 Okay, good morning everyone. All right, so we're almost coming to the end of our study. So I think we met last three weeks back, right? It's been a long gap. So let's just do a quick review of where we started. I think we started with the chapter on praying for the unseen. Right, we talked about How Satan hinders the work of ministering the gospel. So every time we want to share the gospel, every time we want to be a testimony, the enemy hinders that because the enemy knows that the power of the gospel is able to change people's lives. We saw how the enemy binds people by blinding the minds of people. So many times we are talking to, you know, or sharing the gospel, but they don't accept it. Why? Because their mind is blinded. So in their mind, it's like, no, I cannot believe this. Who puts that blindness? It's the enemy, right? Second, we saw that the enemy holds people in bondage. Now, what is a bondage, right? When a sin is continually happening in our life, it becomes a bondage. Right, so I was in Rajasthan and in Charkhani and, you know, the moment we went there, the first day after the first session, there was a line of people and most of them were, you know, demon possessed. They were in bondage over years of people from other faiths. But what happens is they, you know, they partake in the other, you know, the other festivals and things they partake in food and the worship. And I saw, you know, the moment I saw them and they were all there, you could just feel that bondage, you know, many of these demons began to speak. They started saying, you know, this is what they do. This is why I'm here. This is why I'm not going to leave. You see the bondage, right? It stopped us, stops the people from believing the truth of the gospel. And, you know, when we went there many times, I've noticed this many times. Because of the anointing inside of us, demons don't come near us at times. Many times, you know, they would stand there and say, no, we won't come there. We will not come there. Why? Because of the anointing inside us. So the enemy has these ways. One, he blinds the minds of people. He holds people in bondage. And those bondages is not only for unbelievers. It can happen to us as believers as well. Sometimes we may say the wrong things or jealousy, pride, anger. If we continue to live in them, what will happen? What will happen? If you continue to live in sin, what happens? The bondage, right? If I continually get upset or angry with people, what's happening? It becomes a bondage. And the Bible says that it's not a fruit of the Holy Spirit, right? It is sin to be angry. It becomes a bondage, right? And so it's very important as believers. We understand that yesterday we spoke about it, right? The work of the cross has broken the bondage. Now that bondage can be a small bondage. It can be a bondage of, you know, over generations. And one of those demons came up to me and said, I will destroy your family and your two children or destroy them. You will not live. Even now, when you go back, you will not live. But you know the work of the devil, right? He brings intimidation. He brings fear. So all I said was, I rebuke that. I don't take what you're saying. You're cursed. You're broken. The work of the cross has, you know, this... And I didn't do anything. Many a place, many a times. They all came standing. Some of them came at midnight. They came bringing people who were possessed. And we prayed for them. This is a simple prayer. The bondages were broken. They came and said, I feel so... I feel peace. I feel a light. I feel, you know, this weight has been lifted off. Because of the work of the cross. Because we understand, okay, this is what the Holy Spirit can do. So it doesn't matter what kind of bondage people are in. No matter what the devil is binding them in. You and I have the authority to break it. Right? So I told this, the demon was standing. I was telling the demon, you can't do anything because there's a blood protection around my family. There's a blood protection around me. And he said, yes, there's somebody else also standing next to you. Please tell them to go. You know? Why? Because they cannot stand. The enemy cannot stand the work of the Holy Spirit. Right? But you and I must understand that. Now, if we don't understand it, we're going to look at, okay, see, this is what the enemy is doing. Our focus will be on the enemy. Oh, this guy has been in drugs for 20 years. This guy has been in bondage for 20 years. How is it going to, you know, remember who's inside? Right? So, thirdly, the enemy hinders the proclamation of the gospel. And every time you want to share the gospel with people, the enemy will stop us. So don't do it. It's not worth it. There's no time. It's not powerful. Who's going to believe you? You're not even anointed. All these lies, the enemy brings it to our mind. And we looked at the church's responsibility for us is to bring people from darkness to the light. The church has kingdom authority and God has given us spiritual weapons. And I think last class we talked about how God is sending us into the battlefield, but he's not saying, okay, you go fight. He's giving us weapons. We talked about it, right? Imagine a person in the army. He's wearing the entire guard. He's got his guns. He's got his equipment. Everything is there with him. He's sitting in the tent and saying, no, I will not go. I'm scared. That person would not be worthy to go into the battlefield. Right? So all the questions, hey, what is this? You're all set. You're ready to go. Why aren't you going? So remember that you and I, as we're ministering to people, we are the battlefield, but we must use the weapons. Paul writes to the Corinthians. What does he say? The weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but they're mighty in God. Right? So when you look at your weapons that you have, they're mighty in God. Right? So don't look at your gifts and your talents. That is secondary. The words say the weapons of our warfare are mighty in God. Right? So many of times we, you know, we used to travel. So one of the things I do is I always spend time, you know, additional time and prayer when we're going to minister to people. Why? Because we know that there's a spiritual fight happening. How do these demons know that I have two children? How do they know where I stay? How do they know things in the spirit? They know, right? But the weapons of our warfare might hear. Right? So when we understand that, whether they have demon possessed people or whether they're just unbelievers or friends or those who are not believe all that matter, you know that you have the weapons, but you have to use it. Right? So then we'll talk about bringing spiritual transformation. I think we stopped here. So how do we bring spiritual transformation? Right? What is spiritual transformation? Now, if you look at a certain region, you see that there's so much of, you know, maybe idol worship or work the enemy that's happening there. How can we bring spiritual transformation? We engage in prayer and worship and exercise our spiritual authority over the lost. We engage in prayer and worship. What does prayer do? What does worship do? It destroys the work of the devil. Right? When we're praying, there's a spiritual warfare. Right? And the works of the enemy is being destroyed. His grips are being loosened. Right? And even when we worship the atmosphere, the glory of the Lord, the presence of God brings a change. Right? So even you all, as you all are praying and worshiping in the morning, never make it a routine. Never say, okay, okay, wait a little prayer. Come on. Oh, drag yourself there. Okay, pray. Who's who's who's singing the songs? Oh, they say never have that attitude. If you have that attitude, stop. Go back and ask God, God restored. Restore. Change things in me because the more it becomes monotonous. You're doing things. We'll be doing things just it won't, there won't be any power in that. Right? I know, right? Because I've been part of Bible call is I know there's a routine. You get up, you do this, you do this. But one thing that I constantly said to myself was it may be a routine. But even in that routine, I want to see God working in my life. I want to see the presence of God ministering to me. Right? You go in with that desire, right? And remember, we cannot control people's choices. We cannot dictate their choices. We cannot manipulate people. Each person has their choice of accepting the gospel. Now, what is our responsibility? Right? We are ministering the gospel. We are sharing the gospel was their choice to accept it or not to accept it. We can control their choice. But we can pray for them. Say, God, remove that blindness. I'm going to go speak to this person. I'm going to go minister to this person. I'm going to go pray for healing. Do a supernatural work or let give me the wisdom to answer his questions the right way. This person has too many questions. How do I answer his questions? Now, if we go prepared, there's a difference. And when we go unprepared, there's a difference. So through prayer and exercising of spiritual authority, we can bring spiritual transformation in a person's life and in a certain place. I know we used to do this in early 2012. We went to different places in North India. We used to also go to a few places in South as well. So we used to have full night of worship. Right? And we went to this one city. I think it was Mysore. I'm not sure which city but I think it's Mysore. We went there and we thought we used to do 6 p.m. to 6 a.m. worship and prayer. So whole night worship and prayer. It used to be very strenuous but we used to always think, okay, will people come? So this one time we went to Mysore. And we have like, so six to six weeks, I think we should have like four worship leaders or three worship leaders. They used to lead like one and a half hours each. And then in between have prayer points, pray for those points. We should do it all the way till 6 a.m. So we went to Mysore once. We were setting up the speakers and all of that. Nobody's there in the hall. So we're doing 6 p.m. to 6 a.m. Nobody's come. We thought, oh man, what to do? It's almost 5.30. We've set up everything. Maybe two, three people have come. And then I remember as I was, I had to lead the first session that day. So I remember, we all went back and we were praying. And I remember thinking to myself, man, what if nobody comes? How will I lead? I mean, you have this feeling nobody's there on the stage. Initially, I used to think, oh, nobody's there. What worship will you do? But then I just sense the Holy Spirit saying, you do what you have come here to do. I will bring the people. I'm bringing a change in the city. We started the first song. I think it was three songs down the line. By the time we finished the three songs, it was maybe about 400 people in that place. And they had to call some people to put a tent outside and extra chairs and all of that. We ended the first session. We were about, I think, 500 people for a whole night prayer. Right now, it's easy for a day. People will stay for the day, like nine to five. But imagine the whole night. And what happened was after that meeting, there was a spiritual change in that entire city. Pastors began to say, hey, we have to do something. In our city, we have to build our city up. We have to speak to our youth, minister to the youth. So there was this complete transformation in thinking there was this unity among pastors. There was all that, you know, disagreements. Everything went away. How did it happen? Just through prayer and worship. And even now, when in Mysore, we are in touch with few of them, all of them are doing a very good work. All pastors coming together. There's this feeling of unity. There's wonderful change that the churches in, especially the south of Karnataka, north of Karnataka are growing. The Kanada churches, the regional churches are growing. People are accepting the Lord, spiritual transformation. So expecting for that is very important. Sometimes the enemy brings these thoughts saying that, hey, it's not going to work out. What difference are you going to make? You can make a difference. Whether it's two, three of you, whether it's all 10, 20 of you, you can make a difference, right? So even as you pray, pray for the Lord to do his work towards the lost and then in spiritual warfare, establish the presence of God and through corporate worship and through exercising our spiritual authority to destroy what Satan is doing from hindering people to come to Christ. So prayer and worship, very important. Then again, the same things you can pray for the lost. Pray for God to ask and ask God for the city, for the region, ask God for people to be touched and transformed. Pray for the Holy Spirit to bring conviction into people's heart. What is conviction? When people are in sin, the Holy Spirit comes and convicts them of sin. Hey, this is wrong. You need to repent of these sins. Now, if you look through the scriptures, remember in the book of Acts, right? The first mess sermon that Peter spoke of at the Pentecost, what happened? The Bible says they were gripped in their heart. They were convicted. When Peter shared the message after the Pentecost, he said, this is what has happened. This is what you all did. You all have crucified the Son of God, but he has raised himself from the dead and this is his present, his power has come here, his Holy Spirit. So he's explaining the whole thing. What happened? There was a grip and thousands of people, we're not talking about hundreds or two, three people, thousands of people accepted that message of the cross. So when we talk about the Holy Spirit, he is like a wind. He can pour out, just move on people, whether it's two people, whether it's 2,000 people, he can just move about. So when you're praying for the city or you're praying for the region, you can expect the Holy Spirit, God, Holy Spirit, convict these people. Now, we may not see the fruit of it, but you're doing a work. You're probably sowing seeds in prayer. Now, remember God's kingdom is, it's a kingdom where all of us work together. One person sows the seed, one person waters it, another person sees the reward. But God makes it grow, another person sees the reward. So just because we are praying for, for example, this area, we may not see families coming into Christ, but you have sown the seed. You have asked the Holy Spirit, you're praying that the Holy Spirit will touch lives, convict people of sins. Now, nobody will know this. Nobody will put a garland around you and clap for you and call you on stage. That's okay. Right? Remember, your reward is in heaven. You've done what you have been asked to do. You will move upon people, bringing them to repentance and to the knowledge of the truth of God. Ask God to grant them the spirit of wisdom and revelation so that their spiritual eyes are enlightened. So these are just like prayer points, right? Ask God, God, open their spiritual eyes. Ask God to, you know, God, let them know your word. Let them get to hear your word and let them, let it touch their lives. And also you can pray, Lord, let them know the purposes they're calling in their life. These are simple things that we can pray for. Then we can pray, God, send forth your laborers who will share the gospel of Jesus. Now, we may not be in a position to go, right? But God can raise up laborers to go and minister to people, to share the gospel, right? Pray for God's power to be demonstrated with many signs and wonders. Ask God for supernatural encounters as we see in the book of Acts that will point them to Jesus. Asking God for supernatural signs, wonders and miracles. You know, the church in Iraq and the church in Iran, both these churches, the church is there. When I say church, it's different churches. People are having visitations of God, of the Lord Jesus. There are encounters where Jesus himself has come and revealed himself to them, saying, this is what you read, this is what you do. And through the whole pandemic, through television, many of them have accepted Christ. Many people in the Islamic faith have converted. How? Through signs, wonders and miracles. Now, the sad thing to say is sometimes, you know, in our nation especially, when you go up north, you see people, they receive their healing. They believe in Jesus. But after they receive the healing, sometimes they go back to what they were doing before. You know, now what happens is, you're opening the door back to the enemy. Whenever we go to North India and we minister, why are these people coming to church? They're believers. They've heard the gospel, they like the gospel. They like, oh, Jesus, or Meshwar, Acha hai, all that. But then what happens? A feast will come. So even when we went to Rajasthan, I asked them, see, they're all believers. But what's happening? Why are you like this? So they said, no, she goes, you know, to any feast they go, they eat the food that was offered to idols or they, you know, they're so used to the practices that they say, okay, let's just do it. It's okay once a year. No, let's partake of it. Now what's happening? They're opening the doors to the devil. And the devil comes, begins to work in their life. Right? So here's the thing. When we encounter the love of Christ, when we encounter who He is, we don't want to go back to other things. Why? We'll be opening doors to the enemy. And the enemy is ready to come and sit inside. If he finds one open door, he's willing to come. Right? So we must be very careful. Right? And even as we are praying, you say, God, give us supernatural signs and wonders. Right? How many of you over here have experienced a miracle, like maybe just healing or here in this place in BC? In Bible college? I'm asking about in Bible college here. Okay. It's good. So we need to be open to that. Right? Open to supernatural things of God. And if we don't know, we're not open to it, then how can we accept and pray for others for it? Right? So something is, I believe in, if I come up with my, you know, you should learn the drums. If I believe in playing the drums and it's good, then only I can tell Him. Right? Now, I'm not... So you're only not playing the drums. Why are you telling me to learn? Right? I can only give something that I know of. If I experience the supernatural and the manifestations of God, the supernatural work of God, only then I can encourage people, hey, why don't you do this? Now, I'm reading the Word of God. If I don't read the Word of God, I don't spend time meditating on the Word of God. How can I tell you to do it? Right? That's what Jesus says. No, you Pharisees, you first do, then teach. Yes or no? Right? So if you and I are to make an impact into people's lives, we have to first do, then teach. Right? But remember, even when as we do, we are doing it empowered by the Holy Spirit and when we are teaching, we are doing it empowered by the Holy Spirit and the Holy Spirit is the one who is touching lives. It's not about us. Right? He's using us. We are the tools that God is using. Right? So exercising spiritual authority to open prison doors, establish God's presence through praise and worship once again, declare Christ's finished work of the cross for salvation of souls in the city. On the basis of the cross, because of the power of the blood of Jesus and in the authority of Jesus' name, declare over power of darkness, over your city, over people, people who are in bondage, declare it. Now, how many of you or how many of us understand the cross? It's a question. Understand the power of the cross or is it just, okay, cross Jesus? Do we understand the cross? Yes or no? What is the cross? Tell me, you understand. Tell me, what is the cross? Plus sign. Is the power of God to salvation? Yeah, that's theology. Right? Tell me, what is the cross to you? When you think of the cross, what is it that comes to your mind? Sorry? Romans. Promise. Very good. Okay. Forgiveness, pure love. Very good. Redemption. Redemption. I will call the students. What else? It's your place, but Jesus is there. Okay. Okay. So that's all good, right? All theological, wonderful answers. But something, a picture in my mind, right? When I look at the cross, the first thing that comes to my mind is, you know, like Jesus just crushing a snake. It's a picture, right? It's a picture in my mind. Two pictures I have. One is that. The second picture is in Colossians. He made a public spectacle of his victory. So Jesus didn't die on the cross and then go hide somewhere. He didn't do that, right? Ephesians 4 says he went down to the lower parts. He preached the gospel. He went, he took the keys of death and hell. And when you picture all that, any demon comes and stands in front of you. It's nothing. Many people, you know, have asked me, hey, you're not scared of that. You were not scared at all. Why? Because the first thing that comes to my mind is the cross. What is the cross? Hey, Jesus has crushed the devil. So the person, the demon that's working inside him is already defeated. Right? Where's the victory for him? There's no victory. And I am his child. And Jesus has made a public spectacle. So all the demons here know that they are defeated. But they're just bringing fear, bringing doubt, bringing these thoughts. Right? So the way you look at the cross is very important. It's a place of power. It's a place of victory. All what you said is right. A place of love and forgiveness, redemption. But these should not just be words. Or redemption, love. It should be something in our spirit that when you walk your Christian life, you really experience it. You know, as Bible call students, it's very easy to, you know, take in everything. But after your two or three years, you move on and you get into ministry, you'll see the real ministry starts. All of a sudden you'll say, hey, man, I learned this, but then it's so different here. I learned about demonology, all these things. It's so different. I learned about end times, but it's so different. It's true. I told you, right? I got 100 on 100 in faith. I went there, front of the demon, I put zero. I was not able to. I was scared. I was literally scared. I didn't, I told those other, like my friends who are all from the villages, so they were used to it. They were saying, hey, Paul, what? It's nothing, demon. But for me, hey, demon, you know, I'm not used to it. I'm from Bangalore. Very less demon manifestations here. But they were used to it. Hey, they won't do anything, Paul. What is this? You're 100 on 100 faith. You're the best student in the class. You're getting scared of demons. I said, yes, it's true. I realized, hey, everything I know is here. Of course, I know Jesus. I knew that I'm a new creation, but everything was here, stored up. I was not able to release it in the spiritual. It was all over here, stored up. You tell me the verses, I will quote you the verses. All of Psalms 1, Psalms 19, Psalms 121, Psalms 100, I'll quote it. But front of the demon, I'm running. Doesn't make sense. So what I'm trying to say is what we read, what we understand, must be something of the spirit. That's when, when we release it, there will be an anointing. And the devils cannot stand. So it's not always, I was very bold and very strong, you know, from the deep. I was always scared. But over time, I prayed and I asked God, God, let me get a reality. And it's not a show, right? Make a reality. Because demons recognize the work of the devil recognize and the Holy Spirit recognizes us, right? So let's go into the next chapter, nurturing a new believer. So every time we are, you know, especially in pastoral ministry, we may see this, you know, new believers come into the church or even, you know, even in small groups, new believers come in. What must we do? Now, Paul is writing to the Corinthians. He says to them, you are still drinking milk. You should be eating the food of the word of God. You are still drinking milk. And so what must we do in nurturing a new believer? Here are a few stages, right? First one, teach God's truth. Everyone say that, teach God's truth. When a believer, new believer comes into ministry, don't go and open revelations. Jesus will come back again. We will stand with him. He'll get scared. He'll say, I don't want to stand in front of anybody. No. Teach the truth of God's word, the simple things. One, foundations, Holy Spirit, water baptism, the Lord's table, praise and worship, faith, just the basics. You start off with that. You give them material, share material. And then you can go to the higher levels. Why aren't we doing the third year subjects now for you guys? There's a reason, right? So next semester, you'll get end times. You'll have hermeneutics or homiletics and different subjects, right? Developing the soul. So these are, it's all through stages, right? And then, right? And then you go into training in spiritual disciplines. So personal time in prayer, personal reading of God's word, Godly living, repentance, holiness. Now the thing is, we must be doing this, right? Prayer, personal reading of God's word, Godly living. So you teach them that. Then you connect them with Christian fellowship, which is very important, right? For example, if you're a pastor and you've got a new believer coming into the church, you first teach them God's truth, tell them, hey, prayer is important, worship is important, Godly living is important. And then you connect them either to a small group, if they're already part of your church, or connect them to mature people in the church and get them to have fellowship. Fellowship is very important. Because sometimes you may think, hey, I will get up, I will do ministry and I will stay alone, I will do it alone. It can't be done, right? God always works in a team. The Lord Jesus Himself being God, what did He do? Chose 12 people. Then He chose 72 people. He said, go and preach. So God does not work arbitrarily. He doesn't work alone. He always works as a team. The Lord Jesus set that example for us, right? So build teams. Connect them to life groups, Christian fellowships. And then after that, echo them or disciple them to serve others, right? So you're taking them first from being just new believers. You're teaching them basic foundations, worship, prayer, faith, all of that. Then you're teaching them, hey, you have to pray, spend more time in God, reading the Word, living holy life. Connect them to fellowship. And then you're training them to start ministering to others. You know what happened? This happened when I was, I think it was 2010. I was in Bible college. And I think it was first year. Yeah, I think it was first year. And you know, some people complained about me. It's a recording, no? Some people complained about me. Paul is making us get a good 5A. He showed it to everyone in the class. He's a class captain. I said, wait and then come there. I said, yeah, of course. What, you want me to pat your back and say, good job? No, right? If you've not done it, you've not done it. And so they said, no, you want to change the captain. See, I don't, it doesn't matter who's the captain. I'll still tell you. Okay, whoever is the captain, it doesn't matter to me. I will still tell you as long as you're here, you will have to do what is right. So they said, they went and they complained. It was in class, you know, they said. So I was sitting outside. And then we came back into class and said, okay, I knew they were going to complain. Because they told me they were going to complain. Then all the students thought, oh, now he's going to get nice. But what happened? He said, okay, that's okay. So he said, let's go to Ajmer. So he came out to me and he said, Paul, we'll go to Ajmer. I thought he's going to shout. He said, Paul, you come. I want to meet you. He said, Paul, let's go to Ajmer. I said, okay, what will I do? I don't know. So he said, we went. I was 23 years old. I went there and he was teaching. Oh, the whole day teaching. I was sitting there getting bored. Full day, right? Kingdom Builders. Bored in the sense, you know, I'm just sitting there the whole day. But all my classmates say, how come you went there? Then again, we went to another place. So, you know, at that young age, I used to go and sit. But one conference, I was, I think I was in second year that time. One of the pastors said, Paul, you teach. Now there are 400, 500 pastors sitting there. All are in, you know, 20 years, 30 years in ministry. He said, you teach one session. You've come at least three, four times to this conference. Were you listening in the conference? I don't know what you teach. I got very nervous. One hour session, I said, okay, I prepared for two hours. In case of urgency, I'll have some extra, you know. I was very nervous. And this was a gnazic. And it was after lunch. When I was full confident, I began to preach. 15 minutes, everything I could open. So within 20 minutes, the session is over. I was just saying, carry on. It's done, pastor. And I came back and I was so disappointed with myself. I said, man, how can I do this? I prepared for two hours, everything I've said in a hurry. I finished it in 20 minutes. I said I should never be a preacher. I should never be a teacher. I don't know why. I don't have an opportunity again. But over time, I learned and I thank God for those opportunities. Now, what am I trying to get at? There will be times when as believers, we have to give opportunities to others. We have to train up other people, disciple other people, give them opportunities. And when we do that, they really get to know and understand, hey, this is something that God has called me to. This is something that I can do. And so they'll be able to recognize. So new believers sometimes they don't understand what they should do. So you and I must be willing to give opportunities. Give them opportunities in weekend schools, workshops, mission themes, all these places. Then being a disciple maker, how Jesus discipled. He selected 12. He told them to be with him. They heard him. They saw him. He saw him in close proximity. So when you are ministering to people, let people see their lives, see your lives. He personally taught them beyond what he taught the crowd. He corrected them and he rebuked them. He helped them in their character. And he challenged them and he sent them out on assignments. So wonderful. I like that he corrected and rebuked and he dealt with their character issues. So correcting and rebuking again, there's a way of doing it. Yesterday we talked about it a little bit. There's a way to correct and love. There's a way to rebuke. Rebuke is a strong word, but there's a way that you can bring correction into people's lives. And as you grow in leadership, you will learn it. I've made hundreds of mistakes. Hundreds of mistakes. The best part is we learn from those mistakes. Like, hey, I should not have spoken like that. I should have said it this way. The same thing. I should have said it in a different tone or a different, you know, with a different pre-sex version. You know, people notice, as ministers have thought. You know, sometimes you get email, so your shirt button was open during preaching. They notice. They notice everything. So it's very important that we, in terms of discipling, you understand that, hey, I'm making, I'm training up somebody else for the sake of the gospel. Right? So importance of local church for discipleship. Some of the things we do is teaching from the pulpit. Of course, modeling in real life, life groups, basically small groups. Then we have one-on-one discipling. If people are interested, they can just, you know, be disciple, foundation classes, weekend schools, local church ministry. I think APC, we have a lot of local church, I mean, a lot of ministries within the church. And I think all of you are going to Central, you know, every week you're at Central. So serving in the sound and setup team and the other team. So learn as much as you can. Right? You know, what was my thing in Central? That time, Central was for 300 odd people. My job was to clean the chairs. Every chair had to do it. Because nowadays I think the chairs, is somebody doing it in Central? No. We were in another place and during the week, nobody used that place. So a lot of dust would settle in. So to clean that chair. So every week that was my thing. Then I got promotion from cleaning chairs. I went to a sharing team. Good morning. Please. I used to get so bored sometimes. What is this? You have to keep smiling. You can't stop smiling. Whoever comes here to smile. But I learned so much. I learned so much from all of this. Because all of these things build us up. Sometimes they look as if they are not important, but they are important. And now as I'm pastoring a church location, I understand, hey, our sharing should be there. Greeters should be at the door. So first thing, when I go to church, I make sure, okay, the volunteers are there for greeting. If they are not there, I will stand there. Because I've done it before. On worship evening we had few volunteers were there. Some of them were not there. Because we did sound and set up at Central, I was able to do it here. It was a training. Because I've cleaned the chairs at Central, we did it at East the other day. So it's all training, it's all part. Sometimes we think, okay, pastor will stand and preach. It's there. But then all of these things are training. And even as we are ministering to new believers, to people around us, we encourage them, hey, take part. It's okay. Maybe the most menial task. But when we do it, with the mindset that, hey, this is going to be beneficial for God's kingdom. I will definitely use you all. So engaging in evangelism, engaging in missions. And then there's youth retreats and so many other youth camps, church camps. These are ways of discipleship. And then overcoming practical challenges, again, there will be threats, there will be persecutions, there will be abandonment. People will threaten, people will persecute you for your faith. It's about overcoming inhibitions. Then obstacles, people may find obstacles from going to church. Cultural and religious practices that are challenges. Sometimes people may think, hey, I don't like the way this church does this or I don't like this practice in the church or that practice in the church. So we overcome all these small things. Marriage, Christian community. Sometimes in terms of marriage, there are different beliefs, different thoughts that people have. We look at what the Bible talks about marriage and we help people overcome practical challenges. There will be times when people say, hey, now is it okay to divorce because Moses said in the Old Testament you can divorce, give a letter of divorce. People come up and ask these questions even now. We must be able to answer these questions. Help them to overcome these practical challenges. Sometimes people come from different settings. They come from different towns, different backgrounds. Sometimes come from a brethren church. They don't believe in the Holy Spirit. They don't believe in the gifts of the Spirit. People don't believe in miracles. They don't believe in miracles. They believe that all of that stopped in the book of Acts. So all these things will come up. So we must be able to give good answers through the word of God. So we'll stop here. I think after this we have a couple of more. I think next week we can complete our portions. But here's what I want to say. In the study of all of this I would be really encouraged if each one of us truly understand our identity and in small ways begin to take that step of ministering to people. It could be somebody within your class itself. I would say, when I was in Bible knowledge, those two years were very lonely for me because I couldn't really talk to anybody and build good friendships. Go speak to people. Sometimes the mistake I made was I said, this person he didn't do well in his studies. Maybe he doesn't know. Or this person doesn't know English. Or this person, he's come from a village. He won't know what I'm going through. No. But towards the end of my second year I began to go and build each other up. Help each other. I would ask people, hey, you pray for me. You pray. This is the problem I'm going through. And I would allow people to minister to me and that way people began to be very open. So I know that we're seeing our faces every day but be open to ministering to each other. I'll say, okay, no, I'm like this. I'll be alone. Don't do that. Minister to each other. Bless each other. Pray for each other. Expect God to move. Amen. Okay, let's just close in a prayer. Father, we want to thank you for what you've done, what you're doing in our lives. We thank you, God, for the word and we want to thank you for all the good things that you have doing. We ask for your anointing. We ask Holy Spirit that you will empower us. Lord, even as we journey along with you, God, just studying and gaining knowledge and wisdom of God, I pray that you will teach us, God, to walk in your ways. Lord, we thank you. We thank you that we have the Holy Spirit inside us that will lead us and guide us, God. Lord, we pray for each and every student, Lord, even as they are learning of God, may the words, may your word just be rooted and grounded in their lives of God and I pray, God, that each one of them will recognize their calling and begin to work on their calling of God and just fulfill every plan and purpose that you have for their lives of God. Lord, we just pray for good relationships for Lord, your wisdom and everything that they're doing of God, even as they serve in church may your grace and your mercy and your strength be upon them of God. We thank you, Father. Lord, we just speak of blessing over each and every student here and I pray, God, that you will use them greatly for your kingdom of God, that you will open doors that you will minister to them, Lord, even as they pray and worship and seek your face of God. I pray, God, that you will open up the heavens and just pour out, Lord, a greater measure of your grace and anointing upon their lives. We thank you, God. We give you all the praise and glory. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen. Amen. God bless you all. Thank you, everyone, for joining online. Have a great week.