Summary
Pastor Safrit walks through Acts 21, highlighting Paul's journey to Jerusalem despite warnings from friends about the impending danger. He emphasizes the importance of Christian friendship, noting that true love often requires sacrifice and obedience to God's calling over emotional ties. The sermon challenges listeners to evaluate their own friendships and their willingness to follow Christ, even when it may cost them relationships. Ultimately, Pastor Safrit encourages the congregation to seek genuine Christian fellowship and to prioritize God's will in their lives.
Welcome and Housekeeping
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Thank you, Addie, for that. Thank you, church, for listening well. If you have a child who wants to be dismissed at Children's Church, that is available at this time. And Miss Colleen is going to take them back there. Thanks.
If you have your Bibles, we're going to be in Acts chapter 21 this morning. If you're visiting with us or you haven't been here in a while, we are preaching through the book of Acts. And Acts 21 is a very fitting passage for where we're at this morning,
looking at Paul's life and Paul nearing the end of his life and nearing what that's going to look like. And so Acts 21, we'll read the first 16 verses together, and then we'll open up our message this morning.
If you'll stand out of reading of God's Word, and we'll read the first 16 verses today. The Bible says, After we tore ourselves away from them, this was Ephesus leaving from there, we set sail for Acosta the next day to Rhodes, and then from there to Patria.
Finding a ship crossing over Phoenicia, we boarded and set sail.
After we sighted Cyprus, passing to the south of it, we sailed on to Syria and arrived at Tyre. Since the ship was unloaded its cargo there, we sought out the disciples and stayed there for seven days. Though the Spirit told Paul not to go to Jerusalem.
When our time had come to an end, we left to continue our journey, while all of them with their wives and children accompanied us to the city. After kneeling down on the beach to pray, we said farewell to one another and boarded the ship and returned home.
When we completed our voyage from Tyre, we reached Ptolemas,
where we greeted the brothers and sisters and stayed for them for a day. The next day we left and came to Caesarea.
When we entered the house of Philip the Evangelist, who was one of the seven, and stayed with him, this man had four virgin daughters who prophesied. After we had been there for several days, a prophet named Agabus came down from Judea.
He came to us and took Paul's belt and tied his own feet and hands and said, this is what the Holy Spirit says,
in this way the Jews in Jerusalem will bind the man who owns this belt and deliver him over to the Gentiles. When we heard this, both we and our local people pleaded with him not to go to Jerusalem. Then Paul replied, what are you doing weeping and breaking my heart?
For I am ready not only to be bound, but also to die in Jerusalem for the name of the Lord Jesus. Since he would not be persuaded, we said no more except the Lord's will be done.
Then after this, we got ready and went to Jerusalem. Some of the disciples from Caesarea also went with us and brought us Manassas of Cyprus, an early disciple from whom we were to stay.
Lord, we love you. We thank you for the reading of your word. We thank you for your blessings. We love you. In your name we pray. Amen.
You may be seated. Every once in a while, I study these old names, but just seeing that P there, Ptolemus just threw me off again. Sometimes that happens. I know you guys think I'm perfect. I do make mistakes. It happens. Mark them down every once in a while.
I do make a mistake here and there. It's good to humble myself and know that I'm human still.
Last week, I gave an illustration of the captain of the Titanic. I like history. I love just looking at history. I came across another story in the Titanic that I thought was fitting for today's opening illustration. As we know, in April of 1912, the Titanic went down.
This was the grandest ship of all, struck an iceberg, began to sink. There was one passenger that was on board this ship. His name was John Harper. John Harper was a Scottish pastor and he was traveling from Scotland with his six-year-old daughter to preach at the Grand Moody Chapel in Chicago.
He was going and he was excited to be able to stand behind the pulpit there of D.L. Moody's pulpit and be able to preach there with his daughter.
And as panic spread and as the ship was going down, Harper put his little girl in a lifeboat and kissed her goodbye.
And he said these words, I promise you that one day we'll meet again. He knew that his life was probably not going to be spared in this tragedy. He turned back and several eyewitnesses on the deck heard him say that he was not there to save himself but to save others.
And not necessarily save their physical life but their spiritual life.
One eyewitness later testified that Harper ran from person to person and he cried out, believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and you'll be saved. Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and you'll be saved. He continued to say this statement over and over again.
And when the ship finally plunged beneath the waters and began to go, he found himself clinging to a piece of the wreckage and he was near another man and this man reported that Harper was across the waters from
him and he heard this man yelling out and he said, are you saved? The man said, he shouted back, no.
He said the last words that anyone heard Harper say was believe on the Lord Jesus Christ.
man said he tried to swim over to where he was at and by the time he got there, Harper had already went under the water and had passed away.
But his very last statement to the witnesses of the strangers that were there were believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and you'll be saved. That night, Harper demonstrated two great truths that I think we're going to see in this passage that real love costs something.
If you're going to love someone and you're going to love the Lord, it's got to cost to something but it also, a real love of someone who loves their friends is going to give their life to their friend by witnessing to them and sacrificing for themselves.
The Importance of Friendship
True friendship with the Lord eventually is going to hurt at some point or the other. As we look at this passage in Acts chapter 21,
Paul's journey toward Jerusalem sort of surrounded by friends who loved him, the Bible says they prayed for him, they pleaded for him to stay and yet he chose the harder road.
He chose the road that was going to lead to suffering and pain all because he wanted to obey the Lord. He wanted to obey what Christ was telling him to do.
We see here the gift of a Christian friend and in my life as we were reflecting this past week as John was in town and I'll share a little bit of that but a Christian friend is such a
beloved thing that we have and I want to challenge us, who are the Christian friends in our life and what are we doing as we begin to grow together, as we begin to see each other in our life.
Which brings us to the first point of verses 1-6, the need for Christian friendship. The need for Christian friendship. The Bible says in finding disciples, we stayed there for seven days.
The Bible says that as Paul was going on this journey, he knew and you can read through all the writings of Paul in Acts, you can read through his epistles and all throughout his writings, he's constantly talking about the people that are around him.
I want to thank the Lord for these people who helped share what I'm doing. I want to thank you for the person that wrote this letter as he was getting older in his age and about to pass away. He wanted to thank the people. Why is that?
Because he wants us to know that we're not meant to walk alone. We must have people around us that are company and around us that are seeking the Lord for us but also seeking the Lord with us.
It's such a vital thing as right before I walked up here John had texted me and he said, hey, I'm praying for you this morning my friend. I love that you're going to get up and preach and I want you to know that
six hours away in Tennessee there's someone here that's praying for you this morning. This is what a Christian friend does.
It's someone who is around you who is with you personally but also as those private times come you know that they're there for you.
You can call out to them, you can reach out to them and they're going to be there and Christ in the same way is there for us in our private times.
Even the boldest missionary of all time Paul who gave his life still needed brothers and sisters around him to walk with him to care for him to encourage him in the Lord and stand beside him.
As we know here in North Carolina if you have a license plate there is this sign on the back I know they've changed a little bit but it used to be first in flight.
That was on the back of everyone's license tag and as you went through there and if you study the life of the Wilbur Wright and his brother Orville as they were test flying the very first airplanes as they
were taken off you can see this picture if you look it up one brother is in the airplane and the other one is running beside the airplane.
They're there for each other encouraging and persevering as long as they possibly can because in that same way we are not meant to fly alone. God has created us with relational beings to be around each other.
As you look at the very first humans Adam and Eve that were in the garden and as Adam is naming all the animals he looks up at God and he says
hey God I think you're missing something. They all have someone else and I am here by myself.
And God says I'm glad you see that God has not created us to be alone and he created for him a help meet to show us waking you up a little bit to show us we are designed to be around each other.
The question I want to ask us is who are you walking beside right now? Who are you around right now and who's walking beside of you besides your faith?
We are all meant to be around people. We have this wonderful ability to have the need of Christian friendships. Who is those people around us? Who are those people around us? Number two verses four through fourteen. How are we experiencing Christian fellowship?
There's one thing to have Christian fellowship but how do we experience this Christian fellowship that is so vital?
Practicing Hospitality
Part of this is our core values here at the church to grow together to practice hospitality to preach the gospel and so the first one I'm going to look at is through hospitality.
I think that one of the most vital things we can do is welcome other people in, make room for other people.
The Bible says that the believers at Tyree and Caesarea open their homes and their heart. One vital thing about hospitality is hospitality is love in action.
If we're going to be people of hospitableness we must be people who are looking out and making room for other people.
The Bible says that as they entered the house of Philip the evangelist and they abode with him. They understood that there was this massive responsibility that if we're going to be Christians and if we're going to love each other and have friendship with one another we must be
those people who are hospitable. We must be those people who are willing to open our homes up and willing to take the time for other people. Just yesterday I had a guy reach out to me on Facebook. He lives up in West Virginia.
He's a military man and through some various different friends of ours he got in contact with me and he said can I spend 30 to 45 minutes just having a phone conversation with you?
I can't come down and spend time with you but can I call you and can you just talk about what ministry looks like?
Talk about what it means to be a pastor and how you talk with people and how you deal with situations and I said his name is Bryce I said Bryce absolutely give me a call around 1030 I'll say it was okay and we could have talked for an hour and a half.
I could have said I'm just too busy for you Bryce you understand this is my one day off of the week and I've got all these things going on I'm wanting to take my wife on a date tonight
but instead I said you know yeah sure I'll give you 45 minutes I'll give you 30-45 minutes.
This is what hospitality means it's the warmth of a front porch it's walking around and you know for me it's a back porch but neighbors stop by and the conversations begin to happen and all of a sudden the
conversations turn into the burdens that one has and you begin sharing those burdens and you begin to love one another because Christian hospitality opens the door for those who are hurting it says hey come on in let's talk
about what's going on let's talk about how we can share the love of Christ with one another and we can experience the love of God that we have experienced throughout our week everywhere we go people are hurting everywhere
we go people are needing someone to love and care for them and we have to ask ourselves are we willing to open the door and care for them as well I've got to stay to the pulpit I think
my mic is messing up number two B here the way we show and experience Christian fellowship is through hospitality but also through fellowship and affection now this is a word affection that we don't necessarily like to talk about
because as men as big strong men we've got to be tough all the time and I'm not a crier by nature God has not blessed me with the crying ability often
my wife and my daughter often get on to me when they see me start crying they're like take out the camera picture time this is one of the three moments in James' life where he's going to cry
not a crier I'm a lover I love to give hugs I love to hug on people and be around people and that's sort of my affection and fellowship as we grow together as we come together the Bible says here that they brought their wives and children
to share and kneel together I think this is so vital because it's showing listen this is not just for the adults in the room this is for everybody this is for the entire family we must bring the whole
family together we've got to share our faith we've got to share our affection with what's going on our children need to see when we're going to certain places when we're hanging out at someone's house when difficult times are
happening they need to see that they need to experience that because what it does is it shows them the picture of Christ in our life they see that mom and dad or grandma and grandpa when tough times come
they see them kneeling on their knees and praying before holy God and saying God we need you today God we don't know what's going to happen we don't know where we're going to go but we know we can
turn to you and so as that 4 and 5 and 7 year old and 13 year old grow up in their life they can begin to know you know when when hard times came I remember mom and dad
going and getting on their knees and going before holy God and saying God I don't know what's going on but I know that you're here for us and the Christian fellowship and affection
brings the family together and says this is how you worship the Lord this is how you see the Lord in your lives love here is expressed through the presence of men together the presence of saying you know when
Obedience and Friendship
life is difficult even when we must obey even when it hurts we've got to obey the Lord and so we've got to ask ourselves are we showing this Christian friendship and Christian fellowship through hospitality through fellowship and affection but also through
prayer in verse 5 the Bible says that these believers they went and they knelt down on the shore and they prayed
Lord's working with me right now as I'm already praying and praying for next year of developing a series on what it means to have a prayer life and how we can truly be a church of prayer and I
believe as we look at even this verse it says here that these believers they knelt down and they prayed together because prayer binds our hearts together closer than we ever could
by praying for one another you don't necessarily have to be with each other but you can be around each other through the safety of prayer
often times church there'll be times where I'll be around people or a situation will happen I don't know if that was my mic again situations will happen where I may run out of words I know that is an odd thing to think about me running out of words
but in those moments I know that I can go before holy God and say God I don't really know what to say right now will you come in and wrap your loving arms around this family will you give them support and compassion and peace that they need in this moment
because prayer can carry that friendship forward more than you ever know when I was just a young teenager
13, 14 years old trying to figure out life trying to figure out what God had called me to do and where he was leading me I remember I was just struggling so often and one of my best friends
was actually John's brother Ben he said James let's just go for a walk and we walked for like two miles around we lived out in the country and we walked around cow pastures and chicken farms and we just spent this two hours of just talking with one another and praying with one another
and I can truly go back to this moment in my life to where someone who loved me and cared for me spent time with me spent time through friendship but also spent time in prayer with me and truly
changed the direction of my life because the direction we were going was a difficult life and a life that God was not honored in Charles Spurgeon said it like this he said that the
powerfulness of his ministry didn't come from his preaching and if you know anything about Charles Spurgeon he's named the prince of preachers because he was one of the most gifted orators that has ever lived and he only lived
to be 54 years old but yet he has books and sermons that I still read today and I still glean from today
and this is what he said the power was not for my preaching but he said there was a room below the pulpit and every single sermon that I preached there was a group of men who went down in
that room below the pulpit and prayed for me every single Sunday while I was preaching they were praying and that's where my power came from you see friendship is deepened when we kneel together and we seek the Lord
together and we say God I don't know what we're going to do but I want to serve you and I want you to guide me in this way
the question is who do we love enough to pray with not just for but with are we spending time locally praying for ourselves and with ourselves with our spouses with our children are we showing them the power of
prayer and then are we extending that out to the people that are in our community and saying hey can I pray for you I see that something is struggling here can we come together this is what this group
of disciples were doing they were praying together and then verses 10-14 we see something that I believe we lack a lot of in our day and age it's through honest conversations
it's through conversations that are honest that are heartfelt that are there because they love them the Bible says that Agabus a prophecy
led him to this tension moment where he began to plead with Paul don't go to Jerusalem the spirit keeps telling me that if you go to Jerusalem you're going to die this is going to be the end of
your life and we don't want your life to end we want you to continue being here
often times in our life we say if I tell them something hard they're no longer going to be my friend
and so in order to preserve the friendship I have to avoid the hard conversations and avoid the honest conversations in order to preserve the friendship but what I know and what I see through here through scripture is friendship
doesn't mean silence it means speaking the truth and love the bible says here that Paul looked at him and says what do you mean we're weeping and you're breaking my heart you're telling me to do something that God
is telling me the opposite of and it was an honest conversation and looking at this and saying that healthy Christian friends allow disagreements without divisions
healthy Christian friends says it's okay to have a disagreement but we don't need to divide over that I don't know how many times I'll talk to someone and I'll tell them and even John my best friend I'll talk
to three or four times a week he believes a little bit different than me theologically he has some different eschatology views of end times than I do he believes things theologically a little bit different than me doesn't mean I look at him and say I can't be your friend anymore
no it means we're going to have disagreements and we're going to as the bible says iron sharpening iron and we're going to grow in our faith and we're going to love each other and we're going to care for
one another because we're having honest conversations with one another the question I want to leave you with is are your friendships deep enough to handle honest spiritual conversations even when you disagree
are your friendships that you have in this world so deep that it doesn't matter if you disagree you love each other so much that you're going to handle them with grace and compassion and mercy so that you can
still be friends so that you can still serve the Lord together you see these people who were coming to Paul were saying don't do this don't go to Jerusalem stay here with us we want you to be here
with us and he said no no no I know that's what you desire here on earth but the Lord has a different will for me the Lord's desire is something completely different and I've got to follow the Lord his will must be done number three the cost of following Christ
verses 13 through 16 we begin to lay out what it looks like and the cost of what it's going to look like for Paul to follow Christ and I believe that any relationship we have here on this earth whether it be physical or spiritual relationship will cost us something
when I desire to marry my wife there was a cost of me having to go to her father and say hey Glenn I love your daughter you know I love your daughter can I marry your daughter and he
laid out the 17 things that I had to do in order to marry his daughter I went to her biological dad Cleet who will be here in a couple weeks and I said Cleet I want to marry your daughter and he immediately started crying my baby daughter she's getting married
he just boohooed and this is what he said his only requirement you can marry her but you can't take her out of the state of Arkansas I looked at him and I said Cleet you know we're going to Idaho I've already accepted this position
she's not going to be in Arkansas after May of 2011
and I said this is okay you take care of her that's all I care it costs something to love someone I had to sell some things that were near and dear to me to buy the ring that's on her hand so that I
Cost of Following Christ
can go and give that to her loving someone caring for someone costs something to everyone
we have to ask ourselves are we willing to pay the cost to follow Christ first way we look at this is Paul's decision in light of his friendships he felt their love he felt the love that they had
toward them but yet he obeyed God's call more than he obeyed what they were saying you see emotion must never override God's calling and God's obedience
emotional decisions come in emotions come in and they tie us up and it's easy to follow emotions and it's a whole lot harder to follow what God's call is in our life the Bible says that Paul responded I'm
ready not only to be bound only but also to die in Jerusalem for the name of the Lord Jesus Christ I'm willing to sacrifice everything in order to follow Christ it would have been real easy for Paul to
say you know you're right look at what I've done look at the ministry that I've done and emotionally to say you know let's just avoid Jerusalem let's go somewhere else let's go over here and let's preach the gospel
over here and let's go follow this person and that person and see what the Lord does but he was ready to follow the Lord even if it cost him his life would that be our calling
the Lord has called us to do a hard thing to follow him in a way
that the world looks at and says that is so crazy why are you doing that
and yet we look and say it's because the Lord is calling me and telling me to do that I've shared often the story of Jim Elliot and when he went to Ecuador with his friends and they went down
there and all of them were killed moments after they landed on that place and their wives came back later but one interesting thing about Jim Elliot was his friends who were here in America begged him to reconsider
and yet he went on anyways through his obedience and desire to follow the Lord it cost him his life but yet it sparked a generation of missionaries who are to this day still in Ecuador still preaching the gospel
who had their own wives went down there and their own grandkids and other missionaries began going down there and training these people to love the Lord
Paul's decision in light of his friends was a hard decision but it was a decision that he had to make let's look at number two and this is where we'll bring the whole message home today some challenging principles
to live by as we look at verses 13 through 16 some things that we can ask ourselves and say is this the reason I'm doing things or is it the other the first is this follow Christ rather than
people it is a difficult thing to do this is a difficult thing to follow Christ rather than follow people
friends may mean well and in our day and age friends may mean well but they misread God's will for their life
my dad tells me often of a story of him and his three best friends and they were they had all decided they were going to join the air force they were going to join together and they were going
to be the four guys who were going to go through all the air force and they were going to retire at 40 years old because they were going to join at 18 or 20 and they were going to
put in their 20 years and he said this was this driving thought in their life that they were going to do this and six months before
they had decided this again they were just following each other and he said six months before he met my mom
and he said everything changed the desires of the people that I was around were going one way but yet God had brought your mother into my life and so my desires had changed based on what God has called me to do friends mean
well and often times the safest path is obedience to the Lord not necessarily popularity of the world and we have to ask ourselves am I truly devoted follower of Christ saying I want to follow you Lord I want
to live after you I don't care what the people say I don't care what the people that the world says it's easier to go this way I'm just going to follow you and trust in you as I go through my life number two value input
but follow God's will value input but follow God's will
wise counsel matters do not hear what I'm not saying seek wise counsel when you make decisions when you are in a fork in the road when life doesn't know what's going on the Bible clearly tells us to seek
wise counsel to surround ourselves with wise people but ultimately follow the conviction that the Lord is telling you and follow the conviction of what God is saying
when he would not be persuaded the Bible says we ceased saying things and we said the will of the Lord will be done we have to ask ourselves are we seeking wise counsel but ultimately trusting the Lord are
we valuing the input of others before I make decisions before things happen I talk to multiple people here at this church family members friends extended friends
ultimately I've got to decide what the Lord wants me to do but I want to value the input of other people and make sure that the things that I'm doing the things that I'm saying the way I'm living
my life is valuable to those around me but also valuable what the Lord is telling me to do
Feeling Alone in Faith
we must ask ourselves are we following the Lord that way number three we aren't alone when we follow Jesus
often times we feel like we're alone we make a decision that our friends are not making our family members are not making and we have to make a stand for the Lord and it feels like we're on an
island it feels like we are all by ourselves and the Bible says in verse 16 that even when Paul went forward some went with him
some said hey Paul I don't agree with what you're doing but I'll continue to go with you and even if no one would have followed the Lord would have still been there with him God never calls us into
obedience without companionship with Christ and when things don't seem right when things seem like all has abandoned us know that when Christ was on the cross and he looked out into that crowd everyone all of his friends had
abandoned him and all 12 of his disciples had turned their back on him and then later there was that one John who came back into that crowd who he loved who was there with him but throughout that entire time who was still with him God was still there
God was still there and there was that one moment in time where he cried out Eli Eli
I probably butchered that but he said my God my God why have you forsaken me in this moment why have you turned your back on me the one that I was connected to has now turned his back on
me and Jesus said because for that one moment God couldn't look on sin and turned his back on him now I'm going to be with you and intercede with you forever
because we have this compassion this companionship with Christ and number four the last question I want to ask you is a challenging question a question that you can ruminate on a little bit is this what costs more
following Jesus or not disobedience carries a higher cost loss of peace loss of purpose and loss of joy in our life loss of never knowing Christ and the salvation that Christ has for us obedience may hurt for a moment
others others may ask the question why are you doing that what are you doing and it looks crazy to the world
but when God has called us to do something we must serve the Lord because he always leads us in the right direction and the Bible says that it led him home there's this one little verse here where it
says that they were heading home and Paul knew that Jerusalem would be his home where he would where he was at for his whole life and the Lord brought him back to that home brought him back to that
time where he was going to end his life but yet he was following the Lord you know as I was I know Mickey had said it just a moment ago the soldiers and those who are away from
home during this difficult time of Thanksgiving season but as I was doing even a little study this week on soldiers this phrase kept coming to my mind and kept coming around me is this brothers in arms
you see when soldiers leave their family and they go off to battle or they go off to boot camp they
begin to build a new brotherhood a new family a new friendship that they grow closer to because each person there knows the cost of the mission they know when we go off to war some of us aren't going
to come home they know when they go off to battle that someone's going to lose an arm or a leg or a limb and they're not going to be the same when they come back whether it be mentally
or physically in the same way as our belief in Christ we are brothers in arms and we go together and we follow Christ together and we have this unity that Christ has brought for us and through us because
of the one gift of Christ we have to ask ourselves what is going to cost us more following Jesus and turning our back on the world or turning our back on the world or turning our back on Jesus
and following what the world has for us as Terry comes I want to conclude by saying just a couple of things
the story ends not with separation often people will look at this and they'll say you know Paul he separated his life from from the people here in these places that he looked at and Ephesus that he loved and
he the Bible says they tore themselves away from them there was this separation and often times we just see the separation but I want to tell us that this story ends with surrender
this story ends with Paul saying I would rather surrender my life to what God is calling me to do than surrender my life to what someone else is asking me to do and he ends with this little statement
Evaluating God's Will
the Lord's will be done I want to challenge us this morning to ask ourselves evaluate ourselves and begin to process our lives and say is the Lord's will being done in our life
is the actions that we're taking is the words that we're saying is the people that we're hanging out with is it the Lord's will in our life that this has been done or are we doing these things because of our own selfish desires
it is a hard thing to separate emotion from what the Lord has for us and we see that clearly as Paul was struggling with people coming in and saying we don't want to leave you we don't want you
to go and do this and he just had to keep saying this is what the Lord is telling me to do he's telling me to go to Jerusalem he's telling me to go here and I don't know I
know why but it's still difficult to do this you see the heartbeat of Christian friendship is standing together in love even when our paths differ in direction
my friendship with people throughout my ministry has and even my own life as a teenager and growing up in church we're in different places and stages of life but yet through all of that we can still have Christian friendship because we are together in love
two final questions I want to ask you as we go into our time of invitation do you have friends who pray for you do you have friends that speak the truth even when it hurts
and do you have friends that are walking with you if not I want to challenge you this morning find someone that you can walk together with find someone that you can say I want you to pray with me
and speak truth in me and walk with me when times get tough
I don't know where I would be if I didn't have those friends in my life number two are you willing to obey Christ even when it costs you those very friendships are you willing to say I need these friendships they're the most valuable thing
but if God is telling me to do something and they walk away I'm still going to follow Christ because he is more important than those friends
both of these things are great the gift of friendship but the cost of obedience and when we begin to walk in this way I truly believe that this is what Paul was saying this is what genuine faith looks like it's following Christ over all other desires of our life or desires of mankind
father we love you we thank you for sending your son to die for us so that we can have these Christian friends that are so valuable in our life
Closing Prayer and Reflection
and God I thank you for what you've done for us I thank you for this message that has been so impactful to my life I thank you for John's messages this past week that have just challenged me in my own faith
I pray God that you would have your will and way in everything that's said and done be with the invitation time in your name we pray amen thank you again for taking your time to listen to the sermon audio of Pleasant Grove please subscribe to get our latest sermons each week
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