Be My Witnesses (Acts 1:1-11)

[0:00] And so yeah, this week we are starting a new series on Acts. Very exciting. So if you could turn to your Bibles to Acts 1.

[0:10] It's very small. My bad. Acts 1, verse 1 to 11. Feel free to follow through, read with me, whatever you want to do.

[0:23] So in my former book, Theophilus, I wrote about all that Jesus began to do and to teach until the day he was taken up to heaven, after giving instructions through the Holy Spirit to the apostles he had chosen.

[0:37] After his suffering, he presented himself to them and gave many convincing proofs that he was alive. He appeared to them over a period of 40 days and spoke about the kingdom of God.

[0:50] On one occasion, while he was eating with them, he gave them this command. Do not leave Jerusalem, but wait for the gift my father promised, which you have heard me speak about.

[1:02] For John baptized with water, but in a few days you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit. Then they gathered around him and asked him, Lord, are you at this time going to restore the kingdom to Israel?

[1:14] He said to them, It is not for you to know the times or dates the father has set by his own authority, but you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria and to the ends of the earth.

[1:32] After he said this, he was taken up before their very eyes, and a cloud hid him from their sight. They were looking intentionally up into the sky as he was going, when suddenly two men, dressed in white, stood beside them.

[1:47] Men of Galilee, they said, Why do you stand here looking into the sky? The same Jesus who has been taken from you into heaven will come back in the same way you have seen him go into heaven.

[2:00] And that is the word of God. So now we've got Pastor Albert who's preaching. All right.

[2:15] Thank you. Well, I see a lot of people not here. Either they got COVID, staying at home, or a family's got COVID. Let's pray for one another. All right.

[2:27] Where's my? Yep. All right. We start a new series of, as Venus said, Acts 1-7.

[2:39] Now, I've got the privilege to start this, all right? Very exciting. We just finished, what, four months of Genesis 1-11, all right?

[2:50] And actually, we chose this book of Acts. It kind of parallel to what, actually, what Genesis 1-11 was, the message was very, very much similar.

[3:04] Always God was creating something. Always chaos trying to overcome the order of God. Here, the church was born. And always the sin of man, you know, Satan trying to, yeah, to destroy the church.

[3:19] But every time, God wins, all right? Jesus is the head of the church. Okay. So, Acts of the Apostles. What may be some of the things that you remember, you know, something that stick into your mind about the book of Acts?

[3:35] Anything? Surely, Acts 1-8. We could recite that, all right? It actually was a verse for our church some years ago. What else?

[3:45] Remember anything from the book of Acts? Sorry? Holy Spirit comes in the next chapter. What else? Huh?

[3:59] My hearing is... The Pentecost, right? That's the coming of the Holy Spirit. Or maybe some remember the four mission trips of Paul, all right?

[4:09] Or even the dramatic encounter of Paul in the road to Damascus. Wow! Who are you? You know? Who are you, Lord?

[4:21] And many things. But this verse, the verse of the month, this January, I think we all remember. All right? Can you recite it now?

[4:32] Right? The Holy Spirit will come upon you. Then you will have power. And you will be my witnesses, all right? From to Jerusalem, in Judea, Samaria, and to the ends of the world.

[4:48] And interestingly, this reply of Jesus actually came from a wrong question by the apostles. Right? The apostles said, Lord, when are you going to restore the kingdom of Israel?

[5:03] That was a wrong question. And actually, Jesus virtually, you know, said, none of your business. But just let the Holy Spirit come upon you, and then you'll be my witnesses.

[5:16] All right? So, and indeed, that was in the mind of Jesus that the gospel was going to be preached from Jerusalem, from Judea, Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.

[5:31] Right? That was the purpose of Luke was recording the acts of the apostles. And indeed, by the end of the book, the gospel was to the ends of the earth.

[5:45] At that time, it was wrong. Okay? So, we need to understand, I believe that the next few months, couple months, that we're going to share the book of Acts.

[5:57] It will be very, very exciting. Okay? And Venus, thank you for reading the first 11 verses of chapter 1 to us. And the first 11 verses, I believe that the Bible was saying that Luke wanted to assure this guy, Theophilus.

[6:16] Okay? Who was Theophilus? Okay? But he wanted to assure him the death and the resurrection of Jesus, and to remind him, and maybe others, the charge of Jesus to the disciples to be his witnesses until one day Jesus comes back.

[6:39] And for us here, we were not in the first century church 2,000 years ago, but 2,000 years later in New Zealand, in Auckland.

[6:51] I believe this 11 verses of the first chapter of Acts, God was going to tell us, to assure us that we need to be very, very convinced of what Jesus has accomplished.

[7:05] I like the first song. I believe in the Father. I believe in the Son. I believe in the Holy Spirit. You know, these are the creeds that we need to stand very, very firm.

[7:15] We are standing on firm foundation. The firm foundation is not PCBC. If it was PCBC, we would be shaky, right?

[7:27] But the firm foundation was what Jesus has accomplished. And because what Jesus has accomplished, we need to carry out his command to the ends of the world.

[7:42] And to lay that hope of one day Jesus will come back. Now, these 11 verses, I pray the Holy Spirit will really stir our hearts.

[7:57] And maybe we're not quite sure in certain things that we believe. I pray that God will really help us to be really, really steadfast.

[8:08] And knowing that we are standing on the firm foundation, the foundation that cannot be shaken. Not us, not PCBC, not anything that in this world mankind can do, but on Jesus, what he has done.

[8:26] Okay? So, Luke has written two books in the New Testament. Okay? First was Gospel of Luke. And we may call it Volume 1.

[8:36] And the audience was this guy, Theophilus. Who was Theophilus? Actually, this was a name that was kind of made up of two words.

[8:49] Theos, I think you all know, it means God. So, when you study theology, you study things about God. Okay? Philos is love. Okay?

[8:59] So, if it was a person, some said it was actually an officer of the Roman government. Okay? If it was this guy, and Luke was writing it to him and trying to make sure, you know, he probably became a Christian.

[9:17] And Luke really wanted to write the Gospel of Luke and let them be very, very sure what you have believed was true. Okay? So, this was maybe a guy called Theophilus.

[9:28] Nice name. Anyone, you know, get married and one day you want to give birth to a son, call him Theophilus. Nice name. But also, this guy, this name could be symbolic.

[9:42] Because at a time, Christians was under some difficult times, maybe starting of the persecutions. So, this could be writing to all lovers of God.

[9:55] All Christians who loved God. Theophilus. Theophiluses. Right? Okay. So, the first book was written, the Gospel of Luke. And the second book, the volume two, was Acts.

[10:08] All right? So, when he said, in the beginning, I've written the previous book about this, about Jesus. So, the first book of Luke was about Jesus, and it ended in Jerusalem. But in the book of Acts, it was another, the Godhead, Holy Spirit, and the end was the world.

[10:30] So, these are the two volumes of what Luke had written. Okay? So, the purpose of Luke was writing the book of Acts.

[10:41] He wanted to, Theophilus or Theophiluses, to know that Jesus was actually the continuation of the Old Testament.

[10:54] What God has planned in the, remember? Genesis 3.15, the seed of the woman. All right? That was the first proclamation of the Gospel in the Old Testament.

[11:11] And Luke was saying that Jesus was nothing new. It was a plan of God right from the beginning. And now, he has died.

[11:23] He has rose again. He has been taken up. And now, the church, which he has built, carried on the plan of God. But it was right from the beginning to now was nothing new.

[11:37] It was right. It was the heart of God. All right? It's just the church now continued on what Jesus has done. And Jesus was in the plan of God to save the world.

[11:49] So, Christianity was not just for the Jews. The Christian faith was for the whole world. And now, for the Roman government, if Theophilus was the government officer, he needed to know.

[12:05] Or the Roman government at the time, they needed to know. Christian faith was totally legitimate. There's nothing said about Christian faith was trying to go against the Roman government.

[12:20] No, it's the plan of God. It's for the salvation of all mankind. Okay? That was the purpose of the Gospel. I mean, the Book of Acts.

[12:32] When Luke was writing it and presenting it to the people. Okay? So, I think I've shown this to you before in the first sermon in Genesis.

[12:44] Genesis. As said, Genesis 3.15, the seed of the woman. And to be in conflict with the seed of the serpent.

[12:56] Right? That was the first declaration of salvation. And God created salvation at that time. And through and chosen the people, especially the Jewish people in Abraham.

[13:12] And it was in this process that salvation was in conception. And until Jesus came, he was the completion of salvation that was planned ages ago.

[13:28] And when Jesus finished his salvation, he charged, he commissioned church, that's us, to preach the salvation, to communicate salvation.

[13:41] But one day, Jesus, when he returned, there will be the consummation of salvation. That is a very simple history of the Bible from the first book to the last book.

[13:53] Okay? And we are somewhere around here. All right? We don't know when Jesus will come. So, this is us. So, when we look, when we read the first 11 verses of the first book of Acts, let us remind we are in this kind of context.

[14:16] Okay? So, in the first 11 verses, Luke was trying to say, first thing, in verse 1, 2, 3, Jesus' accomplishment.

[14:28] What Jesus has accomplished? Verses 1, 2, 3. In my former book, that is the Gospel of Luke, Theophilus, I wrote about all that Jesus began to do and to teach until the day he was taken up to heaven.

[14:46] All right? And you could see it in the Gospel of Luke. What all the things that Jesus has done and all the things that Jesus has taught until he died on the cross, he rose again, and he was raised up to heaven.

[15:00] Okay? And after giving instruction through the Holy Spirit to the apostles he had chosen, after his suffering, he presented himself to them and gave many convincing proofs that he was alive.

[15:11] He appeared to them over a period of 40 days and spoke about the kingdom of God. Okay? Now, that was the introduction of reminding Theophilus, hey, my volume 1, I've written to you before.

[15:29] And actually, Luke, the very last verses in Luke, it was like this. And so, Acts 1 simply recapped what Luke has written in the very last piece in the Luke Gospel.

[15:49] Similar things. This was written, the Messiah would suffer and rise from the dead on the third day, and the repentance of forgiveness of sins would be preached in his name. So, it was a continuation from the Gospel of Luke, and now to the first three verses of the book of Acts.

[16:08] All right? What Jesus has taught, what Jesus has done, who Jesus was, very, very important. So, Luke was trying to convince Theophilus, all the things mentioned, all the things you have been taught.

[16:28] Now, we need to be very, very convinced, know what we believe, or who we believe. Okay? So, that was in verse 2 of Acts 1.

[16:42] Okay? Okay? All that Jesus began to do and to teach until the day he was taken up. That was the life and the ministry of Jesus. He was God.

[16:55] Virgin birth. The song we just sung before, I believe in the virgin birth. So, that was Christmas celebration. And then, he came to start this ministry and began with his baptism.

[17:10] And during this ministry, about three years, what he taught, what he had done. Okay? And then, he died on the cross, but he rose again.

[17:22] And the very end of the Luke gospel, the gospel of Luke, he was taken up to heaven. So, that was, Luke was trying to let Theophilus know, now, be very sure, very convinced of what you have believed.

[17:39] Okay? So, today, okay, let us be very certain, too. You know, this year, we have this theme, our firm foundation.

[17:52] Let us be very, very sure of what we believe, who we believe. Okay? We may have come to church for a long time, but when people ask you, what do you believe?

[18:03] Oh, I believe our church has a wonderful pastor, William. That's about it. No, that's not our firm foundation. Yeah. I believe that, oh, we have 30 years now in this place.

[18:14] God has blessed us. But what do we believe? I believe in the God, the Father. I believe in the God, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.

[18:24] Yeah. We need to be very, very sure. There are many things, I mean, there are many things about Christian faith. But this, these are the crux, the foundation.

[18:36] We need to be very, very firm, very, very steadfast. Nothing can change. This is what Jesus has accomplished. Are we very sure about that?

[18:49] Do we, you know, when people challenge us, did really Jesus die on the cross? Ah, God cannot die on the cross. You know, did he really rose up, rose, rise up again?

[19:02] That's not very scientific. You know, faith, based on facts. But still, we need to exercise that faith.

[19:12] And sometimes we cannot just use logic to explain faith. Okay? Okay? So, how certain are we? Secondly, Jesus' commandment, we need to carry it out.

[19:34] We need to be, we need, Jesus' commandment needed to be executed. In verses 4 to 5, On one occasion, when he was eating with them, he gave them this command, Do not leave Jerusalem, but wait for the gift my Father promised, which you have heard me speak about.

[19:52] For John baptized with water, and a few days you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit. Okay? Now, when this term, baptism of the Holy Spirit, There are different denominations speak about, maybe slightly different, But only one Holy Spirit.

[20:11] Only one baptism. Okay? And actually, Luke, Jesus was saying this baptism of the Holy Spirit, I believe that all his apostles and the disciples knew what he was talking about.

[20:23] It's just us, we just have different definitions about the baptism of the Holy Spirit. But for them, they knew, because it was, baptism was a common practice during those times.

[20:35] Okay? And what really Jesus was trying to say that, It was this immersion, the power of the Holy Spirit will come and cleanse, And to penetrate one's heart and mind and life.

[20:51] So that that person, after the baptism of the Holy Spirit, Is no longer them. They are not in charge. But the power to come upon them, There will be a new person.

[21:03] Of course, it's not just one-off thing. It will be a continuous transformation, A baptism of the Holy Spirit in us. Okay? We need to, and then we need to fill, To be filled by the Holy Spirit, Ever and ever and ever.

[21:18] But, one thing was clear. The apostles, no matter how gifted they were, How powerful God has used them, It was not themselves.

[21:36] It was the power of the Holy Spirit. So the command was to wait. Surely, in verse 8, It says that when the power of the Holy Spirit come upon us, And we can be his witnesses in Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, and to the ends of the world, Yes.

[22:03] That was the purpose, When the Spirit come upon us, And we could, We have to carry out that command. And today, It was the missionaries in the past, That, you know, From America, From England, From Europe, That brought the gospel to China.

[22:21] Okay? And to the very remote, And they had to sacrifice, Much, much more than we can imagine. Alright? And they preached the gospel to our grandparents.

[22:33] And they were able to believe. Alright? And our parents, And for some, If we were growing up in Christian families, Praise God and thank God for these missionaries.

[22:44] But it was the power of the Holy Spirit, That enabled these things to happen. It was not how great the missionaries were, How well educated they were, How well they could speak.

[22:57] It was the power of the Holy Spirit. And, Now, imagine, When Jesus was telling them, Wait, Wait until my Father, For the gift my Father had promised, The apostles could remember well, Because in John 14, 16, Jesus has already told them about, I will leave you, But I will ask God, And He will send you another advocate, Another counselor, That is the Holy Spirit, To be with you forever.

[23:33] Alright? And they knew, Something, And they probably did not exactly know, Who or how the Holy Spirit came. But they knew something was coming.

[23:43] Alright? And Jesus here reminded them again, Wait, Until, The Holy Spirit comes. But how long did they have to wait?

[23:56] If you have told me, Oh, okay, Wait for a certain time, Okay, I will wait. But they didn't know how long, They had, How long they had to wait. We know, How long they waited. How long have they waited?

[24:08] Now, My maths are not very good, But I could work this out. Okay? So, Jesus, When He was, He rose again, He had, What the verse said before, How many days, He spent with the apostles, And the disciples?

[24:27] 40 days, Right? So, What kind of, What festival, Of the Jewish people, At that time, That Jesus was, Was crucified?

[24:40] Remember? The Passover. Right? He was the Passover lamb. Right? So, It was the Passover, That Jesus was, The next day, Okay?

[24:52] That He was hung on the cross. And, What day, Did the Holy Spirit come? Pentecost. So, The Passover, And the Pentecost, How long?

[25:08] In between. Or you could, Actually, You can tell by the, You know, The name Pentecost. What, What does Pentecost mean? What's pent? P-E-N-T.

[25:20] Pent, There's five, Right? Right? Pentecost really means 50. So, From, Passover, To Pentecost, If you, If you, If you could read it from the old, You know, Old Testament, Leviticus, And, It was, Seven times seven, Plus one.

[25:37] That's 50 days. Alright? So, 50 days, Minus, 40. So, How many days? 10.

[25:50] Right? Thank you for, For, For your answer. Right? But not 10. Because Jesus died, And, In, In, In the grave. No, It was good. You had to give me that.

[26:00] They would be very ignorant about it, Right? So, You had to give me that. But, It was three days that Jesus was, Was in the grave. So, It was about seven days. They had to wait seven days, For the Holy Spirit to come.

[26:15] They didn't know. If they knew, If Jesus said, Wait for a week, Okay, We'll wait for a week. But, Jesus did not tell them, How long they had to wait.

[26:26] One day, Pass, Two days, Three days, Four days. Nothing. What are you going to do? But, They had to wait.

[26:38] I think it's a lesson for us. You know, We had to wait. Because, If we do not wait, We do not, We were not sure, It was the Spirit, Telling us, Giving us the power, We could not achieve anything.

[26:52] I mean, Often, As pastor, I like to walk about, I like to run about, I like to talk to people, I like to do things. But, My, My, Yeah, My confession is, I need to learn to wait.

[27:06] Often, At church, You know, We can have meetings, We can talk about it, And we can, We can plan these sort of things, But perhaps, We all have to learn, To wait, Upon God.

[27:20] Because, Without the power, Of the Holy Spirit, We cannot be witnesses. You know, This word, Witnesses, Is not just giving our testimonies, When you know, Erica, When you get baptized, I'm going to share my testimony, Okay.

[27:36] Surely, Everybody clap, And wow, How wonderful. But if you were sharing your testimony, In, In a, In North Korea, Right now, Not even, I believe, Not even, Maybe even one third, In your testimony, You'll be, Probably executed.

[27:58] That word, Witnesses, Actually, Matter, Race, It was the word, For martyrs. You were trying to witness for Jesus, To a point, That you can risk your life.

[28:11] So, Without the power of the Holy Spirit, We cannot. The people at that time, Cannot, Could not. And today, We cannot, Because this world is hostile.

[28:25] Because there is a spiritual conflict. So, We need the power, Of the Holy Spirit, To come upon us. And, And, And that, And once we have the power, Of the Holy Spirit, We can be God's, Witnesses.

[28:44] Okay. So, That was, What, The slide we just had before, The Gospel of Luke. But, Now, It's church, Carrying, Carrying on what Jesus had, Done.

[29:00] Okay. What Jesus, Taught, And did, We are, To continue to do what, Jesus had done, After he was taken up.

[29:11] We are to be his witnesses, But not with our own strength. But the power, Of the Holy Spirit, Came upon us. So, Luke was, Recording, These sort of things, Until, The end of Acts, It was, Approximately, 8061.

[29:28] Because we know, 8062, Was the Emperor, Nero, Who came to reign. And, That, The persecution started. All right.

[29:40] So, Today, We are, To be his witnesses. How are we going to, Witness for him? Not by our own strength, But by the power, Of the Holy Spirit.

[29:53] Okay. I'd like to share a testimony. My nephew, You know, My nephew is, Simon. How many of you, You know Simon? Okay. He was working, Doing a denture, You know, The work.

[30:04] And he was, He got so bored. He said, He prayed, God, Bring me to something, That, You know, Instead of just doing, One day, He's going to do, Do my denture, Right?

[30:15] He said, No, I don't want to do your denture. Okay. Lord, What can I do for you? And then the Lord, Opened a way. And, And one day, With this guy, Nick, The ex-cop, Right?

[30:27] Remember? I think, They came to, And speak. And, He kind of, Talked to a man. And, And God has opened a way, For Simon, To actually, In his late 30s, He entered into a cadet school, In Wellington.

[30:41] Okay. Now he's graduated, And he became a cop now. And, And, And he's in Manorewa. Okay. Pray for him. Dangerous. Places. All right. Not even in Manorewa.

[30:53] Pekarang is dangerous, Right? Yeah. All over Auckland. Yeah. You go to Dunedin, It's still dangerous. All right. But, When, He had, He had an, An experience in, In a cadet school.

[31:06] The first day, He's, Everybody was about 30 something, In their intake. And, Everybody was taken to a marae. Okay. And everybody was kind of sharing, Where you come from, What you, What you used to do.

[31:16] And, And, And things like that. So, He, He, He just stood up, And, And he, He just shared, Oh, I'm a Christian. I, I came from Pekaranga Chinese Baptist. Oh, My uncle's a pastor, And, These kind of things.

[31:29] And, Oh, And everybody got, Nice, You know, Nice, Nice, Yeah. And, And, But, Yeah, That's just everybody kind of, Get to know one another. But, Interesting was, Interesting was, They had two exams.

[31:41] You know, These exams, You know, For guys, It's quite, Quite intense, Quite stressful. And, And, Yeah, These, And the, Mature people, You know, Some in their 20s, Some in their 30s, Some younger ones.

[31:55] But, They were so stressful about exams. And, And just before they went into the exam hall, And, And Simon was, You know, Praying, You know, By himself. He did not, Like this, He was just praying silently.

[32:08] And suddenly, It was this lady, It came, Simon, You're a Christian, Right? Why don't you pray for us? Never expected that. And, Oh, Okay, Why not?

[32:19] Oh, Yeah, I'd like to pray for you. He thought it was just praying for the, For the lady. But it was about seven or eight of them, Gathered together. Oh, Come pray for us. You know. He became a minister in the cadet school. Second time was, Like that as well.

[32:34] See, We can, There are many, Many opportunities. God calls us in our different professions. The least, The thing, The least, You know, Areas that we think God can use us, God can use you.

[32:48] Are we ready? Do we have the power of the Holy Spirit? You know, If we don't, Oh, No, No, No, No, Someone else, Pray for me. I'll ask my uncle to come next week, Okay? No. When we have the power of the Holy Spirit, We can be his witnesses.

[33:05] Are we ready? Do we ask the power of the Holy Spirit to fill us? So, Whenever, There are opportunities, We can testify Jesus, In the areas, In the places that, Where God has placed us.

[33:19] Thirdly, Fulfillment. You know, If Christians, We don't have hope, We're just, Just, Surviving here in this world. It's pointless.

[33:31] You know, But we have the glorious hope. One day, Jesus will come back. And this is, Especially in verse 11.

[33:43] When the angels tell them, Told them, This same Jesus, That you see, That he's taken up to heaven, Will come back, In the same way, You have seen him, Go into heaven.

[33:56] One day, Our Lord, Will come back, In his glorious, Manifestation. He died, As a, As a, As a, As a, Lamb, For, Sacrificial lamb, But he comes back, As the glorious king.

[34:15] And this is our hope, Brothers and sisters. He hasn't abandoned us. We're not here by ourselves. The Holy Spirit is with us, Empowering us.

[34:26] But one day, Our king is going to come back. This is our belief, This is our conviction. Confiction. If we don't have this hope, If we don't have the conviction, We're worse than any others in this world.

[34:43] Right? He appeared to them over a period of 40 days, And spoke about the kingdom of God. The kingdom of God. What is the kingdom of God? Surely it's not the kingdom of the world, Of this earth.

[34:55] Not New Zealand, Not England, Not USA. But the kingdom of God, The kingdom is the king, The reign of king, Our Jesus, The king of kings, And the lord of lords.

[35:07] Surely the people at that time, They didn't understand it. Apostles still worry about the kingdom of Israel. Can you imagine?

[35:18] You know, All 40 days, Jesus told them about the kingdom of God, And then, The apostles, Been following Jesus for three years. Jesus actually, Yeah, I heard you about, Talking about the kingdom of God, But what about the kingdom of Israel?

[35:36] And Jesus virtually told them, Shut up, Not your business. But, Nothing, Don't worry about the kingdom of Israel. But, But, When the power of the Holy Spirit comes upon you, And you have, You will be my witnesses.

[35:51] Alright? So, This kingdom, What is this kingdom? Alright? Alright? This is the gospel. This is the X, What we are, Where we are now.

[36:04] Ah, Well, That's our root. Okay? But one day, Jesus will come back. His second coming. That will be, The completion of human history.

[36:20] This is what the Bible told us. Right? So the kingdom, The kingdom of God, The reign of God, According to the gospel, Was when Jesus came.

[36:33] And, That's why, John the Baptist said, The kingdom of God is here. Repent. Alright? And Jesus, In his parables, And his teaching, We're all talking about the kingdom of God.

[36:48] I drive out the demons, By the spirit, Holy spirit, And you know, The kingdom of God is here. So, Kingdom came, When Jesus was, Arrived.

[37:01] So, The kingdom already here, But, Not, Fully, Kind of, Realized. So, There was a theological term called, Already, And not yet.

[37:14] Alright? The kingdom of God, Is already, Here, But not yet. And, And one day, When Jesus comes back, That will be the consummation, Of the kingdom.

[37:26] So, We are in this, Interim period, Until, One day, Jesus comes. So, Consummation, You remember, In the book of Revelation, The church is bride of Christ.

[37:37] Okay? And, Jesus is the groom. So, One day, The groom will come, And take the bride, And that will be the consummation, Of the marriage. That will be the day, The church, Will be consummated by Christ.

[37:52] That will be, The full realization, Of the kingdom of God. And, I somehow, I don't know, Not predicting anything. Maybe we are here somehow, Somewhere.

[38:06] Jesus is coming very soon. And, This is our hope, Brothers and sisters. So, We have today, As church, Do we have, The conviction, Of Jesus' accomplishment?

[38:27] Do we, Carry out, Jesus' commandment? And, Do we have the hope, Of the fulfillment, Of the kingdom of God?

[38:39] What are we doing here, In this place? With our, Vision statement, Built, Vibrant, Multilingual, Congregations. We all remember that.

[38:51] Praise God. God is doing this. We don't, We can't do it by ourselves. Alright? But, When the spirit is upon us, Let's carry on, What the, What the Holy Spirit, Is instructing us, Empowering us, And, To be his witnesses, In this local community, And beyond.

[39:11] Let's pray. Father, I just pray that, You'll, You'll continue to, Empower us, Continue to, Yeah, To direct us, Continue to transform us, As your people, In this place, Lord, You planted this, This community, Of, Of, A body of Christ, 30 something years ago.

[39:36] No, Lord, We never expected, That this seed, Had come to, This, Fruit, As all your, As all glory, And honor to you, Not, Not what we could have done, We have done, Many things that have, Have hurted you, Frustrated your plan, But Lord, Thank you for your patience, Thank you for, For the spirit's, And transformation, So we ask that, You continue to bless, And, And, And, And, And use this church, In the, English congregation, On Saturday congregation, And Sunday congregation, Lord, That we, Will walk in your will, As a church, To be your witnesses, Thank you in Jesus, Mighty and wonderful name, Amen.