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Jeremiah 29:1-14 | Vision: Sent on Co-Mission

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Listen to this week’s sermon, Vision: Sent on Co-Mission preached by Rev. Benjamin Kandt from Jeremiah 29:1-14.

Rev. Benjamin Kandt:

Hello everyone, this is Pastor Benjamin. You're listening to Sermon Audio from New City Orlando. At New City, we long to see our Father answer the Lord's Prayer. For more resources, visit our website at Newcity Orlando.com.

Evan Pederson:

Please pray with me. Eternal God, in the reading of Scripture, may your word be heard. In the meditation of our hearts, may your word be known. And in the faithfulness of our lives, may your word be displayed. Through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen. Our scripture reading is Jeremiah twenty-nine, one through fourteen. Please remain standing if you are able. These are the words of the letter that Jeremiah the prophet sent from Jerusalem to the surviving elders of the exiles, and to the priests, the prophets, and all the people whom Nebuchadnezzar had taken into exile from Jerusalem to Babylon. This was after King Jechaniah and the Queen Mother, the eunuchs, the officials of Judah and Jerusalem, the craftsmen and the metal workers had departed from Jerusalem. The letter was sent by the hand of Elassa the son of Shaphan, and Gemariah the son of Hilkiah, whom Zedekiah, King of Judah, sent to Babylon to Nebuchadnezzar, King of Babylon. It said, Thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel, to all the exiles whom I have sent into exile from Jerusalem to Babylon. Build houses and live in them. Plant gardens and eat their produce. Take wives and have sons and daughters. Take wives for your sons, and give your daughters in marriage, that they may bear sons and daughters. Multiply there and do not decrease, but seek the welfare of the city where I have sent you into exile, and pray to the Lord on its behalf, for in its welfare you will find your welfare. For thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel, do not let your prophets and your diviners who are among you deceive you, and do not listen to the dreams that they dream, for it is a lie that they are prophesying to you in my name. I did not send them, declares the Lord. For thus says the Lord, when seventy years are completed for Babylon, I will visit you, and I will fulfill to you my promise and bring you back to this place. For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, plans for welfare and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope. Then you will call upon me, and come and pray to me, and I will hear you. You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart. I will be found by you, declares the Lord, and I will restore your fortunes, and gather you from all the nations and all the places where I have driven you, declares the Lord, and I will bring you back to the place from which I sent you into exile. This is God's word.

Rev. Benjamin Kandt:

Thanks be to God.

Speaker:

You may be seated.

Rev. Benjamin Kandt:

Why am I here now? It's the question on the heart and mind of an adventurer who's charting out into new territory among a foreign people. They don't even speak the language, they go, Why am I here now? Hopefully, it's not the question on the mind of a bride as the as the song is playing for them to walk down the aisle. Why am I here now? But this is a core question at the heart of human existence. Why am I here now? It's a question of purpose. Why? What is my purpose? It's a question that's deeply personal. Why am I? Why am I, Lord? It's a question of place, why am I here? And it's a question of the present moment. Why am I here right now? And this is a question that is on the hearts and minds of all of us. In fact, uh, longing for purpose is only on the increase as we live in a secular age that has stripped purpose and meaning out of our existence. People are wondering and asking this question, why am I here now? And ultimately, the answer to that question will not be found by looking within. It will not be found even by looking outside of you to the society around you. It will only be found when you turn that question vertical and begin to ask it to the Lord, Lord, why am I here now? And we have an answer to that question in Jeremiah 29, this letter to the exiles. And so as we conclude our series, this vision series through our disciple to find, uh, we are ending with co-mission. Now, our definition of a disciple around here is that disciples are united to Jesus in communion with God, community with one another, and co-mission for the world. And you'll see in the next slide, these kind of concentric circles, if you will, that there is an outward movement to this. The heart of communion with God, we talked about on January 4th, how we're called into union with Christ, and then we share in that union, we enjoy it through receiving and responding moment by moment, day by day, season by season. And last week we looked at how in community is a place where we are known and loved, and we know and love. And I just want to commend you, New City, because last week was uh a sermon, a sermon on confession. Um, people responded profoundly. I heard stories of confession to their spouses, to their friends, the roommates, coworkers, things like that. And there's this saying that um soft sermons produce hard hearts, but hard sermons produce soft hearts. And the tender-heartedness that's indicative of a congregation that's responsive to the Word of God is it's such a joy for me to witness that. And so this week we tackle the third and final piece here, which is co-mission, how we are sent on co-mission for the sake of our world. And in order to do that, we're gonna take up what is a familiar text here at New City. It's been preached by my count seven times before today is the seventh time. Uh, Jeremiah 29. This is a uh it's a text that has become core to the identity and vocation of New City, Orlando. And so if you have a Bible or device or the worship God, go ahead and get Jeremiah 29 in front of you. Let's look at verse 1 together. Verse 1 says, this these are the words of the letter that Jeremiah the prophet sent from Jerusalem to the surviving elders of the exiles and to the priests, the prophets, and all the people whom Nebuchadnezzar had taken into exile from Jerusalem to Babylon. Pause for a moment. In in at the end of this book, Jeremiah 52, it says that about 3,000 people were brought from Jerusalem into exile in Babylon in 597 BC. All right, that's important. Because the Babylonian strategy was cultural assimilation. So they chose the best and the brightest, the elite of the civilization. They brought them into Babylon, and then they tried to train them up, teach them, enculturate them in all of the literature and the language of the Babylonians in order then to begin to have an assimilating effect on the rest of their people. This is the story if you read Daniel 1 through 6. That's the conflict of Daniel 1 through 6. This contesting with cultural assimilation that Daniel and his friends are experiencing in Babylon. Okay, look at verse 2. You'll see some of these elite. This was after King Jeconiah and the Queen Mother, the eunuchs, the officials of Judah and Jerusalem, the craftsmen and the metalworkers had departed from Jerusalem. So here's a question: What relevance does a letter that was written 2,600 years ago have for us today? Oh, in every way. Listen, here's my two top reasons. Number one, Babylon in the Bible becomes an archetype. It becomes this pattern that begins to be recognized since Genesis 11 with the Tower of Babel. Babylon grows out of there. It's an archetype of a people who have rejected God. Now, this is important for us because I think it's a greater temptation for Americans than, say, Iranians, to forget that America is Babylon, not Jerusalem. That's super important for us to get, especially in our cultural moment right now. So that's the first reason why this is relevant. The second reason is that the New Testament calls Christians exiles more than it calls us Christians, which only happens three times. In fact, exilic language, by my count, was at least five times in the New Testament. This exilic identity is so core to discipleship to Jesus, and it's really important that that's the posture we have in the world. We are exiles. This is not our home. Here's why it will shape the kind of disciples you make. Because expectations alter experience. If you think as a disciple of Jesus you should feel at home here, you're gonna be deeply disappointed. In fact, not only disappointed, but somebody with what I'm just gonna call a Jerusalem mindset is more likely to think that we should be dominant culture rather than an exilic mindset believes that we're a creative minority. If you believe in a Jerusalem mindset that this should be, we need a, we this is our home, this is where we belong, you're gonna take your identity for granted. Which actually makes it really easy to compromise. Because American values become synonymous with Christian values. Whereas if you're an exilic mindset, you expect your identity to be challenged on the daily. Third, and and maybe most important right now is if you have a Jerusalem mindset, you will have a triumphalistic attitude toward the surrounding culture. If you have an exilic mindset, you're gonna have a servant attitude toward the surrounding culture. You see what difference this makes for disciples of Jesus in our cultural moment? So with that in mind, look with me at verse one again. It says this at the end of verse one, whom Nebuchadnezzar had taken into exile from Jerusalem to Babylon. Now look at verse 4 with me. Thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel, to all the exiles whom I have sent into exile from Jerusalem to Babylon. Do you notice that? You see, the Holy Spirit doesn't waste his breath. There's something significant here. So which one is it? Did Nebuchadnezzar take these captives and bring them against their will from Jerusalem to Babylon? Or did Yahweh send them? Yes. The answer is yes. Are you here in Orlando for social for because of social forces? Because you're a student or you got family here, or you're married into Orlando, or you moved here for a job? Is that the reason? Sure. Is it also because the hand of God is at work in your life? Sending you here now? Yes, of course. You see, the providence of God is the seedbed for the purpose of man. Why am I here now? Because Yahweh has sent you here. He has you here with a purpose for a reason. He has a purpose for your life in this generation. It's really important. Now, it's so important because from earth's perspective, we just see social forces. We just see social causes. Nebuchadnezzar, you know, with the bigger army, just conquers all this stuff. But from heaven's perspective, we see the hand of God at work in our lives. It's so important that the Lord has to repeat this four times in the text. Verse 4, he says, uh, I have sent you into exile. Verse 7, he says, the city to which I have sent you into exile. Verse 14, it's repeated twice. He says this I will gather you from where I have driven you. And then he ends by saying, From which I sent you into exile. Four times he's got to reinforce because he knows the temptation to walk by sight and not by faith. Nebuchadnezzar dragged us here. He's like, Yes, but I sent you there. And that is so important to the answer to the question of why am I here now? But there's temptations. There's always temptations. We want plausible explanations that will make sense of our reality, so much so that the Lord has to warn his people in this letter. Look at verse 8 with me. Verse 8 says this for thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel, do not let your prophets and your diviners who are among you deceive you. Do not listen to the dreams that they dream, for it is a lie that they are prophesying to you in my name. I did not send them, declares Yahweh. Now, as far as my count, when I when I look at the prophetic literature and see what the different temptations were, these lies, there's at least three. The first lie is probably the most reasonable, to be honest, which is in exile we might believe the Lord has deserted us. Israel might think we've sinned so bad, which is true, that the Lord finally has had enough. He's deserted us. And that would, the temptation there is to despair. Another temptation, which we see in Jeremiah 44 at towards the end of the book, is that Yahweh was defeated by the gods of Babylon. This was the cultural consensus of the moment that whoever was victorious among the nations, that's whose God was bigger, badder, and stronger. Yahweh just might be getting old and doesn't have what he used to when he was rocking it in Egypt. Yahweh was defeated, which would lead to idolatry. If our gods defeated, we should probably look to the gods of the nations, which was a real temptation. The third temptation, the third lie was Yahweh is gonna destroy Babylon and He's gonna come and bring us home soon. Which we actually see at the end of this chapter in verse 28, is this temptation to escapism. Just just circle the wagons, hold on, hold fast. God's gonna come through, he's gonna rescue his people. To all three of those lies, the Lord gives us one verse, verse 10. He says, This, for thus says the Lord, when seventy years, it's not gonna be soon, when seventy years are completed for Babylon, I will visit you. In fact, I haven't forsaken you. Don't despair, because I will visit you. And when I do, this is what he goes on to say, I will fulfill to you my promise and bring you back to this place. In fact, the gods of the nations got nothing on me. This is actually more about my timing. And when I want to, I'm gonna visit you, fulfill my promise, and bring you home. Because this is the true and living God of Israel. And so, if you were gonna write a letter to some exiles in Babylon who are asking the question, why are we here now? What would you say? Well, what Yahweh says is, build houses and make babies. If you don't believe me, look at the text. Look at verse 5. It says this build houses and live in them, plant gardens and eat their produce. Take wives and have sons and daughters, take wives for your sons and give your daughters in marriage that they may bear sons and daughters. Multiply there and do not decrease. You see, as we are sent on commission for the world, one of the primary ways we live out our commission for the world is through our work, through our ordinary occupations. Work isn't just what you do for compensation, it's all of your forms of contribution. This is why parenting is core here. I don't know of anybody in this room that gets paid to be a parent, but it's a calling and it's part of the good work that God's given you to do. This is essential for us to recognize. But at the top, I need to address something here. I need to speak to the question of what about the unmarried, the infertile, and the underemployed? Listen, any good Christian community knows how to rejoice with those who rejoice and weep with those who weep. If you're in this room and you feel in one of those categories, unmarried, infertile, underemployed, what you're experiencing is the felt sense of exile. Since our expulsion from Eden in Genesis 3, the Lord told us that core to our experience of exile in this world will be pain and childbearing. It'll be the pain of infertility and bareness. It'll be the pain of putting your hands to the plow by the sweat of your brow, reaping thorns and thistles rather than fig trees and grapes, right? This is core to our experience of human exile. You're not crazy, you're just human. And in fact, the the fact that those three categories are so painful. I've gotten to weep with plenty of you in this room over these things and pray for you. That God would give you a baby or a spouse or a job or a the fact that we feel the pain of exile so acutely actually, I think, underscores the fact that since Genesis 1.28, God said, Work and womb are the primary ways I'm gonna bring my goodness into this world. Be fruitful, multiply, fill the earth. That's womb. Have dominion, subdue it, work and keep. That's work. Do you see? This is core to our human vocation, made in the image of God. It's why we feel the pain when those are disruptive, when we feel the curse of it. It's why we feel it so acutely. And so as we look at verse five together, I want you to keep that in mind. I want you to keep in mind the fact that there's a signature scene throughout scripture of God bringing life out of barrenness, whether the barren womb or the barren work. Look at verse five with me. It says this build houses and live in them, plant gardens and eat their produce. What this means is one of the primary ways you're going to serve the city of Orlando is through your occupation, through the work that God has given you to do. That's so important. In fact, there's a you can just track with some characters throughout scripture. Joseph, Daniel, Nehemiah, Esther, they were all civil servants. They were all in government. Such a strong theme in Scripture that John Calvin says it like this. He believed that the calling to be a public servant was, quote, the most sacred and by far the most honorable of all stations in mortal life. Does that surprise you? He's not talking about being a pastor or a missionary. He's talking about working for the government, the most sacred and most honorable of all stations in mortal life. He's getting that, I believe, from reflection on the storyline of Scripture. You see, it's important to note that Ephesians 2.10 says that God has, that we are God's workmanship created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God has prepared beforehand that we should walk in them. And I believe that most of your good works are going to come through your good work. That your vocation really matters, that your calling to work in the world is a significant part of what it means to be on mission with the Spirit and with God's people in our city. Paul, maybe reading Jeremiah's letter in 1 Thessalonians 4 9, says it like this: Aspire to live quietly and to mind your own affairs and to work with your hands as we instructed you, so that you may walk properly before outsiders and be dependent on no one. That's an exilic letter. Walk properly before outsiders, the well thought of. Work with your hands, be quiet and just do the good work that God's put in front of you to do. That's what it means to be on mission with the Holy Spirit. But here's the problem in our Cultural moment we idolize work. The question, what do you do, is actually often a question of status. Just think about it. Do you ever get uncomfortable when somebody asks you that because you either have a high status or a low status job? Or when somebody answers that question with either a high status or a low status job, does it affect the way you relate to them? This is the idolatry of work in our present cultural moment. But it was a problem back then too. Why 70 years in exile? Well, in 2 Chronicles 36, 21, it says that they will be in exile, quote, until the land had enjoyed its Sabbaths. All the days that it lay desolate, it kept Sabbath to fulfill 70 years. Why are they in exile for 70 years? One word, workaholism. Workaholism, God judged his people for workaholism. Here's what I mean. There was a command in Scripture that the land that God gave to Israel, they can work it for six years, but they have to let it rest for one year. It modeled the pattern of God working six days and resting one, and the Sabbath command to work six days and to rest one. But they never did it for 490 years. So guess what God did? He's got a long-term memory. He backlogged all 70 years worth of Sabbaths that the land didn't get because of the workaholism of Israel, and he kicked them out so that the land could rest. A holy God takes the holy Sabbath very seriously. And so should we. It's a gift. It's not just the burden of a command, although it's one of the big ten. It's a gift to remind you that you are not a human doing, but a human being. So listen, when you take one day out of seven that you do nothing that you know to be work, you are being restored in the image of God more and more. You're being reminded I'm a human being. When you avoid email and studying if you're a student or children's kids' sports. Uh-oh. Speaking of kids, look with me at verse 6. It says this take wives and have sons and daughters, take wives for your sons and give your daughters in marriage that they may bear sons and daughters. Multiply there and do not decrease. Can I be provocative for a moment? Some of you are like, you just took on kids' sports, dude. It doesn't get worse than that. All right, here we go. There's a song that I think could be taken from verse six here. Here it goes. First comes love, then comes marriage, then comes the baby in the baby carriage, right? Here we go. This is a good countercultural song. Here's why. First reason why it's countercultural. First comes marriage, then baby making. That's super important, okay? Marriage is first, then making babies, okay? Gotta can't get that flipped up. But here's the one that I think we gotta press in here in our cultural moment a little bit more. After marriage comes babies. You see, when I sit down with newlyweds or people who are getting engaged, rather, and they're wondering how do I know if this person is the one? First of all, I say the one is a lie. Don't buy into that. Do you know the one because you wear this ring and they got the other one? That's how you know the one. But then we talk a little bit about values and sharing things and compatibility and all these things, which is also a little nonsensical. And I say, hey, listen, one of the things I ask is, have you talked to your future fiance about their openness to having children? And if the answer is, I don't think they want to have children, I say, hey, you have some hard conversations ahead of you. Because in our cultural moment, one of the ways in which the ideolatries of individualism, feminism, careerism attack is we think we have a choice whether or not we should have children or not if we're married. We have a choice to open ourselves to God, and God allows us, if it's his gift, to open the womb and give us children. That's the choice of scripture throughout the storyline of scripture. And so, so much so, that I think there's this incredible call to being a father and a mother in the world. It's an incredible call. One of my favorite books on this topic was written by Ray and Janie Ortland called To the Tenth Generation. And they talk about this the do not decrease but multiply at the end of verse six. And this is what they say. Remember, 70 years is three generations. They talk about themselves. They say, hey, in generation one, it was just two of us. In generation two, there were four children, and then those children married often had spouses, so now there's ten of us in generation two. Then they said they've had 15 grandchildren plus their spouses, if they get married, they will in three generations be a family of 40. Three generations. That's all that they're going to be in exile in Babylon. That's three generations, a family of 40. Now their book is called to the tenth generation, now you know why. And they say, hey, if we continue growing at this rate, by the time we get to generation 10, we will have 55,000 people, which is about the size of the city of Sarasota, Florida. And Ray ends it by saying, and it's all our fault. Do you see the call to the ordinary work of planting and eating, of building and living, of marrying and having children, and how this actually does have this countercultural subversive nature by which you can seek the flourishing of the place where God has sent you into exile. This is a significant call that God has on our life. So when we say, why am I here now? I think verse 7 is my favorite summary. Look at verse 7 with me. But seek the welfare of the city where I have sent you into exile and pray to the Lord on its behalf, for in its welfare you will find your welfare. Two things. Why am I here now? One, to seek the shalom, the flourishing, the peace and prosperity of the city where God has you. And two, to pray to the Lord on its behalf. Those are the, those are, that's that's the core of what we're being called to do here. Now, this language of multiplication, you don't actually have to have, get married and have children. You could be like Jesus and Paul. You could multiply rather than through baby making, but through disciple making. How do we do that except for by recognizing that we've been sent to a people in a city that we get to seek the shalom of our neighbors? In fact, um in Acts 17, one of my favorite texts in Scripture, it says this, verse 26, and God made from one man, that's Adam, every nation of mankind to live on the face of the earth. Here's the key part about the providence of God, having determined allotted periods and the boundaries of their dwelling place. In other words, the here and the now is determined by God for every single human being on planet earth. Goes on in verse 27. Why does God determine our boundary places and our dwelling, the here and now? Here's the word that they should seek God and perhaps feel their way toward him and find him, yet he's not actually far from each one of us. Listen, something remarkable is happening in your neighborhood. Do you know how I know? Because you are there. How do your neighbors seek and feel their way to God and even find him because he's not very far from any one of them? Because his people are there in those neighborhoods and networks and workplaces. You are there. And you're there to seek the flourishing, the peace, the prosperity of the people around you. God has called us to engage in this. It's amazing how God in his providence uses Nebuchadnezzar like Bob Ross uses a paintbrush, but he doesn't use us. He invites us to join him in his work in the world willingly. Like our hope for Orlando to flourish is when people, ordinary, everyday people, begin to submit and surrender and align their will with God's will in every sphere and sector of society. That only happens through discipleship. It's the only place you can learn to do that. And so as we as we're going out, we want to intercede on behalf of our neighbors. We want to seek the flourishing of our neighbors. And one way to do that is to pray, to seek, to pray for it, our neighbors on the Lord's beh on their behalf to the Lord. Um, we did seek first on December 31 and seek week, which was 168 hours of unbroken prayer and praise to see everyone enjoy the king in Orlando. We devoted, we consecrated 2026 to the Lord on behalf of Orlando, though. And we filled 168 hours, except for one that I could tell. And so I subbed in there, I wrote Romans 8, 28, because I was basically saying the Holy Spirit got us on that one. We needed groanings too deep for words, apparently, on that one hour. But why do we do this? Why do we have Seek Orlando? By the way, verse 7 is one of the core texts for Seek Orlando. Because we believe we're called as the church to join together outside of just New City, but other churches in our city to pray, to intercede on behalf of Orlando to the true and living God. Let me give you a quote from a study of the early church by a guy named Peter Brown. He says it like this the silent flow of intercessory prayer wrapped even the most low-profile Christian community in a perpetual flicker of divine power. Ooh, what a way with words. God, I want you to wrap New City in a perpetual flicker of divine power. And he says, pray for Orlando. Pray for Orlando. Somebody else says it like this: history belongs to the intercessors who believe the future into being. By means of our intercessions, we cast fire upon the earth and trumpet the future into being. If you love your neighbors, you will pray for them. You will grab fistfuls of heaven on their behalf. Why? Because you want more for them than you can get, than you can give to them on your own. That's it. That's true in all of your relationships. If you love somebody, you're going to want more for them than you can give them on your own. So you give yourself to prayer. Intercessory prayer is an act of love on behalf of our neighbors. And so we seek the flourishing of the city. And look at the end of verse 7. Here's the root why. For in its welfare, you will find your welfare. We are inextricably linked with the people of Orlando. The flourishing of this city is our flourishing, and vice versa. Tomorrow is Martin Luther King Jr. Day, and he says it like this in his letter from a Birmingham jail. I am cognizant of the interrelatedness of all communities and states. I cannot sit idly by in Atlanta and not be concerned about what happens in Birmingham. We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly affects all of us indirectly. Do you see? MLK knew that, as verse 7 says, in Orlando's welfare, you will find your welfare because we are inextricably linked with one another. Let me close where the text closes and basically say, um, I've often gotten this question, which is, hey, it's a good question. It's a missional church question. If if New City were to close its doors tomorrow, would Orlando even notice? It's a great question. To which I reply, what do you mean? If you mean we lose our nonprofit status and we don't do this anymore, I don't really know, to be honest. I don't know if Orlando would notice. But if what you mean is these 600 people vanish overnight, you better believe the city would notice. Because you are salt and light. You are sent every day, every Sunday, we we say you are sent because you are sent out into this world to arrest decay and to dispel darkness. You are a people sent into our city. And I believe that there is real influence for the kingdom of God through the witness and work of you in this room. But that word witness really matters. Because a witness doesn't do it on their own, a witness points outside of themselves to something else. And in the end, our hope for Orlando is not that we can build enough houses or have enough children or do the thing, because none of that really requires resurrection. But when we become a witnessing community, it changes the game altogether. Look with me at verse 10. For thus says the Lord, when seventy years are completed for Babylon, I will visit you, and I will fulfill to you my promise and bring you back to this place. Verse 10 is this beautiful promise of Yahweh to his people. You see, Caesar showed up and he said, Vidi Vidy Vici, right? I came, I saw, I conquered. Yahweh shows up and he says, I will visit, I will fulfill, I will bring you home. This is how the Lord comes in strength on behalf of his people. And what's the ground? What's the rationale? It's God's plan. Look at verse 11. It says this, For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord. Plans for welfare, not for evil, to give you a future and a hope. Now listen, I know some of y'all. You've got this on a magnet in your fridge at home, or on a coffee cup or a counter that has this like cutesy little path off into the woods. It's okay. As long as when you read verse 11, you read it like this. For I know the plans I have for y'all, declares the Lord. Plans for welfare and not for evil, to give y'all a future and a hope. This is a promise to a people. I've jokingly said before, if we just translated all of the plural pronouns in the New Testament and the Old Testament as they truly are in Hebrew and Greek, we'd have a revival. Because we'd recognize that God's intent is not primarily to give you individuals a hope and a future, but to give y'all, the people of God, a hope and a future. Because core to our witness is that we are a witnessing community. That as a community, we we bear in us the signs that there's a future and a hope that has actually broken into the here and now in the resurrection of Jesus Christ. And so what does that actually mean? What does that look like? There's a book called Lost Connections by a guy named Johan Hari, and he explores an approach to depression that's different from what Big Pharma would say the problem is. And as he does it, he's got nine disconnections, and one of the disconnections that leads to depression is a sense of disconnection from a secure and hopeful future. Listen, in a cultural moment that is in a mental health crisis, we have the possibility of being a counterculture for the common good, by being a people who believe we have a secure and confident hope for the future. And then witnessing to that reality as a people. That's this call that we get as the people of Jesus, the one who was left heaven to come to earth. You better believe his experience on earth was the experience of an exile. But he's willing to be crucified outside the gates, outside of Jerusalem. Why? Well, Jesus says to us in John 14, I am going to prepare a place for you, and I will come again and bring you to myself. You hear the language of verse 10? I will bring you home, Jesus says. Because he was exiled so we could be brought home. As a community, we testify to this, not only witnessing as a community, but witnessing in our communion. Look at the grammar of grace in these verses. Verse 10 says, I will visit you, I will fulfill, I will bring you. For I know the plans I have for you. Plans for welfare, not for evil, to give you a future and a hope. And then here's our response. We receive all that from God. We respond in verse 12. Then you will call upon me and come and pray to me, and I will hear you. You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart. And it gets even better. God sandwiches grace. He takes the initiative, we respond, and then he responds to our response in verse 14. I will be found by you, I will restore you, I will gather you from all the nations, I will take you home, I will bring you back to the place. I will, I will, I will, I will. This is the grammar of grace. God goes first and God goes last. And as we receive and respond to this promise and this reality that God has for us in Scripture, we become a witnessing community to our city. So why am I here now? I believe the Lord would say to seek the welfare of Orlando, where I have sent you into exile and to pray for Orlando, to pray to the Lord on Orlando's behalf. Let's do that now. Father, would you send us to open up and release, Holy Spirit, an apostolic imagination in your people right now? That we would see ourselves as sent ones to love and serve this city. Would you turn us from victims into visionaries by your promises that you have good that you want to work out on our behalf? We pray this in Jesus' name. Amen.