A Future Harvest Today | Jeremiah 32 | Dr. Jeff Denlinger

Um, they are missionaries with World Venture, which is our primary uh mission agency.

I actually sit on the board for that.

And um uh both uh the president and vice president were here this weekend preparing uh last service.

Uh David Love, the VP for Global Initiatives, shared about uh uh shared shared God's word this morning for the second service.

Uh Jeff Denlinger, the president of World Venture, is going to be bringing a message out of the book of Jeremiah.

And I joke with him and said the last two falls, we've been doing the major prophets.

So we did Isaiah last fall.

We're going through Ezekiel right now, and he's gonna take a quick turn to go over to Jeremiah.

So um, please welcome Jeff Denlinger, president of World Venture.

Uh, he's gonna share the guys with us.

Yeah, I was really tempted to uh break out that song.

I'm sure anyone from the 60s and 70s will remember Jeremiah was a bullfrog.

If you don't know that song, Google it.

Anyway, hey, it's great to be here.

I want to begin by simply thanking the church family for your many, many years of faithful partnership with World Venture Workers, World Venture Partners Overseas, and with our organization.

I don't know if you know this, but I think Bob is the second pastor from Millington to serve on our board of directors.

So it isn't simply the work over there, lending us your pastors for a couple days a year to help give us guidance, is greatly appreciated.

Uh, pastors on our board are key anchors for us, keeping us grounded in the church, but also, if you will, serving as a sounding board.

Uh change is happening all over the world.

It's happening right here, it's happening in churches, and World Venture, like a lot of other mission agencies, is in this season of profound change.

The gospel doesn't change, but our approaches to sharing the gospel must change in a world that's closing itself off to the gospel.

So we're in a deep season of change.

Thank you for lending us, Bob, for a few days a year, actually several days in between, on phone calls and team calls and all that kind of stuff.

It is great to be here for a different reason for me.

I actually grew up in South Jersey uh a long time ago.

Uh and so coming back to New Jersey uh is kind of a taste of home.

The other day the missions team met at a diner.

Was it Route 22?

Bridgewater Diner.

Bridgewater Diner.

And uh I got a pork roll um omelette.

Yeah, they don't have those in Colorado.

If I was further down south, it would have been a scrapple omelet, but it is good to be here, and I'm eager to listen to the Spirit's leading in my own life, and I invite you to join me in prayer before we open God's word.

Lord, we come as followers of Christ.

We acknowledge that your word, the Bible, is our authority, and I acknowledge I follow it imperfectly.

So, God, in these moments today, would your spirit bring alive your word for us?

Would you uh reveal yourself to us who you are and what you're like?

Will you help us understand ourselves in light of who you are?

And God, would you give us something, one takeaway to apply to our lives that we might leave and live more righteously?

That people will see in us the hope of the gospel.

We commit ourselves to you, Lord Jesus.

Amen.

I will say uh just a personal word.

My uh wife isn't with me this weekend, she's out in Colorado.

Uh she's uh Lebanon, Pennsylvania, uh, born and raised for a number of years, grew up on the mission field, and um we have two adult kids.

Uh I this sounds weird if you don't uh have grandkids, but boy, what a great blessing grandkids are.

Uh we have five, uh four boys and one girl.

The girl is all girl, all pink, all dresses.

The boys are all camo and wrestling, so it's a lot of fun.

I want to share a couple of stories, and then we're gonna dive into the word.

Phineas and Violet Kennedy.

We're actually from around this area.

Violet was born to missionary parents living in the Ottoman Empire.

Violet met Phineas when both were students at Princeton University.

After they were married, and Phineas graduated from Princeton Seminary, they were pastoring a church in New York.

But Violet could not forget the people she knew who were living in great spiritual darkness.

In obedience to God, calling them into missions, Phineas and Violet moved to the city of Kurtia, modern-day Albania, but in that Ottoman Empire that spanned a lot of places, they moved there in 1908.

A scant few years of language learning and cultural acquisition and fledgling ministry gave way to the First World War.

The Ottoman Empire was aligned with Germany and was embroiled in the conflict.

In the wearying days of 1918 and 1919, without funds and physically overwhelmed with great needs, Phineas refused his brother's request to return to the U.S.

and enter into his real estate business.

Phineas wrote, You seem to be planning what I'm to do when I get back.

I beg you not to waste your time doing this.

It is quite possible the Lord may return before this world conflict is over.

Just lift up a prayer from time to time that both our lives may fulfill the mission on which He has sent us.

The First World War hostilities officially ended November 11, 1918, and the ensuing months the Kennedys were ardent in their written appeals to President Wilson, who was the president of Princeton when they were students.

Their appeal was for the creation of an Albanian state.

In the eventual settlements of the Paris Peace Accord, 37 nations were formed from the Ottoman Empire.

Albania was one of them.

In the ensuing years, and without any family of their own, the Kennedys purchased land in Center City, Kortia, as well as land on the hills overlooking that city for their future retirement home.

Edwin and Dorothy Jakes joined them in the early 1930s.

In the tumultuous years prior to World War II, Edwin and Dorothy Jakes joined the Kennedys and other missionaries in expanding the gospel witness of the church in Kortia.

Once again, it wasn't long before the ominous clouds of war began gathering over Europe and over Albania.

With the Italian invasion of Albania in 1940, the Kennedys and the Jakes returned to New York City to minister to Albanians living in exile.

In 1943, the Jakes were connected with the newly formed Conservative Baptist Foreign Mission Society, now known as World Venture.

And they were appointed for ministry to return to Albania at the conclusion of World War II.

At the same time, Phineas Kennedy presented the land deeds in Kortia to World Venture for a future day.

At war's end, Albania became one of the most restrictive, closed communist countries in the world.

The Jakes worked among Albanians living in Italy and over the decades began a letter writing campaign to the U.S.

State Department and the Albanian government, reminding them that CBFMS, World Venture, had land deeds in Kortia, and we intended to fulfill them.

For six long decades, the impossibility of ever returning to Albania seemed to rule the day.

Have you ever found yourself in an impossible circumstance where your options are not good and nigh unto impossible?

Maybe you can relate to this image of barely hanging on.

Or maybe an unbearably tight squeeze is wearing you down.

Or the necessity of walking a razor-thin path.

Or unable to see more than a few inches in front of you.

Perhaps the circumstances of your life are no longer the proverbial.

You live between a rock and a hard place.

This morning I want us to spend some time looking at Jeremiah's life, a small window of his life.

His life circumstances bordered on the consuming despair of an imminent destruction of life in Jerusalem.

And nearly an inconceivable glimmer of a future promise.

Turn with me in your Bibles to Jeremiah chapter 32.

Jeremiah 32 · chapter mention

Now, as we read, let me give a little bit of context.

As you know, major prophets have a big story, and there's a lot of context that we simply can't fill right now.

But let me share this.

Babylon launched a two and a half-year siege against Jerusalem and eventually cracked the walls and carried people off in exile in 586 BC.

The prophet Jeremiah is imprisoned in the royal court of Judah's last king, Zedekiah, because of Jeremiah's faithful proclamation and obedience to God that God was going to bring judgment on Judah.

While Jeremiah was imprisoned in the royal guards for his faithfulness to God, King Zedekiah was imprisoned in his royal deafness to the word of God.

And God's imminent judgment on him as well.

In all of the deprivations of a two and a half year siege, foreign troops around the city walls, and famine, pestilence, all that goes with those ancient sieges, God alerts Jeremiah to an outrageous request.

And we're going to read that request this morning.

So beginning in verse 8.

Then Hanamel, my cousin, came to me in the court of the guard, in accordance with the word of the Lord, and said to me, Buy my field that is at Anatoth in the land of Benjamin, for the right of possession and redemption is yours.

Then I knew that this was the word from the Lord.

And I bought the field at Anatoth from Hanel, my cousin, and weighed out the money to him, seventeen shekels of silver.

I signed the deed, sealed it, got witnesses, and weighed the money on scales.

Then I took the sealed deed and of purchase, containing the terms and conditions, and the open copy.

And I gave the deed of purchase to Baruch, the son of Nerai, son of Mahesai, in the presence of Hanamel, my cousin, in the presence of the witnesses who signed the deed of purchase, and in the presence of all the Judeans who were sitting in the court of the guard.

I charged Baruch in their presence, saying, Thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel, take these deeds, both this sealed deed of purchase and this open deed, and put them in an earthenware vessel, that they may last for a long time.

For thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel, houses and fields and vineyards shall again be bought in this land.

You did catch the context, right?

The Babylonian army has a whole city surrounded.

They're in a two and a half-year time period waiting for the Babylonians to come over the wall.

And God says, buy a field.

Now, the craziness of this request is simply this.

The Babylonian army was probably camped on that very field.

For Jeremiah's family lived close to Jerusalem.

He had no opportunity to go walk the field.

Have you ever bought anything sight unseen?

Maybe sometimes on eBay, it looks pretty good.

You get it and you're like, what in the world is this?

Yeah.

I don't know anyone who really buys land sight unseen or at least have a surveyor go measure it.

Not to mention a cousin wanting to sell land before the invasion is finished.

Now I don't know about the family relations, but Hanumel was converting, in essence, a worthless asset for liquid cash in his pocket.

And this wasn't simply a private purchase.

Jeremiah is sitting in the court of the guard, and there are people watching, so witnesses that can verify that this sale actually met all the requirements.

But there had to be a gallows humor to this.

I mean, who buys land when you're thinking you're going to die?

When there is no tomorrow.

The idea of purchasing land at this time is like, it's crazy.

It's ludicrous.

And yet God had a plan.

And he gives a hint.

Jeremiah says at the very end, seal these deeds because eventually the land will be bought and sold and vineyards planted and families will return.

There's a glimmer of hope in the midst of impending doom.

God's redemptive purposes are on display in our everyday experiences.

This may sound a little crazy, but reading this, I thought, you know, I never really thought of God's redemptive purposes when I was signing the papers to purchase a house.

Or signing the paper to purchase a vehicle.

I mean, these are everyday circumstances, right?

There's nothing spectacular, there's nothing unusual about signing sales papers or deeds.

And God is at work in the very mundane, the ordinary things of life.

The problem is, I don't always have eyes to see it.

And neither did the people in Jeremiah's day.

Third observation: God's redemptive purposes link our present obedience with future outcomes.

Our present obedience with future outcomes.

Now, I'll fully admit to being a typical American in some way.

I want things now.

Right?

I don't want tomorrow, I want that hamburger today.

Thus, uh, the whole market-driven economy that we live in.

Not tomorrow, today.

So one of the greatest challenges for many people is savings.

Right?

Now, you may be super disciplined and you put money into your retirement fund and all those things, but many people live for the day.

In fact, it shows up beyond our finances, right?

And our decisions.

Well, today we're gonna do this.

The observation is God's redemptive purposes link our present obedience to a future outcome.

In Jeremiah's case, he bought land that he would never see.

He would never plant, he would never walk it, he bought land for a future harvest.

You know as well as I do, the exile was more than a little over 70 years from start to finish.

They're already exiled, if you will, behind the walls.

70 years.

Jeremiah is already an old man at this point.

He'll never see that harvest.

This reminds me of a verse, Hebrews 11:1.

Hebrews 11:1

You may have this memorized.

Now, faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.

And as followers of Jesus, we often talk about our faith journey.

And if you're like me, I too want to walk a life of faith.

But boy, it's sure easier if you can see things, if you can actually touch things.

And yet the life of faith is trusting in God, who he is and what he's like, to fulfill his promises.

So this is this question in Jeremiah.

How does faith and action work?

Now, we may have contexts in which it's really hard to have faith.

And we just kind of go one small step at a time.

There are other seasons of life where, man, it's going great.

It's easy to have faith.

Yeah, God is good.

Look at all these blessings.

I'm reminded, actually, you start thinking about contemporaries of Ezekiel.

So you have Isaiah before him.

You actually have Habakkuk about the same time.

Go back and think through how Habakkuk dealt with the news of this Babylonian invasion.

Habakkuk, like Jeremiah, is like, whoa, God, don't you have like plan B?

What you've heard about these Babylonians?

They are bad people.

And ultimately, Habakkuk comes to the conclusion.

A life of faith?

I'm going to trust God even when the fig tree has no fruit, even when the stalls are empty.

I'm going to trust God.

Now, this preaches well.

How well do we live it out?

When those cancer diagnoses come, when the divorce papers are on the table, when a child turns their back on God.

You see, faith isn't just for the good days.

Faith is strengthened in the hard days.

You remember Job?

Early on, all these terrible things are happening.

And in chapter 2, his wife says, look, Job, just curse God and die.

You know what he how he responded?

We can't just receive the good things from God without the hard things.

And then over a series of interactions, Job demonstrates a life of faith that few can emulate.

So, how does faith in action work?

I want you to hang on to that question as we go a little further.

Let's jump down to verse 16 of Jeremiah 32.

After I had given the deed of purchase to Baruch, the son of Nerai, I prayed to the Lord, saying, Ah, Lord God, it is you who have made the heavens and the earth by your great power and by your outstretched arm.

Nothing is too hard for you.

Now we need to pause right here.

Jeremiah does a couple of things in this opening, if you will, few sentences of his prayer.

He says, Ah, Lord God.

He begins prayer with a sigh.

You ever pray that way at times?

You're so down, you're so discouraged.

Oh Lord, what are you doing?

A sigh.

A lot of the Psalms are started this way, with a sigh.

Life is hard.

It's not fair.

Things happen.

And we question God, are you really sovereign?

Do you really know what you're doing?

Perhaps more transparently, can I really trust you, God?

It's interesting to note that Jeremiah pours out his questioning heart to God after what seems like crazy obedience.

He didn't struggle before, he struggled after.

And he starts his prayer with this sigh.

Actually, in Hebrew, it's ah, Adonai Yahweh.

Jeremiah is throwing down some heavy cards on the table.

He's using God's distinctive names of his covenant-making and covenant-keeping character.

It's as if Jeremiah is reminding himself of who God is simply by the names of God that he's praying.

And could it be that he's reminding God of who God is?

You remember God, you made us these covenants.

What's going on?

You may be a new Christian, you may be an old Christian, you may not be a Christian.

But here's the truth about this prayer.

We can pray gut level, honestly, with God.

You don't need flowery words, you don't need the right words.

It's just poured out.

And here's Jeremiah pouring out his heart.

It's interesting, he adds a little tagline here.

God, nothing is too hard for you.

Have you ever heard that prayer?

Have you ever said that prayer?

Often it's in great despair.

Health issues, financial issues, desperation.

God, nothing is too hard for you.

Jeremiah knew his history.

This wasn't the first time the Babylonian army came to Jerusalem.

And God thwarted those efforts.

Might there be a makeover?

Another chapter to this story?

Let's continue with his prayer.

Behold, the siege mouths have come up to the city to take it.

And because of sword and famine and pestilence, the city is given into the hands of the Chaldeans.

Another name for the Babylonians, who are fighting against it.

What you spoke has come to pass, and behold, you see it.

Yet you, O Lord God, have said to me, Buy the field for money, get witnesses.

Though the city is given into the hands of the Chaldeans.

Now we get to the honest part of Jeremiah's prayer.

God, I've done this, I don't know why.

And I'm just I'm just putting it out here.

Why did I buy this field?

Jeremiah uses a phrase, behold.

He's what he's saying is, God, look.

You see those siege works?

That's not imaginary.

They're up against the wall.

You see them, God?

The pestilence?

The things that are happening in the city.

Job had a similar challenge.

His friends, trying to encourage him, kept hammering, you must have done something wrong.

This is your fault, Job.

You got to repent of something.

And in desperation, Job makes a statement that many of us have just cling to.

Job says in chapter 19, I know my Redeemer lives.

I will see him with my eyes, my own eyes, in the land of the living.

Even though my flesh rots off my bones, I will see him.

There's this interesting interplay between the desperation of living in crisis and faith.

So faith in action is choosing to believe what we know to be true about God, despite the circumstances in which we're living.

It doesn't make the siege works go away.

It doesn't change the cancer diagnosis.

What it does is it invites us to live in the presence of God, to bask in who He is, even in a fallen world.

This is a pretty raw prayer that Jeremiah prays.

Lord, I don't know why you asked me to do this.

I'm wrestling with, can I trust you?

And hear God's response.

Verse 26.

The word of the Lord came to Jeremiah.

Behold, I am the Lord, the God of all flesh.

Is anything too hard for me?

Jeremiah, you want to play this game?

Behold, I'm looking.

Now you need to look.

And what does God invite Jeremiah to do?

He invites him to take his eyes off his context and put his eyes on God.

God says, Behold, I am the Lord, the God of all flesh, Jewish and Babylonian.

Is anything too hard for me?

I'm reminded of Moses on the mountain getting the tablets.

And he's wanting to know God.

He wants to see God.

God said, I'll pass by, but you can't see me.

And God declares his names to Moses.

And he declares to Moses what he's like.

Exodus 34 is a key, pivotal teaching in the whole Old Testament about who God is.

God's doing something very similar with Jeremiah here.

And it's as if, God being God, knowing hymn writers would come eventually, it's as if God is saying to Jeremiah, turn your eyes upon Jesus.

Look full in his wonderful face.

And the things of earth will grow strangely dim in the light.

Yeah, Jeremiah.

Behold.

Doesn't make the siege works go away.

It didn't stop the Babylonian army from coming over the walls.

But it grounded Jeremiah.

You know why you bought that field?

Because I told you to.

You don't see it yet, Jeremiah, but there will be a redemption one day of that land.

Is anything too hard for me?

Let's move on to verse 42.

For thus says the Lord, just as I have brought all of this great disaster upon this people, so I will bring upon them all the good that I promise them.

Fields shall be bought in this land of which you are saying it is desolation without man or beast.

It is given into the hands of the Chaldeans.

Jeremiah, fields shall be bought for money, and deeds shall be signed and sealed and witnessed in the land of Benjamin, your hometown, in the places about Jerusalem and in the cities of Judah.

I will restore their fortunes, declares the Lord.

Man.

How you weigh a future promise in your current context is always a challenge.

Jeremiah is invited to believe that God will one day change the circumstances of his countrymen.

So here are some key convictions.

God invites our doubts.

You know, there's a lot of false teaching that says, well, I'm a Christian, I really shouldn't have any doubts.

No, that's not at all what Scripture teaches, nor how Jesus interacted with people in the Gospels.

Bring your doubts to God.

Even and especially when those obedience opportunities seem crazy.

Oh Lord, I don't know what I'm doing.

Invite someone to an evangelism class?

Yeah.

And trusting that God will do something.

Another conviction.

Remembering who God is is our invitation to be fully present in our daily realities.

We can't get caught up and hoping for a better tomorrow.

No, no, I live today.

Tomorrow is a different opportunity to trust God.

Today, I have to be grounded in who I am in Christ.

And so God invites us to be fully present in our daily realities.

Another conviction.

Bringing our realities to God in prayer aligns us with God's heart.

Doesn't necessarily rescue us from our context.

See, God's heart was ultimately for the redemption of Israel.

And Jeremiah had to trust that that was going to be true, even if he didn't live to experience it.

Fourth, God sees our present-day realities and our full redemption.

He sees us.

He knows.

But he knows what we don't know.

That full story.

When you guys get to Jeremiah, I don't know, next year, the year after.

Jeremiah 31, 32, and 33 are some of the high peaks of Old Testament theology.

Jeremiah 31, God gives Jeremiah the privilege, insider information, if you will, of the new covenant.

We're going to practice that new covenant with the Lord's Supper.

The New Covenant, Jeremiah 31, is one of the most often quoted portions of Scripture in the Old Testament.

In the New Testament, Jeremiah was privileged to hear it first.

Chapter 32, a new relationship.

This is about land, but it's about God bringing the people back into the land where the relationship, verses 37 to 41, is this community that lives in the presence of God.

That did not describe Israel nor Judah.

They didn't experience this living in God's presence.

But the new relationship is all going to be this, if you will, this living together in right relationship with each other and with God, and God in the midst.

Chapter 33, a new king.

Now, you may be familiar with the Davidic promise.

God promised to David, I'm going to have an heir on your throne throughout all of eternity.

God repeats it in chapter 33.

So 31, 32, 33, God is anchoring Jeremiah in the big picture of all scripture.

And he gets to hear it first.

It kind of reminds me, if you will, of God giving promises to other prophets.

Isaiah, yeah, a virgin's going to give birth.

What?

How does that happen?

To uh Ezekiel, this dry bones coming to life.

The prophets lived in difficult circumstances, but they got these glimmers, these small pictures of what God was going to do.

Their lives were hard.

But they got to see pictures.

Daniel, probably alive at this time, he gets hauled off into exile with the Babylonians.

What does he get a picture of?

Daniel 7, the throne room scene.

One like the Son of Man with the nations around him.

In exile, Daniel.

In exile, John has a very similar vision of that throne room scene.

Only it was a lamb that was slain.

What I'm trying to tell you is in the difficulties of life, in the challenges, in those hard places, often we catch new glimpses of who God is and what he's like.

I'm going to summarize and jump to this.

Jeremiah, the rescue you are longing for is yet to come.

One day a new siege work will be constructed outside Jerusalem's walls.

Only that siege work will be in the shape of a cross.

Another will pray in despair, asking God to look as well.

The cross is where God's judgment of sin and his exercise of love was simultaneously poured out in redemptive triumph.

Through the resurrection of Christ, God secured a restoration of a people to the land and the first fruits of a whole new creation to himself.

And that yet unfulfilled future reality to which God holds the title deeds that will one day be ours, he purchased it not by silver, but by the blood of the Lord Jesus Himself.

So yeah, Jeremiah, buy land and a future harvest.

In our World Venture office, we have a phrase on our wall.

We have, you know, our mission statement, vision statement.

Those are all great.

They're appropriately put around on different things.

And like a lot of vision statements, they're wall hangers.

Our vision and mission statements are great.

But if you were to boil it down, what is world venture really about?

It's simply this.

Billions of people don't know Jesus.

We're not okay with that.

We're not okay with the fact that billions do not know Jesus.

I suspect, actually I know, Millington Baptist is not okay with that either.

You wouldn't be celebrating 175 years if it was just business as usual.

No, it was about seeing the gospel transform lives.

Back to Albania.

In 1989, the fall of communism swept across Eastern Europe.

Countries like Albania scrambled to make sense out of the chaos of government collapse.

Not to miss the moment, Edwin Jakes reminded everyone of the land deeds in Kortia.

Leaders in World Venture were granted access to visit Albania and determined to open a new work in Kortia.

Larry and Dana Stuckey began an extremely difficult journey of relocating from Brazil to Albania for renewed gospel ministries with children, relaunching churches, and engaging Albanians in missions.

Where Phineas and Violet Kennedy once purchased land, uh, and Edwin and Dorothy Jakes kept the fires burning for the Albanian people, and Larry and Dana engaged in shepherding a new generation of believers.

Today, there stands in that center city property, the Korcha Evangelical Church.

When I was there a number of years ago, it was about 400 people in a culturally Muslim context.

And on the hillside where the Kennedys were going to build their retirement home is a Kennedy Senior Center.

When communism failed, the senior citizens lost all their pensions.

They're homeless or put out on the street.

And in response, a senior center was put on that hill.

In 1991, just prior to the fall of communism, there were five known Albanian Christians and no churches.

By 1997, six years later, God multiplied the response of the gospel with about 20,000 believers and 150 churches across that country.

Is anything too hard for God?

Regardless of our circumstances, regardless of how difficult it is, I want to invite you, I want to beg you actually to buy a field and a future harvest.

We may not live to see it, but investing our lives in the things that God is doing pays in the harvest that God wants to bring in.

Actually, if you're here in the first service, David reminded us that Jesus is building his church.

Nothing's going to stop them.

So investing in the work that Jesus is doing is actually an opportunity to grow our faith.

I'm not saying sell everything and give everything like the early church.

What I am saying is prudent investment in people sharing the gospel with people.

Whether that's right here in North Jersey, whether that's in Senegal or Ukraine or other parts of the world.

The reality is billions of people don't know Jesus.

The question is, how do we make Jesus known to those who've never heard?

There's lots of different methodologies, but the one sure way that God has done throughout the ages, and was read earlier, I think, maybe as a first service, Jesus commanded people to go.

How will they hear?

Unless someone tells them.

So as a church family, I want to thank you for your many years of mission involvement.

But I want to remind you the job's not done.

There's a whole new generation that needs to hear the gospel.

There's a whole new generation of followers of Christ who need to, if you will, buy fields and a future harvest.

Live lives that are seemingly crazy to those around us because we actually believe God will fulfill his purposes.

As we bring this to a close, allow me to pray for us this morning.

Lord, I read this story about Jeremiah and I'm just terribly convicted.

I kind of want the easy life.

I want easy answers to the hard things of life.

And Lord, you don't promise that.

What you promise is to be with us.

What you promise is this fulfillment that will happen through Jesus.

Lord, I don't know what it looks like.

It's even a dangerous prayer to pray, but I pray, Lord, that the men and women here online in our community, Lord, that we would demonstrate faith like Jeremiah.

Trusting you when we don't know the answers.

Trusting you when life is uncertain.

God, you have called us to participate with you in the Great Commission.

Lord, some actually are sent and go overseas.

All of us are sent to go to those around us.

So, God, would you increase our faith today?

To like Jeremiah, purchase fields and a future harvest.

But Lord, would you help us to be faithful today?

There is someone in our life who needs to hear from our mouth and see in our actions the hope of the gospel in us.

Oh Lord, send us to the Babylonians.

We pray in Christ's name.