Saul's new life begins (Acts 9:20-31) // On mission with the risen Jesus

We're on Acts Chapter 9. It's page 1103 in the church

Acts 9 · chapter mention

Bibles. Remember last week Saul had been

travelling to Damascus to persecute the church, and he'd

met the risen Jesus and had gone blind and he, Ananias, had come

and healed him. And this is the next bit of time

I'm just going to pick up from verse 18, just to sort of locate

it for us, to remind us immediately.

Something like scales fell from Saul's eyes, and he could see

again. He got up and was baptized, and

after taking some food, he regained his strength.

What's he going to do, Kick back and take life easy?

No, let's see what he does. Saul spent several days with the

disciples in Damascus. At once he began to preach in

the synagogues that Jesus is the Son of God.

It's astonishing. Just a few days before he was

persecuting the church. All those who heard him were

astonished and asked, isn't this the man who calls havoc in

Jerusalem among those who called on his name?

And hasn't he come here to take them as prisoner to the chief

priests Yet Saul grew more and more powerful and baffled the

Jews living in Damascus by proving that Jesus is the

Messiah. After many days had gone by,

there was a conspiracy amongst the Jews to kill him, but Saul

learned of their plan. Day and night they kept close

watch on the city gates in order to kill him, but his followers

took him by night and lowered him a basket through an opening

in the wall. When he came to Jerusalem he

tried to join the disciples, but they were all afraid of him, not

believing that he really was a disciple.

But Barnabas took him and brought him to the apostles.

He told them how Saul on his journey had seen the Lord, and

that the Lord had spoken to him, and how in Damascus he preached

fearlessly in the name of Jesus. So Stool stayed with them and

moved about freely in Jerusalem, speaking boldly in the name of

the Lord. He talked and debated with the

Hellenistic Jews, but they tried to kill him.

Man, he's having a bad time. 2/2 times nearly killed.

When the when the believers learned of this, they took him

down to Caesarea and sent him off to Tarsus.

Then the church throughout Judea and Galilee and Samaria enjoyed

a time of peace and were strengthened.

Living in the fear of the Lord and encouraged by the Holy

Spirit, it increased in numbers. Amen.

Thanks, Richard. Chris yeah, if we could keep our

Bibles open at Acts 9, that will be great.

I think we're having a few issues with the screen, but we

will try and track on. So, yeah, we are back, as Chris

says in the next bit of this book of Acts, this early history

of the early church. And last week, if you were here,

the writer of Acts, a man called Luke, introduced us to who's

going to be the key figure, the central figure in the

second-half of the book of Acts, this man, soul of Tarsus, And he

introduces him as a Jewish religious leader and determined

to destroy the early church, breathing out murderous threats

against the disciples. He's a violent persecutor of

Christians, and he's travelling to Damascus to track down and

arrest any followers of Jesus that he finds in that city when

suddenly on the road to Damascus, a light from heaven

flashes around him. Saul falls to the ground and the

risen Jesus appears to him. The risen Jesus breaks into

Saul's life, transforms him, and Luke and I picks up the story of

what happened next. So this little section, Acts 9

verses 90 to 31, we begin to see Saul take his first steps as a

follower of Jesus. This is basically the apostle

Paul, the early years to get an insight into this.

And I think one thing that Luke wants to convey to us here is

one that actually has seen throughout the world and right

up to the present day that becoming a Christian, putting

your faith in Jesus is a huge moment in someone's life.

It's a big deal when someone puts their faith in Jesus.

A new life begins. Following Jesus brings with it

real changes. Thank you, guys.

Round of applause for our tech team there.

They did very well. I could start again, but I

won't. But yeah, basically what this

bit of access is, becoming a Christian is a huge thing for

for Saul, it was clearly this huge dramatic event that this

light from heaven falling to the ground.

But actually for anyone to put their faith in Jesus, a new life

begins and change begins. And some of that change can be

messy and even painful. When someone becomes a

Christian, becomes a follower of Jesus, the people around them

don't always respond well to the change they see.

Changing old habits and patterns of life can be really messy.

And a new believer might even lose friends, even contact with

family, as a result of their faith in Jesus.

One writer he came to faith as an adult, Rosario Butterfield,

describes her experience like this in this book, The secret

Thoughts of an unlikely convert. She says conversion put me in a

complicated and comprehensive chaos.

She was an English lecturer, so she likes alliteration by

somebody's wonder. When I hear other Christians

pray for the salvation of their friends, if they realize this

comprehensive chaos is the desired end of such prayers.

What she's saying, they're saying actually becoming a

Christian is really bewildering and chaotic and messy.

And sometimes when we we have someone we love, we want to see

them come to follow Jesus. We don't realise some of the

massive changes that will result in that.

I think that's partly why this account of Saul's new life as a

follower of Jesus is so helpful for us today.

Look shows us that when Saul began to follow Jesus it was

more than a bit bumpy at times. The people around Saul didn't

always respond well to this change.

He was regarded with suspicion by fellow Christians and his old

friends. The Greek speaking Jews in

Jerusalem ended up wanting to kill Saul.

He suffers for the name of Jesus.

It's not all easy. In fact this this little passage

in Acts 9 is sort of the fulfilment of Jesus words to

Ananias. When Ananias was sent to baptize

Saul. Jesus says this.

He says this man Saul is my chosen instrument to proclaim my

name to the Gentiles and their kings and to the people of

Israel. I will show him how much he must

suffer for my name. So Saul proclaims Jesus name in

this passage, but he also suffers for Jesus name.

And through it all, Jesus is at work building his church and

changing soul. So there's a lot in this passage

that's unique to solve the apostle that doesn't apply to

everyday Christians like us. But actually, I think in one

sense we get the shape of the Christian life in this passage.

Luke wants to see that we are witnesses for Jesus as we walk

the way of the cross. We are witnesses for Jesus as we

follow Jesus on the way of the cross.

So, so Saul's message was Jesus the Son of God, the Messiah,

God's king, come to put things right.

But Saul's life also imitated Jesus, and he followed Jesus on

the way of the cross. The life of a disciple will

always involve suffering and sacrifice at times.

And actually Saul put it this way to churches a bit later in

Acts when he was going by his Greek name Paul, he said we must

go through many hardships to enter the Kingdom of God.

But through every hardship and suffering and sacrifice Saul

discovers, Paul discovered every Christian will discover that God

is with us by his Spirit, like our memory verse for the term,

He is making us more like Jesus and Jesus is building his church

through the witness and indeed the suffering of his people.

So this past, I think, has lots of practical wisdom for us on

how to keep going as followers of Jesus, but also unique

information about Saul and his early life.

So looking at Acts 9, verses 19 to 31, you can sort of call this

Acts 9:19–31

sections of A Tale of Two Cities.

We've got Saul in Damascus in verses 19 to 25, and we've got

Saul in Jerusalem in verses 26 to 30.

And we're going to see so behind, hidden behind verse 23.

Saul also spent some time in a place called Arabia in his early

years, but we'll, we'll get to that.

So first of all, then Saul in Damascus.

What does Saul do when he begins to follow Jesus?

How did his new life as a follower of Jesus begin?

Well, Luke tells us his new life as a follower of Jesus began

with him living in community with other believers.

Saul spent time with other believers.

That's verse 19. Let me read that for us again

midway through the verse. And Saul spent several days with

the disciples in Damascus. That Freddy Freddy

straightforward. So after his personal encounter

with Jesus, he's welcomed into the early church by the disciple

Ananias. He's baptized into the faith,

and then he spends time with his new find brothers and sisters in

Christ. But I want to say that even

that's a really simple statement.

He spent time, spent several days, sorry, with the disciples

in Damascus. This would have been a really

odd experience for Soul and for the disciples in Damascus.

So we need to remember Saul had travelled to Damascus to destroy

the early church. He'd come to find the people

he's now sitting in a room with and arrest every single one of

them and drag them off to prison.

And we know from Ananias that actually the disciples in

Damascus know all about what Saul was planning to do.

They knew the harm he done to the church in Jerusalem.

They knew about his violent past.

They maybe even had friends or family members who'd been put in

prison by Saul. They would have been frightened

of him, nervous of him, unsure what to make of him, and yet

probably led by Ananias. The disciples in Damascus spent

several days with Saul, and Saul spent several days with the

disciples. I want to say this, behind verse

19, there's maybe a bit of strangeness and awkwardness.

This would have been uncomfortable.

This would have been hard actually for both Saul and the

disciples, But Saul recognized he needed to spend time with

other disciples of Jesus, and those other disciples of Jesus

accepted Saul and welcomed him into the community of the church

in Damascus. Now, I think there's a huge

amount to tell every follower of Jesus here that isn't just

unique to Saul. For anyone in this room

following Jesus, we need other followers of Jesus around us.

Even for the apostle Paul, the Christian life is not a solo

sport, not something you do on your own.

We need to belong to a local church and to share life

together with other believers, even when that feels strange or

awkward or uncomfortable, as it would have done to Saul and the

believers in Damascus. And why do we need to spend time

with the believers? What we've already kind of

hinted at it. It is hard to follow Jesus in a

world that doesn't. It is hard to follow Jesus when

you're trying about people who maybe think he is a myth or even

something harmful or just something that doesn't have any

interest for their lives. Remember, we are witnesses for

Jesus in the power of the Holy Spirit as we walk the way of the

cross. Following Jesus in this world

involves suffering and sacrifice and self denial even involves

rejection at times. So we need other followers of

Jesus around us, praying for us, speaking the truth in love to

us, just walking alongside us, reminding us that we're not the

only ones who are struggling, showing us more of Jesus in the

way they welcome and accept us. And we need those believers

around us in the early days of following Jesus, like Saul was

in here. But actually we need it

throughout our life of following Jesus.

Because the older you get as a Christian, it's going to be

different pressures, but they are still there.

Sometimes the pressure of our love growing cold, sometimes the

the the feeling of just being weary or uninspired by the

gospel anymore. And Saul discovered an amazing

truth in the road to Damascus. When Jesus said, Saul, when

you're persecuting the church, you're persecuting me.

The church is the body of Christ.

We are united to Christ and we are united to each other.

And therefore we need each other if we are going to live and

follow Jesus and live as his witnesses in this world.

So Saul spent time with other believers.

We need to do the same. But actually there's another

truth in Saul's early years of following Jesus that's actually

largely hidden in this bit of act.

But Saul later Paul, in his own words, talks about his early

years as a Christian. And as well as spending time

with other believers, Saul spent time alone with Jesus.

That's verse 23. Now if you look at the beginning

of verse 23 again, here's how Luke puts it.

He says after many days had gone by.

Now I want to say that's a deliberately vague time

reference by Luke. If you just read Acts Chapter 9

Acts 9 · chapter mention

in the Bible, you presume Saul spent a few days in Damascus and

then he travelled to Jerusalem, all in a fairly short period of

time. But actually one of his earliest

letters that we have in the New Testament, the letter to the

Galatians, Saul himself now using his Greek name Paul, is

remembering this period on his life.

This is Galatians chapter 1, verses 13 to 18, and he writes,

Galatians 1:13–18

if you've heard of my previous way of life in Judaism, I

intensely I persecuted the Church of God and tried to

destroy it. But when God who sent me a part

of my mother's womb and called me by his grace was pleased to

reveal his Son in me so I might preach among the Gentiles, My

immediate response was not to consult any human being.

I didn't go up to Jerusalem to see those who were apostles

before I was, but I went into Arabia.

Later I returned to Damascus. Then after three years, I went

up to Jerusalem to get acquainted with the apostles.

OK, so making sense of this, actually, the many days of verse

23 that Luke refers to was actually three years.

That's a lot of days. I'm not a mathematician. 365

times 3 work it out. And for a large part of that

time, Saul tells us in Galatians, he was in a place

called Arabia, and that's the immediate South and east of

Israel. So the area that's mostly today

sort of Saudi Arabia would would fall.

It's just a map on the screen. Apologies.

The best map I could find was I think in French, so bear with

me. But at the top, I think that's

Damascus, sort of towards the stops of the Syria direction.

So he starts off in Damascus, but actually he goes into Arabia

for roughly 3 years. And what does Saul do in that

time? Well, the short answer is we

don't know because Saul doesn't tell us.

The only reference that time is Galatians chapter 1.

Galatians 1 · chapter mention

Luke doesn't mention it directly here, but according to early

church tradition, it seems likely that Saul used this

three-year period in Arabia to prepare himself for a life of

bearing witness to Jesus. It seems likely that during

those three years in Arabia, Saul spent time alone with

Jesus, learning from Jesus, praying and studying the Word of

God, growing in his knowledge and love of Jesus.

Now it's fairly clear from Saul's character and from the

rest of Acts 9, Saul didn't spend the whole of that three

years in in solitude. That seems very unlikely for

Saul. He would have met with other

followers of Jesus in that area, and he would have proclaimed

Jesus name to the people around him, just as he does in Damascus

and Jerusalem. But it seems clear the Saul

still needed to spend time alone with Jesus, praying to him,

hearing from him in his Word, worshipping him in order that

Saul could then live as a witness for Jesus.

What Saul shows us here is that that anyone's witness to Jesus

flows out of their worship of Jesus.

We can't bear witness to Jesus if we don't know him and we

don't know him if we are not spending time with him alone and

with his people. And again, in this three-year

period, it seems pretty clear that Jesus was revealing hugely

important truths to Saul. Saul talks later in his letters

about a mystery that Jesus revealed to him.

This mystery is that through the gospel, the Gentiles are heirs

together with Israel, members together of 1 body, and sharers

together in the promise in Christ Jesus.

That's Ephesians chapter 3. Remember Saul was this devout

Ephesians 3 · chapter mention

Jewish believer. He thought Gentiles should have

nothing to do with Jewish people, and yet Jesus tells him

something different. Jesus says actually nigh Jewish

and Gentile people can be reconciled to God and reconciled

to each other simply through faith in the finished work of

Jesus. That was a huge life changing

truth and it took Saul several years to get his head round it.

Soul needed time to spend with Jesus, to listen to Jesus, to

speak to Jesus. And again, I think that applies

to every follower of Jesus, not just Soul the apostle.

We need to remember that at its heart, the Christian life is not

about what we do for Jesus, it's about what Jesus has done for

us. If you're like, the Christian

life isn't about what we achieve for Jesus.

It's about what we receive from Jesus, his life, death and

resurrection in our place. And that's a really important

truth because it's really easy to make the Christian life all

about us. When you're part of a church

like Ave. there's loads of things happening.

You think of our notices, our family news.

There's lots of things we need to do.

People need to sign up for rotors and very quickly the

Christian life becomes about all that we need to do, but we need

then to slow down and to say, Jesus, remind me of who you are

and what you have done for me. Help me to receive your grace to

ask for your spirits help to live for you not to try and do

it in my in my own strength as an activist like in the apostle

Paul did a lot in his life. It wasn't he sat around doing

nothing but right the way through his life.

He never lost sight of his need to remember who Jesus is.

In the gospel, to worship Jesus first and foremost for who he

is, and then to bear witness to Jesus in the world around us.

So again, I'm going to claim it's still the beginning of a

new year. It's a few weeks into January,

but actually that is a great ambition to have.

Do I want to spend time with Jesus this year, with his

people? I'm with him alone.

Don't want to spend time actually learning how to pray,

just to depend on Jesus, to hear Jesus speak through his word, to

receive from Jesus, to remember it's not about what I do for

Jesus, it's about what Jesus has done for me.

In a little while, we're going to be taking bread and wine in

the Lord's Supper. And it's just a really tangible

outworking. Actually, we just receive from

Jesus. We don't, we don't go and go and

have to buy the bread ourselves. Chris has done that.

But we just received the bread. We receive the wine.

We remember. Actually, all I need to do is

open my hands in faith and receive what Jesus has done for

me through his life and death and resurrection.

So Saul spent time with other believers and he spent time with

Jesus. But also we actually get to see

the unique calling of the risen Jesus on Saul's life.

Remember the words of Jesus back in verse 15.

This man is my chosen instrument to proclaim my name to the

Gentiles and their kings and to the people of Israel.

And we see Jesus words fulfilled in verse 20.

If you're going to look down at that.

So verse 20, at once Saul began to preach in the synagogues that

Jesus is the Son of God. Verse 22, Saul grew more and

more powerful and baffled the Jews living in Damascus by

proving that Jesus is the Messiah.

We see that actually Saul in his early days as a believer, he

proclaimed Jesus to the people around him.

And he did that in both the cities he was in, in Damascus

and in Jerusalem. So in the synagogues in

Damascus, Saw proclaimed Jesus, and to the Greek speaking Jews

in Jerusalem, Saul's old friends, he proclaimed Jesus.

Basically Saw proclaimed Jesus to anyone who would listen, and

indeed to some people who didn't want to listen.

This is a unique part of Saul's calling as the apostle to the

Gentiles and to the people of Israel.

But we also remember here Saul's message to the people around him

was Jesus. It wasn't a moral code or a

philosophy or a way to improve your life.

It was a person, the man Christ Jesus, crucified and risen.

Because Saul knows any amount of advice or wisdom that he could

give is not enough to save anyone.

Only the crucified and risen Jesus had the power to wash Saul

clean and welcome him into God's people.

And Saul knows that same Jesus is the power to wash anyone

else, clean and welcome into God's people if they put their

faith in him. And who is Jesus according to

Saul? Well, he's the Son of God, verse

20. He's the eternal Son of God.

He's got unique access to the Father and he then can give us

access to the Father because Jesus reveals who the Father is

to us. He can then welcome us into

God's family and we get to call God our loving Father because we

share in Jesus eternal relationship with God his

Father. Even the youngest child can

pray. Father help me to to God because

Jesus shares his relationship with everyone who puts their

faith in him and not just the Son of God.

Jesus is the Messiah. You could translate that God's

rescuing king. He's come to put things right.

Soul can proclaim to people, yes the world is not as it should

be. Yes there is brokenness all

around us. Yes, we are under enemy

occupation. For the Jewish people, that

meant the Roman Empire. But actually Saul knew for every

human being, we're under enemy occupation in this world.

This world is marked by sin and death and the devil, but God has

sent his king to set us free, and his name is Jesus.

Jesus is the son of God, says Saul.

Jesus is God's rescuing king, and Jesus alone can save us.

So Jesus is our message. And how do the people in

Damascus respond to Saul? We'll look at verses 21 and 22.

Some were astonished, some were baffled, and some conspired to

kill him, we're told. Fast forward to the people in

Jerusalem. How did they respond to Saul's

message? Verse 29?

Some of the Greek speaking Jews tried to kill him.

It's fair to say that not everyone responded positively to

what Saul had to say about Jesus.

Actually, right from the beginning of his life Saul

suffered for Jesus name and in that actually he was modelling

and experiencing a truth about the Christian life that is true

for every follower of Jesus. That we follow Jesus on the way

of the cross. The words Jesus says to

disciples, if anyone's to follow me, they must deny themselves,

take up their cross and follow me, a Saul says in Acts later he

says it is we must go through many hardships to enter the

Kingdom of God. But you see, Saul also knows

that through those sufferings and hardships, God is with us By

his Spirit. We follow a Lord Jesus who's

familiar with suffering, a Jesus who knows what it is to suffer

rejection and loneliness and harm, a Jesus who strengthens us

in our suffering, a Jesus who's with us in the midst of it.

Again, when someone becomes a Christian, it can be easy to

think, right, All my problems are overnight.

I'm forgiven by Jesus. I'm, I'm accepted as a God's

family. And it's a glorious moment.

Saul experienced it. But Saul also experienced that

actually now to the very end of the age, as Joel pointed out to

us, we live in a fallen world and we will suffer in that world

and we will struggle. That's why we need each other.

That's why we need to keep listening to Jesus.

But that's why knowing that Jesus is with us always is so

precious. It transforms all.

It can transform us. Saul proclaimed Jesus to the

people around him because he knew Jesus is the only one who

can save anyone. And Saul suffered for Jesus name

knowing that Jesus was with him as he suffered.

Which is a couple of other things to learn from Saul's time

in Jerusalem before we finish. And the first thing is this.

Saul's conversion was hard to believe because conversions are

always hard to believe. At first verse 26, when Saul

came to Jerusalem, he tried to join the disciples, but they

were all afraid of him not believing that he really was a

disciple. I'm going to say that would have

been a really painful experience for Saul.

But to understand the just and believers skepticism, you just

remember the last time they saw Saul three years earlier.

He was this violent persecutor of the church.

He had maybe thrown into prison again, friends or family members

of these disciples, and he hadn't even heard of Saul for

three years. And now he turns up claiming to

be a follower of Jesus and they just don't buy it.

I want to say it's a strange truth in the Christian life that

even when you have seen the power of God at work in your own

life, Jesus welcoming and forgiving you, you still find it

difficult to believe he could actually welcome and forgive

that person or this person or that person.

I know really well the disciples in Jerusalem had all experienced

God's grace and mercy and patience, but they just didn't

believe that extended as far as someone like Saul.

And sadly, even up to the present, some of these people

who have come to know Jesus are greeted with suspicion and

hostility by Christians because we just can't quite get our

heads around how Jesus could save that person.

So how does Saul respond? Well, thankfully the Lord

stepped in and worked through a man named Barnabas, and Barnabas

took a risk on Saul. And if you've read Acts up to

this point, we've already met Barnabas once before in chapter

4 of Acts. He's a we're told he's a Levite

from the island of Cyprus. His birth name was Joseph, but

everyone calls him Barnabas, which means son of

encouragement. Barnabas earned that name

because he is just such a generous and loving disciple of

Jesus. And he proved to be a huge

encouragement to Saul and to the early church through his

intervention in a moment of doubt and suspicion, because

verse 27, if you look down, we learned that Barnabas spoke with

Saul when he arrived in Jerusalem.

He listened carefully to what Saul told him about his

encounter with Jesus. And then Barnabas waited up and

believed Saul and introduce Saul to the disciples to the apostles

in Jerusalem. In look at verse 27, the way

Barnabas keeps emphasizing what Jesus has done in Saul's life,

that Saul on his journey had seen the Lord, the Lord had

spoken to Saul and in Damascus Saul had preached fearlessly in

the name of Jesus. See what did Barnabas do in

Jerusalem? He didn't just run away from

Saul. He didn't just say, well, I

can't believe Jesus would really save Saul.

He took a risk, and he asked Saul some questions, and he

listened to Saul's answers. And that was a huge risk.

If Saul was an undercover agent just looking for Christians to

arrest, Barnabas was a prime candidate.

But actually, instead, Barnabas listened and he saw something of

Jesus in Saul. And so we welcome Saul into the

early church. It's as if Barnabas had to

remind the apostles and all the other disciples just who Jesus

is, and that Jesus is in the business of saving and

transforming people. Again, the 12 apostles all knew

that from their own lives. Look at the Gospels, the 12

apostles, They're always getting it wrong.

They're always foolish and slow. They run away when Jesus needs

the most. They know all about the grace of

God, and yet they they have struggled to remember it when it

comes to someone like Saul. So the Lord sends Barnabas, who

takes a risk on Saul. Becoming a Christian is a huge

thing, and when someone comes to put their faith in Jesus for the

first time, they'll often bring with them a fair bit of baggage,

maybe a past that they're ashamed of, old habits, patterns

of behaviour they need to change, ways of speaking or

thinking or doing things that Christians might find difficult.

But we need to learn from Barnabas here.

If we're committed to reaching out with the good news of Jesus

to Clarendon Park and to the whole of the city, wherever God

has put us needs to be willing to take a risk on people.

Not because we're always going to get it right, but because

Jesus is in the business of transforming the most unlikely

person through faith in him. So and Barnabas, this is the

beginning of a beautiful friendship for these two guys.

It'll culminate in them being missionaries and church planters

across the Roman world taking a risk on people who have not yet

heard about Jesus, but who come to faith in Jesus through their

witness. And if you're a Christian here

this morning, I want you to think for a minute, who were the

Barnabas in your life? Who were the people who took a

risk on you? Who encouraged you?

Who prayed for you? Who welcomed you in the name of

Jesus? We should stop regular and just

give thanks to God for those people.

And then we need to think, who can I be a Barnabas to in this

year ahead? Who can I encourage and proclaim

Jesus to and point to the grace of God?

Acts Chapter 9, The early years of the apostle Paul.

Acts 9 · chapter mention

We learn about the shape of the Christian life here.

We are witnesses for Jesus on the way of the cross.

We follow Jesus. We proclaim Jesus because he

alone can save, but that will involve suffering and rejection.

But that's why we need to remember who Jesus is and that

he is with us when we experience suffering and rejection again.

The bread and wine we're going to take in a moment is all about

remembering Jesus loved us so much.

He suffered and gave his life to reconcile us to God.

Jesus is with us always to the very end of the age.

Jesus knows what it is to suffer.

Jesus can strengthen us in our suffering.

And Jesus knows suffering will never have the last word in the

life of one of his followers. The last word belongs to Jesus.

Again, when Chris leads us in a moment, we're going to remember

this is a meal we celebrate until the Lord comes, until the

end of the age when Jesus will welcome his people home and he

will say, well done, good and faithful servant, come and share

your master's happiness. We are witnesses for Jesus as we

walk the way of the cross and Jesus wants to strengthen us

until the day we see him face to face.

That was Saul's testimony. That can be the testimony of

every believer here this morning.