If you've been here for the last few weeks, you've heard me say, if this is your church, if this is your home, be here on February 10th. This is like a must-be there type Sunday. And you're all here right now, and I'm gonna assume that's on purpose, right? I'm sure there's a few of you who are like, oh, I just kind of came, and yay, you get credit. You get credit for being here on the 10th. It's all good. I know that there are some of us here who are new, maybe this is your first Sunday. If that's you, I'm so glad you're here. I'm also sorry that you're here because it's kind of a different Sunday, and normally I'd be talking to you, but today I'm talking to a very specific person or group of people. And it's those of us who would say, This is my church, and I'm all in. There's this word in the Old Testament, in the Hebrew language, it's henene. Everyone say that real quick. Say henene. The way I remember that is there's a song that says, Watch me whip, right? If you know that song, watch me nene. And I just, henene, it's like that's my thing. So, henene, it's actually a really important word. I'm sorry. It's a really important word. You see it happen a lot in the Old Testament in very important moments in people's lives. For example, Genesis 22, verse 1, sometime later, God tested Abraham's faith. This is a turning point in his life. Abraham, God called, yes, he replied, here I am. When you see Abraham say, Here I am, in the Hebrew, he's saying this word, henene. Genesis 46, 2, during the night, God spoke to him in a vision. Jacob, Jacob, he called, here I am, Jacob replied. It's that same word. Jacob's this man that God's calling in this moment to change his life and do something very different. Exodus 3.4, it's the story of God talking to Moses at the burning bush. He's changing Moses' entire destiny. When the Lord saw Moses coming to take a closer look, God called to him from the middle of the bush, Moses, Moses, here I am, Moses replied. And we see the same word pop up in several other places in the Old Testament. It means I'm here. But it doesn't mean I'm here like saying you're present. It's not like being in class and the teacher's calling out roll and says bueller, bueller, and you go, you know, present. Anyone too young to get that reference, by the way? Anyone at all? Raise your hand if you have no idea what that is. A couple people. Good, I'm not. I thought I was older than I am. That's good. Okay. Still hip. That's awesome. Yeah, you get it. Bueller, Bueller. It doesn't mean like here, yes, I'm in the room. It means here. Hineni means I'm here and I'm ready. I'm here and whatever you have for me, whatever you need for me, God, even though it might be difficult, even though it might be stretch, I'm here and I'm ready to do that. And so I don't want you to feel compelled to raise your hand. There is no pressure. I don't want you to do it if you don't mean it, but I would love to know this morning when it comes to our church and what God has us doing here at His hands, who's here this morning? There you go. Okay. If you just raise your hand, I'm talking to you today. So again, if that's not you, then just be a fly on the wall. You're gonna learn a little bit about us as a church, our history, where we're at. But today, unlike really any other day, I'm specifically talking to those of you who raised your hand because we have a step that we need to take as a church. And I am so excited about talking about this because for me personally, this conversation has been six years in the making. If you know me well, I am not what most people would call a patient person. My team jokes that we move at Justin's speed, which is just a nice way to say we're really impatient, and Justin had an idea yesterday, and we have to do it today, and I'm learning, I'm learning, I'm better at that. And actually, this conversation is an example because I've been waiting six years, literally six years, to have this conversation. I'll explain that in a second. But our conversation today is all about a step we need to take as a church, and this is gonna be really exciting. It's it's financial in nature. Woo! I wooed for you. Woo! Now, if you're here for the first time, you're like, great, awesome. Come to church for the first time, money. I knew it. I knew it. Here's what I'll tell you. If you've been here for long, you know, I don't have to tell you this, but we are not a church that fixates on money. In fact, I was trying to think this morning, what's the when was the last Sunday that I specifically talked? Like that the message the morning was about where we are as a church financially. And it was five years ago. It was 2014. It's the last time. We've mentioned things here and there, but the last time we actually took a Sunday and said, hey, let's talk about the finances here, five years ago. So this isn't something that we hyperfixate on. We get excited about what we do in the community, about seeing people come to Jesus, get baptized, all that kind of stuff. But today we need to talk about where we're at financially, because there's a step that we need to make. Now, I said a few seconds ago, it's been six years in the making, so let me explain that. Six years ago, in January of 2013, I was reading my Bible, which is a good thing to do. And I happen to be reading this story in 1 Chronicles. If you've never read 1 Chronicles, it's the Old Testament. It tells the story of the first kings of Israel. And I'm reading this story, and it jumps off the page to me. Often when God speaks to me, that's how he does it. I'll be reading his word, and he will speak through that. Happens all the time. And this story, it jumps off the page to me, and I think when I read it, you'll understand why. Let me just go ahead and start at the very beginning. 1 Chronicles 29, verses 1 through 5. Then King David turned to the entire assembly and said, My son Solomon, whom God has clearly chosen as the next king of Israel, is still young and inexperienced. The work ahead of him is enormous, for the temple he will build is not for mere mortals, it is for the Lord God himself. Using every resource at my command, I have gathered as much as I could for building the temple of my God. Now there's enough gold, silver, bronze, iron, and wood, as well as great quantities of onyx, other precious stones, costly jewels, and all kinds of fine stone and marble. And now, because of my devotion to the temple of God, I am giving all of my own private treasures of gold and silver to help in the construction. This is in addition to the building materials I've already collected for his holy temple. I'm donating more than 112 tons of gold. That would be billions of dollars in our economy. Billions. 112 tons of gold from Ophir, 262 tons of refined silver to be used for overlaying the walls of the buildings, and for the other gold and silver work to be done by the craftsmen. Now then, who will follow my example and give offerings to the Lord today? So, for some context, this is the story of King David. You may know him from the story of David and Goliath. He killed a big guy one day. It's a big story, it's a big deal. Um, killed him dead. And uh David also did some other things that aren't so great. He was a super conflicted dude. One of the great things about the Bible is it doesn't like give us this PR spin of the people whose stories it tells. It tells us the good, it tells us the bad, it tells us the ugly, and we get to see that God uses broken people to do great things. So David's one of those guys. And in David's heart, his passion was to build a temple for God. And God didn't even want it. In fact, David goes to God and says, God, I want to build you a temple, and God's like, nah, I don't need that. Because God isn't wowed by things. It's not like we can build something and God's like, Man, I have never seen anything that amazing. Oh, yeah, I made the universe. Sorry, I forgot. You know? But David, he keeps going. He's like, God, I want you to have a temple. I want to build, this is what I want to do. And David's heart is so amazing because in ancient times, kings would spend their entire fortunes on building monuments to themselves. That's what the pyramids are. The pyramids were just the pharaohs spending all of the money of the people and killing a lot of people in the process because of the kind of labor that it took to build it, so they could have a tomb and they would be remembered. The Roman emperors spent fortunes on building statues and monuments to themselves. David's at the end of his life, he's a king, he's incredibly rich. And what does he want to spend his money on? Not a temple to himself, not a statue, not his memory. It's the glory of the Lord. He wants to build God a temple. And so David gives everything he has. He gives everything he has. He doesn't give a little bit, he doesn't give a tenth. The word tithe in the Bible means tenth. He doesn't do that, he gives everything. It says, I'm giving all of my treasury. I'm giving all my gold, I'm giving all my silver, I'm giving all my jewels, I'm giving everything to the building of this temple. And then he says, Who will respond? And six years ago, when I read that, the reason that it spoke to me so deeply is because at the time I wasn't the lead pastor here, that hadn't happened yet. Steve and Susan, who started our church, they were still in the lead roles, and my heart was very burdened for them. I don't know how many of us knew Steve and Susan very well, but it was very, very close with them. Steve was a personal mentor of mine for years and years, still is. Susan invested in me and my wife a lot, spent a lot of time with us. She passed away uh three years ago, last month, and I miss her a lot. In fact, it's it's so it's so perfect for this morning because there's a tree that's planted in the front of our building, right in the very front. If you're looking at the building, it's to the left. And it's blossoming today. And it's very early. It's the weather's been as it is, um, a little bit warm this last week. And so the trees are like, I don't know what to do. Um it's blossoming early, and she asked that a, she asked in her will that a tree be planted at his hands and that her ashes be put in the root system of that tree, because that's how much this place meant to her. And I just thought it was so appropriate this week as I'm preparing for this morning and thinking so much about where we are and where we've been and all that God has done, that that tree happened to blossom this week. Susan invested so much in me, and she and Steve, when I read that story of King David providing for the temple, I'm like, that's us, that's our church, that's Steve and Susan. Because this church exists because God spoke to them and called them to give everything they had to make this church happen. If you don't know the story, this used to be a Kmart. You're sitting in what used to be a Kmart. Kmart stinks. Kmart's like the worst, right? That's why you don't see Kmart's around. And if you do, they won't be there for long. Kmart's bad at what they do. And so we're grateful for that. We're really glad that Kmart had a poor business model because it provided us with this facility. I'm I'm joking. If you work for Kmart or have, or I'm sorry, that was rude of me. I don't I actually don't know anything about the inner workings of Kmart, it just doesn't seem like it's gone well. So this Kmart went out of business, and this building sat vacant for years. Steve and Susan were really faithfully involved at another church in town, and they had gone there for a long, long time, and they owned a business, and it was very successful. And their business was bought by a major company and they walked away with tens of millions of dollars. Tens of millions of dollars. They had enough money that they could, they could not just live out their bucket list, like if you have a bucket list, they had enough money that they could scratch their bucket list and come up with a new one. Like, forget about that bucket list, let's make a new bucket list that's way better than the old one because we have better options now. And they could have lived the rest of their lives never working another day, just living and enjoying life and even being generous. In fact, when they sold their company, they tithed, they gave a tenth of that to the church they were attending and single-handedly changed the financial situation of that church. And then they actually began to do what very few people do. They started to pray and say, God, what do you want us to do with the money you've given us? They didn't look at each other and say, What do we want to do with our money? They said, God, what do you want us to do with the money you've given to us? And independently, God told both of them to start a church and they cried. Because they didn't want to. Because who does? Right? Like, who does? There are people that want to start churches, and sometimes they are called by God to be pastors and church planters, and it's just their heart and it's their passion. There are people who want to start a church because they want to be a big deal, and it's like a platform for them, and it's a way that they can feel successful. And I'm telling you that Steve and Susan were the furthest thing from that second category you could be. They didn't dream of being pastors, they didn't have some aspiration to be a big deal in God's kingdom whatsoever. In fact, Steve's one of the most introverted people I've ever known. The fact that God asked Steve to sit here, and he's he sat, this would be my Steve impression. I'd be on a stool. Um, Steve sat here and talked for years. That's the last thing Steve would ever want to do in his entire life. But they did whatever God told them to do. And so they started to pray all right, Lord, if you want us, if you want us to start a church, we'll do that. Show us where you want it, show us how you want to do it. And God led them to this building. They did not start small, they bought a Kmart. Like, how many people can have that in their life story? What a cool thing. Like, one time we bought a Kmart. Oh, excuse me? You I tell that story, you know? So they bought this building and they began to renovate the building. And they got together with friends and they began praying about what this church would be. And they sought the Lord on everything. The name of our church, it's his hands, because that's the name God gave them. The vision of our church, the location of this church, the fact that it's even here, it's because this is where God told them to be. They didn't meet together and do a demographic study and figure out, you know, where population growth was going to be the most concentrated in the next 10 years. They just prayed, and God said, Kmart. So in the early days, we called this the Jmart back in the day. That's what we call it for Jesus. That was our code word. And it took it took a lot. Stephen Susan gave 16 million dollars to build this. And I want you to know that that was not, they would never talk about it, but I'm not them, so I can. Um that wasn't 10%, it wasn't 20%, it wasn't 30%, it wasn't 40%. Just like King David, it was it was basically everything. In fact, in the early days of our church, when I first came on staff, our church was nowhere near able to financially support the operating costs. And so Stephen Susan just wrote checks to cover it every month. Checks of $50,000 plus every single month. And never did they did they share that story. If you went here in those days, you would have never heard Stephen Susan talk about that. It was like it was like it didn't happen. You would have never known because they weren't in it for any glory whatsoever. They were just doing what God told them to do. It got to the point where they had given so much of what they had, virtually everything, that all they had left was enough to start one more company. They could not afford to be retired anymore. They had tens of millions of dollars, could do whatever they wanted to do. God says, buy Kmart, start a church. They said yes, they went all in, they spared no expense to the point where they couldn't even be retired anymore, and they had to start another company to live off of. Steve still runs that company today. And so we are here today. We are here right now. Everything you saw in that video has happened along with so much more that we couldn't even show. Did you guys know that in the history of our church in the last 13 years, 1,500 people have been baptized here? 1,500 people. Like, and some of those people are still here today. Some of those people have gone on and have moved and have gone to other places and other churches, and that's fine. But in the last 13 years, there have been 1,500 people who have sat in this space and said, I'm gonna give everything to Jesus. And all Stephen Susan had to do was give everything for that to happen. So when I was reading this six years ago, having no idea that I would be the lead pastor a year later at the time, no clue. My heart was just burdened because as amazing as that story is, I watched the toll that it took on Stephen Susan. I could see how much of themselves they were pouring into this place. And I remember often at the time praying and saying, God, something's gotta give. You need to do something. Like I'm watching them and they're giving everything. And and leading a church is not easy. It is hard because people are hard. Not you guys, the first service people. They're hard. Y'all are, you know, it's the ones who sleep in that that really know what's up. It's those people, you know, not those early risers. But but no, like people are, and I watched the toll. I watched how much of themselves they poured into it. And I remember often at that time, I was like, God, you've got to do something. Something needs to happen. And I was trying to think of what it could be. Like, but God, you need to bless their current company so much that they can sell that and have rest because I'm just watching the toll this is taking, God, and something has to give. And then I read the next part of the story. This we'll pick up in verse six. It says, Then the family leaders, the leaders of the tribes of Israel, the generals and captains of the army, and the king's administrative officials, all gave willingly. For the construction of the temple of God, they gave about 188 tons of gold, ten thousand gold coins, three hundred and seventy-five tons of silver, six hundred and seventy-five tons of bronze, and three thousand seven hundred and fifty tons of iron. They also contributed numerous precious stones, which were deposited in the treasury of the house of the Lord under the care of Jehiel, a descendant of Gershon. He must have been a very responsible person. The people rejoiced over the offerings, for they had given freely and wholeheartedly to the Lord, and King David was filled with joy. So when I read that, my heart going, God, something needs to happen. It hit me. The Lord spoke. One day, the people are going to respond. Just like King David gave everything, and then said, Who will respond? Who else will step up? One day the people of his hands will essentially say, Thank you, Stephen Susan, thank you, Lord, for working through them, but it's our turn. It's our turn. And we're gonna respond, and we're gonna we're gonna carry the mantle, we're gonna take the responsibility of stewarding this church. Do we realize that we've been given something to steward in this place? Like, like I hope that we feel the ownership of this church in the way that the Lord intends us to, which means we don't really own it. It's his, but he's given it to us for a season to steward. We might be the only church in the country that has a facility like this, for example. And none of us had to sacrifice to make it happen. I have friends who are pastors of bigger churches, I have friends who are pastors of much smaller churches, and even they have to raise money, and their people have to sacrifice and give sacrificially and generously just so they can buy a piece of property so that one day they might be able to build a building. And and it hits me sometimes, man, we're I've never heard a story like his hands. Where we all got to show up and and this is what we've been given. And we didn't have to sacrifice to make this happen. They did. Stephen Susan had to sacrifice everything. But see, it's been given to us for this season, and it's been given to us, not to use, but to steward. See, sometimes you're you're given something to use. Like when I give my children food, it's for them to use it. If I give my my daughter a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, well, you know, scratch that. She doesn't eat peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. That's a bad example. Here's what my daughter likes pancakes with peanut butter and sprinkles. That's her thing. You know? That's her thing in the morning. I want a pancake with peanut butter and sprinkles, and she wants the sprinkles to be pink. She's a very specific person. If I give that to her, I don't intend to come back later and have her say, I've taken great care of it. It's preserved, it's good. I want her to eat it. Why she wants to eat it, I don't know, but I want her to eat it. Sometimes you're given something to use, sometimes you're given something to steward. And when you're giving something to steward, what that means is you're you're supposed to take care of it. You're supposed to preserve it, and you're actually supposed to grow it and improve it. God has given this church to us as a steward. And as I read that six years ago, I just knew there would be a day where our church would say it's our turn. And I believe that today is that day. I believe with all my heart that today is that day. It's been prayed about, it's been prayed over by not just myself, but by numerous other people, our elders and our leadership. It's time for us as a church, those of us that raised our hands and said, I'm here, henani, I'm here. And by the way, if you want to walk that back now, you can. But like those of us that said, I'm here, it's time for us to say, Yeah, I'm here. And it's our turn. We're gonna take this and we're gonna do what needs to be done. Practically speaking, we have some needs that we need to address. In fact, we have $1.365 million dollars that we need to raise together as a church. Woo! Does anyone freak out at that number? Like just a little bit? No? You guys are way wealthier than me. That's interesting. Um so here's the deal. Our building is 13 years old. Well, actually, that's not that's not true. Our building is like 30 years old. So the roof that we have is 30 years old. How many of y'all have heard me talk about the roof over the last few years that one day we're gonna have to do the roof? I gotta tell you guys, this is hard for me. Because if you don't know me well, um you wouldn't know that I love telling jokes. Like I am, I am not good at being serious about anything in life. My wife, my poor wife, it's so hard for me to just be serious for like 10 minutes. We'll have major life decisions to make, and I'm like cracking jokes. And she's like, honey, please grow up, you know? And I'm like, I'm trying. I'm doing my very best. I love telling jokes, and I like it when I have a go-to joke, and so every time it rains, we have to put buckets out all throughout the building. And I get to use this joke. I get to say, we don't pass buckets during the giving time because we need them for the rain. And everyone goes like, uh ha ha ha ha ha, like that. You know, it's not like a laugh out, it's like a chuckle. Um, and I've I've told that joke like 14 times by now, so or probably way more than that. I'm I'm sad that I'm gonna lose that joke because we're gonna take care of the roof this year. That's part of that money. We're gonna take care of it because it's ours, it's our turn. Okay? Now the roof alone is $350,000 for a roof. But when you think about the size of the roof, and then think about how much a roof for your house would cost, you're like, you're like, yeah. Yeah. All in all, this property and the renovations was $20 million. And Stephen Susan gave 16 of that, and because of their generosity and all the things they did that I don't understand, because I'm not like some financial wizard, they secured the rest of it at a 0% interest loan, which I didn't even know those existed. If I would have known those existed, I would have looked for one when I bought my house a few years ago. Like, oh, I want one of those 0% interest loans. Can you give me one of those? I don't know how they did it, but they did that. And so we're in a very unique place as a church because of what they did. Here we are 13 years later, and things like the roof have have broken down. There are a lot of other things that we've made last for 13 years, and God, I'm sorry for saying it that way, He's made them last because things have lasted here in ways that don't make sense. Every piece of technology that we run in all of our worship areas and here in the kids' areas, they're all 13 years old. Every projector, every component, 13 years old. How many of you at home have a piece of technology that you use on a regular basis that you've had for 13 years? Raise your hand. Like 12 people. 12. It's just not how technology works. They don't build them like they used to. When you buy a TV, it's like, yeah, a couple years, this will last. You hope it'll last longer, but that's just the way, that's the way things go. And so we have A, been blessed by God to have things just last. B, we've been blessed to have some really creative and and gifted people. Like, for example, there was a guy that came to our Square One meeting a few months back, and we were talking about teams that we needed people to sign up for. Like, hey, join a team if you want to. And he's like, hey, I'm a tech guy, and we're like, oh man, you should join the tech team. We really need you. And literally, this guy's a godsend. Within a few weeks of him being on the tech team, all of our stuff that keeps our screens running broke. We had a Sunday where we had no screens and the Holy Spirit still showed up. It's like he doesn't even need it. But um, but like this guy, he was here at the exact right moment, and he was able to kind of duct tape it together and keep it going for a little bit longer. So God's done some really amazing things, but it's time for us to take care of this stuff. So we're gonna raise 1.365 million dollars. We're gonna take care of this. We're gonna say, just like the people of Israel, it's our turn. And we're gonna do it with joy and with passion. There is not going to be one iota of compulsion or pressure. None. I want you to know that. And that's why I'm talking to those of you who said I'm in. If that's not you, there's no expectation whatsoever. If that is you, I'm just gonna ask God to put something on your heart. That's it. But I want to break this down for you a little bit because I want to get specific. Okay, so the total amount, a little over $1.3 million. And here's how it breaks down: three categories. Category one, make it work. This is the vast majority of our budget, a little over a million dollars. It is for things that are broken, like the roof, or pretty much broken, like a lot of other stuff. An example $30,000. Uh, we have an HVAC control. This is really sexy stuff to talk about. Like we have an HVAC system. You know, this isn't like shiny new things. Um, we have 28 air conditioning units, commercial grade, that are on top of our roof. That's what keeps everything, you know, cool and hot and all that other stuff. Can't tell. Not my area of expertise. It's what controls the temperature. Um and there's this one device and computer and system that controls all of it. Just like in your house, it's a thermostat, but on a much grander scale. And it doesn't work anymore. Um, it hasn't really worked for a long time. In fact, it's so old, it's it's from Kmart. And the company that uh the comp we just kept it in, you know, we used what was here. We were trying to be really wise. And we were, and we we've stretched it out. The company that that made that, they don't even have people that work on it anymore. They haven't supported it in like a decade. And so if we call them and say, hey, this thing's not working, which is a is a lot, um, they'll be like, yeah, we don't even have anyone that knows what to do with that. And so Brian, our facility director, he's an amazing guy. He's done some incredible things just to keep it going. And sometimes that means he gets up on the roof and he turns things on manually and turns them off and all that, but go, Brian. So if you ever see a guy on the roof, don't panic, it's just Brian. He's just keeping you all comfortable. He's a good man, all right? And if it's not Brian, let us know, because there shouldn't be anyone on the roof but Brian. Ever. Just Brian, just Brian. And so we we've got to get one of those. Like there, we have some wonderfully like exciting IT stuff. Some of you have come to me in the past and asked for our Wi-Fi password. And I'm sorry for being rude, but I'm always like, no, you can't have it. Um, it's not because I think the YouTube videos that you want to watch can wait, they can. Um, it's it's because our Wi-Fi network was designed before there were things called smartphones. So everything that is in here was designed for having like 20, 30 computers running, not 1,500 computers in people's pockets. And so if we give out the Wi-Fi password to like a few people and then it spreads, everything just crashes. And that that's happened many different times. And if you've ever walked in here before and you have a child and you can't use check-in, and we have to go to like the manual way, that's because some jerk's watching YouTube and he got our Wi-Fi password, and I don't know how he did it. And so we have to change the Wi-Fi password. Well, it's not that we want you watching YouTube videos, but we do want to make sure that the kids' areas like that doesn't happen. You know, there's some things like that that we have to, we have to make things work. Category two is make it right, it's a much smaller category, 170,000. There's some things, in hindsight, had we known the kind of church we would become and how we would grow, we would have done things differently from the beginning, and there's some things that we just want to make right. For example, last Sunday, we had 40 four-year-olds at the second service alone. 40 of you, 40 of you have four-year-olds. And I'm one of y'all. So um, but she just turned five last week, so it was the last week in the four-year-old room. 44-year-olds at one service. Something we don't have is an outdoor play space for the youngest kids. We have a play space inside for the elementary, we have lots of stuff for the high school and teens to do and all that, but we don't have a play space for the youngest kids. And number one, one of our passions about ministry with children is that kids make friends at recess, not in class. So we build play into everything we do for kids because we want them connecting. But number two, if you were teaching a class of 44-year-olds, you would probably enjoy having a place that you could take them where it's like, run, play, you know, 15 minutes, go. And so we've looked at that and said, man, our kids' areas have exploded. If you actually look at like the blueprint of the church, we never anticipated having as many young people as we have. That's a good problem to have, by the way. We're good at reaching the next generation, but but like we have a lot of young people here. And so we want to make sure that their experience is right. When I walk someone around the building and they see the elementary playground, I've never had one person say, Well, you guys wasted a lot of money on this. And by the way, if you would think that, you need to go pray. Like, that's a, you're selfish. You gotta pray about that. Um, but what I have heard, what I have heard many people say, I'm joking, what I have heard people say is, man, I wish I would have had something like this when I was a kid. I've heard so many people say that. It matters to parents that our church, it matters to me as a parent, that our church cares so deeply about young people and children that we invest in them and we make sure their experience is the best it could be. So there's some things like that that we need to make right. Category number three, smallest category, is make it better. When you're given something to steward, you not only preserve it, keep it healthy, you improve it. And how cool is it that God has given us this to improve? And so there's some things that we've decided, like, look, we need to do this. And I say we, it's not just like me. You know what we ought to do? This. It's our team, it's our leadership, where we look at what we're doing as a church, we realize things that might be holding us back that shouldn't be. And there's things that we need to make better. Give you an example. Um, the coffee shop has become like an overflow space. And there's a lot of people who either have special needs, or maybe they've had a child recently and the kid's not old enough to get checked into the kids' area, still too young to bring them in here. And so parents with young children will sit and they'll be out in that coffee shop area, and that's become like this overflow space where people can watch the service and all that. Well, it was never designed for that. And we've got a few TVs on the wall, that was for signage, and we just had the ability to put a feed out there, so we did, but it doesn't really work. And so, if we're gonna have that be an overflow space for people with special needs and young children, then we should just do it right. And we should make it something that actually works for that. And so there's some things like that that we need to make better. The thing is, in a facility like this, and doing things at the scale that we do it, things are expensive. But what I want to tell you is that we're not buying the latest and greatest. We've not we've we've spent years researching and bringing companies in to give us quotes on things. So our entire budget for everything roof, facility repairs, tech, everything, all of it, 1.365 million, right? We brought one company in just to give us a quote on the big room, just redoing the technology in here, and they gave us a quote for $1.2 million. And we said, it is very nice to meet you. Um and we haven't talked to them since. But we said no, because here's the deal. Like, I drive, I drive a 2006 Scion, and I I've had it paid off. Like I've I've driven it for a decade. I bought it in 2009, got it paid off. When it dies, I am not going to replace it with a Mercedes. Okay? I'm also not gonna buy a 2006 Scion again. I'm gonna buy something that's reasonable, but it's gonna last a little while, and that's been the heart for everything that we've looked at. So we've had we've had quotes on things, we're like, we don't need that. Um we've had quotes on things like our carpet in here. Doing Lord's Supper every Sunday for 13 years, except for a few, it takes a toll on carpet, believe it or not. Some of you all have shaky hands. Um, and maybe one time I accidentally walked into a table and knocked all of it over on the carpet. Maybe that happened. I don't know. But it did happen. Um but the beauty is someone actually said, Yeah, but when the lights are all down, you can't see it. And it's like that may not be the standard we want to operate by as a church for forever. As long as it's dark, it's okay. You know? And so, like, oh, we we should, it's time to replace that. And you know what we ought to replace it with? Carpet squares, where if someone spills like there, we can go, no big deal, we don't have to, hey, whatever. There's things like that, but it adds up. But we're doing this in a reasonable way. We've researched it, we've prayed about it, it's all it's all exciting. And think about it this way, I'll I'll move on. All of the costs for this renovation work that we're gonna do and fixing things, all of it's about one sixteenth of the cost of our building. If you bought a house for $150,000, 13 years later, one sixteenth of that would be 9,000 something. And it would be totally reasonable for you to think that 13 years into owning that home, you would need to do about $9,000 worth of work to fix things, repair things, because things break down. That's just where we're at. That's the reality. So let me share a few things with you real quick, because this is exciting. Number one, our total amount, again, $136,000, uh, $1,365,800. I'm not used to talking about numbers that begin with that, comma. So it's not my life, but it's it's cool. So we've known this is coming for a long time. It's not new, it's it's leadership here at the church, we've been praying about this, we've been researching, we've also been saving up. Those of you who give faithfully, I want to thank you. Because you give, we've been able to be healthy financially, have an operating account, we've actually been able to create an emergency fund so that if something breaks down that's really expensive, we don't have to, we don't have to panic, we have that set aside for that. And we've also been saving up bit by bit. We operate on a very small budget. In fact, we brought a consultant in to help us do some planning for some things last year, because I'm 35 and y'all don't want me to be the CFO of our church, trust me. So we bring in help for that and expertise because we think this is important. And he actually looked at us and doing all this study, he said, I cannot find a church. I've never seen a church as large as yours with a budget this small. Never seen it. And and that's like we're good at being lean, and so we've been saving up. And we have saved up over the last few years $130,000 that we're gonna apply to this. So right off the bat, we have that, which is awesome, and that's because you guys give. So you should be excited about that. There you go, yeah, exactly. That's awesome. Now, I've also talked to some people ahead of time, people who either I either give at a high level here, or there are people who've actually come to me and said, Hey, if there's ever a need, let me know. It was a very small list of people I talked to and said, Will you give to this ahead of time? And they have given a total of $104,000 that they're that's already been given, that we're applying to this as well. Now, I want to tell you a couple quick stories from this because it shows you the heart of people. Just like the people of Israel, they they didn't do this reluctantly. They weren't like, fine, David, you have to you have to be someone that upstages everybody. Here, have some money. Like, they saw what David did, they saw the value in it. And primarily, I'll just say this, they love the Lord. They loved the Lord, and they gave willingly and joyfully. And every person that's already given to that, that's been their heart. One gentleman gave me a check for $50,000 and he cried. And if I had to write a check for $50,000, I'd probably cry too. Like I was like, I get it, man, I get it. It's hard, you know. But no, no, I I know this man really well, and I said, hey, obviously, this is a big deal. And what he said was, he said, I've just been reminded that decades ago, before my wife and I were doing well financially, he said at the time we actually weren't at all, but I heard the Lord speak to me, and he told me, one day I'm gonna bless you financially so that you can financially bless the church. And he said, I'm realizing as I hand you this check that the Lord has delivered on his promise to me. Like, how awesome is that? That was his heart in giving that. And then he he held on tight as I was like, you know, like, no, I'm just showing you that at all. There was another couple, this blew me away. Um, the reason I talked to them is because they actually came to me about a year ago and they said, Hey, I've never heard someone say this before, it's amazing. They said, We we several years ago decided to start what we call our God fund. And so we take a portion of our income every every single month and we set it aside for the Lord. It's on top of what we give to the church, it's on top of what we do in our life, we set it aside and we say, Lord, what do you want us to do with this? It's yours. And they said, We've been praying about it, and God really wants us to give to the roof and the other needs here at the church. So whenever that time is coming, let us know. And over the course of the, and both I know this couple, they they have very normal jobs, probably like most of us in the room. And over the course of several years, they saved up $15,000 that they gave to the cause that we're talking about, because they said, Lord, we're gonna set this aside. It's yours. I was so blown away. I was so personally convicted by that. That's awesome. That's awesome. Tell you one more, real quick. This was not a person that I actually went to and talked about this with. I wouldn't have done this. It's a very young, young couple, but I've had people that have been praying about it, people that have known about this need as we've been working toward this and talking about this morning ahead of time. Hey, pray. And this is a person that that is very involved in our church, and I had praying. So this young man in his early 20s walks up to me a couple weeks back and he hands me a check for $14,000. And I know what he does for a living, and I know what his wife does for a living. So I was like, dude, are you like a gambler? And I didn't know that. Like, do you do you have some like, are you, you know, are you a criminal? And uh and he said, No, he said, we've been praying about this. You asked us to pray about this this need. I didn't ask him to give to it. And he said, My wife and I have been saving up for a house for a really long time. But we realized that number one, all of our financial goals are just for ourselves. And number two, this church is our home. And our lives would be so different without this place. And so we we both know that this is what the Lord wants us to do. And they just handed that. And I'm sitting there going, this is incredible. I'm not sharing any of these stories to try to like tug at your heartstrings because the common link in all of these is that God told them what to do and they did it. It's that simple. The Lord, just like Steve and Susan, the Lord put it on their heart, they did it. All these other people, the Lord put it on their heart, they did it. So that means what we have left is one million one hundred and thirty-one thousand dollars. Again, I'm not good at these numbers and eight hundred. That number, that's what we have left. A little over a million. 1.1 million dollars. Now, how are we gonna attack this? Let's talk about it very quickly. Would anyone like to write a check right now? One point we'll we'll cash it if you want to. Save us all a lot of a lot of trouble, a lot of work. No? Okay. Um, that was option A. Didn't work. No, it's not option A. Option A is very simple. Those of you who raised your hand who said, Haneni, I'm in. I'm here. I want you to pray. I want you to take the entire month of February and pray. And simply pray, Lord, what do you want me to do? Just pray and be open. Be open to God challenging you, be open to God stretching you. If God speaks to you and he wants you to do something and it requires faith, don't be surprised. Very often, when God speaks to us, it requires faith. It's kind of his style. But just pray. Just pray and say, Lord, what would you have me do? Take the entire month of February to do that, and in the months of March and April, we're designating those months as months for us to bring an offering to take care of these needs. And maybe we'll cover all of it by April, maybe not. I'm not worried about that. I don't really care about that. I just want us to do what pleases the Lord. That is the only thing I care about with this church. I don't care about this church being the church I want it to be. I don't care about it being the church that anyone else wants it to be. I just want it to be the church that the Lord wants it to be. I want to do what pleases the Lord. And that's all I want your heart to be. Lord, what would please you? You've blessed me through this church, you've called me here, we're impacting the community, people are coming to Jesus left and right. It's all good, but Lord, what would you have me to do? And whatever he puts on your heart, just do that. In March and April, we'll have the ability at the kiosks and online on our mobile app for you to be able to give to that. But just do whatever God tells you to do. If you want to give one donation in March, go for it. If you want to do all of it spread out through those weeks, that's fine. But that's just pray and do whatever he tells you to do. That's all we're asking. And I trust the Lord to speak to you and I trust you to respond. It's as simple as that. Now, a few things I want to say real quick and we're gonna wrap up. Number one, those of you who give faithfully already, I want to thank you. I said it earlier, we wouldn't be able to save up that amount that we've saved if not for you. And so those of you who give faithfully, in some ways we're asking more of you than the rest. And that's that's not the majority of us, by the way. It is not 80% of the room that gives faithfully month to month. But those of you who do, that minority that does, we need you to keep giving what you normally give and then give on top of that. Because if you don't keep giving what you normally give, we we have to still pay our bills. We actually called all the the companies and said, Hey, could you give us like a two-month break so we can take care of this stuff? And they said no. Um, I'm joking. We didn't call, but they would have said no anyway. No, we we actually need you to keep giving what you normally give so we can keep operating, and then pray, God, on above and beyond that, what would you like me to give? And I know that you will, and I'm excited about it. You guys are so faithful and awesome. There are those of us here who um who don't give. And I'm not mad at you, by the way, at all. God's not mad at you if you don't give. Because I know that in this room there's not a bunch of people who are selfish jerks who are like, I'm never giving to anything ever. Ever. What we do have a lot of, and I'm not talking about just this church, all churches, all people, are a lot of people who feel like they want to give, they would give, they just don't feel like they can. And if that's you, I want you to understand I know how you feel. I don't agree with your logic, but I know how you feel. I have four children, and if I looked at my kids and said, hey, daddy doesn't have a lot of free time right now, but one day when I have more, I'll spend time with you. If I said that, I would never spend time with my children. Because life does not organize itself around what's important. You have to make those decisions, you have to decide that. And so if I say to my myself, hey, when I have more, I'll be generous. I'm just lying to myself. A lot of times people hear the story of Steve and Susan. They're like, well, yeah, if I had tens of millions of dollars, I'd write a $16 million check. No, you wouldn't. You think it's easier to write a $16 million check than to write one for a hundred? It's not. I mean, I can't speak from experience, but I imagine that it's not. It requires faithfulness. And the people who give like that, that we would all look at and go, man, I want to be able to do that one day. Well, the reason they're like that is because when they didn't have as much, they began to be faithful and generous. I want you to understand that as Jesus' followers, generosity is not supposed to be optional for us. Jesus says this in Matthew chapter 6. When you give to someone in need, don't let your left hand know what your right hand's doing, meaning don't brag about it. Give your gifts in private, and your father who sees everything will reward you. He says, when you give, not if you give. So if you're here and you don't give, I just want you to understand that Jesus assumes that you will. That generosity is part of being a Jesus follower. It really is. And there's promises in Scripture about it. Malachi 3.10. Bring all the tithes into the storehouse so there will be enough food in my temple. If you do, says the Lord of heaven's armies, I will open the windows of heaven for you. I will pour out a blessing so great you won't have enough room to take it in. Try it, put me to the test. It's the only time in Scripture God says, test me. Be generous, test me. Jesus echoes that. Give and you will receive, your gift will return to you in full, pressed down, shaken together to make room for more, running over, poured into your lap, the amount you give will determine the amount you get back. Now, sometimes pastors will take scriptures like this and twist them to try to get people to give a lot of money. And they'll say things like, If you give today, God will give you ten times as much, and those pastors are full of it. Because if they believed that, they'd be handing out hundred dollar bills to everyone that walked in the room. They'd be like, here, here, here, here. When they twist those words to try to make it into some type of manipulative gimmick, it's not right. At the same time, just like it would be wrong of me to twist those words and try to use those to like squeeze people week in and week out, it would be wrong of me to pretend like they're not there. Jesus has made promises. God has made promises about generosity. He likes it. God likes it when we're generous. And here's the beauty of it: He blesses it. Not just financially blesses it, but but something that Jesus said, and again, right now I'm talking to those of you who've struggled to give, and I get that struggle. He says, No one can serve two masters. You will hate one and love the other. You'll be devoted to one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and be enslaved to money. When my wife and I first gave sacrificially, we've had these steps in our life where we gave occasionally, and then we started giving faithfully, and then one day God called us to give sacrificially. Like he told Megan and I both an amount that we were supposed to give, and we were like, okay, great, let's do it. And that was for a second, then after that it really was joy. But I I never I never anticipated the blessing that happened when we gave that money away. Because here's what here's what happened. We realized money's not our God. Like it took us giving to realize that, oh yeah, money is not our God, but so many of us make money into our God. We just don't realize we're doing it. The reality is if you can't let go of money, you don't own it. It owns you. If you can't give something away, you don't actually own it. It owns you. Financial freedom is not having more money in the bank. Financial freedom is realizing that you're not a slave to your money. That it's supposed to do what you tell it, not the other way around. That God has given it to you to steward and to be generous with, not to hoard and feel like it's your security blanket. God is your security blanket. And I've experienced that. I know countless Others who have. And so when we started to give and actually give like God calls us to give, we were free from that. And I there's a lot of people in the room that you need to be free from that. You think like, don't love your money because it doesn't love you back. Your money is unfaithful. It will have an affair and leave you and go to someone else. It's gonna happen. It's just a matter of time. And when you give, you break the you break the hold that money has on you. I'm so glad that today I'm not freaking out about how much is in my bank. I'm not. Because I know that the Lord will give me what I need when I need it, and I'll be faithful and wise, both of those things, and generous. And he'll bless that. And he does. So for those of you that have wanted to give and you haven't, in the months of March and April, I'm gonna ask that you just give for the first time. That you would give to this cause for the first time and let that be the start of your giving. And I'm excited about what you're gonna see the Lord do in your life through that. I really am. And one final group that I want to talk to are those of us that would say, I would love to give, I want to give, it's just that I don't have much to give, and I feel like what I would give wouldn't even do anything. That's not true. That's not true. There's a story in Mark chapter 5, it's a miracle story of Jesus. It's the only miracle story that ends up in all four Gospels. It's when he feeds over 5,000 people. It says, Late in the afternoon, his disciples came to him and said, This is a remote place, and it's already getting late. Send the crowds, over 5,000, send the crowds away so they can go to nearby farms and villages and buy something to eat. And Jesus says, You feed them. And they said, With what? I love that. That's a great that's like the appropriate response. How? They say, How? With what? We'd have to work for months to earn enough money to buy food for all these people. And Jesus says, How much bread do you have? He says, What do you have? And they go out, they find it, they come back and say, We have five loaves of bread and two fish. And Jesus basically says, I can work with that. And so he tells the disciples to sit down and or to have the people sit down in crowds and groups, and he starts to distribute the food among them, and he breaks it apart, breaks it apart, distributes all the bread, all the fish. Everyone eats as much as they want and they have leftovers. But the question Jesus asks is just tell me what you have. I'm not concerned with what you think it's gonna need to take. I just want to know what you have. And if you give me what you have, I can multiply it. All of us together, praying and asking God what he wants us to do, it's it's gonna be enough. I believe that, I know that. So don't let Satan discourage you if you're like, oh, I wish I could, I just don't have enough. No. Pray. Ask the Lord. 2 Corinthians 9 7 says, each of us, each of us, must decide in our hearts how much to give, and don't give reluctantly or in response to pressure, for God loves a person who gives cheerfully. If you feel like this is pressure, don't give. If you walk up to me and tell me a year from now I didn't give to that, I'm gonna look at you and go, I'm not, as a joke. It's because I trust the Lord to speak to you, and I trust you to respond. And in my life personally, sometimes it's it's it's been money stuff where I felt the Lord speak to me the most. It's where I actually feel my faith tested the most sometimes. And the Lord has an amazing way of speaking in those moments. So, that said, worship team, you guys can come out. It's our turn. It's our turn. Do y'all believe that? Do you understand that? Do you you feel that? It's our turn. It's time for us to step up and respond. I was thinking about how to finish this morning. I'm really bad at finishing. Like, I'm way better at starting things than I am at finishing things. My library of books will attest to that. I've finished, I've started so many books. I've finished a few. And so I was praying, like, Lord, help me finish this. And what I love to do at the end of a message is just invite people to give their lives to Jesus. And I'm like, God, how in the world do you end the giving message with an invite? Maybe you just don't. You know, maybe that's not how you end it. But then as I actually pulled back, because I know there's some of us in the room that haven't given their lives to Jesus yet, and you pick the money Sunday to come, and I'm sorry. But but I want, if that's you, if you're here, maybe you're new, maybe you're here for the first time, maybe you've been here a couple times, but you're you haven't quite gone all in with Jesus, I want you to stop for a second and consider all that God has called people to do, just so you could be sitting here right now. That God maybe loves you so much that he's so desirous to connect with you and to know you, that 13 years ago he called a couple to give $16 million to buy a Kmart and renovate it. And then over the years, he's he's raised up thousands of people, thousands of people, there's thousands of people that call this church their home. He's raised up thousands of people to step up and serve on teams and give financially and pray and do whatever needs to be done so that this church can be healthy and can grow. And he's done all this stuff, he's he's called so many people to do so much because he knew that one day you would be sitting here right now, and you would need to understand that he sees you, that he knows you, that he loves you, that whatever you're going through right now, whether it's something small or something big, that he loves you and he wants to work in your life through it, that he wants to have a relationship with you, and apparently you're so valuable to him that he's been willing to ask all these people to do all of this because you're worth it. The reason I'm not nervous about having this conversation is because I think the thousands of people that are gonna come to know the Lord in the next 13 years, because let's be honest, guys, if 1,500 people have given their lives to Jesus up to this point, what's it gonna be like in 10 years? What's that number gonna be in 20 years? How many people are gonna know Jesus? Like I want heaven to be more crowded because of this church. How many people are gonna know Jesus? How many more people are we gonna get gonna get to see go all in with Jesus because of what you do today, of the step that you make in your hearts? I think about all the people that know Jesus because Steve and Susan said yes. What's gonna happen because we say yes, because we say it's my turn, it's our turn. And if you're here today and you don't know the Lord, I just want you to consider that apparently you're a big deal, and apparently he values you because he's called so many people to do so much so you could be in this place today. He wants you to give your life to him. Because look at all he's given, and look at all he's called others to give to know you. At the end of the day, he doesn't want your money, he wants your life, he wants your heart, he wants all of you because he loves you. And so if you are here today and you're new, I'm sorry that it's the money Sunday, but I'm also not. Because I'm proud of all that God has done and will continue to do so that people like you can know the Lord, that he's real, that he's powerful, that he works, that you can trust him with everything. And if you want to give your life to him today, if for some reason you feel a stirring in your heart, that's the Holy Spirit telling you to give it all to Jesus, make that decision in your heart, pray right now. I believe in you, Jesus, and then go sign up to be baptized right away. It's in the main lobby, go sign up, and we will baptize you next Sunday and walk alongside you for the rest of your life if you'll have us. But we love you. More than that, we love Jesus. And guys, I'm here. I'm here too. And it's an honor to be here, henani, to be here with you. So let's pray together. Jesus, thank you so much for this church. Thank you so much for this family, for all the people that you've brought here. Lord, I want to thank you for all the people that you've brought here over the years that have moved away and gone to different places, Lord. It's just amazing to think about all the lives that have come through this place in 13 years. And I can't wait to imagine what's gonna happen 13 years from now and 20 and 30. I can't wait to imagine what it's gonna be like, Lord, for for us one day to hand off this church to another generation. And when that happens, God, we we want to give it to them better than it is today, to be honest with you. So, Lord, over this month, I pray, Lord, that we would pray. In fact, Jesus, I'm gonna be fasting two days a week and praying that you would speak to our people, that you would speak to me, that you would just tell each of us what to do. We trust you with that. And Lord, if anyone else in this room wants to join me in that fasting and praying, I put it on their hearts to do so. Because as many people as we have praying right now, the better. But I just pray, Lord, that we would commit ourselves this month to praying and hearing from you. And whatever you tell us, we would respond. We love you, Jesus. It's in your name we pray. It's in your name we do everything we do. Amen.