So Father in heaven, as sweet as these moments are in your presence, whether gathered here with fellow believers, whether in the secret place at home, as much as we say, we never want to leave.

You send us back into life.

You send us out to glorify you outside our homes, outside our dorms, outside our apartments, at our jobs, in the neighborhood.

Father, we want to be your lights for these men and women in this room.

They want to be your lights in Birmingham.

And so would you give us grace here in these moments as we think about how those who are

filled, how those who receive from you in your word, in prayer,

in fellowship, become channels of your grace in our world.

In Jesus' name we pray.

Amen.

This is my second time in Birmingham.

The first time was 20 years ago, and it was memorable.

I was traveling here with John Piper, and he was speaking at Beeson Divinity School at Sanford University.

You've got any Sanford people, Beeson people around here.

He was brought in by Timothy George, who was the president of Beeson at the time. Timothy George, outstanding, Reformation

scholar, expert in Luther and Calvin and church history, especially the last 500 years.

And these were the Reformation Heritage Lectures, November 1st to 3rd, 2005. But the first

one was the morning of November 1st. That means you got to travel in on October 31. You got to

get here the night before. So in my whole life, I have all of my

Halloweens have always been in my native South Carolina or the last 22 years in

Minnesota, except one, Birmingham. And for this Halloween dinner, because the George family, they love the Reformation, and Reformation Day is celebrated on November 1st, they made it into this big Reformation dinner at their house.

So we got to their house, and all of the place settings had a reformer quote.

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