Let me again start by saying thank you for the invitation to be here this morning, but even more so, for your support of Redeemer Presbyterian Church in downtown Detroit. As a church, you, Christ Covenant, should be very encouraged that there is a brand new, particularized church. We have our own deacons, we have our own elders, right in the middle of the city of Detroit, and it’s a church that you helped to plant, so that is the idea of Presbyterianism, sort of our churches all working together, so from me as one of the pastors and from my entire congregation up in the Motor City, we extend our deep thanks to you.

I listened to a bit of the sermon last week from Dr. Nunez. What a wonderful, gifted, humble man and he also has such a very long list of accomplishments. He’s a pastor, a seminary president, on the side medical doctor treating COVID patients, and I can assure you that this week my titles are much shorter. I think the only reason that I am here is that I do know your senior pastor, Kevin DeYoung, very well.

As you heard we worked together for 13 years in East Lansing, Michigan. I came on staff doing campus ministry. Kevin began as the senior pastor and Kevin was only 26 years old as a senior pastor, so he was young, we were all very young, and yet somehow in God’s wisdom, and with lots of God’s grace and help, it all seemed to work out and was a wonderful season of ministry up in Michigan.

I’ve gotten to know Mike Miller well the past couple years. Mike, his wife Connie, have hosted me this weekend. What a wonderful, delightful, encouraging couple. Mike asked me to share some stories about your senior pastor Kevin, maybe some stories that you have not heard about Kevin DeYoung, but here’s the thing: Whatever embarrassing stories I might have about Kevin DeYoung, he has way more embarrassing stories about me, and so for the sake of my own self-preservation, I am not going to say very much. I will say this: Kevin is a wonderful pastor and he is a good friend, and he is this just very unusual combination of being a world-class thinker, so Kevin can read big books, he can write big books, he can teach very complicated ideas, complicated theology, so he is this brilliant, world-class thinker combined with the taste buds of a child. This weird combination. Very, very few people are like your pastor. I’m still amazed. I think he’s gotten even pickier since I last saw him, just Mountain Dew and Fritos and all sorts of things that are not good for you, Kevin. So we need to help him.

One quick story. We had the DeYoungs over for dinner one night. My wife worked very hard to come up with a meal that would bless Pastor Kevin. Of course, Trisha, she’s grateful and godly and calm and just sort of glows heaven when you meet her. So Trisha’s easy, but Kevin’s a little bit more complicated. So my wife worked very hard to come up with a meal to bless Pastor Kevin, and the best that she could come up with was Jell-O, which is sugar in artificial flavoring, so my wife made the Jell-O. The one mistake was that she put some fruit in the Jell-O, again not exotic fruit; we’re not talking about dragon fruit or passionfruit, nothing like that. I thought they were strawberries, Kevin told me after the first service probably not strawberries, that would have been the one fruit he would have eaten, but maybe cherries or pineapple, something very simple.

So we had a very lovely dinner with the DeYoungs. Afterwards we’re cleaning up the dishes and as we were cleaning up, we realized that Kevin picked all the fruit out of the Jell-O and only ate the sugar water, so please for the sake of my friend, stay on him, give him some vegetables, give him a vitamin. We need Kevin to be healthy.

Your church has also become somewhat of a hub for people living in the state of Michigan. Certainly the DeYoungs are now here,