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It's good to be in the house of the Lord with you today. You know, it's interesting. Melanie and I don't uh really collaborate and talk about, you know, I mean, we we do, but not in a strategic way. We don't really talk about like what are you gonna say today and what's on your heart today? And sometimes we don't even know. And so uh what's interesting is how aligned we were today and we didn't even know it. And something that was on my heart, and I'm gonna uh in in in just a minute I'll I'll jump into the message. We'll see what the Lord has for us. But I was uh feeling something as the Lord was leading me to Zechariah 4.6. And so this isn't the message, this isn't a part of the series, but this is a word that I feel like I'm supposed to release into this room in this moment, and then we'll see where we where we get with the uh the rest of the service. But Zechariah 4.6, and I over the top of this I wrote the tension of the new, the tension of the new. Then he said to me, This is what the Lord says to Zerubbabel. It is not by force nor by strength, but by my spirit, says the Lord of heaven's army. Now you've probably heard that scripture before. Not by might, not by strength, but by my spirit, says the Lord of heaven's armies. Listen, nothing, not even a mighty mountain, will stand in Zerubbabel's way. It will become a level plain before him. And when Zerubbabel sets the final stone of the temple in place, the people will shout, May God bless it, may God bless it, may God bless it. Now, you may have heard that scripture before, not by my, not by strength, but by my spirit, says the Lord. Well, that is in the context of God building the temple, building his church, if you will. And he said that when Zerubbabel sets the final stone of the temple in place, the people will shout, May God bless it. Then another message came to me from the Lord. Zerubbabel is the one who laid the foundation of this temple, and he will complete it. Then you will know that the Lord of heaven's armies has sent me. Listen to this. You've heard this before too, but maybe not in the context here. Do not despise the day of small beginnings, for the Lord rejoices to see the work begin. Listen, to see the plumb line in Zerubbabel's hand. And so then uh in verse eleven it says, Then I asked the angel, What are these two olive branches on each side of the lampstand? And what are the two olive branches that pour out golden oil through two gold tubes? Don't you know? He asked. No, my Lord, I replied. Then he said, They represent the two heavenly beings who stand in the court of the Lord of all the earth. And so there's these interesting messages coming from the Lord in the building process of the temple, in the establishing of his church. There's some supernatural things and there's some natural things, but in this, you have these words of encouragement from the Lord. And what he's saying is, it's not by strength, it's not by might, it's by my spirit, says the Lord. That's his heart when he's setting forth to build and establish his church, to build and establish a temple where he will be worshipped. It's by his spirit. And then he says this do not despise the day of small beginnings. Don't despise the day of small beginnings. I love that. For the Lord rejoices to see the work begin. And I know that you know, we're six months into this church, and you could look around and go, man, there's such a small group. There's there's not that many people here. I mean, there's like 50 of us on any given Sunday. Listen, don't look at it in the natural. Don't look at it in the natural. If anybody in the natural would have a tendency to be discouraged, it would be me. And I'm not discouraged. I listen, there's so much that died in me through this process of planting this church over the years. I want you to understand that there's a lot of different ways you can plant a church. We've we've figured it out over the years. I I went through years of training, of strategic training in church planting. And I was a part of other church plants, helping other people plant churches and did all the trainings. I mean, for years. And when we got ready to launch River Life and we got activated, the Lord basically said to us, You want to do that? You want to do all that? Or do you want to do what I want you to do? Do you want to do this man's way, or do you want to do this my way? And we had a decision to make. Not by strength. By my spirit, says the Lord. And then it's interesting that he follows that up with the encouragement don't despise the day of small beginnings. What's he saying? If you do this by my strength, by my spirit, it might be small at first. And you need to be okay with that. There's something in us that tends to despise small stuff. What is that thing in us that wants there to be a bunch of people in this room? What is that thing in us? And some of it may be good. It's like, man, God's doing something here. He's changing my life, he's changing our families. I want other people to know what God's doing here. That's a good thing. Certainly, that's a good thing. But then there's that other part of us that just likes to be a part of something significant. We like to be a part of something big. We have that little itch in us. I have friends that have planted churches in the last year in this city, and they've got 300 people showing up. So they're doing the things that make that happen. When we set our hand to the plow, the Lord said, Are you going to do that? Or do you want to do this my way? We say, God, we want to do it your way. I'm just feeling led to share this with you today. And so thank you for leaning in and listening a little bit. So the other thing is I was trained, formally trained in ministry in a good way, not in a bad way, but I was trained on how to preach and teach and write sermons and communicate sermons. And I did it for years and years and years. I've been in ministry over 25 years now. I know I don't look that old. Thank you for saying that. I I literally knew how you you build a sermon, you create a crisis, right? You create a crisis, and then you bring the answer from the word of God, and you do, you know, uh two scriptures and three points, and each point you have an illustration and a story, and you go through here's point number one, here's point number two, point. I don't I know how to do that. I know how to do that. That's not what the Lord's wanting from me in this season. He's showing me a different way to teach and preach the word of God. And I'm having to make adjustments. I'm having to continue to pull out of that muscle memory and do this differently. Some of you may be thinking, I wonder why he does it this way. It's harder to follow, it's harder to track and take notes and all this. I know. I know. It's harder to do on this end as well. It's what the Lord is showing us, it's what the Lord is giving us. And so we're we're saying, God, we want at all cost by your spirit. We'll do our part. We won't despise the day of small beginnings. We want it to be by your spirit. Amen. You know, there's a programming to the way that we've done church over the years. And there's a lot of stuff, again, that we could have done, and we're intentionally not doing it. Uh, a lot of the stuff that we're not doing, it's not because we don't have the money. It's not because we don't have the ability. It's because the Lord is not telling us to do it. And I think what he's trying to do, Melanie mentioned a reset. He's trying to deprogram us a little bit from you know, the whole, you know, two fast songs and one slow song and some video announcements and a 22-minute motivational speech, maybe sermon, and and then no altar. And it's like, have a good week, you know, be blessed. And and uh it's just it's something different God's trying to do. And it's it's we've all been programmed to something, the smoke and the lights and all the different things. And it's like, okay, what what do you want, Lord? What do you want this to look like? Who do you want in the room? I don't want 250 people in this room that aren't supposed to be in this room. That might feel great, it might look good, it might stroke something in us to be a part of something like that. I I like Melanie was nailing it or just nailing it earlier. I I want to be with the small beginning, the remnant of people who are here for the right reasons, than the hundreds who would be in this room because we're enticing them somehow, you know, making it easy enough for them to come and to prioritize it and giving them the things on their menu items that they need from a church, right? And so, anyway, praise God. Thank you. Thank you for listening to the Lord and being where you're supposed to be. And so we we love you guys. We we consider this a family. I love the living room feel. Uh, I I do know, I do feel the Lord has shown us that at the right time there's going to be growth. It's not going to look like this forever. Uh, we've seen some glimpses into the future, some vision that God's given us. Um and and but I think we'll look back on this season fondly. I think we'll look back on this season and go, man, what a sweet time. What a sweet season. God was resetting our palate, resetting our desires, resetting our expectations, and uh and it was just a a holy time. Amen. Amen. Amen.