What You Were Made to Do

Let me ask you a question. What do you want more of this year? There's not a single person in this room tonight who has entered into this new year who is not wanting for more of something. I genuinely believe it. There's no one here who's like, "I'll take a little bit less of that." No. Everyone wants for more.

I don't know what the "more" is for you. Maybe it's more money in the bank account. Maybe it's more margin on your calendar. Maybe it's more success at work, a corner office, perhaps. Maybe you want a little bit of romance, perhaps even a relationship. Maybe you want more time with the boys. Maybe you want to be able to take that trip you've been planning for so long and maybe bring a couple of friends along with you.

I don't know what it is you're wanting for more of this year, but everyone is wanting for more of something. That is not the question, nor is wanting more the issue. The issue is not that I want more of something; the issue is what I want more of, because not everything we want more of in this life will actually lead to more in this life.

A promotion may lead to a bigger paycheck, but it's also going to lead to bigger problems. A relationship might often offer us love, but frequently it delivers heartache. You may want to find friends, but I've known people who have lost themselves in the process. Even that vacation you want to take that you want to escape from reality will not allow you to escape from reality forever, because you will have to return at some point.

Just because you seek more does not mean you'll find more. In fact, what it often leads to is less. I believe (and I fullheartedly believe it) there's one thing you can want more of that will actually lead to more, that will ultimately result in your satisfaction, and it's God. It's not achieving your weight loss goal in 2026.

It's not scratching off your reading schedule and racking up 10 books a month for the next 12. It's not paying off that mountain of school debt you have brought into your young adult years, and it's certainly not striking a good work-life balance here in the new year. Those things are good, but those things will not ultimately satisfy you. The thing that will ultimately satisfy you is him.

That's why here at the beginning of the brand-new year, we've gone back to the very beginning of the Bible and looked at the beginning of time for him who is ultimately satisfactory, because my commitment…in fact, it is my conviction…is to help you know the God who wants to be known.

Now, I know some of you are here, and you've only ever known him. You grew up in the church. Born on a Saturday and in a pew on a Sunday. I know others of you had a falling out with him at some point. Maybe it was a circumstance in life. Maybe it was a time when you moved out of your parents' house. At some point, you just became unacquainted.

Others of you have never cared about Jesus. You're not really sure why you should care beginning here tonight. I don't know where it is you find yourself this evening, but this is my commitment. I am committed to helping you know him. I am committed to helping you meet him. I want you to know the God who wants to be known, because if you're wanting for more, it is he who has made you for that more.

We see this in the book of Genesis. Very specifically, we see it in Genesis, chapter 2. I want to walk through this chapter, and I want to help you see three ways in which God has made you for more. That way, the end of your year does not end in dissatisfaction. Instead, the end of your year ends with satisfaction, because that's what he promises to give his people.

So, if you have a Bible, look at verse 7 with me. "…then the Lord God formed the man of dust from the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living creature. And the Lord God planted a garden in Eden, in the east, and there he put the man whom he had formed."

This is the creation account of Adam. Now, if you were here a couple of weeks ago, you feel like we've probably already read this. Yes? Because what you see in Genesis, chapter 1, is that God has already made man, and he has made woman alongside of him. So, in this moment, you're probably wondering what the heck is happening.

You need to understand Genesis 1 and Genesis 2 are not sequential in nature. It's not the next episode in the series. Instead, they're parallel in nature. They are telling the same story from two different perspectives. A good analogy to help you think about Genesis 1 and Genesis 2 is they operate sort of like fraternal twins. It's not a perfect illustration, but it'll help you catch my drift.

You see here that they share the same origin. They even share some of the same features, but they have very different personalities, they have a very different appearance, and they have a very different focus. As just one example to help you out, when you read through Genesis, chapter 1, you're introduced to a world that is created through these chaotic waters. It says at the very beginning of chapter 1 that the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the deep.

But when you find yourself in chapter 2, we move from a wild and raging water into a barren and desolate desert. It says right here (we read it a moment ago) there was no water, there are no plants, and there are no creatures. Do you see what's happening? It's telling the same story but from two very different perspectives.

We said this a couple of weeks ago, but if you're here for the very first time, I want to catch you up. The book of Genesis is not written with scientific intent; it's written with theological intent. The point of it is to help you know who God is. So, while these stories may not look like they match up…they look different on the outside…they're actually very similar on the inside. They are telling you that God is Creator. That's just one example. There are so many more we could see.

What you need to understand by way of looking at these two chapters is that God has taken a world that was absent of life and has brought forth an abundance of life. Do you see there? It was full of a lack, and God has produced so much more. All throughout Genesis 2, you can see how very intentionally God has made everything, but very specifically, you see how he made man.

1. You were made for more intimacy with God. If you're here and are wanting for more, God made you for more. He made you for more intimacy with himself. That's what this chapter is screaming. There are so many evidences of this over the course of this chapter, but I'm going to give you three in specific.

The first is so significant. It's very subtle, but it's so significant. You see that Moses, who authored the book of Genesis, uses a very unique title for the person of God. He uses two different names or titles for God, Elohim and Yahweh, and he kind of sandwiches them together. Twenty times over the course of chapter 2 and chapter 3, he talks about God as Elohim Yahweh, both together at the same time. You can see it in your Scripture as Lord God.

That's significant for this reason. Moses authored not just the first book but the first five books, the Pentateuch, in the Bible. He uses "Elohim Yahweh" 20 times in chapters 2 and 3, those chapters where it most focuses in on humanity, and he only uses that title once more in the rest of the next five books. It's telling us something massive. It's telling us we have to figure out what the heck Elohim and Yahweh actually mean.

What you need to know is that Elohim is talking to us about God as Creator. It articulates his awesomeness, his fearsomeness. Yahweh is the personal, covenantal name of God. What you see as they are put together is that God is both Creator and Savior simultaneously. The same God who created the cosmos is the same God who has stepped into your story and has saved you. He is the transcendent one over us, yet he's the intimate one with us.

Just to bring this into our world, it would be as if Cristiano Ronaldo or Kylie Jenner or Justin Bieber or Selena Gomez decided to follow you on Instagram. I don't know how well acquainted you are with those people, but they have some of the largest followings on Instagram. They are the epitome of "Insta-famous."

If they were to follow you, and you were to be like, "Hmm, I don't even know them," and you clicked their name and saw that they have something like four or five or six hundred million followers, you would begin to wonder, "Should I message them?" As you think about that, they would actually message you first, and when you receive that message, it would be articulating, "Hey, I would love to get to know you. I'd like to have a relationship with you."

How crazy would that be if that happened right now? It would not hold a candlestick in comparison to the craziness of a God so transcendent who wants to be so intimate with you. How many followers do you think he has? Infinitely more than any of them I just named, and he wants a relationship with you. Porchies, he slid into your DMs, and he wants you to get to know him. The question is…Do you want to get to know him?

As crazy as that may be, that's not the only proof it gives us in this text that God wants an intimate relationship with you. We see also that God forms man. So, again, we need to set the scene of what's happening in Genesis, chapter 2, because it's a narrative Scripture. It's describing to you a story. If you're a good storyteller, then you do a good job of articulating what's happening in the setting.

We see a desert here. There's no water. There are no plants. There are no creatures. Yet what God chooses to do in that wild wasteland is he chooses to spring water up from the ground. As that water (some of your Scriptures say mist) begins to water the ground around, what was once hard becomes so very soft, and dry ground becomes mud. As it becomes mud, God takes that ground, that adamah, into his hands and forms it into man, Adam, and he begins to sculpt the very first human. Do you see how beautiful that is? There is an intimacy in God's craftsmanship with mankind.

I don't know if you've ever been sculpting. I haven't been, but what I do know is it has always struck me as odd that people seem to think sculpting is a really good date idea. Have you seen that? It pops up on The Bachelor. I've not ever really understood. Why are they doing that? It feels like a really strange thing to do. I've never taken it in as part of my inventory or catalog of what to do with Brooke.

But as I've looked at sculpting, what I've realized is it is considered an intimate art form. It's intimate in the sense that it's characterized by three very specific descriptors. It takes time. Meaning, you have to trust the process. It requires focus. You have to block out all other distractions. And it ultimately is full of care. The artist builds a bond with their work. That's what God is doing in this story. As he forms man, as he molds Adam, he creates an emotional connection with this guy.

But it doesn't stop there. It keeps going. As he moves forward, he not only forms this mud man, but he chooses to breathe the breath of life into him. Now, what's unique about mankind is not that we have the breath of life, contrary to popular belief. If you read the Scriptures, Genesis 6 and others, they will tell you that all creatures have the breath of life as given by God, that the animating spirit of God indwells all creatures that breathe.

So, it's not the breath of life that makes you unique. What makes you unique is the fact that God chose to breathe it intimately. It says he breathed into his nostrils. I love the way Sinclair Ferguson describes it. He describes it as having the intimacy of a kiss. I remember when I had my first kiss. Just kidding. I'm not going to tell you that story.

You were made for God. Not just a distant relationship. Not just an intimate relationship with him. You were made for a close, proximal, deep relationship with him. So, let me ask you… Why then are you intimate with other things more so than him? Why are you so intimate in following the lives of strangers you know online instead of following the God you claim in life? Why are you so deeply acquainted with your coffee routine in the morning yet lack an acquaintance with your quiet time?

Why is it that you're more familiar with the office place, that place where you work, as opposed to the private place, the secret place, the place where you're supposed to pray? Why is it that you are quicker to evangelize the cause of Formula One and sourdough than you are the cause of Christ? It's not funny. I'm dead serious. It's crazy to think that we would allow ourselves to become so intimately acquainted with the things of this world when the God of this world is asking for the same, yet we do not take him up on the offer. Jeremiah 9:23-24 tells us:

"Thus says the Lord: 'Let not the wise man boast in his wisdom, let not the mighty man boast in his might, let not the rich man boast in his riches, but let him who boasts boast in this, that he understands and knows me, that I am the Lord who practices steadfast love, justice, and righteousness in the earth. For in these things I delight, declares the Lord.'"

So, let me ask you…What are you making your boast in? I know in my own life it is easy for me to grow more devoted to other things than devoted to God, yet at the same time, I know that Christ's devotion to me has never once wavered. His devotion to you has never once wavered. So much so that we know that devotion led him to adopt the very same form he molded with his own hands by becoming like us in the flesh.

So devoted to you is he that he would actually take on that very same breath he once breathed, and he would not only breathe it in life; he would breathe it in death for your sake. This is a God who wants to intimately know you. So, if you're wanting for more this year, you were made for more. You were made for more intimacy with him.

2. You were made for more impact in life. Look at verse 15 with me. "The Lord God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to work it and keep it." Now, it's important to remember this is all happening pre-fall, which tells us something important about work. It tells us that work is not, in fact, evil. I know I say that and some of you are like, "Man, you never met my boss." Listen. It sounds like your boss might have some post-fall tendencies, but even though your work may be hard, it doesn't mean your work is bad.

Work is actually this wonderful thing God has created for us to step into. It's actually the epitome of your purpose in life. I'll tell you what I mean by that. We see here that God has given Adam two specific responsibilities. He is to work the ground, and he is to keep the ground. That same language, work it and keep it, is the same language that husbands are meant to do when it comes to their families. They're to provide and protect. So, let's talk about them.

The very first thing we see is that Adam is meant to work the garden. He's to provide for it. He's to cultivate the ground, the place where he works. He's supposed to unlock all of its dormant potential, and he's supposed to open up from it all of the treasures God has intended to bring forth. He's supposed to work it, and he's supposed to keep the garden. He's to protect it. He's supposed to raise a defense, build a perimeter, and prevent any corruption that would come to ultimately dismantle God's good and ordered world.

As humanity, we have a twofold task when it comes to our purpose in life. We're to cultivate goodness, and we're to mitigate darkness. A way of thinking about it is like this. It's like playing offense and defense. When I played football in high school, there were sometimes that I would play on both sides of the ball. I would play offense and defense in the same game.

It was important for me in those moments to realize that though I had the same goal, ultimately, to help my team win, I had to have different objectives whenever I was on one side of the ball or the other. When I was on offense, I knew, "I need to know the plays, I have to execute my assignment, and I ultimately have to help my team score points," the equivalent of bearing fruit in the Bible.

When I was on defense, my objective changed. It wasn't all about scoring points; it was about preventing the other team from doing so. I needed to know their schemes. I needed to thwart them from trying to take our lead away, and ultimately, I needed to rally amongst my teammates whenever it came to stopping them from gaining ground in the direction they were going. Different objectives but the same goal. The goal being I wanted, alongside my teammates, to produce a fulfilling outcome.

Believer, if you're here, that's what your purpose is. Your purpose is to produce a fulfilling outcome in the world, which raises an important question. How do you do it? How do you do what God himself has done? It's a noble idea to think that I'm supposed to order the chaos, but how the heck am I supposed to do it? Well, let's jump back to Genesis, chapter 1. We read this two weeks ago, but here's what it says in verses 26-27:

"Then God said, 'Let us make man in our image, after our likeness. And let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.' So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them."

When we talked about this last, we described verses 26-27 as what scholars say is the imago Dei. The imago Dei is like a coin. It has two sides that are important for you to understand. One speaks to your identity, which is what we talked about two weeks ago. We described that your identity is found in God. You're a human being; you're not a human doing. God has given you an intrinsic value on the basis of who you are, not what you do.

What we read here also is that if you flip that coin over, you do bear the identity of God, and you are responsible for imaging him to the world. At the same time, you also bear the activity of God, for that also simultaneously bears his likeness to the world. So, what is God's activity? He fills the earth and subdues it. That's what he does. That's what God has been doing all throughout the creation narratives.

I like to think about it as if he's a cowboy and is taming a wild horse. He's trying to harness an untamed potential. That's what we're called to do when it comes to the world. You have to cowboy up, step out into the world, and try to harness the untamed potential of whatever room you walk into, whatever conversation you're a part of, or whatever moment you find yourself in. You have to act, not just look. You have to act like God.

You have to be an agent of peace, not an agent of chaos, which means you forgive that person who wronged you instead of holding a grudge; which means you celebrate that person and their success instead of envy it; which means you welcome outsiders even if no one else will. It means you believe the best in people as opposed to jumping to conclusions and assuming the worst. It means you control your tongue instead of joking at the expense of other people. It means you embrace inconvenience and serve and help people even if you are exhausted at the end of a very long day.

Paul sums up the idea of operating in our imago Dei activity by way of Galatians 5:13-14. "For you were called to freedom, brothers [and sisters]. Only do not use your freedom as an opportunity for the flesh, but through love serve one another. For the whole law is fulfilled in one word: 'You shall love your neighbor as yourself.'" Who fulfilled the whole law? Jesus did, which means Jesus himself has loved us in this way.

He has loved us in a way where, though free from all the shame and shackles of sin, he chose to forego his freedom in giving his life for you. He brought order to all of the disorder we caused. He brought light into all of the darkness we indulged. He brought peace to all of the chaos we created. Jesus has made an impact in your life if you have placed your faith in him. Now you get to step out and make an impact in the world. You were made for more impact in this life.

3. You were made for more than yourself. It's interesting. When you compare Genesis 1 to Genesis 2, there are so many differences, but in Genesis 2, there is one very stark difference. There's a theme that arises as you read it, which is the solitude of Adam. You see, when you read Genesis 1, Adam and Eve kind of just pop up on the scene at the same time. They are presented to the center stage of creation in one fell swoop.

Yet here, as you read Genesis 2, you realize that God creates Adam at the very beginning, and then in verse 18, long down the passage, it at last says, "Then the Lord God said, 'It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him a helper fit for him.'" This is the first time we read in the Scripture, particularly through the creation narratives, that something is not good.

Everything up until this point has been good, good, good, good, good, good, good. Now it tells us something is not good, which should raise a red flag in our minds. It should cause us to lean in and consider what is it that's not good. It's not that Adam didn't have a wife. It's not that he was single. If God wanted to, he could have said, "It's not good that man should be single," but he didn't say that. He said, "It's not good that man should be alone."

You see, the problem is not singleness; it's loneliness. That's what God deems as not good in the creation narrative. In a world that is proliferated with so much good, the first thing he looks at and says, "No, no, no. That's not right. I need to enter in and fix that" is loneliness. We weren't made to be alone.

Dr. Stuart Grassian, a former professor at Harvard Medical School and one of the nation's foremost experts on the topic of solitary confinement, notes that prolonged isolation can have wildly detrimental effects on the life of a person. It can lead them to have hallucinations, panic attacks, obsessive tendencies, harmful ideation, and paranoia. What's the lesson the good doctor is making? It's not good to be alone.

Which means for some of us in the room, we need to stop being the gatekeeper to our own gathering or party from having people come over who might ruin the vibe. For some of us, it means we have to stop talking to just the people we know whenever we go to meet and greet and look to our left and our right and, instead, engage with the people we don't know.

It means we have to have eyes to see, yes, but feet to follow and engage with those who do not seem as if they know where they are or what we're doing here. We have to be willing to engage with the sojourner, the foreigner. God did not simply send Jesus to save sinners; he sent Jesus to create a family, and part of that means it is our responsibility from within the family to make sure loneliness is never descriptive of it. We have to engage those who feel alone.

I remember at a church I previously worked at we had this six-foot rule. The six-foot rule was whenever someone was within your six-foot area, you had to engage with them. So, I'm at church one Sunday morning, just walking through the foyer, and a guy is walking around. I can tell he's by himself. He doesn't seem to know anyone. So, I come up, and I'm like, "Hey, man. How's it going?"

He's like, "What is with this place? You're like the sixth or seventh person to tell me hello. I don't go to church here. What is with this?" I was like, "Well, man, we just firmly believe we should welcome others the way Christ has welcomed us." I'll never forget. He looked at me and goes, "Keep doing that. The world could use some more of that." I was like, "Yeah, God agrees. That's what the Scripture teaches us."

But here's the other thing we have to realize. Though it is not good for us to be alone, loneliness is not just the result of excluding others. Oftentimes, loneliness is the result of excluding ourselves. So, if you're here and you feel alone because you've put yourself into isolation, would you please listen to me? Some of you, for fear of rejection, have already rejected yourself so that other people never get the opportunity to do so.

Some of you have been so hurt by other people that you close anyone else off for fear of what they might do to you. Some of you misread signals. You misread a neutral interaction as a negative interaction. Your anxiety grabs hold of that thing, and it spins you up and leads you to believe that something happened that did not happen. It makes you believe that social suicide just took place when that is not in any way akin to reality.

If that's you, please listen to me. Self-exclusion will not protect you from loneliness; it will perpetuate it. Please do not do that. We need you here. We need you in the family of God. We know in the family of God no one is expendable. Everyone is essential. So, if you're here tonight, I just want to make a really big plea. If you're here and you agree with that description, if that matches your experience, would you please come talk to us?

We don't want that for you, nor should you want that for yourself. We will have a group of people down here at the front who would love to help you learn what it looks like to get plugged in, not just here at The Porch but plugged into the church where the people of God are gathering and belonging alongside one another. It's not good for man to be alone.

So, let's just ask the question, then…What does God do about it? Well, he makes one human into two humans. It tells us in verse 21. "So the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall upon the man, and while he slept took one of his ribs and closed up its place with flesh. And the rib that the Lord God had taken from the man he made into a woman and brought her to the man."

It's interesting. That word rib is the Hebrew word tsela. This is the only reference in the entire Bible where it takes on an anatomical meaning. Most often, when it's used throughout the Scripture, it is not an anatomical reference; it's an architectural reference. It means side or half, and it's used in descriptions of things like the temple or the tabernacle or the ark. The thought here being that Eve is the other half of Adam. They are two halves of a united whole.

That has massive implications for the imago Dei, our purpose in life, because what it tells us is that no one human and no one gender is sufficient to represent God's likeness to the watching world. We need both men and women. Those words for male and female in the Hebrew are the words iysh and ishshah, which I just love, because they do a good job of expressing what God has done in making man and woman. They appear similar, but they are not the same. They have very unique distinctions.

Why does any of that matter? Hear me on this. Our destiny, as the people of God, to bear God's image and likeness to the world depends on our differences. It is so naive to think that one group of Christians who all look the same, think the same, talk the same, dress the same, and act the same could fully express God's likeness to the world. That's not possible. I love the way Irwyn Ince says it. He says, "The image of God is much too rich to be realized in a single race, ethnic group, or culture," which tells us that as God has made a people, he has called us to unity, not uniformity.

So, I just want to speak to you. If you're in the room, and you feel like an outcast, like you're on the outside, I very clearly want you to know you're needed here. Like, if you have a septum piercing, welcome to the family of God. If you have a neck tat, welcome to the family of God. If you don't wear athleisure, welcome to the family of God. If you have a record or a past, welcome to the family of God.

The imago Dei necessitates that you be the person God has made you to be. So, rather than trying to fit in, why don't you try to stand out? That actually expresses God more clearly. First Corinthians 12:18-21 backs this up. It says, "But in fact God has placed the parts in the body, every one of them, just as he wanted them to be. If they were all one part, where would the body be? As it is, there are many parts, but one body. The eye cannot say to the hand, 'I don't need you!' And the head cannot say to the feet, 'I don't need you!'"

You see, you were not made for yourself. You were made for God. You were made for us. Yet, we know sin has entered into the story. We chose ourselves. Titus tells us we were hated by others and hated one another until the loving-kindness of Christ stepped into the story. Though we chose ourselves, Jesus, who had every right to choose himself, did not choose himself. He chose you. He chose me.

He chose to do everything we couldn't. He chose to live the life that we could not. He chose to die the death that we deserve, and he chose to rise forth from the grave, beating death by death itself, and openly mocking Satan, sin, and shame so we could be restored to our choice. Will we place our faith in him or will we not? You have been made for more, young adult. You've been made for more than yourself. You've been made for him.

Last story, and then we'll wrap. I wrestled with where to share this, because it still feels so very fresh for me. This year, I entered 2026 with a feeling I didn't expect. I'm the guy who turns the corner of the new year and has a ton of enthusiasm, a lot of excitement, and a ton of eagerness about what might be in store. There are things I want to do, people I want to meet, goals I want to achieve, and tables I want to sit at. There's all this drive whenever the new year comes, and it feels like it's the perfect chance to reset.

This year, I was filled with a different feeling. I felt unsatisfied, which I know probably comes as a bit of a concern, because I just spent the last 40 minutes talking to you about where satisfaction is found. But hear me on this. I said I was unsatisfied, and I am unsatisfied. Not that I'm dissatisfied. Though they sound similar and even seem similar, they're actually very different concepts. To be dissatisfied is to demonstrate a lack for something you want, but to be unsatisfied is to demonstrate a longing for something you want.

That's what I felt this year. I have had a longing, a yearning, a hunger deep within, wanting for more than what I've had. It was just last week, last Thursday… I was in the cab of my pickup in the parking lot of my gym with the keys in the ignition, having just cranked the car on a cold winter's day, and I felt seized in the moment. I felt stopped by God. It was there in so mundane a place that God clarified for me where all of my unsatisfaction came from.

It's not that I wanted more accolades, that I wanted more possessions, that I wanted more stuff or more time; it's that I wanted more of him. Porch, I'm telling you, I was so possessed by that, and I'm still possessed by that today. It feels like a purpose I've known of in the past, yet it feels so fresh right now. I want for more of God. Not because I haven't tasted and seen that he's good but because I have tasted and seen that he is good. I want more of him for my life, and the truth is I want more of him for your life.

I don't know if you're here tonight and you want for more of God, but there is someone here tonight who wants for more of God for you, and it's me. I'm praying for whatever it is you want for more of in life. I'm praying you would know you will not find it out there; you will find it right here. You will find it with him, because it is from him that satisfaction flows. Yet once we taste and see, we want even more. There's a cycle of satisfaction to unsatisfaction to satisfaction to unsatisfaction, because he is good.

I believe this year God is calling us to be awakened to the person, the presence, and the power of Jesus in a way that we've not known before. I believe God is inviting us into more, and the reason I believe it is because I've seen it. I know God wants more intimacy for you because Christ came, leaving heaven through the corridors of time and into your story, into this earth, to have intimacy with you.

I know he wants more impact in your life, because he came and made an impact in your life by making an impact in his death, dying the very death you deserved. And I know he wants more for you than yourself. He wants a family, because it is that family he went to the cross for, bought by his blood and body, and has redeemed for those who place their faith in him. Do you want more of Jesus? Let me pray that you would.

God, thanks for tonight. Thanks for this time. O God, I am an imperfect man, and I am an imperfect vessel, but, God, this moment has nothing to do with me and everything to do with you. Better is one day in your house than a thousand elsewhere. Why? Because there it is that you are. God, tonight, here it is that you are as well.

I pray, God, that as we stand to respond, we wouldn't just go through the rhythms. We wouldn't just fall into the motion. We wouldn't just do as we've done. I pray we would be filled with a fresh hunger, a new desire, a deep longing that says, "Yes, I want for more in 2026, and I know where more is found. It's found in you."

God, we're a people who are coming for you this year, and we're coming for you because, God, you in Christ have come for us first. Won't you meet us now? Won't you give us more? We love you. It's in your name we pray, amen.