Revive Our Hearts - 10.18.26 - Kyle Morris

Good morning, Revived Church family.

Welcome to our 9 a.m.

service.

We're excited you're here worshiping with us.

Before we dive in, would you turn to a neighbor, make sure they know they're welcome here in the house of the Lord.

Say happy Sunday.

Come on.

Who breaks the power of darkness?

It's all much longer.

Alright.

You can grab a seat for those of you who have to have church the same way every Sunday.

It's gonna be different today.

And we're excited.

Alright, we got a little clap back there.

She even lifted her hands up.

That was not that was not planned in the different uh category.

My name is Kyle Morris.

Welcome to Revived Church.

If you are new or a guest here, we are excited that you are here.

Uh I would encourage you to click the QR code or head out to the lobby after the service.

We have smiley, happy, awesome people out there that would love to tell you more about our church.

As a church right now, what we are doing is we are walking through the book of Acts, and we're kind of looking at this story of the explosion of the New Testament church.

And it's been amazing just to walk with Peter and walk with Paul through this.

And and last week we we got to Acts chapter 19.

Acts 19 · chapter mention

And in Acts chapter 19, what we see is that light overcomes the city of Ephesus, which is filled with darkness.

Acts 19 · chapter mention

And what we saw last week is as light overcame that city, and as God, in a sense, kind of just showed off, there was a response that happened in that city.

It says that there was a fear that came over the city, meaning the fear of the Lord.

The fear of the Lord overcame that city, not in the sense that people were living in terror of God or felt like they needed to run from God, but rather they feared God in the sense of his awe and his majesty.

We're told by the author Luke that people confessed their sins openly to God and with one another, and that they actually removed the darkness from their lives.

And then it also says that the word of God prevailed in the city.

And as I was preparing Acts chapter 20 this week, I did feel like I felt like the Holy Spirit just kind of stopped me.

Acts 20 · chapter mention

And he stopped me and reminded me that what God is doing here at Revived Church and what he has been doing over the last 38 years, but specifically the last year, is he is inviting us to experience his presence more.

And sometimes to experience God's presence, we have to kind of put our plan aside and allow the Holy Spirit to be the leader.

And hopefully we're doing that all the time.

Hopefully we're nimble enough and flexible enough to say to God, God, this is your space.

And we want to do what you're doing.

About a year ago, we gathered, about 350 of us gathered for an encounter weekend where we had a gentleman, a pastor from Arkansas by the name of Bill Elliff, who joined us.

And really what he did in that weekend is he pointed at Scripture and he said, Hey, one of the big ideas of Scripture is that God desires our presence, that God has created us to be in relationship with him.

And the phrase from that weekend that really has stuck with me, that Bill said was that God's presence is our greatest need, and our presence is God's great delight.

And you see that throughout scripture as God not only created us in his image, but he actually prepared places all throughout scripture, from Genesis to Revelation.

God prepares places for us to meet with him.

And as I was preparing the message that I was supposed to give today, I did sense the Holy Spirit just stopping me and saying, Hey, what I want to do is not skip past what we've read in Acts chapter 19, but I want us to experience this together.

Acts 19 · chapter mention

I want to invite us this morning to actually prepare a place for God to move in us, not accidentally, but intentionally.

And I'm convinced that for each of us here today and those watching online, I'm convinced that God wants to do even more in our lives than what we've seen him do.

And he's done a lot.

Hopefully, over the last year, as you've been at this church, hopefully you have been encouraged to seek the presence of God.

Not just when we gather here each Sunday for 60 or 70 minutes, but I hope that you have been seeking the presence of God with your spouse.

I hope that you have been seeking the presence of God with your family.

I hope you've been seeking the presence of God with just Him and the nearness that He promises us.

I recognize that for many of us in this room, what we're about to do and what we're about to engage in is very different than what we do on a Sunday morning because we don't often create space or allow time within a service for the Spirit to speak.

We have sermons and we have worship, and all of that is good, and I'm not at any way, shape, or form downplaying that, but there are some moments where I think God is actually inviting us to stop, to not just go on with Acts chapter 20, to not just move on with the next thing, but actually to stop and allow Him to search our hearts.

Acts 20 · chapter mention

Now, for some of us that's hard.

For me, that's hard.

I'm not naturally a stop kind of person.

I'm a go-go-go kind of person.

And so being silent before God can be challenging.

And so my hope for us this morning, whether you're here and you're just investigating Christianity and you haven't said yes to Jesus, or if you're here today and you've been following Jesus as long as you can remember, my hope today is that as we engage with the content that I'm gonna share this morning, and as we sit in the presence of God, and hopefully as we're honest before God and even with one another, that God will speak to us, that we wouldn't feel a pressure to fix anything, but we would actually respond to God's still small voice and his invitation.

God's words are life and they are good.

Today we're gonna make room to respond to God.

And so I want to reread Acts chapter 19, verses 17 through 20.

Acts 19:17–20

And if you have your loop journal or acts journal, feel free to look at that.

Acts chapter 19, beginning in verse 17, says this.

Acts 19 · chapter mention

And this became known to all the residents of Ephesus, both Jews and Greeks.

And fear fell upon them all, and the name of the Lord Jesus was extolled.

Also many of those who were now believers came, confessing and divulging their practices.

And a number of those who had practiced magic arts brought their books together and burned them in the sight of all.

And they counted the value of them and found it came to fifty thousand pieces of silver.

So the word of the Lord continued to increase and prevail mightily.

So in those four verses, right, the fear of the Lord came upon the city.

People responded to the fear of the Lord and these extraordinary miracles that Paul was doing by way of his handkerchief.

They responded by exalting the name of Jesus Christ in a city where the goddess Artemis ruled.

There was confession of sin, but not only confession of sin, people removed the darkness from their life.

They literally physically brought the books that they had been following and the practices that they had kind of brought alongside Jesus and they burned them.

And then it says the word of God prevailed.

And so here's what I want to do with those with those five things we see in the book of Ephesus.

I want to walk us through three movements that I think are movements that were happening within this city that led to revival within the book of Ephesi of Ephesians within the city of Ephesus, but also that this is what God wants to do in our lives.

Brenda Caker, who works in our spiritual formation department, she said, Hey, revival actually starts with us.

It starts with the church.

And so this first movement is reverence.

Acts 19, 17 says, And fear fell upon them all, and the name of the Lord Jesus was extolled.

Psalm 96, 4 through 6 says, For great is the Lord and greatly to be praised.

He is to be feared above all gods.

For all the gods of the peoples are worthless idols, but the Lord made the heavens.

Splendor and majesty are before him, strength and beauty are in his sanctuary.

The idea of reverence, the idea of fearing the Lord is this idea that God is worthy of all of our praise.

He's worthy of all glory, he's worthy of all reverence.

To fear the Lord means to order our lives around pleasing him and him alone.

It means to look at our lives and ask the question, God, how do we honor you with our lives?

It means to love what God loves and to hate what he hates.

As a church, we talk about this.

One of our marks is standing in awe.

To stand in awe of God, to look at God, all of his characteristics and all of his attributes, all of what the word says about our God, and to attribute worship and praise to him.

I want to share just a few of God's attributes this morning.

And these are attributes that we don't talk about in this way, but these are the things about God that are incommunicable, meaning these are God's and not ours.

There's some things about God that we share.

Like we can love a little bit like God loves, but God is love.

But what we see in these attributes are God is wholly other than us.

He is transcendent and worthy of our worship simply because of who He is.

God is self-existent.

That means He has no origin.

He depends on no one and nothing outside of Himself.

He is the uncaused first cause of all existence.

God is omnipotent, He's all powerful.

His spoken word and his will are enacted, and the entire cosmos comes out of nothing and cannot be thwarted by any force.

God's omniscience.

God possesses complete, simultaneous knowledge of all things past, present, and future, including every thought that is hidden or every intent.

God is omnipresent.

That means he's fully and actively present everywhere across the universe, right now, at the same time, he's unbound by any kind of physical limitation or space.

He's immutable.

This is my favorite.

God never changes.

His character stays the same.

He is truth.

His promises will happen.

He remains completely consistent for all time.

God is eternal.

That means he exists completely outside of time and space.

He has no beginning and no end.

He's holy, meaning he's utterly set apart, pure and distinct and radiant in all of his beauty, distinct from sin and creation, shining a radiant moral perfection.

He's sovereign.

This is why Jesus says to said to his disciples, when he was teaching them how to pray, he said, begin your prayer by saying, Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name.

Worthy is your name.

And so I want to give you just a moment, and I'll have Justin kind of run through those slides.

And I just want you to grab one of these characteristics, one of these attributes about God.

And would you just, I'm going to give you a minute just to worship him and just to pray and thank him for who he is.

You are the first mover and the cause of the very breath in our lungs and the cosmos.

You've created us, you delight in us.

Somehow, some way that you are transcendent and other and yet also near to us.

This morning, we praise you for who you are.

The same God who is distinct and set apart.

Also, Scripture says he is actively near and engaged in his creation.

Moses in the book of Exodus saw this up close and personal.

If you remember in that story in the book of Exodus, Moses asked God, you remember he said, Show me your glory.

And before God showed Moses his glory, before his backside passed before Moses, God introduced himself to Moses.

Exodus 34, 5 and 7, 5 through 7.

The Lord descended in the cloud and stood with him there and proclaimed the name of the Lord.

The Lord passed before Moses and proclaimed, The Lord, the Lord, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness, keeping steadfast love for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin.

But who will by no means clear the guilty?

Visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children and the children's children to the third and the fourth generation.

I want you to see this.

In this first movement, we talked about all of these incommunicable attributes of God, meaning God is this uncreated one who always has been.

He is the beginning and the end.

He is the Alpha and the Omega.

He is eternal.

He is perfect.

And then God in his mercy, as he appears to Moses, He communicates and introduces himself in such a way that Moses can understand who God is.

We can understand who God is.

Slow to anger.

Abounding in steadfast love.

Abounding in faithfulness.

Keeping steadfast love.

I want you to look at that list.

And which of these descriptions that God gives when he introduces himself, which one this morning do you need the Holy Spirit to meld into your heart?

I'm gonna give you just a minute.

I want you to praise God for who he is, for how he introduced himself.

And this morning I want maybe just one of these characteristics of who God is to just wash over us, to wash over you wherever you are.

And so just stand in all for a moment, thank him, and worship him for who he is.

My God, our Father, we thank you that of all of the ways that you could have introduced yourself to Moses, you introduced yourself with words that he can understand and that we can understand.

We thank you that you are merciful and gracious and slow to anger, that you are abounding in steadfast, faithful love.

That you forgive our sin.

That you are a just God who punishes the guilty.

That you are righteous and holy.

I wonder, do you do you see these descriptions?

Do you see these introductions that God gave to Moses?

Do you see these?

These are the very attributes of Jesus Himself.

Jesus is God.

Jesus is the embodiment of mercy and grace and patience and faithfulness.

He is the image of an invisible God.

Colossians 1, 15 through 17 says, He being Jesus is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation.

For by him all things were created in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities, all things were created through him and for him.

And he, Jesus, is before all things, and in Jesus all things hold together.

And so I need you to do the math here.

This God, this eternal God, this omnipotent God, this omniscient God, this holy God, this perfect God, left the throne room of heaven and came to be with us.

You see, the fear of the Lord, when we learn to worship God, to give him the reverence that he deserves, it naturally leads us into exalting the name of Jesus.

In the book of Philippians, Paul writes these words.

He says, Let each of you look not to your own interests, but also to the interests of others.

Having this in mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, who, though he, being Jesus, was in the form of God, did not count, did not count equality with God, a thing to be grasped.

But Jesus emptied himself by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men, and being found in human form, he being Jesus, humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.

Therefore, God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name, so that the name of Jesus every knee should bow in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father.

I hope you read between the lines there.

Jesus emptied himself for us.

He humbled himself for us.

Jesus became a servant for us.

He was born like us.

He gave his life voluntarily for us.

Ultimately, he was resurrected from the dead and returned to the throne in heaven.

Where Revelation says this.

Then I looked and heard the voice of many angels, numbering thousands upon thousands, and ten thousand times ten thousand.

They encircled the throne, and the living creatures and the elders in a loud voice, they were saying, Worthy is the Lamb who was slain, to receive power and wealth and wisdom and strength and honor and glory and praise.

Then I heard every creature in heaven and on earth and under the earth and on the sea and all that is in them, saying, To him who sits on the throne and to the Lamb be praise and honor and glory and power forever and ever.

Can we stand and give that Jesus praise?

Can we exalt the name of Jesus this morning in the room?

Yes, Jesus.

Receive our praise today.

Holy hobbies.

You are my everything.

So the people in the city of Ephesus began to confess their sins.

And not only do they confess their sins, but they they removed the darkness from their lives.

You see, when when we when we understand who God is, and we look at some of the characteristics and the attributes of who God is, and then we see that this same God left the throne room of heaven and humbled himself in order to not just live, but ultimately to die for us on a cross.

That causes us to look at our lives differently.

It causes us to examine our lives and to see what in our lives don't match up with who God is and who he's created us to be, because we know that he loves us.

So we don't come before this holy and amazing God fearful that he's going to reject us.

We come before this holy and amazing God actually celebrating that we get to bring the parts of our lives that are not in alignment with him because we trust that by faith he's actually gonna meet us there.

That he loves us, that we're not earning his acceptance, that there's not something about our repentance or coming clean before God that he's gonna finally say, Okay, now you can be in my presence.

No, we are able to be in his presence because he humbled himself and Jesus came and he died on a cross, which makes us righteous outside and apart from anything that we can do.

In Acts 19, people they didn't just confess, they brought their very valuable items, things that they had practiced in the dark, and they brought them to the city and they burned them.

They had come to recognize that Jesus was so much more valuable than anything else in their lives.

You see, this is genuine repentance.

What we see in Acts chapter 19 is genuine repentance.

Acts 19 · chapter mention

Genuine repentance is not just I'm sorry that I did something wrong.

It's not just I'm sorry because I got caught.

It's actually taking the necessary things to remove whatever it is from my life because Jesus is so much more valuable.

Every single one of us, we have we have darkness in our lives, we have areas of sin where we try to hide or we try to minimize.

And sometimes we actually expect God to deliver us from something that we're making room for.

And so today we're actually going to invite the Holy Spirit over these next few minutes to search our hearts.

Not to condemn us, but actually to lead us into freedom.

See, there's great hope in the scriptures when we bring darkness into the light.

The scripture says not only do we find forgiveness, but we actually also find healing.

1 John 1, 5 through 9 says, This is the message we have heard from him and declare to you.

God is light.

In him there is no darkness at all.

If we claim to have fellowship with him and yet walk in darkness, we lie and we do not live out the truth.

But if we walk in the light as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another.

And the blood of Jesus, his son, purifies us from all sin.

If we claim to be without sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us.

If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness.

And then James 5:16 says this therefore, confess your sins to one another and pray for one another that you may be healed.

James 5:16

The prayer of a righteous person has great power as it is working.

I'm gonna give us a few minutes here to quietly ask the Holy Spirit to actually search our hearts.

King David in Psalm 139, he he actually models this for us.

He invites God, he says, God, search my heart.

I don't know my heart as well as you know my heart.

There are things in my heart that I can't see, there are things in my heart that I know are hidden.

And so David, he models for us this in Psalm 139, where he says, God, search me and know me.

Reveal to me anything that is wicked, that is not according to your purposes in my life.

I want to give you an opportunity.

There's some cards on the front of the stage here, and these cards are simply a way for today for you to take a step of faith, to come up, and to write whatever you want on this card, and to actually place the card in the basket to surrender it before God.

I think there was something powerful about what happened in the city of Ephesus that people weren't just confessing their sins, they actually actively removed the things from their lives.

And so, in a in a moment, we're just gonna have some time to ask some questions, some reflective questions.

And it might be that God is leading you to come forward to to write something on the card as a step of faith.

It may be something you've struggled with for a very long time, and you're in the process of receiving healing, you're in the process of battling whatever it is that you're battling, and this card, this card doesn't fix it, but what this card does is this card is an act of faith by which you surrender it before God, even if it's something you've surrendered 10, 20, 100 times before.

Now, there may be steps that you need to take beyond this card.

There may be uh forgiveness that God is inviting you to extend to someone that you've been withholding.

There may be uh asking for forgiveness that God is inviting you to do of someone that you have hurt or harmed.

It might be that there are things in your life and behaviors that just need to stop, and there are steps that need to be taken.

It could be that you need to seek appropriate pastoral or counseling care.

So, what's happening up front today in putting this card in this basket is a step of surrender.

Our prayer team, I'm gonna invite you, if you're here and you're on our prayer team, I'm gonna invite you to just be on the sides, not up front.

And there's gonna be a couple ways that we can respond to this.

Number one, if you want to come up and you wanna write something on a card and just leave it here in one of these baskets, this is an act of surrender before you and God.

But James also tells us in James 5 that when we confess our sins to one another, there is healing to be found there.

And so I'm gonna invite our prayer team.

If you didn't hear me the first time, if you can move to the sides, that would be awesome.

And the band's gonna play and they're gonna work through a couple songs.

And this is a time when you can do whatever you want in the room.

Um, please don't be distracting for others.

But if you want to come and kneel at the cross, please feel free to do that.

If you want to come and participate by surrendering through writing something on a card, we want to invite you to do that.

And I'm just gonna leave space for the next few minutes.

If you want to sit where you are, kneel, whatever you want to do in the next few minutes, I'm gonna put some reflection questions up.

And these are questions that I think might be helpful at getting at the heart of what could be going on and the areas where God might be inviting you to surrender.

Now, as you're doing this, uh Romans 8:1.

Romans 8:1

There is no condemnation now for those who are in Christ Jesus.

None.

So we don't we don't have to remain in the darkness.

Jesus has actually made a way for us to walk into the light.

And when we do so, we are trusting in his forgiveness and his mercy.

As the Holy Spirit, I pray that you would do the work in this room.

This is an act of faith.

This is a step of faith.

Everything about following you is faith.

And we can choose by faith or not faith.

And so this morning, as you're stirring in the hearts of your people, whether it's to go pray with someone, whether it's to come forward and just to write something on this card as an act of surrender to you, Holy Spirit, we just believe that that you're gonna work and you're gonna move.

And so we pray that we would surrender to your leading and work this morning.

Lord, I come, I confess that we here I find my rest without you.

I fall apart.

You're the one that guides my heart.

When temptation comes by the way, I'm not sure.

Oh, Jiggy does go my hole.

Oh God, how I need you.

Just sing a simple chorus.

Says I just want you and I just want you and nothing else and nothing else.

Nothing else will do.

I just want you and nothing else nothing else.

Nothing else will do.

I just want else nothing else.

Nothing else will do.

I just want nothing else.

Nothing else.

Nothing else.

Father, I'm so I'm hopeful and expectant of what you will do with these things that were written down, and the things that were not written down, but that were spoken from our hearts to you.

I am expectant for what you're gonna do in the hearts of your people.

I'm expectant for the way that you will revive us as we bring these things before you and as we trust them with, trust you with them.

It's in Jesus' name.

Amen.

You could be seated.

Acts 19, 20 is a movement of obedience.

It says, so the word of the Lord continued to increase and prevail mightily.

Luke tells us that the word, the word of God, prevailed in the city of Ephesus.

And over three decades after this, Ephesus, it was the most influential cities and churches in all of the New Testament.

And so as people came and as they confessed and as they surrendered these things that they were doing to God, he moved.

And the word of God prevailed over that entire city.

It wasn't just an emotional experience where there was healing in a city for one day.

No, this was people who were turning their hearts to God and committing to following his word.

Jesus, in some of his final moments with his disciples, who were his best friends, he said this, which is true of every disciple to follow.

John 14, 15 through 21 says, If you love me, you will keep my commandments.

And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another help helper to be with you forever, even the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees him nor knows him.

You know him, for he dwells within you and will be in you.

I will not leave you as orphans, I will come to you.

Yet a little while, and while the world will see me no more, you will see me, because I live, you also will live.

In that day you will know that I am in my Father, and you in me, and I in you.

Whoever has my commandments and keeps them, he it is he it is who loves me.

And he who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I will love him and manifest myself to him.

Jesus said, If you love me, you will keep my commandments.

We don't obey Jesus in order to earn his love.

We obey Jesus because we love him.

And he has given us his Holy Spirit, his very presence to live within us.

And so Jesus, he gives us the way to live through the word of God, but he also gives us the means by which to follow the word of God, and that is through his spirit within us.

He gives us the way and the means.

This is an important aspect of church for us becoming a present-center church.

This is why moments like these are really important, because it's easy for us to just come to church and hear a message and walk out of here and go through the motions.

It's harder for us to align our lives with the Word of God filled with the Spirit.

So today we take a step to begin to follow Jesus and to be obedient to Him more than we even are now.

And so I want to I want to invite you with this question.

What what or where is God calling you to take a step of obedience?

For many of you, as you came forward, what whatever you put in these, whatever you put in these baskets, there's probably a step of obedience associated with whatever you wrote down.

I know there is for me.

And so that might be your first step of obedience.

That what you wrote on this card, there's an action now that follows.

For others of us, it may just be actually being obedient to the last thing that we heard God say.

So let me just give you a minute or two.

I'm gonna throw a couple questions up here that I want to invite you to consider.

Jesus, we thank you for your spirit.

We thank you for your very presence, which is our helper, the one who helps us to obey out of our love for you.

We surrender this morning yet again to the leading of your spirit.

Spirit, would you teach us to walk in obedience?

And God, would your word prevail in our hearts?

Would it prevail in our homes?

Would it prevail in our church and in our city and in our world?

To the praise and the glory and the honor of Jesus Christ.

And his name be glorified and magnified.

Amen.

Let's stand and sing one more song here in response.

We've come to join the song sung long before our lives to raise our voice along heaven and earth alike.

We've seen your faithful hand.

We ask for this in the confidence of the mighty name of Jesus.

Amen.

Amen.

Couple things.

Number one, this is a 60-minute service, as you probably noticed.

That's because we have a very important family meeting following right now.

So if you're a member of Revived Church, please do not walk out that door.

We need you to stick around.

We have some important updates of things that are happening on our campus.

So uh please stick around if you can.

If you're just checking out Revived Church and you want to know what a family meeting looks like, please stick around.

You are invited to join.

Also, I want to make sure that you know that the next opportunity for baptism is November 15th.

So uh if you are a follower of Jesus and you have not been baptized, those things don't go together.

So um this is an opportunity for you to take the first step of obedience, and that is following Jesus by entering the waters of baptism and making a public profession of your faith.

So um it's November 15th.

The baptism class is next Sunday.

So click the QR code if you are interested in baptism.

There's also more information out at the info desk.

Uh, before you go and we start this family meeting, I'm gonna invite you to put your hands out.

Father, uh, you have given us so much in Jesus Christ.

And this morning, God, we we hope that this offering and this return of worship to you glorified your name and exalted Jesus.

Would we be people this week who live in love like Jesus wherever we are, right where we are?

Have an awesome day.

All right.

You're kicking us off, you know, right?

Yeah, okay.

I'm gonna throw out, I'm gonna throw out the half a million dollar number for these projects.

You think that's all right?

Sure.

I mean the worship center alone is 400.

I'll say north of north of half a million, yeah.

We have perform, and the second and fourth columns are how we planned to perform.

And so one of the things that uh you should see is that through, and and let me preface this by saying for the year, our budget for 2026 that we approved last year as a church was to basically break even.

That was uh that was our intent, that was the plan.

That was uh we're a conservatively uh fiscal uh management uh organization, and so with that, what you can see is that through September we have uh a net income or a surplus of about$46,000.

And that's where we say because our budget called us to have a$30,000 deficit through uh quarter three.

Okay.

But then if you look at for the year year today, so from January through September, you will see that we have a surplus of about$135,000 versus a deficit that we planned of about$133,000.

So that's amen.

So there are a couple of really important things to note about how our budget works at our church.

The first is we budgeted for a break-even for the Year, but a lot of our activity happens in the fourth quarter, and the fourth quarter is upon us, amen.

And so, with that, we are really excited.

I say, first of all, thank you, Lord, for your sovereignty and for your provision and for how you are moving through the opportunities that you're putting in front of us.

And the second thing I say is that thank you to you for your faithfulness and your obedience and your generosity and your commitment to be a part of what God's doing.

We can't do it without the financial support of what we all do together.

And so, with that, I just want to say thank you.

And before I hand it off to Kyle, I just want to remind you that as we move through this fourth quarter, there will be lots of opportunities.

You're gonna hear lots of things.

Uh just trust the Lord to give you the wisdom to know how to be generous.

You will never regret being generous.

And with that, we are we are a generous church, and I'm grateful to be a part of it with you.

Thank you.

So we're gonna do a bit of a prepare a place update.

And if you were here for the the series Prepare a Place, hopefully you remember that that series really it speaks to a multifaceted approach for preparing a place.

There are physical aspects of preparing a place, which I'm gonna talk about today, um, and that is how are we continuing to join God in making this a campus, a place where people can experience Him.

That's one aspect.

Uh, the more important aspect is actually each of us preparing a place to host and house the presence of God.

Doesn't mean that we perform well and God comes to be with us, but it does mean that because we are a place where God has chosen to reside, exercises like what we did this morning are very important.

Not just individually, but corporately as a church.

When we as a church are honest with God and when we're inviting God to continue to transform us, that doesn't just have an impact on us individually.

That has an impact on our families and our workplaces, and ultimately it has an impact on our church.

So this is language that you'll continue to hear when it comes to preparing a place spiritually.

We want to prepare a place spiritually where God can continue to work in us and through us, not for salvation, but for sanctification, and so that his will might be worked and his purpose might be worked through us.

So, spiritually, that is number one.

Physically, there are things that we believe God is inviting us to do on our property and has been for some years, and he is preparing the way and paving the way for us to do that.

So a few updates around before I do that, I need to teach this tool if I haven't taught it before.

This is uh leadership language that we use as a church to make sure that when people like me that are visionaries are communicating, we're all on the same page.

So before each of these projects, I'm gonna use the term provisional, plan, or promise.

The reason why is when I talk, I just naturally talk like everything's promise when actually a lot of things are more provisional.

You can ask the staff about that.

I'm growing in that area.

I may or may not have written that on a card.

Um so let's go through these projects real quick.

Prayer room is promise.

Yes.

The prayer room is about 90% done right now, and we are really excited about that.

If you don't know where the prayer room is, the prayer room is gonna be located in the wellness center, and we are working right now.

Jim Poulson is working alongside of Micah Dooley in creating kind of operating procedures and what it's gonna look like and when it's gonna be open and when it's gonna be closed.

But think about it like this: when the wellness center is open, the prayer room will be opened.

It will be available to reserve, but not to reserve for like small groups to do Bible studies.

It is available to be reserved to pray.

And so we want to encourage groups to go in there and pray.

Uh, we are not building out this prayer room so that it will sit empty.

We're building out this prayer room so that you will fill it, so that we will fill it.

And so I am very excited about this prayer room.

Uh, yeah, you there's some pictures that are going up.

This kind of gives you just a look and feel of what to expect.

But uh David Aragon, who has done most of the design here at our church, if you know David, just give him a hug, a pat on the back, a high five.

He has given above and beyond the hours in just making this prayer room come alive.

So uh community room, this is a project that began earlier this year, and this is a really important project over in our food pantry area that Kathy Paxton and Bob Rossman lead.

Uh, twice a week on Tuesdays, they have senior adults who come at 10:30 a.m.

And it's really become much more than just a place where senior adults are coming to get food.

It has become a community of people that have become friends, and we also have amazing people like Ron.

Let me just recognize Ron Neptune.

Ron, raise your hand.

Ron, as you know, was a missionary in Brazil for a number of years.

Ron shows up faithfully, and he just sits with people in that community room and shares the love of Jesus Christ with them and has had many gospel conversations, and people have come to faith in Christ because of Ron and others' presence.

So thank you, Ron.

Um, we want to make sure, we want to make sure that this space that people are waiting for, their food and sitting, we want to make sure this is a place of love and dignity.

So that's a project that's ongoing.

We hope to have that finished by the end of the year.

Uh, Eden project.

The Eden project, I'm gonna give you, so this is provisional planish.

So this is not promise, but this is these are some uh images that our architect has given us of kind of what the look and the feel of the space will be like.

And so if you're not familiar with where the Eden space is going, uh west side of the shopping center, right in between cross-purpose and lost coffee, there is an overgrown shrubbery place that we just didn't touch during the large remodel.

We've known that we wanted to do something here that was inviting to our community, uh, a place where people could come and have a have coffee together, study the Bible.

So this is uh these images are very much provisional plan about what that will look like, but we're excited to see this space come alive.

We're hoping that it will be done sometime next summer.

So that's exciting, and that's coming soon.

Also, our worship center.

I'm gonna turn it over to Grayson.

Um, and Grayson, I just want to thank Grayson um because I want to thank Steven as well.

Uh Steven and Grayson have really Steven and Grayson have really partnered on this project, and the way they have partnered on this project has been so intentional.

Um, they have worked really, really hard to make sure that seats and carpet and screens and stage are mapped out in such a way where we don't have six months of construction, but instead we have weeks of construction.

And so I just want to give these guys uh just a whole lot of credit in their leadership and just the way that they have aligned this project.

So thank you both, and thank you for not pulling me into it too much.

I appreciate it.

Uh so okay, about a year ago we talked in front of our church and said, hey, we're gonna redo our seats and maybe some other stuff.

And then we haven't really said much since then.

So, in the spirit of provisional plan promise, uh I'm gonna take you through the different things that are gonna change in this room.

A lot of it, a lot of it is promise, some of it is plan, uh, a few things I might describe are provisional, and I'll hopefully be clear on those things.

And if you have questions, ask me.

I'm he's a pioneer, he talks in promise.

I'm a creative, I talk in unclarity if I don't prepare.

So if anything is unclear, come talk to me and I'll answer questions.

But let's dive in.

Obviously, you notice that things are changing on the stage.

By the let me just call that out.

There's stairs now.

Um, the reason that we did that, yes, the reason we did that is when there's just a big giant barrier, it it structures tell stories, okay?

And the structure that this the story that the structure told before was that there's a big giant platform and then there's a big giant divide between the two, and we wanted to soften that divide.

Please hear me.

This is not a call to run up these stairs in the middle of a service.

But as you might have noticed, I was able to set my guitar down, come and participate in what we were doing as a church, and then come back up.

And that was a really awesome moment for me, even just now.

I didn't plan that today.

And so softening the divide between stage and seats is really what we wanted to do here.

No, these are not finished.

Um, we're gonna finish out these stairs.

Uh, the front of the stage has been sanded down and finished with an intentional color that's been amazing.

We took the carpet off and made this concrete that is stained.

We still have some work to do here, uh, but this is what it's gonna look like is kind of this darker stage.

So you might be asking, is anything else changing on the stage?

I'm glad you asked.

The answer is yes.

Um we are about to change our screen layout.

Okay, this is cool.

All right.

So, starting tomorrow, a company called Summit Integrated Systems is gonna be in this room.

They're gonna take out the middle screen and they're gonna add two side screens.

Uh, and that's gonna be a really great way to create a clear path of vision for every seat in the room to a screen in the room.

Does that make sense?

It's gonna be cool.

Because right now, if you sit in the wrong seats, you're looking at a drum cage.

You guys can come over here if you need to to look at yes, the drums are gonna move to the middle in this.

Um, and we are going to replace what would just be a black ball with a big giant cross in the middle.

Let me just explain that.

Right now, with a big giant screen in the middle, this structure communicates.

Sit down and look at a screen.

We want to communicate, come in here to a welcoming place and lift your eyes to Christ, right?

And so we believe that the cross will physically draw our eyes upward as well as spiritually drawing us upward to focus on the King of Kings and Lord of Lords, which is really what we're here to do, amen.

Content's cool, but that can live off to the side.

What can't live off to the side is Christ centered in our worship.

Okay, so that's that's our stage.

If you have other questions, um then come find me, but let's move on to the walls.

All of the gray fabric is going to come down.

Somebody say amen.

Come on.

It's I don't mean to poo-poo what exists.

This has been great for a long time.

It's been uh truly, when the March Collective came years ago, they came into our worship center and said, Hey, this is really the only room that is working for you.

You don't really need to focus on this.

And now, since we've raised the bar everywhere else, we're kind of going, oh, these gray curtains just don't really fit, do they?

And so it's time for us to do something different.

Uh, from an aesthetics viewpoint, but also from an acoustics viewpoint.

So let me just explain the aesthetics first.

We're gonna take down the gray curtains, we're gonna paint the walls a brighter color.

It's gonna live within kind of that grayish, agreeable gray, what you what is in a lot of houses these days.

That's gonna be kind of the background color, and then we're gonna put acoustic panels on the walls that have sort of a darker color, will contrast, it's gonna look awesome, it's gonna look dynamite.

I'm so excited.

So that's the aesthetic of the room, but I want to talk about the acoustics here for a second because what exists on the wall is really great at uh dampening voices.

So the frequency range of a voice hits the wall and it dies.

It's not good at all at dampening the sound of a band.

So what you might experience, and this is feedback that I get quite often, is the sound of the band just resounds in the room and it's just loud in the voices.

It feels like there's a towel over the voices when the band is playing.

Has anybody experienced that?

I've gotten that feedback, so I know some people are.

Well, that's because the acoustics on the walls are not designed to absorb the band.

So we are gonna put acoustics on the walls that are going to be designed to absorb the band and let the voices resound more.

Does that make sense?

And so I think there's physical truth there.

I think that's true in what we physically experience in our ears.

And I there was a moment for me of going, Lord, is that spiritually true?

Are we dampening your voice because what doesn't need to resound is resounding?

And so uh that's been a process for us to look inward as well, and that's been good to see what the Lord has done uh in our hearts in that.

So that's the walls.

If you have questions, come find me.

We are also changing the seating.

Somebody say amen.

Come on now.

Okay, so right now we have 400 something bolted chairs and a bunch more foldable chairs on the edge of the room.

And what's that?

That nobody wants to sit in.

Okay, yes.

If you're a guest in the room and you have to sit on the edge because maybe you walked in right at nine, you've got to sit on the edge chairs, and just to be honest, I feel a little bad for you.

If you have to sit in those for too long, you're kind of like, boy, I need to stretch after that.

Um, and so what we're gonna do is like all of the chairs in the room will be bolted.

We're going to have removable chairs in the front row and in the back row.

Um, but all of the chairs in the room are gonna be bolted and comfortable, and it's gonna be a welcoming experience to every human who might walk into the room.

Uh and it's going to be, you're gonna have a clear line of sight to screens, it's gonna be a comfortable chair for you, there's gonna be cup holders in every chair, uh, it's gonna be awesome.

I hope you're excited about the chairs.

Um, I did not put a view of what they look like or a rendering, um, but they are going to be armless, uh, which opens the door for anybody to sit in any seat, which is gonna be really cool.

Any chair becomes accessible to virtually any person, or at least any size person, that's gonna be a great move for us.

We had the opportunity to sit in chairs.

Me and Stephen went down to a church uh in Denver who has the exact model of chair that we ordered, and they're comfortable.

I thought that me and Stephen would be sitting in a chair kind of like this, and uh we weren't.

We there was plenty of room.

Uh so all that to say lots of consideration has gone into this, and we're really excited about the chairs that we're getting and uh the layout that those will be in.

Last thing I want to say is you might notice that in the aisles from the back of the room to the front of the room, there's no longer carpet.

You might be asking, is that gonna stay the same?

No, it's not gonna stay the same.

We're going to put carpet in the new aisles.

But we removed the carpet early so that we could grind down to the concrete, finish it the way it needs to be finished, so that the new chairs can go in, and then after that, carpet will be in the in the aisles.

Carpet company's gonna come in, they're gonna do new raceways, are what they're called, I learned.

On the edge of the carpet, and that's gonna have a channel for wiring because brrrrrr there's gonna be aisle lights on all the chairs, which is really cool.

Um, every aisle is gonna have lights uh built into the chairs that are gonna light the aisle.

So, again, if you walk in after service starts, you're not walking into a black abyss of nothingness.

You're gonna walk into an aisle that's well lit and it's gonna be great.

Um, we're really excited about that.

And then we've got some other finishing touches that are in the works.

This is more provisional of up lighting on the side of the room and how do we brighten the space and really put some finishing touches on that.

That's all provisional.

We're still working on that.

Uh again, if you've got any questions, uh which you probably do, come find me.

Timeline, yes, timeline.

We are hoping and aiming to have this done before Christmas.

Now I'm just here to tell you.

Construction projects are construction projects.

Delays do happen.

So, but just as the plan sits today, we're gonna finish before Christmas.

Uh that that could change.

Thank you for your grace and your understanding in that.

Um, there's a lot of things that we can't control that we're on subcontractors going, hey, is this the date that you can get this done?

And we get ghosted.

And it just is what it is.

It's part of the process.

Uh we're working to make sure there's as much clarity as possible.

But before Christmas, this is gonna be done.

And basically every week between now and Christmas, you're gonna see something change.

Some of those changes are gonna be massive, like, oh, the gray curtains are gone this week.

Some of those changes are gonna be more minute, like, oh, we finished out the wood on the stairs, and that's the change that happened this week.

Um, but again, find me if you've got questions.

So you might be thinking, did Revive Church win the lottery?

How are we paying for this?

Which would be a very fair and good question.

Um, couple things.

Number one, back when we did our for love's sake campaign, we started what's called an advance fund.

And the advanced fund is an opportunity for all of us to give to projects like this.

This is not our tithing.

We don't want to give our tithe money to advance projects as all we're doing is robbing from Peter to pay Paul.

Um so uh advanced fund is giving that is over and above our normal tithe.

So here's the good news.

You have been so generous, we have been so generous as a church that although these projects, when you combine them all together, are well north of half a million dollars, we actually have money in that advance fund that is giving us and propelling us into an awesome way to not just start these projects, but get us to a place where they're fully paid off.

However, when that happens, our advanced fund goes to zero or even possibly a little bit in the negative, although where we are financially is we are in a good place.

I will say this is an opportunity for each one of us to sit down with our family, sit down with a spouse, or just sit down individually and ask the question: how can we or how can I how can we or how can I be a part in preparing a place not just for this moment in time in 2026, but for the generations to come.

I've talked about this a lot in the Prepare a Place series that we we have an opportunity right now to actually set the table for the future, for the kids that are growing up across the hall, for them to, as they grow up, have a worship center that is going to be here and it's going to last, to have an Eden space that is going to be here and that's going to last, to have a prayer room for them to come in and to contend for their family, to contend for their workplaces and the city.

And so I want to encourage you and invite you, particularly as we get to the year end here, would you consider making a gift to our advanced fund that allows us to continue to do these kind of projects?

These projects, as we can we get into them, they continue.

As you know, if you're in construction or if you're just alive in 2026, everything's expensive.

And so these projects will continue to increase and will continue to go up.

And so that's where we as a family we have this awesome opportunity to give to the advanced fund.

Um if you click this link with your QR code, not everybody at once.

Um if you click this link, this will take you to a place where you have the opportunity to give online.

You actually have to go and you have to hit the tab advance fund.

If you give just generally, it will get lost in the general offering.

And we want to make sure that advance fund giving is separate.

But I would encourage you.

Uh, would you consider giving to the advanced fund?

We also have some hard copies of this.

Uh, Mr.

John Swenson in the back, our amazing comms and connections director, he has a hard copy of that.

And I just would encourage you to consider giving, prayerfully consider investing and sewing in to the future of what it means to prepare a place here at Revive Church.

We're grateful for you guys.

We are grateful for the generosity of this church.

Uh, it's fun to work here.

It's fun to be on a staff and have a group of elders and a team that we really get to do what God is calling us to do.

And a big part of that is because of your generosity and because of your trust.

We don't take that lightly.

And so we step into this next season uh expectant of what God is doing, but also looking back and reminding ourselves and even pinching ourselves as we walk out in the parking lot that wow, God, you did this.

You're continuing to move here, you're continuing to trust us here.

And what does it look like to join you in the work that you're doing?

So let's pray and then uh we'll invite you to dismiss and grab kiddos.

God, we thank you so much for what you've done at Revive Church and what you've done at the bridge.

We thank you so much for I just hear countless stories of single moms who come on this property and who find life.

Salvation in you, someone who cares.

A place to get a job, a place to get coffee, a place where diapers are given.

Like, there's just so many things you're I'm blown away by what you're doing.

You've invited us to join you in preparing this place, and you're continuing to invite us to join you in preparing places.

Would we be faithful to do it?

Would you move on our hearts?

Would you show us what it looks like for us to take part in the future of revived church and preparing a place for others?

In Jesus' name.

Thank you guys.