The Hope of the Sealed Tomb | Pastor Cody Harlow June 29th, 2025 Mark 15:42-47

Of course we looked last week at his crucifixion him yelling out and in a loud voice to tell us it is finished. And now we are looking at his burial. Wasn't much fanfare for the king

Of the universe as he descended into the earth. Funerals are really such final things, aren't they? I mean, it's that's when it's done. It's over. In high school, I was a weird kid in high school. And, I guess one of the things that it wasn't that I was weird, but some of the things that I did were was weird. I went with my stepdad to go and pick up bodies, you know, for the city of Richmond and we would take them down to, the morg and, they would go and get inspected by the medical examiner and all that kind of stuff. And so many times I get calls at 2 or 3 in the morning and go and help him retrieve bodies. And when you go to retrieve bodies, there's all sorts of activities depending on where it's at. Of course, there's there's police there. There's folks that are u family members and it's it's full of activity. And being so close to death, you deal with you kind of cope with it by making really really dark jokes. That's why a lot of my EMT friends have that dark humor. That's why you know you talk to folks like Scott who owned Hedges Scott up here or Tim Scott you know he's got really dark humor. That's how you cope. And yet in high school it didn't really hit me like the finality of death until one of my friends died in a fire. And of course by that point in time you kind of are used to death but then you have the funeral service and it's so final and you never really get used to it. You know a few years later one of my dear friends I spent a lot of time with his name was Alvin he died in a car accident and once again that same feeling of finality hit me. Of course, being a pastor, you have little ones and you have old

Ones. Black, white, Hispanic, Asian, everyone goes through that misty veil of death. And the last enemy that we have is death. And while its bite may feel very furious on this side of eternity, we know that it does not have the final say thanks to the Lord Jesus Christ. And today we are going to be looking at the certainty of death. We're going to be looking at the courage of Joseph of Arythea. We're also going to see the witnesses of the burial. And so if you would stand with me in honor of God's word as we read Mark 15:es 42- 47. God's word it says this and when the evening had come since it was the day of preparation that is the day before the Sabbath Joseph of Arythea a respected member of the council who was himself also looking for the kingdom of God took courage and went to Pilate and asked for the body of Jesus. Pilate was surprised to hear that he should have already died. And summoning the centurion, he asked him whether he was already dead. And when he learned from the centurion that he was dead, he granted the corpse to Joseph. And Joseph bought a linen shroud and taking him down, wrapped him in the linen shroud, and laid him in a tomb that had been cut out of the rock. And he rolled a stone against the entrance of the tomb. Mary Magdalene and Mary the mother of Joseph saw where he was laid. Let's pray. And so Lord, we do thank you just for this time that we get to have together. U we thank you for this wonderful day where we get to come together and make your name famous. Thank you for every member of that worship team. Thank you for their service. And we agree with your word. As your children. What you have spoken we believe and we say amen to what you have said. Father, we thank you for our teens and the adults that went to camp this week. We thank you that they were safe.

We thank you for working in their lives, for the good preaching that they sat under this past week. And we thank you for the decisions that were made to grow into holiness and those decisions to follow you as Lord and Savior. We just thank you for it all and we praise you for it, God. We thank you for the work that you're doing in this church. We thank you for the season of unity that we are in. And Lord, we have differing opinions over many different things, but even in the opinions, there's greater unity and we thank you for uniting our hearts together through the message of the Gospel. And Lord, there's just a lot of different prayer requests that we want to lift up to you. A lot of needs that our church has. Lord, we want to pray for Charlie Rhoden and his health needs. He's not doing very well at all. And we want to pray for him and for him to lean on you for strength and for grace. We pray that you would be with his wife Judy as she walks with him through this time. We also want to pray for Jenny Denny Johnson as she continues her fight with cancer. We ask for you to continue to bless her with strength and positivity and endurance. We pray that her body would just really respond to this chemo and that things would just go smoothly. Lord, we pray for Vern as well that you would give him strength as he ministers to his wife and Lord for both of them they would fix their eyes on Jesus Christ. We want to pray for Steve Bis as he grieves the loss of his mom as they mourn. We pray for your grace through this transition and we thank you for her profession of faith and we thank you that she endured faithfully to the end. We pray for Jeremy Springs new business as it gets going. We pray that his home inspections really go well and that you would just bless him abundantly as he provides for Buffy. And we thank you for his skills and how he ministers

Here. We want to pray for little Samuel Far who still hasn't been able to get home. And I know that weighs on Preston and Taylor. We pray that you would heal him, that you would bring that baby home. And we also pray for Taylor as she continues to heal. And Lord, we've got a lot of lot of babies on the way. We want to pray for Vanessa as that baby's coming soon. We want to pray for Broo Osborne. We want to pray for Haley Martinez as she carries that baby. Lord just a moment ago Tim grabbed me and said they're going to the for Sarah and Lord it just it sounds scary and Lord we don't know what's happening but we entrust them to you and pray for protection for Sarah and for that little baby that she's carrying. Lord we lift that up to you. Thank you for all the families from the young ones to the old ones. They're all so special and so wonderful and we praise you for them. And we lift up to you vacation Bible school. It's just over two weeks away and already we have 96 signed up and that's 96 little souls that we just ask for you to move in and work in and open their hearts and minds to the Gospel that their lives would be changed by the truth of your word. We pray for Miss Cassie Lbershimer as she has her home on the market. We pray for her move as she goes to be closer to Angela and Steve. Lord, we pray that you would just bring along the right buyer at the right time. And Lord, we'll miss her a ton, but we just pray for a smooth transition and move. We finally pray for the preaching of the word today. May you be lifted up and exalted. And we ask that you would move and have your way among us. Convict us of sin. Grant us repentance and continue to work in us and make us more like your son, Jesus. It's in his name that we pray. Amen. Well, there are two fixed points in our lives. It is our birth and our death.

Death is especially unbendable and rigid. One writer, he used these words that we've all felt. He said, "This frustrates us, especially in a time of scientific breakthrough and exploding knowledge, that we should be able to break out of Earth's environment and yet still be stopped by death's unyielding mystery. An electro andphilogram may replace a mirror held before the mouth. Autopsies may become more sophisticated. Cosmetic imbalming may make the may take the place of pennies on the eyelids and canvas shrouds, but death continues to confront us with its black wall. Everything changes. Death is changeless. We may postpone it. We may tame its violence, but death is still there waiting for us. Death always waits. The door of the hearse is never closed. Dairy farmer and sales executive live in death's shadow with Nobel Prize winner and prostitute. Mother, infant, teen, and old man. The hearse stands waiting for the surgeon who transplants a heart as well as the hopeful recipient. For the f for the funeral director as well as the corpse he manipulates. Death spares no one. Jesus, he was nearly beaten to death with that Roman scourging. He was crucified by the Jews and his side was pierced with a with a spear. The Romans, they called this spear apylum. That is one from 80 AD. So the one that Jesus experienced in the side was probably very similar to this. This is 27 in long. It was found in a cave in 2023. As I said, dates back to 80 AD. This would have been shoved up into the side of Christ through his organs in core piercing likely the lungs or the heart. And thanks to the centurion, what this does is it removes any doubt about what's called the swoon theory. We learn here that Christ, he died. The death of Jesus proves beyond a shadow of a doubt the human nature of Christ. His

Resurrection proves beyond a shadow of a doubt the divine nature of Christ. And we'll talk about that next week. But as we learned last week, Jesus, he died on the cross. He yelled out, "It is finished." And it was. Sin was atoned for. And yet some people believe that Christy is simply passed out the swoon theory. However, Mark and Mark doesn't cover this. Here's what John's Gospel writes for us. It says, "Since it was the day of preparation and so that the bodies would not remain on the cross on the Sabbath, for that Sabbath was a high day, the Jews asked Pilate that their legs might be broken and that they might be taken away. So the soldiers came and broke the legs of the first and the other who had been crucified with him. But when they came to Jesus and saw that he was already dead, they did not break his legs, but one of the soldiers pierced his side with a spear, and at once there came out blood and water. The blood and the water flowed from what doctors call a plural eusion. That's where water builds up in and around the lungs and the heart, suffocating a person from the inside. That's what Christ endured for over six hours on that Friday. And when the Roman guard pierced Jesus's side, blood and water both came flowing out and the body did not respond. These men were experts in their field of death. They knew that was a corpse on the cross. It wasn't just someone that had passed out. Jesus was dead. And our passage begins just before sunset on Friday. Remember that the Jewish day, it begins at sun at sundown. In Genesis 1, it describes the day as evening and then morning, the first day. And this is important because Christ, he died a little after 3 p.m. On Friday. And sunset was around 7:00 p.m. And the death of Jesus is so central to the Gospel message that Christ that Paul himself he wrote, "For I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and him crucified." The death of Christ

Is so certain that it is not even contested historically. And so we can go know with certainty the death of Jesus. He was the one who yielded up his spirit. He laid down his life for the sake of our redemption. In fact, Pilate, he was surprised. He was shocked that Jesus had died so quickly. That word surprised, it literally means wonder. Means in a negative or positive way. I don't think that Pilate's heart was filled with wonder in the way that we might wonder at a beautiful sunset and go "Wow." I think that the language here is that he thought that it was a lie. He's dead. I wonder if he is telling the truth, but Joseph was telling the truth. And let's talk about Joseph because he's mentioned in all the Gospels as a new character only at the very end of all of the Gospels. And we learned this about Joseph of Arythea in John 19. It says, 'Ase things, Joseph of Arythea, who was a disciple of Jesus, but secretly for fear of the Jews, asked Pilate that he might take away the body of Jesus. Pilate gave him permission and so he came and took away his body. This man is a secret disciple, isn't he? Secret disciple. It's kind of a little bit of an oxymoron, isn't that? There's a lot of secret disciples in our world today. Someone who supports Christian causes or maybe they donate to ministries or volunteer at a Christian church pantry or helps a neighbor in Jesus' name, but they do so very discreetly. They avoid explicit association with Christianity to maintain some kind of a social acceptance. Imagine a high school teacher who loves Jesus but never mentions them to his colleagues at school. He prays for his students, but he kind of avoids being mocked by his other his other teachers. So, he stays silent, afraid of being labeled or

Picture a professional who believes in Jesus. They pray for their team's success, but they never really mention their faith at work. They fear that could actually stir up controversy in the company. A company that might value neutrality. He or she might slip a Bible verse into an email or mention a verse to a struggling co-worker, but they avoid Christ centered discussions. And there's a lot of reasons why this might happen in someone's life. Look at what it says in John 12. Nevertheless, many even of the authorities believed in Jesus in him, but for fear of the Pharisees, they did not confess it. So that they would not be put out of the synagogue. For they love the glory that comes from man more than the glory that comes from God. So sometimes there's a cultural pressure. There's a cultural pressure to keep your faith quiet and so you don't share. You don't speak up when there's opportunities. So you remain silent because of fear. It's risky, right? If someone in the company doesn't like believers, you could be the target of some type of a witch hunt. Or perhaps someone could report you to HR and you have to defend yourself. It could be that you just simply miss opportunities. You may not recognize your chance to witness and clearly share your faith with someone else. Perhaps there's a discussion amongst friends and so you might share some moral principles, but you don't go far enough to share Biblical values and the hope that's in Christ. Here's what Jesus said. He said, "You are the light of the world. A city set on a hill cannot be hidden. Nor do people light a lamp and put it under a basket, but on a stand, and it gives light to all in the house. In the same way, let your light shine before others so that they may see your good works and give glory to your father who is in heaven. You could simply just be spiritually

Stagnant. If you've been persistently secretive regarding your faith, it could lead to spiritual growth being stunted or hindered. This is why regular church attendance and participation in Bible studies and accountability groups is so important. Here's what the writer of Hebrews says. He says, "And let us consider how to stir up one another to love and good works." Your passage might say, your translation might say, provoke one another, not neglecting to meet together as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another. And all the more as you see the day drawing near. That word stir up is the Greek word perzusmos, which as I said, it means provoke. It's a good translation and it's translated in every other place in Scripture in a negative way almost like a sudden attack or stirring up anger or strife or a violent expression of an emotion or something like that. But here it's used in a positive way meaning to stir up or provoke good works. Where are my sweet tea drinkers at? Sweet tea drinkers. Okay. I'm a I'm a sweet tea guy. I love sweet tea. I prefer Louisiana iced tea. It's it's really the best. You know, if you if you've got your pot on the stove and you boil the pot and you put the bags of tea in there and you let it steep and everything like that and come back a few minutes later, 30 minutes later, so after it's steeped for a while, you don't have sweet tea yet. You've just got unsweet tea, which is awful. Okay. And so, so you take out your tea bags and you squeeze out the little bits and you put that in the pitcher. And then what do you add to your pitcher? Put in the sugar. Okay. Do you have sweet tea then? No, not really. Okay. Because what you have is you got all the tea on the top and then you got some type of like syrupy sludge on the

Bottom right? What do you have to do in order to get all that sweetness incorporated throughout the whole drink? Got to stir it up. You got to stir it up. Someone said, "Cook it. Provoke it." Oh, provoke it. Yeah, provoke it. Yeah, that's a great way to put it, you know, but you're stirring it up. That's the way that's the image that the author of Hebrews has here in mind. Of course, you water it down at that point in time. You know, you get actual sweet tea. It's when the sweetness gets all throughout the tea. Listen, this sermon, right, this passage, the fellowship that you have with other believers, the accountability that you experience is like being stirred up and challenged. You see, instead of being a secret disciple, instead of being spiritually stagnant, missing opportunities, surrendering to cultural pressures, you can be like Joseph of Arythea and take courage. And notice the courage of Joseph of Arythea. He had a lot to lose. He was a respected member of the Sanhedrin. He was very wealthy according to Matthew. He was a good and a righteous man. And most importantly, he was a follower of Jesus Christ. And this is a courageous choice that Joseph makes here. The secrets out at this point in time. And it's an interesting contrast when you think about Joseph and Peter, right? Peter, he has more words than any other disciple recorded throughout all the Gospels. He talks a lot. He's a very public figure. He identifies with Christ and he says you are the son of God and he swears unfailing devotion. Even if I have to die with you, Jesus, I'm still going to follow you. And yet when it mattered the most, Peter fell away. And yet Joseph of Arythea, he's a secret follower of Jesus. He's like Nicodemus that goes to Jesus in the middle of the night and asks all these questions. We

Don't know what his profession was, but we do know that he was looking for the kingdom of God and he was a follower of Christ. But let me tell you why it took courage for Joseph of Arythea to go and to ask for the body of Jesus. First thing here is that it made it to where Joseph identified with a crucified man. A crucified man was a cursed man. If we look over at Galatians 313, it says, "Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us, it is written, cursed is everyone who is hanged on a tree." Who is going to identify with someone who is cursed? Truth is that every Christian has to do so. All of us have to identify with Christ's death and his resurrection. By placing our faith and trust in Christ. And sometimes and you should do this, you show this publicly when you go through baptism as a symbol of being buried into death and raised with Christ. Are you identified with Christ? Do the people that are around you know that you're a follower of Jesus? I mean, yeah, I don't mean, you know, just in the way that you conduct oursel yourself, like being kind and loving and gracious and forgiving and things like that, but you should also share the hope that Christ has given to you. Secondly, we learn that it risked Joseph's position on the council. He risked alienation from the other leaders. The Sanhedrin, it was the ruling body of leaders in Israel. And they already have chosen to put Lazarus on the chopping block just for being alive. There's no way that the people are going to be happy about Joseph of Arythea treating Christ like this. But there was also a ceremonial risk. He's handling a dead body before the Sabbath. It made Joseph ceremonially unclean and unable to participate in the sacrifices of the people of God. He had to wait until he had made been made

Clean by a priest before he can worship the Lord. And why risk that? Why not entrust that to one of his servants? No. For Joseph, his Lord had died. And to show Jesus love, it was going to cost him something. Finally, it went against cultural norms giving Jesus a proper burial. Jesus was crucified as a criminal, although he was innocent. He wasn't put in a grave with criminals, as was the custom. He wasn't left to rot on the cross, which is what the Romans typically did. He wasn't obtained by his family and put into a family tomb. Joseph took his body and placed him in the tomb. And this fulfills what the prophet Isaiah said. And they made his grave with the wicked and with a rich man in his death. Although he had done no violence and there was no deceit in his mouth. You see, true disciplehip is not about how we get started, is it? I mean, when I became a Christian, man, I had so much theology wrong. I had all sorts of wrong beliefs and all that type of stuff, but I did know that Christ died for me. I didn't know that been born again, I didn't I didn't have it all together. What God uses is different circumstances and different events and different tests in order to grow us and to continue working in us and to conform us more and more into the image of his son. Disciplehip is a process. Parent, you might have a child that made a profession of faith when they were super young. We're walking through that right now with little Abby. She's asking us, she's able to articulate the Gospel now, right? And we're just walking through it with her, and we just want her to know Jesus. That's our whole hope and goal as parents, you know? And Josiah as well, you know, we've walked through that process with him. He's able to articulate the Gospel. He

Still messes up plenty. Parent, your child is not going is not there to perform for you. Like, they're going to mess up. They're going to get it wrong. They're going to muff the punt. They're going to be like dumb sometimes. Why'd you do that? I don't know. It's It's just what happens. Okay. And so there's there's a difference between like rebellion and normal teen behavior, right? There's a big difference there. But you know what? Your child might go through a season of rebellion. That doesn't mean that they're lost. Means that they're human just like you. You know, u we've got a garden kind of. All right. And it takes like three months in order for like a tomato seed to grow and to begin bearing fruit, right? Takes takes a long time. At least 90 days is what it takes. Now, if we were to go out there and we were to plant that seed, that seed germinates, right? That means it comes alive and it comes up out of the ground and it starts getting leaves and all that kind of stuff. If we get upset that it's not bearing fruit that time, you know what that makes us? It makes us impatient. It means that we're not fit for gardening and cultivating and stuff like that. Okay? Might as well just go to the grocery store to Walmart and get those cheap Gross tomatoes, right? You know, as a disciple, you might not start off strong. We look at the life of Paul. You know what Paul did after he became a Christian? He went into hiding. He did. He went into the desert. He was there for three years. He went to go talk with Christians for years. I think according to his testimony in the book of Galatians, I think that's something like 12 years before he even becomes partially known among Christians. 12 years. That's a long time.

Do not do not give up hope. You might be here and you might say, you know, I don't see fruitfulness a whole lot in your life. Okay, that should bother you. Good. What you going to do about it? Okay. You might be a parent and say, you know, I don't see fruitfulness in my teen. Okay. All right. Talk to them about it. Is that something that's just team behavior or is that something that's actually spiritual behavior? Don't expect perfection from yourself. Don't p expect perfection from others, but expect them to draw closer to Christ. You know, Joseph, he doesn't start off strong. He's cautious. He's secretive. He's shaky at best. But when the time came, the Lord gave him gave him the strength to do what needed to be done. Now Pilate, he grants the corpse of Jesus to Joseph for burial instead of being left to a mass grave. Pilot, he extended a kindness to Jesus. That always struck me like why wouldn't he just break the legs and toss him into a mass grave with all the other criminals? I think it's because Pilate knew that he wasn't deserving of death. He said as much over and over and over again. But Joseph, he bought a linen shroud. He wrapped Jesus in it. This linen shroud is the subject of a lot of controversy. Many people think the shroud of Turin is the image of Christ that as though it's some sort of holy relic where Jesus's blood and his features are imprinted on the fabric. The fact is that ever since Christianity existed, ever since its inception, we have not had relics. We didn't have relics until like 300 years after Jesus. And to be honest, Christians shouldn't still have relics. Okay? If it is something that Jesus touched, cool. It's a historical

Artifact. We do not venerate it. We do not worship it. We don't do anything like that. Jesus is the only one that's worthy of our affection. Not some len shroud. It's more than likely a hoax. Anyways, that's all I'm going to say about that. But so Jesus is laid in the tomb by Joseph. And we learn this in John's Gospels. It says Nicodemus also who earlier had come to Jesus by night came bringing a mixture of myrr and alows about 75 pounds in weight. So they took the body of Jesus, bound it in linen cloths with the spices as is the burial custom of the Jews. Now this is where some people might say, "Well, wait. I thought that's why the women were going to the tomb on that Sunday morning was to go and anoint Jesus." So why did g why did Nicodemus do it on Friday and then the whim women go to do it again on Sunday? Isn't that a contradiction? Many people would say absolutely. But the fact is that there's nothing that indicates that the women knew that he was anointed. They saw where he would he had been laid, but doesn't say that they saw that he was anointed. But also the anointing was probably a very quick process on that Friday. So they may have wanted to do it correctly. And plus in Judaism, anointing a body was a deep and personal act of devotion. So even if they had already anointed Christ, which we know that he was anointed, it has no bearing on those women. I say that because everyone attacks Christianity. You know why? Because it's the truth. Everyone does it. But there is not one contradiction in the word of God. You know, this act of devotion is similar to our modern happening and eventing flowers to a grave. We don't bring flowers to a grave for the sake of the person in the grave. We

Do it because we love the person and we want to visibly show that we love that person, but it's not for the person in the grave. They're they're gone. We do it for ourselves at that point. These women that were going, and we'll learn about them a little bit next week, they were going because of their love for Christ. But here's the last point. The witnesses of the burial. You see, you got Joseph, you got Nicodemus. They laid down the body of Christ in Joseph of Arythea's tomb. The linen cloth shows that Christ's body was treated with honor. Got a new tomb. It was easy to locate. And the women, they watched carefully. They knew the tomb's location because very shortly they were going to be visiting it. I'd like to end this sermon with a little quote from John Calvin. He said, "Christ was buried to prove that he truly died. He lay in a tomb to sanctify the grave for his people and he rose again that they might follow him into eternal life." That's the process, guys. Jesus was dead. He was buried. And he rose again on the third day. All for the sake of our redemption. And I pray and I pray that you know the Lord Jesus Christ and you know the hope that he offers you through his death, his burial and his resurrection. Head, heart hand Jesus truly died and he was honorably buried fulfilled prophecy. I didn't even touch on all the prophecies but make our hope historically grounded. Jesus really died. Jesus really rose again from the dead. We know those things and Joseph's actions validate the historicity of Jesus and it fulfilled Isaiah 53:9 which sets the stage for his resurrection. The details show that Jesus's death, it wasn't faked, wasn't a mistake, but it was real. It was public and it was verified. We have a true and living faith. Heart. True faith requires courage, especially when it costs us

Everything. Joseph's boldness, it teaches us that disciplehip, it may call us to stand alone, to risk our reputation or even defy culture. But Christian Jesus is worth it. Even in death, Jesus is worth it. In hand. Honor Christ boldly even when the world despises him. Whether in our workplace, in our family, through online interactions, let's not be secret disciples, but let's exemplify Joseph's courage and let him be our example, especially when it's costly. Let's pray. Father, we do thank you for this time that we get to have together and we thank you for the truth of your death, your burial, and your resurrection. We thank you that you didn't stay dead. And as we'll learn next week about the resurrection, Lord, we just say amen. We look forward to your great and glorious return. In the meantime, Father, as we are ambassadors, as we are sojourers, as we travel along the path of this world, God, help us to live lives filled with your glory and your honor, always seeking to bring you into the conversation and to make disciples and to share the hope that we have through your son, Jesus Christ. Help us, Lord, to be bold, to be courageous, God, and to just with all the joy, just declare how good you are. Father, we love you. And as we stand together and we worship you and we respond, we just say, "Amen. You are worth it, God. Help us, Lord, in Jesus name." Amen. Let's all stand and let's worship together. [Music] Great thy faithfulness, oh God, my father. There is no shadow of turning with thee. Thou changest not compassion. They fail not as thou has been thou forever will be.

Great is thy faithfulness. Morning by morning, new mercies I see. All I have needed, thy handided. Great is thy faithfulness, Lord, unto me. Pardon for sin and be [Music] thy dear breath. Presence to cheer to God. Strength for today and bright hope for tomorrow. Blessings oh thousand bide. Great is thy faithfulness. Morning by morning. New mercies I see. All I have needed, thy handid. Great is thy faithfulness. Great is thy faithfulness, Lord, unto me. Amen. If you guys could have a seat real quick, I want to introduce to you a couple of people that I know and love. Kyle, Pam, why don't you come over here? And these are two folks that have been through a new members class and they said this is where we want to make our church home and they've given good evidence of knowing the Lord Jesus Christ. They've heard our mission and our vision and they said what they want to throw in with us. And so church if you want to receive them into our fellowship would you respond by saying amen. Amen. Any opposed? Okay. Awesome. Just making a joke. Hey, I love you guys. It's been an honor to be able to be back with y'all. Be sure to hug their necks and welcome them as members of our church. And if you're not a member and you want to start that process, okay, come and talk to me and we'll figure that out. Okay. How about y'all allow for me to pray and then we'll be dismissed. Lord, I just thank you so much for my brother and my sister up here just saying yeah, we want to be a part of

This church and I just pray that you would continue to work in us. This is your church and so it's not mine and I thank you for that. Lord, I pray that you would just continue to work in us. We do want to continue to lift up to you and just think about the battle and pray for your peace on them. We pray for this church. We pray that you'd help us to not be secret disciples but to always be living for you. Help us Lord in Jesus name. Amen.