 Welcome Radiant Church. So good to have you with us this weekend. I wanna just welcome those of our network churches that are joining us this weekend. I wanna give a shout out to Pastor Jeremy Brown and Anna Brown at Radiant and Arbor. We love you guys. Pastor Mike and Jenny Popenhagen at Radiant Church Jackson. Welcome, Pastor Jerry and Rachel Ties up in Luddington or the Coast Radiant Church. We love you guys as well as Colin Johnson and the Church Self-Bend. Welcome. We have also Pastor Sam Vanderklok and his crew up there in Allendale at Life West Church. And last but not least, Pastor Jeff Hackert at Radiant Church, Brandenburg, Kentucky. Welcome to you guys. We love you. Thank you so much for joining us this weekend at Radiant Church. And this is a really unique weekend, a very significant weekend because the topic we're going to be talking about is actually, I believe, the topic, the conversation that is taking place right now in a very unique way in our nation as a whole. We're gonna be talking about the Bible, the church and race, issues of race. What does God, what does the church have to do with the conversation that is taking place right now all across our country? And I have invited my dear friend as well as my fellow pastor in Kalamazoo, Pastor James Harris from Trenches Community Church to be with us. Pastor James has been a pastor and a leader in the city of Kalamazoo way before I got here. I got here almost 24 years ago and I remember meeting you for the very first time at an event at the Radisson and you've been leading and also have become a great friend and appreciate you joining me. Thank you so much for being here today. Thank you for having me. Yeah, it's an honor to have you here. James, what I would like to do is take a moment and just kind of set the stage because when I was thinking about this weekend and continuing on in our series that we've been teaching, it just felt inappropriate. It felt inappropriate because you don't wanna be talking about one thing in the middle of a room full of people that are in the middle of a conversation about something else. And there are times I feel like it's important to stick to what you have and just say, this is what the Lord is saying, regardless, you don't want the winds of culture to always be dictating what we're preaching on. But yeah, this is a really pivotal moment in I think the nation, in our culture and even in the church. And so I wanna just thank you for saying yes, coming here and being part of this conversation with me. I don't want it to be a monologue. So I'm gonna try and get you in here. But what I wanna do real quickly is just set the stage because I think as everybody knows over the last, let's just call it month or more of our last period of time in even two and a half months, we've had COVID-19 that was a global pandemic. And then we had several incidences that have ignited protests and riots and unrest and calls for justice across our nation, even 150 cities of our nation. One had to do with the murder of Ahmad Albury and the other with George Floyd. And then there was also a situation in Central Park where all of these things have been caught on these. Right, yeah. And part of what you and I talked about earlier this week was if we were living 20 years ago before we had smartphone devices and everybody had a video camera, I wonder whether we would even know about these circumstances in these situations. And yet here we are in a day of social media where nothing is hidden and we can't ignore these injustices any longer because we see them and we're confronted with them and what we're gonna do with it. And it feels like right now, I don't know about you, but in growing up, we would have family conversations where everybody gets pulled into the living room and everybody in the family responds differently. You've got dads being strict and he's giving this is what's gonna happen. You got one person in the family who's indifferent, not listening, one person who's upset and crying, one person who's angry and mad and ready to fight and then you've got peacemaker, typically mom in the room trying to make peace. And it feels a little bit like right now in our nation, we're all talking about the same thing. We're all together in this, but there are a lot of different responses and a lot of different reactions. What I would love for you to do is would you just kind of share from your perspective when these incidences, specifically the murder of these two innocent men took place as a black man and also as a pastor and a brother in Christ, what was your reaction and what were the emotions that you began to feel as this came on the scene? Well, first of all, thanks again for having me. And I remember waking up twice as it relates to Amar Arbery's murder and then also George Floyd's murder. And I don't know, these two kind of hit me like a ton of bricks. I just really felt like, wow, we're still here. And we know that situations like this has been occurring for centuries, but we're still here. And specifically, as I saw George Floyd's incident, I was just like, man, we've fallen so much as a human race that we do not value human life. And even in the midst of that, as it relates to being an African-American, that could have been me, that could have been my son. And it just, it broke my heart. It really did. And anger did rise up. Frustration, the pain, the grief of it is, it just seems like, I mean, it's true, African-Americans are, we're not treated well in this country at times. And it's not everyone, but we're not treated well. And it's been a number of posts like we're tired. You get that like, man, I'm tired. So it was a lot of emotions going on during that time. And primarily just hurt, just wounded, just, it's unfortunate. It's unfortunate. Yeah, and it's unfortunate that it continues to happen. Obviously, there are so many different angles that are speaking about this and into it, just like that conversation in a living room. Some people are angry and we see that. We see that blowing up across our nation. I mean, it just triggered a reaction this time that I think it hasn't in the past, at least in a very long time. But there's some anger and there's a lot of frustration out there. But then you've got the other side of it where it's, in some ways, what I have been shocked by as a pastor and as a white man who's living in America is the level of emotional unintelligence that some people have in that they don't know how to demonstrate empathy and compassion for number one individuals. But then my first reaction was frustration because it keeps happening, but a different level of frustration because even as a pastor I'm frustrated that people don't know how to talk about it. And a lot of times there are people who are in the room when these types of things who are happening who want to justify it, who want to explain it away, who have one perspective of how they evaluate what took place if it is a black individual versus if it is a white individual. And for me, I don't see the impact of racism or of systemic racism that is in our culture. And by the way, if you're wondering is there such a thing as systemic racism, it's beyond dispute because as I've been educating myself and you begin to look at just the statistics of it, I'm not saying every person in America is racism. I'm saying most everybody is. I'm just saying but the reality that the system is set up in favor of white people is it's beyond dispute. And as I begin to see that, one of the things that I experienced was frustration but a different kind of frustration because I'm frustrated because people can't see this is a moment where especially as believers the Bible says to mourn with those who mourn and to grieve with those who grieve. And when one part of the body is hurting, the whole part of the body is hurting. So when my African-American brothers and sisters in that community is hurting, I don't feel it the same way if I'm the foot when the hand is hurt, but yet I see the effect of it and we're all in this together. I'm supposed to empathize and that's the frustration that I have felt. Yeah, I mentioned this before Lee is, you can't empathize or sympathize with people unless you are in proximity with people. And when you talk about the body of Christ, we really have to see ourselves as a family and we have to learn to lean into one another. And that sympathy piece really reminds me of the parable of the Good Samaritan. That individual was hurt, was wounded, was left for half dead, the Bible says, was left for half dead, in that scripture all the church people walked by him, the Levites and the priests just walked by him and just ignored it, went on the other side and ignored it, but the Samaritan went and cared for that individual, leaned into that individual and helped that individual to recover. And we really do, it makes me wonder sometimes and even with myself, do I have the compassion of God? Do I have the compassion of God just for humanity, right? Do I have that? So I think that what needs to take place is that we need to move from these type of perimeter tight relationships where we do events together, we do church together and things like that and move to proximity because then you can have empathy, you can feel a person and the division has been just so wide that we're not filling one another. We have to get back to really filling one another and being amongst one another and actually loving one another. And not just in the church, but even in the world, loving people who don't know Christ, loving the worst of the worst, loving our enemies, we have to become like Jesus Christ. Yeah, that proximity thing, it's easy to objectify somebody that you don't know but when you see them and you look them in the eye and realize that they have a life and they have dreams and they have feelings and they've got a, it's harder to hate somebody that you're in proximity to or to be indifferent, let's just use that because I think the, and that's Luke 10, that Good Samaritan parable is all about indifference. You know, the Levi and the priest, when they see the man on the road, he's beaten and left for dead, it says that they went to the other side. In other words, they were indifferent. They didn't add to his injury, but they just were indifferent about his injury. Yes, and I like that, you know, because I think I said this morning at prayer, is ethnic reconciliation or dealing with injustice issues is dirty business. It's messy, you know? And as believers at times, we don't wanna get messy. Yeah, it's messy. We don't wanna be inconvenienced. We don't wanna be pulled out of our comfort zone. You know, so I think the Levi and the priest, they just really didn't wanna get messy and dirty, you know, because there was a problem right there, but we're called to solve problems. We're called to care for people. We talked about this this morning. We're anointed for it. We're graced. We're graced for it. You know, another thing that I was thinking about is, you know, because we're doing this teaching at trenches, you know, about, you know, how do we get here that we've devalued human life so much? And God was just showing us the first murder in the Bible. Cain, yeah, Cain. That was the first murder in the Bible. And the way that I look at that lead is, Cain, he brought God some fruit. He didn't bring God the first fruit. Right. He brought some fruit. Abel brought God the firstborn of the flock. So he brought God the first, right? And we know what first, that's the offering, that's the sacrifice. So the thing that I saw in there is that Cain possibly could have had this irreverence for God the same way that the priests developed that irreverence for God in Malachi, okay? He could have gained an irreverence to God, thus a disrespect for his own brother. You know, so I think our nation needs to turn back to having a reverence for God, and then I can't help but have a respect for you. That was what God asked Cain, he says, where is your brother? Right. Where is your brother? And that's a stewardship piece. Yeah. That's a stewardship piece, because that same piece, where's your brother? Because Cain asked God, am I my brother's keeper? Right, it's the same as the scribe that came to Jesus that sparked that teaching. He said, who is my neighbor? Right. It's the same type of attitude. It's the same type of attitude. Am I my brother's keeper? And then in Genesis 2.15, I believe it is, where God told them to care for the garden, all right? Those are synonymous. So not only did God create us to care for the world and care for the garden, He has instructed us to care for one another. I'm responsible for you. I'm responsible for developing and encouraging and lifting you up and praying for you. I'm responsible for that. And at times, I think that we feel that we're not, okay, those people over there, we're not responsible for those people. Yes, you are, all right? You're called because we're a family. We're a family, we are the human race. I think that is so important that we understand that our responsibility is to, it's to one another. Even as pastors, we have people that have been entrusted into our care as under shepherds, but all of us are called to be shepherds of one another's hearts. It's not just the pastors on the platform. And part of the reason why we all need to be having this conversation and really examining ourselves, because what we're not doing and what we don't need to do is accuse each other and attack one another. We need to come into proximity to one another. We need to have sometimes some awkward conversations with each other and with ourselves. Because as a pastor, I feel that responsibility. I mean, the majority of my congregation is, you know, it's white, it's like me, but I have African American people that God has entrusted to me to be their pastor. I have people that are Mexican and Puerto Rican that are entrusted to me as their pastor. But all of us, it's not just the pastor to the parishioners, it's the body, it's each other. We cannot say, first Corinthians 12, we cannot say that one part of the body can't say to the other part of the body, I don't need you. We need each other. Yeah, most definitely. You know, I'm thinking, you know, I think about Acts chapter 10, man. You know, and as you read that, it's amazing that how the angel of the Lord showed up to a Gentile. And the Gentile got it. Cornelius was like, okay, you need to go to Joppa where Peter is, right? He got it. It took the Jew three encounters with God. Right. Three encounters with God. Takes me more than that. Right. The church, it takes us to have three and four and five and six encounters. I need three dreams and angelic visitation. We need all of that. And in the midst of that, in the midst of that, Peter was not so Lord, right? Not so and Lord doesn't go together. If he's Lord, you can't say not so. Right. Right. And I think we have to get to that place where God is kind of telling us, you need to cross over and develop these relationships. Do it with courage. Be inconvenient. Be uncomfortable, right? Because in the midst of it is revival. In the midst of it is revival. So we have to take this shift because this thing is not, this thing is not about Lee, just me and you having a relationship, okay? It's way beyond that. It's about that the world will believe, all right, that the Father has sent the Son, okay? To glorify the Father. Can I say this? I don't wanna talk too much. Man, all of us probably have a membership at Costco's. Right? I got the premium membership. We do too. I love going to Costco's. When you go to Costco's on West Main, and probably, I mean on Drake Road, and probably all the Costco's are like this, when you first go in, what do they have to the left? They have the TV screens. And you see these beautiful images coming from these screens. I mean these very colorful birds and mountains and things like that. And you know what makes that happen? The pixels, all right? The millions of pixels that's in that particular screen or digital image. The body of Christ, brother, is like when we do this thing right and we're one, we're like those pixels, all right? And each pixel causes the pitch of Christ to be more brighter, more clearer, more profound, right? So that he's put on full display, full display, and the light is shining brightly. And this is why we have to step into injustice together. So that God can be seen and put on full display for our world. We're the light and we need to lead it. The church has to, I believe the church has to lead the way and we have not done a good job at that. We have not. We have not done, and I think part of the reason our nation is where it is at right now with rioting and frustration and violence and even bringing us to the point of this massive protest of the injustices that are taking place is a result to some degree of us, the church, not being the prophetic forerunner and the voice for what God. Listen, if the middle wall of partition, racism and race divisions is nothing new to the church. It's been there since the very beginning. It's just, it manifests itself in different ways. Here we are in America and we are living in the residue of years and years of slavery and systemic racism that's built into the system. And we've come a long ways as a culture, but yet the church hasn't really come a long ways. And we kind of get there, we get frustrated, and we don't know what to do with it, but we have an opportunity to actually be the prophetic out in front forerunner to say Jesus in the cross, the gospel of Jesus Christ is what unifies us. And we can actually demonstrate, like you said, a city set on a hill. We can demonstrate to the world what real reconciliation looks like. Yeah, yeah. Man, you hit no stuff. Come on, go ahead, go ahead. Most of you guys know Nate Roops, right? Well, most of it. Nate took me to, Nate took me to a University of Michigan football game. I'm sorry. Yes. I'm sorry. We're divided over there. Thanks, Nate, if you listen to it. He took me to a University of Michigan football and I had always wanted to go to the big house, right, because I came from the Detroit area. And when we got there, I think they were playing Maryland or someone like that, but I was just at awe about being in the stadium, and we were up there, and all the seats are good, good seats. But there were like three or four seats to the left of us and they had cushion, you know, on the seats. And we were just like, well, ain't nobody here, so we gonna sit in them. You know, and we was having a good time, you know, enjoying the football game, you know, but all of a sudden two individuals came up the aisle and they were walking up and they had these tickets in their hand and they were like, these are our seats. They had the ticket in their hand and they said, these are our seats. And we had to move because they had the ticket to those seats. Bruh, what am I trying to say? We had the ticket to take our rightful place in the spirit, right? Because Jesus Christ has given the ticket and we cannot allow the world to disciple where we should be disciple. We cannot allow the world, right, to take their place on this issue because we know how to bring biblical justice and righteousness to the world. So we really do have to take our rightful place and speak up and do what God has instructed us to do courageously. We can't do it the world's way. We have to do it God's way. You know, I was just reading this afternoon where Jesus warned the disciples, beware of the leaven of Herod and the leaven of the Pharisees and the Sadducees. And leaven is a picture of sinful influence. And Jesus told the disciples, be careful. One is a political spirit and the other is a religious spirit. You know, Pharisees and Sadducees, that's a religious. He said, beware of that influence but beware of the political influence. And what is concerning to me is I'm seeing people attach this whole issue to political disputes. And that's never gonna bring about a solution. It's only gonna bring greater division but the unity is found in what Jesus has done for us because he's broken down the middle wall of partition. We have to find a new way, a third way. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I think that you are alluding to that Ephesians. I think it's chocolate too. Ephesians too, yeah. You know, and when you look at that, okay, Jesus has broken down the wall of separation and he's abolished the hostility. The hostility, yeah. That was between the Jews and the Gentiles, all right? So my version of that is that Jesus was an abolitionist. Yes. Okay, Jesus was that. But when you look at that, you have the blood, it talks about the blood and then you have the cross. All right, the blood and the cross and wherever you have the blood, all right, and a sacrifice, that's holy ground. Right. That's what, and this ethnic reconciliation, this justice piece is holy ground and we can't bring our mess into it. And if we bring our mess into it, we have to allow him to cleanse us from our mess. So this is God's heart. This is God's heart, justice. And I'm growing in this area, Lee. Justice is the heart of God. People grieving is the heart of God. We talked about this earlier. Jesus was anointed, all right, and filled with the Holy Spirit, all right, to do ministry in the area of oppression, poverty, people who were blind. Okay, that's what he was anointed for. So I think that we need to reevaluate what our anointing and the Holy Spirit is for. And it's not just for us to have church services. It's to go out there and bring healing to the world. Yeah, and we have to speak up for those who don't have a voice. It's that Proverbs was the 31. I love that. We have to speak up for those who don't have a voice. And you said you're growing in it. I mean, I'm in kindergarten on this issue, but I feel like it's not secondary to the gospel to me. And I'm being convicted of that. I mean, seriously, just me. I'm not talking about anybody else, but me as a pastor and as a man of God, I'm being convicted that this is not a secondary issue. Cause I've had people say, well, why don't you just stick to the gospel? Just preach the gospel. Listen, I cannot preach the gospel and not touch on issues that the gospel is the only answer to. You know, it's that Romans 1 16 where it says, I am not ashamed of the gospel of Jesus Christ for it is the power of God, the power of God unto salvation for the Jew first and then the gentile. It was racial from the beginning. And God is calling us. He's calling us going back to that Good Samaritan thing to move beyond indifference. And you know what? For me, if I'm just being honest, it's easier for me and anybody who's white in our society. Listen, I love white people. We're all white. And it comes with a lot of privilege and a lot of blessing. It's wonderful. So this is not guilting and shaming us for being white where we are who we are and God made us beautifully and wonderfully just like he made African-Americans and black and brown and everything else to be beautiful and to celebrate that diversity. But it's a lot easier for me to be indifferent because I can live over here and I can live a good life. But those who are the oppressed who have no voice, whether it's direct or indirect, they need those who have the platform and those who are walking by and see them to actually do something and not being different about it. That's what I'm being convinced of. Most definitely. I mean, all of us have heard the terminology white privilege, right? The Israel was privileged. Yeah. They were the nation that God was speaking through and to. And God told Abraham, I'm gonna bless you and I need you to be a blessing. So we're supposed to take our privilege and be a blessing. Yeah. All right? Not hoard our privilege, but be a blessing. And it reminds me of how when Peter went to the Gentiles house, okay? The Gentile fell down, Cornelius fell down in his feet. And Peter stretched out his hand and he said, get up. I am a man just like you. And right away, Peter realized we're equal. Right. Don't, I'm not superior and you're inferior. Cause I've had an encounter with God. Okay. And God shows no partiality, right? And this is where I think that, speaking of encounters, see this thing cannot be passed on and for us to give people information. Yeah. It'll never, information will never work alone. We got to move from information to revelation where God hits your heart dearly. Yeah. And it transforms you to do something or to be just like Christ. Because he was the example of, okay, disciples. I'm gonna show you guys what I'm talking about. I'm gonna sit with sinners. Okay. I'm gonna minister to the Gentiles. I'm gonna minister to people who are not a part of the nation of Israel. I'm gonna show you this. And then he leaves them Lee and he tells them to go and make disciples of all nations. All nations. All ethnicities. So you're gonna be crossing, you know, ethnic barriers and people are not gonna be like you. They're not gonna sound like you. They're not gonna eat the same thing. They're not gonna love the same music and so forth. And it's almost like Jesus set it up where immediately you was gonna have friction, all right, with another person of another ethnicity and you're gonna have to love them. You're gonna have to love them. Love's the only solution to this. Yes. I wanna read this because to me it can be so complicated, all of this stuff. You look, if you watch the news too much, it'll taint your soul. You'll get the world's perspective. Honestly, if I can just be transparent as I have watched the news and heard and scanned through social media, I have felt my spirit just almost get overwhelmed. And I felt like the Lord just brought me back to First John. And so I just wanna read this because I want this to be food for all of us. First John 4.18 says, there is no fear in love. Oh yeah. But perfect love casts out fear. For fear has to do with punishment and whoever fears has not been perfected in love. We love because he first loved us. If anyone says I love God and hates his brother, he's a liar. For he who does not love his brother whom he has seen cannot love God whom he has not seen. And this commandment we have from him, whoever loves God must also love him. And here's what God showed me about that. That hate doesn't always look like murder on the streets. Like putting your knee on a man's neck while he's begging for his life for eight and a half minutes. We look at that and it's to me, it's hate personified. I've had people say, well, you don't know what was in his heart. Yeah, I do because I'm seeing his actions. When that man was laying there and people are begging for him to take his knee off. And for me to see a young black man running down the street being pursued by a pickup truck and then shot three times because he's in the wrong neighborhood is hate personified. But when I read this, what this tells me is that hate doesn't always look like that. Hate can be in difference because I can see somebody and not care. I can see somebody and just choose not to care or to defend myself, justify myself. Instead of when I see you, James, I see the image of God just like you said the pixels. It's like, you are an image bearer of God. And for me, I have to love that. I have to honor that. I have to honor the image of God in you. And this is for me, this is the simplicity of it. This is what it comes back to. It comes back to love is stronger than hate. Yeah, yeah. What would you, we just got a couple of minutes left, but I want to put a practical, okay, I want to shift gears into it. Okay, so you've been helping me. We've been dialoguing and not just about church stuff, but we're becoming, we're just talking about that proximity piece, but what are some practical things that you believe that for a Christian who's out there who's saying, look, this is all new territory for me. What are some practical things that we can do to stand for justice, but to also grow in this arena to better represent the kingdom of God in this type of an equation? What are some practical things? Yeah, I would say allow God to assess your heart. And what I mean by that is, and I've shared this at one of the workshops here at Arise Shine is, you have to evaluate, okay, if we have a bag full of rocks here and these are white rocks, and then you have a bag full of rocks that are, have many colors in them, okay. You have to think about like, if I have these two bags, and I think about, man, do I have any African-American friends? And the reason why I'm saying African-American because that's where the tension is. Do I have any African-American friends that I hang out with on a consistent basis? And if so, then maybe I can take something out of that bag of colored rocks and then put it in my white rock bag. But if I don't, then that rock is gonna stand in the bag. Do I read any books, all right, from African-Americans? Do I study that, right? And if so, then I take a rock from out of that color bag and then I put it in that white rock bag. But if I don't, then my bag will stay white. So what I'm trying to say is we have to assess ourselves to see if we're actually really living in proximity, and kind of pull it from there. So I think it's reading is not allowing your tradition to supersede truth, all right. And it's walking across the room. It's walking across the room. And it's just several other things, but I would really encourage to read books, to lean into movies, to develop friendships, right. To talk to your kids about it, all right. Have conversation with your kids. Those are some of the practical things that you can do. I'm reading, I'm just finishing up a great book. I wanna highly recommend to all of Radiant and it's called The Third Option. It's written by Miles McPherson. I have that book. You have that book? Yeah, that's the book. I'm just finishing it. And what I wanna say is this is if the only perspective you are getting about this issue is off social media, then you're not taking it seriously enough. This is a serious enough issue that we need to turn the TV off and read a book, have a conversation, listen to a podcast, pursue knowledge, become educated. Don't let somebody else disciple you based on their yoke. Study the word, go to the word about it, let the Holy Spirit examine your hearts but then educate yourself as well. Do you wanna say something? I think that we're almost finished here. I just wanna say this. When George Floyd's murder took place, I really want to talk to white America right now, right. I'm human, man. I'm human and see me. That's what African Americans are crying out for. See us, we're here, celebrate us, we are a part of this country. We help build this country. See us, we're human beings. And beyond, don't say, don't say, all right, that I'm colorblind. Because if you say that I'm colorblind, then you're saying that you don't see me. You have to see, you gotta see my color, you gotta see what I'm about. You gotta see my culture and so forth. And Lee, you hit on this. Man, the African American community is a beautiful community. White America is a beautiful community. And God created us in his beauty. When he created the human race initially, when he created human beings at the end, he said, this is very good. So us as humans, we bring God great pleasure. African Americans bring God great pleasure. And white America, looking at African Americans, that should bring you some pleasure. That should bring you some joy because we are human. So I want to lead with this. Man, see us, see us, we're here. We're not going anywhere either, we're here, right? And we're part of the family. Well, James, we see you and I hear you. And I want to say to my African American friends and people of color that call Radiant Church home, I want you to know as your pastor, Jane and I, we see you and we love you. And we're sorry for the pain. We're sorry that it hasn't always been so. And I just want to tell you, vulnerably as your pastor, I'm trying to grow. And this isn't because I don't love anybody else. I love everybody. I mean, the first song we learn in churches, red and yellow, black and white, they are precious in his sight. I want that to be true in our adult life as it was in our Sunday school life. And so thank you for being a part of this conversation. And we just want you to know we love you, you belong here, and you belong in the body of Christ, you belong in this country. And we're believing that the next generation is going to look back on this and isn't going to have to take another lap around the wilderness, but is able to enter into the promised land of unity because we've been willing to do the hard work now. I want to ask James, James, would you just lead us in prayer right now? Yes, yes. Father, we thank you so much that you have given us the courage to even carry on this conversation and Lord to learn from one another and to grow Lord in our faith in you. And Lord, I just pray, Lord, that you will give us direction and wisdom and the bonus to really lean into authentic relationships that do not look like us, Father. So we're depending on your Holy Spirit to do that. Lord, cause us to be the light of the world. Lord, allow our light to shine brightly to lead our nation in this time, in this season, in Jesus' name, amen. Lord, would you heal our nation? Yes. And would you use your church to literally be a city set on a hill that many would say, as Isaiah says, many will say in that day, come and let us go to the mountain of the Lord and he will teach us of his ways and the law will go forth from Zion. Lord, let it be that the world looks at how the church repents of our sin, how all of us, it doesn't matter our color or our ethnic background, how we all repent and come to the foot of the cross. And we see the walls of hostility between each other torn down and we become one new man, a prophetic symbol to a lost and dying world that is hell bent on violence and division and being influenced by demonic forces. Lord, we wanna be under the influence, but under the influence of your Holy Spirit. Unite us in that one spirit. We pray in Jesus' name, amen.