back to index2019-05-01: Wed Bible Study Lesson 14
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All right, we have two more sessions after this. 00:00:08.560 |
We have this and then next week we're going to finish up the letter. 00:00:14.040 |
And if you've already read ahead, basically the division between this week and next week, 00:00:17.480 |
I mean, we could have just done it all together, but we divided it because this week is Paul's 00:00:23.840 |
companions that he's addressing and saying hi and that's fellow workers. 00:00:28.680 |
And then next week he's basically greeting the people who are there in Colossae. 00:00:33.080 |
And then the week after that, we're going to basically summarize or just kind of overview 00:00:40.240 |
And then after that, we have a small group leaders, I think dinner fellowship. 00:00:46.920 |
And during that break, I think the sign up for next Bible study is going to start pretty 00:00:52.280 |
And so when that comes out, please sign up as soon as we can, so we can organize it. 00:00:56.160 |
But there is a, there's a long break during the summertime. 00:00:59.440 |
And during that break, we may have different activities based upon your life stage and 00:01:04.860 |
But as far as a formal Bible study, there's going to be a break during the summertime. 00:01:08.960 |
Okay, so let me pray for us and then we'll jump right in. 00:01:11.240 |
Heavenly Father, we ask for your help and guidance. 00:01:22.920 |
Give me strength, Lord God, to be in your word and to disseminate your thoughts and 00:01:29.080 |
that we may have a deeper understanding of who you are and how you have been working. 00:01:34.440 |
We ask Lord the study of these different people, fellow workers of Paul that you've placed 00:01:40.760 |
around him or got to support, to encourage, strengthen, and to run together that you would 00:01:48.120 |
give us insight as to the early church, Paul's ministry, who you are, and ultimately Lord 00:01:56.800 |
So we ask for your blessing over this time in Jesus name we pray, Amen. 00:02:02.360 |
Alright, so I hope you took some time to study before you came and look through the names. 00:02:10.480 |
You know, typically when you're reading through the Bible, when you get to a passage like 00:02:16.080 |
Because you probably don't recognize the majority of them and out of maybe about six or seven 00:02:21.400 |
different names, you might have remembered some of them if you've read the New Testament 00:02:26.080 |
before, maybe Paphroditus and maybe Onesimus, but because you're not familiar with the names, 00:02:31.680 |
you think, well, it's kind of hard, I don't know anything. 00:02:34.140 |
And then you could easily just kind of bypass this chapter. 00:02:37.520 |
But if you were there with our study with the book of Romans, when we got to chapter 00:02:41.600 |
16, there was so much of the church history stated in the names that are mentioned in 00:02:51.120 |
When you actually study the names and who these people were and how they were involved 00:02:55.600 |
and how God was using them, it basically gives you a glimpse of the New Testament in a different 00:03:04.040 |
And you have a picture of Paul in prison, but when you see these names who are surrounding 00:03:09.680 |
Apostle Paul, you get a completely different view of what's going on, right? 00:03:14.560 |
Okay, so we're going to jump right in and then I'm going to give you, I don't know, 00:03:18.960 |
I'm going to give you a little bit more time to study or take some time with your small 00:03:26.840 |
First of all, what I want to do is just, I'm just going to go down the list of these names. 00:03:35.320 |
Let me start this over because there's a passage that I wanted to look at. 00:04:19.640 |
But before I get into that, where is Paul writing this letter? 00:04:34.360 |
In the Book of Romans at the tail end, Paul asked for prayer. 00:04:40.880 |
He prayed that he may be fruitful, that he may be safe, that God would save him from 00:04:46.880 |
He may be able to come to Rome to be able to minister to them in joy. 00:04:51.640 |
Anybody remember that when we were studying the Book of Romans? 00:04:54.320 |
And so he asked for prayer so that he could get to Rome in safety to be able to minister 00:05:00.840 |
So remember when we were studying, we looked at Paul's ministry journey where I think he 00:05:07.360 |
He goes to Jerusalem, preaches the gospel, and a riot happens, and they come, and they 00:05:11.120 |
basically want to kill him, and the Roman guards come and they protect him. 00:05:15.800 |
So they hated Paul so much that a bunch of men took a vow that they weren't going to 00:05:21.080 |
eat until he got killed, but because of the Roman guards, he was protected the whole time. 00:05:27.360 |
But before he comes to Rome, remember he's sitting in Palestine for two years because 00:05:35.640 |
the governor was hoping that Paul would give him a bribe. 00:05:40.960 |
So he stays in two years under the guard of the Roman guards, and the brothers in Jerusalem 00:05:47.920 |
are able to come to him and fellowship with them, reconnect with them the whole time, 00:05:54.880 |
And then finally, the trial begins, and then he begins his journey to Rome as a prisoner, 00:06:00.560 |
completely under guard of the Roman soldiers. 00:06:05.280 |
While he is on the way, he gets shipwrecked, and during that shipwreck, he gets bitten 00:06:12.720 |
And they looked like they were going to die, but Apostle Paul gets a vision from Christ 00:06:16.880 |
and saying you're not going to die, and so the whole ship gets saved. 00:06:19.880 |
So by the time they go to Rome, Paul is a celebrity. 00:06:25.080 |
He comes to Rome and everybody's, who is this guy? 00:06:27.080 |
He gets bitten by scorpions and we were going to die, but his God saved us. 00:06:31.320 |
And by the time he gets to Rome, there's a stir about what's happening to him. 00:06:40.160 |
He's still a Roman prisoner, but under the protection of the Roman guards, he spends 00:06:46.360 |
two plus years there having the Roman, the Jews, because they heard about him, coming 00:06:58.000 |
So during the two years that he's in prison in Rome, under the protection of the Roman 00:07:06.560 |
And so while he is in Rome, he writes Philemon, Colossians, Philippians, and Ephesians. 00:07:15.920 |
And not only does he write it, there's a history of the ministry that he's doing. 00:07:21.360 |
And Onesimus is one of those guys that got converted while he was in Rome. 00:07:27.160 |
So this is one of the letters that he writes under imprisonment. 00:07:31.880 |
So everything that he prayed for at the end of the Book of Romans is fulfilled, and this 00:07:40.280 |
So Tychicus, he's a carrier, right, of the letter to the Colossians. 00:07:50.680 |
Tychicus is mentioned in Acts chapter 24 as one of the several companions of Paul doing 00:07:58.160 |
In fact, Tychicus is mentioned in two or three other epistles where he's the carrier. 00:08:08.280 |
I don't know what his gift was, but it seemed like he was a designated guy who carried different 00:08:14.760 |
So he's mentioned there, and again, he's the one who brought the letter to the Ephesians 00:08:24.800 |
And there's a, in Ephesians chapter 6, 21 to 22, Paul describes Tychicus almost identically 00:08:34.360 |
The beloved brother and faithful minister in the Lord will make everything known to 00:08:38.360 |
I have sent him to you for this very purpose so that you may know about us and that he 00:08:42.960 |
So those are the two letters that we have, and he has an identical description of Tychicus, 00:08:47.480 |
but I have a feeling that this was a cut and pasting that Paul did whenever Tychicus went 00:08:55.000 |
I know he didn't have a computer then, but it seemed like, because it's identical what 00:09:00.580 |
And so he's known to be the carrier of letters, and so that was part of his duty. 00:09:05.480 |
And that's why, again, Apostle Paul, though he was sitting in prison, part of the reason 00:09:09.080 |
why he was able to do what he was doing is because of guys like Tychicus, who devoted 00:09:13.320 |
himself, went to Paul, "Do you have a task for me? 00:09:19.200 |
He would run there, give the report, come back, "What else do you have?" 00:09:25.800 |
And then he would take that and go to Ephesus or Colossae. 00:09:34.880 |
There's a whole letter written because of this guy. 00:09:38.760 |
He was a runaway slave that met Paul in prison and converted to Christianity. 00:09:44.000 |
So he's a guy, I don't know how he ran into Paul in Rome, so if he was a slave in Colossae, 00:09:51.920 |
he probably went to Rome because that's a place to go if you're going to be runaway 00:09:55.120 |
and you don't have a job and you want to make money. 00:09:59.480 |
So if you're a slave in Alabama, you want to run away to make a new life, where would 00:10:08.360 |
To New York, California, wherever that may be. 00:10:14.560 |
So he probably went there as a runaway slave and probably was intrigued, "Who's this guy 00:10:20.400 |
And he has some new message about this Jesus who's resurrected. 00:10:28.920 |
His owner Philemon, to which a letter is dedicated to restore him back to the former master as 00:10:33.440 |
a brother in Christ and it says Onesimus is one of them, meaning that this is where he 00:10:47.480 |
So Philemon is a letter written to his former master asking to forgive Onesimus for the 00:11:00.240 |
So in Colossae, he's one of the carriers of this letter, but he's going back home. 00:11:07.040 |
So Onesimus and Tychicus probably had Philemon on them when they came to Colossae. 00:11:16.440 |
The way you're looking at me, you have no idea what I just said. 00:11:26.160 |
Most likely this is where he gets reintroduced to his master. 00:11:32.720 |
It doesn't say here that he was a runaway slave, but he probably had that letter with 00:11:37.480 |
So think about Onesimus' mindset as he is going to Colossae. 00:11:45.880 |
And so he said he's one of you, but he's being sent back as a brother, even though he was 00:11:53.640 |
So again, these are things that if you don't pay attention and you don't study this, you're 00:11:59.280 |
These are powerful things of the New Testament. 00:12:04.560 |
Okay, so those two are people who were the carriers of the letter. 00:12:10.360 |
He was mentioned as a man from Macedonia, from Thessalonica. 00:12:18.400 |
That's the city that Paul was at before he goes to Berea. 00:12:22.300 |
In Thessalonica, he was only there for about three, maybe a little bit more than that, 00:12:27.000 |
preached the gospel, but there was a revival that broke out there. 00:12:30.520 |
And because there was a huge revival, there was a persecution that was so intense that 00:12:37.000 |
So it looks like Ars Tarchus may have been one of those converts there, right? 00:12:43.320 |
He was with Apostle Paul when the Ephesian mob seized Paul. 00:12:49.700 |
In Acts chapter 19, the mob was like so intense that they basically dragged people out on 00:13:04.120 |
He's a guy that Paul suffered together with in ministry. 00:13:07.960 |
Again, he was mentioned to have been with Paul when he set sail as a prisoner to Rome. 00:13:13.960 |
Now this is really interesting because he calls Ars Tarchus a fellow prisoner. 00:13:19.940 |
So he was with Paul the whole way, right, in his ministry. 00:13:22.960 |
And then when he gets caught, Ars Tarchus is also in prison, but he also goes to Rome 00:13:29.880 |
So because of that, Sir William Ramsey, who's known as a world-renowned archaeologist, believes 00:13:36.000 |
that Ars Tarchus may have made himself a legal slave of Paul to travel along with him in 00:13:43.760 |
Because Apostle Paul had special privileges because of his Roman citizenship and his status, 00:13:48.920 |
in order to get to places with the same privilege that Apostle Paul had, Ars Tarchus may have 00:13:56.720 |
deliberately made himself an indentured servant of Apostle Paul. 00:14:00.040 |
And he believes that that's the reason why he's a fellow prisoner of Paul, that he was 00:14:05.160 |
with him and then he was caught with him and why he was being dragged along all this time, 00:14:09.600 |
because he was probably a very close companion of Apostle Paul. 00:14:12.960 |
But it had to be more than just a companion, right? 00:14:18.600 |
So that's why William Ramsey, considering that this was a common practice back then, 00:14:24.160 |
that maybe Ars Tarchus did that, that in order for him to commit to this gospel ministry, 00:14:29.160 |
to come in and out of places that only a Roman citizen could have, that he may have made 00:14:36.240 |
Again, this is just an educated guess, but it's really interesting that these people 00:14:41.600 |
literally gave their lives and literally, possibly, made himself a slave in order for 00:14:47.160 |
him to preach the gospel, which is not unheard of. 00:14:50.760 |
That sounds like something crazy in our generation, but remember at that time, people were getting 00:14:55.240 |
circumcised and not circumcised and doing crazy things for the gospel, right? 00:15:09.160 |
He was the cousin of Barnabas, the son of encouragement. 00:15:12.520 |
Because a long time ago, when we were studying the book of Acts, we did some study on him. 00:15:17.600 |
He seems like he came from a wealthy family, right? 00:15:20.800 |
Because Mark's house was where the apostles gathered together. 00:15:24.640 |
And he says many of the disciples gathered together at his house to pray on a regular 00:15:39.320 |
Chapter 4, 36 and 37, and in chapter 12, verse 12, he is mentioned twice in the beginning. 00:15:49.200 |
Some think that he might have been his nephew, but Barnabas is the one in the early church 00:15:53.220 |
where he sells his possessions and gives half of it to the church, right? 00:15:57.680 |
So Barnabas, Mark, that family seems like a very wealthy family. 00:16:03.640 |
So it wasn't like just the poor people who had nothing to lose that attached themselves 00:16:10.280 |
They got convicted and they gave everything, literally their lives, right? 00:16:14.440 |
So this idea that the gospel began to spread in the rural areas where people were hungry, 00:16:19.920 |
they were poor, they were prisoners and slaves, and that's why they were so bold, because 00:16:24.600 |
they had nothing to lose, does not fit the biblical narrative. 00:16:29.380 |
Because people from all walks of life, once they met the resurrected Christ and they were 00:16:34.120 |
convicted, they gave everything to follow Christ. 00:16:39.840 |
If you remember the story of Mark, Mark accompanied Apostle Paul and Barnabas in his first missionary 00:16:47.040 |
But when they encountered intense persecution, Mark basically took off and ran, right? 00:16:53.580 |
And so they don't see him again until they come back and they're ready to go back to 00:16:57.480 |
the second round, but Mark comes back and Barnabas wants to bring him again. 00:17:03.040 |
So Barnabas and Apostle Paul had a complete different take on what to do, and basically 00:17:07.280 |
Barnabas, you know, he's the son of encouragement, but it also makes sense if that was his cousin, 00:17:18.400 |
His sister would kill him if he didn't take him, maybe. 00:17:21.400 |
There's something going beyond that, because they're family, right? 00:17:24.920 |
And so because of this sharp disagreement, and you can understand Apostle Paul. 00:17:32.860 |
He got stoned, dragged out to the city, walking back in, and he's risking his life to spread 00:17:38.280 |
the gospel, and we can't have somebody on the team that we can't rely on. 00:17:42.180 |
Get stoned, and then I get dragged out, and Mark's gone. 00:17:47.920 |
And so they ended up splitting, but later on, Mark becomes a very important disciple. 00:17:56.200 |
In fact, Peter calls him his son in the faith, and that possibly Mark came to faith because 00:18:04.220 |
of Peter's preaching, and he became the Timothy for Peter, as Timothy was to Paul, right? 00:18:12.380 |
He was the right-hand man, and so we know that Mark is also the author of the gospel 00:18:18.420 |
This is the same guy that at one point, early on in his faith, that Apostle Paul just wrote 00:18:27.780 |
Because on his first missionary journey, he literally was stoned to death and got back 00:18:36.020 |
He was that guy, but later on, the Apostle Paul says, "Mark is very useful to me," and 00:18:44.220 |
So just the people who are surrounding him, if you see what's going on and who is around 00:18:49.620 |
him doing the work, is a powerful testimony of the gospel. 00:18:56.860 |
I mean, anyway, you can imagine Paul being resentful of Mark for taking off, but now 00:19:05.180 |
they're working together, and Paul introduces Mark, right, as a faithful brother. 00:19:30.940 |
And Justice's name basically is Jesus, right? 00:19:38.820 |
So Justice, his name is Jesus, but you know what's interesting is if you think that the 00:19:47.540 |
Son of God was going to come, even though he's humble, you would think he would have 00:19:55.340 |
You would think he would be like, I don't know, Roman, something that's, "Oh, that sounds 00:20:04.340 |
But he came like everybody else, John, Peter, Alex, just like anybody else. 00:20:10.260 |
So his name Jesus, like obviously people don't use that name unless you're Spanish, right? 00:20:18.500 |
But outside of that, typically we don't use that name because of the significance of that 00:20:23.140 |
But at that time, Jesus was a very common human name. 00:20:29.580 |
So even in his name, Jesus was like everybody else, right? 00:20:33.140 |
And again, we don't know a whole lot about him. 00:20:36.740 |
And all we know is that Paul says that he was a big encouragement to him while he was 00:20:41.860 |
So while he was in prison, he was being ministered to, right? 00:20:47.080 |
He had a lot of companions who were coming and going over there and ministering to him 00:20:55.500 |
We're not there, but later on when he is in prison writing 2 Timothy, the story is very 00:21:05.900 |
And it's almost like it's exciting because Paul's in prison, but he's not that bad, right? 00:21:18.180 |
The Jewish leaders are actually coming to him and he's sitting at home preaching the 00:21:24.820 |
So you can imagine the Christians at that time thinking like, "Man, Paul's in prison, 00:21:32.820 |
But by the time he's in prison, the third time and then he gets executed in 2 Timothy, 00:21:39.500 |
You remember 2 Timothy says, "They've all left. 00:21:45.500 |
Because that time it looked like he was going to... 00:21:47.740 |
That was a real imprisonment that most prisoners experience and then eventually he got beheaded 00:21:59.360 |
But this time as he is in Rome, he has a lot of people coming to him ministering to him. 00:22:07.780 |
Now if you see under his name, Paul emphasizes that these are the men who are of the circumcision 00:22:17.020 |
And again, this is just conjecture from Adam Clark and he says that the circumcision group 00:22:23.000 |
simply was to point out that these are the only ones who are left of the circumcision 00:22:28.720 |
But he's not just identifying, "These are the Jews and these are the Gentiles." 00:22:31.900 |
That he may be identifying that by this time, the circumcision group is starting to wane. 00:22:38.700 |
In other words, the Jews who were supportive, eventually they were starting to get divided. 00:22:48.620 |
Again, this is just educated guess, but Adam Clark believes that possibly that's the reason 00:22:55.420 |
that he's identifying and separating the Jews on his team and the non-Jews for that reason. 00:23:11.140 |
And again, this is a phrase that Paul often uses, an indentioned servant, literally a 00:23:23.140 |
His ministry is highlighted as being earnest in prayer. 00:23:25.580 |
So I'm sure they all pray, but when Epaphras is mentioned, Epaphras says, "Always laboring 00:23:31.300 |
earnestly for you in his prayer, that you may stand perfect and fully assured in all 00:23:38.060 |
For I testify for him that he has deep concern for you, for those who are in the Odyssean 00:23:43.820 |
Part of the reason why maybe Epaphras was a fervent prayer warrior for them is because 00:23:55.300 |
And typically our prayers are more powerful when we're praying for people that we love, 00:24:01.620 |
When we're praying for things that we're indifferent for, I mean, we pray like it's a chore, but 00:24:10.220 |
Everybody prays earnestly if somebody that you love gets sick. 00:24:15.940 |
And so that's the thing that when we pray, to pray for things that God has placed in 00:24:22.060 |
So again, Epaphras is known as a prayer warrior. 00:24:25.460 |
Epaphras is another brother from Colossae who deeply loved them and those of Laodicea 00:24:37.940 |
Luke is the author of the Gospel of Luke and what other book? 00:24:50.940 |
Are the two letters, Luke and Acts, put together longer than all of Paul's letters put together? 00:25:03.300 |
I remember reading that, but I'm not 100% sure. 00:25:19.380 |
So either Luke's writing, the most writings in the New Testament is from Luke or he's 00:25:25.860 |
In other words, Luke is a very significant figure in the New Testament. 00:25:30.340 |
So God used this man who was a physician who probably was detail-oriented as a physician 00:25:35.540 |
and took detailed records of what happened in Jesus' life. 00:25:40.360 |
And there's more mention of Jesus' humanity in the book of Luke than any other gospel. 00:25:44.920 |
And then he was very meticulous to record the early church. 00:25:53.900 |
Paul's missionary journey, when did he do it? 00:25:58.380 |
And so Luke, God used Luke, the physician, to do that. 00:26:02.580 |
He was a physician who was traveling companion of Apostle Paul. 00:26:06.820 |
My guess is that Luke probably was their personal physician. 00:26:14.100 |
A lot of times people kind of describe the early church as magical things happening all 00:26:19.380 |
When somebody falls sick, you know, Paul lays hands and they rise up and, you know, like 00:26:24.700 |
And that's not what we see in the New Testament. 00:26:30.540 |
To drink some wine to take care of his stomach problems. 00:26:33.260 |
I mean, that sounds like a, you know, that sounds like a very ineffective way of dealing 00:26:39.460 |
if he could, he just laid hand and made him well, right? 00:26:43.300 |
There were spectacular things that did happen as a sign that they were apostles, but that 00:26:54.500 |
So you can imagine all those people traveling and then Paul sitting in prison, he gets sick, 00:27:00.940 |
Physician Luke is right there to support them. 00:27:03.300 |
Finally, Demas, not a lot of mention, not a lot is mentioned about Demas. 00:27:11.140 |
Where does Demas come out in the New Testament? 00:27:17.420 |
Remember I mentioned by the time Paul writes 2 Timothy, the mood is very different. 00:27:29.620 |
But in 2 Timothy 4.10, Paul points out that Demas had forsaken him, having loved this 00:27:34.220 |
present world and that he had gone on to Thessalonica. 00:27:39.420 |
So Paul lists a bunch of names in the front and a bunch of names in the back that was 00:27:44.300 |
abandoning him and the reason why he's writing the letter to Timothy is saying, "Make sure 00:27:50.620 |
And so 2 Timothy 2.2, when he says, "These things you have heard from me in the presence 00:27:54.420 |
of many witnesses, entrust the faithful men who will be able to teach others." 00:27:59.260 |
He's not just telling Timothy a general rule. 00:28:01.900 |
He's telling this because a lot of people that he's invested in have backslidden. 00:28:08.300 |
So he's telling Timothy, "Make sure that you invest in the right people." 00:28:12.460 |
So he was, again, he was just like a pastor like anybody else. 00:28:17.900 |
He spent a lot of time ministering, discipling, shepherding and there are certain people who 00:28:22.540 |
are just kind of dropping out and he's warning his disciple Timothy, "Make sure it doesn't 00:28:27.540 |
happen to you, but make sure that when you invest, invest in the right people." 00:28:31.820 |
And that's what 2 Timothy 2.2 is coming from. 00:28:33.920 |
So Demas was one of these guys who abandoned him. 00:28:37.100 |
Now we're going to get to the second part next week. 00:28:42.380 |
And I've just kind of given you the surface overview of who these people were in the background. 00:28:46.780 |
I don't know about you, but every single one of these names, it highlights what was happening 00:28:57.940 |
It's like, well, the gospel is this and the gospel establishes this and gospel has done 00:29:03.900 |
But the reason why our personal testimony is so powerful in the gospel is because it 00:29:07.780 |
gives the flesh, that it's not just a presentation of facts that you believe. 00:29:14.180 |
So when we present the gospel, the most powerful way to present the gospel is to present your 00:29:18.620 |
testimony when you present the gospel, because it gives the reality of what the gospel is 00:29:29.460 |
That this is how God is working in the early church through these people. 00:29:34.180 |
And even though they're not giving their testimony, we see what was happening in the early church. 00:29:43.460 |
So for the questions, I don't have the questions up here, but if you look on the bottom, what 00:29:56.900 |
are some observations you can make from the list of these names? 00:30:01.340 |
So again, instead of me telling you, I'm going to ask you guys in your group, maybe you've 00:30:07.820 |
And again, about Paul's ministry, what does this tell you or some insight into Paul's 00:30:13.500 |
What insight do you get from about the gospel through these names? 00:30:20.340 |
What does it teach you about the early church? 00:30:25.980 |
I mean, you have a runaway slave being restored back to his master. 00:30:30.660 |
You know, Jews and Gentiles in the same place. 00:30:32.580 |
So what are some other things that you notice about the early church through that? 00:30:38.060 |
B. Esther actually asked me this question, and I thought that was a very good question. 00:30:43.620 |
If you were in prison, who would you call to come and minister to you outside of your 00:30:56.660 |
So if you were in prison, and again, outside of your immediate family, so you can't say 00:31:01.300 |
your wife or your children or your dad or mom or uncle, brother, outside of your immediate 00:31:09.780 |
And then, C, if someone was in prison, who would call you to come and minister to them? 00:31:22.620 |
Who is Onesimus, Aristarchus, Mark, Justice, right? 00:31:39.660 |
Who would call you to come to them because they need your encouragement, and you're the 00:31:46.420 |
And then, D, how do you think the people you are doing ministry together with would describe 00:31:54.980 |
And I know that you guys are probably going to be like typical Asians and say, "Oh, no, 00:32:04.660 |
you know, they're going to think I'm lazy, I'm this and that." 00:32:11.980 |
I'm not saying like, this is what I think they're going to write. 00:32:16.060 |
Write an honest description if they were to describe you. 00:32:25.020 |
If Paul was to describe you to somebody, and I'm not, again, I know this is tricky, right? 00:32:35.220 |
This is tricky, but it takes some time to think about it. 00:32:39.340 |
If Paul, if you were a companion of Paul, how would he describe you? 00:32:45.740 |
I'm going to leave it up to you to figure that out. 00:32:48.580 |
But I hope that you guys can be mature enough not to simply say nothing. 00:32:56.420 |
Not to simply say nothing, but to really think like, "Oh, you know, I try." 00:32:59.740 |
Even though you may not be there, it's like, "I try to be this. 00:33:03.740 |
I may not be perfect and maybe I'm failing, but this is something that's really important." 00:33:11.060 |
I have people at this church, and even in this room, who has told me, "I'm a horse. 00:33:19.580 |
"I can't lead, and I'm not good at this, I'm not good at that, but I can work, physical 00:33:30.140 |
And don't tell me that all of you are titchicus. 00:33:36.060 |
So, take some time to pray over that and to discuss that in your small group. 00:33:40.500 |
So let me pray for us and then we'll dismiss you to your group. 00:33:50.180 |
Heavenly Father, we pray for your blessing over our time, and we ask Lord God that in 00:33:54.820 |
our small groups, that even in the small things, help us Lord God to search you, to know your 00:34:01.180 |
heart, and that we would draw closer to you as a result.