Eyes on You | Awakening's 10th Birthday

Welcome to the Awakening Church podcast.

We pray this message encourages you and provides the hope and light of Jesus Christ.

Thanks for tuning in.

Hey, great to be with you.

This is amazing.

This is exciting.

I woke up this morning and my daughter had left encouragement posts.

It's all around the house.

So if you're wondering what this is, I had to take it down.

I wanted this in front of me as I'm preaching today.

Amazing.

Just uh full disclosure, like I've been on the verge of just flat out weeping uh all morning long, like right there.

Whew.

Uh pull it back, pull it back, get through it.

Uh, but I mean, it's just unbelievable.

Thank you for coming.

Uh, thank you uh for those of you who traveled uh to be here and just gotten to give a bunch of hugs this morning.

It means the world uh to us.

I want to take a moment and just really thank uh our staff and team.

They've worked tirelessly.

Can we just thank them and for what they have done?

Um and I wanted to just uh real here's something amazing.

Ten years ago, who knew we'd be here 10 years later?

I didn't.

I hoped it, didn't know it.

Um, but can I just if I want to do something, if you have been with us since the very first uh year, would you mind standing up?

There's a handful of us that have been a part of this.

Go ahead, stand on up from the very beginning.

It's amazing.

Thank you guys.

Thank you for being a part of that.

It means a ton.

When we started out, we're like, we don't know if anybody's gonna join us.

And to not only see all of you join us, but then those who stuck with us too means the world uh to us.

Uh you might be wondering why in the world does a church have a birthday?

That's kind of weird, that's odd.

Um, and here's the reason why is uh we believe that not just an event happened two years ago, but a movement happened two years ago.

And God birthed a movement to awaken this generation to new life in Jesus.

And by the way, we just think birthdays are funner to celebrate than anniversaries.

Uh and we love to party as a church.

Um and yet we wouldn't be gathering today if it wasn't for uh actually, I was just rummaging through my wife's purse looking for Kleenex.

Um, if anybody's got some, you can bring it to me.

I'm literally, I'm not no lie, I'm like on the verge uh of it.

Uh there.

I didn't find them.

That's what I'm saying.

I didn't find Queenex.

Thank you.

Apropos um and actually, Steve, this is a perfect segue.

Could you stay standing up?

Uh this is Steve Clifford, he's been the lead pastor at Westgate Church forever.

Maybe not forever, but it felt like it.

Uh and uh we wouldn't be gathered in existing today if it wasn't for you.

And Dana, like I said.

Oey.

Um many of you know this.

Uh Jenny and I never wanted to plan a church, we never wanted to lead a church.

And 12 years ago, Steve asked, Hey, would you plan a church for awakening?

And I said, uh, let me pray about it.

I didn't, let's full disclosure.

And I came back to him and said, No.

A year later, God had shifted our hearts that we knew something was happening next.

We didn't know what it was.

We've been praying, seeking.

Uh, by the that time, I finally brought it to Steve and I said, Steve, we don't know what's next.

We love you, we love Westgate, we love everything.

In fact, everything's going really good.

We just know there's a shift and something's next.

And he's a texting.

So he said, Well, shoot! Why don't you plan awakening as a church?

That's my best Clifford.

Uh, there.

Um, and by that time, we were open to the I never's that God often has for us.

Isn't it true?

And we look back and so glad we did.

So glad in that moment.

And so, Steve, as you step into the next season of ministry, you have so much legacy.

And Dana, you have so much legacy with Westgate and other pastors and what you've done in the bay.

And awakening is a part of that legacy.

And so, can we honor their leadership?

Oh.

Hope to not get too snotty this morning on you.

Ten years ago, um Jay Kim, who is now the lead pastor at uh Westgate, he started out with me at Awakening.

He and I, uh, on this day 10 years ago, we're underneath the stage in the theater, sweaty and grimy, trying to desperately to lower that stage to like make it just right.

I mean, we came sprinting into the very first service of Awakening Church, sweaty and grimy and stinky.

Uh, and so I began to ask, well, how do we want to begin the next 10 as awakening?

How do we step into the next 10 of awakening?

Uh, or maybe I this is clever.

I don't know if it's funny or not.

It could be good.

Like, how do we bring heaven in year 11?

You know, like how do we I know, dad joke and terrible?

But what I've really been wrestling with as we step into a new decade, and we we judge kind of our lives by decades, don't we?

Our 20s, our thirties, forties, fifties, sixties, and so on, as a church, as we step into a new decade, how do we confidently step into an uncertain future?

How do we actually have confidence, not just wishing, hoping, wondering, maybe, but how do we have confidence as we step into this new decade?

That what we know is an uncertain future, whether we look at, you know, inflation and what is a recession on the horizon and the war in Ukraine, and then that's just the macro, not just the micro, and what we know over the last few years, right, is that we know a couple things.

Life's really fragile, isn't it?

Life's really fragile, and the future's way more uncertain than we ever cared believe.

And can you actually have confidence?

Move forward in life with confidence in the face of an uncertain future.

You know what's amazing is an uncertain future is nothing new to the people of God.

And there's this passage, it's actually 2 Chronicles chapter 20, it's kind of this obscure passage, but um there's been a few anchor texts throughout our first decade, and this has been one that God has just been working in my life.

2 Chronicles 20 · chapter mention

And in it, we're gonna discover how do we step into this next season, how do you step into whatever season you're in with confidence, regardless of the circumstances, and without even knowing the certainty of what the future may hold.

So if you got your Bibles, would you open up to 2 Chronicles chapter 20?

2 Chronicles 20 · chapter mention

If you got your phones, it might be easier to find 2 Chronicles chapter 20.

2 Chronicles 20 · chapter mention

Let me give you a little context.

Originally, uh the Jewish people were a united kingdom of twelve different tribes under one king, started with Saul, then David, then Solomon.

Then there was a civil war during King Reboam's rule.

He was the son of Solomon over taxation, and the nation divided.

Ten tribes to the north called Israel, two tribes to the south called Judah.

Now the southern tribes had the city of Jerusalem.

That's where the temple of God was.

And the book of Chronicles, namely 2 Chronicles, really tells in detail uh the life and the legacy of the different kings, both in the northern and in the southern uh of Israel and of Judah.

And in 2 Chronicles 20, we get this picture of one part of the story of a guy named uh King Jehoshaphat, who was Solomon's great-great grandson, and he's a king of the southern uh tribes, the two southern tribes called Judah.

And fun fact, by the way, uh when we got our dog six years ago, my vote was to name her Jehosaphat.

I got vetoed.

I got vetoed.

And we named her Finley, and a girl named for Jehoshaphat may not fly anyways, whatever.

And so uh we pick up the story of Jehoshaphat 20.

He's a good king, had a long and flourishing rule.

It looked like the future was on lock.

Only good on the horizon.

And that's exactly where we pick up the story.

2 Chronicles, chapter 20, verse 1.

2 Chronicles 20:1

After this, the Moabites, the Amamites, and some of the Munites came to wage war against Jehoshaphat.

Some people came and told Jehoshaphat, a vast army is coming against you from Edom, from the other side of the Dead Sea.

It's already to Hezazam.

Yeah, I said that too fast.

Tamar, that is Engedi.

Jehoshaphat overnight gets news that he's got three nations coming against one nation.

They're teaming up, and the odds are against him.

A vast, numerable army is on the way, and he gets this news.

They're already at Engedi, which is about a two-day journey from Jerusalem.

He's just getting his intel now, and all of a sudden, his world was flipped upside down.

And the future is absolutely uncertain.

Has no idea what to do and what's gonna happen, and if their way of life is going to stay the same.

And here's what I do know about the next decade.

This may not be as encouraging to you, but it is helpful.

In the next decade, we will face impossible circumstances beyond our strength and ability.

In the next decade, in the next 10 years, you will face impossible circumstances beyond your strength and ability.

You can count on it.

In fact, if you just kind of chart in America or globally, we have some global crisis just about every decade.

And then you know personally, chances are in the next decade you'll face impossible circumstances beyond your strength and your ability.

And so what do we do when we face those?

Well, look at Jehoshaphat's uh response.

I love this, this is incredible.

Alarmed, yeah, understatements.

In fact, in fact, it's afraid.

I'm afraid.

Yeah.

Jehoshaphat then resolved or set his face to inquire of the Lord Yahweh.

He proclaimed a fast for all of Judah.

The people of Judah came together to seek help from the Lord.

Indeed, they came from every town in Judah to seek him.

So these two tribes are gathering as one in the city of Jerusalem.

Here's what I love.

In the Hebrew, the way this is constructed, that alarmed and resolved, uh, is actually afraid or alarmed set.

It's these two verbs right next to each other.

It's afraid set, afraid set.

Uh it's it's uh constructed such that this ver these two verbs are acting as one.

It's like this one response.

And I love that.

Because one, he was afraid, and I think that's where we start.

And that's what goes on.

It's like, man, I'm afraid.

He was it wasn't the guy that just tried to put on a good face.

Tried to go, no, no, I'm the leader, I got all the answers.

No afraid.

But it's what you do with what with that fear that makes all the difference.

Afraid, set.

Set means to fix conclusively or authoritatively.

I'm afraid, and so I'm gonna set conclusively or authoritatively.

What are you gonna set?

And I love how um the ESV um translates this.

He says, Then Jehoshaphat was afraid and set his face to seek the Lord, that he was afraid of what was in front of him.

He was afraid that in two days his way of life, his kingdom, his very life might be taken.

And so he set his face, not on the enemy, but on the Lord.

He said, I can there's only one person I can call to and go to.

I'm gonna set my face to the Lord.

See, how in the world do we step confidently into an uncertain future?

We do it simply by this resolve to make prayer the first response instead of a last resort.

The first response.

So I'm a pastor, I guess we already knew that.

I would love to say that prayer is often my first response, and it's not.

I love to fix problems, and I think I'm pretty capable.

And so the minute you hit a problem, the minute you hit a crisis, the leader in me goes into overdrive, and I'm like, okay, what do we need to do?

Gather the best and brightest.

How do we solve this problem?

And you get after the problem and eyes and gaze and fix on the issue.

And isn't it true?

Those are the things that keep you up at night and wake you up early in the morning and that are running through your mind all day long.

And he says, no, no, no.

Resolve to make prayer the first response.

Like right at the front end that I'm going to set my face on the Lord.

I mean, think about this.

Two days out, he's got an army, three against one, coming to demolish him.

He doesn't gather the commanders, he doesn't get the war room, doesn't call people from all of Judah, or try to rally other nations to come alongside, let's try to even the odds.

In fact, when he gathers the people, what does he do?

He says, let's fast, let's pray, let's go to the one who controls it all.

Resolve to make prayer your first response instead of your last resort.

I just wonder.

I wonder the anxiety we would lose and the power we would experience in our daily life if we just flip the script.

Because often, isn't it true?

And I I'm con guilty of this, is prayer is like the finally, okay, I'm gonna hail Mary, throw it up to God.

I've exhausted all of my literally hail Mary, okay?

Um throw it up to God.

I just wonder the anxiety we would lose, like would dissipate from our entire body and the power we would experience.

I like how Corey Timboon said it.

Uh, she wrote, is it she asked this question?

She said, Is prayer the steering wheel of your life or the spare tire?

And so when we pray, what do we pray?

How do we pray in a way that we can step confidently into an uncertain future?

Listen to Jehoshaphat's prayer.

It's amazing.

He goes on to say, that then Jehoshaphat stood up in the assembly of Judah and Jerusalem at the temple of the Lord in the front of the new courtyard and said, Lord or Yahweh, I am eternal one, the God of our ancestors.

Are you not the God who's in heaven?

We're dealing with earthly things, and I need a heavenly solution.

Are you not the God in heaven?

You, you rule over all the kingdoms of the nation.

I got three nations, and yet last time I checked, you're in charge of all of them.

Last time I checked, you're in control of all of them.

Last time I checked, my great-great-grandfather wrote in uh Proverbs that the heart of the king is like channels of water in the heart, in the hand of the Lord.

Like you can move them whatever way.

You're in control.

Power and might are in your hand, and no one can withstand you.

Here's Jehoshaphat.

I I know we can't withstand them, but I know no one can withstand you.

What do we pray when we pray?

How do we pray in such a way to step confidently?

First, refocus on the power of God.

Refocus on the power, the sovereignty, the grandness, the greatness of God.

Like you have an incredible God who spoke and all that came into being just with word.

Like you begin to focus on the power of God.

That you're actually in control, even though my life feels out of control.

Like there is no chaos in you.

You're actually seated on the throne.

You're not uncertain, even though this future feels uncertain to me.

You actually are ordaining and navigating my very steps.

And so I'm going to focus on the power of God.

I love that.

Power and might are in your hand.

See, I think the question is, will we take matters into our hands or entrust them into the hands of God?

I mean, the logical response in all of us who would go, yes, there is a God who created all that there is, who loves us, who's good and for us, absolutely.

And yet it takes that resolve, doesn't it?

I resolve.

I'm afraid, but I resolve.

I'm going to set conclusively and authoritatively.

I'm going to what I'm holding tightly into my hands, I am going to entrust into your hands.

Why?

Because all power and authority you have.

I want to tell you just a little story from our history about God's power.

And I want to show you a picture that doesn't look all that great.

That picture, like when I see it, I'm overwhelmed with like God's power.

And you're like, Brian, that's just kind of like a dinky office with a blank wall.

Like you could have decorated it better, right?

Um that moment was that that's precious to me.

So we started awakening 10 years ago.

And it was full on blitz because we never wanted to be uh do this.

We didn't we weren't really trained so much, and so we learned on the fly uh in so many ways.

It was trained to be a pastor, but not to start a church.

Two years in, we were absolutely exhausted, went through some really incredibly difficult times.

Uh we planted uh two services at night, realized we couldn't reach any families, and if we're going to reach this next generation, we needed every generation to be a part of it.

Moved to Sunday morning, saw a lot of people who love the college thing at night leave.

We're a smaller church, had a difficult kind of staff transition that was really hard.

And by the, you know, everything happened in our house in those early days.

So our garage was storage, our dining room table was staff meetings, seriously, officed out of it.

Every leadership happened meeting happened in our backyard, everything happened there.

We would back the truck in to organize it because we would drive trucks here every week, and our neighbors always thought uh we were moving.

Thankfully, they weren't mad or glad about it, I guess.

They're like, hey, are you moving?

Uh it wasn't that, but because we'd be have everything spread out, everything happened, and so two years into this, we're completely weary, we're burned out, there's nothing left in the tank.

And honestly, I'm two years in and thinking, like, this is it.

We're done.

I don't think I can continue on.

I remember one time being so discouraged and so depressed.

I was going on a run, and it was this long uphill run, steep incline, and I was just angry and wrestling with God.

You ever do that?

And I'm just up this incline and said, God, this is what it feels like.

You called us, we obeyed you, and it's only been an uphill climb.

There's not even been a plateau, let alone a downhill.

It's just been an uphill grind the whole time.

Where are you?

Right around that time, started preaching.

In a sermon series called Between Two Storms out of the Gospel of Mark, and really this text between two storms, literally, uh, it began with where Jesus, for those of you know, he was asleep in the boat and the storm on the Sea of Galilee, and this great storm comes up, and the disciples um are afraid.

They're afraid they're gonna die.

They're professional, you know, fishermen, and it's such a fierce storm, they think all is lost.

And Jesus is asleep through all of it, and they wake him up.

And when they wake him up, they say, Don't you care?

And when we work walk through those improssible circumstances, isn't that how we feel about God?

Like you've been apathetic, don't you care?

So I'm studying this passage, and I saw something, and I've read it a hundred times that I'd never seen before.

The disciples didn't wake up Jesus to calm the storm.

I was like, what?

Why would you wake up Jesus then?

The reason they didn't wake up Jesus to calm the storm because they were scared spitless when he did.

They were like, who is this man that even the wave and the winds obey his voice?

They're freaked out.

They didn't wake up Jesus to calm the storm, they woke up Jesus to bail water.

Hey, there's 12 of us.

Don't you care?

We're belling water, we're getting it out.

And the God of the universe who spoke all things into existence is at peace in the middle of the storm.

You can have peace and confidence if he's in the boat with you.

And I just was wondering all of a sudden, this thing in me was like, where have I been asking God to bell waters when he wants to calm storms in my life?

It changed the way I pray because he's a powerful God.

And in this moment of about to give up, I said, Okay, God, I'm gonna pray for an office space.

We don't have any money.

In fact, we're behind on our budget.

I don't know if we're gonna financially be able to do this.

Would you provide an office space?

And oh yeah, we need a space where we can park our trucks and God, we need some core people and I need a new staff person.

Like, like these are prayers that, like, if you answer, we're gonna be able to continue on as a church and accomplish the vision that you called for us.

Well, I remember on uh one Sunday, it was in August, a couple families that became anchor families in our church walked into our second service.

Our second service had like 20 people at that time.

It was depressing for me to preach, it was probably more depressing for people to sit through it.

I saw, I saw this couple families walk in, and I'm like, there's no way they're staying.

And they stayed and they became anchor families.

Like God brought anchor and pillar people, and then like he opened up the door for us to have office space at a church called Dwell Church, now called Will Glenn Baptist, and he opened up the space at a rent that we could actually afford.

It was dirt cheap.

Now it didn't have AC, which summertime we couldn't really use afternoon.

And anytime you turned on the uh heat, it took about four hours to heat the whole place up.

So I'd show up early, you know, before my team would show up and turn it on, and it sounded like a dragon.

I was going.

And he provided the space that was close to our house where we could park the trucks and close to Del Mar.

And financially, you're like, okay, how are we gonna do this?

And I got a call from a guy, and he says, Hey, I want to give you uh some uh I have a gift I need to give you.

I said, Fantastic.

This is the first time I've ever gotten a call from someone that had a gift to give.

Wonderful.

And I check and I'm like, I you're gonna give a check?

Fantastic.

The biggest thing I could ever imagine was he would someone could give like$10,000, maybe$15,000 at the time.

We were trailing our budget about$36,000, which was a really scary moment for us.

And he hands me a check, and by the way, I don't know what people give, it's just he had handed it to me for$67,000.

And then later he gave me a phone call, and he's like, hey, I'm actually closing down my office in San Francisco.

And if if you need office furniture, you can you can have it all.

All you have to do is go up there and get it.

So Joshua Zada, who was playing bass, and Marshall Sandoval and I hopped in a 26-footer, we were driving that thing downtown San Francisco, it's super dangerous.

Um you know the thing I forgot to pray was for office furniture, and God answered that.

And what we saw was when we put it in the office, and I know it doesn't look all that grand to you, it's beautiful to me.

It's beautiful.

It's like God answered the prayer before I even knew to pray it.

I was just so locked on that we could get space.

Then we couldn't even afford furniture, and God said, Gotcha, I got you taken care of.

I've got you financially, I got you people-wise, I got you uh office-wise.

He is the God who is so powerful and in control and can move mountains, and he can move in people's hearts to give you office furniture that you didn't even know to pray about.

What do we pray about when we pray?

Refocus on the power of God, his ability, but not your ability.

Secondly, recall the faithfulness of God.

Recall the faithfulness of God.

Jehoshaphat goes on, he says, Our God, did you not drive out the inhabitants of this land before your people Israel and give it to the descendants of Abraham, your friends?

He's recalling what God had done and the people of God, his people, over time.

It is so important that we take time to recall the faithfulness of God and how he worked.

By the way, God's past faithfulness in your life is what gives you confidence to step out in faith in the future.

The things that we have confidence moving forward is because we've seen how faithful God has been to us the last decade.

You know, when we started, we started with this commitment.

We said, we're gonna give at least 10% of what comes in outside the doors of our walls.

And we didn't have walls, but you know what I mean.

And I remember the person who was helping us with finance who was an incredible, amazing woman, had a tech background, and she said, You can't do that.

You won't survive.

And by the way, all you have is a bunch of college kids.

They don't give, anyways.

I have a couple core beliefs.

One, you can't outgive God.

Two, the church should lead the way in unleashing extravagant generosity to a hurting and broken world because we have an extravagantly generous God.

And if we're gonna ask people to tithe, to give biblically, then we're gonna model it not only as a leadership, but as a church.

Here's what's amazing over the course of the last decade, we have met our budget every year, which is incredible, and given at minimum 10%, often more.

This last year, we gave over 20% of our budget away.

$369,000 this last year alone.

Isn't that great?

Ukraine, Afghanistan, Haiti, foster the city, called up, Del Mar.

I mean, I could go on and on about the ways we've been able to serve and be a part.

And over COVID, I mean, it's amazing.

Our leadership council, which are our elders, we said, we're gonna err on the side of generosity.

In a time that's uncertain, we're gonna err on the side of generosity.

We may not know what's around the corner, and we don't know if giving's gonna continue or not, but we're gonna err on the side of generosity.

We even completed a capital campaign over COVID, which was crazy of$1.5 million.

It's just incredible how faithful and it gives us confidence to step in faith.

I want to show you one more, uh, another picture real quick uh of faithfulness.

Um, you see that tent over there?

It's right out there.

You know one of my I never wanted to be in a school.

Ten years later, God's funny.

Number one question people were asking us when we planted Awakening Church is where will we meet?

July of 2012, we still didn't know.

Got two months, and so we began to get serious and pray, and I get a little extreme at times, and so I said, Okay, God, I'm gonna fast and pray until you give us a space.

Thankfully, it wasn't that long.

Because I get grouchy and hangry.

I drove down Bascombe and there's a uh community center that was just being built.

It wasn't available because it was still under construction, but then I popped out the back of the parking lot and a road that I've never driven on called Del Mar Road, uh, and I see this high school with a um a brand new theater that was just built.

I go, huh, maybe that could be our place.

Here's what's amazing when we're talking about recalling the faithfulness of God and when he works in specific ways in your life, write down the specific details.

You think you'll never forget it, and you will.

God works in the specifics of our lives.

Had we asked this school a month earlier, they would have said no.

There's a principal that was not real, probably friendly, is what we're told to maybe churches.

They had a principal change, a brand new principal came in that July, was willing to let us come in and be here.

Amazing.

The activities director just so happened to have served on a youth staff team that I used to served at at Westgate.

Her name was Marcine.

So all of a sudden, God opened these doors for us to meet here.

When we got here, we said this is going to be more than a place to meet, but a people to love, that our first ministry is this school, that the place we meet is also gonna be the place we minister to.

And so over the last you know decade, we have served this school.

We just simply said, How can we love this faculty, these students, the way Jesus would love this faculty, these students?

And he's allowed us to open doors.

Then there was a principal change, and that was a little nerve-wracking.

I'm like, is the principal gonna change, and then we no longer have a space to meet?

The principal they hired was at one point the activities director here under our tenure and knew what we did.

Isn't that amazing?

And then God moved like people from this office here into the district level, and so we had favor at the district level.

I mean, come on, I can't make this up.

God is so good.

And then COVID hit, which was a not, we didn't have to pay any rent here, which was amazing.

But then trying to um regather was difficult when you don't have a building.

And we tried some different spaces, and I remember calling Larry, who, if he I don't think he's here, but if he's here, he deserves he's the principal here, deserves a lot of honor.

I said, Is there any chance we could uh meet here?

He said, I'm great with it if you can get the district to be okay with it.

And so I called the district, and I remember getting the phone call back and like nervous as all get out.

What are they gonna say?

And and this guy gets on the phone, and I've gotten to know him over the years, and he says, Ryan, your reputation precedes you.

We won't do this for anybody else, but because of the way your church has served this community, uh, you can meet here.

I said, Oh, could I build a tent too?

He said, talk to our facilities guy, whatever he says is great.

And they worked to make a massive tent installed.

This is our tent, and then it was a blessing to the school.

They hosted homecoming and proms under that over the COVID area.

We won't see it in the next month, but it's gonna finally come down, but it's like a sign of God's faithfulness and his provision.

One last one.

I've been praying that God would build a kingdom dream team.

And and what's amazing over a decade is you get to see how God brought just the right people in just the right season for that time.

And you know, I get to see some former staff members that are celebrating with us, and it's amazing.

Thank you for being here.

Um, over this COVID season, uh, the last year, we just honored Chris Nye, who is actually moving up to Portland, and he made it a point to be here on our birthday, even though his wife already flew up to be up there, and we're so grateful uh to have you, buddy, here.

And and one of our prayers, knowing this long runway, was that God, we really need an executive pastor.

We've been praying for an executive pastor for years.

We had a search firm working on it, a year and a half.

And Chris is like, Ryan, I really want an executive pastor before I leave.

And here's like the irony of God and the way he works.

It was like Chris's last day on staff.

Um, this guy said yes to being our new executive pastor.

His name Dave Smith.

He's here, his family's moving out here.

You'll get to meet him, and I'll share more about him in future days ahead.

But amazing, like God bringing just the right people at just the right time, answering prayers.

How do we step confidently into an uncertain future, refocus on the power of God, recall the faithfulness of God, and then finally return to the promises of God.

Return to the promises of God.

Uh he goes on, Jehoshaphat goes on to say, they have lived in it, speaking of uh the people of Israel, uh in the promised land.

They've built in it a sanctuary, temple to your name, and then he quotes his great great grandfather Solomon.

If calamity comes upon us, whether sword or judgment or plague or famine, we will stand in your presence before this temple that bears your name, and we will cry out to you in our distress, and you will hear us and save us.

Here's what I love.

He's claiming God's promise to his great great grandfather as his promise.

Return to the promises of God.

And unfortunately, so many people don't know the promises of God.

Friends, the reason I'm confident about the next decade isn't because we have the most skilled, the most talented.

We have wonderful people here.

But Jesus promised something.

He said, I will build my church, Jesus, and the gates of hell will not overcome it.

I'm confident about the next decade of the church because of the promise of Jesus, that we can build upon that.

I'm confident about your relationship with Jesus, my relationship with Jesus, not because you're gonna be amazing or I'm gonna be amazing, but because of the promise of Jesus that he who began a good work in you will complete it until the day of redemption day of Jesus Christ.

What you begin, you will finish.

And I'm in this, and so I'm confident that you're gonna be in it with me, and you're not gonna leave me until it's done.

The promises of Jesus, friends, you gotta know that nothing will ever separate you from the love of God.

Neither height nor depth, nor angels, nor demons, nothing at all created.

Like you gotta know the promises of God.

That every spiritual blessing in the heavenly realm is yours, accessible right now in Christ.

It's a promise of God.

It is yours.

Return to the promises of God.

And I think one of the ways in my life that has been so helpful to return to the promises God is worship.

Because when we sing them and we declare them and remind ourselves, we're praying and we're preaching to ourselves the promises of God.

And you know, you have personal promises that God does in your life, and some things that He says to you, and they align with God's word.

One of those was early on, I just had a promise maybe be too strong, but like I literally got the um URL, awakeningworship.org.

And then awakeningworship.com and.net.

I don't know, I was on a kick.

But it's like if we're gonna reach a generation, it's gonna happen through worship.

Music is the language of the soul, it's the language of a generation.

And for us to really reach this generation, man, we we gotta be a church that's creating new sounds and new music for a generation.

A decade went by.

And we've had excellent worship, by the way, over the decade.

And I just checked this morning, I no longer own awakeningworship.org.

I kind of let that dream die.

And then God brought Robbie on staff, and he called it Awakening Praise Anyway, so whatever.

And today dropped our first EP called Coming Back to the Basics Three Songs.

Art done by uh someone in our church, and just this picture of uh this sermon.

And encourage you, return to the promises of God.

These songs are all hymns that are done to return us to the promises of God.

I love how uh Jehosaphat concludes the end of his prayer, and by the way, we're not gonna get to the end of the story.

Some of you are like, is he gonna finish the story?

No, you can read it on your own.

God goes ahead of them.

What should have been the valley of destruction becomes the valley of praise.

Go find out how.

He responds this way.

He closes this prayer, and this is our prayer, and this is our anthem as a church as we step into the next decade, friends.

We don't know what to do.

Isn't that amazing when a leader says that?

Maybe not.

You're like, no, I want you to know what to do.

But our eyes are on you.

Sermon title.

Today.

Eyes on you.

We don't know what to do.

And we don't know what the next decade holds.

In fact, we don't even know what tomorrow holds.

Yet we resolve to make prayer our first response and not our last resort.

We've resolved to be a church that our eyes are fixed on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith, who, for the joy set before him, endured the cross, scorning his shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of the Father.

And our eyes as a church is just simply gonna be fixed on him.

And I just wonder, I wonder what would happen as we step into the next decade.

If we actually said we're gonna be the church with the first response of prayer.

What God might want to do.

In fact, that's what we're gonna do.

We're gonna find out.

We're gonna get back to the basics, we're gonna do 40 days of prayer.

We're gonna do a whole series, we'll build a whole booklet over the next several weeks.

Can't wait for that because we believe that if our eyes are on Jesus, we can step forward into whatever is coming next.

And he is with us and he is for us, his power will strengthen us, his faithfulness will underkurt us, and his promises will sustain us because the one who promised is faithful and true.

Our eyes.

Our eyes on you.

So can we start the next decade this way?

I know there's a lot of us, and it might be a little awkward, but when we started awakening, I had this kind of um this nice idea.

It was that came this way.

I want to lead this church from my knees.

But it's something I said, it wasn't something I lived.

And that really difficult patch when I thought awakening wasn't gonna, you know, make it, I started living it.

And then began to see God do what only God can do.

What if we lead from our knees, church?

What if we move forward from our knees and see what God's gonna do?

And so let's begin this next decade, if you will.

Can you just get on your knees if you're physically able?

Heavenly Father, we are so humble that your strength and your power has led us through these ten years.

You have been so faithful, you've been so good to us.

And we confess we don't know what to do.

I don't know what to do.

But my eyes are on you.

Our eyes are on you.

We resolve, we set our hearts conclusively and authoritatively.

We're afraid, certainly anxious, yeah, absolutely, but we're set, our face is set towards you.

It's all because of you, it's all for you.

Where else can we go?

You alone have the words of life.

So we start this decade on our knees before you.