Thanks for listening to the His Hands Church podcast. If you're using the His Hands Church mobile app, please turn off the auto lock on your phone's general settings so that you can listen to the message uninterrupted. And thank you for being part of what God is doing at His Hands. I'll just say welcome to start. It is a typical, beautiful December morning, just like it has been all week. This has been a strange week. It's been so strange with the weather and everything. It's weird. My son can't go outside and play in December because it's raining and wet and 70 degrees. But uh but we'll take it, right? We'll take it. Man, it is uh it is an exciting time. I'm so excited to be here this morning. If it's your first time, welcome to His Hands. We're a big group of people that loves Jesus and loves each other, and that's that's pretty much that. We're glad that you're here. We are two days away from Christmas Eve. Two days. And so we're gonna be celebrating Christmas together in an awesome way. It's uh Christmas Eve, which is two days away. I think I just said that. 4 p.m. and 6 p.m., be here. Each of our worship gatherings is gonna be exactly one hour. Uh, all the family is invited. Kids, you know, grandparents, bring whoever you want to bring. You can bring your grandparents anytime, I guess, and your kids. But for Christmas Eve, we want to all be together. We're a big family. We're gonna talk about that a little bit this morning. And we're just gonna celebrate with an hour of all-out joy for Jesus. That's what it's gonna be. And so I really want to encourage you to be here. If there's anything you can do to help us, it would just be to spread the word and to invite some people. It's amazing how many people come to his hands for the first time and get their first taste of God the Father's love for them at something like Christmas Eve. In fact, I've got a really good uh friend I've been getting to know this year named Lee Glidewell. He'll hate it that I'm mentioning his name right now. But Lee's been helping out on our high school team, and I've gotten to know him and his family a little bit. And I found out just this last week that his first Sunday ever, or first encounter ever with his hands, was at Christmas Eve last year. And to me, and if you know Lee, just Lee alone is worth Christmas Eve last year. And I know there's a lot of other people that are in the same boat, that that was their first experience. So I just want to encourage you to invite people. Worship is gonna be amazing. I'll find out in the next day or so if the message will be okay, but but the whole of it will be really, really good. And I know it's something that's gonna speak to your soul. It's gonna be something that that lifts you and gets you so in love with Jesus and in love with God for what he's done for us through Christmas. So I just want to invite everyone to be here. If you go to our website at hishandschurch.com, you can click on the Christmas Eve link, and there are some ways you can share it online via Facebook or email. So take advantage of that. Uh, in terms of physical preparation for Christmas Eve, because when you have something that you're inviting thousands of people to, you have to prepare. We need a little bit of help with the chairs in this room this morning. We actually have to add about 700 chairs, which as you can imagine is a lot of fun. And so here's the good news we have an incredible group of college students and young adults at this church, and they have volunteered to stay after today and take care of putting all the chairs out. So, can we give them a round of applause? Because yes. Had you ever been involved in putting 700 chairs out, you would have clapped before I asked, but that's okay. What we need a little bit of help with, if you can stay for a few minutes afterwards this morning, is actually moving all the stacks of chairs we have out of the storage room in the back and then sliding all these chairs up and helping them get straightened up so we have room for 700 more chairs. You might look around and say, How is there room for more? I don't know, but it's like Tetris and it all fits in one way, and we figure it out every year, and it always feels different. So it's gonna be an exciting day for our college students and young adults. Fortunately, you guys have played a lot of video games growing up, so Tetris should be easy. This should be fun for you guys. It's gonna be great. Next Sunday, we will not be meeting. We are we are mostly a volunteer church. We have four people on staff and a couple of part-time people, and everything else is run by volunteers, and so we take one Sunday every year, the Sunday after Christmas, and just take the morning off and give all of us a chance to sleep in, stay home with our families. It gives all of our volunteers a chance to stay home and be with theirs. And so if you come here on December 29th, I believe, you can. You can hang out with the statues and you can have a really good time, but you might be lonely. But feel free. This is always, as always, up to you. Uh, because this is the last Sunday we're gonna be getting together, it's also the last Sunday for giving. And uh I just wanted to talk about that for a second. A few weeks ago, I was talking about giving and how my wife and I give. And if you're new, we don't pass a plate or anything like that. Uh, giving is something that we need and it's it's important, but it's not something that we're ever gonna push. But I was sharing a few weeks ago how how important it is for us to give because we see what God is doing here. Every single Sunday, God is is working, you know, He's moving. Just in what He's doing with our young people and with the people that we saw get baptized about a month ago. I mean, God is He is working, people are getting to know Him, and that is a worthy cause in and of itself. At the beginning of the year, we felt led to give 15% of every dollar that we got all year long to three local ministries. Three ministries that we don't have any direct connection with, but we believe in their vision, we believe in their cause, and it's Papa's Pantry, which helps people that are in times of need with food, it helps them find job placement and job training. The Hope Center is a crisis pregnancy center, and the Cherokee Family Violence Center helps abused women and their families escape a life of abuse. I think all of us would agree that those are three pretty crucial causes. And so we've been doing that every single Sunday. And what's really interesting, and this is not something I'm I'm pushing for, I'm not using this to just motivate you. I just think personally this would be cool is we are really close to being able to cap the over $100,000 given to those three charities. And I really believe that if we have a good morning this morning, if someone feels led, whatever God puts on your heart, I believe we're gonna be able to have given over $100,000 in total this year, which to me just that there's something exciting about that. Just to say, hey, we we listen to God, we pledge it. It's not like we had 15% extra just laying around and we're like, hey, what are we like all of us have that at home, right? Hey, we have all this money we found. What should we do with it? I don't know, give it away? Sure. Yeah, that's not how it works. It's a step of faith, but I know that God has blessed it just like he does in our own lives. So, you know, let's see what happens, but I I hope it does. All right, let's pray, and we're gonna jump into what we're gonna talk about this morning. Jesus. We do, we absolutely do adore you. And we will give you all the glory and all the honor and all the fame, and we are just your your people. We are your family. So we pray this morning that you speak to our hearts. We pray that you encourage us, we pray that you challenge us. And God, I pray that we just respond. I pray all this in your name, Jesus. Amen. Well, this morning is a is a very important day for our church. It really is. So if you're here this morning, I believe that this morning is a momentous day and a very important day in our church, not just this morning, but but for a long time to come. I believe that God wants us as a family to respond together in a way this morning that's that's going to be a defining moment for us. You know, I look around the room, I see a lot of people who are my closest friends. I see a lot of people I don't know super well, but just the little I know of you, I wish I could spend more time with you. I see a lot of people I've never met before, but I'd like to. So afterwards, I'll be around. Just come, say hey. This is a family. This is the best group of people I have ever been around in my entire life. And every Sunday that I'm here, my life is impacted in some way. Every Sunday. I've been a part of this family for almost seven years. It'll be seven years in March, I believe. The very first time that my wife Megan and I came to his hands was in February of 2007. We were living in Kansas City, Missouri. My wife is from here, and she was wanting to move back, and Kansas City is a lot colder than it is here. And I actually had a moment, we were outside in the winter time. It was 2007, it had snowed and iced so bad that our car was covered in ice. And I had my beautiful wife from the state of Georgia outside, she's scraping off ice and crying. And I looked at her, I'm like, we're moving back to Georgia. We got to get you back home. And so she had a job lined up here, and I was looking. I had worked for a marketing company, but I really wanted to do youth ministry. That's what I wanted to do. I wanted to work with teenagers. I was very immature, and I just felt like that would that would let me hold on to those things. And I and it worked, honestly, it worked for a long time. It really did. I had a kid that had to stop, but it worked. I had a good run. And so I had a friend that knew uh Doug Bennell, who's actually here this morning. I love Doug. Hey, Doug. And so he had a friend that knew Doug Bennell. He got me a phone call, and I talked to Doug on the phone, and he said, Hey, let's bring you down, let's interview you, because they were looking for a youth pastor here. We don't have titles, but that's just what everyone else would call it. And so Megan and I flew down, and the only thing I had been told on the phone, to give me sort of an expectation, was that this was not a super traditional church, but I was kind of used to that. Up in Kansas City, we had a great church that was not traditional, and I was told that it used to be a Kmart, that this was a Kmart. Now I've been to Kmart before. Okay? And if you love Kmart, I have nothing against you. That's awesome. But this is not what I was expecting, right? I was told, yeah, it's in a former Kmart. And so I walked in, and you know, first I was impressed, but that impressed feeling quickly turned into uh, I don't know, the word I guess I would use would be intimidation, because I had in no way been prepared for something of this scope. And the vision of this church and just what this church was trying to be, I was not qualified. I was 23 years old. My wife and I had volunteered as middle school leaders and in the small church we were at in Kansas City. We had like 20 or 30 kids that we hung out with every week. We didn't have a clue what we were doing. And so I came in here to interview, and I was just clueless. I was so intimidated, but I was deeply affected. And I remember this, this is absolutely true. My wife and I walked out the doors the first Sunday we were here to interview. And we had already known we were gonna be moving down here. I looked at Megan and I was like, there is no way I'm getting this job. But I know we found our church. And we both believe that. The first time here we said, this is our church. Whether or not you get hired, this is our church. This is where we're gonna be. And we were excited about that. And they made a terrible mistake and they hired me, and I've been here ever since, just holding on for dear life. And you know what? Okay. You guys have never been on one of my teams, see? You don't know how chaotic it can be. Okay. But but I say all that because this isn't this is not my job. This is my family. This is my family. And this morning, this morning needs to be a family conversation. We need to have a conversation as a family together. And so I think the place to start would just be the vision for this church. Who are we? What are we trying to do? That's a pretty important question. And when I think about the vision for this church, there's four things that come to my mind. The first thing is this we are a tree of life church, and we talk about the tree of life a lot. We just finished a series and Ben wrapped it up last week, and it began with the tree of life, it ended with the tree of life. And the long and short of it, just to go over it again quickly, is that when God created the earth, the Garden of Eden was full of trees, but there were two in particular that were very important. One was the tree of life, and one was the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. And God told us as people to eat freely from the tree of life. The tree of life represents life, it's it's named well. It represents freedom, it represents love, and it represents an intimate relationship with God. And God said, That is what I want for you. But there was another tree, and that tree gave us a choice. That was the tree of knowledge of good and evil. It wasn't the tree of lust or power or one of the typical sins that we would think of. It was the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. And God said, Don't eat from that tree, because that tree represents religion, it represents rules. It's this endless cycle of striving and doing everything you can to earn God's love, but we were never meant to earn his love. But Adam and Eve took the bait, they were tempted, they ate from the tree of knowledge of good and evil, and everything changed. And ever since then, as people, no matter what faith you belong to, we have been a species trying to strive to earn favor and love from God. And that is never what God wanted. So Jesus came to change that, to earn it for us, and to give us another choice: a choice to be back at the tree of life. And that's what we've chosen here at this church. We want to be a tree of life church, a place where you are free, a place where you know you are loved, and a place where you can experience intimate relationship with God. The second thing that I think of is that we are a tree, we're a tree. Well, okay, there's wood here that counts, but we're a church where dry bones come to life. There's a prophecy and a vision that God gave Ezekiel. In Ezekiel 37, it says, The Lord took hold of me, and I was carried away by the Spirit of the Lord into a valley filled with bones. He led me all among and around the bones that covered the valley floor. They were scattered everywhere across the ground and were completely dried out. Then he asked me, Son of man, can these bones become living people again? O Sovereign Lord, I replied, You alone know the answer to that. Then he said to me, Speak a prophetic message to these bones and say, Dry bones, listen to the word of the Lord. This is what the sovereign Lord says. Look, I'm going to put breath into you and make you live again. I will put flesh and muscles on you and cover you with skin. I will put breath into you and you will come to life. Then you will know that I am the Lord. And what's interesting is in the Hebrew, that word for breath is the same word for spirit. So I spoke this message just as he told me. Suddenly, as I spoke, there was a rattling noise all across the valley. The bones of each body came together and attached themselves as complete skeletons. Then, as I watched, muscles and flesh formed over the bones. Then skin formed to cover their bodies, but they still had no breath in them. I think that's interesting. You know, they're alive, but not. A lot of us can probably relate to that. Then he said to me, Speak a prophetic message to the winds, Son of Man. Speak a prophetic message and say, This is what the sovereign Lord says. Come, O breath, from the four winds, breathe into these dead bodies, so they may live again. So I spoke this message as he commanded me. And breath came into their bodies. In other words, they had spirit, they had life. They all came to life and stood up on their feet. A great army. And this church is called to be a church where dry bones come to life, where those of us who are just burnt, maybe we've been burnt by religion, maybe it's been by church, maybe it takes a lot of courage for us just to step foot into a church. And some of us have experienced that. Maybe it's not that kind of experience. Maybe it's our own mistakes and our own sins that have just left us dried out. Maybe it's just life in general, the people around us, but we are dried out and we need to come back to life. And this is a place where that happens. This is a place where that happens. I know it's happened for a lot of us, and we always believe in giving people the space, the time, the love, and the freedom for their dry bones to come back to life. The third thing that I think about when I think about our vision is that we want to love people to Jesus. We want to love people. But we don't just want to tell them about Jesus, right? We don't just want to point to Jesus, that's good. But we want to love them to Jesus. We want to love them in a way that they experience the love of Father God. And they get a taste of it. So that they think to themselves, if this is a taste of Father God's love, I want more. We're gonna love people to Jesus. We say I love you often. One of the most powerful moments that ever happened in our youth group. And a lot of us talk about how great our high school kids are, and it was about four or five years ago, Dallas was actually speaking with our high school students, and he said something I never heard someone say on a microphone to a group of students. He said, We love you guys. And it hit me, and I thought I was like, Man, I don't hear that very much spoken to a group of people, but it's true, we we love those kids. And so as a church, we say I love you a lot. I said I love you very early in my relationship with my wife Megan. Very early, way too early by the world's standards of dating and how to go about that. And I that's just how I am. I got that from my mom. I'm a very eager person, and when I'm excited about something, I just can't help but say it and talk about it. It's really hard for me to keep things to myself. I got in trouble a lot in school for that. My mom's like that. Christmas, I'm know when I'm getting for Christmas every year for like the last 20 years because my mom just can't contain it. Every year she finds a reason to have to tell me what I'm getting. She'll say, Hey, I sent you a package now, just so you know it's packed really tightly, so be careful. Okay, I'll just tell you what it is. It's she does that every year, and I know that. I'm like, well, the surprise is gone, but it doesn't matter because I'm excited about it. I'm like that too. It's hard for me to keep quiet when I'm excited. So I started dating Megan. We were still in high school, we've been together for less than a week. Okay, and I I looked, she has the most gorgeous blue eyes. I looked into her blue eyes and I said, Megan, I love you. And I will never forget this because she looked back at me, and guys, her eyes were like, oh. She said, Thank you. And that was not what I wanted to hear, but it worked out in the end. As a side note, she also screamed the first time I tried to kiss her, but I'm not embarrassed because again, it worked out in the end. I got the last laugh, okay? And so if you're here for the very first time this morning, we love you. And if all you can say is thank you, but I need some more time, that's fine. We don't want to freak you out, but we do. We love you. And we love you because Jesus loves you, and because we believe that when people encounter Father God's love, they tend to respond. And there's just something about us as people, it's a strange thing. We like being loved. And I believe that we respond much better to love than we do guilt and condemnation and conviction. Those things are good and they have their place at times, I guess, not guilt so much. But we respond to love, and that's why the Bible says that it's his kindness that leads us to repentance. So we are a church that's gonna love people to Jesus. And the fourth thing that I think about, and it's the last one, but it's it's extremely important, is that we are not a pastor-centric church. This is not a place that is built on the talents or the life of any person. And this is important because church culture just does not get this right. And it's very obvious. I mean, it's very clear in scripture how things should be, but people just tend to glance over this in the church world. So, for example, in Matthew 23, verse 8, it says, This is Jesus talking, don't let anyone call you rabbi, we might say pastor or some title like that, for you only have one teacher. And all of you are equal as brothers and sisters. And don't address anyone here on earth as father, for only God in heaven is your spiritual father. And don't let anyone call you teacher, for you have only one teacher, the Messiah. The greatest among you must be a servant. But those who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted. In the church world, it's typical for leaders in church to have illustrious titles. And it's pretty clear that that's not what Jesus had in mind. Christian culture has this fascination with making leaders into these little mini celebrities, and it usually doesn't work out very well in the end. That happened in the early church as well. Paul, Apollo, Cephas, some of the other early church leaders started to gain these followings where people were really following them. And Paul's basic words to them, and I'm just gonna paraphrase for him, were quit it. Stop. We're all following Jesus. Steve and Susan have done an incredible job of making sure that this is a place where the only person, the only person that gets a little bit more famous every Sunday morning is Jesus. And that's how it should be, that's how it is, and that's how it always will be. How many of us, when asked where we go to church or what church family we're part of, how many of us say, Oh, I'm a part of the Craig's church? How many of us didn't know that was their last name until just now? Isn't it great that more hands were raised? I didn't see any that were raised the first time, but more hands for sure were raised. I didn't even know that was their last name. That is awesome. There's no one's name on the front of our building, there's no one's face on a billboard, there's no one's picture on our website. This church is about Jesus. And he's the only one that gets glory. You know, those four things I believe are important. I had a day a couple years ago where I was praying and just talking with God, and He told me something that was very clear to me is that this is an important church. And that word was you, it was it was important for me to hear that because he said important. And I honestly didn't know what he was talking about. I think all churches are important to some degree. I really do. But he told me this is an important church. And I believe the vision of this church is important. That this is a place where people experience those things that we just talked about. Now, God gave Steve and Susan the vision for this church. He called them to start the church. He called them to fund this church. He called them to guide it and to make sure that they kept the vision that he gave them, and they have done an incredible, incredible job of that. I've been really blessed to work really closely with them, and I've seen how much they sacrifice and how much they give, more so than the average person here, and it's inspiring. Even their generosity, I used to believe that wealthier people were generous because they were wealthy. But just because of their example of my life, I realized that God meant what he said and that generous people are wealthy because they're generous. There have been a lot of things that they've taught me. They're my spiritual mom and dad. And I love them both very, very much. They've never received a paycheck from this church, they've just given of themselves. And all of us have been blessed by that. And Steve and Susan have not been nearly as visible for the last six months or so. And there have been a few reasons for that. One of those reasons is because for a long time they've wanted to step back a little bit. Susan wants to be in a grandmother role for this church. That's the stage of life that she's in right now. Steve hates, and I mean this, hates being on a stage. He can't stand it. He is an introvert. You may not know it from when he talks, but you know that God called Steve to speak because that's the last thing he would ever sign up to do. So part of them stepping back has been that they felt like there are some people that were ready to fill some roles and to do some things that they have traditionally done. But the other reason, and really the main reason that this year has been the year that that process has been sped up a little bit, that process of them stepping back, is because they've had a really tough year marriage-wise this year. They've had a really tough year. They've both been in counseling, both together and separately. They have tried their best, but sometimes, despite our best, things don't work out. And earlier this week, Steve and Susan filed for divorce. And that's about the response that I expected. That's the response that I had. Like I said, they're my spiritual mom and dad. I love them very, very much. And I know that's a big pill to swallow. But we're a family. And so I've known what's been going on for a few months. Steve met with me and Tim Rogers and Nathan and Ben Sykes and some other people that he's close to and told us what was going on, asked him to pray. Susan met with a lot of people that she's very close to as well and asked them to pray. So I've known what's been going on for a few months, and I've been praying really hard about it every single day. And so I've had a little bit longer to process that. I know that's a big thing for all of us to process, and I'm not going to tell you how to feel or how to respond to that, but I just thought it would be helpful if I maybe walked you through how I've processed it. Just having had some more time. So here's how it is for me. I'm very sad. I know that's profound, so I'm very sad. I'll tell you this though, no one is as sad as Steve and Susan are. But I'm very sad. I was confused at first. We have this tendency with people that we admire, especially people I think that affect us in a big way spiritually, to convince ourselves that they have somehow escaped all the problems and the issues that we face in our lives. It's like it gives us hope that, oh, hey, their life is all perfect and together, so I believe mine might be as well. And just to be honest with you, there are a lot of churches that are built around the image of a perfect pastor. With perfect teeth and a perfect smile and great hair, and saying, hey, do these six things and you'll be perfect too. That's pretty normal. And even though I know that's not Stephen Susan, they've been open about that. There's just something about us that wants to think that. It gives us some type of hope, but really it's a false hope. Because we are all people. We all have issues. We all have problems. And our hope is only supposed to be with Jesus. In fact, one of the major foundations of our relationship with God is the knowledge that he loves us and approves of us in full view of our issues, mistakes, shortcomings, and problems. Not that he loves us hoping that one day we'll get it all figured out. That's Daddy God. That's his love for us. Paul had issues. He had something he prayed several times that God would just fix, zap him, and make it go away. And God did not do that. And when Paul prayed for that, God said to him, Paul, be reminded that when you're at your weakest, I'm at my strongest. And just trust in that. Find rest in that. Great people. Even godly great people have problems and issues. And if you need some extra reference, just read the Bible. Focus mainly on the people that we call our heroes in Scripture. Abraham, Jacob, David, Paul, you name it. God did a great thing by making sure that He didn't just record their victories, but their struggles, their failures, and all of it. And I think we need to be reminded of those things sometimes because we can gloss past that. So I dealt with a lot of sadness, and I'm still dealing with that. There's a lot of confusion. I know a lot of us are processing that. And there was a temptation for me to be angry. And I'm sure a lot of us might be feeling that as well. And I can say this with complete honesty. I do not feel angry. I'm not angry at Steve. And I'm not angry at Susan, and I'll tell you why. It's because I haven't been lied to. That's why. I haven't been misled. Steve and Susan have never pretended like they are perfect pastors with perfect lives. They have always been open with all of us about their struggles, about things they're working on. Even when they've been on this stage and have spoken on the topic of marriage, they have made it so clear that their marriage has been difficult. I said earlier that they were in counseling together and separately. This was actually the fifth time in their marriage that they've gone through a time of very serious counsel trying to save their marriage. This has not just been a short-term thing. But they've been honest about that with us. And they say it, and I think it's easy for us in this position to look on the stage and laugh like, oh, that's how it used to be, but surely not now, right? But they've been really open about that. So I don't feel angry because I haven't been misled. I respect the fact that Steve and Susan have always been honest and reminded us that they're real people. I respect the fact that six months ago, they took a step back. They haven't been here every single Sunday on the stage smiling, making us feel like everything was okay. They took a step back to work on things, they got their close friends involved for prayer. They got counseling, and that's the approach that any of us should take in a situation like that. So I don't feel mad, I don't feel angry, because I haven't been misled, but I am incredibly sad. I know a lot of us are sad as well. I know this brings up a lot of questions. A lot of the kinds of questions that are running through our mind right now, I can I can guess what those are because I asked all those questions myself. And so you might be wondering, okay, how did this happen? What happened? And truthfully, whatever happens is really their business more than any of ours. But I can tell you a few things. First of all, there is no affair. Neither of them had an affair on the other person or anything like that. Nothing like that happened. There is nothing scandalous. There is nothing salacious going on. There is nothing that would make the 20th page on any newspaper. Nothing at all. Steve and Susan didn't make this decision lightly. This wasn't a knee-jerk reaction. This is something that they have counseled about, talked about, prayed about, asked prayer for, worked on. It's been a kind of a roller coaster. That's why we haven't said anything until now, because no decision had been made until this week. And I'll just be honest with you, I've been praying every day that it would not end like this. I've been praying every day that God would fix it, that He would heal it. And that's not what happened. And I'll say that there might be some of us that feel a temptation to like run to their rescue and email them and talk to them and say, hey, I've been there, I've done this, okay? I know that they're not the only ones that have dealt with divorce in this room and say, hey, you can do this and this and this, and it'll be fixed. That's not what they need right now. That's not where they're at right now. What they need is prayer, space, and support. There might be questions about what does this mean for their involvement in the church? Because they both love this church. And so the way that's gonna work is that Susan is gonna take a step back into that grandmother role like she talked about. She's gonna be here when we need her. Steve is gonna step more into a behind-the-scenes role. He'll still be here a lot. He meets with me every single week. He and Nathan and I spent four or five hours together the other day. He does that a lot. So he's gonna be very aggressively involved behind the scenes, you know, with leadership decisions and helping us out that way because he is uniquely gifted for that. But he won't be as visible. God has uh has put great people into this church. People that are mature, people that are strong, people that are wise, and people that hear from God, and we have an abundance of people that are ready to step into new roles into this church. Stephen Susan have asked Nathan and I to step into a more direct leadership role and a more visible role. So Nathan has been leading our worship team for a long time. He's doing a great job with it. I'm gonna be on stage more talking, which, okay. So it's just that's that. We have a great staff. It's a small staff, but but I work really closely with them, and and our staff of four does the work of 20. And they're encouraged and excited about the future. We have great volunteer leaders that lead our teams, like the prayer team and our support teams on Sunday mornings. So even though they're gonna be a little less visible, this church is in exceptional hands, mainly because it's in Jesus' hands. The biggest question that a lot of us probably have is what does this mean for the future of his hands? And you know, if you're here for the first time this morning, this is an interesting morning to be visiting. But not a bad one. So, what does this mean for the future of our church? Well, obviously, based on what I just said, you know, I believe we'll be fine. In fact, I believe that we'll be more than fine. Because here's the truth, guys. Human effort fails. Even the human effort of great people, the human effort of godly people that are listening to the Holy Spirit, that are following God, human effort fails, right? But this church was not built on human effort. This church was built on Jesus, and Jesus never fails. Ever. And this church will not fail. In fact, this church is gonna thrive and it's gonna grow. I believe 2014 is the biggest year we have ever experienced, and it hasn't even happened yet, so I must be really excited. But I know that's the case because I know that this church is built on Jesus. And he told us himself, he said, hey, don't build your life on sand, on the things of this world, right? On people. Build your life on me because I'm a strong foundation, and I am so grateful to Steve and Susan for building the foundation of this church on Jesus and never ever letting it be built on them. Because I'm sure at different times in some of our lives, we would have let it be built on them. But they never let that happen. This church is built on Jesus, and it will be more than fine. It will thrive and it will grow. We haven't even scratched the surface yet. It's interesting because when Steve first met with Nathan and I, and Tim and Ben, and Susan met with Marlon Cheryl Yoder, the Skurises, the Bowlings, and a few other people, and they shared with us what was going on, and they asked Nathan and I to start doing a lot more planning and leading here. You would think that Nathan and I, we started working really closely together. We're really good friends, and you would have thought that we would have had this hunker-down mentality, like, okay, well, we just need to hunker down and be in hold the fort mode. You know, let's keep this thing from falling apart. And that's what common sense would say to do. I like to think of myself as someone that has common sense. The answer to that question depends on who you ask, but that's what common sense would say, right? This is really bad. Hunker down, make sure everything's okay. But as Nathan and I prayed together and talked together, that is not the mentality that God gave us. And it's strange because God was telling us to get ready and to start moving forward. And to actually start moving forward into what this church is supposed to be, into what Steve and Susan were led by God to start it to become. Nathan shared a really amazing piece of wisdom. He was talking about riding a motorcycle. Nathan has a motorcycle. I do not, I'm not bitter about that. I wouldn't last a day. Okay? I wouldn't last a day. And Nathan said, you know, when you're on a motorcycle, the bike goes where you're looking. That's how you steer. That's why you have to be careful to look over your shoulder or things like that, because the bike will go where you're looking. Your body weight follows your eyes. Peter had an experience similar to that, just not on a motorcycle in Matthew 14. Jesus walks on water, he's trying to catch up with the guys in the boat who left without him. How do you leave Jesus? I don't know. They see him walking on the water, they get freaked out, they think he's a ghost, and it says, Then Peter called to him, Lord, if it's really you, tell me to come to you, walking on the water. Yes, come, Jesus said. So Peter went over the side of the boat and walked on the water toward Jesus. But when he saw the strong wind and the waves, he was terrified and began to sink. Save me, Lord, he shouted. Peter experienced the same thing Nathan was talking about. When his eyes were on Jesus and he was looking to him, he was moving forward. He was moving to Jesus, and Jesus was his goal. And when he stopped and he started looking at all these other things that were going wrong, the wind and the waves, he sunk. We are not sinking as a church because our eyes are on Jesus. We're not looking at the waves, we're not looking at the wind, we are looking at Jesus and we are moving forward. And it's exciting. God's given a lot of people here vision for our upcoming year. And it's an aggressive one. God's given Nathan a vision for an entire new way for us to do small groups. There's gonna be more community and more close relationship happening here in 2014 than we've ever had. And so if you've ever been here and thought, man, I'd like to get to know some people, that will be fixed in an amazing way in January. We're gonna be talking about that a lot whenever we meet back on January 5th. It will be impossible, virtually impossible, to walk through our lobby on a Sunday morning and not know how to get connected, how to know people, how to have people around you to love you, support you, how to get involved on a team. It's a big vision, and it's gonna take a lot of work. Nathan, it's gonna take a lot of work. So, okay, just all right. It's gonna take a lot of work. But it's gonna be great. And that's not the only thing. God is just moving us forward. I've I've been here for seven years, and I want to say this, and I'm being completely honest, and the context might sound strange. I have never, and I mean never, been more certain that this church is coming up on a point where we see the vision that God has given us starting to be fulfilled in new ways than we are right now. I am certain of that. I've never been more confident in that. Obviously, that's not up to me, that's up to God, and I believe it's up to how we respond in a lot of ways. Several months ago, before before I knew about any of this going on, I read a specific passage in 1 Chronicles. I was reading the one-year Bible, and I came to 1 Chronicles 29, and I don't know if I had read this before, maybe I hadn't just glanced over it, but when I read this more than any scripture I had ever read, I knew it was for this church. I've read scripture before that I knew was for me. God was like, that's for you, you need to apply this. But when I read this, I knew this was for our church, this was for his hands. I just didn't know how to share it, when to share it, or the context and the setting. I've talked to Steve about it, and I've just been holding on to it, wondering, okay, God, when is the right time and the right place to share this? And I never dreamed it would be in this circumstance. But I knew this week that this is the time. It's a scripture about David, and he's transitioning away from being the king of Israel. Solomon's about to take over. But there's still something big that David needs to do, and the parallels to our church are so strange it's a God thing. So I'll just read it. It's 1 Chronicles 29, 1 through 9. It says, Then King David turned to the entire assembly and said, My son Solomon, who 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 is enough gold, silver, bronze, iron, and wood, as well as great quantities of onyx and other precious stones, costly jewels, and all kinds of fine stone and marble. And now, because of my devotion to the temple of my 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 have already collected for his holy temple. I am donating more than a hundred and twelve tons of gold from Ophir, and two hundred and sixty-two 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 craftsman. Now then, who will follow my example and give offerings to the Lord today? And then the family leaders, the leaders of the tribes of Israel, the generals and the captains of the army, the king's administrative officers, 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. Notice, collectively they outgave David. 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 Gershan. The people rejoiced over the offerings, for they had given freely and wholeheartedly to the Lord, and King David was filled with joy. Like I said, there are a lot of parallels to our church here. And some of you that kind of know the story of how we started might see those right off the bat. You know, building the temple was David's life dream. He wanted nothing more than to give everything he had so that his God, you know, his God, and we all feel that way, right? God is not God, he is my God, he is my daddy. And he wanted to give everything he had so that his God had a place to be worshipped and honored. And so he gave everything. I mean, he gave everything. He said, I'm giving all, all that I have to this. And when I read that six months ago, I was like, that's Stephen Susan and this church. You know, that's how this church started. So if you don't know the story, Steve and Susan sold a company that they had started. It was a company that began with them in their unfinished basement. And by the time they sold that company, it was an Inc. 500, very, very successful company. And they sold it for a lot of money. Enough money to buy a house wherever you wanted to, or to buy five houses wherever you wanted to, and never work another day, to just be done and enjoy life. And then God called them to start a church. And they were very confused by that. That was never a plan that they had. That was never something they took upon themselves. That's what God told them to do. So they did that and they started his hands and they spared no expense. They paid for the entire property. They paid for half of the renovations to this building. They took a loan out for the other half because they thought it was a good idea for the church to work toward paying for this building also. They paid the staff personally. This church was nowhere near ready to support the staff when it started. And so, personally, out of their own pocket, they paid all of our salaries, all of our insurance. They paid the operating costs for the building. They wrote every single check, and they never took a paycheck in return. And when the economy did what it did in 2009 and everything got kind of scary, the bank got really nervous. And so Steve and Susan took everything they had left after spending so much on this church. They took everything they had left and they satisfied the loan to make sure that this church was secure. And all they had left was enough to start another company. And that's the company that Steve is at now. So just like David, they gave everything. They gave everything. And this church would not be here had they not. And they don't regret it at all. They gave everything. David gave everything he had. And because he gave everything he had, thousands of people had a place to worship God. People were blessed well beyond just the small area that that temple was built. And as a side note, as an added little bonus, you know, it says that King David was blessed and filled with joy. But what was it that filled him with joy? Because he never saw the temple be built. It was that the people responded. And the people said, David, this is not yours alone. And so we're going to respond and we're going to give everything we can give. Because the vision of this temple is good. And so the people of Israel came together and they outgave David. When I first read this, I thought, okay, this has to be about financial giving here at his hands. And, you know, there are obviously parallels there. It's financial what David's giving. It was for the building of something and the completion of something. And it would not surprise me at all if God's going to move some of us this morning to give in a big way. It wouldn't surprise me at all. But that's not really what I'm focused on. Because I don't think it was the money that filled David with the gratitude that he had. It was that the people were all in with him and alongside him. And let's just stop for a second and remember that David was not a perfect king. And divorce would not have ranked very high on the list of mistakes and failures that David had experienced. Adultery and murder might be at the top. I don't know. He was not a perfect king. But his heart was right, and his focus was right. And he he was given a vision by God and he wanted to see it through to the end. But David, no matter the vast resources that he had, could not make that happen by himself. And so he went to the people and he said, Will you be all in? And because they responded, because they said, Yes, we're all in, we're going to take it from here. Thousands of people had a place to worship. Thousands upon thousands of people were blessed beyond the small area that that temple was, and David was filled with joy. And all of us this morning have an opportunity to go all in. And as a church family, that I believe is what today is about. Today is not about the fact that Steve and Susan are getting divorced. The message title today will not be Steve and Susan Are Getting Divorced. This morning is about us going all in together. It's about us giving our passion and our hearts and our souls and our energy to say, I believe in the vision of this church. That's why I'm here, hopefully. And I believe it deserves to be seen through to completion. That's why I'm here. Because I believe in this place and I believe what God is doing here, and I believe that Steve and Susan did something great when they obeyed God and started it, just like David did something great when he gave everything. But I don't believe that this church was ever supposed to be Stephen Susan's to bear alone. And right now, we have the chance and the opportunity to come together as a family and say, we're all in and we're gonna see this thing through, and it's gonna thrive, and it's gonna grow. And you know what's gonna happen? Thousands of people are gonna have a place to worship God. Thousands upon thousands of people are gonna be blessed beyond the small area of Woodstock, Georgia. And just as a little side note and as an added bonus, Steve and Susan are gonna be filled with joy because we responded in a way that honors what they've done. If the worship team wants to come back up, uh I was gonna ask a question here. I was gonna say, is anyone all in? But I think I know the answer to that question. So back in 2007, back in 2007 when Megan and I first came here, it was a weird day for us to visit. It was Super Bowl Sunday, people came out on stage and threw peanuts at it. It was weird, right? It hasn't happened since, so we put a stop to the peanut throwing, don't worry. Um and then when everything was done, I heard words I had never heard spoken in a church before. And the words were find a pile and put your hand in it. Okay? And I just remember looking at Megan thinking, that's a sentence I never expected to hear in a church. Honestly, that's a sentence I never want to hear in life for the most part. In most circumstances, if there's a pile of something, I'm not putting my hand in it, okay? Unless it's like chips or something. I don't know. And what it was was this little thing we do every once in a while. We used to do it every week, but we've we felt after a while that it didn't need to be every week. It needed to be at certain times. It's called hands in the pile. And it's like us being a sports team or something. I got Jimmy's mic. Whoa, Jimmy's mic's loud. Jimmy. Jimmy's mic. You know, it's us saying, hey, we're a team. And we're together. And so we we put our hands in a pile and we stir it up and we go, oh. And on a count of three, we yell Jesus, because who's this church built on, right? Jesus. And yeah, that's right. And so, I don't think there has ever been in the history of our church a more appropriate time to do a hands in the pile. So I'm gonna repeat that thing that I heard years ago. You know, I need everyone to find a pile and put your hand in it, okay? So you can stand up. If you'll do this with me, and then we're gonna do another worship song. But if you will find some people around you, this is your family, if it's your first time here, it's up to you. Find a pile and put your hand in it. And we're going to say Jesus on three. And I don't even think I have to ask, but can this be the loudest Jesus that we have ever said? So let's do that this morning. Let's worship Jesus and let's look forward to a bright future together as a church. Here we go. One, two, three, Jesus! Woo!