We're on Acts Chapter 9. It's page 1103 in the church
Bibles. Remember last week Saul had been
travelling to Damascus to persecute the church, and he'd
met the risen Jesus and had gone blind and he, Ananias, had come
and healed him. And this is the next bit of time
I'm just going to pick up from verse 18, just to sort of locate
it for us, to remind us immediately.
Something like scales fell from Saul's eyes, and he could see
again. He got up and was baptized, and
after taking some food, he regained his strength.
What's he going to do, Kick back and take life easy?
No, let's see what he does. Saul spent several days with the
disciples in Damascus. At once he began to preach in
the synagogues that Jesus is the Son of God.
It's astonishing. Just a few days before he was
persecuting the church. All those who heard him were
astonished and asked, isn't this the man who calls havoc in
Jerusalem among those who called on his name?
And hasn't he come here to take them as prisoner to the chief
priests Yet Saul grew more and more powerful and baffled the
Jews living in Damascus by proving that Jesus is the
Messiah. After many days had gone by,
there was a conspiracy amongst the Jews to kill him, but Saul
learned of their plan. Day and night they kept close
watch on the city gates in order to kill him, but his followers
took him by night and lowered him a basket through an opening
in the wall. When he came to Jerusalem he
tried to join the disciples, but they were all afraid of him, not
believing that he really was a disciple.
But Barnabas took him and brought him to the apostles.
He told them how Saul on his journey had seen the Lord, and
that the Lord had spoken to him, and how in Damascus he preached
fearlessly in the name of Jesus. So Stool stayed with them and
moved about freely in Jerusalem, speaking boldly in the name of
the Lord. He talked and debated with the
Hellenistic Jews, but they tried to kill him.
Man, he's having a bad time. 2/2 times nearly killed.
When the when the believers learned of this, they took him
down to Caesarea and sent him off to Tarsus.
Then the church throughout Judea and Galilee and Samaria enjoyed
a time of peace and were strengthened.
Living in the fear of the Lord and encouraged by the Holy
Spirit, it increased in numbers. Amen.
Thanks, Richard. Chris yeah, if we could keep our
Bibles open at Acts 9, that will be great.
I think we're having a few issues with the screen, but we
will try and track on. So, yeah, we are back, as Chris
says in the next bit of this book of Acts, this early history
of the early church. And last week, if you were here,
the writer of Acts, a man called Luke, introduced us to who's
going to be the key figure, the central figure in the
second-half of the book of Acts, this man, soul of Tarsus, And he
introduces him as a Jewish religious leader and determined
to destroy the early church, breathing out murderous threats
against the disciples. He's a violent persecutor of
Christians, and he's travelling to Damascus to track down and
arrest any followers of Jesus that he finds in that city when
suddenly on the road to Damascus, a light from heaven
flashes around him. Saul falls to the ground and the
risen Jesus appears to him. The risen Jesus breaks into
Saul's life, transforms him, and Luke and I picks up the story of
what happened next. So this little section, Acts 9
verses 90 to 31, we begin to see Saul take his first steps as a
follower of Jesus. This is basically the apostle
Paul, the early years to get an insight into this.
And I think one thing that Luke wants to convey to us here is
one that actually has seen throughout the world and right
up to the present day that becoming a Christian, putting
your faith in Jesus is a huge moment in someone's life.
It's a big deal when someone puts their faith in Jesus.
A new life begins. Following Jesus brings with it
real changes. Thank you, guys.
Round of applause for our tech team there.
They did very well. I could start again, but I
won't. But yeah, basically what this
bit of access is, becoming a Christian is a huge thing for
for Saul, it was clearly this huge dramatic event that this
light from heaven falling to the ground.
But actually for anyone to put their faith in Jesus, a new life
begins and change begins. And some of that change can be
messy and even painful. When someone becomes a
Christian, becomes a follower of Jesus, the people around them
don't always respond well to the change they see.
Changing old habits and patterns of life can be really messy.
And a new believer might even lose friends, even contact with
family, as a result of their faith in Jesus.
One writer he came to faith as an adult, Rosario Butterfield,
describes her experience like this in this book, The secret
Thoughts of an unlikely convert. She says conversion put me in a
complicated and comprehensive chaos.
She was an English lecturer, so she likes alliteration by
somebody's wonder. When I hear other Christians
pray for the salvation of their friends, if they realize this
comprehensive chaos is the desired end of such prayers.
What she's saying, they're saying actually becoming a
Christian is really bewildering and chaotic and messy.
And sometimes when we we have someone we love, we want to see
them come to follow Jesus. We don't realise some of the
massive changes that will result in that.
I think that's partly why this account of Saul's new life as a
follower of Jesus is so helpful for us today.
Look shows us that when Saul began to follow Jesus it was
more than a bit bumpy at times. The people around Saul didn't
always respond well to this change.
He was regarded with suspicion by fellow Christians and his old
friends. The Greek speaking Jews in
Jerusalem ended up wanting to kill Saul.
He suffers for the name of Jesus.
It's not all easy. In fact this this little passage
in Acts 9 is sort of the fulfilment of Jesus words to
Ananias. When Ananias was sent to baptize
Saul. Jesus says this.
He says this man Saul is my chosen instrument to proclaim my
name to the Gentiles and their kings and to the people of
Israel. I will show him how much he must
suffer for my name. So Saul proclaims Jesus name in
this passage, but he also suffers for Jesus name.
And through it all, Jesus is at work building his church and
changing soul. So there's a lot in this passage
that's unique to solve the apostle that doesn't apply to
everyday Christians like us. But actually, I think in one
sense we get the shape of the Christian life in this passage.
Luke wants to see that we are witnesses for Jesus as we walk
the way of the cross. We are witnesses for Jesus as we
follow Jesus on the way of the cross.
So, so Saul's message was Jesus the Son of God, the Messiah,
God's king, come to put things right.
But Saul's life also imitated Jesus, and he followed Jesus on
the way of the cross. The life of a disciple will
always involve suffering and sacrifice at times.
And actually Saul put it this way to churches a bit later in
Acts when he was going by his Greek name Paul, he said we must
go through many hardships to enter the Kingdom of God.
But through every hardship and suffering and sacrifice Saul
discovers, Paul discovered every Christian will discover that God
is with us by his Spirit, like our memory verse for the term,
He is making us more like Jesus and Jesus is building his church
through the witness and indeed the suffering of his people.
So this past, I think, has lots of practical wisdom for us on
how to keep going as followers of Jesus, but also unique
information about Saul and his early life.
So looking at Acts 9, verses 19 to 31, you can sort of call this
sections of A Tale of Two Cities.
We've got Saul in Damascus in verses 19 to 25, and we've got
Saul in Jerusalem in verses 26 to 30.
And we're going to see so behind, hidden behind verse 23.
Saul also spent some time in a place called Arabia in his early
years, but we'll, we'll get to that.
So first of all, then Saul in Damascus.
What does Saul do when he begins to follow Jesus?
How did his new life as a follower of Jesus begin?
Well, Luke tells us his new life as a follower of Jesus began
with him living in community with other believers.
Saul spent time with other believers.
That's verse 19. Let me read that for us again
midway through the verse. And Saul spent several days with
the disciples in Damascus. That Freddy Freddy
straightforward. So after his personal encounter
with Jesus, he's welcomed into the early church by the disciple
Ananias. He's baptized into the faith,
and then he spends time with his new find brothers and sisters in
Christ. But I want to say that even
that's a really simple statement.
He spent time, spent several days, sorry, with the disciples
in Damascus. This would have been a really
odd experience for Soul and for the disciples in Damascus.
So we need to remember Saul had travelled to Damascus to destroy
the early church. He'd come to find the people
he's now sitting in a room with and arrest every single one of
them and drag them off to prison.
And we know from Ananias that actually the disciples in
Damascus know all about what Saul was planning to do.
They knew the harm he done to the church in Jerusalem.
They knew about his violent past.
They maybe even had friends or family members who'd been put in
prison by Saul. They would have been frightened
of him, nervous of him, unsure what to make of him, and yet
probably led by Ananias. The disciples in Damascus spent
several days with Saul, and Saul spent several days with the
disciples. I want to say this, behind verse
19, there's maybe a bit of strangeness and awkwardness.
This would have been uncomfortable.
This would have been hard actually for both Saul and the
disciples, But Saul recognized he needed to spend time with
other disciples of Jesus, and those other disciples of Jesus
accepted Saul and welcomed him into the community of the church
in Damascus. Now, I think there's a huge
amount to tell every follower of Jesus here that isn't just
unique to Saul. For anyone in this room
following Jesus, we need other followers of Jesus around us.
Even for the apostle Paul, the Christian life is not a solo
sport, not something you do on your own.
We need to belong to a local church and to share life
together with other believers, even when that feels strange or
awkward or uncomfortable, as it would have done to Saul and the
believers in Damascus. And why do we need to spend time
with the believers? What we've already kind of
hinted at it. It is hard to follow Jesus in a
world that doesn't. It is hard to follow Jesus when
you're trying about people who maybe think he is a myth or even
something harmful or just something that doesn't have any
interest for their lives. Remember, we are witnesses for
Jesus in the power of the Holy Spirit as we walk the way of the
cross. Following Jesus in this world
involves suffering and sacrifice and self denial even involves
rejection at times. So we need other followers of
Jesus around us, praying for us, speaking the truth in love to
us, just walking alongside us, reminding us that we're not the
only ones who are struggling, showing us more of Jesus in the
way they welcome and accept us. And we need those believers
around us in the early days of following Jesus, like Saul was
in here. But actually we need it
throughout our life of following Jesus.
Because the older you get as a Christian, it's going to be
different pressures, but they are still there.
Sometimes the pressure of our love growing cold, sometimes the
the the feeling of just being weary or uninspired by the
gospel anymore. And Saul discovered an amazing
truth in the road to Damascus. When Jesus said, Saul, when
you're persecuting the church, you're persecuting me.
The church is the body of Christ.
We are united to Christ and we are united to each other.
And therefore we need each other if we are going to live and
follow Jesus and live as his witnesses in this world.
So Saul spent time with other believers.
We need to do the same. But actually there's another
truth in Saul's early years of following Jesus that's actually
largely hidden in this bit of act.
But Saul later Paul, in his own words, talks about his early
years as a Christian. And as well as spending time
with other believers, Saul spent time alone with Jesus.
That's verse 23. Now if you look at the beginning
of verse 23 again, here's how Luke puts it.
He says after many days had gone by.
Now I want to say that's a deliberately vague time
reference by Luke. If you just read Acts Chapter 9
in the Bible, you presume Saul spent a few days in Damascus and
then he travelled to Jerusalem, all in a fairly short period of
time. But actually one of his earliest
letters that we have in the New Testament, the letter to the
Galatians, Saul himself now using his Greek name Paul, is
remembering this period on his life.
This is Galatians chapter 1, verses 13 to 18, and he writes,
if you've heard of my previous way of life in Judaism, I
intensely I persecuted the Church of God and tried to
destroy it. But when God who sent me a part
of my mother's womb and called me by his grace was pleased to
reveal his Son in me so I might preach among the Gentiles, My
immediate response was not to consult any human being.
I didn't go up to Jerusalem to see those who were apostles
before I was, but I went into Arabia.
Later I returned to Damascus. Then after three years, I went
up to Jerusalem to get acquainted with the apostles.
OK, so making sense of this, actually, the many days of verse
23 that Luke refers to was actually three years.
That's a lot of days. I'm not a mathematician. 365
times 3 work it out. And for a large part of that
time, Saul tells us in Galatians, he was in a place
called Arabia, and that's the immediate South and east of
Israel. So the area that's mostly today
sort of Saudi Arabia would would fall.
It's just a map on the screen. Apologies.
The best map I could find was I think in French, so bear with
me. But at the top, I think that's
Damascus, sort of towards the stops of the Syria direction.
So he starts off in Damascus, but actually he goes into Arabia
for roughly 3 years. And what does Saul do in that
time? Well, the short answer is we
don't know because Saul doesn't tell us.
The only reference that time is Galatians chapter 1.
Luke doesn't mention it directly here, but according to early
church tradition, it seems likely that Saul used this
three-year period in Arabia to prepare himself for a life of
bearing witness to Jesus. It seems likely that during
those three years in Arabia, Saul spent time alone with
Jesus, learning from Jesus, praying and studying the Word of
God, growing in his knowledge and love of Jesus.
Now it's fairly clear from Saul's character and from the
rest of Acts 9, Saul didn't spend the whole of that three
years in in solitude. That seems very unlikely for
Saul. He would have met with other
followers of Jesus in that area, and he would have proclaimed
Jesus name to the people around him, just as he does in Damascus
and Jerusalem. But it seems clear the Saul
still needed to spend time alone with Jesus, praying to him,
hearing from him in his Word, worshipping him in order that
Saul could then live as a witness for Jesus.
What Saul shows us here is that that anyone's witness to Jesus
flows out of their worship of Jesus.
We can't bear witness to Jesus if we don't know him and we
don't know him if we are not spending time with him alone and
with his people. And again, in this three-year
period, it seems pretty clear that Jesus was revealing hugely
important truths to Saul. Saul talks later in his letters
about a mystery that Jesus revealed to him.
This mystery is that through the gospel, the Gentiles are heirs
together with Israel, members together of 1 body, and sharers
together in the promise in Christ Jesus.
That's Ephesians chapter 3. Remember Saul was this devout
Jewish believer. He thought Gentiles should have
nothing to do with Jewish people, and yet Jesus tells him
something different. Jesus says actually nigh Jewish
and Gentile people can be reconciled to God and reconciled
to each other simply through faith in the finished work of
Jesus. That was a huge life changing
truth and it took Saul several years to get his head round it.
Soul needed time to spend with Jesus, to listen to Jesus, to
speak to Jesus. And again, I think that applies
to every follower of Jesus, not just Soul the apostle.
We need to remember that at its heart, the Christian life is not
about what we do for Jesus, it's about what Jesus has done for
us. If you're like, the Christian
life isn't about what we achieve for Jesus.
It's about what we receive from Jesus, his life, death and
resurrection in our place. And that's a really important
truth because it's really easy to make the Christian life all
about us. When you're part of a church
like Ave. there's loads of things happening.
You think of our notices, our family news.
There's lots of things we need to do.
People need to sign up for rotors and very quickly the
Christian life becomes about all that we need to do, but we need
then to slow down and to say, Jesus, remind me of who you are
and what you have done for me. Help me to receive your grace to
ask for your spirits help to live for you not to try and do
it in my in my own strength as an activist like in the apostle
Paul did a lot in his life. It wasn't he sat around doing
nothing but right the way through his life.
He never lost sight of his need to remember who Jesus is.
In the gospel, to worship Jesus first and foremost for who he
is, and then to bear witness to Jesus in the world around us.
So again, I'm going to claim it's still the beginning of a
new year. It's a few weeks into January,
but actually that is a great ambition to have.
Do I want to spend time with Jesus this year, with his
people? I'm with him alone.
Don't want to spend time actually learning how to pray,
just to depend on Jesus, to hear Jesus speak through his word, to
receive from Jesus, to remember it's not about what I do for
Jesus, it's about what Jesus has done for me.
In a little while, we're going to be taking bread and wine in
the Lord's Supper. And it's just a really tangible
outworking. Actually, we just receive from
Jesus. We don't, we don't go and go and
have to buy the bread ourselves. Chris has done that.
But we just received the bread. We receive the wine.
We remember. Actually, all I need to do is
open my hands in faith and receive what Jesus has done for
me through his life and death and resurrection.
So Saul spent time with other believers and he spent time with
Jesus. But also we actually get to see
the unique calling of the risen Jesus on Saul's life.
Remember the words of Jesus back in verse 15.
This man is my chosen instrument to proclaim my name to the
Gentiles and their kings and to the people of Israel.
And we see Jesus words fulfilled in verse 20.
If you're going to look down at that.
So verse 20, at once Saul began to preach in the synagogues that
Jesus is the Son of God. Verse 22, Saul grew more and
more powerful and baffled the Jews living in Damascus by
proving that Jesus is the Messiah.
We see that actually Saul in his early days as a believer, he
proclaimed Jesus to the people around him.
And he did that in both the cities he was in, in Damascus
and in Jerusalem. So in the synagogues in
Damascus, Saw proclaimed Jesus, and to the Greek speaking Jews
in Jerusalem, Saul's old friends, he proclaimed Jesus.
Basically Saw proclaimed Jesus to anyone who would listen, and
indeed to some people who didn't want to listen.
This is a unique part of Saul's calling as the apostle to the
Gentiles and to the people of Israel.
But we also remember here Saul's message to the people around him
was Jesus. It wasn't a moral code or a
philosophy or a way to improve your life.
It was a person, the man Christ Jesus, crucified and risen.
Because Saul knows any amount of advice or wisdom that he could
give is not enough to save anyone.
Only the crucified and risen Jesus had the power to wash Saul
clean and welcome him into God's people.
And Saul knows that same Jesus is the power to wash anyone
else, clean and welcome into God's people if they put their
faith in him. And who is Jesus according to
Saul? Well, he's the Son of God, verse
20. He's the eternal Son of God.
He's got unique access to the Father and he then can give us
access to the Father because Jesus reveals who the Father is
to us. He can then welcome us into
God's family and we get to call God our loving Father because we
share in Jesus eternal relationship with God his
Father. Even the youngest child can
pray. Father help me to to God because
Jesus shares his relationship with everyone who puts their
faith in him and not just the Son of God.
Jesus is the Messiah. You could translate that God's
rescuing king. He's come to put things right.
Soul can proclaim to people, yes the world is not as it should
be. Yes there is brokenness all
around us. Yes, we are under enemy
occupation. For the Jewish people, that
meant the Roman Empire. But actually Saul knew for every
human being, we're under enemy occupation in this world.
This world is marked by sin and death and the devil, but God has
sent his king to set us free, and his name is Jesus.
Jesus is the son of God, says Saul.
Jesus is God's rescuing king, and Jesus alone can save us.
So Jesus is our message. And how do the people in
Damascus respond to Saul? We'll look at verses 21 and 22.
Some were astonished, some were baffled, and some conspired to
kill him, we're told. Fast forward to the people in
Jerusalem. How did they respond to Saul's
message? Verse 29?
Some of the Greek speaking Jews tried to kill him.
It's fair to say that not everyone responded positively to
what Saul had to say about Jesus.
Actually, right from the beginning of his life Saul
suffered for Jesus name and in that actually he was modelling
and experiencing a truth about the Christian life that is true
for every follower of Jesus. That we follow Jesus on the way
of the cross. The words Jesus says to
disciples, if anyone's to follow me, they must deny themselves,
take up their cross and follow me, a Saul says in Acts later he
says it is we must go through many hardships to enter the
Kingdom of God. But you see, Saul also knows
that through those sufferings and hardships, God is with us By
his Spirit. We follow a Lord Jesus who's
familiar with suffering, a Jesus who knows what it is to suffer
rejection and loneliness and harm, a Jesus who strengthens us
in our suffering, a Jesus who's with us in the midst of it.
Again, when someone becomes a Christian, it can be easy to
think, right, All my problems are overnight.
I'm forgiven by Jesus. I'm, I'm accepted as a God's
family. And it's a glorious moment.
Saul experienced it. But Saul also experienced that
actually now to the very end of the age, as Joel pointed out to
us, we live in a fallen world and we will suffer in that world
and we will struggle. That's why we need each other.
That's why we need to keep listening to Jesus.
But that's why knowing that Jesus is with us always is so
precious. It transforms all.
It can transform us. Saul proclaimed Jesus to the
people around him because he knew Jesus is the only one who
can save anyone. And Saul suffered for Jesus name
knowing that Jesus was with him as he suffered.
Which is a couple of other things to learn from Saul's time
in Jerusalem before we finish. And the first thing is this.
Saul's conversion was hard to believe because conversions are
always hard to believe. At first verse 26, when Saul
came to Jerusalem, he tried to join the disciples, but they
were all afraid of him not believing that he really was a
disciple. I'm going to say that would have
been a really painful experience for Saul.
But to understand the just and believers skepticism, you just
remember the last time they saw Saul three years earlier.
He was this violent persecutor of the church.
He had maybe thrown into prison again, friends or family members
of these disciples, and he hadn't even heard of Saul for
three years. And now he turns up claiming to
be a follower of Jesus and they just don't buy it.
I want to say it's a strange truth in the Christian life that
even when you have seen the power of God at work in your own
life, Jesus welcoming and forgiving you, you still find it
difficult to believe he could actually welcome and forgive
that person or this person or that person.
I know really well the disciples in Jerusalem had all experienced
God's grace and mercy and patience, but they just didn't
believe that extended as far as someone like Saul.
And sadly, even up to the present, some of these people
who have come to know Jesus are greeted with suspicion and
hostility by Christians because we just can't quite get our
heads around how Jesus could save that person.
So how does Saul respond? Well, thankfully the Lord
stepped in and worked through a man named Barnabas, and Barnabas
took a risk on Saul. And if you've read Acts up to
this point, we've already met Barnabas once before in chapter
4 of Acts. He's a we're told he's a Levite
from the island of Cyprus. His birth name was Joseph, but
everyone calls him Barnabas, which means son of
encouragement. Barnabas earned that name
because he is just such a generous and loving disciple of
Jesus. And he proved to be a huge
encouragement to Saul and to the early church through his
intervention in a moment of doubt and suspicion, because
verse 27, if you look down, we learned that Barnabas spoke with
Saul when he arrived in Jerusalem.
He listened carefully to what Saul told him about his
encounter with Jesus. And then Barnabas waited up and
believed Saul and introduce Saul to the disciples to the apostles
in Jerusalem. In look at verse 27, the way
Barnabas keeps emphasizing what Jesus has done in Saul's life,
that Saul on his journey had seen the Lord, the Lord had
spoken to Saul and in Damascus Saul had preached fearlessly in
the name of Jesus. See what did Barnabas do in
Jerusalem? He didn't just run away from
Saul. He didn't just say, well, I
can't believe Jesus would really save Saul.
He took a risk, and he asked Saul some questions, and he
listened to Saul's answers. And that was a huge risk.
If Saul was an undercover agent just looking for Christians to
arrest, Barnabas was a prime candidate.
But actually, instead, Barnabas listened and he saw something of
Jesus in Saul. And so we welcome Saul into the
early church. It's as if Barnabas had to
remind the apostles and all the other disciples just who Jesus
is, and that Jesus is in the business of saving and
transforming people. Again, the 12 apostles all knew
that from their own lives. Look at the Gospels, the 12
apostles, They're always getting it wrong.
They're always foolish and slow. They run away when Jesus needs
the most. They know all about the grace of
God, and yet they they have struggled to remember it when it
comes to someone like Saul. So the Lord sends Barnabas, who
takes a risk on Saul. Becoming a Christian is a huge
thing, and when someone comes to put their faith in Jesus for the
first time, they'll often bring with them a fair bit of baggage,
maybe a past that they're ashamed of, old habits, patterns
of behaviour they need to change, ways of speaking or
thinking or doing things that Christians might find difficult.
But we need to learn from Barnabas here.
If we're committed to reaching out with the good news of Jesus
to Clarendon Park and to the whole of the city, wherever God
has put us needs to be willing to take a risk on people.
Not because we're always going to get it right, but because
Jesus is in the business of transforming the most unlikely
person through faith in him. So and Barnabas, this is the
beginning of a beautiful friendship for these two guys.
It'll culminate in them being missionaries and church planters
across the Roman world taking a risk on people who have not yet
heard about Jesus, but who come to faith in Jesus through their
witness. And if you're a Christian here
this morning, I want you to think for a minute, who were the
Barnabas in your life? Who were the people who took a
risk on you? Who encouraged you?
Who prayed for you? Who welcomed you in the name of
Jesus? We should stop regular and just
give thanks to God for those people.
And then we need to think, who can I be a Barnabas to in this
year ahead? Who can I encourage and proclaim
Jesus to and point to the grace of God?
Acts Chapter 9, The early years of the apostle Paul.
We learn about the shape of the Christian life here.
We are witnesses for Jesus on the way of the cross.
We follow Jesus. We proclaim Jesus because he
alone can save, but that will involve suffering and rejection.
But that's why we need to remember who Jesus is and that
he is with us when we experience suffering and rejection again.
The bread and wine we're going to take in a moment is all about
remembering Jesus loved us so much.
He suffered and gave his life to reconcile us to God.
Jesus is with us always to the very end of the age.
Jesus knows what it is to suffer.
Jesus can strengthen us in our suffering.
And Jesus knows suffering will never have the last word in the
life of one of his followers. The last word belongs to Jesus.
Again, when Chris leads us in a moment, we're going to remember
this is a meal we celebrate until the Lord comes, until the
end of the age when Jesus will welcome his people home and he
will say, well done, good and faithful servant, come and share
your master's happiness. We are witnesses for Jesus as we
walk the way of the cross and Jesus wants to strengthen us
until the day we see him face to face.
That was Saul's testimony. That can be the testimony of
every believer here this morning.