1. "Some had thought that in being banished from their temple, their city, their land, they were being banished from the Lord, losing Him forever. But friend, that's not what the God of the Bible is like."

2. "God wants our worship, not because He lacks anything, but because we are made in His image to depend upon Him. All of the worship in the Old Testament was designed to point the way to God as He was making a way back to Himself."

3. "Most fundamentally, our public worship is ahead of us. It's in heaven. And we participate in it wherever we are, whether we're in a building, or in a pavilion, or in a field outside, regardless of our location."

4. "Most of our worship has always been offered outside of our public meetings. Our Mondays and Tuesdays and Wednesdays lived as God's children for His glory as we love others in His name."

5. "Children, now is the time when learning God's Word will cost you the least and will benefit you the most for the rest of your life."

6. "Don't underestimate the power of the Word of God."

7. "God's sovereign power being bent and used for the good of His people."

8. "We're all free these days to complain about how hard things are. Are we as free and committed in our spirits to speak of God's good provisions?"

9. "Our sins may call down God's judgment, but they will never make God unfaithful to what He's told us about Himself and His Word."

10. "One of them may be that you and I stop seeing things that God never meant to be our permanent home as our permanent home. God in His mercy, lovingly but firmly, breaking idols so that we will see where our hearts are really meant to reside."

Observation Questions

1. According to Ezra 8:15, what problem did Ezra discover when he gathered the people at the river Ahava, and why was this significant for his mission?

2. In Ezra 8:21-23, what did Ezra proclaim at the river Ahava, and why was he ashamed to ask the king for military protection?

3. What specific items did Ezra weigh out and entrust to the priests according to Ezra 8:24-27, and what instructions did he give them in verses 28-29?

4. According to Ezra 8:31, what happened during the journey from the river Ahava to Jerusalem, and to what did Ezra attribute their safe arrival?

5. In Ezra 8:35, what offerings did the returned exiles bring when they arrived in Jerusalem, and what is the significance of the number twelve appearing repeatedly in the offerings?

6. Looking at Ezra 7:27 (referenced in the sermon as context for chapter 8), what did Ezra say the Lord put into the heart of the king, and how did Ezra respond to this?

Interpretation Questions

1. Why was it essential for Ezra to have Levites accompany him on the journey, and what does their role reveal about God's priorities for His people beyond simply rebuilding the temple?

2. How does Ezra's decision to fast and pray rather than request military protection from the king demonstrate the relationship between trusting God's sovereignty and living out one's public testimony?

3. The sermon emphasizes that the sacrifices in Ezra 8:35 "pointed to the one sacrifice that was coming." How do the sin offerings brought by the returning exiles connect to the larger biblical story of atonement culminating in Christ?

4. What does the phrase "the good hand of our God" (appearing in Ezra 8:18, 31 and chapter 7) teach us about how God works through circumstances and people to accomplish His purposes for His people?

5. How does Ezra's account of the return from exile fulfill God's promise in Deuteronomy 30:3, and what does this fulfillment reveal about God's character even when His people have been unfaithful?

Application Questions

1. Ezra was "ashamed" to ask for human protection after publicly declaring his trust in God. In what area of your life have you verbally expressed trust in God but find yourself tempted to rely entirely on human solutions instead? What would it look like to fast and pray about that situation this week?

2. The sermon emphasized that most of our worship happens outside of Sunday gatherings—in our "Mondays and Tuesdays and Wednesdays." What is one specific way you can intentionally present your body as a "living sacrifice" in your workplace or home this week?

3. The preacher gave a special word to children about the value of learning God's Word while young. Whether you are young or older, what concrete step can you take this week to increase your time in Scripture, and who could you invite to join you in this commitment?

4. Ezra did not lead alone—God provided heads of households, priests, Levites, and servants to share the work. Who in your church community has God provided to help carry burdens alongside you, and how might you express gratitude or offer support to them this week?

5. The sermon suggested that the pandemic may be God "lovingly but firmly breaking idols so that we will see where our hearts are really meant to reside." What comfort, security, or routine have you treated as more permanent than it should be, and how can you redirect your heart toward your true home with God?

Additional Bible Reading

1. Deuteronomy 30:1-10 — This passage contains God's original promise to restore and gather His scattered people, which Ezra's return directly fulfills.

2. Haggai 1:1-15 — This passage recounts how the prophetic preaching of Haggai restarted the temple rebuilding after opposition, demonstrating the power of God's Word emphasized in the sermon.

3. Nehemiah 8:1-12 — This passage shows the Levites helping the people understand God's Law, illustrating the teaching ministry that Ezra sought to restore.

4. Hebrews 10:1-18 — This passage explains how Old Testament sacrifices pointed forward to Christ's once-for-all sacrifice, connecting to the sermon's emphasis on the sin offerings in Ezra.

5. Romans 12:1-2 — This passage calls believers to present their bodies as living sacrifices, which the sermon applied to daily worship outside of formal gatherings.

Sermon Main Topics

I. Returning Home: Setting the Context of Ezra During COVID-19

II. The Worship Was Restored (Ezra 8:1-14, 24-30, 35)

III. The Word Was Taught (Ezra 8:15-20; Nehemiah 8:7)

IV. Their Way Was Protected (Ezra 8:18, 21-23, 31)

V. God's Promises Were Kept (Deuteronomy 30:3; Ezra 8:35)

VI. Our True Home Is With God

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Detailed Sermon Outline

If any of you are particularly nervous because of your own health, you should feel free and not come next week.

That was just a little line and my last sermon to you from Ezra back on March the 8th. And a lot of you felt free not to come that next week.

Remember back in those days of heated, indoor, crowded public worship with lots of singing and childcare provided?

Friend, the effects of COVID are still with us now eight months later as we come up to Thanksgiving and the tradition of family gatherings.

To many people, the two words going home are magic. Not to everyone, I realize, but to many. I say to them, and some start thinking about sweet potato pie, or family puzzle worked out over days on a table, or seeing beloved family members and familiar friends. Traditionally, this is a week for many to return home.

But then this is 2020, isn't it? So for many, we'll remember last year's visit and we'll look forward to next year's. The Book of Ezra is a wonderful account of God bringing His people home.

Back in Deuteronomy when Moses was kind of dropping the people off in the Promised Land, he warned them that if they disobeyed, God would scatter them again.

And they disobeyed.

And they were scattered.

The northern kingdom was scattered by the Assyrians in 722 BC.

The Babylonians conquered the southern kingdom in 608 B.C. with Jerusalem finally being destroyed in 586. Some had thought that in being banished from their temple, their city, their land, they were being banished from the Lord, losing Him forever. But friend, that's not what the God of the Bible is like. And Ezra shows us that so clearly.

The book of Ezra has ten chapters. If you are able to open it and look at it, you can see those ten chapters. The first, really, it's in three parts. The first four chapters are a kind of prologue that Ezra writes about how God used the Persian kings to send some of the Jewish nation back to Jerusalem with provisions to rebuild the temple. Chapters 5 and 6 are about the completion of that rebuilding.

And the resumption of sacrifices there. That happened under the preaching of Haggai and Zechariah that we've been hearing about through Bobbi over these last few weeks.

And these chapters 1 to 6 are really the prologue for the Ezra part of the story. That comes in chapters 7 to 10. And the real point of Ezra is in chapters 9 and 10, the last two chapters that we'll get to next time. What we have now today in chapter 8 is a story of their journey back and of God's effort then to restore the teaching of His Law among the people.

Our last time in Ezra, back in March, we looked at Ezra chapter 7. Presuming you didn't memorize the message then, let me just remind you that Ezra was a Levite. He was serving the Persian emperor as a kind of undersecretary of Jewish affairs.

And in some ways, he must have seemed like an unlikely leader. He was serving the king, but he wasn't really a politician. He was a scribe. He was equipped to explain and apply God's Word to the people.

In that sense, Ezra was a prototype of a pastor. He would now lead a new wave of returnees to Jerusalem In 458 B.C., almost 60 years after the temple had been rebuilt, what he was going back for was to complete the restoration of God's worship among God's people.

In Ezra chapter 7, we considered the two cities of Babylon and Jerusalem, the two laws, man's law and God's law, and the two kings. The Persian emperor who called himself King of Kings, and the one God who really is the King of Kings. Chapter 7 directed us to put all our hope in God. Brothers and sisters, today we turn to chapter 8.

Here in verses 1 to 14 is the count of the family heads who returned from Babylon to Jerusalem with Ezra. Joined by the priests, joined by the Levites, the other temple workers there in verses 15 to 20, trusting God for their safety in a journey of over 900 miles. That's what's recounted there very briefly in verses 21 to 23.

And then verse 24 to the end, recount the offerings that they brought with them. That's Ezra chapter 8. I want you to notice four truths. Number one, first, the worship was restored. The worship was restored.

In this renewed Exodus where you've got 12 different families that are numbered there in those first 14 verses, they prepare to return to Jerusalem with Ezra, the Levite. But if you look at chapter 8, verse 15, we read, I gathered them to the river that runs to Ahava, and there we camped three days. As I reviewed the people and the priests, I found there none of the sons of Levi.

That was significant because Ezra's point in returning to the land was to return to the people the proper worship of God, the proper honoring of His law. Holiness was Ezra's concern, to restore proper worship according to the books of Moses. And to do that, Ezra needed Levites. He needed Levites to teach the people God's Law and to lead them in certain parts of the worship having to do with the temple and with the sacrifices. You look down at the end of the chapter, verse 35, we see that among the offerings they brought specifically was a sin offering.

Sin offerings were sacrifices that were brought in which the people were publicly acknowledging their disobedience to God. A ritual of confession that displayed costly, even the deadly effects of sin. God is the one against whom we've all sinned. God is the one who will finally speak the truth about us. While these sacrifices wouldn't cleanse them from sin, they would point to the one sacrifice that would, the one sacrifice that was coming.

And they would teach that atonement would come through blood being spilt. It was God who would cause His worship to be restored. It was His idea. It was His good hand that said again and again to be on Ezra. You look back in chapter 7 and verse 27, Ezra exclaimed, Blessed be the Lord, the God of our fathers, who put such a thing as this into the heart of the king.

This was God's idea. God wants our worship, not because He lacks anything, but because we are made in His image to depend upon Him. All of the worship in the Old Testament was designed to point the way to God as He was making a way back to Himself, to return to Him. Friends, that's what the Lord Jesus Christ came for. The Lord Jesus Christ is the true sacrifice.

If you're here and you're not a Christian, please don't miss this. All the sacrifices ever talked about in the Bible point to the one true sacrifice where the Son of God literally gave His own life as a sacrifice for the sins of all of us who would ever turn from our sins and trust in Him. God raised Him from the dead and He presented His sacrifice to His heavenly Father. Who accepted it. And He calls us all now to stop sinning, to stop relying on our own strength, and to turn and believe in Jesus, believe His message, trust Him for forgiveness and new life.

If you want to know more about what that means, you've got to be in one of the best parks in DC today. Talk to somebody afterwards. You can stand six feet from them and still hear the gospel. Tell them that you want to know more about what it would mean for you to trust in Christ. Or come find me up here afterwards.

I'll try to hang around this picnic table for a while. Come talk to me about what that would mean for you to become a Christian. Listen to Ezra's recounting of the temple priests who were returning with him and what they were to do here in chapter 8 beginning at verse 24. Then I set apart twelve of the leading priests: Sherobim, Hashabiah, and ten of their kinsmen with them. And I weighed out to them the silver and the gold and the vessels, the offering for the house of our God that the king and his counselors and his lords and all Israel their present had offered.

I weighed out into their hands 650 talents of silver and silver vessels worth 200 talents and 100 talents of gold. Twenty bowls of gold worth 1,000 daryks and two vessels of fine bright bronze as precious as gold. And I said to them, 'You are holy to the Lord, and the vessels are holy, and the silver and the gold are a free will offering to the Lord, the God of your fathers.' Guard them and keep them until you weigh them before the chief priests and the Levites and the heads of the fathers' houses in Israel at Jerusalem, within the chambers of the house of the Lord. So the priests and the Levites took over the weight of the silver and the gold and the vessels to bring them to Jerusalem, to the house of our God.

So priests with their silver, golden vessels, offerings coming into the house of the Lord in Jerusalem, all of these were part of God's worship being restored. For us today, We are waiting for our public worship to be restored. Most fundamentally, our public worship is ahead of us. It's in heaven. And we participate in it wherever we are, whether we're in a building, or in a pavilion, or in a field outside, regardless of our location.

It's what we're doing right now. When we're stopping our mouth and opening our ears and giving attention to God's Word. Personally, we are to be involved in God's worship every day of our lives as we present our bodies as living sacrifices, not to be killed in an earthly temple, but to be lived out in our homes and offices with each day that God gives us, even under the most challenging circumstances. Brothers and sisters, are you seeing opportunities God is giving you to worship Him, to obey Him each day of the week?

I know we want to be in our church building for our corporate times of worship, but we don't need to be there. Most of our worship has always been offered outside of our public meetings. And our Mondays and Tuesdays and Wednesdays lived as God's children for His glory as we love others in His name. God is intent on His people worshiping Him. So here in Ezra, he worked to see that their worship was restored.

But more than simply work with the temple sacrifices, the Levites were to make sure something else happened. They were to make sure that the Word was taught. The worship was to be restored. The Word was taught. The Word should be taught.

It's what we're doing right now. Who would bring God's Word to God's people? Well the man God had clearly prepared to do that was Ezra, the scribe. But he wouldn't do it alone. That's why there in verse 15, Ezra is wondering where all the Levites are.

The Levites had a ministry among God's people not only of assisting with the sacrifices and offerings in the temple in Jerusalem, but also in teaching God's Word more widely among the people. You can read over in Nehemiah chapter 8, verse 7, that the Levites helped the people understand the Law. If you look in the last verse of our chapter here in Ezra 8, Ezra refers to the fact that those who came with him aided the people. How did they aid the people? Friend, the main way they aided the people was by helping them understand God's Word.

When you read the book of Ezra, notice the power of God's Word.

In an earlier generation, opposition had stymied the rebuilding of the temple. When that happened, what got it started again? The emperor's letter back in chapter 6? No, that just allowed it. It was the preaching of God's Word from Haggai and Zechariah that met the opposition and defeated the discouragement of God's people, and got the temple rebuilding started again.

It's what we were hearing about last week from Zechariah, what we hope to hear about again next week. Don't underestimate the power of the Word of God. Or in chapter 9, when their sin is going to be exposed. Look how God's people are characterized, chapter 9:4, They are those who trembled at the words of the God of Israel.

Friend, are you wondering this morning how you can come to better know God's Word, how you can come to better know His truth, how you can keep on living? Turn to the Word of God. Read it. Hear it preached. Give yourself to hearing God in the Bible, even if it means you have to go stand in a field in November.

In order to do it. Kids, special word to you.

How have you been listening to the Word of God this week? I remember when I was a child, I loved what was called the funny papers. Those were all the cartoons in the newspaper. And on Sunday it would be its own special section, all in color. I loved the Saturday morning cartoons on TV.

I loved comic books. I loved reading. I stuffed a lot of Greek mythology and Aesop's fables and American history into my head. But little of God's Word. I wish that I had spent those early years Kids, when you are eight or ten or twelve years old, your mind is so active at quickly grasping material, you can't believe how slow you will get when you get to be older.

Children, now is the time when learning God's Word will cost you the least and will benefit you the most for the rest of your life. If you don't understand what I mean by that, ask your parents when you get home today over lunch. My non-Christian friends, if I could simply advise you some more, especially read the Gospels. I was talking to one young lady yesterday who grew up in a Jehovah's Witness home.

She believes in God. She's not a Christian. When I talked to her, I encouraged her specifically to study Jesus, study Jesus. More than Ezra, Jesus Christ is God's Word personified. In fact, He is the Word of God.

As John's Gospel says, In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The Word became flesh and lived for a while among us. And brothers and sisters, praise God, His Word is not confined to a building, is it? It's worth even inconveniences to have God's Word. We're enjoying God's pleasure even as we meet outside, as we see baptisms in the back of pickup trucks, hear testimonies like we heard Alina's over there last week.

Who knows what else one day? We'll hear that God has been doing with His Word during these unusual days. Praise God for how you guys have continued to assemble faithfully to hear His Word taught by the hundreds. So God sovereignly brought Ezra and the Levites through a lot more challenges than we've known to Jerusalem to teach His Word.

Even more than that, than the fact that these people were there to help. Notice number three, their way was protected. Their way was protected. God provided for His people. We read in chapter 8, verse 18, By the good hand of our God on us, they brought us a man of discretion.

God's hand was on them. Their worship was restored, the Word was taught, and their way was protected. Back up in chapter 7, in verse 6, we see the phrase, the hand of the Lord his God was on him. We know from Proverbs 21 that the king's heart is a stream of water in the hand of the Lord. He turns it wherever He will.

This is the same expression that David used of himself when he felt led to prepare the building of the first temple. This was the phrase used about Elisha when he prophesied, and Ezekiel too. So Ezra understood that God's hand was on him, that he was in this line of inspired teachers and leaders of God's people.

It's very interesting to me that God did not call Ezra to leave the people alone. He provided other people to go with Ezra. The heads of households, ministers of the house of God, servants, priests, and Levites. God provides for His people, doesn't He? He protects us.

He uses means to do it. It may be a lawyer, maybe a friend, maybe a doctor, a businessman. Here in our congregation, one of the chief ways that God has been protecting us is in giving us good elders, good under-shepherds who, like these heads of households in Ezra's day, lead the people. Brother elders, thank you for giving yourselves to lead this congregation in these more challenging than normal days. Thank you for being one of the chief means of God's protecting us.

Pray that God continue to raise up servants to bring us together. Pray that the four new deacons that we'll be praying for tonight in our prayer meeting will be blessed of God and used to that end. Pray for Austin and Andy and Chris and Albert. Pray that God encourage them in their service and us through them.

One of the more interesting parts of this chapter are the verses right in the middle where Ezra recalls whether to ask the king for protection on their trip back to Jerusalem. And as I turn to read Ezra 8:21-23, if somebody would please bring me a bottle of water, I once again have forgotten that I have to yell when I'm outdoors and I never have water up here. If somebody was to bring me a bottle of water, that'd be awesome. Look at Ezra 8:21, beginning verse 21. Then I proclaimed a fast there at the river Ahava, that we might humble ourselves before our God, to seek from Him a safe journey, thank you, for ourselves, our children, all our goods.

For I was ashamed to ask the king for a band of soldiers and horsemen to protect us against the enemy on our way, since we had told the king, 'The hand of our God is for good on all who seek Him, and the power of His wrath is against all who forsake Him. ' So we fasted and implored our God for this, and He listened to our entreaty.

Friend, God's sovereignty was being bent to protect His people.

I've had the joy the last couple of months of reading ten pages every morning of a new book of John Piper's called the Providence of God. It's going to be published next year. Desiring God has asked me to come up and do a video interview with John about his book. I said I couldn't do it if I hadn't read the book first, so they sent me a copy. They blessed me with 720 pages.

So because I'm not the fastest reader in the world, I thought, right, I'll do 10 pages a morning, then I can get it done in a couple of months.

It's a marvelous book. It recounts God's sovereignty. In talking to John about the book, I asked him if he considered, entitling it, the Sovereignty of God. And he said he wanted to show that God's sovereignty was being used for His people's good. So he called it the Providence of God.

Isn't that what we're seeing here in Ezra? God's sovereign power being bent and used for the good of His people. We read in verse 31, Then we departed from the river Ahava on the twelfth day of the first month to go to Jerusalem. The hand of our God was on us, and He delivered us from the hand of the enemy and from ambushes, by the way. Came to Jerusalem.

Brothers and sisters, how have we known God's good hand on us as a church? How have you seen it on you even in difficult days?

Let me urge you to acknowledge God's good hand. We're all free these days to complain about how hard things are. Are we as free and committed in our spirits to speak of God's good provisions, to share after the service today with someone, some way that God has been obviously providing for you for His praise.

We know that God is sovereign for us in His providence, His protection.

He protects His people. And of course, number four, God's promises were kept. God's promises were kept. What was God doing in His providential care for His people?

He was keeping His provinces. He was keeping His promises.

The Lord had said through Moses back in Deuteronomy 30, Well, in 29 He had said, Listen, if you all become idolatrous and you break your covenant with Me, I'll scatter you to the four winds of the earth. And you might think that'd be the end of it. But then in Deuteronomy 30:3 we read, Then the Lord your God will restore your fortunes and have mercy on you. And He will gather you again from all the peoples where the Lord your God has scattered you. Friends, Ezra is the story of God fulfilling that promise.

From Deuteronomy 30:3, He's bringing them home, as He said He would. The purpose of God calling His people was to bring out a people from the nations to be His very own, to reflect His character. He was preparing them ultimately for the coming of the Messiah. When you read through Ezra chapter 8, you notice that there are 12 heads of families, kind of like the 12 tribes of old in the Exodus. Or down in verse 35 we see that there are 12 bulls for all Israel, and as a sin offering 12 male goats.

Friends, all these twelves are meant to draw our attention to the fact that all of God's children are being provided for. His promises were failing to none of them because He is a faithful God. Brothers and sisters, are you aware of how faithful God is? In some ways, the whole of the Bible is laid out as evidence against Satan's insinuations to Adam and Eve about God. God has shown His goodness, His utter reliability, His dependability.

He is the very essence of faithfulness. Your life and the lives of those church members around you are all displays of that to yourself and to each other and to the world around you and to the watching world of unseen intelligences. Take a moment right now to consider how God has shown Himself faithful to you in this hard year.

Get a couple of things in mind, a couple of ways He's shown His faithfulness.

It's interesting when we read the accounts here in God's Word, we see that our sins Don't make God unfaithful to His own plans.

I've kind of wondered why no Levites turned up to help Ezra when the mission was announced. Why does he have to go notice there aren't any and go looking for them? I don't know the answer to that. But I do notice that in the end, God got them there. God got those Levites there to teach His Word.

Friends, our sins may call down God's judgment, but they will never make God unfaithful to what He's told us about Himself and His Word.

Our God is faithful. If He has promised, He will do something. He will. He always has, and He will never fail. This might be part of the promise in everything from the prayers in our lives that seem to go unanswered for a while, all the way to the long promises in the Bible for the Messiah's first coming that His people waited for for centuries, and now His promise of His return.

You see what God is doing. In all of these exercises, God is demonstrating His trustworthiness, even as He teaches us to trust Him again. We see His faithfulness supremely to us where? In the Bible. In the cross.

Where God provides what we most need and would be most impossible for us to give to ourselves. Here in Ezra, we see God's promises were kept.

At that time those who had come from captivity, the returned exiles, offered burnt offerings to the God of Israel. So friends, it's happened. The worship was restored. The Word was taught. Their way was protected.

God's promises were kept.

Now this world is not our home any more than this field is. Even our beloved old building on the corner of 6th and A Northeast is not our home. Brothers and sisters, it's vital that we keep our true end with God in view. When we turn to God's Word, like in this book of Ezra here, we see a reminder and reminders after reminders that God's people are a journeying people. We're on the move from exile to home.

We won't know till heaven all the reasons for this pandemic. But one of them may be that you and I stop seeing things that God never meant to be our permanent home as our permanent home. God in His mercy, lovingly but firmly, breaking idols so that we will see where our hearts are really meant to reside. If I could just speak a word for a moment to the older Christians among us. I know there are five or ten of you out there older than me.

I know you've been on this journey the longest. You may sometimes get tired and you may feel weak, but consider these words of counsel from the faithful pastor, Thomas Watson. He said, you, have but little time now to work for God, therefore work the harder. Be like the church of Thyatira, her last works were more than her first. Be as the sun that shines brightest before its setting, as the swan that sings sweetest before its death.

Your salvation is nearer than when you believed. How you should quicken your pace when you're within sight of the kingdom.

Some of you know that George Washington University was started by Baptists who wanted to take the gospel of Jesus Christ to Buddhists in Burma. They wanted an institution to prepare gospel ministers for such work. And it grew out of the desire to support one who had already let out in such work at NaraM Judson.

Very late in his life, Judson was writing to a friend who was asking about his work on a Burmese dictionary, wondered if he was going to survive to finish it. Judson answered him, I don't believe I'm going to die. I should like to complete the dictionary. Then after all the plans that we've formed, oh, I feel as if I were only just beginning to be prepared for usefulness. It's not because I shrink from death that I wish to live.

Neither is it because the ties that bind me here, though some of them are very sweet, bear any comparison with the drawings I at times feel towards heaven. But a few years would not be missed for my eternity of bliss, and I can well afford to spare them, both for your sake and the sake of the poor Burmans. I am not tired of my work, neither am I tired of the world. Yet when Christ calls me home, I shall go with the gladness of a boy bounding away from his school.

Brothers and sisters, that's the gladness that we know as we head home to our Father's house, even from the midst of an outdoor gathering in a field.

This world is not our home. Finally, even the family home that many of us won't be able to go to this Thursday, that's not our true home.

God is calling us to our true home. And these meetings we have to begin each week remind us afresh of our goal, our direction, and what God has set out to do. He will accomplish. He will bring us Home.

Let's pray.

Lord God, we thank youk for how you have been so kind and gracious to us in Christ. Thank youk for how youw have provided for us all that we need. Lord, we pray that yout would strengthen our faith in youn and youd promises. Pray that yout would help us to taste the future so that we can live today in a way that brings yous glory and blesses those around us. We ask in Jesus' name, Amen.