After wiping his eyes during "Amazing Grace," President Joe Biden stepped up to the pulpit to recall his friendship with former President Jimmy Carter.

"Jimmy Carter's friendship taught me ... strength of character is more than the title or power we hold. It's the strength to understand that everyone should be treated with dignity, respect. That everyone -- and I mean everyone deserves an even shot," Biden said.

"We have an obligation to give hate no safe harbor and to stand up to -- [what] my dad said, the greatest sin of all -- the abuse of power," Biden said, as all of the former presidents looked on. "It's not about being perfect, none of us are perfect. We're all fallible."

"Jimmy Carter, throughout his life, he showed us what it means to be a practitioner of good works and a good and faithful servant of God, and of the people," Biden said.

Some may think Carter is from a "bygone era," but Carter "saw well into the future," Biden said.

To anyone in search of meaning and purpose, Biden said, "study the power of Jimmy Carter's example."

"I miss him, but I take solace in knowing that he and his beloved Rosalynn are reunited again," he said.

Former President Jimmy Carter’s house was filled with items like so many other southern grandparents': fishing trophies, a phone with a landline and a fridge covered with photos of grandchildren and great-grandchildren, his grandson Jason Carter said.

"And demonstrating their Depression-era roots, they had a little rack next to the sink where they would hang Ziploc bags to dry," Jason Carter said, as the crowd laughed.

"In my 49 years, I never perceived a difference between his public face and his private one. He was the same person," Jason Carter said. "For me, that’s the definition of integrity."

"His political life and his presidency, for me, was not just ahead of its time -- it was prophetic. He had the courage and strength to stick to his principles, even when they were politically unpopular," Jason Carter said. "As governor of Georgia half a century ago, he preached an end to racial discrimination and an end to mass incarceration. As president in the 1970s, as you've heard, he protected more land than any other president in history. Fifty years ago, he was a climate warrior who pushed for a world where we conserved energy, limited emissions and traded our reliance on fossil fuels for expanded renewable sources."

Jason Carter highlighted how through his work at the Carter Center, his grandfather nearly eradicated guinea worm disease through "love and respect."

There used to be 3.5 million cases each year, and last year, there were 14, Jason Carter said.

"The thing that's remarkable is that this disease is not eliminated with medicine. It's eliminated essentially by neighbors talking to neighbors about how to collect water in the poorest and most marginalized villages in the world. And those neighbors truly were my grandfather's partners for the last 40 years," he said. "And as this disease has been eliminated in every village in Nigeria, every village in Sudan or Uganda, what's left behind in those tiny, 600 person villages is an army of Jimmy and Rosalynn Carters who have demonstrated their own power to change their world."

President Carter's beloved wife of 77 years, Rosalynn, died on Nov. 19, 2023, at the age of 96.

Jason Carter said that, in recent weeks, his grandfather "told us he was ready to see her again."

Stuart Eizenstat, who was former President Jimmy Carter's chief domestic policy adviser, praised Carter's "unshakable sense of right and wrong."

"His faith brought integrity to the presidency after Watergate and Vietnam," Eizenstat recalled. "'I will never lie to you,' he promised the American people -- a vow he fulfilled."

Carter is known for his deep faith, and Eizenstat noted how Carter's "faith respected other religions -- he was the first president to light a Hanukkah menorah and he created the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum."

"This president from the deepest part of the Deep South championed civil rights, appointing more people of color and women to senior executive positions and judgeships than all previous 38 presidents," he said.

"President Carter parked politics at the Oval Office door, to do what he believed was the right thing -- tackling controversial challenges regardless of the political consequences. Much of his agenda passed with bipartisan support, a quaint notion in today’s hyper-polarized politics," Eizenstat said.

He said Carter "was the first president to make human rights a priority for U.S. foreign policy, which led directly to the freeing of thousands of political prisoners in Latin America, stimulating a lasting democratic movement."

"He ushered in a new era in hemispheric relations with the Panama Canal Treaties, the toughest legislative battle of his presidency," Eizenstat said, as President-elect Donald Trump looked on. Trump this week slammed Carter for overseeing diplomatic negotiations to turn over the Panama Canal.

Former President Jimmy Carter’s vice president, Walter Mondale, left behind a eulogy for Carter before he died in 2021.

Mondale’s son, Ted Mondale, delivered that eulogy at Thursday’s service.

The two became close friends and established a person relationship that continued throughout their life, Walter Mondale said.

"While we had only four years in the White House, he achieved so much in that time," Walter Mondale wrote. "It stood as a marker for Americans dedicated to justice and decency."

"Carter was far-sighted -- he put aside his short-term political interests to tackle challenges that demanded sacrifice to protect our kids and grandkids from future harm," he wrote. “Very few people in the 1970s had heard the term climate change. Yet Carter put his presidency on the line to pass laws to conserve energy, deregulate new oil and gas prices, and invest in clean, renewable alternatives to fossil fuels. … In many ways, he laid the foundation for future presidents to come to grips with climate change."

"All of us know President Carter elevated human rights to the top of his agenda, but sometimes we forget how seriously he pushed to advance the rights of women. He proposed and signed the law extending the period for states to approve the Equal Rights Amendment, which now, finally, has been ratified by three quarters of the states," he wrote.

"Toward the end of our time in the White House, the President and I were talking about how we might describe what we tried to do," Walter Mondale wrote. "We came up with this sentence, which to me remains an important summary of what we were trying to do: ‘We told the truth, we obeyed the law and we kept the peace.'"