10 Years

As I was thinking and praying about what to talk about, about what to share, this one phrase kept coming to my mind over and over again, and it's simply this look what God has done.

Look what God has done.

Not look what we have done, not look what this church has done, but look what God has done here.

When I first came to be part of this team, there was a banner in our office that had Ephesians 3.20, the message version, printed on it.

And this is what Ephesians 3.20 says.

God can do anything, you know.

Far more than you could imagine or guess or request in your wildest dreams.

And he does it not by pushing us around, but by working within us, his spirit deeply and gently within us.

That was kind of our theme verse when we first got started.

And back then it was all about what God would do, what God will do, what God can do.

But today we get to sit and talk a little bit about what God has done.

And that's really exciting.

And it's more than just something that's for us as a church.

This is something for every single one of us, even if today's your very first day, because there's there's nothing that makes us more confident in what God can do and what God will do than we take some time to think about what God has already done.

Because the Bible says that He is the same yesterday, today, and tomorrow.

So when we spend time reflecting on what he has done, it reminds us that our God is still doing things and our God will do even more.

So my hope today is that all of us leave.

Not simply blown away by what God has done, but so excited and so expectant for what he will do.

He's done so much.

And it's interesting, I think about all the things he's done.

I try to categorize it in my mind as best I can.

And one of the categories would be the breadth of what he's done.

Just to sit and think about the breadth of what God has done here in the last 10 years.

The number of lives that have been forever changed because they met Jesus.

And maybe not the Jesus that they had been introduced to, not the religious Jesus, not the angry Jesus, not the Jesus that just wanted to give them another burden, some impossible standard to live up to, but the Jesus that loves them, the Jesus that came for them and died for them.

So many people's lives have been forever changed.

A lot of you may know this, but when people get baptized here, they sign this wall.

And uh it's pretty powerful to go back there and stand in the hallway and look at at this wall.

It's actually a few walls now where all these different people have signed their name.

Signed their name the day that they went all in with the God who was already all in for them.

And you can go and you can look at the wall and it impacts you.

But I think the best way to get the impact of the breadth of what God has done in those people's lives is to sit and just look at every single signature one by one, because every signature is a person.

Every signature is a life.

It's a father or a mother or a child or a brother, sister.

Every single signature is a person who has many other people in their lives that will be impacted by their love for Jesus.

And so I'd like to take just a minute and show you all those signatures if you don't mind.

All right, take a look at this.

So, I mean, come on, it's still happening.

The breadth of what God has done here is really spectacular.

And again, it's not just the people that have been baptized, it's it's the community that we're part of.

It's the the ministries and the charities that we've been able to support, like Papa's Pantry and Cherokee Family Violence Center and the Hope Center and One Need and the Turnaround Kids and all these other amazing, amazing causes right here in our community that we as a church get to support.

The breadth of what God has done here is it's incredible.

But but even more than the breadth, I get excited about the depth of what God has done.

Just the depth of what he's done in so many people's lives.

As we were combing through old pictures and footage, putting slideshows together this last few weeks, we came across this video of a young guy named Alex Benell from about 10 years ago.

And uh this is Alex 10 years ago.

This is Alex whenever I uh I first met him.

I spent a lot of time with Alex when he was young.

He's grilling.

Um, that's a bratwurst, I think.

It didn't look like a bratwurst, but you know.

And so Alex and I used to hang out a lot together.

And I think he was probably in the eighth grade or so when this was taken.

This was at a tailgate Sunday we had in the parking lot years ago.

And I remember Alex as a young person was this young kid that always wanted to be older than he was.

So he was always hanging out with whoever was the leader of the pack, but like the grade up from him.

When he was in eighth grade, he hung out with the ninth graders.

When he was in ninth grade, he was hanging out with the juniors and the seniors.

When he was a senior, he was hanging out with the college students and just always wanted to be with the the leaders that were older than him.

But now, ten years later, this is Alex.

Look at the difference a decade can make.

Look at that guy.

Always has fantastic hair.

Uh and now Alex is not the kid following others.

Alex is the man being followed by others.

You know, he's been here for the entire 10 years that we've been here, and Alex now leads worship for our college group, our high school group, our junior high kids.

He's actually in charge of the worship in all those different areas.

Alex came here as this kid following others.

Now he's this man that's leading our kids into the presence of God every single week.

And all that's happened here in the last 10 years.

It's so exciting.

And the number the number of young people alone that have grown up here and are now leading here in a really huge capacity, it's really amazing.

I mean, I could I could just rattle off a list of names and I would forget so many, so I'm not gonna try because we've had so many kids that have grown up here and they've grown up knowing that they're loved by God, not having to unlearn some of the things that we had to unlearn, and to see them now in their their 20s leading here and pouring into the people who are the same age they were when they came, it's really incredible to watch.

That's something God has done, and the depth of it is incredible.

I think about marriages that have been changed here.

I think about Alan and Tammy Humble.

This is a picture of Alan and Tammy that we took about five years ago as we were working on a new website.

We've since replaced that website with an even newer website.

This has always been one of my favorite pictures we've ever taken.

That's why it's still on our site today.

And here's why.

Because when this picture was taken, the picture didn't match reality.

I knew Alan and Tammy, and in this picture, you'd look at them and go, wow, that is a really happy couple.

But at this time, when this was taken, their marriage was in real trouble.

And they'll both talk about that.

They'll both tell you that.

Their marriage was kind of at rock bottom, and they weren't certain if they were gonna make it.

Neither of them really thought with confidence that they were gonna make it, but instead of calling it quits, they stayed here and they were inspired by so many people that they were prayed for.

They asked God to stay involved, they asked God to change their hearts, to change the way they saw one another.

And what's so amazing now, the reason this is my favorite picture, is now that picture from five years ago matches the reality of today.

No, they're still married.

I talked to Alan this last week, and he said, you know, look, we still have our issues, but we have never been happier.

Our marriage has never been stronger.

And I know so many people have experienced something similar.

The depth of what God has done here is so, so incredible.

I think about the legacy that God has created here.

Just 10 years in, we already have this incredible legacy of love and generosity and faith to live up to.

God has created an amazing legacy here at His hands.

He's brought so many people here who have who have set a standard for us to follow, so many incredible leaders who have gone ahead of us and they've shown us what it can look like when you surrender to God, what it can look like when you when you say yes to God no matter the cost.

I think about Susan Craig.

Susan's one of our founding pastors.

Love Susan.

Because it always seemed like she had more than I had.

Susan passed away in January, and it's kind of hard to believe.

It's kind of hard to believe it's been that long.

It's also hard to believe it hasn't been that long.

And when Susan passed away, Marlon Yoder, who paints all the tree of life paintings that you see hanging on the walls around here, Marlon painted a very specific painting for Susan.

You can see it in the fireplace room, hanging right by the fireplace.

Uh, this is Susan's Tree of Life painting.

And it's kind of different than the other Tree of Life paintings.

Uh, it's a it's a Japanese cherry blossom.

That was Susan's favorite tree.

So Marlon painted that in honor of Susan.

And I've been thinking about how much Susan is still part of this place today.

Because she is.

I mean, she's she's all over this place.

Every time I walk around, in fact, if we ever change the paint color on a wall, I get kind of nervous that Susan's gonna walk in and be like, what are you doing?

No.

Like, Susan, I'm sorry.

She she she just has her hand in in so many parts of this place.

This last week, though, was was really meaningful because uh in Susan's will, she asked that a tree be buried or be buried, a tree be planted here.

There's not a tree way deep under the ground, I promise.

That a tree be planted here at the church and that her ashes be mixed in with the roots of that tree.

And so on Wednesday, we we planted that tree.

It's right outside the main entrance, right to the left of the main entrance.

If you're looking at the building, you can see it today.

It's surrounded by a bunch of beautiful flowers.

But what's gonna be really incredible is in the spring when we pull up and we see it bloom because that tree is a Japanese cherry blossom.

It's her favorite tree, just like this tree in this picture.

And so it's gonna be it's gonna be a reminder to me of the legacy of love and of faith and of generosity that that Susan that Susan created here.

I think about Steve.

Steve Craig is another one of our founding pastors, and Steve is my mentor.

One of the greatest blessings of my life is that Steve has invested in me and still does and meets with me and helps me and helps me think straight and just encourages me.

He's he's one of my favorite people that God has ever made.

And Steve taught me what a leader was.

And he taught me that a leader is not someone that has it all together, but a leader is someone that has the courage to admit that they don't have it all together and that they need help and that they they need God more than they need their own expertise.

Steve opened up the scriptures to me like no one else ever had before.

He showed me a side of God that I had never seen before, and and once I once I got my eyes on that God, I haven't been able to take my eyes off.

I'm so grateful for the legacy that people like Steve and Susan created here.

And it's a legacy that all of us have the honor to keep going.

All of you who serve here, all of you who who are part of this place, all of you who give financially, all of you who who do whatever God has asked you to do here, you continue that legacy that God has created here.

And it's it's an amazing legacy.

I just think about what he's done through that legacy.

I think about the vision that God has given us.

God has has put a very, very beautiful vision as ours to sort of shepherd and steward and and keep safe and live out.

This church has an incredible vision given by God.

It wasn't a vision that was created in some marketing meeting on a whiteboard was said, hey, what sounds really good?

It was a vision that God gave.

Just like today is about look what God has done.

It was a vision that God created and he put in our hearts.

The vision to love people to Jesus.

And I'll never forget when I first came here and I first started to understand the vision, and it spoke to me in a way that I'd never I'd never experienced church speaking to me before.

And I grew up in church and I love church.

And I look back at all the churches I was part of growing up, and I'm very thankful for every single one of them.

They all taught me something really incredible, something foundational for my life.

But when I came here, it was it was different.

And I'd be lying if I said otherwise.

I really would.

There was a purity and a genuineness to the vision here that was unlike anything I had ever seen.

It's kind of an odd analogy to use to describe it, but it reminded me of when I was in college.

I went to college in Kansas City, Missouri, and I had a couple friends who were brothers, the Ross brothers, and they were from a town in Texas, which is the town where Dr.

Pepper was invented.

Okay?

And Dr.

Pepper is very near and dear to me because I'm not a coffee drinker, but like many of you, like many of you, I need caffeine to get me through things.

And so the good doctor has been there for me over the years.

It's my my go-to caffeine drink.

And so when I was in college, I drank a lot of Dr.

Pepper.

I would go to the vending machine in our college dorm and just empty that thing.

But see, when the Ross brothers would go back home to Texas, they would bring back with them this very specific kind of Dr.

Pepper that you could only get in their hometown where it was created, and it was the original recipe.

And so it used cane sugar instead of all the artificial stuff that's that's in it now.

I mean it was still soda, it wasn't good for you, but as much as soda can be pure and organic, it was.

And I'll never forget they would bring that and they would let me have one, and I would drink it, and it would be familiar because it was still Dr.

Pepper, but at the same time it was something completely new.

And I would just go, wow, this is this is what Dr.

Pepper is supposed to be.

Like I said, that's a very odd analogy, but that's how I feel about this church.

Because when I came here, it was familiar, it was church.

And I grew up in church, and so we sang worship songs, and somebody talked about God and went through Bible verses.

And a lot of the activity was the same as the churches I had been part of, but but there was something pure.

This church has never been a church trying to be a big church or a cool church or a trendy church.

This church has never been a church trying to be an edgy church or anything like that.

It's always just been a place that's trying to be who we are, who God has asked us to be.

A place that is filled with his love, a place that's filled with authenticity, a place where you can be who you are and know that you are loved.

And being part of that for the last 10 years, being part of that vision, being able to really sit and grow and soak in that vision has changed me.

I could talk about the vision of his hands all day long.

I mean, I really could.

I really could.

So if you ever want to, hit me up because I can sit with you for hours and talk about this place.

I'm so passionate about it.

But in reality, I'm not actually the most qualified person to talk about the vision here.

I might be one of them, but I'm not the most qualified.

The most qualified person is actually the person God gave the vision to.

And so we had a chance to sit down with Steve last week and ask him about his hands and what it means and how it all got started.

And and we want to show you guys that conversation.

Now, if you if just to let you know, if you've never if you've never seen Steve speak, um, not nearly as entertaining or funny as me, I'm just gonna go ahead and say that.

Not even close.

Okay, so now Steve is Steve.

Steve is the same sitting on a stage talking as he is on a camera, as he is at lunch.

He's just Steve.

And hearing him talk about how this church started and what this church is all about, it just number one, it brought me back.

Some of us, it's be like a trip down memory lane.

For some of us that have never seen Steve speak, it's a it's a treat.

So um I want to let you guys watch that and then we'll come back together and wrap up.

I had a successful business that God had uh really favored.

Knew that there was something uh beyond that, that we would sell the company.

My thinking was that it would be something to do with Uganda.

Had a really good uh friend, Wilson Kalaba, uh in uh Kampala had uh been over there many, many times, and felt like that was the next thing God had for us.

One day, Susan and I were driving to church, and I just had this very, very strong impression, and I said uh to Susan, you know, I think God wants us to start a church.

And she immediately started just bawling.

And I said, What's that?

And and she said, He's been telling me the same thing.

And really from that point forward, with a lot of arm wrestling from from God, uh, we started uh thinking about what that might uh what what that might be.

Um and so the idea, we knew we wanted to always be part of a church, but the idea of actually starting or leading a church uh was really foreign to us.

Plus, neither of us felt equipped at all.

Uh something we had never done, something we never uh thought about doing.

Um but God started uh speaking to us.

He spoke to us in dreams, he spoke to us through other people.

Um we ended up selling the company and decided to uh, and there's a long story involved in this, but decided to to purchase an abandoned Super K building, uh, invest the money, redo the building.

Had a financial advisor, Alan Godhardt, who's a really close friend of mine, and we were talking a couple weeks ago, and it was good because he kind of reminded me of our conversations, because he kept saying, Okay, Steve, how do you know this is God?

Because he felt like we were just blowing through uh, you know, kind of our life savings.

And so I was able to tell him about uh the dream that Kelly had and how she wrote it down on paper, and how it was the exact vision that that God gave us, how um different people would come and different people would say things, and just the supernatural experiences that we had.

One small experience is we bought this property and um decided that we needed to start somewhere.

So we started at Dave and Buster's while this uh the building was being renovated, and this property had sat abandoned for almost five years without an offer on it, and so we purchased it.

Uh we had our first meeting at Dave and Buster's on Sunday.

On Monday, I got a call from the broker offering, and we hadn't started the building yet, we had the plans and that type of stuff, but we hadn't broken grand.

Uh got an offer from the broker for two million dollars more than we had bought it from.

And so what that told me was was that there was nothing wrong with this property that God had been saving it for something that for for his use and and specifically for his hands church.

From the start, we felt like it was important for his hands to be a place that wasn't what I would call religious, and that has different meanings for different people, and so it can be confusing, but really where people could be authentic, where we can be ourselves, where we don't have to pretend we have it all together.

Usually in any family, there's something going on most of the time that we that we need God's help with.

We're all in process, and so it'd be a place that we could just be ourselves, so that we could wear what we wanted to wear, we could talk the way that that we could talk, that we could uh learn from God's word.

I would say that that was something uh one of the great things instilled in me as a child was a love for God's word.

But I remember one night we were in this building, there was a small group of people, we were praying for we were having trouble with permits, and we were having trouble with construction, and we uh we were in the middle, kind of we were under the blue light, because this was a Kmart.

So we were under the blue light thing, and uh and so we were just praying that God would make a way for the permits, that God would make a way uh for the construction stuff, and we just had this overwhelming uh sense of God's love.

I mean, so much that everybody, there's probably 10 of us, we all ended up face down on this dirty concrete floor crying, asking for God to fill us with love.

And so we had an idea of what the church might be or things that were important to us, but it it showed us that God's plan was going to be a church that revolved around his love and how much he loved people, and that had to be a core of anything that he was doing.

Understanding the tree of life and God's Word, I think, is the key to understanding all of God's Word.

It's actually the key to understanding our relationship with God.

There's a tree at the very beginning of the Bible in the garden, the tree of life.

There's two trees of life at the very end of the Bible in Revelation, there on either side of a river.

In fact, those leaves of those two trees of life heal the world, it says, that heal the nations, or the world as we would say it.

But the story of the tree of life is so misunderstood, and God so clearly started his communication with us with that story.

And so you know the story.

Adam and Eve are there, they've got a relationship with God, they walk with him in the morning, they talk with him.

They're completely free, they're not worried about what they're wearing, they're not worried about their appearance.

They've got someone that they love, they're in a loving relationship with God, they're in a beautiful place, they've got responsibilities that they enjoy.

And there's two trees in the garden.

One is this tree of life that God says, you know, you can eat freely from this tree.

Come, you can, you know, picnic under the tree, you can just uh be with this tree of life.

And uh the other tree had this forbidden fruit.

It was the one that if you eat from this tree, it says you will surely die.

And so when we think of this tree, we have a lot of things that jump in our mind.

You know, what kind of forbidden fruit?

Is that a sexual sin?

Is that greed?

Is that envy?

You know, what types of possible things could be this forbidden fruit?

But the tree was the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.

Uh it was simply the rules.

Uh that is the tree that would cause death.

You know, Satan came along and said, hey, this will make you like God or God Lee, we would say, if you just know the rules.

But God in his ultimate wisdom and how he created us, uh, he knew that we had this choice.

The choice was do we want to be in relationship with God, a life-giving, loving relationship, or do we want to focus on the rules?

And so Adam and Eve got to choose for us, and they didn't do so bad because we've all made the same choice, probably would have made that same choice in their position.

But they chose the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, and immediately things changed.

Uh, all of a sudden, you know, what they wore was good or it was bad.

How they looked was good or how or was bad.

Everything was through this filter of good or bad.

And and and so from that sprung the old law.

And so we look at God, many of us, I would say most people, and we view God as schizophrenic, and we don't really understand it, and we're not sure which God to believe, because we've got this harsh, mean God in the Old Testament that would uh wipe out nations, he would do all these types of things, he would demand all these types of things, and then all of a sudden Jesus comes along, and he's nothing like that.

You know, he's loving, he's merciful, he's compassionate, he's for the uh for the for the underdog.

So so what should which is the real God?

And the question is not which is the real God, the question is which is the right tree.

Because what God was giving us was the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.

Here's the rules.

This is what happens when you decide that you're gonna justify, when I decide, I'm gonna justify myself by the rules.

And, you know, sometimes whole nations aren't living by the rules, and so in that case, I guess they get wiped out.

Thankfully, the New Testament talks about Jesus coming and and and preaching to people and saving whole nations.

But the the point is God has never been a schizophrenic God.

He's never been an unloving God.

That even in the Old Testament, a lot of people he healed, a lot of people he blessed weren't even necessarily Jewish people that even knew his law.

They're people with good hearts that were seeking him.

Um and so the the idea that we can pursue right and wrong, that where most religion falls.

It's this is good, this is bad.

Do good, you're good with God, do bad, you're not.

And that is living at the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.

Well what we need to do, and I think with his hands, what we try our best to do is live at the tree of life.

We're encouraging each other.

We're talking about the good things.

You know, Paul goes on a discourse in the New Testament saying, he lets all the all these good stuff.

And he says, think on these things, you know?

And so that's that's the place to live, is at the tree of life.

And so when Jesus comes along, over and over he calls himself life.

Um, and then now all of a sudden, we're not under this curse that Adam and Eve chose.

We get to choose ourselves.

We get to decide where we want to live.

Do I want to live in shame?

Do I want to live in guilt?

Do I want to live in remorse?

Do I want to live separating myself from God's love?

Uh, or do I want to pick the tree of life?

Is that where I want to live?

Do I want to get back where I can picnique under that tree, where I can eat that fruit, where I can hang out with God?

There's a natural pull in the world to get away from the tree of life, to get back to the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.

But if somehow together as a family we can all say, hey, no, we're gonna live at the tree of life, it it changes everything.

And God sharing that with us has changed my life, it's changed the church, you know, it's done so much.

I think that uh Marlon took that uh message from from the Holy Spirit and uh painted all these beautiful uh trees.

The the first one uh he did um was when When God Laughs, and it's one that I have and and uh Cherish, you can see them all through the halls.

And if it's somebody's first time here, you might be, what's with all the the trees?

And that's what it is.

It's just different depictions of the tree of life and how we're committed uh with God's help to live at that tree.

And thankful.

I'm I mean, just thankful that God would show that to us, and so we can no longer be living under that curse of the rules, but enjoy the freedom and life of a real relationship with God.

The biggest miracle God does is change people's hearts and and and change people's lives.

And I look at his hands as a group and what it stands for, what it's known for in the community.

And um, you know, we're known for love, we're known for helping people.

Uh just uh thinking of all the marriages that have changed, all the kids that have been helped.

You know, I think of Justin and Megan.

Um I literally have never known a couple like them and believe that they are a gift to each of us.

And uh the same with Nathan and Matt.

I mean, they're actually all in this room right now as I'm talking.

But it's but it's true.

Just how God has given gifts, given people to us that uh that helps all of us, but but more than that, he's just changed us from the inside out.

You know, one of my my favorite verses is uh Ephesians 3.20, and it talks about how God changes us, and he doesn't change us by pushing us around.

Um, but his Holy Spirit changes us gently, uh, and he changes us from the inside out.

And to me, that is the miracle that God does here every week is heart softening, love happening, relationships healing, people being told the truth about a loving God, the truth about Jesus, and that's happening every day here.

Uh that is certainly a miracle, and this is definitely God's church.

Told you guys that we have a great legacy, right?

That God has given us so many people, and and so thankful for that.

I'll never forget the first time I heard Steve talk about the tree of life, just like he talked about in that that video.

Megan and I actually drove down here from Kansas City to interview, to potentially be part of this team and and had a lot of interviews, and I was hoping that you know there would be some type of indication when we left the interview process where they'd be like, hey, you're in, but they were like, hey, we'll we'll be in touch.

Uh and so I was like, oh, great.

But Steve gave me three message CDs that he felt were very important for the vision of the church.

And he said, Hey, uh, while you're waiting to hear back from us, why don't you listen to these?

And then when we when we call you back, we can talk about them.

I said, Okay, and and it was pretty easy to listen to him because we had this long drive back to Missouri, and so we just decided, hey, let's listen to him on the drive.

And it's really funny because one of the three CDs was blank.

It was printed on it, it had a title, but there was no file on it.

And I thought to myself, this is a test.

This is what this is.

Because he's gonna call and be like, What'd you think of the three messages?

And I'm gonna say, they were great.

And he's gonna go, aha, aha, one of them was blank.

You you failed the test, and it's been nice to know you.

It wasn't a test, it was just a mistake.

But uh, but I'm thankful because one of the two that was not blank was that teaching on the tree of life.

And when I first heard that, it completely and totally shifted my perspective of God.

And I realized as a person that had been following Jesus since I was 10 years old, that while I had a lot of passion for God, I was living at the wrong tree.

And I had been living at the wrong tree my entire life.

I'd been trying to impress God, I'd been trying to please God and make up for all my issues and all my mistakes by earning his love, by following the rules as best as I possibly could.

I was living at the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.

I came here, I was I was a mess.

I really was.

This is actually a picture of me someone sent for my very first day here 10 years ago.

And yes, those are those are frosted tips in my hair, and no, those were not cool in 2007 when I got here.

It's just you gotta be who you are.

Uh y'all can take that down.

Good.

So I was this 23-year-old kid, really, and and I was a mess.

I had an addiction that was a big secret that I didn't share with anybody.

I I was extremely insecure.

Extremely insecure.

It's just the way I compensated with insecure insecurity was by overcompensating and trying to impress people and trying to just do an amazing job.

But at my core, I was just insecure.

I needed people to say, good job, to feel good about myself.

I was a mess, an addicted, insecure mess.

But I I had I learned how to hide the mess really well because that's what the tree of knowledge of good and evil teaches you.

That's what religion teaches you.

How to hide the mess.

And you get really good at hiding the mess with religion, but all the while you have this fear inside of you of people discovering the mess.

You have these thoughts, thoughts like, oh, if if they knew, if they really knew about your mess, they wouldn't accept you.

God is is so upset with your mess.

He is so frustrated with you, he's he's just one more mistake away from being being done with you.

You better be careful.

That's what the tree of knowledge of good and evil had taught me.

And so on the inside, I was all knotted up.

I had all these knots, all these twisted parts of me that were just full of fear and discouragement and hopelessness.

I was knotted up, and I was trying to untie all the knots.

And I was using religion, I was using those rules, the things that the tree of knowledge of good and evil had taught me to untie the knots.

But have you ever had the experience where you have like a shoe and it's it's got a knot in it, and you try to untie it, but it just makes the knot way worse?

That's what that's what was happening in me.

I was using religion to untie the knots, and they were only getting worse.

Because, see, the tree of knowledge of good and evil will tell you that God is good and you are evil.

And that you're you're messed up, and that you're not you're not good enough.

But then I came here and I heard that that teaching on the tree of life, and I spent time in a tree of life church.

And it's like I met Jesus for the first time, really met Jesus for the first time, and he looked at me and he did not call me evil, he called me good.

He said I was good enough to be his friend, and I was good enough to be God's child, and I was good enough for him to live for, and I was good enough for him to die for.

And Jesus invited me to that other tree, to the tree of life.

And when I I came and I sat at that tree for the very first time, the mess did not go away.

The addictions, the insecurity didn't go away.

The knots did not go away instantly.

But for the first time, I started addressing the knots the right way, the same way my six-year-old addresses the knots in his shoes.

He just comes to us and says, Untie the knot.

And we do.

And you know what?

When Liam comes to me and says, Dad, there's a knot in my shoe when you untie it, I don't sit and go, How did How did this get here?

Come on, son.

Stop getting knots in your shoes.

What are you, six?

Like, I don't do that.

Because he's six.

And to be honest, I I kind of enjoy enjoy fixing his mistakes.

I love him.

And for the first time I realized that was God with me.

And I didn't have to hide the knots.

I didn't have to hide the mess, that I could just come to my father and I could say, Daddy, I got a knot while you untie it.

And he started to do that in my life.

And I will say this, he did not do it the way I thought he should.

He did not address the knots I would have addressed first, and he didn't do it in the order at the pace that I wanted him to, but he started to mess with my mess and change me and transform me.

And even though the mess didn't go away, the fear of the mess went away.

And I became less and less afraid about people finding out who I really was and finding out my struggles and my issues.

All of a sudden I realized that I was a loved mess.

A mess that God cared deeply about.

And that is what caused the change in me.

And it still does, because I'm still a mess.

There's so many knots.

And I've got this father, this father who sits with me under the tree of life and he tells me that he loves me.

And he reminds me that there's no mess I can ever make that he cannot clean up.

And I love, love the fact that God has given us a vision like that at his hands.

Look at what he's done.

He's given us this tree of life vision as a church where we can come together and we can hang out with God.

And we might spend our entire weeks believing that we don't measure up to whoever's standards, the standards of the world, but we can come here week in and week out and be reminded that in his eyes we measure up.

That in his eyes we are good enough, that we are loved, that he's proud of us, and he's proud to call us his children.

That's what we need every single week, and we get that here.

Just look at what he's done.

I think what I love most about the church, and we'll we'll wrap up with this.

I love the future that this church has.

Because here we are, 10 years in, and we are just getting started.

And God is just getting started.

I completely believe that he's just scratched the surface.

I'll never forget about five or six years ago.

I was I was outside in the walkway, it was the 4th of July, a bunch of people were hanging out, and uh, and God just spoke so clearly to me about this church.

And he said one very simple phrase, he said, This is an important church.

And I I mean I heard that and I believed it.

And I didn't understand exactly what he meant by important, but I very much understood that it was more than just Woodstock, Georgia.

It was more than just what was happening here, even though what was happening here was so incredible.

I still believe that.

I still believe that this is an important church, and and I would be a liar if I could predict what God is gonna do in the next 10 years.

Because one of the things God has taught me here is that He is definitely unconventional.

You start trying to predict what He's gonna do and just be ready to eat those predictions.

The last 10 years have not gone the way anyone thought they would go, but here we are in a very, very beautiful place.

And what I can what I can say with confidence is not only look what God has done, but guys, let's think about what God is going to do.

Let's think about how many more thousands of lives are gonna be changed in the next 10 years.

How many more, how many more people are gonna walk through these doors feeling so heavy and so burdened because they don't believe they're worthy of God's love and they're gonna walk out these doors light and free because they realize that God has adopted them and he loves them.

I mean, think about how many more lives are gonna change.

As we keep having our eyes so focused on Jesus, staying so true to the vision here, because just like 10 years ago, this place is about love and not judgment.

This place is about authenticity and not some image that we're trying to have.

This place is about Jesus and not religion.

He is the only person that gets famous here, he is the only one who ever will, and I am so excited about what God has in store next.

I can't tell you exactly what it's gonna look like, but I can tell you this.

We're gonna stay at the same tree.

We're gonna stay at the same tree that we've been living at for the last 10 years.

It's gonna be about life and it's gonna be about love, and it's going to be it's gonna be a party.

Because see, when when you hang out at the right tree, that's what life is like.

It is a party.

It's not always easy.

There's there's joy and there's passion because when you're at the tree of life, you come to life.

When you're at the tree of life, you really live.

And so for the next 10 years, we're going to continue really living life together.

Focused on Jesus, focused on his love, focused on the mission and the legacy and the vision that he's given us, focused on seeing God do what only God can do, and when he does it, not pretending like we did it, but giving him all the glory for doing it.

That's what the next 10 years are gonna be, and I can't wait.

I can't wait.

Now, we're gonna wrap up with one more song, like we always do, and I'm just gonna say this.

I don't say this very often.

You're not allowed, I never say this actually, you're not allowed to leave during this song.

Okay, most of us stay for the final song.

Some of us are like, sweet, gonna beat the crowd.

Here's why I'm asking you slash challenging you.

Not begging.

I'm not gonna beg, okay?

But no, I'm serious.

I'm just gonna ask you to stay because when this song is done, we've got a little surprise for y'all.

Something really meaningful, I believe.

And uh, and I want everyone to be able to get that.

And if you leave during the last song, you will not get the surprise.

You will not do it.

So, your choice.

So, worship team, if you guys want to come out, we thought a lot about you know what to talk about this morning, but there was one really easy decision.

There was one song that we knew we just had to do.

All right, it wasn't even a question, it's the song party.

Right?

Because we're at the tree of life, and we're a tree of life church, and a tree of life church knows how to party.

All right.

So if you'll stand with us, let's pray, let's party, and then stick around for a little surprise.

Jesus, thank you so much for for this church.

God, look what you've done.

Look what you've done.

Look at the breadth of what you've done, the depth of what you've done, look at the legacy that you've created here, look at the vision that you've given us, and look at the future.

All the things you will do, Lord.

We love you.

You are our dad.

We love each other.

We love our community, we love our neighbors.

We love we love because you're love.

And God, we want to pardon your presence this morning.

And we want you to know that it's all for you and it's all because of you.

And we ask, we ask all these things in your name.

We ask you to bless us in our lives.

We ask you to send us out so focused on what you can do and so filled with faith and what you will do because we've spent time looking at what you have done, Lord.

We ask all this in your name, Jesus.

Amen.