapter 14 on into chapter 17 is actually rich with various principles for parenting. And as we go through it, we'll be bringing those things out most definitely. And also, if you say, well, Vern, you didn't mention this today, well, we'll get there, because there are actually a series of principles that come out from chapter 14 into chapter 17. So we will be looking at acts for those principles as we proceed through the book. Parenting principles, yes, in matter of fact, things that are actionable, not just theoretical. From this passage forward, we're going to see some valuable parenting principles that show up in the Book of Acts and be pointing them out all along the way through the next several chapters.

In addition to that, we're also going to see some and have some valuable insights into evangelism. There have been some things that have been promoted and proposed and carried out in evangelism in our era that we'll see kind of some spot checks on them as we go through the book of Acts, and especially starting with this chapter on into chapter 17.

One of the other things we'll point out here is the chronology. We're at a place here at Lystra and Derby where they're getting close to the end of Paul's first missionary journey. They're spending a number of months in this area of Lystra and Derby from March to mid-June of 49 AD. Then there will be a return visit through those same churches as we've mentioned, and then they'll head back to Antioch of Syria in order to report back, and here's how things went on this first missionary journey.

So here's Acts 14.8, and it reads like this.

At Lystra a man was sitting who had no strength in his feet, laying from his mother's womb, who had never walked. And so we see in this here, this is, I say, lame déjà vu. There are things about this that we've seen before. The book of Acts told about a man back in chapter 3 who was healed by Peter and John. He also was lame from birth. and was healed in that context. It took place in a very Jewish context right there in Jerusalem, and not just Jerusalem, but right there in the temple complex there in Jerusalem. And so we have something similar, also something different. You're going to see another man here who was born lame. Some of what follows will be similar, and some of it will be very different, as we'll soon see. It'll have a very different outcome. So, here's Acts 14, 9 and 10.

This man was listening to Paul as he spoke, who, when he had fixed his gaze on him and had seen that he had faith to be made well, said with a loud voice, stand upright in your feet, and he leaped up and began to walk. This loud voice phrase showed up repeatedly in the book of Revelation. And I was told don't say things with a loud voice too often because they repeat this back in the nursery and it scares the kids, right? So anyway, so I'll try to keep it a little bit more subdued.

So one of the things that shows up here is this guy had faith. The man born lame listened to Paul. Paul could see this man was believing his message and was actually, you know, coming forth and responding even though his ability physically to respond was limited. The picture that I have here shows this guy on a little wheeled cart, that may or may not be the case, but could be. But he came forth, quite possibly to be healed. Paul fixed his gaze on this man.

This is the same fix his gaze that we've been seeing throughout the book of Acts. It's a term that is used by Dr. Luke in the Gospel of Luke a number of times here in the book of Acts and only repeated in the New Testament in 2nd Corinthians chapter 3. It's a very special word. In some cases it's unbelievers fixing their gaze, but it is the term when Stephen fixed his gaze on Jesus. who was in the heavenlies, who stood in heaven for Stephen's homegoing. So this is a very special word. Here's the Apostle Paul fixing his gaze on this man and seeing that he was responding in faith. So the Apostle Paul doesn't come up to him and say, oh, you poor fellow.

He instead says, stand upright on your feet. So you can imagine this man, he has been lame from birth. Everybody else who's been around this guy has known that he's lame from birth. Imagine what they're thinking. Stand upright on your feet. This man, born lame, had never stood upright on his feet. Nobody had ever seen him do it. But what a startling and shocking thing for many. It's just stunning for them to hear this. So how'd this man respond? Dr. Luke wrote that this man born lame leaped up and began to walk.

Now one of the things you think about is, I can remember each of our kids, you know, they start to walk. Do they immediately just start running? Not usually. As a matter of fact, usually it's sort of a little bit carefully, you know, and sometimes a little wobbling around.

This guy had never walked before in his life. And he is not only getting up, but he leaped up and began to walk right away. It's amazing. So the Lord not only healed him physically, but also instantly matured his ability to walk and have coordination and balance and things of that sort. Nancy and I have a friend of many years ago. who lost his right arm in a boating accident, and that's quite a story in itself, and that's when he was 12. He said just missing his right arm the first time he got out of bed, he went over. We get accustomed to a certain balance, and this guy had never had it, right? So the fact that he could leap up and immediately walk was not just a physical healing, but also an advancement of his coordination and an advancement of his sense of balance. Here's Acts 14, 11, and 12.

And when the crowd saw what Paul had done, they raised their voice, saying in the Lycaonian language, the gods have become like men and have come down to us. And they began calling Barnabas, Zeus, and Paul Hermes because he was the chief speaker. Now what's going on with this here? At first we might think that this miracle would convince the people of the truth of what Paul had been telling them because he didn't just come in and start healing but he in fact had been trying to convey a gospel which was new to them.

They had never heard this before. But people will interpret what they hear and what they see according to their own worldview, right? How they see themselves in relationship to everything else. So this worldview issue is a biggie. We're going to be talking more about worldview, not just farther on down, you know, weeks and months ahead, we will, but also later in this message here.

So the people of the Lycaonian culture, and that's something to recall here, the Greeks had gone through the entire eastern Mediterranean and in fact all the way into Persia and up to the border with India when Alexander the Great went through. However, there were certain elements of local culture that continued, and that continued here in this place in Lystra. And so this Lycaonian culture, they had their own dialect. And they had their own certain mythology and stories that were involved there. And those are important for us to take note of. And what's interesting is that Dr. Luke makes note of the Lycaonian language and culture. It's unique. It's not like all the rest of the others about here.

They viewed Paul and Barnabas as two of the pagan gods who had come down as human beings and the local myth fit this feud. You know that they had a local myth local to this area that had another story from some time back when a couple of guys went around and they were eventually recognized as Zeus and Hermes. And so when these people saw this happen, guess what they did?

It's happening again! See? That's what their interpretation was. Wow, it's happening again! So they're getting all excited about it based on this pagan myth that had been propagated from some time earlier in this exact area. They're thinking, man, we've got this very special thing going on here. What's more, the pagan tradition was when this sort of things happen that the god Hermes spoke for the god Zeus. So Paul, who was the prominent speaker, would be interpreted as Hermes, and the one who was less prominent, though more powerful, would be Zeus, right? So everything to these people, it all fits. Wow, it's all happening again. They interpreted what was happening all in terms of their worldview. Here's Acts 14, 13.

The priest of Zeus, whose temple was just outside the city, brought oxen and garlands to the gates and wanted to offer sacrifice with the crowds. So it's the priest of Zeus. So what's happening is the people who are familiar with this myth, they go running with excitement because it was actually outside the city, just outside the city where they had the temple to Zeus. Now this Greek mythology is a complicated thing.

We'll talk about it more in a little bit. So this priest of Zeus then that they had there comes and brings these sacrificial animals with garlands, and imagine that really decorates them nice, you know, I have this bowl with flowers on it. So anyway, so they had these bowls come in and they're ready to make a sacrifice of these bowls to Paul and Barnabas, who they think are Hermes and Zeus. Oh boy. To the pagan Gentiles in Lystra, the miracle of healing of the man-born lame and Paul speaking for Barnabas was seen from the pagan worldview. They didn't hear what Paul and Barnabas were saying.

They interpreted everything according to their worldview. This is key. So, what's a worldview, right? A worldview is how a person sees the world around them, and there can tend to be individuals who see the world individually certain ways, and there are groups of people who see the world in certain ways. I remember when our daughter Becky was small, we had several different things we had to deal with with this young lady. One was, she was about four, she came up and asked me, Daddy, do I look like a college girl?

Which of course just stunned me. But aside from that, there was a time when Nancy told her, you know, the world doesn't revolve around you. You know what she said? In my world it does. Amazing! She had a worldview that was a little different from what we were trying to impress upon here. So one of the things with the worldview, is there a God or gods or not?

We have people, let's take for instance, in Israel today. In Israel today, you say, well there's millions of Jews there. Yes, there are. Probably less than 10% of them are God-believing Jews. The majority, 90% approximately, are either atheists or agnostic. They do not believe in a God. That is their worldview from which they interpret everything.

So, is there a God, or gods in this case, or not? What is the nature or character of God or the gods? You will come across people who are angry with God. Ever run across that? And frequently it's because they think that God's job is different than what the Bible says it is. Oh, it's God's job to make me happy. It's God's job to give me what I want. It's God's job to clear everything so I don't have any frustrations or pains. If that's His job, He's doing a terrible job.

But if the mindset, if the worldview is that way, then that's what people will see. So another question is what is eternal and what is not eternal? One of the things we're going to find is in this culture, and then when we get to Acts 17 we'll see it again, the general Greek mindset was that the physical world was eternal, and the gods came and went. So, that's a biggie here.

What is important and what's not important? What's really important? Well, these people thought making Zeus and Hermes happy by their sacrifice was very important. Is that something you worry about? Not so much, right? What does one's view of these things say about how I behave? That's worldview.

Here's Acts 14, 14 and 15. But when the apostles Barnabas and Paul heard of it, they tore their robes and rushed out into the crowd, crying out and saying, Man, why are you doing these things? We are also men of the same nature as you and preach the gospel to you that you should turn from these vain things to a living God who made the heaven and the earth and the sea and all that is in them. So, once Paul and Barnabas see that these Gentiles had greatly misunderstood the healing miracle, and Paul speaking for himself and for Barnabas, they objected.

Imagine, here's two guys trying to get everybody around them, and there's, by the way, it says crowds. So we're talking lots of people. There's two guys and they're being interpreted as Hermes and Zeus. Imagine them trying to get the people around them to think differently.

At first they tore their robes, which was, by the way, a Jewish expression of grief. A Jewish expression of grief. So that's one thing. So they tore their robes And that, in fact, is what we see in the Gospels numerous times, where here is Jesus saying that he's God and he's the Messiah. And how did the Jews respond? They tore their robes, even the high priest. And according to the Jewish traditions, you were not supposed to repair the robe that you tore, right? So whatever you tear, you're just going to throw it away. You're going to get rid of it. You're not going to fix it.

So after asking why the pagans were seeking the sacrifice of them as gods, they spoke openly. Imagine, here's two guys, they're perceived as gods, they're trying to convince these other people that they are not. We're not really gods. So, they spoke in strong correction. What do they say? We are also men of the same nature as you. We're just like you. They were human beings, not gods in human form. That's what they were trying to get across to them.

They declared with passion that they preach the gospel that is the good news to them. Which of course, in the worldview, there was no good news to tell, right? So they told them that these Gentiles all should turn from these vain and useless sacrifices, right? and practices to a living God, gods who did not die. Because that was the problem, gods who did not die.

Zeus, as a matter of fact, was the youngest of about six siblings. The first five got swallowed up, just so you know. So Zeus was the one that remained, who was raised by nymphs on Crete, so the story goes. You know, have these guys come. They are gods who could die, when in fact what they referred to is, we're teaching you about the living God, the one who doesn't die, right? And also, as Paul wrote to Titus going to the island of Crete, the God who doesn't lie either, right?

So one of the things we'll notice here, and we'll see it again as we get into chapter 17, it's back to Genesis. In this passage, Acts 17, 24-31, we'll see Paul pointing to chapters 1-11 of the book of Genesis. Why does he do that? Why go back to Genesis? Why start referring to these things?

The pagans needed to have their pagan worldview set where it should have been in order to be saved by faith. As long as they maintained their worldview, they could not be saved. As long as they maintained their worldview, they could not be saved. What were some of the really big problems? One is the gods were not holy. The gods killed other gods. And by the way, Zeus at one point in time hides himself in a cloud so that he can commit adultery without his wife knowing, right? That is not the God of the Bible.

So what you have is very clear distinctions. He needs to have them understand this is a holy God and therefore what is sin in respect to that? What is sin? In the context of Zeus and Hermes, there isn't any really such thing as sin. They either like what you do or not. But there isn't any such thing as sin.

The pagan worldview had at least three main differences here. One, the physical world was eternal and the gods came and went. Actually, our own culture is moving in that direction where we have the physical universe just kind of generates its own life and generates its own order and things of that sort. And if there is a God, then he is irrelevant, right? Or a God is even of our own creation. Instead of God created man in his own image, there are those out there, many of them as it turns out, who will teach that man created God in his own image. A huge distinction.

So one, the physical world was eternal and the gods came and went. Secondly, the gods were not always independent of the physical world. Some of the mountain ranges were created by gods who were killed and thrown to the earth. And then thirdly, the gods were not fundamentally moral, nor was morality expected of humans. This is why in the pagan culture, just like this one here, A person might pray to the pagan god to be able to steal better. A person might pray that this other person would die so that he could have his wife. Right? That kind of thing.

So things that were, in our mindset, that's horrible. Well, to them that was completely okay because the gods were immoral anyway. Morality was not expected. So these were aspects of worldview, and there are others we could put to them, but these are some primary ones. They were biggies, and Paul's trying to get them to understand some differences here.

And part of doing that is, just like we see in Genesis 1, and given more detail and reinforcement in the subsequent chapters of Genesis and the Bible, Genesis chapter 1 describes the God of the Bible made the heaven and the earth and the sea and everything that is in the heaven and the earth and the sea.

God made everything. That's different from a world in the Greek view that makes gods. That's the Greek view, that the world makes gods. instead of there is one God who made the world. So this is a radical change in worldview. These people are going, whoa, what is this guy presenting to us? So the God of the Bible is not at all like the pagan gods. He himself made absolutely everything in the world. He is always living without end. Very unlike the pagan gods that these people have grown up with.

Here's Acts 14, 16, and 17. In the generations gone by, He permitted all the nations to go their own ways, and yet He did not leave Himself without witness, and that He did good and gave you rains from heaven and fruitful seasons, satisfying your hearts with food and gladness. Now all the nations, that's all the Gentiles, and when did He have them go their own way? Well, this is in Genesis chapter 10, the Tower of Babel. He had all the nations that went their own ways.

God confused the languages, so people did, in fact, go their own way. The God of the Bible has revealed himself in several different ways, including revealing himself in what's called God's providence. It's actually a combination of two different ideas, God's provision and God's guidance.

And by the way, this is all going to be brought up again in chapter 17, which is why we listed there's chapter, excuse me, Acts 17, 24 through 31. It'll be all be brought up again because he's going to have to present a worldview to those people different from what they already have in mind. We have here, and this is a slide on the page three of your handout. We have here a kind of a chart that shows God's revelations to mankind, and this is valuable for us to know. There are three general revelations and two special revelations. Let's go through those.

One is God reveals Himself through nature. Those who are studying into the book of Romans in chapter 1 are going to see that God reveals His existence and some aspects of His character. Do we know everything about God's character from nature? No, we do not.

But it does say His eternal power and deity are made evident in what is made. Then we have providence, also we put in quotes there, guidance, and this is one that's being referred to here in the book of Acts, and we give the reference in Acts 14, also the one in Acts 17 here. Provides for and sets limits to cause humans to seek Him. Those are things under God's providence. God provides and guides in a general way But the intent is He wants people to seek Him.

The next one is conscience that reveals innate moral law. This also will be something coming out in Romans chapter 2 that the Romans elect will be looking at there. Then we have two special revelations and we're focusing on those this morning. And one is scripture.

Scripture reveals specific truth by God's intent. Salvation is just one of those many things. And then we have another special revelation is Jesus Christ Himself. He reveals God Himself in the form of man and His salvation. Altogether then, we have three general revelations mentioned in Scripture and two special revelations. This particular one is God's providence that he's mentioning here in chapter 14. God's provision is primarily what that's focused on.

Something else to point out, the pagan gods were works-based. We oftentimes will hear about the Jews having a works-based religion, and works-based based on the law of Moses spelling out the works to be accomplished. But there was something that the Jews, under the Law of Moses, and the pagans had in common, and that was, both groups, you receive something only because you worked for it. Only because you worked for it.

There was no idea of just grace in receiving anything. So one of the things that the Apostle Paul is conveying here is God's grace. So the God of the real world would graciously provide anything for people was foreign to them. To them you didn't get anything unless you paid the gods for it. You earned it from the gods.

That's one reason why they were eager at this instance seeing Paul and Barnabas as Zeus and Hermes, right? Seeing them as that, they were very eager to, here's our opportunity to pay the gods and to show them honor and to earn the things we want from the gods.

Acts 14.18, even saying these things with difficulty, they restrained the crowds. Notice that, crowds, plural. from offering sacrifice to them. We're talking about not a small group, but a large group of people gathered together around this. This was a very exciting event. Now, imagine here at Holly Hills if we had, let's say that Roger did a healing here at Holly Hills, and imagine if we had somebody wanting to come and sacrifice two bulls on the front steps.

I don't have any idea what we would do, but that would be something that would, of course, very greatly concern us. And so this was understandably something that concerned Paul and Barnabas. And one of the things that we point out here is worldview can be really hard work.

Establishing a new worldview, how do I interpret the world where one is already in place, can be really hard work. It can be difficult for a person who is not a believer to grasp. Notice that what we see here is here are two very well-spoken, knowledgeable believers who are relying upon the Lord, and yet it was difficult to get the crowd to come around to understanding what they were saying. So worldview and trying to get people to understand can be really hard work when people already have something entrenched. But establishing a worldview in a person or among people can also be hard work because the world is always trying to press its worldview on all of the people all the time.

This is key. In our own culture, We have a great many ways in which the world is trying to press its worldview, and by the way, it has kind of a spectrum, it's kind of a worldview buffet that the world has out there, and they really don't care which one you pick as long as it's not Christianity, right? as long as it's not biblical faith. So the world is constantly trying to press its worldview on people, and these days we have extra little helpers.

It's called electronics. Nancy and I both used to work in the electronics field, and this was getting to be a half a lifetime ago, 30 years ago, I was a marketing manager for an electronics company. But the reality is that the The process of the world pressing its view upon people has been going on for centuries. It is amplified and facilitated with the electronics that we have today and makes it all the more challenging. But understand worldview and dealing with that can be hard work and getting people to sort through things and think through things can be hard work. But in the end, behavior comes from belief.

For all their lifetimes, these people have been brought up to believe that the sacrifice of these bulls was exactly what Zeus wanted them to do. And now, after, in fact, decades, if not centuries, was a grand opportunity like they had never seen before. People talk for generations about the next time that Zeus and Hermes would come again. So these people were looking forward to this. It was all in their minds, this now is our chance, right?

So who they believed Paul and Barnabas were, and what they thought Paul and Barnabas desired of them was so well entrenched, it was difficult, hard, even for Paul and Barnabas to change their behavior because of their belief. The worldview that they had was very well entrenched.

So, the stewardship of Christian parents includes, and I say includes because we've got more of this to talk about, don't we? There are more parenting principles in the book of Acts yet to come. But the stewardship of Christian parents includes conveying not just salvation and morals and ethics to their children, okay? but also to communicate a worldview that is biblical.

See that? Communicating a worldview that is biblical. This is key. They are to communicate not just that there is a God, but his eternal character and all the things that the Bible says are important and are biblical reality. That's a lot. That's a tall order, isn't it? Especially when the world has so many impressive things flowing in so easily. Especially these days, electronically.

Everyone is glued to their phones and glued to their iPads and all the other things. One of the things to look at, however, is parents always communicate. Sometimes they communicate by silence about things. Parents communicate by how they spend their time. One of the things that I've shared, and I'll do it now even though my mom and dad are still alive, this next month we'll celebrate my mom's 90th birthday. If my dad is allowed so long, he'll be 92 in May.

But one of the things that happened as I was growing up, my dad just didn't spend much time with us. And then he moved us three hours north while he stayed down in the San Francisco Bay Area. We lived out on the farm. So here's the origin of all the farm stories, right? But it was away from dad. Didn't get to see dad, right? But even that communicated. Even that communicated. So silence, absence, those communicate things.

Parents always communicate. And this is key. and to simply be aware of it and to consider it, and even under certain circumstances to talk about, okay, we're going here and here's what's happening, here's why we're doing this, right? They communicate what is reality. They communicate what is important to them. By both words and by example, they communicate. Parents always communicate.

What they communicate with and to their children is something the children will assess and they will decide in the end which of the worldviews they will adopt as their own. Because all the worldviews are being put out there. Sometimes this assessment becomes fairly apparent at a younger age, maybe preteen or early teens. Other times this assessment doesn't become apparent until later years. A sad statistic is 60% or more, depending on which study you look at, 60% or more of kids who start college as Christians don't end up college as Christians. Does that say don't send them to college? Nope. That's not the message. The point being that worldview needs to be something that they understand and have a defense for. For me, those college years were very critical in carrying out ministry and helping others with worldview.

Further insight here, the worldview that Christian parents communicate is one that is to be deliberate, conscious and based on thoughtful understanding. Always thinking we are communicating a worldview and to be aware of that. Scripture also says that the Father has the primary and essential responsibility to communicate about these things and this of course comes out of Ephesians chapter 6 verses 1 through 4 that gives the father the primary and essential responsibility for communicating things, teaching. The church has a clear supportive role in the parents' place to convey a biblical worldview. Is it the church's responsibility? No, but the church has a very important supportive role in that.

If not, the world has plenty of worldviews to offer, and it's got some very good technology in place to deliver it. So, very important here. Now, we've been talking about God's will, and here's where it fits in. As we've been touching on God's will, it is critical that worldviews be clearly understood as the basis for knowing and finding God's will. God's sovereign will includes an understanding of who God is, what God has done, and what God has set in place for every single believer. God has set in place the position and possessions of every single believer.

And understanding that is one of the reasons I'm excited for all three electives that we are offering next month. Ephesians, the first four and a half chapters, talk about our position and possessions in Christ. Fantastic. Romans, about half the book, is about our position in Christ. Unfathomable riches in Christ. We will spend the whole year about our position in Christ. So who you are in Him. So these are all great resources. And so I'll mark out all three of them. Right. Now, so the big picture, here's where it fits in.

God's sovereign will is fixed and irreversible and includes your position and possessions in Him and includes all these things about worldview. These are the things that are critical because the next circles in, as we've been carrying out this illustration, God's moral will is revealed in scriptures intended to be lived by the life of Christ. If you don't, however, have the outside circle set in your mind, what God's moral will is won't matter a whole lot to you. You see that? I first need to understand who God is and what He has done, understand who I am in Him, or God's moral will won't matter a lot. So that's why this outside circle is critical.

It's one of the reasons why I'm excited for the electives that we're offering. It is one of the ways, not the only way, that the church can support the parents' stewardship. And finally, God's individual will consists mostly of learning to make wise decisions with godly wisdom rather than worldly wisdom as one walks in fellowship with the Lord. But that all begins by having a biblical worldview.

That is what the Apostle Paul is wrestling with here. So anyway, as we go through here, we will see how this turns out. It's actually going to turn out pretty rough for Paul and Barnabas. They go from being looked upon as the gods to being someone that needs to study rocks up close, which is a stoning. So we'll see that in the next chapter here.

So this worldview issue is big. It impacts the outcome here. And we'll see also that even with the best of spokesmen, People have their individual choices, which is true of children, right? Even with the best representation, they have an individual responsibility to respond to what their parents are saying. So we'll see some valuable pointers on parenting as we go through here.

We'll see some valuable insights into God's will. And as we talked about earlier, some key insights into how God wants evangelism to be carried out. Let's pray. Thank you, Lord, for your word that you've laid out so many valuable things to us here, things that matter for this life, things that matter for beyond this life. And we just thank you for that. We thank you as we see Paul and Barnabas in reliance and dependence upon you, still going through a tough time. We thank you that as we go through whatever times you have for us, that we can still count upon you, rely upon you, and depend upon your faithfulness. We thank you in Jesus' name. Amen.