Time to Build | Week 2 | Daniel Goulding | Echoes Church

That means that statistically,

80% of all New Year's resolutions that we started in January have already failed. Come on, somebody. They they say that within forty five days that all New Year's resolutions, 80% of New Year's resolutions will will fail. Right? And if we can just be honest, if we would be willing to throw our hand up and say, hey, maybe there's a few things that we set out this year to do that we had really incredible intentions,

but if we're honest, now sitting here in February,

not a whole lot has changed, right? I I remember for me when my wife and I were having in the season of having kids, this this crazy things happen when when women get pregnant, right? They start to have all these cravings. They eat all this unhealthy food and my wife would put on all this weight, and so I've got to put it on with her. Right? It's like sympathy weight. But then the the the sad reality was that she would give birth to a baby,

and literally within weeks, she just would lose all the weight. And I'm sitting there being like, yo, what happened? Right? So, we did that two times. I wish I could show you the picture. We tried to put it up here but it's just not good enough quality for any of us to see it but it was my my wife's grandmother's.

The only picture she's ever posted on her Instagram was this picture of us as a family on Christmas, and it was that moment. You know, like like that moment when you see yourself in a photo and you're like, oh, dang. It happened. Like, I'm I'm fat. You know? Like, it's

I like, because I was always, like, decently athletic and stayed in shape, and then you just start having little kids and diet goes out the window and you're not able to work out. And all of a sudden, I woke up and I was two hundred and forty pounds, the biggest I had ever been in my life.

And then I started to go, well, how do I change this? And so I started to, you know, think about it, and I really wanted things to change. And the truth was for a couple years, nothing nothing really changed until I made kind of a plan, and and I got a trainer. I got a workout partner.

Then I started to go to the gym consistently. See, the the hard part is if all we have is intentions and desires to change, even if we think about the things in our life that we wish weren't the way they are right now, nothing is gonna change about those things unless we start to put some action

behind the plan. See, what we're going to see today is that intentions without direction leads to frustration. See, if all you have is intentions and and wants and desires, but it doesn't lead to direction and and planning and logistics, you will just stay in that season of frustration.

We started last week looking at this incredible story in the Old Testament called Nehemiah. Again, if you missed it last week, we started in Nehemiah chapter one where Nehemiah is a man that's born into slavery. He's serving this king that's a pagan king. He doesn't follow god. His name is King Artaxerxes

and Nehemiah is the cup bearer to that king. He's a trusted adviser to him and his brother has come home from Jerusalem and told him that the walls around their their homeland are in disrepair and Nehemiah understands that until they rebuild this wall,

the nation of Israel is never going to be able to thrive again And I wanted to again just quickly here say something about what I said last week. Okay? Last week, I made a comment which I still believe and hold to, but I made a comment that said, hey, without a strong border, a nation cannot thrive. K?

I still believe that, and I still believe that's what the scriptures teach us, and we should be people who are pro border security. Here's what I undervalued.

Our political culture today is not an easy one. K? And so sometimes when I make a statement like that, I I don't always appreciate how that lands on everybody. And so, again, I still believe that our policy should behave. We believe in secure borders, but we also believe that we're called to love the immigrants, and it's a tough conversation.

All of that to say in two seconds, I shouldn't have just lobbed that out last week. So if that hurt you or you were offended by that, let me just say, hey, my apologies. That was not my intent at all. But Nehemiah, thank you. There's three people that are like, hey, this is this is good.

Again, Nehemiah understood that until they rebuilt this wall, the nation of Israel was going to be in disrepair because they couldn't protect themselves from invasion. Invasion. And Nehemiah one ends with him just broken, and he's fasting and he's praying and he's asking for God to do something about this. And the amazing part about the story of Nehemiah is it's the story of what one person

who understands what God can do with a life fully submitted to him. It shows us the power and the potential of what God can do with one person. K. Nehemiah chapter two, here's how the story begins today. It says early the following spring in the month of Nissan,

just like the car you drive. In the month of Nissan, during the twentieth year of King Artaxerxes' reign, I was serving the king, his wine. Okay? I know it's just one verse, but Nehemiah chapter one starts and it's the month of Kislev, okay? We know this is about October or November. Nehemiah two

picks up and it's the month of Nissan. This is March or April. So, what this means is that Nehemiah,

he hears about this thing that he doesn't like. He he doesn't like the reality of where this thing sits and for months, he's been praying and he's been fasting and he's been seeking god. Now, again, I think the reason this is important for us to see is if because if we're going to be people who not just have good intentions but begin to put a plan to it. We begin to take action around these things and we would pray bold prayers like, god, would you use my life to make a significant difference?

I'm telling you, there's some lessons in this story that we have to see. If we're going to be people who go, god, we want you to do something powerful through our life and we don't want to just have good intentions

but we want to put some direction behind that. I think the first thing that we see in this story, the the first kind of step to getting to action is being people who who pray

patiently. See, I think the problem with our culture is we we live in this Amazon Prime microwave culture. Right? We want everything and we want it now. And Nehemiah is praying for four months without any certainty of what's going to happen on the other side of that.

And he's just seeking God and he's fasting and he's broken over the reality of what is happening to his people. And nothing takes place in a day. Nothing happens in a week. We don't even hear about anything until four months later. We begin to see some of the details of what God is going to do through Nehemiah.

Here's what I believe, is I believe like I said last week that god wants to do something powerful through your life, that you are not here randomly, you are not here accidentally,

that god has a vision for your life that if you could just get a glimpse of it, I'm telling you, it would blow you away. God wants to do something powerful through you but more than what god wants to do through you is what he wants to do in you.

See, the beautiful part about Nehemiah for four months is just sitting and he's praying and he's seeking god and nothing externally is changing. None of the circumstances, none of his current reality is any different but I promise you though it's not recorded here, what's happening every day, every week is Nehemiah

is being changed. I wrote it down this way. God, god is more concerned with who you are becoming than what you are doing. See, this is the thing that you and I have to understand as we serve a god that cares much more about the condition of our soul than the things that we do for him.

God wants you to spend time with him not because you're just a tool that he can use. It's in his arsenal.

God wants you to spend time with him so you can begin to to learn who you really are. You can begin to learn his voice. And I'm I'm telling you, if you're in that season today where you're like, god, I don't know what you're doing. It feels like I I wish if I could control this, that things would move a little bit quicker

and sometimes it can be the frustrating part about following god because sometimes we'll begin to get like a vision of like, okay, I wish this was different. I wish I wish my marriage was different. I I wish my relationship with my kids was different. I wish my financial reality was was different

and we see and we hear things like, okay, god has a plan for us. So, then we go, okay, god, make that plan happen but then we come to the reality that god's timing isn't our timing.

His timing is always better than our timing but god exists outside of space and time and god is writing a story that is unfolding in our world over decades and hundreds of years but we live in moments and days and we want god to move yesterday.

What I'm here to tell you is that I know we're just one verse into this story, but if you find yourself this morning in a season where it feels like everything around you is really broken and you're just sitting here going, God, I I I wish you would move faster. Let me encourage you. Don't waste the season of waiting.

See, I think the hard part is is we've just been so inclined to have God do something yesterday that we miss the value in the seasons of waiting. I was a young adults pastor for years and years, and my message to young people was always, I know, I know you so desperately wanna get married yesterday,

but don't waste the season you have of singleness today Because here's what I promise you. How you steward this season, it will determine next season. Again, I wrote it down this way. How you steward your season of waiting, it will determine the fruitfulness of your next season.

How you steward the season of waiting, it will be the lead indicator of the fruitfulness of your next season. And so if you're here and you're sitting here going, you and your spouse are in the middle of really wanting to have children, but for some reason, you're having issues with infertility.

I'm telling you, don't don't miss the miracles that god can do in the season of waiting. It might not be miracles through you but it will be miracles in you. If you're in a season of waiting for god to change your financial situation,

don't just get frustrated that you're not there yet. Instead, press into what god has for you in this season because I promise you the greatest miracle that god wants to do in all of us. It is greater than the thing that he will ultimately do through us. This church planting process was by far the most difficult thing I've ever done in my life.

But had you told me two years ago

that my relationship with God would look like it does today, I would have done this process 10 times over. Because what this season was, god used it to develop things in me and yes, eventually, he did something through me but it was in the season of waiting. It was in the season of development. It was when all of this was just a dream in my heart that I I I had no idea how it was going to happen.

I think that's the sad part is when we get into those moments where we don't see the how, the dream dies. The vision the vision dies

and I'm here to tell you, if you find yourself in that season, just just lean in and trust that maybe god is doing something you can't understand and there will be a day. I promise you, there will be a day no matter what it is you're walking through today that you will look back and you will see exactly what god was doing in the season of waiting

but don't waste it. Don't waste the season of waiting. Nehemiah for four months has been praying and here's how it continues. It says, I had never appeared before him, before the king. I've never been sad in his presence. So, the king asked me, why are you looking so sad?

You you don't look sick to me. You must be deeply troubled. Then, Nehemiah says, I I was terrified. See, Nehemiah for four months has been praying because he knows. He knows for him to go to King Artaxerxes and tell him, the reality of my people's condition is heartbreaking to me. It will be an absolutely terrifying ask.

Why? Because you know who gave the order to make sure that the walls around Jerusalem stayed in disrepair? It was king Artaxerxes. The nation is in the state that it's in because of this king's decree.

And Nehemiah knows this is a brutal king. He he took the throne by killing his own brother. For forty years, he will rule with an iron fist. Nehemiah is a close adviser to him. He had a 100 different reasons to be terrified because of what he felt like God was leading him to do.

To go have a conversation with the king that has no grace for anybody about having grace on his people. And yet somehow in the middle of that tension,

see, think this is what's hard is sometimes when we find ourselves in a season where we don't like where we are and we we see like, okay, maybe there's a better plan for my life someday. What we typically do in those moments is we just throw in the towel and we just give up. Remember when the economic crisis hit in 2008?

My dad is in the the business of doing foreclosures and all of that and and the crazy part was is there was a lot of people who because of malicious lending practices, they they lost their homes and banks did really shady things

but there was also a crazy amount of people that just looked at the reality of their their debt to or their debt to value ratio and saw, man, I'm I'm so upside down on this house. They just walked away. Instead of had they just made their mortgage payment every single month,

they would be sitting in a house that's probably worth double than what it was in 2008.

Here's why I say any of this. Is you and I, if we're in when we're in these seasons of not knowing what God is doing, and we look around, we go, God, none of this logistically makes any sense to me. You will be tempted to just give up.

Yet, Nehemiah for four months has been praying patiently. Yes, but he's also been serving faithfully.

The second thing that we have to do if we're going to be people that turn intention into action is we're going to be people who don't just pray about it. We also do something about it. Nehemiah knew knew, okay, I'm not there yet but what I can do today

is I can serve in my current capacity with all that I have, right? It's a core value of us as a community. We talked about a few weeks ago that worship isn't something that we do for ten minutes on a Sunday morning. No, no, no. Worship is our lifestyle.

It's who we are. Everything we do. It shows the world who our god is. It's how we order coffee. It's how we show up to work And Nehemiah understood, though I I don't like my current reality, I want god to change some things. I'm serving a boss that I promise you is worse than any boss that you and I have ever had.

But he said, I I know that god has me here for a reason. And for four months, he's been serving that king heartbroken, yet the king never knew anything different. This was the first day that the king said, hey, something's wrong with this guy.

See, Nehemiah made a decision even though things aren't changing today, what I can control is I can control my attitude. I can control how I show up. I don't have to let everybody know about the pity party that I'm in the middle of because I trust that god is in control and he's working and he's doing something

that I don't completely understand but I know that god is good and when you have a core conviction, when your theology, your belief and understanding of God is that he is good, it means that when you're in the middle of a circumstance where things aren't good, you don't have to throw in the towel and give up.

You can just keep pressing through and going, God, I can control what I do today. And I trust that you are moving and you are doing something that I don't completely understand

and I love in this verse that we see that Nehemiah, this guy that gets recorded as kind of this this hero of the Old Testament changes the entire trajectory of the people of god because of his obedience. That in the middle of him making the decision to have a conversation with the king, he's terrified.

See, I've always thought that courage and like being used by god, it it meant that you would never be afraid and you know what I'm learning?

Is that when you walk in courage, often the companion to courage is absolute debilitating fear and sometimes, you and I need to learn that, yes, there there are reasons we should be afraid. Logistically,

as we started to think through a couple years ago, okay, how do we how do we leave our job and and plant a church? And then me and Josh started having conversations of like, can we do this thing together? Like, there were so many logistical things that made zero sense, but they were also so far outside of our control

that we either could have let that fear terrified us and to never actually do anything or you can allow that fear to to motivate you. See, here's what I hope you see this morning is that fear can either stop you or it can fuel you. The thing that you are so afraid of,

it can continue to be for another year. The reason that you don't make any difference, that you don't take any action, or it can be the thing that drives you to your knees to seek god in ways that you never have done before.

See, the part that I'm so thankful about, honestly, into in this process of church planting, it's been amazing to watch what god has done

but the dependency that I've had to learn on God in these last couple years has been something that, again, I just I had no idea that that's what God was gonna do, that what God was gonna use this season for.

My hope and my prayers, the things that you're looking at in your life that are causing you so much fear right now, that you're just like, man, I I don't get how this could ever be solved. Logistically, I don't get it. I I there's so many details of this thing I just don't understand.

My prayer is that that fear wouldn't stop you any longer, and it would instead be the thing that drives you on your knees to spend time with God and that God would begin to do something powerful in you. And eventually

eventually, the time will come for him to release you and for you to step into that thing that he's been burdening your heart for. See, here's the thing that that I I often fear as a pastor living in America today is I think we've been sold a version of Christianity that's just like comfort is our ultimate god.

And I just wonder when the last time was that you you prayed a prayer that caused you fear on the inside, that you had a dream of god doing something through you that honestly, it terrified you a little bit because

I think I I think truthfully, if we don't have some of those moments where like the the risk that we're taking, the steps of faith that we are walking out on, that if they don't scare us,

I I I honestly wonder how much faith we're actually walking by. You know the scripture says that there's only one thing that pleases god? You know what it is? It's faith.

See, what we want is we want a logical linear path that makes sense to me and it makes sense to all the people around us. God, this is my life. I go to school. I meet my future spouse. We get married. We save for a house. We buy a house. Then we get a promotion at work, and then we have the 2.5 kids, and then we upgrade from this house to this house. And we we think that following God is supposed to make sense.

And I'm telling you, it won't. And there are things that God is gonna deposit in your heart that should terrify you.

Don't be worried about it. Just begin to learn to walk with courage and fear at the same time. I promise you, god is bigger than what you're afraid of and that the enemy is going to try to tell you you can't do this but what we're going to see in this story is because the hand of God was on Nehemiah, there was nothing that he couldn't accomplish. Then we're going to also see in these next few weeks, Nehemiah is going to face crazy opposition. All types of people are trying to stop him. Had he not gone through the four month season of preparation, he probably would have stopped when the opposition came.

Don't let fear debilitate you. Let it fuel you. Don't let the vision die at the how. Here's verse three. He says, but I replied,

long live the king. How can I not be sad? For the city where my ancestors are buried is in ruins. He says, and the gates have been destroyed by fire. The king asked, well, how can I help you? This is the moment for Nehemiah and look at what he does. With a prayer to god of heaven,

Nehemiah is such a person of prayer that even in the middle of this conversation, the moment here, the king is asked, what do you need? What does he do? He prays because prayer is not something that he does one time. It's a lifestyle that he lives and he understands my my power is because of my dependence

on god. So he prays verse five and then he replies, if it pleases the king and if you are pleased with me, your servant, send me to Judah to rebuild the city wall where my ancestors are buried.

The king, here's the really smart thing that Nehemiah did with the queen sitting beside him. Come on. How do you know if you're going to ask dad for something? You wait till mom gets home, right? You're like, I'm not asking dad if she's not here because he's much more kind when mom's around. Smart move. With the queen sitting beside him asked, how long will you be gone and when will you return? And after I told him how long I would be gone, the king agreed to my request.

See, here's what's crazy to me about this story. Is Nehemiah for four months has so built up what this conversation is going to be in his head. He's been so terrified of what the king's gonna do when he goes to him and tells him, I feel like god has given me a burden to do something with my life.

And god's asking me to go back to my homeland and to rebuild the walls around the city and it sounds crazy. I'm not even a construction guy, but for some reason, god has put this dream in my heart. But the problem is is you and I will do the exact same thing that Nehemiah does. We start to allow the enemy to whisper in our voice and go, there's no way god could use you to do that. The king will never let you. You're not good enough. You you have to stay in this position.

And all of a sudden, Nehemiah believes to some degree that he's relegated to this life that is far from god's best for him. And this conversation with the king has been built up to something of just almost terrifying order. It takes him four months to build up the courage to have the conversation.

I remember when I was a kid, again, my mom is a bit of a a terrifying person when you're a child, right? Like she's she's a scary one. My mom when my dad was like the the nice one that if you were in trouble, you wanted him to do the punishment kind of thing. Well, there was this thing my my brothers and I, like, were we were knuckleheads, right? So we would often go around and just break stuff around and my mom, we were raised Catholic. So she had all these like Catholic statues all over our yard and there was this one of Saint Francis of Assisi that was out in the the garden and me and my brother for an afternoon thought it'd be fun to throw rocks at this thing. Well, eventually, I throw a rock and I break the head off of this thing. So we try to like put it back together. Well, no nothing we do is making this thing hold together. And so we're like, don't ever tell anybody that this was us. But, obviously, my mom knows. Right? And so she kinda lines us all up, and she gives us that moment where she's like, look, if you just tell us, if you just tell me who did it, nobody's gonna get in trouble. I just want you to be truthful. And I'm like, that's a lie. I'm not saying nothing. Right? Like, uh-uh. Like, I I know this.

And the funny part was as we sat there, like, was like, you can't eat dinner or whatever until I find out who did this. And eventually, finally just raised my hand and said, okay, I threw the rock and I broke it. And literally to my shock, my mom was like, okay, thanks for telling me. Let's go do dinner. I was like, what? Was it? Like, I'm not getting beat or anything. You know, like, this conversation was terrifying to me. Yet once it happened, the the reality wasn't really that big of a deal. And you know what I've learned?

Is I I I think sometimes you and I make these conversations that we're afraid of having so much bigger than what they really actually are. And I know some of you, the thing that you look at in your life that's in ruin, some of that is relational.

And some of you have been avoiding a really hard conversation with somebody because you're just terrified of what's on the other side of it. And I'm here to tell you this story, I think, proves to me that when God is in the middle of something, those conversations will go much better than we think they will.

And that conversation that you're afraid to have because of whatever consequences you think they're going to be, whatever that thing is for you, let me just give you the courage this week to have those conversations,

to say what you need to say to the people in your life that you've you've disappointed or the people that have hurt you and offended you and that the thing that is broken in your life, don't be afraid of having that conversation.

If you and I are gonna be people who are are willing to not just have good intentions of God using our life, but to put some action to it, at some point, we're we're going to have to to act boldly.

We're gonna have to go into these things and say, you know what? At some point, you hit the jumping off point. At some point, you've gotta just say, I'm quitting my job. I'm going all in on this thing. I'm having this conversation that I've been avoiding with my wife for years or with my husband for years. I'm having that conversation with my parents. Whatever the thing is for you, at some point, we just have to take action. But let me remind you that what we fear in tough conversations is often far worse than the reality.

What we fear happening in those conversations, I'm telling you, most often is far worse than the reality of how that conversation is gonna go.

My encouragement to you is if there's something really hard in your life that you know you need to walk through pretty soon, let me encourage you that dependence will take you further than ability.

See, the part I think for for Nehemiah that makes this whole thing go so well is for four months, he's been learning God's heart, and God's been speaking to him, and God's been giving him courage and reminding him, hey, this is who you are, and here's how to have conversations. And the scriptures say that we don't have wisdom because we don't ask for it. And so if you're in a season where you need wisdom,

go to God and ask him for it, and don't be shocked when he gives it to you. I love the promise that the Isaiah the prophet Isaiah tells us in Isaiah 65.

It says in verse 24 that I will answer them before they even call to me while they are still talking about their needs. Here it is. I will go ahead and answer their prayers. God says that before sometimes you even ask him for what you need, he's already in the process of answering that prayer because that's who God is.

Don't be so afraid of that conversation that you aren't willing to step into the boldness of what God has asked you to do. Because at some point, no matter how much we pray, no matter how much we patiently serve and do what we can in this season, eventually,

we have to step out. And eventually, we've got to say yes to what God has been burdening our hearts to do. And and it can be a terrifying moment, but don't let that fear stop you. Okay. Here's how the story wraps up. Nehemiah says, I also said to the king, if it pleases the king, let him have letters addressed to the governors of the province west of the Euphrates River,

instructing them to let me travel safely through their territories on my way to Judah. And please give me a letter addressed to Asaph, the manager of the king's forest, instructing him to give me timber. I will need to make beams for the gates of the temple fortress, for the city walls, and for a house for myself.

And the king granted these requests. Why? Because the gracious hand of God was on me. I read the story and I'm like, bro, I would have been terrified too if I was Nehemiah. You know what Nehemiah just asked the king?

I need twelve years off. I need you to buy me a house and to pay for the entire rebuilding of the walls around Jerusalem. Come on somebody. That's a prayer request right there. He asked for the world and the king's like, sure, man. Do what you gotta do.

Like, the king that he's so terrified of because god is moving and this is the beautiful part of the participation of heaven with humanity

is when god puts a burden on our heart and we seek his face and we begin to go, okay, god, maybe you can use my life to do something and god starts to give you some specifics of, here's what I want you to do. Say yes to this. Change this job. Get get out of this relationship.

Have this hard conversation. Seek reconciliation here and when you start to do that, man, heaven begins to move and all of a sudden, you and I as followers of god, as children of the most high king, we start to realize we have favor on our life and that god is in the business of of moving

and when we say yes and step out, that's where heaven can come in and the supernatural begins to happen. See, we don't have to do all the heavy lifting.

Nehemiah had to, yes, he was praying and he was serving where he was and he was willing to act boldly but then, what he's doing here is he's expectantly preparing. Okay, this is the last step in this process. If we're going to be be people in 2025,

this is no longer is this going to be another year that just as good thoughts, good intentions, good ideas. No, this is the year that we make a difference in our marriage. This is the year where we begin to seek god in ways that we never have before. This is the year where we go from ruins to revival.

At some point in the process of praying and serving where you are, you've gotta start to logistically think through, okay, what do I need if this thing actually is able to happen? See, Nehemiah, the moment the king says, what do you need? He knew exactly what he needed. He knew who the decision makers were. He knew where all the lumber existed inside of the kingdom. He knew exactly what he needed from the king. The whole time that he was praying,

as he was serving faithfully where he was, he was also building a plan for god to do something big through his life

and then he just asked boldly for the king. He says, here's what I need. And to his absolute shock, the king says, whatever you need, you can have it. And Nehemiah will get twelve years off and the king will fund this entire thing. We'll see over the next few weeks this brilliant plan that begins to unfold that God just downloads to Nehemiah and gives him the supernatural path to restoring

the nation of Israel. Here's why I think this story is so important for you and I to see this morning is I know that there's a lot of things in our lives that are pretty broken. There's a lot of things that we wish were drastically different.

And I'm telling you, if you can become a person that doesn't just wish things would get better and you begin to expectantly pursue God and start to put a plan together, I'm telling you, god can do something incredible

through your life in 2025 and my prayer is that 2025 would be the best year that you've ever had spiritually, the best year for you financially,

the best year for your marriage, the best year with your kids, Whatever it is, my my prayer is that revival will begin to break out in your life. Now here's where I've gotta make this whole thing kinda practical for us. Again, this 08:30 service, if you look around, the attendance of this service and our 11:00 service or 11:30 service is about the same. This is as much room as we have to grow. The 10:00, we bring in a bunch of extra chairs. It's absolutely packed to the max. And so we're in this process right now of trying to figure out, okay, god, what are we doing, right? Like, what is what is the path forward for us? We've been praying. We've been seeking god. We've been trying to find like, okay, can we figure out a building? Like, again, I know it's it's weird to talk about it but it's it's not about the number But without a doubt, any of the church planting networks that we are a part of, we are the largest grand opening in the history of all of them, like nationwide.

So it tells me it tells me two things. That number one, God is up to something. And number two, this is gonna be a really unique challenge to solve because there's no book to read and plan to follow.

And so we're we're literally running this play, and we're praying and we're seeking. We're asking God, what's the next step? What's the next step? And we have an amazing group of advisors. Some of the best business minds in our church meet with us once a month, and we we formulate and try to keep our arms wrapped around what God is doing here. And every single step of this process has been, let's just take the next step of obedience that we see that's right in front of us. And we have another one that has just come up. And we're we're trying to figure out, okay, can we solve our Sunday morning space issues? We've had to every single week, mostly at the 10:00 service. We've had to turn families away because we just don't have capacity and space for them. What we're trying to solve that, we've got some solutions for that. But here's the other thing that we know is we've got to figure out how to eventually. We want to get student ministries going. We want to get men's ministries and women's ministries and small groups like this

for us is the crowd, right? But again, one of our core values is that we are committed to community. We're we're committed to doing life together.

In life change, it doesn't happen on Sunday mornings. And so what we've been asking is God would open up a space where we can begin to do all of our midweek stuff. We can have prayer gatherings. We can have team meetings. Our our staff that can, you know, is meeting all over the place in coffee shops, can have a place to work,

and literally, we had a broker that was looking for property for us, told us multiple times, the property that you're looking for doesn't exist. And then he, by faith, just sent out an email on a Sunday night and sent an email to all of his broker friends and said, hey, here's exactly what we're looking for.

And that he found a church that was unlisted, that was about to go on the market. A broker friend called him and said, you're never going to believe this, But there's a Spanish speaking church right around the corner from where we meet at Desert Ridge High School that's actually closing the doors. And the space could be perfect for you. And so we've signed a lease on that building, which is terrifying.

But I want to show you a couple of things. You're cheering now, but you might not be cheering in a second. Okay? Because somebody's got to pay for all of this.

So the blue dot is where we meet right here at Desert Ridge High School. The yellow dot right on the other side of the 60 is what is gonna be called Echo's headquarters, k, our HQ. It's where we will office out of this. We're all gathering stuff will happen. We can get students running. There's just so much ministry that we can do in this place that we just know that it's our next step. Okay. We've got a couple photos. That's the outside of the building.

And then the inside, the beautiful part is it's already built out. And most of these spaces, was just an empty warehouse, which we've toured tons of them. It's usually a million to $2,000,000 build out to make it look like a church in typically three years, but this one's built out. This is the lobby that's here. In the inside, this is a worship center. We're going to take some of these walls down. It it won't solve Sunday morning space because again, in here, we have about 800 seats that will hold at best about 300,

but it will let us do student ministries and men's and all that stuff. We've got a couple of other photos here. That's one of the offices that we can use for breakout spaces. These are kids building. And here's the most amazing part. So under roof, there's about 10,500

square feet that we're going to be paying rent on. Upstairs,

there's this little mezzanine area over there to the right that storage facility. It's about 3,000 square feet that's not included in the rent. And so if we build that space out, we now have a space that we can also use as offices. So we not only have a place downstairs where we can do all of our ministry,

we have an office space upstairs where our team can gather and continue to to do the ministry that God has asked us to do. And that won't be included in our rent payment for the next five years which is incredible, okay? Is that the last photo? Do we have one more?

Those these are some renderings we've sent the construction team of what we want the space to look like. These are all the things that we're hoping for. All of this to say, again, this is we we've taken a lot of big steps of faith in this process of church planting. Without a doubt, this is the biggest financial

step that we've taken and it sounds crazy to go we grand open as a church three weeks ago and today, we've gotta roll out kind of like a mini building campaign. You're like, hey, I was leaving other churches because they just kept doing building campaigns. I thought that was a long time from now. Again, so did I. Alright?

And I have to be honest, this whole process has been terrifying in moments. There's been days I've woken up just like, I don't know what we're doing. This sounds crazy. But what our team is convinced of is that God has made it clear. This is our next step of faith. This is our next step of obedience. And so logistically,

what we're going to do is over the next twenty one days, we're asking everybody here to just pray. The build out cost of this facility for construction, we've got to bring in sound equipment and lighting stuff. We've got to get all the furniture for the building. It's going to be about $500,000

to do all that we want to do. Now, again, it's a large number but our build out for all the equipment that we use here at the school prelaunch was about $450,000

That number was crazy to me but we raised more than that to to make it all happen. So I'm beyond confident that god's going to do it. Here's my ask for all of you that are here, okay? On your way out today,

the team is going to be at the doors and they're going to have a card right here that just talks about what we're doing and we're asking for every single person for the next twenty one days to pray

and seek god on our behalf. Seriously, pray that god would continue to do what he's doing but we're also asking you to consider partnering with us financially. See, we believe that it's our our our joy to give, that all of life is worship. And God isn't after our finances. He's after our heart, and he's after our first.

And I'm confident that God's going to do something in this place, and lives are going to be transformed here. And I think about the students right now that need a beacon of hope into this community that are walking through just unbelievable issues in this building, this space is where they're going to get to meet the god of the universe and somehow we get to be a part of that thing and so we're going ask everybody for the next twenty one days. Let's pray and let's seek and go sacrificially. What would this look like for us to part partner in this, to participate in this. It could just be a one time gift. It could be something you go, hey, for the next year, this is how much we're going to contribute towards it. I don't know what the amount is. What I know is that god cares much more about the heart, the sacrifice than he does the dollar amount

but here's my hope. My prayer is that just like through us right now, that god would continue to do something supernatural

and if you're here this morning and there's things that are going on in your life that you just go, man, god, I I need a miracle right now. I believe that god is in the business and in the process right now of restoring

what has been broken and what has been lost and I I'm so excited to see what god's going to do with this building but I'm more excited about what he's going to do in your life and what he's going to do in the lives of the people that fill that building and so here's what I'm ask all of us to do right now. If you would, let's all stand to our feet and no matter what is going on in our current circumstance, in our situation,

our band is gonna lead us in a song that talks about the good plans of god and this for us, it's a declaration

that says, god, even when it doesn't look good, we trust that you are good and we speak good plans over our life because god, we know the best is still ahead of us. We're excited for what it is that you're asking us to do. We step boldly into your plans, into your kingdom. Let's worship together.

Let's declare this truth together right now. Let's sing this in faith with boldness. Come on now.

Yes, father. God, we speak your good plans over our life. Father, we know that right now, we're in the middle of an Acts two type move of your spirit. And, god, we just ask that it wouldn't be limited by our unwillingness to say yes.

So, father, would you show us the areas, the places in our life where we can step out with bold faith and not just talk about it and pray about it, but be about it and live it. Father, there's lives whose eternity

are are hinging on our obedience and our willingness to say yes. So, father, give us crazy faith as a community to say yes to what it is you have in front of us. Father, show us what our participation

in accomplishing this next step as a faith community of getting this headquarters set up to where all the midweek stuff can happen. Father, show us. Show us the role that we can play in this process that you're unfolding. God, we're so thankful that you would use people like us who are broken, who are flawed,

who are struggling through our own situations and circumstances. God, we thank you that you don't call perfect people. You call willing and obedient people. So, father, give us the courage to say yes to you this week. It is in the mighty name of Jesus. All god's people said,

amen and amen. Hey, you guys are incredible. Thank you so much.