Acts 18:23-19:20 (Week 32 - Life in the Spirit)

Amen. If you have your Bibles, I want to invite you to open it up to Acts chapter 18, or device with a Bible app on it. Acts chapter 18 will be starting in verse 23 in just a moment. If you were here last week, you may remember that when we ended up in verse 22 of chapter 18, that the apostle Paul had just come home to the church in Antioch and ended his second missionary journey. The book of Acts has all been about how the Holy Spirit's working in and through the early church to spread the good news of Jesus Christ to all the way to the ends of the earth, and that's what's been happening over the last several chapters as we've seen Paul on these different missionary journeys, and he finished his second missionary journey. And one verse later, we already see that the Dr. Luke tells us he's going out on his next missionary journey. And so here's the way Luke starts in verse 23 He says, after spending some time in Antioch, Paul set out from there, and traveled from place to place throughout the region of Galatia and Phrygia, strengthening all the disciples, and so we don't really know how long Paul stayed after his second missionary journey, but we're told that after rest and telling the church about what God had accomplished in and through the missionary teams there, and all the number of people that came to know Jesus, then he went right back out, and he did what he has been doing on each one of the other missionary journeys, besides sharing the gospel with anyone who has yet to receive it and put their faith and trust in him for salvation. He's been strengthening all of the disciples. Isn't this is important? Just quickly, before we move on, to note that Paul did not go into these cities, he did not just share the gospel, and then receive it, and go, "Okay, you're going to heaven now, you're good when you die, and good luck with everything. He came back to keep pouring into them and teaching them who they are in Christ, how the Holy Spirit works in and through them to accomplish his kingdom work in their community, the way it makes a difference in every aspect and sphere of their lives. This is discipleship. There is so much. This is why we keep coming each and every Sunday for worship, and we gather together in small groups and communities and dive into his word, is because we are open to being discipled in the same way that Paul was discipling, and through that discipleship they're being strengthened, being strengthened in their awareness of who they are in Christ, and how He works in and through them. This is kind of a general overview of where Paul is going each time he set out from Antioch, and this time he's moving through these different areas, and we'll stop and talk along the way about each one of these as we continue to work our way through Acts. He continues in verse 24 and says, Meanwhile, a Jew named Apollos, who is a native of Alexandria, came to Ephesus. He was a learned man with a thorough knowledge of the scriptures, and he had been instructed in the way of the Lord, and he spoke with great fervor, and taught about Jesus accurately, though he knew only the baptism of John. He began to speak boldly in the synagogue, but when Priscilla and Aquila heard him, they invited him to their home and explained to him the way of God more adequately. Now, what, Paul, I mean, excuse me - Luke is doing here is he introduced that Luke was heading out on his next missionary journey, but then when he says meanwhile here in verse 24 he's taking us back, he's kind of saying, well, hold on, he's on his journey, but let me fill you in on some things that happened while Paul was in Antioch before he started this journey. You may remember that as we read about who did we just read about, we just read about Priscilla and Aquila, duh. Sometimes you have those moments on stage, even though you studied it all week, you just go blank, and so we have Priscilla and Aquila, and they were last time we read this in Acts chapter 18 that they stayed in Ephesus. Paul had met them, they had, he had discipled them, they went on this missionary journey with him the rest of the way, but when he got to Ephesus, he ended up sharing the good news with some of the people in the synagogue, they asked him to stay, but he said, "I can't stay, I'm leaving to go, but if the Lord wills, I will come back. And so, in the meantime, he left Priscilla and Aquila there, and Paul's sharing with us what happened with them while they were there. What happened was they met this man, whose name is Apollos. We learn a little bit about him. He's from Alexandria, Alexandria. He was a smart man. He had a thorough knowledge of the scriptures, the Old Testament scriptures. He was a great speaker. He spoke with enthusiasm and taught about Jesus accurately. But there was a problem. The problem. Is what we see right here at the very end of this screen, right here in verse 25 is that he knew only of the baptism of John, so he was speaking accurately of Jesus up to a certain point, but he did not have the full awareness of Jesus, the full gospel message for salvation. When we're talking about the baptism of John, we're of course referring to John the Baptist. You can read about him in the Gospels and how he came to prepare the way for Jesus, and he himself even tells a little bit about what him baptizing people was all about, and how that didn't, I mean, it paled in comparison to what Jesus would accomplish, and so here's what we see John the Baptist saying in Matthew chapter three verse 11. He says, I baptize you with water for repentance, but after me comes one who is more powerful than I, whose sandals I am not worthy to carry, he, he will baptize you with the Holy Spirit. And so John was trying to let us know that what he's doing is limited, what he's doing is not anywhere near close to what Jesus, the Messiah, the Savior of the world, is going to accomplish when John baptized people, it was this baptism of preparation for Jesus's coming to get ready for his coming, and what he would accomplish through the cross, but when he came and did what he accomplished through the cross, he would baptize people with the Holy Spirit. There would be this indwelling of the spirit, and there would be this, this conversion, this takes place, this, this regeneration that takes place, where our dead, lifeless spirit gets joined to the Holy Spirit, the eternal, abundant spirit that is life, and we would come to spiritual life, we would be made new creations in Christ, and our old nature would be killed off, and we would have new nature, but apparently Apollos didn't know any of that. He knew about Jesus, he knew about the Messiah, he knew the Old Testament scriptures pointing to the Messiah, the predictions of the Messiah. He was teaching about them accurately, but he did not have the full gospel message of the baptism of the Holy Spirit, the finished work of Jesus on the cross for the forgiveness of his sins, and to regenerate him and bring him that salvation. And so Apollos wasn't saved, and so what we see is that when Priscilla and Aquila find this out, and they hear him sharing this knowledge. They don't call him a heretic, they don't go, "Hold on, time out, you don't know what you're talking about. There's more to the story. They let him finish. They're respectful, but then look at what they do. When Priscilla and Aquila heard him, they invited him into their home, like, hey, man, you know a lot about Jesus and the Messiah, but there's more you don't know. There's more to the story. There's the rest of the gospel. And so we want to invite you into our home. Let's enjoy a meal together. Let's get to know each other better, and let us share with you what we've come to know the truth about the way that Paul described it to us through the Holy Spirit's empowerment to them, and so we see this hospitality, and we see that they explained to him the way of God more adequately. They filled in all of the gaps. The other thing I just want to highlight quickly before we move on, is notice that both Priscilla and Aquila are sharing with him, and the reason I highlight this and just kind of quickly point it out is because Priscilla is obviously a female. Females, women at this particular time, were not highly regarded as far as their status in the culture, their testimony wouldn't even hold up in court, and that kind of thing. Men didn't learn from women, and yet we see the gospel destroy destroying a lot of those barriers and cultural things that limited, and the Holy Spirit's coming and indwelling and empowering Priscilla, along with her husband Aquila, to share the good news before Apollos, and he's receiving it. The Holy Spirit's working powerfully in and through her, and Paul would even declare later that there is no more male and female, and all the different things that separate us. The Holy Spirit empowers us and works through all of us in His kingdom work. Praise God, praise God. Okay, and so this is what's happening, and, and apparently he responded to that good news that Priscilla and Aquila were sharing with him, because he says when Apollos wanted to go to Achaia, the brothers and sisters encouraged him and wrote to the disciples there to welcome him, so so he. He's good, like he understands. Welcome him, support him, listen to what he has to say. They wouldn't be saying that if he didn't respond to the finished work of Christ, and have learned and been more equipped for it. And so now, when he arrived, he was a great help to those who by grace had believed. He, after being discipled by Priscilla and Aquila went and discipled others in grace, those who had believed, and helped them see more about Jesus and who they were in Christ, and how He worked in and through their lives. Now, verse 28 for He vigorously refuted His Jewish opponents in public debate, proving from the Scriptures that Jesus was the Messiah. Who does that sound like the Apostle Paul? Right? I mean, this is what he was doing, and so not just was he discipling those in the church, he was evangelizing and sharing the good news with those, proving again from the scriptures that Jesus is the Messiah, and so he only knew the baptism of John, didn't have the full gospel message, hears it, responds to it, and then immediately begins to share it with others and be living life in the spirit, in having things produced in and through him for his kingdom work, God's kingdom work, as we get into chapter 19 now we're we're Luke's pulling us back in. All right, he sent made us aware that he was sent out on his missionary journey. Push the pause button. Let me fill in what was happening in Ephesus. Now let me come back and tell you what happened on the journey. So, while Apollos was at Corinth, Paul took the road through the interior and arrived at Ephesus. Now, where was Apollos before he was at Corinth? Ephesus, right? And so Priscilla and Aquila were there. He shares, learns the gospel there, he gets saved, and then he gets sent out on a missionary journey to Corinth, and a disciple, and go there, and then Paul, now on his third missionary journey, comes to where Apollos was, and now we're going to learn a little bit more about how Apollos isn't the only one who only had a limited knowledge of Jesus in this awareness of who he was up until John in his baptism, and that's what we see next. Look at the way Luke continues in verse one of chapter 19. There in Ephesus, he, referring to Paul, found some disciples and asked them, "Did you receive the Holy Spirit when you believed? They answered, "No, we have not even heard that there is a Holy Spirit, and so Paul asked them, What baptism did you receive? John's baptism, they replied. Paul said, John's baptism was a baptism of repentance. He told the people to believe in the one coming after him, that is Jesus, the one after him, whose sandals he was unworthy to even tie. And so this is what we see here now. This requires a little bit of an explanation. I don't want you to read this and look at it quickly and go, now that makes it sound like these guys had believed in Jesus and were disciples, but somehow they hadn't received the Holy Spirit. And then that would cause us to question, could that have happened to me? Like, whenever I came to believe in Jesus, could I maybe not have received the Holy Spirit, because it seems like, okay, here's what we learn when he uses the term disciples. Here, he's not referring to disciples of Jesus. How do we know that? Because of what he says later on. They only received John's baptism. They were disciples, and we'll find out here in a little bit that there were about 12 of them. They were disciples of John the Baptist. John the Baptist had disciples and people that he discipled and were preparing for this, and they had a limited knowledge of the Messiah that would come and the finished work of Jesus, the same way we just learned about Apollos, and so they had only been baptized up until this point and had not received it for you and me for the normal Christian experience when you and I put our faith and trust in Jesus in His finished work on the cross for our sins and to receive His work of salvation and regeneration and all of those things. The Holy Spirit comes, and that has to happen, and we have to have the Holy Spirit. We've got to have the Holy Spirit come, because that's what is required to even be a Christian in the first place. I mean, in Romans eight, Paul tells us that if you don't have the spirit of Christ, you don't belong to Jesus. It takes the Holy Spirit, you can't be a Christian and have said yes to Jesus and not receive the Holy Spirit. And so I'm just wanting you to not look at that and go, is that possible for me in my life? If you've said yes to Jesus and his finished work of the cross, you have the Spirit, you have all of his power, you have all of his spiritual blessings, all of those things. These people had not put their work, their faith in the finished work of Christ, but they're about to, and that's what we see. Me, next on hearing this, they were baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus to show that they had all of their sins had been washed away, now that they were dead, buried, and resurrected, and been raised up to new life in Christ. When Paul placed his hands on them, the Holy Spirit came on them, and they spoke in tongues and prophesied, and there were about 12 men in all. Now, when we see here that they spoke in tongues and they prophesied, we also need to not think that that's the normal Christian experience. Well, I didn't prophesy and speak in tongues when apparently I received the Holy Spirit, and so maybe I didn't receive the Holy Spirit, and I'm not really a Christian, but we've read a number of times throughout the book of Acts that this is something that happens, and this doesn't always happen. The times it did happen seem to be in very important transitional times. When the Holy Spirit first came at Pentecost, nobody had any clue what was even going on, and they were like, "They guys are drunk, they've been drinking, and it's nine in the morning, right, and they're going, "No, no, no, this is the Holy Spirit, and we're seeing an outward manifestation of a new inward reality and power that they now have. We even see the same thing happen in Acts chapter 10, when the Gentiles say yes to Jesus, right, and so in Cornelius' home it's kind of these outward visible things to just prove that they did receive the Holy Spirit, and something new is going on. Well, why does it happen here? We don't know for sure, but it seems to be because, well, there were a number of people we already were in Saul, Apollos, who had an inadequate information about Jesus, and didn't really understand it fully, and we have these guys also, and so they didn't even know about the Holy Spirit, and so maybe there needed to be this to be able to just show, hey, what I'm talking about is true. You're seeing it happen in our manifestation of it going on. The other reason, and we didn't really get into this, but, but it's important for us to know. Paul's in Ephesus, and we're going to learn a lot more about this next week as we get into the next section, but in Ephesus, man, this is it's a superstitious place. There's a lot of people who are steeped into dark magic in the occult, and it's where the Temple of Artemis was, is one of the seven ancient wonders of the world, and they, they worship the goddess Artemis at Greek mythology, and and there's just a number of things with that, and these magic kind of symbols and things that they would use and go to, and this statue of her, and all of this stuff, and so now we're beginning to see this, this outward manifestation of this new power they're used to seeing elements of dark power, and as we continue, we're going to see this visible demonstration of power, and how this power has authority over even the powers they're used to seeing. There Luke goes on and says, in verse eight, Paul entered the synagogue and spoke boldly there for three months, arguing persuasively about the kingdom of God, but some of them became obstinate, they refused to believe and publicly maligned the way. The way, of course, is another way of referencing the church, those who are Christians, Jesus referenced himself as the way, the truth, and the life, and so they were followers of his way. So Paul left them. He took the disciples with him and had discussions daily in the lecture hall of Tyrannus. This went on for two years, we're told, so that the Jews and the Greeks who lived in the province of Asia heard the word of the Lord, that right there is an amazing statement, that all the Jews and Greeks who lived in the province of Asia heard the word of the Lord, and what we see, though, is that Paul was teaching daily here, so if all the people heard throughout the province of Asia that we're reading about right here, Paul wasn't the one who planted all of those churches. It's believed that during this time the church at Colossae and Laodicea and Hierapolis, and many people, many commentators believe that all of the seven churches that are listed in Revelation two and chapter three were planted during this time, came into existence because people shared the gospel in those different areas, and so, how did that happen? Well, either there were people traveling from Asia to Ephesus, they heard Paul teaching in these settings, they go back to their areas, they tell other people about Jesus, and now there's a church that's planted from just normal people who heard the gospel and went back home and shared it with their neighbors and their family and their friends, or there were people who were already in Ephesus that kept being discipled by Paul, and then. They were sent out in the same way that Apollos was sent out. Apollos was in Ephesus. He came to know Jesus. He got sent out to Corinth. And so there's this practice that when we accept Christ and receive all that we have, it's not just for our benefit, it's for Him to work in and through us to spread this all around the world and to impact all the people around us, and so we see this happening all throughout Asia as the Holy Spirit was at work in and through a number of people. Luke goes on now and says, God, during this time, so this was a general statement that for two years he was teaching, and now he gets specific and shows us some of the things that were going on during that two year time. God did extraordinary miracles through Paul, Luke said, so that even handkerchiefs and aprons that had touched him were taken to the sick and their illnesses were cured and the evil spirits left them. Now, let's just be honest, that's just weird. I mean, that is not something you hear about or see every day. It's not something we read about in scripture very often. We have a story of Jesus and the woman who was healed touching his, his garments, but this is not normal. Okay, and so what we need to recognize is that this is an extraordinary work that the Holy Spirit is doing in and through Paul. Remember, this is a place steeped in sorcery, steeped in dark magic, and, and used to dealing with evil spirits and all kinds of things. And so I, I think that this is one of those ways that the Holy Spirit kind of had to be at work within this kind of culture to make sure that they saw that the dark powers that they were used to witnessing around them had nothing on the power and the authority of Jesus Christ, the one true God, and so even through these kind of things, because again this temple of Artemis and these the statues of Artemis, there were certain symbols that were used as mag magic formulas. Well, now we've got these things that are above and beyond those, and just again one more way that the important thing, and just quickly, you hear someone on YouTube, you see a TV evangelist talking about, hey, if you send me some money, I'll send you a handkerchief or an apron, and you'll be cured, and all those evil spirits be gone. Don't fall for it, okay? That's that's not how the Lord really works in these things. This is a unique situation, and those people are just trying to take your money. Verse 13, some Jews who went on around driving out the evil spirits tried to invoke the name of the Lord Jesus, so they see this going on, and they're like, I'm going to try this myself. This guy seems to be pretty powerful and have the magic formula down over here, and so they borrow from him, and they try to invoke the name of Jesus over those who were demon-possessed. They would say, in the name of Jesus, whom Paul preaches, I command you to come out. Seven sons of Sceva were told, a Jewish chief priest were doing this. Watch this one day, the evil spirit answered them. Listen, Jesus, I know, and Paul, I know too, and I know about, but who in the heck are you? He says, then the man who had the evil spirit jumped on them and overpowered them all, and he gave them such a beating that they ran out of the house naked and bleeding, just filled with shame. This is what the enemy does. He leaves us feeling ashamed and stripped down and bare at this point, and so we see that evil is very real, evil is very powerful. If one guy can take down seven in this particular way, it should make us a little aware, respectful of the way the enemy and evil works is that to steal, kill, and destroy, but for those of us who are in Christ, this should not leave us fearful that we can be possessed in this way and taken over in the same kind of manner this guy is. We're talking about an unbeliever, one who isn't in Christ, and evil is at work in and through Him, and taking possession in such a way for you and I, who are in Christ and belong to Christ, and Christ is the authority over evil. Evil cannot come in and possess us because we're already under the possession of Jesus. We're in His possession, and He has a tight rein on us as well, but this is what happened here, and it is kind of thing that Jesus even worked in and through to wake up those who are around them. Here's what I mean. Watch the way that we finish this out, when this became known, when the evil spirit jumped on them, when. They had seen Paul working in and through to heal people, and even handkerchiefs and aprons, and things that were healing people above and beyond these evil powers that we just saw and respected. When this became known to the Jews and the Greeks living in Ephesus, they were all seized with fear in the name of the Lord Jesus, who was held in high honor. Many of those who believed now had now came and openly confessed what they had done. A number who had practiced sorcery brought their scrolls together and burned them publicly. And when they calculated the value of the scrolls, the total came to 50,000 drachmas. And in this way we're told that the word of the Lord spread widely and grew in power, and so this would have been a tremendous amount of money, all the things that they came to burn in this particular moment, but, but let me just dive into this just a little bit deeper and help us see what was really going on, right, so when we're told that many of those who believed, well, what we're talking about is people who are Christians, right? Those who believed. This is written in the present tense, I mean the perfect tense, excuse me, which means that a point in time they came to know Jesus, and anything in the present tense, I mean the perfect tense, twice tells us that has ongoing results, right? It's something that happens in a moment, in an instant. In Ephesians 113 it says, in the moment you believed, the Holy Spirit came to indwell you, right? And so, in that moment, something changes about you, and it has ongoing results that last forever. And so, these are believers, and those who had been believers, and now they're coming openly, confessing things that they had done, and that they had practiced sorcery, and they were now bringing those things and scrolls together and burning them publicly. Now, this either refers to, okay, these are believers, and now they had turned from the things that they used to do, maybe they had stopped doing them when they came to know Jesus. God used it to convict them and to realize, man, this is wrong in what you're doing, and you're never going to find life in those things, and it's Jesus. And, but they still had these books and these scrolls and these other things laying around, and so either they had stopped doing this, but now they are going, gosh, I still got this stuff laying around, and it's in me, and it's tempting, and I don't want other people to be affected by it, and so they, they brought it, and they kind of confessed that this is what they used to be a part of, and they aren't involved with it any longer. Jesus has changed the direction of their life, and they have new habits, and all those things, or it could mean, and it's written and translated differently, a little bit differently, in some of the language, it means that these were Christians, they had said yes to Jesus, and yet they had continued to be involved in practicing sorcery, they were regenerated, they had new hearts, Jesus was dwelling in them, they had been changed, but maybe they didn't know that it was wrong. Anybody else ever become a Christian at a certain point in time and realize later on that whatever it is that you were still doing in your life was actually wrong, and you didn't know it forever long. That was until someone told you it's possible to be completely changed, to be a new creation in Christ and continue to live in old habits and do things because we haven't been discipled and made aware that whatever it is that we're doing is even wrong, or maybe we were, but we're just still tempted by those things, they were old flesh patterns in ways that we used to go to those things to get our needs met, and so even though we're new and in Christ, and we were aware that we have more in Him, there's still this thing that Satan draws upon to go, yeah, but that thing used to bring you some pleasure, it used to give you a high in that, and so you know, wouldn't you really want to go back to that? It's Jesus and those things, and you can step back in. We've all been there and experienced those things, and so it could be that this is what they're either way. What we see is that there are certain behaviors and actions that line up with the new creation that we become in Christ and are consistent with the things that He produces in and through us, and there are certain things that no longer line up and are not to be a part of who we are as we walk forward in our union with Him, and He will reveal those things to us along the way. That's not good for you, that's not part of who you are in Christ, that's sinful. This is not what I'm doing in your life, that's part of the old you. This is not who you are any longer. You don't have to go there to get your needs met in any way, shape, or form, because I'm meeting all of your needs in Christ. And so these are the things that he could have been doing. Either way, we see that they burn them, like we're done. We're done with this. This is not who we are in Christ, not part of us. And they move forward, and so. I think it's important that even when we see this kind of thing, and then we start to kind of begin to go, okay, well, what about us today? If this is all about life in the spirit and the way that He worked in them, then what does that look like for me? We can, we can start with what we just read, that the Holy Spirit worked in and through them to show them that these behaviors no longer line up with who they are in Christ, and then they burned those things and said we're done with those, and we're trusting in Christ for who we are in Him, and the way He's leading us in our actions and behaviors, and what we're doing moving forward. That certainly applies to all of us too. It doesn't have to be with sorcery, it could be maybe, maybe that is still something that you do or struggle with, if you said yes to Jesus, or superstitious kind of things, or you got Jesus, but then there's these things of the world that you still kind of cling to. For others of us, it may have nothing to do with that, but the general principle is again, there are things that are no longer consistent with who we are in Christ, and yet the Holy Spirit will then convict us of those things, whatever it is - the porn, the alcohol, the drugs, the what - fill in the blank with whatever it is that you're going to to get your needs met outside of Christ. He's going to convict you of those things, and show you, listen, I'm not condemning you, but I need to make you aware you're not condemned in Christ, but you need to be aware that that's not who you are, you're only inviting death and destruction as consequences into your life, stepping into those rather than trusting all that you have in me and the direction I'm leading you in, in these ways, and so that's certainly one way that this message, what we see here, could apply to us. And we need to ask, God, is there something that I'm still involved in? Is there an action or a behavior or things that I'm doing in my life that are that are sinful that go against you and your holy ways that are no longer part of who I am in Christ, that you're making me aware of, and you're wanting me to to burn up metaphorically before Him today, wiping your hands clean of those things, trusting in His direction. The other thing that I would just point out early on in the passage, we talked about Priscilla and Aquila, we talked about how they were discipled by Paul, and then they were sent out, and then what did they do, discipled other people, and so there's this thing where maybe what the Holy Spirit is saying to some of us today is, you're Priscilla and Aquila, like, like you've been discipled, you know who I am, God, right? He's saying this to you, you know who I am, you know who you are in Christ, you know the ways that I work in your life and in through you to produce kingdom work, and it's time to invite other people into your home and be hospitable to them and help disciple them and show them the truth about who I am and or who I really am and and who they are in Christ and the way this applies to all areas of their lives, because that's really where we're going with discipleship, right? It's, it's all of those things, and then getting down into the nitty gritty of how it affects everything in our family, and with your career, and with your habits, in with your schoolwork, with your neighbors, I mean, with anyone and everyone, it's about someone getting in that and going, how does this really flesh itself out in and through you? And so maybe that's the application for you. He's taught you so much, you're experiencing so much life in him, but there are so many other people around you who are not. He's going. I want to work it in through you to invite people into your home, show them hospitality, invite them in for meals, and share with them how it works in your life and how it can make such a difference in their lives. Or maybe you're Apollos, maybe you're the one that needs to be discipled. Lord's gonna open you up to say yes to someone pouring into you, or maybe like Apollos, who really didn't even know Jesus. You've been in church, you've been in and out around them, you know about Jesus, but Apollos didn't have all the information, and maybe that's you too, maybe, maybe you know about Jesus, but you don't fully know the gospel, and you've been hearing me talk about that today, and so the way this could apply to you is to go, oh gosh, I thought this was all about Jesus leading us to be more moral, me just trying to make me a better you. And being, you know, good enough to at least get into heaven one day, and what you're seeing is it takes the baptism of the Holy Spirit. I mean, you got to be regenerated, you can't do that to yourself. It takes you putting your faith and trust in Jesus and inviting the Spirit to come into your life. And so maybe that's the step that He's leading you in. And so, whatever it is for you, we're going to pray, and we're going to enter into a time of response, and I ask that you be open to however the Lord's working in your lives and however He's leading you to respond. Let's pray together.