Relationship between Paul and Timothy — Acts 16

0:00 Well, it is good to be with you all. Thank you, whoever made the sweet tea. It was it was excellent. I enjoyed it, and I will continue to enjoy it. Fabulous dessert choice back there.

0:20 I understand that Libby was responsible for that and for that, or not all of it, but for a lot of it. Wonderful choices, but I heard something at the table tonight that I just have to verify. How many of you know what banana pudding is? Oh, y'all are deprived people. Wow.

0:46 Now, my wife got her lemon pie thinking it was banana pudding and the two young ladies at the table said, what is banana pudding? And you can't grow up where we grow up without having banana pudding at every church function that I mean, you can't be a Christian down south and not know what banana pudding is. So, I was trying to see am I am I among friends or I'm with enemies or what's the deal? But no, y'all need Andrew, you need to do some educating on that. I was really excited when Andy asked for me to do be a part of this conference.

1:27 I said, wow. Recording in. Isn't that the relationship conference? I said, finally, finally, people have recognized my un paralleled gift in instructing couples how to have a happy marriage. I mean, everybody across the country knows that Tammy and David have mastered, mastered the sixth love language.

1:56 We're coming out with a book and it's called sarcasm and how it will help your marriage. We I was disabused of the notion that I was going to help anybody with their marriage and he said, no, we'd like you to look at something. It is generally a relationships conference but you're you're free to do whatever you you want to within the word and I've been thinking about this relationship between Paul and Timothy and I thought of your meeting because it is a let me just stop and tell you how great you have it here. You may not know that. You may have no idea what I'm talking about.

2:45 Some of you do. But I come from a meeting in which we have one child in the nursery. All the kids went off to college and did not come home. I sat here on the verge of weeping hearing the music, and I'm not a very sensitive person. I'm very concerned.

3:16 I have a cow back home that bloated and I might lose my cow. That's what concerns me, okay? I don't sit here and just go, oh, what a construction of musical notes and what? No, I'm not one of those types but you have no idea the talent that you have here. Elders, let me just start and tell you, don't waste that.

3:36 I don't think you are but I can say from a long experience that sometimes music causes problems that it shouldn't and I I'm just telling you, if I have a daughter-in-law that comes into marriage via marriage to my son who can play the fiddle, I know that's a violin to to Noah but I'm just saying, a fiddle to me back home. She could, the whole farm. Everything goes to them. There's just something about that sound that I just I'm I'm transported into a happy place. So, but I just want to encourage y'all with those practical man, you've got so much here.

4:45 Now, young people, old people are here for a reason. Number one, they birthed you. Number one, they fed you. Number one, they sent you off to college or off to career or something of that nature. They're sometimes wrong.

5:04 That is the truth. They're sometimes wrong. But they've lived life that you haven't yet. So, before you get really antsy to tell them how wrong they are for how they run stuff, stop. Say, I haven't yet survived to be 50.

5:55 You and me today. We're going to look at several different subjects. Your green sheet or your white sheet says that we'll be looking at the relationship of Paul and Timothy and and I'm just going to tell you, it's actually a and b. Because they're not going to be a simple break between Paul and Timothy and we'll explain that but we're also going to be looking at what Paul taught Timothy and what he teaches us today about relationships in the epistles to Timothy. We'll look at that tomorrow afternoon and then on Sunday, we're going to look at the relationship and and I I I've got a I've got a slide that says this.

6:36 I I couldn't come up with the right wording but it's amazing what Paul teaches Timothy and us regarding the relationship of mankind, the relationship of the church, the relationship of Timothy to the truth itself And we're going to look at that relationship on Sunday morning. So that's just sort of a little trail, if you will, of what we will accomplish over this weekend, Lord willing. I do want to make this caveat. We have no actual pictures of Paul and Timothy. So, anything you see up here is a representation.

7:18 If you get to heaven and you don't recognize Timothy by my slides, I hope you'll be able to forgive me in glory. We're just using what we could find online and this will probably be our, I'll say that, our only PowerPoint of the weekend because they kind of constrain me but this is one that lends itself to some visual help. This is our outline for tonight's message. We're going to look at the setting of the relationship. We're going to look at the sorties.

7:57 Some of you military people know what that means. It's going out. It's it's an old English word for for for leaving and going to do business somewhere else. We're going to look at service and we're going to look at the sacrifice of both of these men. This is going to set the context for our looking at the teaching that we will see in the scriptures.

8:25 Before we get into that though, I'm going ask the Lord to help me. And in doing so, I hope that he will utilize the words that we say tonight to glorify his son and to encourage y'all. Dearly father, we just thank you. We thank you that you love us. We thank you that you displayed your love in a magnificent way by sending your son, the Lord Jesus, to die for us.

8:58 We sang that song, The Goodness of Jesus. Oh, Father, how good our Savior is. I pray this weekend that if folks are here and they don't know him as Savior, they will come to meet him. And I hope that you will use your word this weekend to energize your people in a way that brings unprecedented blessing to the name of your son in this community through the folks here at Westlake Bible Fellowship. Father, I can't do any of those things, but I can present your word and I ask you to help me to present it in such a way that folks here, in such a way that I don't block what you'd have them here this weekend.

9:50 Father, we thank you for your word again. We thank you for your love. We thank you for your son. We ask for help in his precious name. Amen.

10:42 We're going to be within the confines of that orangish, pinkish, whatever color that is. The Roman Empire stretched around the Mediterranean Sea basically making it a Roman lake. We're going to be looking at different places throughout this area tonight as we explore the historical setting of this relationship between Paul and Timothy. The two Roman emperors that were alive during this time that the relationship between Paul and Timothy began and grew and physically ended with the death of Paul were Claudius and Nero. Both of them reigned approximately fourteen or so years and twelve to fourteen years apiece, basically.

11:53 Claudius was 41, A. D. '40 one to 54, and Nero was 54 to 68. Spring of sixty eight. What were they known for?

12:07 Well, Claudius expanded the Roman Empire all the way up into Britain. I heard some folks said they were in Scotland. Recently, we have been to Scotland and and and our our trip to Scotland a couple years ago, we actually went to one of the major fortresses that the Romans had in Wales and it's down near Cardiff. If you're ever in Wales, there's a wonderful assembly in Cardiff, Bethany, just an amazing little place to go visit and about thirty minutes up the road from that are are actual ruins of the Romans and you can go in. We actually should have used pictures from that trip, that trip on these slides but we, of course, didn't think about it till I got up here and started speaking.

12:54 So, it's amazing how your mind says, you're an idiot. Why didn't you use those? Well, it would have been nice too because the the fortress was called Iska Augusta and the town, the chapel where I go to is in Augusta, Georgia. So, I could've connected that. It'd have been brilliant.

13:11 Young men that are learning how to preach. I just gave you a lesson in what not to do. Try to make connections. Anyway, he expanded the empire into Britain and he adopted or named Nero as his successor. Nero was not his actual son but this was a common practice in the Roman Empire.

13:35 Nero is infamous. Everybody knows or should know about in about Nero. I gave you a positive. He built the Coliseum. There's not really much positive that went on in the Coliseum.

13:50 Eventually, you you're going to know or if you study anything, you're going to know that Christians were horribly persecuted but it wasn't just Christians. The value of human life was at what might be an all time low in Rome. Just the absolute slaughter, the use of human beings as entertainment for the crowds. The Coliseum is an incredibly impressive place. Have any of you been to Rome?

14:18 Anybody been to Rome? Okay, got one. So, this redneck has been somewhere that y'all haven't been. I'm just going to tell you, go to Rome. If you get a chance, Food's not as good as they think it is but but the coliseum is incredible.

14:36 It's it's just that area down there and and Nero was responsible for a lot of building in that area. He was also probably responsible or at least utilize the great fire that wiped away a lot of of the old Rome to build some of these projects and he needed a scapegoat for that and that he utilized the Christians and so we have primary source material that tells us that he used Christians as human torches in his garden parties. He would take Christians. He would wrap them up in animal skins and release them, not them. He would throw them out and then release animals to devour and destroy those Christians and he is responsible for the martyrdom according to tradition of both Paul and Peter.

15:37 Needless to say, Nero was an enemy of the lord Jesus and unfortunately, both of these men, though they rose to the heights of human power during their day, both of these men are in abject torture tonight because they died apart from Jesus Christ. The thing I would like to remind you folks is you don't have to be a Nero or a Claudius to die an enemy of the lord Jesus. All you have to do is say no. I, well, thank you. I hope you don't say no later on to what I'm saying right now but thank you for listening.

16:27 That was that was excellent. Folks, all you have to do is look at the goodness of Jesus and say no. All you have to look at is the love of God who loved you so much that he gave his only begotten son. All you have to do is say, no, I am not in need of you, God. No, I'm not in need of your love.

16:54 No, God. I am better than you say I am. No, God. I'll get to heaven my own way. And there's only one answer that God has for you.

17:12 No. No, you won't. Because I provided my son, the peerless, perfect, pristine Jesus for your salvation. And you looked at me and you said, not good enough. Folks, we're going to talk about a relationship this weekend of two great followers of Jesus Christ.

19:06 I can't get into all of them. But basically, these this sortie, if you will, this slide has all four of Paul's missionary journeys outlined. Now, technically, his fourth missionary journey was his trip to Rome to be imprisoned, okay? So, that's how people look at it and say it's his fourth but he goes from Jerusalem where he's arrested to Caesarea and then he has the shipwreck and then he ends up in Rome for trial. That one, we'll talk briefly about later but the first two, the first two are the most important for establishing the relationship between Paul and Timothy and the third one, Timothy is an aid and a helper to Paul until he is left in another city by Paul to work with the church there.

20:07 So, we're going to look first at these missionary journeys one and two to establish the relationship, the beginnings of the relationship between Timothy and Paul. Now, Paul's first missionary journey was approximately forty five to forty eight or AD forty five to forty eight. His second missionary journey began sometime in late forty nine and went to '51 and you can see the scriptures where you can read about these journeys. These scriptures are the primary sources. Now, I know it doesn't sound like I am and I don't tell this to people except simply to tell them that I somewhat know what I'm talking about.

21:03 I have a PHD in history. I went to school for one hundred years. I earned my degree before AI existed. I did the studies. I did the work and my work was on the American Revolution.

21:18 It was evangelicals and the American Revolution in Georgia and South Carolina. I spent a lot of time in libraries and when I tell you about primary sources, I am telling you about the source work that is closest to the event. It was something that was produced by people that lived at that time or were part of that event and the work in Acts is a primary source. It's a primary source written by Doctor Luke who was on many of these episodes that you read about in Acts and so when you need to study about what happened, you go to the primary source and in our case, our primary source is a god breathed document. All scripture is given by inspiration and so you and I, as fallible human beings, struggle to understand parts of the gospel, parts of the scriptures.

22:27 That's why we have a church group on every corner. We don't have a lock on. We're going to get to heaven and find out that all of us were wrong in some element but we can understand 98% of the scriptures in fellowship together in the knowledge that our sources were given by god for us to learn and enjoy and grow and share and see people saved. Because eternity is a lot longer than even my messages. Okay?

23:07 So so please please understand when I tell you about these primary sources, believe me, I'm going to make mistakes over this weekend but if you go back and check, you you can find out where I was wrong. And you can say, well, god said that he was Timothy was here and somewhere in his message, he, I I don't care about the book. I want you to know that you can go and you can see what god did mightily through these two men as they followed him obeying the spirit of god and constructing a record through their lives that we today, that we today can utilize in service for the same god, for the same savior. That's an amazing thing if you grasp it. So you're not going to be...

24:35 We forget how wonderful he was. I'm going show you some things this weekend that if you have never noticed about Timothy because all our Bible study says, Paul says, I you're he he doesn't just buck up, strengthen up. I mean, you read second Timothy says, don't be afraid. You don't have the spirit of fear and we go, oh, Timothy must have been really, he must have been really, you know, he must have been really shy. He must have.

25:05 I don't know what he was. But where god dropped him were some incredibly hard places. Ever read Corinthians? You you want your children to go to the church at Corinth? Anybody?

25:21 Anybody? Anybody read Philippians? Philippians is a wonderful book and we learn lots of things but what's this, why is Philippians written? Because they're fussing. They're fighting with each other.

25:38 He sent to Ephesus. Ephesus? Ever heard of the riot in Ephesus? Great is the god. I'm sorry.

26:07 They were yelling at the top of their lungs. Timothy is dropped off by Paul in that environment. So if you pay attention as we go through the Scriptures, you're gonna see these things. Now where is Timothy born? Well, technically, we don't know that, but we're pretty sure it was Lystra.

26:31 Lystra is an Asia Minor. If you look here on this wonderfully detailed little chart, The red arrow pointing to where he was born. Hope you don't miss it. If you go down, I guess, Timothy's birthplace, Antioch, straight down, you'll run into Israel eventually. Jerusalem, that sort of thing.

26:53 So, that gives you an idea. His first missionary joint journey, Acts 14, Paul is stoned. He's stoned in Lystra and he comes back to life. Or he's stoned as if dead and he rises up. What happens?

27:11 The people of the town think he's a god and so they come to sacrifice animals to him. Paul and Barnabas tear their clothes. They rush out. No. No.

27:23 No. We are but men. And right there, right there, the a group of of Jewish leaders from another city in which Paul and Barnabas had spoken. They come in and they stir up the same crowd that was about to elevate these men to gods and they stone Paul. They stone him.

27:46 Now, Timothy is in Lystra. There's no definitive Bible verse that tells us that he was at the stoning. There's no always nice when you get a hair off your beard right in your... Sorry about that folks. I'm sitting here.

28:09 Figure out better as well tell you why I'm looking idiotic in front of you. But we think that Timothy is probably converted at this time. If you go to second Timothy in at least two places, we know that Timothy was raised in a devout household. We'll talk more about this later, but his mother and his grandmother were both followers of the scriptures. They had the Old Testament and we know that from a child or from infancy, Timothy is exposed to the word of god.

28:43 We'll speak more of that later. We do not know for a fact that that Timothy is converted in this first missionary journey but we do know that it was a massive scene in the town in which he was being technically in English reared but back home, he was being raised in Lystra. It was on the second missionary journey in Acts chapter 16 that Paul hears of Timothy. Now, before I forget and and Imma say this now and set it aside. If anybody is interested in dating, I don't mean that kind of dating young people.

29:25 I hope that you're interested in whatever that's called in your circle, Courting, dating, talking, whatever it is that's very confusing to children of the eighties. This book is a fabulous resource. It's called From Abraham to Paul. It's a biblical chronology, and it is really really detailed in helping put together what happened when. It's not the Bible.

29:57 Okay? So it can be wrong. But it is a wonderful resource if you're ever interested or you're interested in that sort of thing. And I would highly recommend from Abraham to Paul. I don't know if any of you know Rob Sullivan that's the president of CMML now or on the board of CMML, the missions group.

30:15 He's involved with ABR Associates of Biblical Research, a lot of those archaeological digs. That's a book that he highly recommends as well. So, anybody that knows that will know. Now, as far as what we can say about Paul and Timothy, lest you think I don't know anything about the Bible and I didn't want you to turn there. Go to Acts chapter 16 and we'll read a few verses.

30:49 Look, if you will, in Acts chapter 16 and verse one. Now, I'm going to tell everybody here, we have four messages left. We had a late start and there are lots of children and lots of young parents. I am going to stop at 08:15 wherever I am, okay? So, I don't want anybody panicking.

31:12 I don't want anybody, you know, we've got time to make up for whatever happens but stick with me for these fifteen minutes. I'm not going to go on and on and on. You can get those delicious desserts in the back but I want you to pay attention very very closely as we finish these things. Look what it says. Chapter 16 verse one, then came he to Derby and Lystra and behold a certain disciple was there named Timotheus or Timothy, the son of a certain woman which was a Jewess and believed but his father was a Greek which was well reported of by the brethren that were at Lystra and Iconium.

31:59 Him would Paul have to go forth with him and took and circumcised him because of the Jews which were in those quarters for they knew all that his father was a Greek and as they went through the cities, they delivered them the decrees for to keep that were ordained of the apostles and elders which were at Jerusalem and so were the churches established in the faith and increased in number daily. So, what do we know about Paul? Paul has gone forth. He's gone to this new journey. He's going with Silas who you'll remember from their time in in Philippi.

32:44 We'll get to that but Paul and Silas go to the cities that Paul and Barnabas had visited in the first journey and when he goes back to Lystra, let's just take just a moment and think about this. How many of you are going into a neighborhood where you were robbed at gunpoint? How many of you going back? Anybody? How many of you are letting your daughters go into a neighborhood in which they were robbed?

33:15 You understand what I'm saying here? Paul went back to where they stoned him to death. Okay? So, let's understand the man we're dealing with. We we we we forget that.

33:28 We we we rush over that. Paul went back to where he was stoned and what does he hear while he's there? He hears this excellent report of a young fellow by the name of Timothy. Now, you are going to find and this is going take a couple of minutes. So, just pay attention to me.

33:49 You're going to find a lot of divergence in how old Timothy was. I've got a friend that works at Emmaus. He is a big archaeology archaeologist, not big. He goes every year. He's on the board with ABR.

34:06 Great guy. He goes to the the chapel there in in Dubuque. His name is JJ Rowley and I had a conversation with him a couple weeks ago and he told me that he believed that Timothy was eight to 12. Eight to 12. I, along with most other folks, believe he was in his early 20s at this time and there are older, more from from a a Catholic or an Orthodox background that say he was in his mid thirties at this time.

34:42 Now, that's a big age gap, okay? I don't think it's possible that the top end is right because he doesn't write second Timothy until twelve to fourteen years later and by that time, if he's 30, he would have been 50, no one would have despised his youth at that period. So, I think that's wrong. Not saying just just that's why I don't think. I'm intrigued about the younger age and he's got some good archaeological evidence that there's a possibility.

35:16 The word that's used for youth in this and I'm not a Greek person. So, it's n e o n t e s and that has been found on a pillar in a gymnasium. I believe in Greece and it had the ages of the youth based on these names and that particular group is about 15 years old and so that would have put when he uses that term youth in second Timothy, that would have put him in that that 15. He would have been 20 to 25. That would have put him as 10 or eight or 12 when he goes off with Paul.

36:02 I think that's too young but I'm not saying that it's not possible. I'm just saying you're going to see different dates. I believe that if anywhere from 12 to 22, when he goes to join Paul are good, solid estimates of his leaving. Now, you say, there's no way he could be 10. There's no way he could be eight.

36:25 That's because we are soft and we live in a different generation. One of the great military commanders of of America and one of the great Christians in America of all time was a man named Stonewall Jackson and he was from Virginia. His parents died and he was left to an uncle and or uncle or brother or you know, something of that nature and when he was 12 years old, he and his brother took a load of of stuff down the Ohio River. I mean, they they actually transported. How many of you heard of Davy Crockett?

37:04 Anybody heard of Davy Crockett? So, I'm not talking, making up. Davy Crockett went from Eastern Tennessee to Washington DC as a 12 year old through the wilderness. None of our parents are letting our kids walk to the park now when they're 12. Okay?

37:21 So understand some of this may be that we are biased according to our own how we feel today. I don't know for sure but my guess is that because he was so well established in these two cities that he must have been older than 10 or 12 but I'll acknowledge that there's a possibility that he was even that young when he went off with Paul. The point of the matter is, Paul says, I want you. What would it be like? What would it be like for Paul to come up and tap you on the shoulder and say, I want you for the service of god.

38:07 That'd be amazing. Parents, I want your child to serve me. Oh, but they got to go to college. They got to get a degree in welding. They gotta figure out how to make money.

38:22 They've gotta, I have two kids in college. I mean, one just finished college. I'm not against any of these things. Shoot, I went to college for one hundred years. I I'm not against them but what I am saying is how many of us think about the worldly concerns when we should be thinking about, that is a really good opportunity for my child to serve an eternal master.

38:50 Now young people, I do want you to... If your parents say no to an opportunity when you're younger and you're still in their house, Lord's pretty clear that you don't take out a stick and say, well, I'll make sure I can go on this journey for Jesus by whacking you and... You know, that's none of... You gotta be obedient. You gotta be obedient.

39:14 So don't don't misunderstand what I'm saying, but I I do want us to understand, young people, it it's not about how much money you can make, how many cows you can have, you know, those sorts of things. This is about what you can do eternally and Paul looked at Timothy and said, you young man are doing something but what does that tell us about Timothy? Timothy was doing something. Timothy was doing those things that were eternally valuable and it was noticed. It was noticed.

39:44 And he went with... Am going to say this in as uncrude a manner as I possibly can, but the decision that Timothy took required him to go through an incredibly painful procedure. And he did it. It wasn't just leaving mama and grandma. It it wasn't just going with the cool guy that got raised from the dead after he was stoned.

40:17 It was personally, I'm going to allow you to do something incredibly painful to me so that I don't offend people. How many young people are we ready to... It's got to be my way. I'm right! These old people don't know what they're talking about.

40:39 How many times it's the old people going, I'm right. These young people don't... Are either one of you willing to do what Timothy was willing to do to serve God? That's an incredible decision by Timothy. Now, we're going to come back to this at some point in time, so this one will probably be up repeatedly while I'm speaking.

41:04 We don't have time to go into all of this, but if you want to look at the chronology of Timothy's travels, '45, basically converted, we think by Paul but we think it was at Lystra. These are some of the the Bible verses. Caveat, I did not come up with this slide. None of these slides are created. I mean, I, my wife and I put them together.

41:25 I did not make these. These are not my originals. But notice these dates and where he was. We'll come back to this as we explore the scriptures this weekend, but this gives you an idea of over the years where Timothy was involved. Okay?

41:50 These are just because of time. What just happened there? There we go. We've got the third missionary journey where Timothy is left behind at Ephesus. We have the fourth missionary journey in which Timothy is not with Paul because Paul is on his way to prison in Rome in early...

42:17 We think it's about sixty AD. Okay? And then there was a hypothetical missionary journey of Paul. If you remember from Romans chapter 15 verses twenty three and twenty four. 15, 23, and 24, he says he wants to go to Spain.

42:36 This is completely conjecture. This is just what you will find if you research this. There's a lot of belief that when Paul was released from prison after '62, that he spent the next year or two traveling and and going to reach these areas in Spain. This is just somebody's idea of what happened. It was during this time that Timothy would have been probably in Ephesus.

43:19 The care of all the churches. How many books did Paul write? Anybody know? 13. 13.

43:27 How many of them are are the churches? A good number. Most of them. He may have wrote written Hebrews. It's a big argument.

43:36 We don't know and I'm not going to tell you for sure that he did. Okay? It's a big argument but he wrote half of or close to half of the books in the New Testament. He was involved in churches from Jerusalem. Remember, he's collecting for the poor in all kinds of different places around the Asian and European continents.

44:00 He is caring for the saints. He is doing those things that are socially necessary, taking care of those that are hungry, setting out rules for widows and orphans and and that sort of thing. He is caring for the church all over the... I don't even know what to call that. Semi circle of the of the New Testament church.

44:28 What about Timothy? We know that he was... He he ministered in Thessalonica. We know that he actually was established in Ephesus. We'll talk about that more as we get into the Timothy books.

44:42 He was in Philippi. Remember when Paul and Silas were in prison, Timothy was with not with them in jail, but he was there with them in in Philippi. He was in Corinth. He was in Berea. He was in Troaz.

44:56 He was in Rome. In the salutation of six of the epistles, you will find Timothy named. He is with Paul doing service. Two of the epistles were written to him. I'm not sure what's happening, but this is like one slide ahead.

45:19 I'm looking at old stuff. But what about sacrifice? And we'll close with this. We know that Paul endured shipwrecks, beatings, dangers, rods, stonings, weariness, toil, sleepless, hunger, thirst, fastings. That's a primary source.

45:39 Go to go to second Corinthians. Read what he went through. And we know that he was traditionally... He was beheaded by Nero in '67 or '68. That is his sacrifice.

45:51 What about Timothy? Timothy was imprisoned, we believe, in in because there's this mention of Timothy being released at the end of Hebrews and then there is a traditional story of Timothy as an older man being beaten to death by a group in Ephesus for withstanding their cultish worship of Diana and Artemis. Okay? So that is what we can say about the sacrifice. I would like to leave you with this looking forward.

46:29 We'll look at the relationship of Timothy and Paul tomorrow. We'll look at the teachings on relationships. And then on Sunday, we will look at the relationship of the truth to mankind, to the church, and to you and me, Timothy, how it matters to us today. Thank you for your attention tonight. I will be around if you have any questions.

46:52 Sorry, we had to rush through that but I'd rather you be fresh tomorrow for a long day. Thank you. I'll close in prayer, and then whoever's gonna end it will come up. Dear heavenly father, we just thank you. We thank you again for servants like Timothy and Paul.

47:07 We don't do them justice in this brief explanation... This brief exploration, but help us this weekend to get a better sense of how we can work together as older Christians, younger Christians to together, together lift up to the world your lovely son, And through our relationship, strengthen the local church and do wondrous things through the power of your spirit to bring others to a saving knowledge of your beautiful savior son, the lord Jesus. It's in his precious name we pray and ask help. Amen.