OUTLINE
1. INTRODUCTION – (The general ignorance people have about the Easter Story)
2. EASTER’S CONNECTION TO THE LARGER STORY OF THE BIBLE
3. JESUS WAS SENT TO DEAL WITH MAN’S SIN PROBLEM
4. HE DEMONSTRATED HIS AUTHORITY WITH SIGNS AND MIRACLES
5. HIS WORDS WERE RESISTED BY MAN
6. RESULTED IN HIS CRUCIFIXION – WHICH OPENED THE DOOR BACK TO GOD
7. THE RESURRECTION’S IMPLICATIONS FOR JESUS AND FOR US TODAY
8. CONCLUSION: HOW TO BE PART OF THE STORY
Happy Easter! Jesus is Risen! He has risen indeed. Get excited. If you have your Bibles today, please open up to the gospel of John 20:1-10. If you have been with us a while, you know we have been going through the book of John actually for over a year. Last week, we got to Jesus’ last week of public ministry and how he spent time with the disciples to do the high priestly prayer to pray for himself and to pray for the disciples and to pray for the believers. Today, we come across that special event, the resurrection. What we are going to do today staring with John 20:1, we are going to read through the resurrection narrative. If you would like to read along and you would like to use the red pew Bibles, it would start on about 1,074. John 20:1-10.
I was watching a late-night television show the other night and it was a comedy show. There was a comedian that was doing a sketch about Easter. He was making fun of Easter and references to the Easter Bunny and Easter Eggs and that sort of thing. I don’t know why but I just decided I was going to continue to watch it. I knew that, given enough time, there would be some sort of a reference to Jesus or the resurrection. Sure enough, eventually, the comedian made some sort of a joke. It was silly. He referenced the resurrection. He said he is risen. It got a couple laughs. I thought about it. It wasn’t really that irreverent. It wasn’t really that funny, but it really wasn’t even that irreverent. What it demonstrated to me is that in the general society out there, there is an ignorance when it comes to the Easter story. There is a lack of knowledge. As we know in today’s reading, in today’s gospel message, Easter is about the resurrection. I think that most people make that connection. Easter is obviously not about Easter bunnies and Easter eggs. It is about the resurrection of Jesus Christ. Beyond that, I think people have a hard time really understanding the meaning of Easter. Easter was never meant to really just stand alone as a holiday by itself. Easter is connected to another story; the crucifixion story which we refer to as Good Friday, which we celebrated this past Friday. Not only is Easter connected to Good Friday but both Easter and Good Friday are connected to another story, the Christmas story that we celebrate obviously in December. Not only that, those three stories together make up what we would call the Good News of Jesus Christ, the gospel story. Beyond that, the gospel story fits into a larger context that we would call the story of the Bible, or God’s story. Since I have a captive audience on Easter Sunday, I thought it is always a good idea to not assume anything. I would quickly go through, kind of give a Reader’s Digest version, of God’s story starting at the very beginning.
In the first verse of the first book of the Bible is the book of Genesis. In 1:1 it says “In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.” From that very first verse, the authors are making a real specific statement that God’s hand was the one who created the earth. We weren’t the result of some Big Bang theory or just some random act of DNA or whatever it was. God is the one that placed everything on this earth. Created the earth. Created the heavens, the stars, put everything in it. Not only did he create the earth, we believe that he created man and woman. In many ways, man and woman they would be the glory of creation. In fact, they would be said to be created in the very image of God. Basically the story goes God told the first man and first woman to go forth and multiply. Take care of the land and go produce families. Go produce jobs and that sort of thing. One thing you need to do is just do it under my ruler ship. In other words just do it submitting to me because I ultimately know what is best for you. I created you so I know what is best for you so follow my will. Actually we found out that they felt like we don’t want to follow God’s will. We want to follow our own will and that is what they did. Not two steps out of the garden we see the devastating effects when Cain killed his brother Abel out of jealousy. We see these devastating effects ripple all the way down history. We see the devastating effects of man choosing to walk away from God.
Personally, I don’t know what you believe about the story of Adam and Eve and how much you buy into that, but I think one thing most people would agree on is that there is something that is not quite right in the world. The world is not the way it should be. Every time we see the storms and the evil and crime and everything, this isn’t the way things should be. Christians have a name for that thing. They would call it sin. Sin is the name that we use when we say things are not the way they are supposed to be. Really as I said before, the word sin actually comes from an archery term. The idea is that if you are pulling back a bow and you let the arrow go and it is supposed to hit the bull’s-eye and it goes to the right or left that was a term called sin. Really what sin is it is missing the mark. It is missing the mark of God’s perfection. It is all of us. It is not just any one person. Everybody has this taint of sin within their lives that seems to affect us. If you don’t believe that and you don’t believe in Adam and Eve, well just trace it back to the crib. I think about babies. The moment they are born we don’t have to sit there and say you need to misbehave more. Instead we say we have to be good. We constantly are teaching our kids to be good and to not be bad. We spend all our early years teaching our kids to be good. Why is that? Why aren’t kids just naturally good? Why do they navigate towards the natural thing? Towards the carnal activities. It is because there is something not quite right in the world. That is what Christians believe. All through life we try to teach them you need to be better. You need to be good. You can be better. In some cases until they are adults. We constantly want them to be better.
So we have this thing called sin. This sin unfortunately separates us from God because a holy God cannot be in fellowship with sin. A holy God cannot commune with sin whatsoever. What happens is Christians believe in the greatest story, sin created this huge gap between man and God. A gap that really man has been trying to fill forever. There is a passage I think in the book of Ecclesiastes that says “God has placed eternity in our heart” which basically means that everyone has the desire to know there is a God out there. We have this longing even though we feel separated from God; I think everybody wants to believe that this isn’t it. There is a greater person out there. There is someone higher than us. Somebody is out there in control of this chaos. What happens is we try to reach back up to God. In fact, the Old Testament is story after story of man trying to get back up to God. Trying to reach back up to God. Doing everything they can. They were trying to follow the Ten Commandments and all that all the while continuing to fail. Continuing to fall back into old ways of idol worship and lust and adultery and all that kind of stuff that is going on in the Old Testament. God, in his mercy, in his grace, looks down on us and says you have a problem but I can fix that. I can take care of that. I was watching on television last night the movie The Ten Commandments with Charlton Heston and the story of Moses. That is a very good story because what it is it is a picture of God sending a deliverer to his people. The Israel people were in bondage for 400 years. In bondage to the Pharaoh and the Egyptians. They were slaves and God saw their plight and sent the deliverer and his name was Moses. In the same way he looked down on us and saw that we are caught up in the grip of sin. As much as we try to free ourselves from it, sin has got a stranglehold on us. So what does he do? He looks down and says I can fix that. I can help you. I am going to send somebody to do that. I am going to send another deliverer and that deliverer is Jesus. In fact, the term Jesus means God saves because Jesus was sent to save us from our sins. What that brings us up to is the Christmas story. There was a reason for Christ being born. It wasn’t just to celebrate Christmas and present exchanges. In fact, I love the passage in John 1:1. It makes it very clear what is going on there at Christmas. It says “The word became flesh and made its dwelling amongst us.” Who is the word? The word is Jesus. You look back to Genesis 1:1 and we see that. “In the beginning was the word and the word was with God and the word was God.” Jesus was the word and the word became flesh. What did he do? He made his dwelling amongst us. He didn’t go right to the cross. He hung out for a while. He wanted to be an example for how we could live. He wanted to show us that we actually can, even when we are tempted, resist sin. Sin does not have to have a grip on us. He spent the first 33 years of his life teaching. Oftentimes what he would do is teach us stuff in the context of his miracles.
For example, when he went out to the wilderness and he was teaching and all these crowds were following him and coming around him and it got late. All of a sudden they realized there was nothing to eat. Jesus decided to take the loaves and the fishes and multiply them. Made so much food he was able to feed the 5,000 and had 12 baskets of crumbs left over. It was a message to them that I have authority over the material world. More than that, it was a message that you are going to get your sustenance from me. You are going to get your food from me. Moses gave you the man in the wilderness but I am the one that is true life. I am the bread of life. If you eat from me, you are never going to get hungry again. If you drink from me you are never going to be thirsty again. We see other stories. Jesus is addressing the issue of fear. I think it is actually right before or right after the story of feeding the 5,000. Jesus is walking across the lake one night and there is this huge storm going on and all the disciples are caught up in the storm. They see Jesus and get really paranoid and really afraid. Basically, Jesus says what are you afraid of? Don’t be afraid of the storm. Be afraid of the one who can calm the storm. He was sending a message. Don’t fear your circumstances. Fear the one that can control the circumstances. We see story after story. We see the miracle stories teaching us things. Showing Jesus’ authority. We see it in the healing miracles. The story of the centurion. Remember the centurion came up and his son was dying and he said to Jesus I know you can heal my son. I am a man of authority and I know you are a man of authority. You just say let it be done and it is done. Jesus looked at him and said man I have never seen such great faith. He said go your son is healed just like that. Demonstrating the power of faith. He healed the lame man that was in the pool. The man had been lame for 33 years or whatever and he raised him up. Not only that, he told him that his sins were forgiven. That was only something that God could do. So he was demonstrating that he had the authority, the power to forgive sins. Also we have seen him delivering the demonic. That he had power over the demonic. We see him take a blind man who had been blind for a long time. What did Jesus do? He looked down at the dirt, spit in the dirt, creates some mud and puts it in the blind man’s eyes and the man could see. He was demonstrating he had the power to heal blindness. More than that, he was demonstrating he had the power to heal the spiritual blindness of the world.
His greatest problem was the ones that were spiritually blind. He directed most of his teaching at the group known as the Pharisees, the Jewish leaders. Why is that? It is because they were given the very word of God. They were given the commands of God. Their job was to steward those commands. To take those commands and teach the people how to live their lives. They were to be shepherds for the people. They were supposed to teach them. But instead of that what did they do? They used the commands as an instrument of power, an instrument of control, and an instrument of manipulation. That is why Jesus came in and said I am going to uproot this system. In fact, I am going to dismantle your entire temple system. They abused the temple. They turned it into a marketplace. Jesus said this temple is going to come down. We get a little hint that something is going to change when he met the Samaritan woman sitting at the well. She started asking questions. She started saying you Jews say we should worship in Jerusalem at the temple and we say we should worship at Mt. Gerizim up on the hill. Where should we worship? Jesus said the time is coming it is not going to matter. All that is going to matter is you need to worship me in spirit and in truth. In other words, the time is coming when the location is not going to matter. What is going to matter is that you have a spirit-to-spirit connection with God and you worship in the truth of the triune God, a Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Worship in spirit and in truth. Not only did he say that we should worship in truth, he went on to say he was the truth. He said “I am the way and I am the truth.” Not only did he say he was the truth, he said he was the life. He demonstrated that he had the power to say that by raising his friend Lazarus from the grave. He demonstrated that he was not only the way and the truth but he was the life because the power to give life. We know that this didn’t sit very well with the Pharisees. They didn’t like it. They didn’t like Jesus at all. Some of the things he was saying they thought were pretty blasphemous. Especially the part when Jesus said no one comes through the father but through me. That is a narrow-minded view. No one can get back to God other than through Jesus. But that is what Jesus said. That is what he said. Really I think that is what put the nail in the cross for him. Once he started saying things like that, he was committing blasphemy. We had a Good Friday service the other night. We read through the crucifixion narratives. In the narrative, there was a passage that I never really paid much attention to. It was a passage where Jesus is standing in front of Pontius Pilot and the Jews are gathering around shouting crucify him. Pilot is a sorry man. He just doesn’t know what to do. He knows he has to please the Jews or he might have some sort of a riot on his hands, but he really feels like maybe Jesus doesn’t deserve crucifixion. The Jews pull one of the cards from the back of the book of Leviticus. They say we have a law and according to that law, he must die because he claimed to be the son of God. What is so interesting about this, and I never really picked it up until the other night, is that the Jews were given the law. They were to be stewards of the law and now they are using the very law given to them by God to crucify God. What it demonstrated is how far they had strayed from God. The only thing left to do was to crucify him. Nail him on the cross and that brings us to Good Friday. I don’t have time to go through the crucifixion narratives. We went through two chapters of it on Friday. Unfortunately, I don’t have time to do justice to how bad that was. The cross was designed to be an instrument of shame and an instrument of torture. It was the best instrument during that day. It was brutal. There is no way to describe it really. Some of you might have seen the movie The Passion of the Christ. I think that movie does justice to how bad it was.
But just in case you haven’t seen the movie, I thought I would read a little excerpt from the book called The Case for Christ. This is a book some of you may be familiar with. There was an author/journalist, Lee Strobel, who wrote this book and decided he was going to investigate all the evidence for the resurrection and the crucifixion and that sort of thing. He interviewed a bunch of scholars and he interviewed actually a medical doctor. He started asking him how bad would it be. How much pain was involved in this? I just want to read through this section really quickly. Speaking of the nails, he says “The Romans used spikes that were 5-7 inches long and tapered to a sharp point. They were driven through the wrist, pointing about an inch or so below his left palm. Hold it, I interrupted. I thought the nails pierced his palms? That is what all the paintings show. In fact, it has become standard symbol representing the crucifixion.” The medical doctor goes on to say “No, it is through the wrist. This was a solid position that would lock the hand. If the nails had been driven through the palms, his weight would have caused the skin to tear and he would have fallen off the cross, so the nails went through the wrist. Although this was considered part of the hand in the language of the day. It is important to understand that the nail would go through the place where the median nerve runs. This is the largest nerve going out to the hand, and it would be crushed by the nail that was being pounded in.” The writer goes on to ask, “What type of pain would this provide? He says, ‘Let me put it this way. Do you know the kind of pain you feel when you bang your elbow and hit your funny bone? That is actually another nerve called the ulnar nerve. It is extremely painful when you accidentally hit it. Picture taking a pair of pliers and squeezing and crushing that nerve,’ he said. Emphasizing the word squeezing as he twisted an imaginary pair of pliers. That effect would be similar to what Jesus experienced.’ I winced at the image and squirmed in my chair. ‘The pain was absolutely unbearable,’ he continued. ‘In fact, it was literally beyond words to describe. They had to invent a new word: excruciating. Literally excruciating means out of the cross. Think of that, they needed to create a new word because there was nothing in the language that could describe the intense anguish caused during the crucifixion.’” That is just a glimpse of it.
As we pause for a minute, some of you may be thinking this is the part of the story I really don’t like. I like the story of creation. I like that whole story. I even like the Adam and Eve story. I like the Moses story. That is a good story. I like the Christmas story but when we get to this crucifixion I just don’t like it. It is bloody and a cross and it is gory. It is just ugly. Why would a father do something like that to his son? I just can’t imagine that. To be honest, I can’t either. All I can see is that the reason was the cross represented every single sin that man had ever committed since the beginning of time. Every thought. Every action and deed. What it represented was the horror of sin. Specifically not the horror of the actions but the horror that the people created in the image of God would turn against God in such a way. They would turn against a Holy God, the God that created them. That is a horrible thing and there was a cost to pay for that horror. There was a cost to pay for the sin. The one who had to pay the price was the one who was without sin, Jesus Christ. That is the story of Good Friday. The good news about the cross is that not only does it represent the horror of sin; it represents the love of God. God so loved the world that he wanted to reconnect with the children. He wanted to reconnect with his own creation. He wanted to do whatever it took to bring them back home. To get them back close to him. To get them back into relationship with him. So he sent his son to do the work of the cross. We know that Jesus did the work of the cross. He came and because of the sacrifice for the sins, he closed that gap right on up. In fact, he did the work so well that the last three words on the cross were “It is finished.” It is over. It is done. I completed the work that that I came to do. It is finished. At that moment, the Bible says that something really unique happened. A curtain was torn completely in two. If you are familiar with the Bible, especially the Old Testament, you know that the temple was made up of sections that only certain people could go into. Between what they would call the holy place, there was another section called the most holy place. There was this huge curtain that divided those two rooms. A really thick curtain and no one could go behind there because that is where God’s presence was supposed to be. Once a year, I think they would let the high priest go in there and make a sacrifice for all the people. When Jesus says “It is finished” it says that what happened is that curtain ripped in two from top to bottom. This was a foot-thick curtain. Ripped in two that it could be heard all throughout Jerusalem. What it is saying is through the blood of Christ, you now have direct access back to God. You now have direct access back to God. You now have the opportunity for a personal relationship with such an intimate level that you can now call him Abba which means daddy. Daddy called his kids back home. When Christ paid the penalty that door was open. The gates of heaven were opened up. Now you had that access again to God.
That brings us to the story today. It brings us to the resurrection story; the highlight of the Christian year. It is the highlight of the Christian year. The Easter story is great. Mary and Peter and John going to that tomb and finding that the stone had been rolled away. Looking at nothing but the burial cloths and John said he saw and he believed. Why is the Easter story so important? It really is important because of the implications not only for Jesus but for us. If Jesus had not risen from the grave, it would make Jesus a flat-out liar. He might as well say I am the way, the truth and the liar. I am not the truth. I am a liar. What would happen is it would mean that everything he said about himself and about God was a lie. It means that he deserved to be crucified if it was untrue. Not only that. Some people say maybe he was a liar but he was still a good teacher. You can’t do that. You can’t call him a liar and say he was good at the same time. You can say maybe he was a madman. A lunatic. A nutcase. We have a lot of religious zealots that would say things and do things, but he really had to be crazy to be willing to put himself on the cross. Plus the fact that a lunatic could not write or speak with such eloquence as Jesus Christ. Could not do it. If he had not been risen, he is either a liar or a lunatic. In fact, Paul says that it almost makes us out to be liars, false witnesses. He is saying that basically our preaching is useless and everything we say when we try to share the gospel is a lie in the sense that it is blasphemy to God. Paul goes on to say “If Christ has not been raised, then we are a pitiful bunch.” We really are. We have no reason to be here. There are better places to be today. If Christ did not raise from the grave, go somewhere else. Don’t even come on Sunday. That is why we come on Sunday because Christ is alive. Paul says if Christ had not risen, then just go enjoy your life. Go eat, drink, and be merry because tomorrow you are going to die. Really it is the philosophy of the epicureans. Party hardy because this is all we got. We are going to die tomorrow and we are going to end up in a cold grave. That is the best we can hope for.
But as the story goes, and I hope that every one of you believe, he did not stay in the tomb. He is no longer in the tomb. He is alive. There is a passage I have to refer to in Luke. Mary is grieving over the loss of Jesus and can’t find him. There are two angels sitting there and they make a great comment. They said “Why do you look for the living among the dead? He is not here. He is risen.” Do you believe that? He is not here. He is risen. The implications if he is risen mean that he was first of all the person who he said he was. The second person of the trinity; Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. Which means he was co-equal with the Father. Co-creator of the world with the Father. He had the authority of the Father to cast out sins, to control the storm, to cure the sickness, to cure the diseases, and he had the power over the demonic world. Most of all, it was true when he said that he was the way, the truth, and the life. That is the implications for Christ.
But what about us? If Christ has been risen, then there are some implications for us. Things that we can take with us, very practical things that we can take with us. First of all, we know that because Christ has been risen, he is still alive today and he is available to you and me. Christians believe that we have a personal relationship with Jesus Christ. We may look crazy. We are always talking about Jesus. Because he is our buddy. We feel we can talk to Jesus any time of the day. Because of the cross, we have opened that relationship. Because we have the spirit of the Christ living in us, we have that ongoing communion, that fellowship, that personal, intimate relationship with Jesus Christ. That is a powerful thing. The other thing is that he understands my sufferings. He understands my temptations. You see if Christ was a man of sorrows, if Christ was crucified on the cross, I guarantee he knows the sufferings you are going through. I guarantee he knows the suffering you go through in your relationship, your family, your finances, your health, whatever it is, your job. He gets that. Not only does he experience our sufferings, understand our sufferings, he also understands our temptations. The word says that Christ came in the human form and he was tempted but without sin. It is believed that Jesus could have sinned, but he demonstrated that we have it within us not to sin. Through the cross, he has not only paid the penalty for our sins. What he has done is basically wiped away the power of sin in our lives. Do you get that? We have the ability to live like Christ. Through the power of the spirit, we have Christ within us to be able to resist sin. If we don’t resist sin, it is an identity issue. You do not understand that you have Christ within you. When you say, well I’m only human. You are referring to your fallen human. You are not referring to the Christ within you. You have the power of Christ in you to resist sin. When you get caught up in the sins of the world and the activity of the world and the things you shouldn’t be doing, what you are doing is living outside your identity in Christ. Someone said it is the definition of insanity. Insanity is being someone that you are not. If you call yourself a child of God with the spirit of Christ living in you, you have the ability to not sin by that power. You have the ability to say no because you know that Christ has your best interest in mind and he will give you what you need to get past that sin. We see the implications. We see that he understands my sufferings and my temptations and that he loves us. He loves us more than any relationship, anybody else that we have in our lives. Because he loves us, he wants the best things for our lives. He wants to guide us back. He wants to bring us back to the father. He wants to show us the way. He is there to guide us and spend time with us. Most importantly, we know because he conquered death, we conquer death. I went to two funerals in the last couple weeks. They were both Christian funerals. There is something about giving a Christian funeral because you can give the message of hope. I just love that. The hardest funeral to give is for somebody you say I am not sure where they are going. I will try to say something nice, but I don’t know where this person is going. There is a hope there and that hope is based on the reality of the resurrection. Because Christ has died and raised, we will die and we too will raise.
Finally, the implications are that he deserves my obedience. He deserves my worship. He deserves that we would follow him and really make an attempt, not perfection, but that we would make an attempt to live like Christ and we would do it always from the posture of worship. Everything we do, not just on Sunday morning, but our lives, our jobs, our careers, our families, everything would always be done under a posture of worship giving something back to God. Everything we have is for the glory of God. Everything we do. Our time, our finances, our checkbook, everything can be given for the glory of God. I think we are going to get to heaven one day and say I could have done more. You are going to have that V8 moment. If I only would have done this. If I only would have spent the money this way. If I only would have said yes to this and no to that sort of thing. The implication is that he deserves my obedience. He deserves my worship. He deserves to be called my Lord.
In closing, you say that is a pretty good story, Chuck. I think it is a great story. It is a story that I can’t make up. I am not smart enough. All I did is just tell it like it is. That is all I do. You say I like that story. How can I be a part of that story? Really I hate to make it too elementary, I think most of you know your ABCs, and really what it boils down to, when it comes to the response to the story, it is as simple as ABC. The first thing we have to do is we have to learn to accept that you are a sinner. You have to say Lord I am a sinner. I have sinned today. I have sinned yesterday. I am a sinner in mind and mouth and deed. I am a sinner. Consequently, I have created this gap between me and God. I have created this gap that I try to fill with good works and going to church and that sort of thing and it is just not happening. So accept you are a sinner and then you go to the B idea which is basically believe the gospel story. Believe what we just read. Believe what we experienced through the Easter and the crucifixion story. Believe that what you couldn’t do, God did for you by sending his own son Jesus Christ to die for you. Also believe the rest of the story. The resurrection story. Not only was he placed in a tomb but three days later he arose from the grave. Because he rose from the grave, believe that you too can also be raised from the grave. Finally to the C is to confess. Confess him as Lord. Confess it in your quiet time. Confess it at home. Confess it in the church but confess it. Confess it and say Lord I want you to take my life. I give everything over to you. That is probably the hardest thing. I think most people can accept they are sinner. They can believe a little bit of the story but making him Lord that is where things get tough. Confessing him as Lord.
If you confess him as Lord, we here at Bellevue Christian Church believe that confession can be a private thing, but it also needs to be a public thing. Specifically, when we talk about confession, we talk about doing it in the context of baptism. I don’t know what everybody believes about baptism. We have some Catholics here, we have Methodists, we have people that sprinkle or immerse or whatever. I don’t care about that. What I see about baptism, for one thing I could make a biblical argument that baptism should be by immersion, but really what I like about the way we baptize is it is a picture of the gospel. It is the gospel put in one spot. It is a pure message of the gospel of Jesus Christ. If you are here for a baptism what we do is take the person and lower them in the water. What do we say? Buried with Christ. In other words, you died with Christ. At that point, you are identifying with Christ on the cross and you are saying take my sins away. I am going to be up there with you. Bury me down. Laying in that tomb with Jesus and then what happens is we raise you back up. We say buried with Christ, raised to walk a newness of life. Isn’t that a pretty picture? That is a beautiful picture of the gospel of Jesus Christ. That is what it is and that is why we do it. In the quietness of this time as we go into close and go into the time of prayer, we are not going to do anything goofy. If you want to pray, you bow your head and you pray the simple ABCs. I accept, I believe, and I confess you as Lord. I don’t know what I am getting in to, but I want it because I know there is something missing in my life. I know there is something not quite right. I desire that personal relationship with you. I desire to get back in the relationship with the father, and I am willing to make Christ my Lord. Once again, as we go into this time of prayer, all heads bowed, we say this and if you say that prayer, the only thing we ask is just go and tell somebody. Tell your family. Tell your friends. Tell one of the pastors. Tell the elders. Tell somebody. One of us will make sure that we guide you into the next steps. We take you along and we guide you into this newness of life. Let us pray.
