January 30, 2009, at 11:37, a nurse at Palomar Hospital handed me a baby. My baby! Ethan–6 pounds, 10 ounces, little tiny guy, but as she handed him to me, I had this overwhelming feeling that my life would never be the same. I’d fallen in love in a way I never knew I could and I also sensed that although he weighed 6 pounds, 10 ounces, he actually weighed a little bit more than that on my heart and my life. We put him in the car seat a few days later, after those few glorious days where the nurses changed his diapers and made sure that we didn’t kill him. It was wonderful. We got in the car, strapped him in the car seat, started driving home. The drive home where you are going 10 mph in a 35 mph zone and you’re wondering why everybody else is in such a hurry. I’m driving along and going my speed (slow) and people are honking at me and waving at me with only one finger. We walked over the threshold of the door; I helped Kelly get into the house. I had Ethan under my arm. When we closed the door behind us, the silence was almost deafening. It was as though sirens should have been going off somewhere in the universe to alert people that we had absolutely no clue what we were doing. I had this feeling like is this a joke. Is somebody going to come through the door and say we know you have no clue?! I can remember holding this little kid—he weighed 6 pounds, 10 ounces—and he might as well weighed 1000 pounds. The weight I felt in that moment was just…..it redefined the way that I looked at life.
Here’s the truth of the matter, friends. We all carry weight. Some of it’s really good and beautiful. Some of it’s really dark and difficult. But every single one of us….we walk in these doors today carrying a weight. Some of us carry the weight of a painful past. We look back at it and go I don’t know how I could ever climb out from under the weight of my past. It sits on our shoulders, doesn’t it? We replay those things over and over in our mind. If I could just go back and redo that. Some of us carry the pain literally in our body. Our body’s breaking down, doctors don’t know what’s going on or they know what’s going on, but they can’t do anything about it. Or maybe you just woke up this morning and have one more ache in a place you didn’t usually have an ache and it’s just that ever present reminder that you’re getting older. Maybe you turn on the news and see the insanity in our world. Just this week in Brussels was the terrorist attack. That adds a little bit of weight. In a room this size, there’s probably people who had a fight in the car on the way here and you’re sitting next to somebody and you’re all smiles, but deep down inside……you’re carrying the weight. There’s things that you carry, there’s things that I carry…all of us…. The weight that we carry determines the way that we walk. The more weight we have on our shoulders the more it feels imposing and it feels like we’ll never get out from under it. This isn’t just a condition for some people, this is a condition for all people. All of us have this. We’ve all experienced this. The question we wrestle with as human beings is what are we suppose to do with the things that weigh us down because the weight that we carry determines the way that we walk. Some of you are here today and you have kids that you love and that you’ve poured into—-you knew that same weight that I knew when they handed them to you—-and they’re not sitting next to you today for a number of different reasons, but it’s a weight that you carry. The weight that we carry determines the way that we walk. For all of us.
As followers of Jesus, we have this conviction about this weight. We have a conviction about the way that we walk and the weight that we carry. In fact, our conviction is pretty simple. It’s because of the reality that Jesus walked out of the grave that we can walk in newness of life. That’s our conviction. Let me show it to you from the Scriptures. If you have a Bible, open to Romans 6:4-5. Listen to the Apostle Paul as he writes to the church at Rome. He wants to write to encourage them as they walk with Jesus. He wants to write to spur them on to live in the faith that they hold so dear. We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life. Here’s Paul’s conviction—-it’s a conviction I want to say over all of us today—-we can walk in newness of life because Jesus walked out of the grave. The early followers of Christ had this sorta crazy conviction. Their conviction was if Christ walked out of the grave, then everything changed. And if he didn’t, then they should be looked at as the most foolish people who walked the face of the planet. Here’s what we do today. It’s not like well, we could take it or leave it or maybe I’ll believe or maybe I won’t. Early followers of Christ were convinced that if Christ had not been raised from the dead (1 Corinthians 15:14) then their preaching is in vain and their faith is in vain. Paul’s going to go on to say listen, we should be pitied above all people….we’re morons….if he didn’t walk out of the grave. There’s a lot of people in this room today—some of you are followers of Jesus, some of you aren’t. If you’re not, my guess is you’re looking at me going so Paulson, you want me to base my life around an event that we can read about that happened in the Bible. You want me to base my whole life on that one event? What I want to say to you is yes, but not just because it says it in the Bible. Sure, it does say it in the Bible and it paints this picture of Jesus walking out of the grave in beautiful fashion, but did you know that’s not the only place we can look to find the conviction that that, in fact, did happen 2000+ years ago.
Let me give you a few other reasons you could believe that Jesus walked out of the grave. One, 10 out of 11 of his disciples give their life because they’re convinced that Jesus walked out of the grave. Second, there’s no other good explanation for why Christianity survived the first century if Christ did not rise from the grave. It is fable and folklore, it is not history, if he didn’t walk out of the grave. We wouldn’t be gathered here today. Third, Jesus’ own brother bows down and worships Him. Now, if you have a sibling……I just want to throw it out there! How far would they have to go to convince you that they were worthy of worship?! I have a brother and a sister and I don’t have a prayer of that! James, in 62 A.D., about 60 years after his brother goes to the cross, gives his life—stoned in the streets for the one conviction–my brother walked out of the grave. Just the fact that we gather here on a SUNDAY should be a flag that we wave. Every time we wake on a Sunday and have the day off, you should thank Jesus He walked out of the grave. For 320 years, followers of Christ met on a Sunday and it was a work day. They got up before anybody else did; they gathered in homes, they gathered in public spaces, they broke bread, they worshipped, they prayed, they learned from the Scriptures, then they went to work. But they worshipped on a Sunday; they switched their day of worship from a Saturday to a Sunday because their conviction was—our Lord walked out of the grave on a Sunday, so we’re going to worship on that day. Did you know that you don’t need to go only to the Bible to believe that Jesus walked out of the grave? I could point you to four or five secular historians around the time of Jesus, who recount the same truth that the Scriptures show. These are people who don’t have faith! They’re just telling the history of what happened. Listen to Flavius Josephus: “Now, there was about this time Jesus… He was the Christ; and when Pilate, at the suggestion of the principal men amongst us, had condemned him to the cross, those who loved him did not forsake him, for he appeared to them alive again the third day, as the divine prophets had foretold these and ten thousand other wonderful things concerning him; and the tribe of Christians, so named from him, are not extinct to this day.” Oh, man!! That’s awesome! Not a believer, just a historian. He just wants to tell you what happened. {Will you look up at me a second.} It’s the hinge point of history. Whether or not Jesus walked out of the grave is the hinge point of history. It’s the hinge point of history and it’s the hinge point of our stories as followers of Jesus, because we don’t just look back at what happened 2000 years ago, we look down today at the ground we stand on. The ground we stand on is shaped and defined by that moment. As Paul writes to the church (we’ll read it again)—that we can ‘walk in newness of life’ because He walked out of the grave.
You may be asking Paulson, how does that happen and what does that look like? I’m so glad you asked that! Two things — one, if we’re going to walk in this newness of life, we need to follow the PATTERN of Jesus and we need to follow and embrace the POWER of Jesus. Romans 6:4 says: We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death….. So new life starts with admitting there’s some things going on in our life that are difficult, that are hard. As followers of Jesus, we don’t try to escape reality. That’s not the goal here at all. In fact, we want to step into it all the more with the conviction that Jesus is good. Here’s how we start. The start of the Christian life is God, I surrender to you. I can’t do it on my own; I’ve tried and I cannot earn my way to you, I cannot get to you, I cannot do enough good to get to you. God, I surrender. It’s the invitation that Jesus gives to those who would follow Him. You may be here just checking Christianity out. Listen to what Jesus would invite you to: And calling the crowd to him with his disciples, he said to them, “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. {That sounds like ‘death’ language, doesn’t it?} For whoever would save his life will lose, it but whoever loses his life for my sake and the gospel’s will save it. (Mark 8:34-35) He says the beginning of life is the surrender of ourselves.
I love going out to sushi. It’s one of my favorite things. I love going out to All-You-Can-Eat-Sushi. Whenever I go out to All-You-Can-Eat-Sushi, I always have in mind how much I’m paying for the meal. I count in my wife going with me, so I have a total in my mind. I know how much I would have paid for the meal if I hadn’t done all-you-can-eat. Has anybody done this? Whenever I order, I’m keeping track of if I’m going to get the good end of the deal, right? So I have a goal when I enter in. No, I have a commitment when I enter in……that I will get the better end of that deal. So I order my first round like a normal person; I order what I would normally eat. {I’m keeping totals in my head.} I order round two and my wife looks at me and says, “You’re on your own!” I look up at her and say, “Look up at me! Baby, we’re in this together!” I order enough to get the better end of the deal. At the end of every single time we go to all-you-can-eat sushi, we’re rolling out and I say to her, “Why in the world did you let me do that to myself?” Every single time I walk out of there, I feel like I just ate, not a raw salmon, but a raw whale. And I nailed the whole thing!! It was this prideful, arrogance — I gotta get the better end of the deal!
I think that’s how we feel about life a lot of the time. Have you ever walked out of a conversation with somebody going man, I won and I was right but it wasn’t worth it. A relationship that was broken because of words you said and you were right, but winning the argument wasn’t worth losing the friendship. The same is true of life. We can try to hold on and we can try to win and we can try to get our way, but the teaching of Jesus would say that even if you feel like you’re winning in that instance, you will lose. The way to really win is to surrender. The way to really win in life—to find our life, is the way Jesus would say it—is to say I can’t, but I trust that you can. And when we surrender, when we raise our arms to say I can’t, we actually open ourselves to the glory of God. But if we say I’ve got to, God says you’re on your own and good luck with all this. You know that feeling; I know that feeling.
It starts with following the pattern and the pattern is surrender, but listen to where the power comes from. We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life. Have you ever wondered about the mechanics of how God raised Jesus from the dead? Have you ever wondered about how that happened? Paul wants to tell the church at Rome, here’s how it happened. God laid all of his glory on the dead body of his Son and, in doing so, awakened him to life. That word ‘glory’ is a weird word. It’s a difficult word. In the Greek it’s the word ‘doxa’ and in Hebrew it’s the word ‘kabod.’ The word is used over 375 times in the Bible. God’s glory is displayed in all of creation, the book of Psalms would say (Psalm 19:1). You and I were created for God’s glory, the prophet Isaiah would say (Isaiah 43:7). Paul, in the book of Romans (11:33-36), would say that everything is designed to point to and about the glory of God. So what is the glory of God? It’s all of who God is. It’s his majesty. It’s his beauty. It’s his power. It’s his love. It’s his grace. It’s his mercy. But in one word, here’s what it is — the glory of God is the WEIGHT of God. Literally in the Greek; it would be the weightiness of his splendor and his majesty. So, the weight of God is poured out onto Jesus and it raises Him from the dead! Well, Romans says not just that that weight raised Jesus from the dead, but we die in order to have that weight rest on our lives too. That glory rest on our lives too. Here’s the deal — you will carry weight in life. Nobody escapes it. The question is: will you live under a weight that crushes you? The pain, the sorrow…..man, things are going downhill in this world really, really fast. The person that you lost that isn’t sitting next to you that you’re just thinking about the whole time because it’s Easter. You can live under that weight and that’s completely human and natural to do. But friends, there’s a better invitation out there for you. It’s what we celebrate in Easter — That the glory of God raised Christ from the dead. Here’s the deal — the glory of God can raise YOU to walk in newness of life today too! It’s the picture of Easter. That He was raised up because the weight of God hit him. The invitation for you today is you can choose to live under the weight of everything that’s gone wrong — of the pain, of the perspectives, of the past, of all the stuff that you’re carrying in this room today — or you can allow the weight of the Resurrection, the glory of God, to rest on you and change you and awaken you to new life. God never promises to take away sorrow and pain. If anybody has told you that He does, they’ve lied to you. What He promises to do is to outweigh all the pain and all the sorrow and all the regret and all the shame with the weight of His glory! He doesn’t promise to take it away, He just promises to offset it with who He is and the beauty of what He’s done on your behalf. Here’s the way I’d summarize it: walking in new life is not about how much weight we can release, it’s about how much glory we can receive. You and I know we can play this game all day. We can try to improve ourself. We can try to go back and have the relationship work out, but we still know it’s never going to be enough to turn the scales.
Here’s what Paul writes to the church of Corinth (2 Corinthians 4:16-18): So we do not lose heart. Though our outer self is wasting away, our inner self is being renewed day by day. For this light momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison. So instead of trying to repair all the things that have gone wrong, here’s the invitation: I want to invite you to compare what He’s done, because you will walk under weight in life. The question is will you walk under weight that crushes you or will you walk under the weight of glory that shapes you, defines you and releases you to newness of life?! I’m praying that some of you are going to come to Jesus today and say back to him I want this new life. I want to walk in the fresh, unbridled, passionate life that you’ve designed me for. You might be asking what it looks like. I’m glad you asked that. Paul’s way ahead of you. He’s going to tell you what it looks like in Romans 6:7 and I just want to define what this weight of glory feels like in the life of the believer: For one who has died has been set free from sin. He’ll go on to say in Romans 6 that you are no longer a slave to sin, but because of what Jesus has done on the cross and through the Resurrection, you are free from the power and the punishment of sin. This is the good news, friends, that you have been moved from captivity to liberty. That liberty has overwhelmed captivity; it’s overcome!
Some of you walked into this space this morning and you’re carrying shame from some of the things that have gone on in the past. Some of the decisions that you’ve made. Some of the roads that you’ve walked. You’re going how can I ever get out from under this? Here’s what Peter would say; remember that Peter denied Jesus three times, so he may have wrestled with shame. He says: He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree, that we might die to sin and live to righteousness. By his wounds you have been healed. (1 Peter 2:24) There’s some of you here this morning that walked in with this cloud over your head and this conviction that whatever “it” is that’s going on in your life, it will never change. I just want to tell you that the empty tomb wants to speak a better word over your life this morning. That where there is captivity, there can be liberty. Where there is shame, there can be salvation. Where there is guilt, there can be grace. This is the gospel. Here’s the beauty of it — we’re so used to trying to alleviate the weight on this side of the teeter-totter that we lose sight of the way that we actually become free. In Romans 6:14, Paul tells us how it happens: For sin will have no dominion (power) over you, {Why? Because you’re really awesome now? Because you’ve worked on yourself and you’ve made some really good self-improvement? Because you’re not struggling with the stuff that you were struggling with at one time? NO!!} ….since you are not under law but under grace. It’s this beautiful waterfall of grace that allows us to walk in the freedom that Jesus purchased for us on the cross. It’s NOT because you try harder and do more. It’s because you open yourself up to say I just want to receive glory! It’s my only hope! It’s my only conviction! God’s restless, amazing grace is my only hope. If you’re holding out for something better, may I invite you to reconsider this morning. His grace is our only hope!
Here’s how Brennan Manning puts it: “My deepest awareness of myself is that I am deeply loved by Jesus Christ and I have done nothing to earn it or deserve it.” Man! Paul continues in verse 5: For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we shall certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his. Listen to what Paul’s really saying. He’s saying the victory that we have is not because we make amends over here, it’s because of who we’re united TO; that we are IN Christ. Friends, this is the gospel. It’s not that you become more useful and it’s not that you become more lovable, it’s that He takes you in all of your guilt and all of your shame and all of your dirt and all of your messiness and He brings you to Jesus. Did you know that this term ‘in Christ’ was used 164 times by Paul alone in the New Testament letters? In Christ or in the Lord or in Jesus — 164 times. By contrast, the word ‘Christian’ is only used three times. Early followers of Christ had this conviction that they were IN Him, that the blessing that He earned, they stood in. The grace that He purchased was theirs alone. The holiness that Christ earned was given to them because they were united with Him. They were one with Him. We live in a culture where our value is based on what we can produce. Even in good marriages and good churches and good homes and neighborhoods and job places, our value is typically based on what we can do. But for early followers of Christ, they said no, no, no, no, no. Our value and who we are at the deepest soul-level is based on the reality that we are in Him and that He conquered death and conquered the grave. Here’s the deal — if that’s true, Jesus cannot be a nice amendment to your life. That might be the bad news for you this morning. If it’s true that by faith we’re united to Christ, He can’t just be a nice footnote, He can’t be a hood ornament on the front of your car or a bumper sticker on the back……oh please, Jesus, NO, right? He has to be your whole life. How silly is it, friends, that we want to make the Creator of the vast universe a part of our story rather than submitting to His? If we’re in Christ, if we’re united with Him, we give up the ability to say back to God — hey, God, do you want to be a part of my life? He’s like oh, that’s cute; that’s wonderful. See, I was wondering if you wanted to be a part of MY story? That’s way better, friends. Here’s what the Bible would say about those who are in Christ: That the far off have been brought near because they’re in Christ (Ephesians 2:13). That those who walked in the door this morning going there’s no way God could ever love me because I’ve done this, this, this and this and I’ve got so much baggage and I’ve got so much weight and there’s no way a holy, precious God could ever love me, I would say you were right if Jesus didn’t exist. But He does! And by His blood you have been brought near if you are in Him. If you are in Him, you are a new creation! (2 Corinthians 5:17) And not only that, but you are a perfect creation in Him — There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. (Romans 8:1). In Christ Jesus, you stand pure, holy, spotless, blameless right now! Can we stop fooling around here and start dwelling on the reality that we live under the weight of the same glory that raised Jesus from the dead!! Oh man!! When we get that it changes everything!
You may be going, Paulson, how do I do that? I’m so glad you asked. Here’s what the Bible teaches. The Bible teaches there is a heaven and that there is a hell. The Bible teaches that if we say “no” to God, He’s a gentleman and He will allow us to say no for all of eternity. But the Bible also teaches that it’s by faith that we step into a relationship with Jesus. When we step into a relationship with Jesus, it not only changes our TOday, but it changes our ETERNITY. Look at the way Paul writes it to the church at Philippi: …..and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law {It’s not because we’re perfect or even good. We get ‘in him’ when we surrender and say I can’t, but I know that you can.} ….but that which comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God that depends on faith. (Phil. 3:9) Being made right with God happens on the basis of faith. So maybe you’re here today and you’re going, alright, that’s the step I need to take. I need to surrender so that I can receive. I need to surrender my life so that I can receive His. We’ll give you a chance at the end of the service, but if you’re feeling that God’s already done that work in you. We step into relationship with Jesus by faith.
Finally, when we receive the weight of glory, the hope of the Resurrection, here’s what it does in our lives — verse 5: For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we shall certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his. You see, early followers of Jesus had this conviction that they looked back at the Resurrection and they saw what Jesus did in stepping out of the tomb and it changed everything for them on a daily basis. Paul would say that you could walk in newness of life because it’s true. A new day is dawning because it’s true. But they didn’t stop there. The Resurrection points back and looks down into the present moment, but it also looks forward. If we have given our life to Jesus, if we’ve died with Him, then we also will one day be resurrected just like He was!! That is the destiny of followers of Jesus and that is the hope that we have—that destiny overpowers death. Jesus (the Scriptures say) is the first fruits (He’s the prototype) of what you and I will one day experience. So one day…..right now we get to live under the weight of glory, but one day He will call our name and we will rise!!! We will know the hope to which we have been called. Friends, the hope of following Jesus is not disembodied floating spirits in heaven. It is a resurrected reality here on earth where Jesus breathes new life into dead bones. And as Tim Keller so beautifully puts it, it changes everything. “For the early Christians, the resurrection transformed their worldview. They had a resurrection-centered view of reality. They believed that the future resurrection had already begun in Jesus. Jesus’ resurrection guarantees our resurrection and brings some of the future new life into our hearts now.”
If I didn’t believe that, I don’t know what I’d do, to be honest with you. A lot of you know my story — two and a half years ago my mom passed away. She had a debilitating brain disease that slowly crippled her body and her mind. Over a year and a half, we watched as she grew sicker and sicker, where she was able to engage less and less. We slowly, over a year and half, watched her lose her life. Our story isn’t unique. You’ve walked something similar, I’m sure. If you haven’t, I hate to break the news to you, but you will. The statistics on death are staggering! But I watched as she slowly went from being able to speak to unable to speak. I watched as she went from being able to care for herself to being unable to care for herself. I watched as she went from being able to walk to unable to walk. My heart was just torn up! But as much sorrow as I had and as much pain as I carried (some of you are here right now), as hard as that was, underneath it all was this conviction that we live in a world that is drenched in God’s glory and that one day, she too will rise. I’m convinced, with every fiber of my being, that her hands aren’t shriveled anymore, that her knees aren’t gnarled anymore, that her muscles aren’t atrophied anymore…..that she’s singing, that she’s dancing, that she’s bowing at the throne of Jesus. I am convinced that she is more alive today than any of us are!!!! And, friends, that is our story!! We could echo with Paul and say: Death is swallowed up in victory. O death, where is your victory? {We celebrate the death of death today!} O death, where is your sting? The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. (1 Corinthians 15:55-57) “Death in vain forbids him rise, Christ hath opened paradise!” (Charles Wesley) To every person that would put their faith in Him, He says: your reality today is new life and your destiny forever is new life eternal! It is your reality, friends.
There’s a conference coming up in Denver where a number of Christian leaders are going to get together and they’re going to talk about the impact of Christianity of culture. And they’re going to talk about ethics. They’re going to talk about influence. It is an expensive conference and I looked at by budget and went I don’t have enough money to go. I was talking to my friend about this conference and he said, “Oh, oh! Wait! Wait! I know a guy!” Do you have any friends who are just ‘I-know-a-guy’ friends? Who are these people?? He’s like I know a guy! He texts me this week and says hey, I got us tickets for a quarter of the price to go to the conference. I’m like are you kidding me?? He’s like yeah, yeah, I know a guy…..!! And I thought to myself, “Well, evidently, so do I!” I think the entire Christian life could be built around that phrase: I know a guy. I know a guy who looked death in the face and said, “You’re not going to take me down!” I know a guy who looked at sin and said, “I will conquer you with my own blood!” I know a guy who looked evil in the face and who spoke good over it. I know a guy who looked hate in the face and He conquered it with love. I know a guy who was dead in the grave and three days later walked out with a check that said “paid in full.” Your life is purchased, my life is purchased. We can walk new because of Him. Friends, I know a guy…..and His name is Jesus!!! We celebrate Him today!
Would you close your eyes in prayer with me? (I know a guy.) I want to invite a response from you. Some of you are here and maybe it’s been a long time since you’ve been in a church or maybe it’s the first time. Or maybe you’re here and you go Ryan, that’s me…I’ve been carrying weight and I just need to unload that today. If that’s you….if you go yeah, this message is for me….I just want to invite you to stand up right where you’re at. (This is between you and God.) You go, yeah, God, that’s me. I’ve been carrying this weight around and God, I need new life spoken over me. If that’s you, stand up. I’m going to pray for you in just a moment, but before we do that, if there’s anybody here and you’re saying listen, I have never given my life to Jesus, but today is my day. Today is the day of salvation; I want to put my faith in Him. I’m going to invite you to stand up right where you are. So Jesus, I pray over my friends that are standing up right now. They’re saying Lord, I need that new life and you know the situation that they’re walking through and you know the weight that they’re carrying. I pray, Lord, that you would just invade the spaces of their soul with Resurrection power! Please! Would you speak a good word over them? A word of blessing over them? Would you remind them of your power? Would you remind them of the liberty from sin that’s found in you from the unity that we enter into with you and the reality that our destiny triumphs over death? Please. Lord, for my friends that are standing in this room today and they’re saying to you, “I’m giving my life to you.” If that’s you, I’d invite you to pray: Lord, I give everything that I know of me to everything that I know of you. I turn from my sin. I repent of it. I change my mind about the way that I’ve been walking and I turn and I run to you. I accept the sacrifice that you made on my behalf. I believe in my heart that you are the Messiah and I confess with my mouth that you are Lord of my life. The Bible says that if you make that confession of faith, that He is faithful to keep what you’ve entrusted to Him. Lord, for all of us, I pray…may the truth and the reality of the Resurrection change the way that we walk. May we walk under the weight of glory, of love, of grace, of beauty, of majesty, of your power and your goodness and may the pains and the perspectives and the past and the things that we carry so heavy on our shoulders, may they pale in comparison to how good and amazing you are! We pray it in Jesus’ name and all God’s people said…..Amen.
