Finding Hope in the Will of God

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While you're standing, I invite you to take out your Bibles and turn with me to the 18th chapter of the book of Acts.
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Find your place in the 18th verse.
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We'll read while we remain standing and then we'll pray and be seated.
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This morning we are focusing on the theme of hope and we're going to see that genuine and abiding hope comes from trusting in the will of the Lord.
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We see that in the words of the Apostle Paul in this text.
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It says in verse 18, After this Paul stayed many days longer, and then took leave of the brothers and set sail for Syria, and with him Priscilla and Achilla.
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And at Centuria he had cut his hair, for he was under a vow.
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And they came to Ephesus, and he left them there, but he himself went into the synagogue and reasoned with the Jews.
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When they asked him to stay for a longer period, he declined.
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But on taking leave of them, he said, I will return to you if God wills, and he set sail from Ephesus.
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When he had landed at Caesarea, he went up and greeted the church and then went down to Antioch.
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After spending some time there, he departed and went from one place to the next to the region of Galatia and Phrygia, strengthening all the disciples.
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Father in heaven, I thank you for your word.
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I thank you that in difficult times your word gives us words of truth that we need to hear and words of comfort that we need to sustain us.
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I pray, oh God, that you would, by your mercy, lead me today to preach the truth and keep me from error.
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I pray, Father, for the hearts of the people under the sound of my voice, that those who are believers would be emboldened and strengthened in their hope, and those who are not would be challenged, confronted, and called to repentance of sin and faith in Jesus Christ.
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And this we ask, Lord, in Jesus' name, amen.
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Please be seated.
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For those of you who have not been with us, we have been studying for quite a while now through the book of Acts.
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And though we are now turning to the Advent season here at SGFC, we are not going to depart from our study of Acts.
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We're going to continue on because the passages that we're moving into fit quite well with the theme of the season.
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Acts is not like other New Testament writings because when you read books like Romans and Ephesians, you will notice that those are letters that are written to churches which address specific theological issues and answer specific questions.
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But Acts, much like the four gospel narratives, is a continuing historical narration.
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And it moves quickly from one event to the next to the next.
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Sometimes you, when reading, have to kind of just keep your finger as to where you are in the world because Paul is moving around so much and things are happening so quickly, the reader must constantly be focusing on where people are, what's happening, and the like.
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And while theological concepts do come to us in the book of Acts, the book of Acts is not a theology textbook.
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The church at this time in history that Acts is being written is in a period of transition.
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It's transitioning from the old covenant and the law of the old covenant and its restrictions on days of worship and diet and feasts and holidays.
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And it's transitioning from that very Israelite focused system to a system which now will encompass all men everywhere.
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And it will no longer be bound only in the Hebrew language, but now will go out to the Greek language, which was called koine, which means common.
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It was the language of the world and it was the language of commerce.
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It was the language that people spoke to do business because it was the language of all of the world in general, of the area.
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The church now is in a time of transition.
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And so when we're going through the book of Acts and we're seeing theological principles pop up, it's important that we understand that not all of them are meant to be normative for all time.
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One of the most dangerous things that I have seen in the study of Scripture and looking at how people translate and study the Bible is to see that oftentimes they will try to make theological applications from narratives that are not intended necessarily to create those applications.
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For instance, the Pentecostal church makes the argument, well, the early church spoke in tongues, so that means the speaking in tongues is for all times.
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And so they make that argument that because of that, it must go on.
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And the miraculous healings of Christ were present in the early church and thus those miraculous healings are supposed to go on for all times.
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And so they take a narrative snapshot of the first century and they use that as a way to sort of make theological arguments that aren't really in the text.
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Yet, while specific theological explanations are not primarily the focus of Acts, we do see, as we read through the book of Acts, references and allusions to theological truth that we ought not miss.
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Just because it's not a theology textbook doesn't mean it can't teach us theological principles and theological truths.
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For instance, Paul gives us a robust explanation of the concepts of faith and repentance in the epistle to the Romans, much more outlined and expressive than we have in Acts.
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But in Acts, we have Paul calling men to repentance.
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So it's the narrative form of the truth that we see.
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Romans tells us what it is and what it does, and in Acts, it shows us how and why.
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Acts is a living example of the Christian life.
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It's a living example of the principles that we learn in the other epistles.
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And today, we're going to focus on an allusion to a very important theological truth.
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This is the end of Paul's second missionary journey.
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He has made his way, first through Asia Minor, then across the Aegean Sea to Macedonia.
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He has preached in Philippi, Thessalonica, Berea, Athens, and he is now in Corinth.
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He has established churches along the way, and here he is in Corinth having established the church, working there for 18 months.
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And you'll remember that Corinth was a bastion of sensuality.
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It was a place where the worship of the goddess Venus was primary among the people, and the temple of Venus boasted some 1,000 temple prostitutes, and illicit encounters were actually the way that people worshipped in the day, where they would worship through the act of illicit sexual behavior.
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It was also a trade route, which had trade routes that went north and south and east and west, so it was a center for commerce, and so Corinth was a natural place for Paul to sort of hang up his missionary cap and stay for a while, because he knew that if the trades would go in every direction from Corinth, quite possibly too would the gospel go in every direction from Corinth.
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And while he was there, he had been promised from God that he would receive no harm, that no one would touch him, to preach the truth, and he would be under the protection of God.
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And thus he preached boldly.
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The Jews came against him, but yet Paul was boldly protected by God through a man named Galileo, and we studied that last time, and that's where we pick up today.
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Paul has just been protected from censure and punishment by the Jewish people, he's been protected by the government as it were, Galileo, the pro-council there, had protected him, and we come to verse 18.
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And it says in verse 18, after this, meaning after what had just happened with Galileo, Paul stayed many days longer, it doesn't tell us how many days those were, but we know that this is in addition to the 18 months he had already stayed.
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I got to thinking this week, how long would it take to, if you went into a land where there was no one, how long would it take to meet the people, preach the gospel, see converts, disciple those converts, and disciple them to the point that you're ready to leave the leaders that you've raised up as the leaders of the church? Isn't that an amazing thought? Because Paul leaves, and in a minute we'll see that, and he takes Priscilla and Achilla with him, these are leaders in the church I'm sure, Timothy and Silas it seems may have stayed behind, but ultimately we're seeing here a church that Paul has raised up and in 18 months is leaving to minister in that city of great sin.
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I say it's an amazing thing, and it says, he took leave of the brothers and he set sail for Syria.
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Now Syria was where he first left.
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If you remember, Paul has a home church.
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We don't often think of Paul having a home church, but he did, Paul's home church was where? Antioch.
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Where's Antioch? In Syria, this is where he wants to go, he wants to go home.
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And with him, Priscilla and Achilla, and at Centria, Centria is on the coast of Corinth, right there on the port of the Aegean Sea.
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It says at Centria he cut his hair for he had been under a vow, or he was under a vow.
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And that's an interesting study all of itself, and it requires a little bit of knowledge of the Old Testament.
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In the Old Testament there's only one vow that I'm aware of, and perhaps I could be corrected on this, but there's only one vow in the Old Testament that would require the cutting of the hair, and that was found in Numbers chapter 6, and that's called the Nazarite vow.
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The Nazarite vow was one where a person would take, because of some type of devotion to God for a certain period of time.
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Now there were certain people who were Nazarites all their life.
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You remember Samson? What was the special thing about Samson? He was set apart by God, and what did he have? Long hair.
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His hair was the sign of his devotion to God.
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Who else was a Nazarite in the Old Testament? Samuel, according to the text, was set aside from birth as a Nazarite.
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We see this.
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But the hair in Numbers chapter 6 was not to be cut while under the vow, so someone like Samson who is from birth is going to have very long hair, but someone who takes a vow for a time period, and the Talmudic references said some people would take a 30-day vow, some people would take a 60-day vow, some people would take a 90-day vow.
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You know, they would sort of set these time periods up for themselves.
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At the end of the vow, after the hair had grown to however long it grows in 30, 60, 90 days or whatever, the hair was then cut off, and it was taken to the temple where it was burned as an offering.
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We see this again.
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If you go back to Numbers 6 and read, it's actually lined out.
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It says that you should go into the temple and take this hair and offer it up as an offering.
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So, is this what Paul was doing? Well, the text doesn't say, so we have to have a little bit of what Brian Borgman calls a little sanctified imagination.
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You know, we don't know for certain, but based on what's happening here, it's likely that Paul had taken a vow, and people say, well, why would Paul take a vow? Well, again, if we use a little bit of sanctified imagination, what just happened? Paul was in Corinth, the Las Vegas of his day.
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He was in a place that was utterly sinful, and yet in 18 months, he was able to raise up a church.
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And then, as the church is being raised up, his leaders are being discipled, and his people are being preached to and converted, Galio tries to bring, or I'm sorry, the Jews try to bring a punishment against him, and Galio protects him, because God said it would be so.
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Remember, God appeared to him in a vision and said to him, nothing's going to hurt you.
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Then it's proved when he goes before the judge, and nothing happens, he didn't even have to say anything.
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Remember the text says Paul went to speak, and he didn't even have to speak, Galio defended him.
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So Paul now, as it seems, takes a vow, we might call it a vow of thanksgiving.
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An offering of himself, of devotion to God, as a prayer of blessing, or prayer of thanksgiving for the blessing that God has given to him, the blessing of protection.
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Again, don't know that for sure, but we do know this, that has come to an end, and now he cuts his hair.
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And I sort of, just again, that sanctified imagination, I sort of think of Paul having a bag of hair, because he's going somewhere with this.
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He's going to take this hair, I believe, back to Jerusalem, because that's where he goes, the text doesn't say Jerusalem, but we're going to talk about why it does in a minute, it says it without saying it.
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He's got hair with him.
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He's ready to make this offering to God, he's cut it off, he's ready to go.
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Verse 19, and they came to Ephesus, Ephesus is across the Aegean Sea, so if you leave Corinth there at Centuria, which is the port, and you go across the sea, you'll get to Ephesus first.
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They wouldn't have sailed all the way over to Syria, because they would have had to stop for supplies, and you know, those types of things, so they just went from port to port, as it were, and they land in Ephesus.
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And he says, and he left them there, who is them? Them is Priscilla and Achilla, Priscilla and Achilla have come with him, thankfully they have a job that moves around, tent makers, they can move and do their jobs, so they leave their tent making business there in Corinth, and they go with him over to Ephesus, but he himself went into the synagogue and reasoned with the Jews.
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Paul's not just going to go to Ephesus and leave, he's going to, while he's there, stop and speak to the Jewish people, so he does, he goes in and preaches to them the gospel.
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And something really strange happens in verse 20, it says, when they asked him to stay for a longer period, he declined.
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Now think about this, Paul is really good at getting kicked out of places, Paul is the persona non grata of the New Testament, nobody wants him around, every time he goes into a city and preaches, somebody runs him out, or beats him up, or throws stones at him, he is really not popular.
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He comes to Ephesus, and they don't want him to leave.
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And then verse 21, but taking leave of them, he just, he left, everywhere else, he had to be run out.
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The one place they want him to stay, and he leaves.
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This is interesting to me, I don't really have any poignant reason other than to say the next line, he says, but taking leave of them, he said, I will return if the Lord wills.
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And we're going to get back to this in a minute, because that's the key to all this.
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But before we do, I need to make mention, if you have a King James Bible, or a New King James Bible, or if you have the New Living Translation, or the Holman Christian Standard Bible, you will have an additional sentence that is not in the ESV, NIV, or NASB.
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In fact, if you have an ESV, NIV, or NASB, it's not even in the notes.
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If you have the NLT, it's in the marginal notes, if you have the Holman Christian, it's in the marginal notes.
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But if you have the King James, or the New King James, it's right in the text, and it says this, it says, I must by all means keep the feast that cometh in Jerusalem.
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Mike, you got a New King James, right? Is that what yours says, there? So there's a whole line, and honestly, I have preached many sermons on the subject of textual criticism, and if I took that right right now, as to why it should or shouldn't be in there, we would not leave until well after lunch.
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So let me just say this, that particular line does not have the best manuscript support.
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In fact, it has so little support that most modern translations don't even add it in as an option, because of the potential of it not being part of the original.
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I don't believe it was part of the original, I believe it's a scribal amendation to understand why Paul was taking such a quick leave.
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He had somewhere to be, because if he was going to Jerusalem for a feast, I can't stay.
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I gotta get there, you understand? I gotta go, and the feast isn't gonna wait on me.
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You want me to stay, I gotta go.
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Is that the reason? Likely.
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Because what we see in the next text, it says when he landed at Caesarea, this is verse 22, when he landed at Caesarea, he went up and greeted the church, and then went down to Antioch.
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What church is being referenced in verse 22? The church of Jerusalem.
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How do we know that? Well, the port of Caesarea would have been closest to the church of Jerusalem, but also, there's a vernacular that's used in the New Testament to reference Jerusalem that's not used for anywhere else.
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Any time in the New Testament you see someone going to Jerusalem, they're always going up.
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Everyone goes up to Jerusalem.
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And any time they leave Jerusalem, they always go down.
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Even if they're going north, they're going down from Jerusalem, because Jerusalem was considered to be that city of God.
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And so, when you go to Jerusalem, you're always making the trek up, and when you leave Jerusalem, you're always making the trek down.
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Even though Syria, which is where Antioch was, was north of where he is, it says he went down to Antioch, because he had gone up to the church.
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Doesn't have to say Jerusalem, because it's inferred within the text that he had made his way from the port of Caesarea over to the church of Jerusalem, met the disciples, fellowship with them.
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I'm sure it doesn't say how long or anything, but after that he went down, meaning he left Jerusalem, went to Syria, and then after spending some time there, he departed and went to the region of Galatia.
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But actually, verse 23 is the beginning of the third missionary journey, because he's gotten home, he's met the church at Antioch, he's talked to them, and now he's on his way back out for his third missionary journey.
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Now all that was the explanation of the text, and I feel like I need to do that because I want us to understand where we are.
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As I said, it acts as a narrative, and if you don't sort of follow along, you sort of get lost.
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But now I want to make an application.
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As I've said many times, the purpose of preaching is not just to explain the text, but it's to apply the text, and to give you an encouragement and a push from the text.
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Because I think there's a key phrase in all of this, and I've already mentioned what it is, but it's easy to overlook.
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When the Ephesians were beckoning Paul to stay, he declined.
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He was on a mission.
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He wanted to get, if he was going to the feast, he wanted to get to the feast, but even if he wasn't going to the feast, even if that's a complete incorrect statement, even if he wasn't headed to the feast in Jerusalem, he wanted to get home to Antioch.
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His sending church deserved to know what had been happening.
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They deserved to know what they were supporting.
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So he, as a good missionary, is going home to share with them what has happened, to share with them all that he has seen.
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And he has seen people get saved.
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He has seen people get converted from the Athenians to the Corinthians to the Philippians.
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He has seen men and women come to know Christ, and he has a message to share with the Syrian church there at Antioch.
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He has a message to share with them, you have not sent me in vain.
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I'm coming home, and I'm going to share with you what God has done.
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So these Ephesian Jews say, Paul, stay with us.
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Stay here.
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We need you.
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We need you to teach us.
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We need you to minister to us.
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We need you to share the gospel with us.
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Please stay.
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Paul says, I will return if God wills.
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As I was considering this message, and I was considering what part of the text I wanted to emphasize for our lesson this week, that portion kept coming back into my heart.
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Paul is a man whose life is driven by missionary work.
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He's driven by sharing the gospel.
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He's been proclaiming Christ now for years.
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He's seen men saved.
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He's seen men reject his message also.
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He's seen churches established, and he's seen cities run him out of town.
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But in all of that, Paul never lost sight of the fact that the one who was directing his path was not himself.
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He never lost sight of the fact that the one who was guiding his steps was not his own heart.
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The Bible tells us what? Many are the plans of a man's heart, but what? The Lord directs his steps.
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So here Paul, in speaking to the Ephesians, he said, I will return if it be my will.
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Of course, I would love to come back and share the gospel and establish a church here at Ephesus, but what? It's not my will that's going to make it happen.
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It's not my will that's going to get me back here.
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If the Lord wills, I will return.
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Beloved, I'm overwhelmed sometimes by our absolute dependency on God.
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I've shared this before.
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I can't get over it sometimes.
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I have moments of real clarity.
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Oftentimes they happen late at night after Jennifer and the kids have gone to bed.
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Sometimes I'll be sitting up in the living room.
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Sometimes I'll be laying in bed and I'll just have a moment of, it's sort of like faith mixed with dread.
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I know that sounds really dumb because it's the realization of how utterly dependent upon the will of God that I am.
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You know what oftentimes that happens is when I feel my heart beating in my chest.
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You ever feel your heart? You ever so still that you can feel your heart? Maybe I'm not well.
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Maybe I shouldn't be feeling it.
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But I'll just be sitting there sort of listening to my own heartbeat and I think about the reality that that's ultimately what's keeping me going.
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This little engine is running and it's delivering oxygen everywhere else that needs oxygen and the computer up here is dependent upon the engine and so the engine is sort of keeping the computer going and this is all it is.
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I don't have a second one.
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I don't have a second heart.
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I have two lungs, I have two kidneys but God only sought to give me one of these and that's all I've got.
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And I really believe that it beats at His command.
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I really believe that it could stop beating at His command too.
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And it could stop beating without any warning.
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You don't have to be old for it to stop.
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You don't even have to be sick for it to stop.
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And every day I live, I have to say to myself, I live today because the Lord has willed it.
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And tomorrow, if I'm still here, it will be because the Lord has willed it.
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Jennifer and I talk about the inevitable times.
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We talk about what will happen when one of us is with the Lord, unless the Lord sees so fit as to take us both at the same time, which is sort of our quiet prayer.
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But we talk about that.
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We have a little saying, I know we can't be married in heaven, but I want to sit next to you when we get there.
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That's our back and forth statement to one another.
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But we think about that.
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It could be any day, it could be 50 years, but it is all in the hands of the Lord.
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My health, I can work on.
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I can certainly do things to make myself less unhealthy.
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I can do things to make myself more fit.
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But it is appointed unto every man once to die.
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And that is an appointment we all will keep.
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And so why do I speak of such things on a day when our message is called finding hope? Because my hope is in the will of God that He has for me more than just this life.
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And He has for me more than just this beating heart.
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Because one day it will stop, but He has a glorified body that He has prepared for me.
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Wherein the heart will never stop.
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The lungs will never cease.
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And I'll be with Him forever.
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And that's the hope that we find.
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That's the will of the Lord for the believer.
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I want to share, if you don't mind, just for the last few minutes of the message.
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Because if I didn't go to this passage, I would kick myself later.
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Turn to James 4 with me.
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Because James reminds us of something so important.
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And when I think about the will of God, and I think about how we look at life, I think about this passage often.
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James 4.13, and we'll finish here so you don't even have to hold your place in Acts.
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We're going to stop.
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This will be our last passage.
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James is challenging believers, and he says, Come now, you who say, Today or tomorrow we will go into such and such a town, And spend a year there and trade and make profit.
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Yet you do not know what tomorrow will bring.
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What is your life? For you are a mist that appears for a little time and then vanishes.
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Instead, you ought to say, If the Lord wills, we will do this or that, and we will live.
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James is referencing here the way most of us talk about our life.
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He's using the typical businessman model here, but it's how we all talk about life and time and place and duration and goal.
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Time, today or tomorrow.
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Place, we'll go to such and such a town.
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For a duration, we'll spend a year.
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And what's the goal? We'll make a profit.
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And that's sort of how we talk about our life.
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What are we going to do today? Where are we going to go today? And you know, none of that is bad in and of itself.
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It's not bad to make plans.
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I think that if you take that from James, I think you're taking the wrong thing.
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The Bible encourages us to be diligent in not being lethargic about our life, but to focus and to do things right.
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Proverbs 21 says, The plans of the diligent lead to abundance, but everyone who is hasty comes to poverty.
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Basically, it's saying if a person makes plans, he's more likely to be successful than a person who just goes out and does without thinking.
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And so we know the Scripture references that.
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Even Jesus, when talking about salvation, he talked about a plan.
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He says, which of you desiring to build a tower does not first sit down and count the cost? And he's referencing salvation there, and that's making a plan.
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So making a plan in and of itself is not evil, but where does the evil come in? According to James, it's when we make our plans or make our desires known without considering the will of God.
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A man can make all the plans in the world, but he cannot control his future.
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You cannot even say for certain that you'll have a future.
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You can assume you will, and you can be correct, but the only certainty in the universe is in the hands of God.
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A while back, I heard an illustration.
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I shared it on Wednesday night, so a few of you may have heard this illustration, but it so reminded me.
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It was so good.
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I want to share it again today.
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If you took 10 pennies, and you took 10 pennies, and you took a Sharpie, and you wrote on each of the 10 pennies the numbers 1 through 10.
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So each penny has a number, 1, 2, 3, 4, all the way to 10.
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And you put all of those pennies into your pocket and shook your pocket up.
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What are the chances that you would pull out the one with the number 1 on your first try? 1 in 10.
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That's your chance.
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It's not hard.
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Now, what are the chances that you would reach in and pull out 1, and then put it back, and then reach in and pull out the 2? Well, now it goes to 1 in 100.
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So 1 in 100 chance that it would go, that you would pull 2 out in succession.
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Now go to 3 and to 4, and it just gets exponentially crazy.
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The chances of pulling out 1 at a time, 1 through 10, getting all in a row, is 1 in 10 billion.
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Now, if you can't control 10 cents in your pocket, what makes you think you can control this life? I remember reading that and just thinking, where is my hope? Oftentimes I try to find my hope in myself, in my success, in my money, in my relationships, in my own desires, and sometimes in my own will.
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But all those things are fleeting.
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The hope that abides is found in the will of God.
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It's found in the promise of God that He will cause all things to work together for the good of those who love Him, and are called according to His purpose.
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That He will neither leave you nor forsake you.
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This is where the hope of the believer is born.
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If you believed your life was completely given to chance, you would have no reason for hope.
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If you believed you were in complete control of your life, you would also have no reason for hope because you don't have perfect foresight and perfect insight.
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Our hope is found in God, who has perfect foresight, perfect insight, and who has decreed all things to work together for the good of those who love Him.
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And do you know what He has willed on your behalf? I'm going to finish with this.
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If you have trouble finding hope in the will of God, do you know what He's willed on your behalf? You don't have to go there and look.
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You don't even have to write it down.
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But in Isaiah 53, verse 10, it says, It was the will of the Lord to crush him.
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That's talking about His Son.
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When we say we're going to find hope in the will of God, not only has God willed to bring you here today, not only has God willed to keep your heart beating, God so willed to give His only begotten Son that anyone who believes on Him and everyone who believes on Him will never perish but will have everlasting life.
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That's the will of God that we find hope in.
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And even if we're facing struggles, even if we're facing turmoils, we know that the ultimate will of God for the believer is an eternity with Him.
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And in that, we find our hope.
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Father God, I thank You for the opportunity to worship today.
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I thank You for the opportunity to be reminded about our hope.
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I thank You for the Apostle Paul who exemplified this hope when he faced those Ephesian Jews and he said, If the Lord wills, I'll return, reminding us, Lord, that all of our life, even our coming and going, is bound up in the will of the Lord.
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We do not control this world.
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We do not even control the very heart beating in our chest.
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We are utterly dependent upon You.
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Oh God, may You remind us of this dependence.
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May You remind us of our need to trust.
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And may You remind us of the hope that is found in Your Son.
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In whose name we pray, Amen.
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Let's stand and sing and prepare our hearts for communion.