"Faithful Suffering" (Acts 9:19-31)

Transcript:

Well, let us stand together for the reading of God's word this morning as we hear our sermon text, which will be from Acts chapter 9. We'll be looking at the last part of verse 19 all the way through verse 31. If you're using a pew Bible, this is on page 1090. 1090.

Hear now the word of the Lord from Acts, chapter 9, verses 19 through 31. For some days he was with the disciples at Damascus. And immediately he proclaimed Jesus in the synagogues, saying he is the Son of God. And all who heard him were amazed and said, is not this the man who made havoc in Jerusalem of those who called upon this name? And has he not come here for this purpose to bring them bound before the chief priests?

But Saul increased all the more in strength and confounded the Jews who lived in Damascus by proving that Jesus was the Christ. When many days had passed, the Jews plotted to kill him. But their plot became known to Saul. They were watching the gates day and night in order to kill him. But his disciples took him by night and led him down through an opening in the wall, lowering him basket.

And when he had come to Jerusalem, he attempted to join the disciples. And they were all afraid of him, for they did not believe that he was a disciple. But Barnabas took him and brought him to the apostles and declared to them how on the road he had seen the Lord who spoke to him, and how at Damascus he had preached boldly in the name of Jesus. So he went in and out among them at Jerusalem, preaching boldly in the name of Jesus of the Lord. And he spoke and disputed against the Hellenists, but they were seeking to kill him.

And when the brothers learned this, they brought him down to Caesarea and sent him off to Tarsus. So the church throughout all Judea and Galilee and Samaria had peace and was being built up and walking in the fear of the Lord and in the comfort of the Holy Spirit, it multiplied. This is the word of the Lord. Please be seated.

Let's pray together as we prepare to hear this word from the Lord. Gracious heavenly Father, we pray that as we come to your word, that your spirit would be among us, that your spirit would fill us. Father, we pray that you would give us hearts to understand and eyes to see and ears to hear all that is contained in the good news of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Who is the Son of God and who is the Christ? It's in his name we pray.

Amen.

Well, last week we studied a passage from the Gospel of Matthew where Jesus gave US explicit teaching about the true nature of leadership, namely, the way that leadership would require humiliation and particularly suffering, that leaders were the first to share in Christ's sufferings. Now, whenever we study the Bible, the old formula is that we need to look for both precepts and examples. We look for precepts, the direct, explicit teaching principles, ideas about something. And then we try, so far as we can, to combine those pre precepts with examples, clear stories where we see real life people, people just like you and me living in human history, who are trying to live these things out. And we see they live up to them or they fall short of them, and we see sort of the consequences that come from, to whatever degree they are or are not able to live up to those things.

Precept, an example. We got the precept last week, and this week we are going to look at the example. In fact, this is one of many, many examples where we see the necessity of suffering in the lives of God's people, and particularly in the lives of God's leaders. While the suffering in life can take many forms, this morning we were made aware of a sudden death. And that is a great tragedy that people go through.

There are also various sufferings in life as we're challenged, as we run into difficulties in our families, as we struggle to work or to make ends meet, or we struggle to figure out direction in our lives. There are many kinds of suffering, but the one kind of suffering that arises repeatedly in the life of Saul particularly comes from one source. It is faithfulness in preaching the Gospel of Jesus. And we are going to see the very beginning, this first snapshot of the ministry of the Apostle Paul, although here he is called Saul, so we'll call him Saul today. And we're going to see this, that there is a great connection between Saul's faithfulness in preaching Jesus as the Son of God and as the Christ, and the suffering that he experiences because of that.

And so our theme this morning is this, that faithful preaching leads to faithful suffering. There's an interconnection. Faithful preaching leads to faithful suffering. Now, in every age, there are new pressures, new reasons that the world hates the preaching of the Gospel. But in every age, it's consistent.

For whatever reason, whatever it looks like, whatever the justification for it, faithful preaching always leads to faithful suffering. So three parts to our sermon this morning. First of all, faithful preaching. We're going to see that first summary of Saul's ministry in verses 19 through 22. And then second, faithful suffering.

First from enemies. Faithful suffering from enemies. In verses 23, 25. But then third, faithful suffering within the church. Faithful suffering within the church in verses 26 to 31.

So we'll start with faithful preaching in verses 19 through 22. Now, where we are jumping into this passage is right after Saul had traveled up to Damascus with a warrant in his hands to arrest Christians, to take them back to Jerusalem in chains, where they could be tried before the Sanhedrin. But on the way there, the Lord Jesus Christ appeared to arrest him, to capture him, to redirect him from the path that he was taking. Not to Damascus, he'll continue on to Damascus physically. But the spiritual path he was on.

He went from a man who hated the church, who hated professing Christians, to a man who was held captive as a slave, a bondservant of the Lord Jesus Christ, to do his bidding. And Jesus said in Acts, chapter 9, verse 16, that he would show him how much he would suffer for the sake of the name of Jesus. What we're going to see is that starts immediately. So after Saul received his sight, he was struck blind for a time. After he was baptized, after he took food.

In the very end of the last passage that we looked at, after he was strengthened, we read for some days. He was with the disciples at Damascus. Now, what is he doing here? Well, we don't exactly know. But there is one thing that we must exclude, and that is the idea that he was there to learn from these disciples at Damascus.

This is a very important point in Saul's life. That he did not learn the Gospel from anyone, any human, merely human, but that he learned the Gospel by revelation from Jesus Christ himself. And he tells us this in Galatians, chapter 1. In verse 12, he says, For I did not receive it, the Gospel, from any man, nor was I taught it, but I received it through a revelation of Jesus Christ then, starting in verse 15. But when he who had set me apart before I was born, and who called me by his grace, was pleased to reveal his Son to me in order that I might preach him among the Gentiles, I did not immediately consult with anyone, nor did I go up to Jerusalem to those who were apostles before me.

But I went away into Arabia, returned again to Damascus. Now, Luke does not tell us the timeline of where exactly these events sit, but we do see this time where Saul remains in Damascus, and then he will go later to Jerusalem. Now, Saul, we should remember, not only saw Jesus in a vision on the road to Damascus, when Jesus arrested him and redirected the course of his life from that point forward. But if you remember back in Acts, chapter 9, verse 12, when Saul, after Saul has been struck blind and after the Lord appears to Ananias, telling Ananias to go to Saul to restore his sight, to lead him to the Lord to baptize him, notice Jesus says there. And he, Saul has seen in a vision a man named Ananias come in and lay hands on him so that he might regain his sight.

So as he's awaiting this, we read that Saul has another vision where he's seeing what Ananias is going to do. It's possible that in this further vision or in some other vision that we are not told about, Saul is already being told more about Jesus. And the reason that's important is because in verse 20, we read and immediately he proclaimed Jesus in the synagogue. The very first thing Paul does after he sort of collects himself, gets his bearings, gets some food, gathers his strength, remains with his disciples, immediately he is out the door preaching the Gospel in the synagogues. Now, later, Paul is going to explain the reason for this.

Saul, later named Paul, is going to explain the reason for this is because he himself was a Jew. And throughout his life he was burdened for the salvation of his fellow Jews. He says in Philippians 3, verse 5, that he was a Hebrew of Hebrews, and so he's burdened for the salvation of his people. And so immediately he goes to the synagogues to preach Jesus there. And look at the first summary we have of his message.

We read that he was saying that he. Or more literally, this is emphatic. It's not just the words He. It is this one. This one is the Son of God.

Now, Jesus is regularly called the Son of God throughout the New Testament, but this is the only place in the Book of Acts where Jesus is called the Son of God. It's no mistake that these are the first words about Jesus that we hear on the lips of Saul. Saul is going to become very important. We're going to follow Saul's ministry and career very closely. And these first words out of his mouth summarize the core of his message.

And they declare what Saul faithfully would declare as the great apostle Paul, that Jesus is the Son of God. Remember, Saul had just seen the resurrected glory of Jesus Christ. He had a firsthand experience of the glory of God's only begotten Son, God of God, light of light, very God of very God, Begotten, not made. This is not a creature whom God created. This is the eternally begotten Son of God.

When Jesus called himself the Son of God. The reason he was opposed in John 5 is because to say that he is the Son of God was to make himself equal with God. And that's exactly how we need to understand this statement, that this is a statement about the equality of Jesus with God, that the Son with the Holy Spirit and the Father together are to be worshipped and glorified, just as we confessed in the Nicene Creed this morning. Now, in verse 21, this caused a reaction. Certainly this bold preaching of the Gospel of Jesus would have caused a reaction in the synagogues if anyone had been preaching it.

But it especially causes a reaction because of the messenger, because of the one who is preaching this message in verse 21. And all who heard him were amazed and said, is not this the man who made havoc in Jerusalem of those who called upon his name? They knew that he was a persecutor of the church. And has he not come here for this purpose to bring them bound before the chief priests? Everyone knew the mission of Saul to come up to Damascus to arrest believers and bring them back down to Jerusalem.

But in the midst of this, in verse 22, we read that Saul increased all the more in strength. Remember at the end of verse 19A, the first part of verse 19, the last part of verse 19 that we looked at last week, we read that after taking food, he was strengthened. So he was sort of physically strengthened. Well, this is more than a physical strength that we read. He strengthened, he became stronger.

In other words, he increased in strength spiritually. Everywhere he went there was a boldness and a power and a weight to what he was preaching. And we read that he confounded the Jews who lived in Damascus by proving that Jesus was the Christ. This word for proving here is the idea of combining or uniting or maybe tying together things. It's the idea that Saul was engaged in the work of taking the declarations about the Messiah from the Old Testament, putting one next to another and showing piece by piece, combining one piece after another to show, to prove, to demonstrate that truly the long awaited Messiah that God's people had been looking for for hundreds and thousands of years had come.

And his name was Jesus. This Jesus was the Christ. The idea of the Christ is the Hebrew word is Messiah. We would translate it in English as anointed One. Whenever you read about the Christ or the Messiah or the Anointed one, this refers back to the Old Testament offices that were entered into by anointing with oil.

Now we have one last office officer to install today. There wasn't Oil last week. There will not be oil again this week because the oil that was used in the Old Testament was for anointing prophets and priests and kings. And we're told in First John chapter two, that we all have what that anointing pointed toward. That anointing always pointed forward to the ministry of the Holy Spirit.

And now that the Spirit has been given at Pentecost, we, we all have this anointing so that we all know Jesus from the greatest of us to the least, who are looking to him and believing on his name. But Jesus was the anointed one in a unique way, the one who was the ultimate prophet, the ultimate priest and the ultimate king. Now we know from the way that Luke is writing this passage that he is summarizing what Saul preached, what Saul taught. He was in the synagogues, he was saying just one little short snippet. We have, we read that he increased in strength and he was confounding them and proving them.

There's a lot more content, there are a lot more ins and outs of the arguments that Saul makes that we are not given here. But note the summary that Luke gives us. If you knew nothing else of Saul's ministry, you could boil it down to these two declarations that Jesus is the Son of God and that Jesus is the Christ as the Son of God. We have the important, all important declaration that he is true God, sent as the Son from the Father from heaven into this world for us and for our salvation. And when we declare that Jesus is the Christ, we are declaring that he is a true Christ man, a true human being who has come to enter into and to fill up to the uttermost what those Old Testament human offices were to do, to be mediators between God and man, as the prophets who mediated God's word to God's people, as the priest who mediated going between a sinful people sacrificially to a holy God, as the King who mediated God's will for his people.

He is true God. He is true man. He is the Son of God. He is the Christ. From this summary very early on in the church, if you read the history of the church, this became the summary of the faithful preaching of the church.

We see it here, it extends all the way even beyond the New Testament era. And you can read it's very soon called the Rule of Faith. And this was sort of the test did teachers hold to this preaching that we can trace to the beginning of the church. It was then summarized very early on in a form that we know as the Apostles Creed. The apostles did not write that, but it is a faithful summary of what the apostles taught as we see here.

And that creed was then defined and given greater clarity about the nature of Jesus as the Son of God and the Nicene Creed, which we confess this morning. But the point I'm trying to draw is that in every age one generation declares God's works to the next, declares the person and the work of God's only begotten Son, Jesus, who is the Christ. But in every age, those who preach this gospel faithfully suffer as this gospel for different reasons, but universally at all times is hated and opposed and despised and persecuted. And we see the first fruits of this here in verses 23 and 25, the second section of the sermon. Faithful suffering from enemies.

Now we've already seen the persecution of the church, but now we see pulls Saul's first taste of the suffering that would so characterize his life. We read in verse 23 when many days had passed. Now again, Luke does not tell us about what Paul tells us in Galatians chapter one, that at some point he went to Arabia and learned directly from Jesus. But this is almost certainly where this period must have been when many days had passed, Saul was there ministering some of the time. Saul was gone for a part of the time in Arabia.

And now Saul has returned to Damascus. And we read when many days had passed, the Jews plotted to kill him. Well, this is no wonder, because as much as they hated his message earlier, how much more would they hate his message when he was strengthened and when he was equipped to preach that message all the more clearly from his time in Arabia with Jesus? Again, Galatians 1:17. I went away into Arabia and I returned again to Damascus.

Well, we don't know how long this entire period lasted, although later we are going to see that he's going to go to Jerusalem. And we know that from his conversion to the time that he entered in Jerusalem was about three years from Galatians 1, verse 18. So this whole scene is about a three year period of Saul's early ministry. Now again we have seen persecution against the church already in early Acts, and that persecution we've talked about grew slowly. In Acts chapter four again there were about three chapters where there was no persecution.

The world was kind of in shock from this early growing group of Christians. But in Acts chapter four there was an arrest made and then the apostles were let off with just a warning. In Acts chapter six there was more persecution. This time not a warning, but a flogging. A beating.

And then in Acts, chapter seven, it's rapidly picking up steam, both in intensity and speed. Only then do we have the execution of a Christian, Stephen, for the witness that he bore. And it was Saul himself who spearheaded the next wave of persecution in Acts, chapter eight. But now here the persecutor has become the persecuted. The Jews plotted to kill him.

Now, it's important to remember in verses 24 and 25, as their plot becomes known to Saul, and he's able to escape from the wall lowering, lowered in a basket, it's important to remember that Jesus also frequently escaped suffering, and Saul at different times will also escape suffering. But this is not because that was always their first thing that they were looking to do. They were just trying always to avoid any kind of pain and suffering. Suffering, far from it. They avoided suffering because their time had not yet come.

They avoided suffering in the moment, some suffering because they were set apart for a much greater suffering later. They avoided this lesser suffering to embrace greater suffering at another time. But the story here is nevertheless heroic. It's valiant, but even in an escape, it's not to safety, but to more suffering. And because suffering would encompass his entire life, he escapes this.

There's much that he will not escape, especially later on, because eventually, the end of the story is that Saul is eventually shipped to Rome, where he bears witness before the emperor and church. History tells us that he was beheaded for his faith in Christ. But as every true disciple of Jesus understands, suffering comes primarily from the world's hatred of the church. But also suffering is arising, something that arises in the course of our experience within the church. Paul talks elsewhere.

In Second Corinthians, chapter 11, verse 28, he says, Apart from all of the great things that he has suffered in many ways, he says, there is daily pressure on me of my anxiety. For all the churches, there's always suffering. And so this is our third section. It's important for us to think through faithful suffering within the church in verses 26 through 21. It is not surprising in verse 26 that the church would not trust Saul.

That's probably the most unsurprising thing ever. Here is a sworn enemy of the church, someone with a warrant in hand to arrest believers. Come on in, let's have you in. This will be a great time that we'll all have together. There's no surprise that they don't trust him in verse 26.

But think about this from Saul's perspective. He has been arrested by Jesus Christ. He's lost his sight for a time he has already suffered and been the target of death threats in the course of his ministry. He's had to go away to Arabia to learn more from Jesus, and he's suffered here. He had to be lowered through the wall.

And now here he has come to Jerusalem, to the cradle of the church, and he's come to the early believers who were there, and they will not accept him. This is a time of testing for Saul. Will he faithfully endure this time of testing? Will he patiently seek to gain the trust of the people? Or will he get so frustrated that the church doesn't just suddenly accept this man, that he splinters off and does his own thing?

That would be the American thing to do. If at first you're not accepted, go do your own thing somewhere else. Right? But Calvin writes of this passage. He says that patience through humiliation is a necessary part of preparation for leadership in the church.

Now, Saul is tested here. He is tried. But look at the actions of Barnabas in verse 27. We see here true spiritual leadership in the church by this man named Barnabas, who was always doing this kind of thing. He was always someone who sought out the down and outs and came to their effort and aid.

And you need people like this in the church. But Barnabas took him and brought him to the apostles and declared to them how on the road he, Saul, had seen the Lord who spoke to him to Saul, and how at Damascus he had preached boldly in the name of Jesus. Here's Barnabas taking Saul under his wing, bringing him, vouching for him, putting his reputation, putting his life on the line by entrusting himself to Saul, bringing him before the apostles and saying, no, we really can trust this guy. This is our guy. He's on our side.

Jesus, in fact, has made him an apostle in the church. Now again, Barnas experienced this or exercised this leadership, and this is important for Saul. But it also became the basis for a trust that developed between the two, so that later on, Saul, later named Paul and Barnabas are going to go many places as missionaries together. And it's forged in the risk that Barnabas took to put his neck out for Saul. Well, again, after all of this is cleared up, and tentatively perhaps, the disciples send Saul out to minister in their name.

Saul does exactly that. He. He went in and out among them, among the disciples at Jerusalem. This idea of going in and out is an Old Testament expression. It means that he had regular fellowship with them.

He went in and out in their midst. But we read that he was preaching boldly in the Name of Jesus. And he spoke and he disputed against the Hellenists. These were the Greek speaking Jews in Jerusalem. These were the hardcore Jews who had moved to Jerusalem, even though they were brought up elsewhere in Greek speaking places outside of Jerusalem because they wanted to be in the holy city.

They were Hebrew of Hebrews. And Saul again loved them and went to them to preach the Gospel of Jesus. This love was not returned. They were rather seeking to kill him. But here again we see the brothers learning of this, not saying, well, why don't you just go ahead and take care of him?

And that will clear up this question we have about his character. We read note, the church has come around. The brothers learned this and they brought him down to Caesarea and sent him off to Tarsus. Down is down. From the elevation on a map, this would be moving northward toward Tarsus.

Tarsus is Saul's hometown. He's going back to his hometown. What is he doing there? Is he preaching? We don't know.

But almost certainly that's the only thing that Saul does. But look at verse 31. Now we have one of these great summary statements in the Book of Acts, and this one is actually uniquely important. So the church, so the church singular throughout all Judea and Galilee and Samaria had peace and was being built up. Now, normally the word church in the singular is used to describe an individual congregation.

We'd say first church is a church, but these aren't individual or this isn't a single congregation. This is the church, the connectional church in three very different areas in Judea and Galilee and Samaria. And so we're seeing something of the Bible's vision for the connectional nature of the church. Some traditions genuinely believe that the church is only an individual congregation and we are united in some spiritual sense, but not too much beyond that. One of the reasons we are part of a reformed tradition is because of the emphasis on the connectional nature of the church.

This is why our participation in the denomination, the Presbyterian Church in America, is important. But there's another hint and you probably can't see it in English. That's very important. As we think about the connection nature of the church, believe it or not, that word throughout is extremely important. In Greek, the phrase is katholes, catholes.

It's the word from which we get our word Catholic from catholes Catholic. And it means according to the whole and what we can see here when we confess in one catholic, holy apostolic church. We are not talking about the Roman Catholic Church, we are talking about the Church throughout the World, just like it's being talked about here. This church throughout the known world, wherever the church was at this time in Galilee and Samaria and Judea, this was the church throughout the world. So far, this was the Catholic Church.

So far our problems with the Roman Catholic Church is not with their Catholic, their Catholic beliefs, that is the beliefs that are held throughout the universal Church, but rather with their Romanness. For example, the idea of the Pope not being a pastor, but sort of styled after the Roman Emperor, we believe the scriptures teach of pastors are supposed to be pastors, not Roman emperors. So the word Catholic is a very important word that we need to retain even as Protestants. But the third thing that we see in this section, beyond the singular church throughout this whole region and the Catholic nature of the Church, we see third, that even as persecution rises, the Lord is at work. And we read that they're walking in the fear of the Lord and in comfort of the Holy Spirit.

And multiplied. The fellowship team is bringing comfort food next week. But that's not the comfort that's taken talked about here. The comfort here is consolation and exhortation to press forward in Christ. Well, this simple story has a wide range of applications and I think it's well to think about different places that people might be coming from today.

Maybe you were here this morning needing to hear the Gospel that so preached from the beginning, that the church has preached ever since then all the way up to the present day. The gospel that Saul faithfully suffered for here and continued to suffer for until the day when he was beheaded in Rome.

We preach here the same message about what the Scriptures bear witness concerning Jesus. That he is the eternally begotten Son of God and that he is the Christ. He is true God and he is true human. As true God, he was able to accomplish all that we were not able to do. He was able to establish and accomplish a perfect spotless righteousness of God's requirements for us that we have so far fallen short of.

But as true man, he did this in human nature, like ours in every respect, yet without sin, suffering, bleeding and dying in our place for our sins. And he did this as the true God and the true man, so that all those who turn from sin and look to Jesus in faith can be forgiven of sins and can be adopted into the family of God as gods own children. This is a gospel that is held out to all. If you do not know Jesus Christ this morning again, life is so short, Life is so precious and eternity is long. Do you know Jesus this morning Maybe you need to turn to him today.

Or maybe you were here this morning needing to reorganize your life around faithfulness to the gospel. Saul was someone who needed his life not only to hear the gospel, but he needed his life reorganized. It was headed in the wrong direction entirely. But once the Lord Jesus got a hold of him, his life was forever marked by faithful preaching which led to faithful suffering. If others looked at your life, would they say, that is a man or a woman or a child who is given to Jesus Christ everywhere?

The gospel of Jesus is first in priority on this person's life mind, even when it requires suffering. Now, sometimes there is the heroic struggling. Maybe you will at some point need to be lowered through a city wall in a basket. That kind of an escape from suffering. Or maybe you will have to enter every day of your life into the faithful, mundane suffering of ongoing faithfulness.

With many difficulties that surround us. Trying to continue to follow Jesus in your homes, in your families, in your relationships, in your jobs, amidst all of the challenges and difficulties that you face along the way, where would others see your willingness to suffer for the sake of the cause of Jesus Christ? Christ? Or maybe you were here this morning with serious hurts, serious doubts about the church. Every believer has been hurt by the church.

There's a wide movement going on today to try to dredge all of these up in order to justify deconstructing from the faith. Look at all of the ways that I have hurt. Therefore, the gospel of Jesus cannot be true. That's the argument, essentially. I don't want to excuse any legitimate hurts that anyone has experienced in the church.

But what I want to recognize is that not only have you been hurt by the church, I guarantee you that you have hurt others in the church. Because the church is not a place of perfect people. The church is a place of sinners, among whom the Lord is working out our salvation and sanctification. Imagine that this room is like a great big rock tumbler and the Lord is just tumbling us around where we have all of these jagged, sharp edges. And as we tumble around and bump into one another, do you know what the Lord is doing?

He's smoothing all of those jagged edges out. And do you know what? We come out on the other side. After all the bumping and the beating and the hurts and the bruises, we come out on the other side, Paul, polished and smooth and beautiful. Are you worried?

Are you hurt? Are you anxious? Are you thinking about deconstructing your faith? Don't do that. Look to Saul's example Faithfully endure patiently, wait.

Come talk to a pastor or elder if you need, but find a way to continue to trust the Lord as he works out those sharp, jagged edges in your life. Maybe, though you were here this morning in need of comfort, consolation in the midst of suffering, Saul lived as a man possessed by Christ because he had personally seen Christ's resurrected glory. Well, be encouraged. We were not given those visions today, but we will one day. One day every eye will see him.

One day the Lord will return in glory, and on that day your faith will be turned to sight. Though you have not seen him, you love him. And we are given strength in the scriptures that will steel our faith, help us to see Jesus by faith until that day when our faith has made sight. Philippians 4:4, 5. Rejoice in the Lord always.

Again I will say, rejoice. Let your reasonableness be known to everyone why the Lord is at hand. First Corinthians 15:58. Therefore, my beloved brothers, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that in the Lord your labor is not in vain. He will come, and right now he is working, and he is working in your life and through your life.

Will you be faithful to proclaim him? Will you to be faithful, to suffer for his sake? Let's pray. Gracious Father, we pray that you would indeed make us faithful people. Father, we are not by nature faithful by nature.

We hate you and we hate our neighbor. Father, forgive us for our evil, sinful, wicked hearts. Reconcile us to you through what you have done, through Christ Jesus our Lord. And we pray that as we are in this big rock tumbler called a church, we pray that as we bump against each other, that you would use all of those bumps and bruises not to drive us from Christ, not to drive us from the people. These precious saints that you've put us in fellowship with here.

But that iron would sharpen iron, and we'd come out as smooth, polished rocks set in the walls of your temple, being built up as a holy dwelling place for your spirit until Jesus Christ returns and we are all glorified with him forever. I pray this in Christ's name, Amen.