Thank you,

Thank you, Tullion, and Kim, for your hospitality to us. We're really, really happy to be here.

I was asked by T today over lunch, how's it feel to have just

finished 33 years in the pastorate? Because I am now, what, five days out of that

role for the first time in 33 years.

And I had an answer for him,

but I want to tell you how I feel

and make it a bridge into our topic tonight.

Number one, as I have for the last couple of years of transition, I feel amazed and thankful for how God

has shepherded this process of concluding that 33-year ministry.

So be praised Lord Jesus at your kindness to us as a church.

Number two I said over lunch that I've been too busy to feel anything.

Got the Gospel Coalition coming up and a talk at RTS after that and this talk, and so I've just been blitzing on new preparations and have it hardly come up for any leisurely air and it's leisure where you tend to

start feeling things instead of hurriedness and so I'm expecting something to click in soon but it hasn't happened

yet so you can pray about that. Number three I said to my wife when I came down midway through one of my talk preparations for next week,

when I pause in the middle of this pressured preparation, it feels different because a significant

pressure has been lifted. It felt so different to just have one pressure

Because when you're a pastor

When you're pressing to do one thing like this say you know right here is Sunday's coming and

the in the elder meeting is coming and the crises never go away and and and that's been there for 33 years operating under that kind of

relentless pressure and it's gone.

I thought, I just have three messages to prepare for next week at the Gospel Coalition.

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