Well, man, listen, wherever you are today, I'm so glad you're with us. Welcome to Venture. If you're watching online this week and you happen to miss being in the room on Sunday, we're glad that you're with us and for all of our folks at every campus today, man, thanks for being in person today and being with us at worship.

And I want you to know there's, there's moments that are different from other moments, right? There's interactions that you have with people that just leave you shocked. Sometimes it leaves you shocked in a good way, right? You go, I didn't know this was gonna end this good. Like that deal, like when it worked, it really worked out well. Like, I loved meeting them. That was a good interaction. There's other interactions that leave you, not so shocked, but that just leave you disappointed. Like, oh, you know, I've heard a lot about that person. And then we finally met, and then you walk away going, eh, they weren't that impressive.

What about an interaction? What would it be like? And this is kind of the goal of all of us, that at some point we're living our life and we're doing our thing wherever we may be from whatever campus we attend, whatever stage of life we're in, and all of a sudden we have this interaction. But the interaction, instead of being with me or being with you, or being with someone, you know, there's an interaction with Jesus, and it's like your life was going and then something happened and you, you, you find yourself in an interaction with the spirit of God. Now, that's exactly what happened to Zacchaeus.

And so I want you to meet me in Luke 19. That's where we're gonna be today. So if you've got your Bible, you can, you can look that up if you've got the app, the venture app, you'll see all the notes in the scripture for today. But this was an interaction that left Zacchaeus shocked. And there's some things in this interaction, I think me and you can learn. And so let's read it together. Luke 19. We're gonna get, we're gonna get started right outta the gate today, starting in verse one. Here we go. Jesus entered Jericho and he was passing through the town. Now, a man was there by the name of Zacchaeus. He was a chief tax collector, and he was really wealthy. He wanted to see who Jesus was, but being a short man, he could not because of the crowd. So he ran ahead and he climbed up a sycamore tree. You've heard the story before, if you grew up in church, right? All my folks that grew up in church, you know a whole song about that little moment, um, since Jesus was coming that way.

Now, verse five. Now, when Jesus reached the spot, he looked up to him and he said, Zacchaeus, now hold on, hold your spot up. Zacchaeus had been called a lot of different things. Zacchaeus was the kind of guy that kinda started one way. His, the, his name means pure and righteous one. But like you and like me, there's a season in Zacchaeus, his life where he got off track. And now everybody had labeled Zacchaeus for being not pure and righteous. But I love this little moment because you and I wonder, how does Jesus see us? What does Jesus really think about us? And I want you to see what he thinks about Zacchaeus, because he calls him by his name. He doesn't call him the different labels that he's been labeled. He looks up in that tree and he sees this man, and he calls him for who he could be, not for who he was in that season of his life. And this is the same thing for you. He sees you for who you could be. He sees you for who he's designed you to be. And he calls you by your name, not your label.

Zeke has come down immediately, I'm gonna stay at your house today, quite the intro. So he came on down at once and he welcomed him gladly. Verse seven. Now, all the people saw this and they began to mutter. He's gone to be the guest of a sinner. Let's talk about mutter. Everybody got people that like to mutter, and it goes something like this, right? You come in, you introduce yourself, Hey, I'm Craig Curtis. And they go, oh, Curtis, they start to mutter a little bit. They go, well, where are you from, man? Oh, I'm from over here in Taylorsville. Oh gosh, I heard, oh, man, yeah, yeah, yeah, that's where I'm from. But where, where'd uh, man, where'd you go to school? Oh, I went to Harrisburg High. Oh, okay. Well, what, what church do you go to? Man? I go to venture. Oh, oh, oh, oh, mutter. I listen, I have no wisdom for you for this, except for people always go, mutter, that's it. Keep going. Thanks. That was deep.

But Zackiah stood up and he said to the Lord, look, Lord, here and now I give half of my possessions to the poor, and if I have cheated anybody out of anything, I'll pay back four times the amount. Jesus said to him today, salvation has come to your house because this man too is the son of Abraham, for the son of man came to seek and to save that which was lost.

Now, I wanna go back to that last verse, because this verse means a lot to our church. Let me, let me make sure you don't miss this. It says, for the son of man came to seek and to save that which was lost. And now, if you were here a couple weeks ago, I talked about our mission. And our mission is to bring people to come to know love and follow Jesus. That's important that you know that. But our vision, our vision comes from this text right here, because we have the same vision that Jesus had. Everybody muttering, everybody got something to say about Zacchaeus, everybody talking about everything. But Jesus had one thing in mind, and it was to seek and to save the lost. That's why our vision is that we're a church for the unchurched. It matches up exactly with the vision of Jesus.

Now here's why this matters, and here's why this is so important, because I know what it's like to be lost. And you know what it's like to be lost. You've been driving around town before and you've gotten lost, and you have a little bit of panic that gets up in you. You've been in a relationship before. If you've been married any amount of time, you have been lost at points. I dunno how to comfort. I talked to a man this week and, and his wife, they've been married for a long time. His wife just lost her dad. He was lost. I, I don't know how to care for her right now, but being lost is, is is something we have empathy for. It's not something that we frown on people for. It's something that we connect with because there's moments in time spiritually where I thought, where are you? God? And I've been lost in that emotion. That's why we as a church say we exist for those around us that are lost because we, we've been there. And it's important that you know that and that you're passionate about that because that's just who we are.

Now, there's three things in here. Here's the big idea for today. There's three things in this text that Jesus does to seek and to save the lost. Here's the very first one. This is what we wanna do. Jesus broke the boundaries. Golly, you've gotta love this. If you're not a rule follower, then you really love this. But I, Zacchaeus was not anybody that Zach, that Jesus should have been hanging out with. Zacchaeus was a traitor. Zacchaeus was a Jew that was working for the Roman government. Zacchaeus was corrupt. No rabbi in their right mind would've been hanging out with Zacchaeus. Yet Jesus is sharing a meal with him. Jesus is at his house. Jesus is with his people. Jesus didn't just make this kind of a minor moment where they met on the streets and he talked to him up in the tree. He said, no, no, no way more than that. I'm coming to your house. This isn't just that moment where, you know that one time that you got up from the cool table and you went over here to the not so cool table, and you kind of patted yourself on the back. Like, look at me. No, this is so much bigger than that. Th this guy's a traitor. Th this, this is, this is social suicide. This isn't to me, and you, this is kind of heartwarming, like this just kind of makes us feel good. But to the people in their culture, in their day, this was offensive.

But here's what happened. When I began to read that, I started, I tried to kinda internalize that and I started thinking, what would I do? And I've noticed that I shouldn't confess this to so many people, but I like to help people who can help me. I kinda had to check my motives a little bit. Like sometimes my motives can be mixed, not all bad. I mean, come on, like, I'll spend a little bit of time with you now. I'm not gonna give you my whole day or definitely not give you a full meal. Or if we did have a meal, I ain't going to pay for it. But I mean, my motives are mixed. Like I'll, I'll still come sit with you for a second. You know, some good, some bad motives. Uh, sometimes my motives are really just, honestly, they're selfish. Like, come on man. If you can hook me up with a ticket to a game, man, I'm gonna, I'm gonna hang out with you selfish. Uh, sometimes I have, and you do too, so don't judge me. Alternative motives where it's kinda like, man, my wife, what? I can't believe you emptied the dishwasher you cleaned for us. You helped in so many ways. Yeah, it's 'cause I, I was gonna see if I could go fishing and hunting and this, that, oh, wait, so you did, yeah. Have alternative motives.

Sometimes what I'm telling you is Jesus's motives weren't like that. And he was fully present and he broke all the boundaries. And he did what we would say was table fellowship. This is so crazy. Table meals. There, there are times they either bring you together or they push you apart. And in this culture table fellowship was a big deal. And every other rabbi used table fellowship as a way to bring people around that were like-minded. Jesus used it for the opposite. Instead of using a meal, is the time to push people out. You know, there was a whole time, there was a whole season in our country where only certain meals and restaurants were into certain peoples and groups and colors. There's still time today where you go to some restaurants that some classes of people aren't welcome. Jesus broke all the boundaries. He used this mealtime as a time to fellowship. This is so powerful.

One theologian even said this about Jesus. He said, Jesus got himself crucified by the way that he ate. And look, if you've got a, if you've got like a middle schooler or upper other Mary, you're like, was his manners that bad? No, it wasn't his manners and wasn't how he ate. It was who he ate with. It was the way that he saw those moments and how intentional he was. Zacchaeus, Zacchaeus, watch this. Zacchaeus was a renegade in the eyes of the Jews. This is what's so wild about Jesus. And I don't know how you see yourself, but look, yet he was a precious lost sinner in the eyes of Jesus. Man, I just, I love some of your stories because you, you, you connect to this. But, but what's really unique is it's not just you. It's not just you that were far from Christ that connects with this. It's, it's all of us. And Jesus paid for your sins and my sins.

I went to a disciple. Now maybe you did too. Growing up, we did these things called disciple nows. If you grew up in church and you went to a disciple, now then you know about D nows. And if you, I'm gonna tell you this, if you ever hosted a disciple, now you're like a saint. I mean, that just means you opened up your home for either ninth, 10th, 11th, or 12th grade or maybe even seventh grade boys, you're another level. You played all weekend. I mean, you, you ate chips and you ate drank cokes and uh, the boys' house played basketball all night. The girls' house gossiped all night. That's just what you did. And then finally, you would sit down for like a session. If you didn't, if you didn't grow up doing these, it's okay. But you, you, you'd sit down and you'd, you'd open up your Bible for a session and you would have a leader. Some of you have been leaders before, and the leader would ask the questions to try to draw you back in after a long night of all those things.

I remember one of my leaders, we were sitting down at a house, 10th grade boys, and he asked us this question. He said, oh, I want you to take this sheet of paper and here's a pen, and I want you to grade yourself one to 10 on where you are in your spiritual life. It's not a bad question, but it's a hard one to answer. And so I started kinda looking around a little bit like, what should I do right here? And how many times have I been in my Bible and did I pray today? And I don't wanna get myself too high of a number and then everybody else is gonna judge me. I don't wanna be at the bottom. And then everybody's gonna look at me weird. I'm just telling you, Zacchaeus was in the circle. He'd give himself like a negative three. If I was in the circle, I think I'd give myself about a four. But what I'm telling you is whether you're a negative three or whether you're a four, the ground at the foot of the cross is level. And that's a really powerful truth.

Yeah, we can celebrate that because it's about Jesus. What I'm telling you is this whole thing is about Jesus. Like Jesus is the one, whether you've been going and your life intersected with Jesus and you've been growing in your faith and you've picked up on some of these things we've been talking about, that's the way of Jesus. And you're practicing those ways and you would give yourself a three or four or a five, or whether you're brand new in this journey and your life is just intersected with Jesus, it's irrelevant. It's Jesus that brings us to a place where we're changed and we're saved. And we're coming to you today saying, man, I want you to recognize that Jesus dropped all the boundaries.

And the coolest thing about Jesus, watch this quote about Jesus, because Jesus doesn't care if you're a three or a negative three. Here's what he found interesting. Jesus found himself helping others take steps more than seeing how far the religious elite had stepped. Now, that is step on your toes a little bit speaking of stepping, because that's what Jesus cared about. He wasn't over there going, what number were you again? Oh, Zacchaeus was a negative three. Oh no, he was worried about Zacchaeus the negative three. Those were the ones that he wanted to spend time with. That's where his focus was. He says, I didn't come for those that were, well, I came for those that were sick. So I'm asking you today to maybe check your motives. And then I'm asking you like me to get rid of the boundaries, the negative threes, that there's no boundary there. It's Jesus that saved you and it's Jesus that will save them.

Now here's the second thing. I love this. Here's the second thing that Jesus did. Jesus practiced hospitality. Now, let me give you the verse for this, because we, we wanna be rooted in scripture here. Look at, look at where we get this. Now, when Jesus reached the spot, he looked up and he said to him, Zacchaeus, come down immediately. I must stay at your house today. Now, that's some, that's some weird hospitality. He said, I'm coming to your house today. Is that you think about when you think about hospitality, I'm just gonna tell you, I, I, me and Jesus are a liking that because you don't have to invite me to your party. I'm just gonna come. I say it's just a really good moment for me to read this and go. I connect with Jesus finally. Like if you out cooking crawfish at the, at the baseball game, I'm gonna show up. If you're gonna have a shrimp bowl to celebrate that 50th birthday party, I'm just gonna be there. Katie's not like that. You're gonna have to invite her. You're gonna have to text her. You, you're gonna have to be intentional with her. I, I'm more like Jesus, which I love that I just kinda show up.

But what I'm asking you to do is to, I need you to maybe rethink hospitality a little bit because when we think about hospitality, we think, oh, my house isn't big enough. I I got no parking. I I I'm not a cook, so I'm kind off the hospitality's. Not for me. I don't keep a house really clean. I I don't like to entertain. And I'm gonna tell you something, what we've done with hospitality, like Jesus used hospitality to welcome people into the kingdom of God. We have made hospitality about like entertaining people and we've put a weight to it. And I'm gonna tell you, I feel that weight sometimes. I mean, I really do. We've put pressure to it. And because of that, we've kind of backed off of this tool that Jesus gave us. But Jesus practiced hospitality not as a way of showing off his house or a way of showing off the way he could cook or ask a small flex about his extra income. Jesus practiced hospitality to bring people into the kingdom of God. And so I wanna help you kinda reframe that because, because I don't want you to miss what God can do through you learning how to be hospitable.

Now lemme give you an example because you need this because you're stuck a little bit in the pressure and the weight of it and the expectations of it. And this you've gotta entertain. Okay? That, here, here, here's hospitality. Uh, a couple of months back, I, I still remember this probably five, six months back. I like to run whenever I can. And so three, maybe even four times a week, I go on a run and I run about three, maybe four miles, all right? And, and so I'd, I'd come back up on about mile two, just finished mile two. And I was coming up a hill and I looked up the hill and, and I saw a lemonade stand. And I mean, I'm sweaty and nasty and I walked up to the, I don't have any money on me. And there was this just, just little girl, like I'm talking about upper elementary, 10, 11 max, 12 years old working the lemonade stand. And I, I said, I said, I'm so glad to see her because I needed a break and I was hot and, but I didn't have any money. And she saw me and she, she didn't care that I was sweaty and nasty. And she talked to me, she engaged me right there in her backyard. All she had was a table. It was just on my way. It was on my path that day. And I finally broke the news to her and I knew the conversation was gonna end. I said, Hey, I'm, I'm so sorry I don't have any money today. I'm just running. And she thought for a minute and she just, 'cause she just didn't wanna leave me empty headed. And then she goes, well, well hold on. This was months ago. I made this. Can I just give you this? I'm not making this up. And I was like, well, absolutely. I will run with this necklace and I will keep it until I can preach about it. And she gave me this necklace. There was no fancy chandelier. The menu that day was lemonade and homemade necklaces. But I remember exactly the way she made me feel. I mean, she saw me. She took this stranger that was running by her house and she made me feel like family.

Here's the definition. Hospitality, it's the practice of turning guests into neighbors and neighbors into family. That's what Jesus did. He saw hospitality as an opportunity to open up his life to another. And here's what's so powerful about this. Anybody can do it. I mean, I'm telling you, she may have been 12 years old. The only thing she had was a table and she expanded her table so that I might have a seat at it. That's what Jesus did. I, I want you to see this. This is a such a powerful passage. So Jesus saw meals as ministry, right? You got me. That's what he did with everyone was watch how he said Jesus came eating and drinking. And then it's in Luke, it says really simple. The son of man came here. This is some of you. You gotta love this about Jesus. You're like, I knew I liked Jesus. That's what he did all the time. Yeah. It's 15, 16 times in the New Testament. You see where Jesus was sharing a meal, meals provided a chance for him to be with someone, not just eat with someone. Do you see that?

Because here's what I know about you this week. Anybody gonna eat a meal this week? Oh, so you mean anybody got a chance to be in ministry this week? Yeah. Every one of you that's gonna eat a meal this week, you've got a chance to not just eat a meal with someone, but to serve someone, to see someone, to be fully present with someone, to lock eyes with them and make them feel like family, to be the one that takes the initiative to serve, to practice hospitality. That's what Jesus did, Zacchaeus the whole time. Zacchaeus, I love this about Jesus because this is how he sees you in me. Zacchaeus the whole time thought he was the one pursuing Jesus. Yet it was Jesus the whole time that was pursuing Zacchaeus. And that may be you today. You thought you were the one. I mean, I'm gonna go, I'll tell you today. Today I'm gonna tune in and watch. Well, the whole time Jesus has been putting this in place so that you would hear his word about how he sees you and how he thinks about you. Meals have power. The table is spiritual. Find a way this week to serve those around you.

Number three, here's the third thing Jesus did is Jesus saw interruptions as opportunities. Now you've heard that before and it, it's kind of easy to hear, but it's really hard to do. Here's the text. Okay, this is where this comes from dear children. Let us not love with words or speech, but with action. And in truth, this one convicts me. I I just think the reality is we wanna make it harder than it is to love people. We wanna think of just the right wording and just the right phrase. And we wanna be sure. Sure. We show up at just the right time. Where I think most of the time it's simply about answering the call, not screening it. I think it's about doing just what that little 12-year-old did. Just, just looking at the people that are in front of you and giving them whatever you have your time and your attention. And we wanna make it so much more complicated than that. But I think it may be simple, it may be as simple as sharing a meal. It may be as simple as making a call. It may be as simple as leaning into those interruptions.

I love it. A couple of gospels earlier in Mark five, there's this incredible story where this leader, this official, this synagogue ruler comes up to Jesus and he says, Hey, I need you to come save my little girl. She's 12 years old and she is dying. Anything you could do, Jesus. And they begin to make this journey. He's going to his house, he's going to his house on his way to the house. It's just like this moment in Luke on the way to the house to save this 12-year-old little girl. Nothing could be more important. Jesus is interrupted. The whole journey has stopped. And you know the story. It's by the woman that's been bleeding. You know how long she's been bleeding? 12 years. This was a female in that culture. This was a female that had been bleeding for 12 years. This was someone who was begging. This was someone who was the lowest of the lows. So he's on his way to see this 12-year-old little girl of an important family, yet he's interrupted by the lowest of the lows. And everything for him stopped for that interruption. And he met her right where she was in her suffering, in her discouragement. And he loved her. He healed her.

Same thing happens to Zacchaeus. Here he is back on the streets, he's going back through the streets. The streets are crowded. He's on his way somewhere, yet there's this crazy little man up in a tree yelling at him and he stops and he sees what you and I see sometimes ass an interruption. But for him, it wasn't that way. Love is an action. This is so powerful. If you'll practice this, love is an action that you take. It's a choice that you make. It's a lifestyle that you cultivate. Do you see that in the life of Jesus? That's the way of Jesus. He made this choice to love people. He, he took action. Lemme tell you something, that's something a lot of the church people haven't been great at. Like, we got it all up here, but it's like it just gets stopped. It's like the Coke machine that just, it just doesn't fall. And what I'm telling you is if we could be a church that allows that to fall into our hearts, and then it goes from our hearts to our hands and our feet, and we begin to be the hands and feet of Jesus, then we'll make choices and we'll make lifestyle action where we love people.

So here's what I'm gonna do. I I gotta give you some steps because so far we've been up here. I wanna give you a couple of things, just two things and then we'll be finished. But here's the first thing I want you to do this week, I want you to become an example of the community that you long to see. I mean, come on, think about that. Like, if, if, if you go, and this is so powerful to think about this audience. Like if you were to go back to your classroom or your school, I mean, if you were to go back to your environment, your restaurant, and you decided that you wanted that car dealership to be more of a loving dealership, if you wanted that classroom to be that way, if you were to take action this week. So like if you mean, you mean to tell me if you want to be a more loving family, like if you wanted this to describe your family, moms, dads, then you've gotta make some choices this week to begin to model this to your children. If, if you were gonna make this your school, like if you wanted your school to be defined as a place that man that, that they just love these kids, so well, it's the strangest thing I've ever seen your office. I mean, lemme tell you something. We have people that, we have about 50, 60 people that work at venture. We want this not to just be a great place to go to church. Will this be a great place to work? So we've gotta make this choice too, as employees here, if you wanna be a more loving church, like if you want people to experience a church where they walk in and it just does something to them, it's not gonna be by the preaching. I mean, no matter how good the food is at to Bellas, it's the service that wins you. No matter what we offer up here, it's you. It's you that makes the difference. Then we gotta be more loving. You gotta commit to living it out this week. Let this be the week that you take a step in this.

Here's the verse, here's where we get this, okay? This is, this is so simple. And now these three things remain faith, hope, and love. He says, but the greatest of these, uh, the one that's bigger, that's better than all of these things, even faith and hope. He says, well, it's love. Here's a real simple definition for love, okay? You need this. Love is choosing to unselfishly serve others. That's the whole thing. Love has got so many janked up meanings in our culture today. This is all love is, it's a choice. It's choosing to do what to see and to put other needs above your own love. This is so powerful. Love. Last, I still remember the way she made me feel on a sweaty, nasty run sitting around a table. She gave me the one thing that she had and it made an impression on me. It lasts.

Now here's what this means by way of the text. He says, listen, your faith is so important because it's your faith, right? That moves you into this relationship with Christ is so important. But faith, when you're in heaven, right? Your faith has gotten you there. So faith at that point in eternity, man, it's kind of done. It's it's done. Its thing hope. Man. We're so hopeful, right? We don't mourn like those who mourn. We're hopeful of a different day. We're hopeful to one day be in heaven, but we're in heaven, right? Our hope has been accomplished. The one thing that lasts longer than faith and hope is love. One day in eternity, love still lasts. That's why he says, that's the foundation of what I want you to be known for is the people that love each other so well, because love last.

Here's the second thing, and this is the last thing. Number two, the last thing I want you to do this week is just take a step towards what God has for you. Just one, one little step. Here's the text. This is exactly what Zacchaeus did. So he ran ahead and I, he didn't take a step. He ran, if you wanna run, come on, altars open. He ran and he actually did more than that. He climbed up a sca mortuary to see him. Since Jesus was simply coming that way, one decision that changed everything in Zacchaeus life, in that moment, on that day, he chose to take a step towards Jesus. I'm just begging you that that's the action of this message is no matter what the label has been in your life, no matter what the muttering has been, and I'm gonna tell you something, it took a lot for Zacchaeus to make that decision because everybody had something to say about the wee little man that was up in that tree. Everybody was hating. Everybody was muting, but despite all of the noise, and there's a lot of noise in your life, and so this isn't an easy step. This takes overcoming what people are gonna say because they're gonna say, Hey, I thought he took that step a time or two or before. I wonder if it's real this time. I can't believe he's stepping down there. I've been praying he would do that. He really needs that step. No, the the ground through the cross is level guys. It's not negative threes and three or fours, but I'm asking you today to be the one that just says, Hey, I'm, I'm gonna take a step. I'm, I'm gonna lean in. I'm gonna, I'm gonna go above the muttering.

Here's, here's, here's your courage to give you courage. A seeking savior. The seeking savior will always find a sinner looking for a new beginning. You're going, you think Jesus will meet me down there if I do that mean you think if I really took a step towards him, he'd give me grace. Well, a seeking savior, which is the one that was after ikea's always, he always sees you. He's looking for you to give you just that, a new beginning.

I wanna do, I been thinking about how to end today's message, and I think the best thing for us to do is I want us to take communion together as a church. And so I don't know if you've done this this way at the different campuses, this is kinda the way we've done it at Lincoln Road, but in just a second when we sing, I'm gonna ask you to go to one of the different stations, and there's lots of stations all through each room, each campus. And I want you to go grab a, a packet, all right? And these are the elements. It's real simple. This is, this is just juice that represents Jesus' blood. And this is bread that represents Jesus's life. And the way that we practice communion adventures. We say we have an open communion practice. You don't have to be a partner here, you don't have to be a Baptist. We just assume you not be You. Sorry, that was a Baptist joke and tense moment. You just have to be a follower of the way of Jesus. Communion is celebrating what we have in common. If that's something we have in common, then take communion with us. If, if you're not there yet, that's okay. So we're so glad you're with us. But communion's not for you if this isn't something we have in common. But for all those who've put our faith in Christ, you can't love people until you have received love. You can't leave here today and continue to serve and encourage your family if your heart's not full of love from Jesus first. So that's where we're gonna start today.

So in just a minute, when I pray, I'm gonna ask you to go to those stations, to grab the elements, bring them back to your chair and just hold 'em there. We're gonna worship together, we're gonna prepare our hearts, and then your campus pastor's gonna come out and he's gonna lead you in communion together, something we're gonna do together this time. But as we worship, and as you make your way in just a second, know that all of this message, all of this wording, all of this, take a step thing. The only way it works is for you to first receive the love of Jesus. If you haven't yet, may this be your very first day to take communion. Join us, receive his love so that you can give his love.

Let's pray together. God, I thank you. I thank you that you love us in such a powerful way that Father, you're seeking us out the whole time. We, we think we're the ones coming after you. And we showed up today and we dialed in today and we downloaded this message and we think maybe this was us, but no, it wasn't. It was you, you, you gave us your word and you, you had this whole moment with Ikea. So that one day when, when we're not living as maybe you designed us to live, and we couldn't say we're pure and innocent. And we would say that we're really more characterized by the labels and the distance from God, just like Zacchaeus, that God you never give up on us and that you're still pursuing us. So God, give us what we need to be able to create a culture of love. God give us what we need, the courage to step away from the muttering and step towards you and to receive you today. So God, we love you and we thank you, and it's in your name we pray. Amen.