We hear that song, we hear those words, "It's not supposed to be like this," and we see all that black-and-white footage. And I can only imagine there's a shotgun range of reactions. Confusion, "Why are we watching this?" Maybe a little anxiety, curiosity, sometimes a little fear. We want to put our head in the sand and just pretend like none of this is happening. And all that old footage, it's old. It's all from the '30s and '40s. Half the room is asking the question, "Why are those kids hiding underneath a desk?" It's like, "Well, if the atomic bomb lands close by, our desks become bomb shelters." Well, nowadays, our desks are used to barricade doors from shooters. Things aren't supposed to be like this. And if we're honest, if we look at ourselves, we can come up with a laundry list of things that need to change. Like, I'm not supposed to feel this anxious. I'm not supposed to be failing at my relationships. I'm not supposed to be this addictive. I'm not supposed to be this hurt. I'm not supposed to be this filled of shame. But it's not just us. We take a step back and look around our neighborhoods and our communities. We open up our phones and see the headlines of a tragedy that happens just a zip code away, or the headlines from around the world, and it's overwhelming. Is anybody paying attention, and is anybody going to do anything? How do we get out of this mess? It seems like there's a big chasm between how things are and how things should be. Well, thanks for all of that, Mr. Sunshine. The Bible has a word for this. It's a word that describes when you're far from home in this strange land, and you're longing for things to be different because this is not how it's supposed to be going down, and there's this ache of homesickness, and that word is exile. So what are we supposed to do with this? Where do we go from here? Those are honest, valid, sometimes paralyzing questions. So what do we do? Well, let's first take a breath, and let's pray, and let's open up God's word and see what He might be trying to tell us. God, I thank You that right now You are close, closer than we even think, and that You know what's going on. You know what we're going through, individually and collectively. So God, I pray that You will show us what it is You are calling us to, and it's in Your name, Jesus, we pray. Amen. Okay. Well, my name is Randall. I am one of the pastors here. A lot of times on the weekend, I get to hang out with you guys online. So welcome to you guys in Fenton Mid Rivers. I'm not leaving. I'm just getting my table here. You guys at Fenton, Grass Trail, Mid Rivers, I'm glad you guys are with us. We're not the first people to look around the world and say, "Hey, look, things are not supposed to be like this." We're not the first people crying out in exile, in exhaustion, asking if God is paying attention The children of Israel, God's people, are captured and enslaved and in exile, and they are far from God. And during this time, God sends some prophets to speak to his people. We heard about one of those last week, Hosea. Well, Jeremiah is another one of those prophets, and throughout Jeremiah's life, he had the incredibly difficult job to speak some really hard truth to God's people. It looks like the children of God are so far gone, like there's no hope for redemption. In fact, Jeremiah pens a poem of lament. The people of God just saw their city, Jerusalem, laid to ruin. The temple is destroyed. And so Jeremiah starts the Book of Lamentations like this: "How deserted lies the city, once so full of people. How like a widow is she, who was once great among the nations. She who was queen among the provinces has now become a slave. Bitterly she weeps at night. Tears are on her cheeks. Among all her lovers, there's no one to comfort her. All her friends have betrayed her. They have become her enemies." It's like, whoa. That's heavy. You can feel the grief in Jeremiah's voice. This can't be how things are supposed to be. But not only that, Jeremiah tells God's people, "Settle in. It's going to be a while." This whole country will become a desolate wasteland, and these nations will serve the king of Babylon 70 years. Seventy years. Like, how in the world did God's people get into this mess, and how are they going to get out of it? In order to best understand that, we really have to start at the beginning. See, God creates everything, and it's good. It's like very good. There's this right relationship between God and his people. There's this wholeness and flourishing. In fact, scripture tells us that God walked with his people. But not only is there this right relationship with God and people, but within people, things are as they should be. And with creation, there's flourishing, there's wholeness. It does not take long for things to go crazy. Sin enters the world, and chaos ensues. This once right relationship is now fractured. Fast-forward, God looks at his creation and sees how far people have wandered from him, and so he calls a nomad named Abraham, and he tells Abraham, "Hey, through you, through your descendants, I'm going to establish a people." But not only that, he tells Abraham, he gives them this promise. He says this: "I will make you into a great nation, and I will bless you, and I will make your name great, and you will be a blessing. And I will bless those who bless you. Whoever curses you, I'll curse, and all peoples on Earth will be blessed through you." So we can't unpack all of this, but did you hear it? Like, what word was repeated over and over again? You. I'm just kidding. Bless, right? "All peoples on Earth will be blessed through you." So now it's not just that God has a people, but his people are on a mission to be a blessing to the world around them. Well, Abraham has Isaac, Isaac has Jacob, and Jacob gets renamed Israel and has 12 sons, which become the 12 tribes of Israel. And they grow in number, and what you see in scripture is that they go through these cycles. The people of God, the children of Israel, go between getting close to God and doing what he commands and then running really far away from God, and over and over again, these cycles. So they go through these rulers and then these judges, and then we get into the kings, and they grow in numbers, and for reasons we just can't get into today, they break up, they split up into two kingdoms, the northern kingdom and the southern kingdom. One of those reasons was taxes. But 10 tribes formed this northern kingdom, and two tribes formed the southern kingdom. So for 204 years, the northern kingdom spirals further and further away from God. Of the 19 kings of the northern kingdom, zero were good. Eventually, Assyria attacks, and the northern kingdom falls and is in exile. Southern kingdom, little bit better. For 344 years, again, they go through this back and forth where they draw close to God and do what he commands and then run far away from him. Of the 20 kings of the southern kingdom, eight were good. Eventually, Babylon attacks, Jerusalem and the temple are leveled, and the people are now in exile. So this is where we pick up our story. This is where Jeremiah tells them, "70 years." So now what? How do they get out of this mess? I mean, things are definitely not supposed to be like this. Didn't God give Abraham a promise? How in the world are the people of God, the children of Israel, going to be a blessing to the rest of the world if they're enslaved and in exile? I am so glad that you asked, because Jeremiah tells them exactly what they're supposed to do. Now, if you're like me, this is where visions of Braveheart come in. Right? This is where the military uprising comes, this political espionage, and chaos ensues, where Jeremiah paints his face blue, comes in riding on a horse, and gives this massive speech, and they go into battle. This is where the oppressed citizens yell out, "Help, I'm being repressed. Come and see the violence inherent to the system." And they lead into battle. This is what movies are made of. This is what action movies are made. How many of you guys like action movies? Like, you love a good car chase scene. You love when the Avengers swoop in. Yes, they destroy the city, but they win, right? For you, for those of you who like action movies, what makes a good action movie? What do you need Anything? Chasing. Chasing. Yeah, I love a good car chasing. You guys at the sites, yell at the screen. I actually asked your campus pastors. Angela at Grants Trail says, "The good guys have got to win." It's like yes, yes. Chris Mitchell agrees with that, but says, "Not only do they have to win, but they have to go through some insurmountable odds to win." Warren at Fenton, kind of the other side of that coin, he needs a really good villain that's defeated. It's like yeah, those make up great action movies. So let's pick up the story now and see what kind of movie is in the making. Let's pick up the story in Jeremiah 29. Now, for those of us who grow up in church, we love to run to Jeremiah 29:11, because that's where God tells his people, "Look, I got you. I've got a plan for you. I've got a plan to give you a hope and a future, a plan to prosper you." It's a good plan. Now, ultimately, that would be true for the children of God in exile. But that's not the punchline to the chapter. We tend to gloss over the really important parts. So we're going to back up to Jeremiah 29: verse 4. "This is what the Lord Almighty, the God of Israel, says to all those I carried into exile from Jerusalem to Babylon." Okay, here we go. Cue the action movie. "Build houses, settle down and plant gardens, and eat what they produce. Marry, have sons and daughters. Find wives for your sons and give your daughters in marriage, so that they too may increase and have sons and daughters, and increase in number there; do not decrease. Also, seek the peace and prosperity of the city to which I have carried you into exile. Pray to the Lord for if it prospers, you too will prosper." I mean, I could've sworn I was going to read something about an insurrection or political espionage, an underground militia coming in from the north. Plant gardens? Get married and have kids? God really wants them to seek the peace and prosperity of Babylon, the city that enslaved them? I'm going to be honest, I've never seen that on the T-shirt. Let that sink in. Babylon is a wicked oppressor. Babylon's goal was world domination. They were wealthy. They were technologically advanced for their day. They built their power on the backs of the people that they conquered and enslaved. And now God is telling his people to settle in and grow radishes? Like, God wants me to help them prosper? On the surface, that sounds crazy. What is God telling them? He is not telling them to assimilate and take on a pagan culture, but he is telling them, "Don't withdraw. Engage. Engage with the world around you." He's telling them to, "Live out what I told Abraham, and be a blessing to the rest of the world. Be known as people who are for them, even in this context. Pray for them. Pray that they prosper." That phrase, peace and prosperity, sometimes gets translated as welfare. It's the Hebrew word shalom. Now, shalom means way more than just peace, as in like the absence of conflict. It really means wholeness and flourishing. First and foremost, a right relationship with God, peace with God, but also within mankind and creation itself. Again, it's this wholeness. It's how things were at the beginning. God is telling his people that in a land, in a season when you're in exile, when you're far from home, you are to pick up the promise I gave to Abraham and be a blessing to the world around you. You are to actively work and seek the restoration and peace of the land. See, God's plan from the very beginning was to invite his people to be a blessing and be a part of making things whole. Do you pick up what Jeremiah said? Twice, Jeremiah tells God's people that God carried them into exile. God placed them there. God wanted his people to be a blessing, even to people who are the enemies of God. Second Corinthians 5, Paul picks up this theme, and he tells us, he says that the people of God, people who follow Jesus, you've now been reconciled through Christ, and so you're a new creation. The old is gone, the new has come, because we're reconciled through Jesus, and now that we are reconciled, He gave us this ministry of reconciliation. One of our pastors, Ben, puts it like this. "Reconciliation is something that God does for us and through us. God makes us new creations so that we can participate in His mission in the world." I love that. There's something gritty about that, something earthy, something very real, very practical, something honest. It's what Jeremiah was saying. Look, it's going to take a while, 70 years. We have to get our hands dirty and get really practical. We don't look to everybody else. We step up and work. How many of you guys would consider yourself a gardener? Okay, maybe that's too strong of a word. You like to garden, yeah? You've planted something. Yeah? Okay. Like maybe it died, maybe the deer ate it, but you know what it takes to grow something, right? Yeah. I don't like to call myself an expert, but when I was in third grade, my science fair project was growing green beans in different kinds of soil. Clay, sand, regular old dirt, potting soil. I don't want to spoil it for you, but the potting soil won So, I need a quick volunteer. Anthony, I think you got tapped on the shoulder. Okay. Are you a gardener? No. But you- You know what it takes, right? I know what it takes. Okay, so we've got everything you need here. So we've got potting soil, real potting soil here and here if you need some more. Oh my goodness, yeah. We've got some sunflower seeds for you. There's your watering can, so make sure you water. They even got... I don't even know what this is, but you have this. And gloves in case you... You've got everything you need. Anthony, this is an indoor plant light. I know, right? Excellent. Yeah. Okay, so will you plant a couple of sunflowers? Don't forget to water, and then watch it, and then I'll be back. Okay? All right. Sometimes I buy into the lie that what I'm doing doesn't really matter. Like what's really needed is like a big leader, some massive movement. That's what we need. I even get sucked into this when I read scripture. I read what Paul said about being agents, being ministers of reconciliation. It's like, yeah, Paul, you. That's right. Think about it, Paul had this massive life-changing encounter with Jesus, and then he goes on these extraordinary missionary adventures where he's shipwrecked, and he's thrown in jail, and he's beaten. Most of the New Testament are letters that Paul wrote. Like, that's what we need. Or maybe you start thinking like, well, it's pastors. It's church leaders. It's our pastors. It's me, which I would understand. But you look to pastors to go like, "You're the ones who are going to lead the charge." Again, I love our pastors, but again, I think we're putting our focus on the wrong thing. I love our country. I love the freedoms that we enjoy. We just celebrated that. A couple of weeks ago, my wife Emily and I were in the country of Zimbabwe, and we got to meet with some pastors in the capital city of Harare, as well as some pastors and leaders in some really remote parts of the country. Literally, while we were there, the president signed into law some amendments to their constitution that is going to make things more difficult for the people of Zimbabwe. The Evangelical Fellowship of Zimbabwe, some of our friends, they're concerned. They have an open door to the president. They met with him and voiced those concerns, but ultimately, it didn't turn out the way they wanted. So what are the people in the church in Zimbabwe now going to do? Well, they're going to continue to pray for the peace and prosperity of their land. I've had the humbling opportunity to be in other countries that, to say the least, do not enjoy our freedoms, where God's people are being persecuted, thrown in jail. They are in exile in their country, and God is using them to make huge impacts in their country, in the world. As important as it is to vote and exercise our freedom in the political arena, and hear me now, that's really, really important, that isn't what's ultimately going to fix things. Larry Osborne is a pastor and leader in San Diego. To be honest, he's really been a friend and mentor to us as a church for 20-something years now. He writes and talks a lot about what it's like for the people of God to live in exile, to live in Babylon. One of his books, "Spirituality for the Rest of Us," he talks about this, and he says, as important as Paul and the disciples were, really things changed because of who he calls the cobbler in Corinth. This regular old shoemaker who started taking Jesus at his word, started practically living out his faith. He stops going to the temple prostitutes. He starts loving his wife and his family in a different way than the rest of his neighbors. He starts loving his neighbors. He starts conducting his business in an ethical manner. So it's more than just working hard and doing good, it's that combined with pointing people to where our ultimate hope comes from, and that's with Jesus. And so then peace, and prosperity, and shalom begin to enter the world. And by God's grace, things begin to change. It's what Paul describes when he says, "Make it your ambition to lead a quiet life. You should mind your own business and work with your hands, just as we told you, so that your daily life may win the respect of outsiders." People take notice. His garden grows fruit. Speaking of, how are we doing? Do you see anything yet? Nothing yet. Did you water? I did water. Is this on enough? It is on. Okay. Tell you what, I'll let you off the hook. Thank you. Yeah. I'll keep an eye on it. Gotcha. Okay, thanks. Yeah. So right now, we can walk out into the lobby, and we can see that we're getting ready to be a big blessing to our communities. Can you imagine the peace and the shalom that happens in a student's life who now has all the supplies that they need to make for a successful school year? The shalom that that brings to a family, knowing that there's a whole bunch of people who are actively working for their peace, who are praying for their peace with God, who are cheering for them and working for them. Can you imagine that? So here's a question. This is one of these turn to your neighbor things. What have you done? What have you seen in our area where people have worked to bring the peace and the shalom to the world around them, to our city? What have you seen? Talk to each other, and then we'll keep going. Hello, I am Emily Littleton. I get to work with our outreach team here at The Crossing, and I say this every time, but I mean it, I have a front row seat to seeing all of the good that is happening in our city. I work really closely with one of our food pantry partners, and they are serving our community really well with monthly drive-through distributions of food and personal care items. Last year, we served a man who came through our drive-through in a really expensive car. Now, I make no judgments about anyone who comes through our line. I don't know his story. I don't know if he had to borrow that car to come pick up food for his family. I don't know if he was picking up food for a neighbor that he's caring really well for. I think it happens all the time, but sometimes you can afford a car on one day and then something traumatic happens and your situation has changed. I don't know this man. I don't know his story, but I put myself in his shoes that day and I thought to myself, "What does it feel like to have to ask for help feeding your family?" What I wanted him and everyone else in that line to know is how many people are for him. Somebody heard that there was a need in their neighborhood, so they went to the store, they purchased groceries, and they donated it to the pantry. And then a volunteer came and organized all the donations by expiration date. We had a third group of people come to get a wide variety of the foods and pack them into boxes. Then right before distribution, we had a team go to Schnucks to pick up fresh produce, bread, eggs, milk, meat. And then on distribution day, we had people there ready to make orders as the cars drove in, and then to deliver it straight to the car. So I sat there, I counted how many groups of people, that's five groups of people that are for him, cheering his family on, wanting what's best for them. And that's not to mention the social worker who is there for his family all year long. Our community is showing up for our community and caring for them really well, and it is just a joy to be able to witness that. I love that story, and you and I were talking earlier. I'm curious, we've already heard from Dr. Rowsey about the impact that our school supplies have for her school. And this is a food pantry, so in a couple of months we'll have another big collection event where we're collecting food and winter items, but this week and next, it's school supplies and backpacks. You being on our outreach team, from your perspective, I'm curious, what do you notice? What kind of impact does this have on a student family's life? A big impact. We heard Dr. Rowsey say it's the matter of making a choice between do I get school supplies or do I get a simple meal? But I went on our Amazon list this week, and I made a full backpack with everything that a student needs. It was over $100. So when you have more than one kid in school, that's not a choice of school supplies and a meal. It's a choice of school supplies or a week's worth of groceries. The impact it is, it takes the weight off of a family's shoulders. Mm. Plus, I get to go to our distribution party where kids get to choose their own backpacks and to see the joy on their faces, that's it. School supplies are fun. It sets them up for success for the rest of the school year. Yeah. So what would you tell somebody who, for any number of reasons, just can't participate in this? Either because financially things are thin, or maybe they're the ones who need help with school supplies, or they're gone or in or out, or again, any number of reasons why somebody can't jump in. What would you tell them? How can they still be a part of this and be a blessing to their community and neighborhood? Well, first I want to address and just say, we know the weight that is on your shoulders if you're having to provide for your own students. If we can take that weight off your shoulders, we would love to. It would be our honor. So I want to say, please feel free to register your students for backpacks. You can do that online at thecrossing.church/backpack. Mm. But if you are wanting to serve and our schedule just doesn't line up with yours, it's okay. We will have teams serving for the next two weeks, hundreds of people. But then we don't just serve students once a year. We've got amazing teams that are going into the schools all school year long to help students with their reading skills, but also making really meaningful relationships with students. Plus, we have serve days every single week. There's no prerequisites. You can just come, check it out, serve alongside your church, and see the good that's happening in our city. And then lastly, because I know schedules are hard, I was thinking about this week just seeing kids in my own neighborhood. You pass a school in your neighborhood. I don't think prayer is the least that we can do. Mm. I think it matters if you pray for the success of the kids in your own neighborhood. If you pray for the staff at the school in your neighborhood, God hears it. I think He will honor that. Yeah. Okay. Well, thanks. Oh, you're welcome. Yeah. Yeah. So plant gardens, have families pray and work for the shalom of St. Louis. Let's take a look at our garden real quick. Still nothing. That's dumb. We know that, right? We know that it takes time. It takes work. Even if you've never planted something, you know what it takes. So when God told His people to plant gardens, that wasn't some spiritual metaphor, like gather the seeds of peace and plant them as you go. Like some kind of Johnny Appleseed just randomly throwing seeds. No, He was being literal. Plant gardens. Dig in the dirt Gather seeds and plant them and water them and till the ground and grow and harvest. Provide for your family. Make sure there's food on the table. Dig in the dirt. Get your hands dirty. Work hard. That's one of the components to bringing peace and prosperity to the land. "I mean, that's great, Randall, but are you not paying attention? We need help now. We don't have time. We don't have time for things to grow. What's the shortcut? What's the cheat code? What's the up, up, down, down, left, right, left, right, B, A start? We got to get going. We want our neighborhoods and our city and our region to change now." Me too. So again, I'm not saying that there's not an incredible need for some immediate action on some really important issue, but what has to happen is that we, the people of God, have to do the everyday, mundane, gritty, earthy job of bringing peace and shalom and pointing people to Jesus. So if you're new around here and you're just checking out the claims of Jesus, one of the things that I hope that you walk away with is that we, the people of God, the people that follow Jesus, are called to this. This is what we're called to do. We don't always get it right. Like everybody else, we put our focus on the incomplete solution. We look to the quick fix. We look to the wrong people. We look to everybody else when the reality is that God is calling each and every one of us to the slow work of reconciliation. Our outreach ministry here, like Emily was talking about, we have some guiding principles that help keep us focused on this. See, we really believe that if our region is going to change, we have to serve like Jesus served. It's what Kimberly was talking about just a couple of weeks ago, putting a towel over your arm and serving those around us. See, the people that were around Jesus, they wanted a military uprising. They wanted Jesus to paint his face blue and come riding in on a horse and going into battle. They wanted him to overthrow Rome. And what did he do? He served. He told his disciples, "Look, I didn't come to be served, but I came to serve." And that's what we're supposed to do. So if we're going to serve like Jesus, we have to get to know the people around us. We have to get to know our neighbors, because that's what Jesus did. He was up close and personal with people. He rubbed elbows with people. He had meals with them. He went into their houses. He got to know his neighbor. He told people that the greatest commandment is to love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength, and then to love your neighbor as yourself. One time, somebody kind of pressed in on that, like, "Yeah, that's great, but who's my neighbor?" And Jesus goes into a rather famous story that we're not going to talk about today, about a Samaritan man who literally crossed cultural divides to serve somebody that everybody else just passed over. So we've got to love our neighbor, and we've got to figure out what it looks like to cross some of these divides. So I don't know where you live, I don't know where you work, what keeps you busy during the day, but if we really want things to change, we have to understand is that God has uniquely placed you right where you are. God is calling you to interact with your world. Like Emily was talking about, I hope that our neighbors, our friends, our family, the people around us know just how many people are cheering for them, are praying for them, are working towards not just the peace and shalom of the region, but their peace with God, their shalom, working towards making them whole. But we can't forget about our sunflowers. It takes time. We've got to commit to this. We've got to be in this for the long haul. We've got to work. We can't just throw seeds on the ground and just hope something happens. We've got to till the earth and get our hands dirty. So yes, things aren't supposed to be like this. But what an amazing opportunity God has given each one of us to partner with him in this ministry of reconciliation. As God told Abraham, "Be a blessing to the world around you." So how did it end up with God's people in exile? Glad you asked. Fast-forward 70 years, Persia captures Babylon, and the king of Persia, Cyrus, issues a decree telling the people of Israel, "You can go back. You can go back to Jerusalem. You can rebuild Jerusalem. You can rebuild the temple." So over the course of 100 years and several waves of people, the children of Israel go back. But here's what's fascinating to me. Most don't. Only a relatively small group of people went back to Jerusalem to rebuild. The rest stayed, planted gardens, raised their family, had their business, interacted with the world. See, it was never God's intention to have his people isolated right here, but instead, to be a blessing to the world around them, wherever they found themselves. So this is what God is calling us to do, work for the peace and prosperity of our region. Imagine what our little corner of the world would look like if each and every one of us individually and collectively loved our neighbors like Jesus did. If we were to run our businesses ethically, if we were to get our hands dirty and cross zip codes to serve. Our outreach team makes it really, really easy. We've got a ton of opportunities coming up in the days and weeks and months to come, and you've got neighbors and friends and coworkers and family and people that you do life with. God is calling each and every one of us to seek the peace and prosperity of the city and be agents of reconciliation. That verse that we like to quote in Jeremiah 29:11, you know the one that says God's got a plan for us. It's a good plan, a plan to hope and prosper in peace. It's that same Hebrew word, shalom. So the next time we read the headlines and our anxiety begins to grow, and we look out there and it's like, "Man, things are not supposed to be like this," and we're like, "What in the world do we do?" And we just feel it. Well, we begin to actively work for the peace and prosperity of our community, and that's what God gives us. Peace. So moms, dads, when you lead your family and teach your kids what it means to love and follow Jesus, you are modeling for them what a life of sacrifice and service looks like. When you pray for your kids, you, Mom, Dad, you're giving glimpses into what it looks like to be agents of reconciliation, bringing shalom to a region. Husbands, wives, when you love and serve each other like Jesus loves and serves, you are modeling to a watching world this divine love. When you remain faithful to each other, you show a watching world what love as a commitment looks like. You all who are single, young, not so young, when you pour into your friend group and you give your time to build relationships, when you spur each other on to greatness, when you show that there's a different way to date, you are helping to usher in the goodness of God. Students, when you stand up for the classmate who gets picked on, when you work hard at your studies, and you live out your faith in Jesus in authentic, faithful ways, shalom enters the school hallways. Business leaders, when you lead with integrity and you treat your coworkers and employees with dignity and respect, you help lead to human flourishing. Employees, when you show up to work and help create a work environment where other people want to show up, you help create peace and welfare to those around you. College kids, as you study and prepare for your future, when you not just work on a future career but deepen your relationship with Jesus with passion, God will use you in profound ways to change the world around you. Those of us who are of an older generation, when we invest in the next generation with our time and our resources, we get to model what it looks like to engage with culture with a deep-rooted faith. And if you're still unsure about all of this and you've got questions, let's go. Let's ask those questions. Let's find some answers. But know this: God has called each and every one of us to roll up our sleeves, get our hands dirty, and work for the peace and prosperity, the shalom of our neighborhoods and our communities. And I could go on and on because there is so much to do. So let's be the kind of people that do the work and trust God that He will grow something beautiful. So right now, let me pray for us, and then let's get to work. God, I thank you that you have called us to partner with you in what you're doing in our families and our neighborhoods, in our communities, and quite literally around the world. I thank you that you pursue us and that you do not give up on us, and you do not give up on your world. So thank you for inviting us to partner with you. So may we see you now actively at work and join in, and it's in your name, Jesus, we pray. Amen.