Hi everyone, it is absolutely fabulous to be here with you all the little faces that we

can see, those of you that we cannot see who are tucked away, who knows where, and just

sharing a great Jesus moment with us, I was up early this morning in the hotel and I

read this passage of Scripture and I thought it was so profoundly applicable to

bridge down as a community and it's from the book of Acts and Paul arrives in this

little town called Beria and it says, now the Berean Jews were of more noble character

than those in Thessalonica, for they received the message with great eagerness and examined

the Scriptures every day to see what John Mark's, oh, so what Paul said was true and I just

want to thank you right off the bat, you know, we do have the privilege, I got some text

from our guys in India this morning just showing huge piles of bodies being burnt because

the morgues can't cope with it and so the people are having to do that themselves, just

huge flames, large areas and I say all of that connecting the two parts to the story is

thank you for who you are and thank you for embracing the truth that has come from this

pulpit because it has had ramifications not just into bridge down, not just into Portland

or Oregon but into the nations of the world, I often get calls, I'm on zooms every day

somewhere in the world and invariably the question is how's John Mark how's bridge down,

thank you because you've made that possible, it's one thing to have a ministry that's

global, it's another thing that has a community that practices that ministry and makes it global

and that's what you've done, bridge down, you have created a community that is earnest

and zealous and passionate about the text and making sure that what it says is true and

it is practiced in its truth, so it's a delight to be here, I'm also very honored of course

to be contributing to the eternal series called Matthew, it never ends, it keeps going,

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