Essential Advice for the Church
Tom Shrader walks through Acts 19:8-20, tracing Paul's expository teaching ministry in Ephesus — from the synagogue to the school of Tyrannus — and the extraordinary miracles, demonic confrontations, and mass repentance that followed. He draws a direct correlation between the diligence of Paul and his new disciples and the explosive growth of the church throughout the region of Asia. Shrader then applies five strategic principles from Paul's example to East Valley Bible Church: speak the Word boldly, invest deeply in believers, commit for the long haul, plant new churches, and trust that God produces the fruit.
“Where the word is preached and the word is believed, there must be life change.”
— Tom Shrader
Series: Acts
Recorded: 2000 at East Valley Bible Church
Duration: 48 min
Themes: boldness, church growth, spiritual warfare, evangelism, discipleship, miracles, repentance, missions, pastor, church planter, new believer, elder, feeling spiritually dry, navigating spiritual attack, young adult, new to leadership
Scripture: Acts 19:8-20, Acts 28, Ephesians 6:10-13, Proverbs 9:10, Proverbs 3:7, Luke 14, Mark 5:3-4, Revelation 2-3
Theological Themes: expository preaching, ecclesiology, spiritual warfare, church planting, missiology, kingdom of God, demonic confrontation, sanctification
Full Transcript
Paul in Ephesus: Setting the Stage
Open your Bibles to the book of Acts, chapter 19. Paul is in Ephesus, and we are going to look this week and next week at a summary of his two-plus years in that city. Today we will cover Acts chapter 19, verses 8 through 20, and next week we will finish Acts chapter 19. Those are narrative passages, and they always make for interesting reading.
The following week is Anniversary Sunday, a very important time on our church calendar. That is the time when we annually stop and celebrate — it was the first Sunday in November that East Valley Bible Church began. We will talk about our past, our present, and I have three specific things I want to lay out as we look ahead to the year 2001 and beyond. Then, beginning the second Sunday of November, we will begin our study in the book of 1 Corinthians. As you know, we have been studying Acts, and at this point Paul leaves Ephesus and later writes back to the churches. Sometime during these two years in Ephesus, he writes back to Corinth, so we will pause Acts and begin 1 Corinthians on that second Sunday of November.
Spiritual Warfare in Ephesus
Acts chapter 19, verse 8 — Paul is dealing with some extraordinary spiritual issues. You do not need to turn there, but let me remind you of what Paul writes when he gets away from Ephesus and pens the letter to the Ephesians. In chapter 6, beginning at verse 10, he writes this: "Finally, be strong in the Lord and in the strength of His might. Put on the full armor of God, that you may stand firm against the schemes of the devil. For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the powers, against the world forces of darkness, against the spiritual forces of wickedness in the heavenly places. Therefore, take up the full armor of God, that you may be able to resist in the evil day, having done everything to stand firm."
As Paul reflects back on this church and pens this letter, he closes by reminding them of spiritual warfare. I think you are going to see tonight, and next week, some graphic examples of the spiritual struggle taking place in Ephesus.
Paul's Pattern: Reasoning from the Word
Paul enters the synagogue, and he continued speaking out boldly for three months, reasoning and persuading them about the kingdom of God. When Paul talks about the kingdom of God, he is talking about teaching the things concerning Christ and salvation — His reign, His righteousness, and how we enter into that salvation and find communion with God. He goes to the synagogue and begins to teach, speaking out boldly the Word of God.
We have seen this pattern in every instance of Paul's life, and he is faithful to it to the very end. Acts chapter 28 records a time when they set aside a day for Paul, came to him at his lodging, and he was "explaining to them by solemnly testifying about the kingdom of God, trying to persuade them concerning Jesus, from both the law of Moses and from the prophets, from morning until evening." That is the pattern of Paul's life — the Word of God and the things of God.
He reasons with them and he persuades them. The word "reason" carries with it the idea of dialoguing. It is a lecture form, to be sure, but there is a question and answer element; he is interacting with his audience and literally trying to convince them by argument. The tool he uses, the weapon he wields, is the truth — the Word of God, proclaimed boldly.
The Supremacy of Scripture
It seems like almost every week we are talking about the supremacy of Scripture. That is, however, one of those things I do not think we could ever talk about too much, and I do not think we could ever overemphasize the importance of the Word of God. When it boils down to it, the question is not what we think — it is what does God say.
I had a discussion this very week with a fellow, and after listening to him for quite a long time I finally said, "With all due respect, I do not care what you think. It does not matter to me what you are thinking, nor should you be concerned about what I think. What does God say?" Being something of a political junkie, I have found it easy to overdose on news coverage lately, and I was watching something yesterday in which Al Hunt from the Wall Street Journal was discussing his Outrage of the Week. His outrage was that Jimmy Carter, former President Carter, is leaving the Southern Baptist Church. I am only relaying what Al Hunt reported, so I presume it to be true, but he said Carter is leaving primarily over two issues: first, his refusal to adhere to the infallibility of Scripture and the literal reading of the Bible, and second, what Al Hunt called archaic views such as wives submitting to their husbands. Al Hunt then launched into an attack on anyone who would hold such positions — which, I will admit, hurt my feelings.
It does confirm our suspicions, does it not? If we are not going to take the Word of God literally, if we are going to hunt and peck and try to figure out which parts are true, we might as well throw the whole thing away. This is the Word of God — the infallible Word of God — and we come back to it again and again, because it is everything to us.
Opposition Arises After Three Months
Paul is in Ephesus for three months, and I find this detail interesting: it is after three months that opposition arises. Some become hardened and disobedient, and they speak evil of the way before the people.
When Hearts Harden
The opposition didn't come immediately. Paul didn't just set up a shop, begin to teach, and face opposition right away. There was a three-month process. There was a time when people apparently were listening, maybe somewhat infatuated, maybe impressed with what Paul was saying, but after a while, they couldn't take it anymore. They listened, and their hearts became hard.
Paul was preaching the truth. Paul was talking about Christ — who is Christ, what does it mean to know Him, how can I know Him in a personal way. He began to share this day after day after day, and after a while, they couldn't handle that message anymore. Their hearts were hard. That always speaks of a hard attitude toward God.
They didn't just go away. They became disobedient — that's evidence of their hardness. They began to attack. They began to speak evil of the Way. That's the early term in history by which the church was known: the Way. The original term, we think, came from some of the critics who would say, "Ah, they think they know the way — they've got the way." And in reality, we did: the Way and the Truth and the Life.
I find that to be so much of what we see today. I find very few people — and maybe this is your experience — who are neutral about East Valley Bible Church. They either really like it, or they hate it. You never meet anybody and hear them say, "Well, it's okay. Music's all right. Tom's okay. It's fine." You never hear that.
You either really like it, or you hate it and you can't hang around. Those people who are somewhere in the middle don't hang around very long, and by the way, I think that's good, because it's straightforward. After a period of time, you're either going to say it's true, or after hardening your heart week after week, you're going to find a way to begin to tear it down.
Paul's Creative Solution
As they were becoming disobedient, Paul essentially said, "No problem — let's go down the street." They went down the street to the school of Tyrannus. We think this was probably the name of the philosopher who taught in that school, although it could be the name of the man who owned the building.
Here is what I think is significant. A normal workday in Ephesus began at seven in the morning and went until eleven. Then everything shut down from eleven to four — everything just stopped. Then at four, everything started again and went into the night. In fact, William Barclay makes the comment that there were more people sleeping at one in the afternoon in Ephesus than at one in the morning. That was the normal flow.
And here was this gigantic opportunity for Paul. Let me read to you from James Boice and then from Ray Stedman, and then come back and make some comments. Here is what Boice says: "Paul lectured daily in the hall of Tyrannus. He did so from eleven o'clock in the morning until four in the afternoon. The hours were in the middle of the day — this was the hot time of the day when presumably the hall wasn't being used. Tyrannus would be there in the morning and perhaps in the evening as well." Paul would have said, "Could I use your hall in the middle of the day?" Boice then notes that using the hall "was convenient, creative, and effective." Five hours a day added up to a lot of teaching.
In the terms of that culture, daily meant every day. No one took vacations. No one had ever heard of a five-day work week or a forty-hour work week. So Paul would have taught five hours a day, seven — or at least six — days a week.
Ray Stedman picks up exactly there. Stedman says: "Now five hours a day, six days a week, 52 weeks a year for two years adds up to 3,120 hours of lecturing. That equals 130 days of lecturing continuously for 24 hours a day. The content of those lectures was the great truths we find in the epistles of Paul. What a fantastic time of teaching."
What It Would Have Been Like
Wouldn't you have loved to have been in Ephesus and had Paul teach you the book of Romans? We read that book and we have questions about it. There is the man who wrote it. You could sit right there and say, "Pardon me, Paul — give me this again. 'He will have mercy on whom He has mercy. Jacob He loved, Esau He hated.' Paul, what's the scoop here with the nation of Israel? Where are we with that?" Or, "Excuse me, Paul — 'Nobody's good, no, not one.' Can you explain that?"
Can you imagine sitting and talking to him — not having to guess, but having the man who wrote it and who taught it under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit right there in front of you? But if God had wanted you to have that, you would have been alive two thousand years ago, and you aren't.
Here is how Stedman ends this section: "Imagine the tremendous impact of this teaching. No wonder we read in verse 10 that all the residents of Asia heard the word of the Lord, both the Jews and the Greeks." This was an entire province — an area larger than the state of California — filled with many cities.
Using What's Available
Here is what I want you to see. Paul is there. He doesn't have a place to meet. So he goes to a school. He takes a building that isn't being used. On Sunday mornings right now, there is a church that meets over in Mesquite. Virtually every school out in our area has a church meeting in it. It is exactly what is going on here with Paul.
Paul looked around and said, "What are we going to do? We need a place to meet. We don't have one. Where are we going to go? How about there — nobody's using that room. Why don't we go in there?" It is creative. It is efficient.
The Correlation Between Effort and God's Blessing
Imagine the eagerness on the part of Paul to teach. He works all morning, and then rather than go home like everyone else, he goes to teach, and when he is done teaching, he goes back to work. More significant to me is the eagerness on the part of these people to learn. These are just brand new Christians, and they work all morning, then spend time in that room studying, learning, and dialoguing, then go back to work — day after day after day. They work, and they work hard.
How fascinating it is to find a correlation between their work and God's blessing. This took place for two years, and the church exploded all over Asia. It was during this time that the church of Colossae was established. We believe the churches mentioned in Revelation chapters 2 and 3 were also established during this period — Smyrna, Sardis, Thyatira, Pergamum, Philadelphia, and Laodicea — and they were not established by Paul directly. Paul stays in Ephesus, but he pours his life into these men, and out they go, and these other churches are established through his teaching. What a great pattern for us.
If you are not serious, and if you are not going to work in your faith, then nothing is going to happen. If you are someone who looks around and says, "God is really working over there, but nothing has happened in my life," I would guess it is because you are not putting anything into it.
Seriousness About Faith: Two Contrasting Pictures
We have a getting-plugged-in class on Thursday nights, and at the summary session I get to meet with the people who have gone through the class. We begin by going around the room — tell us about yourself, who you are, where you are from, how you found East Valley Bible Church. Inevitably, somebody will say, "Well, we were going to another church, but this one is closer to my house." That sets me off like a rocket.
Let me make sure I understand. You are here because it is closer? That is your motive for being here? We love you, but if that is the only reason you are here — because it is closer — you are in the wrong place. Compare that to a couple who recently came to the church through Priority Living. They had not been here very long, and I agreed to do their wedding at their home. When I got the map and started driving, it turned out to be 43 miles from the church. When I arrived I said, "You come here every Sunday — 43 miles?" He said, "Yeah, Tom, it is very, very serious to us." That is exactly what we are talking about.
I would love to be in one of those small groups, but the only night there is one in my area is Thursday, and that is ER night. That does not work so well for me. And then you want me to understand that you do not see God doing anything in your life. Do you see how this works? Does your work guarantee that God is going to work? Not necessarily, but there certainly seems to be a very direct correlation. Those who are serious about their faith, committed to their faith, who work at it, labor, study, and share — all of a sudden, things start happening in their lives.
What Serious Faith Looks Like in Practice
Consider those of you who gather in C2 after this service. Does it not strike you that there is really something happening there? You can see it and feel it. The reason is that there is a group of men and women in C2 who are very serious about their faith. It is a core group that is getting larger and larger, and they are holding each other accountable, asking the core questions: What is God doing in your life? What are you learning? What are you reading? Who are you sharing your faith with?
As they begin to do those very basic things, exactly the same thing takes place as we see right here in Acts chapter 19, verses 9 and 10. You sense something happening — not just numerically; I do not even care about the numbers. There is substance there. There is heart and soul and life change there. You cannot walk into that room and not see it. Why? Because you have people who are serious about their faith, and God works there.
Extraordinary Miracles in a Spiritually Dark City
Here is what Luke tells us: God was performing extraordinary miracles by the hand of Paul, so that handkerchiefs or napkins were even carried from his body to the sick, and disease left those who were sick, and evil spirits went out from people who were demon-possessed. That is an interesting phrase. The first time I read it I thought — a miracle in and of itself is already pretty extraordinary. But these were extraordinary primarily, I think, because they were done at a distance.
Make sure you understand the setting. Ephesus was a city that was very superstitious. It had a population of priests and magicians and witches and warlocks, with all sorts of dark occult activities going on — astrology and more. The temple to Artemis was there, one of the seven wonders of the ancient world. Tourists would come from everywhere to see that magnificent structure. Ephesus was known for being spiritually dark, but also deeply fascinated with anything spiritual. So God says, in effect, "You want to see what spiritual power looks like? I will show you." The handkerchief —
The Power Behind the Signs
The sweatband and apron Paul wore were taken out to the sick, and God used them to heal people. Let us be clear about what was happening: there was nothing magic about the handkerchief, nothing magic about the apron, and nothing in and of itself powerful about Paul. These were simply the vehicles God chose to use.
It would be a mistake to think God is going to work this way in your life today. Just three weeks ago, a man on television was doing the old handkerchief pitch — send him money, and he would send you a handkerchief, claiming it was just like what the Apostle Paul did. At that moment, I wanted to invoke the Lloyd Benson line to Dan Quayle: I know Paul, and you are no Paul. There is nothing magic here. God simply chooses, at a particular moment in time, to work through certain symbols and certain people.
When the False Follows the Authentic
Whenever we see an authentic move of God, we almost inevitably see a false move arise alongside it. In this case, a group of Jewish exorcists appeared on the scene. The word "exorcist" literally means to bind with an oath — these men would go around attempting to expel demons by invoking some spiritual power higher than the demons, using anything they thought would work.
Having seen and heard what happened through Paul, they attempted to cast out demons in the name of the Lord, saying, "I adjure you — that is, I command you — by Jesus whom Paul preaches." There were seven sons of Sceva, a Jewish high priest, and they were going about doing this. In one particular case, these seven men came upon a man who clearly had an evil spirit living in him, and they declared they would cast it out in the name of Jesus.
What happened next is remarkable. The spirit answered and said to them, "I recognize Jesus, and I know Paul. Who are you?" The spirit was saying, in effect, that it was intimately familiar with Jesus and well acquainted with Paul — but had no idea who these seven men were. We know from elsewhere in Scripture that demon-possessed men can have extraordinary physical power. Mark chapter five, verses three and four, tells us there was a demon-possessed man who dwelled among the tombs, whom no one could bind even with chains, because he had torn chains apart and no one could subdue him.
That is exactly what happened here. A wrestling match ensued. The man in whom the evil spirit lived leaped on all seven, overpowered them, and they ran out of the house naked and wounded.
Fear Falls on Ephesus
Yet in that very environment — so saturated with spiritual power and infiltrated with evil and false spirits — a move of God spread. Verse seventeen and eighteen tells us this became known to everyone. All the Jews and Greeks living in Ephesus heard it, fear fell upon them all, and the name of the Lord Jesus was being magnified.
They heard what had happened and realized this was a power unlike any they had ever encountered, and they were filled with fear. That is a good thing. There is such a thing as bad fear, yes, but there is also good fear. Scripture tells us the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom in Proverbs nine, verse ten, and Proverbs three, verse seven, warns us to fear the Lord and depart from evil.
The Church Cleans House
When God moved in this spectacular way and His name was magnified, two things happened. First, those who had already believed — new believers who had been coming along — kept on confessing and kept on disclosing their practices. Apparently, they were still dabbling in witchcraft. The belief at the time was that disclosing a practice would render that spell or practice impotent, and so they came forward.
These were Christians, but they were baby Christians. Perhaps you are here and you have not been a Christian very long. There is still some things in your life you need to get rid of, still some conviction that needs to fall on you. You do not clean up your life to come to Christ, but once you come to Christ, your life is cleaned up.
Remember what had been happening: Paul had been preaching in the synagogue, then moved to this school, and essentially a church was forming. As that church began to grow, opposition came, hardship came, God moved in a spectacular way — and fear came first in the church, and the church cleaned its act up.
That is what is so significant to me about us as a body. I pray that East Valley Bible Church never becomes a place where we come hauling in here on Sunday with notebooks and Bibles and then go out and live exactly like everybody else. If tomorrow morning in the office, on the campus, in the neighborhood, or at the club you are indistinguishable from everyone around you, then you make a joke of your faith. You will never influence your sphere of influence if there is no distinctive in your life. There must be something different about you, something distinctive. Your faith is real not just when you believe it, but when you begin to live it.
Speaking the Word Boldly
What you believe essentially changes how you behave. It must change how you behave. And when the church gets its act together, other people are consequently drawn in. Many of those who had practiced magic brought their books and began burning them in the sight of all, and this was an expensive proposition — a total value of 50,000 pieces of silver. Many were walking away from what would have been their trade, their means of livelihood. Their life was changing, because always, always, where the Word is preached and the Word is believed, there must be life change.
Verse 20 offers what is probably a little bit of understatement as a summary: "So the word of the Lord was growing mightily and prevailing." Let me remind you why — because Paul preached the Word and people began to live the Word. That's what happened.
So often when we hear the Apostle Paul say, "Be a follower of me as I'm a follower of Christ" — "Be an imitator of me as I imitate Christ" — we think of that on an individual basis, and that's fine and appropriate. But what I want to talk about tonight is what this means for us as a body, and Paul's real strategic approach applied to the church collectively.
This is probably on my mind because of where we are on the calendar. We are currently in budget time. We start around the first of October, the guys are to have budgets in by this week, and by the end of November it is approved. It is an important time because we take the financial part of the church very seriously. Our budget last year was a million five, and we spent a million four hundred and ninety-seven dollars and some odd cents — within a fraction of one percent of budget. But beyond the finances, as important as they are, budget season forces us to think about the next year and to anticipate what God is doing and where we want to move.
Couple that with the fact that two Sundays from now is Anniversary Sunday — the equivalent of our State of the Church address — and my mind has just been thinking a great deal about the church. So when we look at Paul's strategic approach, I want to look at it not on an individual basis but as some essential advice for us as a body. Let me mention five things.
Number One: Speak the Truth Boldly
Paul speaks the truth, and he speaks it boldly. That is a cornerstone of East Valley Bible Church. We look at the life of the apostle, and everywhere he goes, what does he do? He teaches the Word. We want to be a church where the Word is taught. Are there other things we do? Absolutely. But when we hold our Getting Plugged In class on Thursday night and we listen to people and ask what they like about the church, they tell us: the straightforward teaching. That's what they say.
It is so important for us to resist the temptation to become driven by a gimmick or the latest fad. All we have to do is teach the Word and teach it boldly. They were talking the other night about the political candidates for president, and they said of one of them — and I like this phrase — "He seems comfortable in his own skin." In other words, he really knows who he is. He doesn't come to three debates with three different personalities. We understand at East Valley Bible Church who we are. If someone asked us to boil it all down to one thing and said, "What do you do?" we would say: teach the Word. That is the most important thing we have.
It happens in C2, it happens in high school, it happens in junior high, it happens in fifth grade, sixth grade, fourth grade. It happens in the adult electives, it happens in the small groups — because that is what God is going to use. There is nothing that is going to cause us to deviate from that. We are not about to take a survey and ask what you would like to see on Sunday morning. In a sense, we want to be known as the church that doesn't care. We don't care what you think about Sunday morning or Sunday night in here — we are not going to change what we do. This is what we believe God has called us to do, and not only us, but every church. Every move of God begins with speaking the Word.
Because of what is happening at the church, there are a lot of people trying to figure out why God is working at East Valley Bible Church. I resist thinking about that too much, because it is very easy to suddenly develop a formula, and we don't want to do that. But I'll tell you what I think. There is not a lot of presumption here, not a lot of people walking around saying we have this whole thing figured out. We are saying: here is the Word of God, we are going to do the best we can to open it up and understand it, and the things it says to do we are going to do, and the things it says to avoid we are going to avoid.
Number Two: Invest in the Lives of Believers
There is a second thing: an investment in the lives of believers. Paul works in the morning, works at night, and takes the middle of every day — at least six days a week — and pours his life into men and women who are Christians. There is an evangelistic process going on, to be sure, but he is discipling these people. We have to be a body that is investing in the lives of believers.
And let me tell you, on the receiving end, there is an enormous cost on your part. Jesus is speaking in Luke 14 and He says this: "Whoever does not carry his own cross and come after Me cannot be My disciple." Then He asks, "Which of you, when he wants to build a tower, does not first sit down and calculate the cost to see if he has enough to complete it?" There is a cost to being a Christian. The gift —
The Cost of Discipleship
The gift of eternal life is just that — it is a gift, it is free. But the cost of being a disciple is huge. It is going to cost you everything: time, energy, effort, even money. There is a cost associated with this.
If you are here trying to figure this out, take an inventory and be honest. If you don't want to pay the dues, don't join, don't hang around, don't just take up space. I believe you are here at 4:30 on a Sunday night because you are serious about the things of God — at least serious enough to come, to listen, and to try to figure all of that out. But there is another step. If you aren't willing to pay the price, here is what Jesus says: the price is everything. You need to surrender everything. By that He means you need to take everything in your life and put it in a secondary position. That means here we have to sacrifice as givers in discipleship, and we have to sacrifice as receivers.
Discipleship Takes Time
There is a third thing: this takes time. It was 20 years ago that I came to Christ. He drew me in March of 1980, and in one sense I don't know where the 20 years went. In another sense, I feel like I am just starting to figure some of this out. God has done some great things in our life, but my gut tells me it is just a fraction of what is going to happen in the next 20 years, and I really cannot wait to see it.
There are certain things — and there aren't many of them in my life — that I am eager to see. I am eager to watch the girls grow up, and if they get married, I am eager to see how they handle their kids. I want to be around to see Sarah and Haley have children who are the age they are right now. Part of that is because I think they will do a great job. I am also eager to see how Susan and I grow old together.
We were at the mall last Monday and we saw a couple moving along slowly, and we just looked at each other and laughed. We didn't have to say anything because we knew exactly what we were thinking — and that is us one day. I am eager to see that. As big as those things are, and they are huge, there is something even larger for me. I am really eager to see what God does at East Valley Bible Church.
At the elder retreat a few years ago, I made a comment that has become somewhat legendary, and I tend to repeat it. I said to the staff: don't screw it up. God has given us so much. He has given us such a unique opportunity. All we have to do is stay consistent and realize that this is a marathon, not a sprint.
Planting Churches, Not Empires
Here is the fourth thing Paul does. He is planting churches. Paul doesn't say, "Here is what we are going to do — we are going to set up this mega-church in Ephesus and from Ephesus cover the entire area." No. He takes these men, equips them, encourages them, and follows up with them, but he sends them out. He understands you don't just blow into town, drop some pearls of wisdom, and head on to the next opportunity. You need a church there. There is only so much that can be done from a distance — you need people right there, flesh to flesh.
I think that is what East Valley Bible Church needs to be about, and in fact that is one of the things we are going to talk about in two weeks.
God Produces the Fruit
Finally, know this: God is at work in all of this. Paul is working night and day, every day, but he understands that it is God who produces the fruit. God wants one thing from us — obedience. God wants you to put forth your very best effort.
There are two teams engaged right now in a struggle in the World Series, and that is significant. Obviously it is the pinnacle of baseball. Is it important? Sure. Is it significant? Absolutely. But it is not a fraction as significant as what is going to happen in our children's ministry in about a half hour. There was a young lady and her husband who came forward this morning, and she said, "Who can I talk to about knowing Christ in a personal way?" I don't know how many World Series rings you would want to compare to that. That is life right there. That is not winning a Super Bowl or closing a deal — that is real life.
And what is that? That is God. That is us doing everything we can, the best we can, flawed as it is — and then God uses it. I hope that at the end of my time here, this church is more alive than it is now. I hope there is more hunger on this campus for the Word of God than there is now. I hope there are lives being changed day after day, because it is changed lives that change lives. I believe that is exactly what is going to happen.
Closing Prayer
Father, help us be the men and women You have called us to be — honest and true and real before You. God, thank You for the gifts You have given us. We pray we are faithful stewards of what You have entrusted to us. God, let these people here tonight know we deeply care about them, about their soul, about their well-being with You.
God, we are going to be a place where we speak the truth, where we invest in each other's lives, where we give all the time we have. We are going to be used as the catalyst to birth other works that You do. And God, we understand You are the one who does it all. Please, Father, take this from our hearts and minds and let it pour out of our lives. We pray it to You tonight in Jesus' name. Amen.
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