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Welcome to the weekly podcast of River Valley Church. We're glad you're here. Our heart is to lead people to Jesus and launch them into their God given purpose. So we pray you would encounter God in a fresh new way today. To learn more about our church, visit rivervalley.org now let's tune in to this week's message.

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Well, this weekend is our vision weekend, and I want to address what's going on in our state and in our city and then pray together before we get into vision. All right? And I know that all of our campuses, we've had a prayer moment and already, but you cannot pray enough. And I just want us to be actively involved in this. I just wanna say I just found myself this week, like, Lord, here we are once again at the center of controversy. At the center, all the world's eyes are on our state, are on our city of Minneapolis. And I've been getting texts from around the world and people asking what's going on? And I said, well, God must be up to something. And I'm just gonna lean in a little more because you cannot have all these things happening and just think like, well, it's coincidence. I'm just like, God, what's the bigger picture? What's the bigger picture? And I want all of us to think about that. God, what's the bigger picture? So after a terrible, tragic situation between a protester and the law enforcement where there was loss of life, chaos, there's been rioting, there's been mobs, destruction and hunting down of officials, there's something right now that we have to do as a church. We have to lead in this moment. We have to step up. We're in it right now. We're living in it right now. And it'll be investigated and we'll have reports that will be coming out. It feels like we're getting saturated with all sorts of news stories and information, but I wanna give some direction to our church and then pray once again. So people might say, well, why do you wanna dress it as a church? And why'd you wanna do it for everybody? Well, because we're salt and light. That's what the Bible says, We're salt and light. And if we're supposed to be salt and light, that means we're supposed to be out there shining the light of Jesus onto situations and onto the things around us. And as I said in the culture clash sermons, we're also salt. Salt is a preservative. We, we are supposed to keep things from rotting in society and Rotting around us. We are salt in that way. It was used as a preservative on meat in the biblical days. So we are salt and light. And I really believe this, like in the book of Esther. It's like we're here for such a time as this, for such a time as this. We're not here to hide. We're not here to fight. But we're here to be the salt and light. I wanna give four things, and then I wanna pray. First of all, I want to challenge our church to presence the kingdom of God everywhere we go. What do I mean by that? Wherever we go, the kingdom of God is there with us. We are advancing the kingdom. Presence the kingdom of God. Recognize that you are a citizen of heaven before you're a citizen of this state or country or wherever you're at or any party that you might be. We're a citizen of heaven, and we want to presence the kingdom of God. The presence is needed in the public dialogue. It's needed in the boardrooms. It's needed in the coffee shops. Wherever we go, we are called to be peacemakers, not people that stoke violence. And so we're gonna presence the kingdom of God. Realize, like, so many of us would like to shrink back, but we're gonna presence the kingdom of God where we go. And it means we're gonna have to open up our mouth and be the peacemaker and bring things down. I wanna also let you know that I just wanted to put this in there. I want you to understand. We presence the kingdom of God through our giving. And this is a very appropriate time to talk about it. In Kingdom Builders last year, I want you to know that River Valley, as a Church, gave $170,000 for ministries to immigrants directly. It was ministries that minister to immigrants in America. $170,000. And then if you add those that minister to immigrants, but it wasn't their sole responsibility, but it overlapped quite a bit. There was an additional $200,000. So it's 370,000. We're putting our money where our mouth is, that we're gonna presence it with our body, but we're also gonna presence it with our giving. I also want you to understand that we wanna proclaim the truth of the gospel. That's the second thing. First thing is presence. Second thing is proclaim the truth of the gospel. Only Jesus can change the hearts, right? Now you watch this, and you're like, how are we gonna get through this? How are people gonna change their minds? How is there gonna be unity like, it's only Jesus. And don't let that statement be seen as neat or trite or, oh, you Christians. No, it's the only thing. The name of Jesus and the gospel of Jesus Christ. Jesus. Changing people's lives and doing this. It's the only hope. We wrote a song as a church called We Know the World Needs Jesus. And one of the lines in there, if you're not familiar, it says, when our streets are filled with chaos. And we did a video with it. We had scenes of streets under chaos. Who would have thought that it would be a prophetic declaration over Minneapolis right now? And so I'm just believing that we. We're gonna proclaim. We know the world needs Jesus. We sing it and we have to proclaim it. We know this. And don't let the turmoil get us off mission. We're still bringing the message of Jesus. The third thing is we're gonna have to participate in the political solution. All right? It's not the only way. All right? But it's a tool that we have, and we have to participate in this. We have to be active in our own rescue. We get the privilege to participate in this. And so I want us as a church to say, we will be people that will be represented. Our voice will be heard. If we're salt and light, the timing could not be any more perfect. On February 3rd, it's caucus night all across Minnesota for all parties. This is not partisan. All parties will be picking their leaders. We'll be voting for their platforms, and many of us ignore this. Okay, we get to participate in the solution. Voices of division will fill those places, the caucus locations. But the voice of salt and light needs to be there in full force this year. Full force. February 3rd. All right? Again, we're not gonna get the solution, only there. We've got to preach the name of Jesus. We gotta presence the kingdom of God everywhere we go. But we have to be active, otherwise voices of division will run the day. And the last thing is we're gonna pray. And it's not like praying is not like. Well, we're gonna pray. Like, let's have a moment of silence. Let's pray. No, there's power in prayer. Prayer activates the supernatural. Okay? We are going to pray and activate the supernatural and involve in this in a spiritual way. We actually have two set days of prayer right now. On the two Tuesdays coming up in the next two weeks, 6am and 6pm at our campuses, we have prayer already on the calendar. So we're gonna pray then we're gonna pray now, and we're gonna continue to pray. Who are we gonna pray for? We're gonna pray. And what are we gonna pray for? We're gonna pray for peace. There are a lot of legal immigrants. Legal. That are living in fear right now. We've been praying with people in lobby. Legal immigrants that are in fear. There are those that are not legal that are also in even more fear. Okay. We're gonna pray for you. It's an embarrassment. I just wanna say this, that a great nation like ours has laws that sometimes are enforced, sometimes are not, are ignored in some cities, enforced in others. Different leaders open doors, closed doors. And it depends on who the leader is and the whim of the moment. You cannot have stability as a person, as a family, as a nation. And so we're gonna pray for you. And if you're an immigrant, I'm embarrassed by this. As a nation, we can do better than this. And so we wanna let you know we love you and we wanna pray for the fear that you're facing. I also want you to know that we're gonna pray for our law enforcement. Can I just say this just right now? I want you to know River Valley loves in all directions. We love in all directions. I love the immigrant. Legal, not legal. We love in all the police. We love our authorities. We love in all directions. All right. And we're gonna pray for our law enforcement. You're here to stop evil and wrong and protect the innocent. And we're gonna pray for protection for you. I cannot imagine what it's like to literally be hunted down. People in our church are sending me videos. So we're gonna pray for you. We wanna pray for our political leaders. Okay. And I really wanna pray for anyone in leadership. I don't have time to go into it, but, like, things were so bad in the Old Testament. People were like, I don't wanna be a leader. I don't wanna be a leader. And one of the prophetic books in the Old Testament says, you'll find a person that owns a coat, and you'll say, because you own a coat, you're the leader. Cause nobody wanted to be a leader. It's getting to that level where you're like, I don't wanna lead my business. I don't even wanna make a statement. I don't wanna say that I pray. I don't even wanna put. I don't even wanna say, how did I put my cross inside my shirt? You know, if you're a political leader or a leader, Of a corporation, a business or anything. I pray for you that you will not bow to the pressure, that you'll hold your convictions, that mob rule and personal threats will not rule the day, and that you will be safe. You're talking to somebody that lives in that world. I plead the blood of Jesus over my house, over my life, everywhere I go. We're gonna pray it for you too. We pray that you'd lead in righteousness. And I wanna pray for our church again, that our church would do those four things that I said, that we would presence the kingdom, proclaim the truth of the gospel, participate in the political solution, and pray and pray. And as a form of prayer, I want us to stand all across all of our locations. I want us to stand, and I did a sermon on this years ago, that the posture in prayer in the Bible is to pray and lift up holy hands. That's it. It's a posture. If you look in the caves and the catacombs, you'll see the people, they were drawn with their hands lifted. And I think right now, in a sign of dependency upon God, and we need him, let's raise our hand at all of our campuses and let's pray. God, we just pray right now. We pray in Jesus name. We need you. We need you. There are people that are right now living in fear. And we pray for those immigrants, legal and not legal, that are living in fear that you would bring peace. God, you would bring solution. You would bring people that would stand alongside them and that we would get a solution that could bring order, that could bring abundance, that could bring thriving into their life. And so, God, we stand in, hands up, saying, God, help those people. God, we pray for law enforcement and we pray right now, Lord Jesus, that they would be protected. Lord, they're here as peacekeepers. That's what your word says. They're supposed to punish evil and they're supposed to help people that are living good be free. And so, God, we pray for our law enforcement on local and federal. We pray for you to protect them and for them to exercise wisdom and have justice in a right way. Lord Jesus, we pray for the leaders in all areas. We pray for our city councils, we pray for our mayors, we pray for our governor, we pray for our president. We pray for that there would be leadership from them, that they would stop the nonsense of divisive division. And there would be leadership from them that truly would be godly wisdom, like James says. And God, for anyone that leads a company, a business, anything that leads a community group may they lead and lead with an authority. And I'm thinking about this. When you spoke Jesus, they said, who is this? When he speaks with such authority. I pray that as we lead, we would speak with such authority. And God, I pray that we would do those things. We would present your kingdom. We would proclaim that Jesus, this world needs Jesus. I pray that we would participate, not shrink back. It's not a time for us to shrink back. And I pray that we'd pray always supernaturally, God confound the world, that they would say, how in the world did that happen in Minneapolis? Because the people of God prayed and there was a supernatural presence of God moving in our city. Lord, we just pray that we would rise up for such a time as this. And we give you all the praise, all the glory and all the honor. We depend on you in Jesus name. Come on, let's clap and let's give God praise. We're not alone, he's with us. It has to be supernatural. Has to be supernatural. Turn to your neighbor and say, it has to be supernatural. And then you may be seated. Now, I can tell you right now, Vision week is gonna have to be a two week series. All right, I'm just gonna let you know, all right? If you're new to our church, that's not normal, but it's needed. All right? What we just did, it's Vision weekend and I'm a visionary. I love to write goals down, visions, themes. I love to have that. I pray and ask God, what is the focus of the year for our church? It's just the way that I'm wired and our church has been doing this for years. And I wanna say hello to all of our campuses, all of our locations all around the world. What's going on? God's doing an amazing thing. And if you're new, we're. We're gonna review a little bit of last year. We're gonna set some goals and some focus for this year and then I'm gonna give a message. But I'm just telling you right now, it's gonna have to be a two part message. All right? It's gonna have to be. All right. Last year's theme was Forever Glory. Forever glory. I loved it. Forever glory. That we were living for more than this world. We had verses like Philippians 4:20. Now all glory to God our Father, forever and ever. We had verses like 1 Timothy 1:17. Now to the King, eternal, immortal, invisible, the only God be honor and glory forever and ever. We were not fixing our eyes on things. Around us. But we're saying we're living for something bigger than us. And I thank God for the focus of last year, for forever glory. And I wanna run through some things here. The church grew by 544 people. We've had a steady growth of about that amount every year. And I thank God for that. But we saw 4678 adults, kids and teenagers, say yes to Jesus with a declared hand, saying, I'm in. Okay, praise God. Now, if you're like me, I go 544, 4600. How do you explain that? First of all, there's a lot of visitors. Secondly, there's not. Everybody chose this church as their church after coming to Jesus. Another thing is the average person comes to church about once every three weeks and, hey, be way more than average. All right? Be here more often. If we're open, you're here. All right? But that's why our easter attendance is 20,000. Do you see? So I see this. And then I'll be honest. Some of it is lost harvest. And I hate losing harvest. I hate that somebody would say, I've decided to follow Jesus. And then like the parable of the seed that's sown the cares of this world or the things of this. Or the enemy snatches away the seed. Or. Or the trial and tribulation of living for Jesus and the enemy snatches the seed. You want a prayer request for this year? Pray that the enemy does not snatch the seed that people that say yes to Jesus stay walking with Jesus and live like that song. I have decided to follow Jesus. No turning back. I wanna let you know that we Water baptized 809 people. We approved 27 of our 500 missionaries, giving us a new total right now of 294 missionaries that have been approved to go to all the world. Our goal is to send 500. All right, so we're at 294. And I wanna explain something to you. You're like, that's a little less than previous years. Okay? I just wanna let you know that we went from 277 to 294. And you're like, that doesn't even add up to the 27. You said we had to backfill 10 numbers in there of people that intended to go but didn't go. Various things that happened to them in their life, no condemnation. We. We thank God that they were willing to go. But somewhere in the willingness, it got derailed or delayed. And I've said this too, a detour can still get you to your destination. All right? But we had to backfill 10 numbers that didn't go. So that's how we get to the 27. I also want you to know why it went backward. Like, you're like, that's not as many as previous years. I wanna let you know. Because we'd made a conscious decision that not counting them in the number just because they said. And we said it was good. Because, remember, we had to backfill 10 numbers. We said, we want you to raise 90% of your support before we'll approve. Okay? And you'll get your number when you have 90% approved. So it made it a little tougher, and the number went down. I made a leadership decision, and I would like to change that to 50%. When they've raised 50% of their money, we're going to prove them and give them their number towards the 500. I want you to raise the second half of your money knowing your number. All right? So we're gonna do it 50%. But that's how we had 65 global teams, 41 international, six domestic, 18 virtual. Now, here's an exciting thing. Our Kingdom Builders, although we didn't hit our goal of 15 million, and I'll explain it a little bit later in this moment, our Kingdom Builders was absolutely incredible. That I'm just telling you. We had another record year. And we went by last year by a couple hundred thousand. Our total this year was 12,547,000, 330. Record year. Record year. Matter of fact, I'm just gonna explain it now. I'm gonna explain it now. Cause I'm like, what? How are you so happy? All right. Our goal was 15 million. And we got 12.5 million on the day of our one day to feed the world. That was the day that we were hacked, that our whole database was hacked. And we've struggled with that, and we got through. And I thank God for our team and how well they've got us through. And all of you that have switched to the new giving platform, thank you. But it was literally on the day of one day to feed the world, that giving was down almost a half a million. So if you have 12.5 and our giving was down almost half a million, well, now you're at 13 million. We also had a special offering this year. We said to many of our leaders, we said, listen, this is not tithe. This is not Kingdom Builders. We need you to bridge the gap from the hack and make up the difference. If we don't make up the difference, we have to lay staff off. We need you to make up the difference. The bridge, the gap amount was $1.5 million. Well, if you had 1.5 million onto the 12.5 plus the $500,000 shortfall, I just really believe it would have come in. We're at 14 5, you understand? Like, we are right there on the cusp. And so I believe that God is doing something and I rejoice in what he's done. Thank you for the bridging the gap. It saved the day. I've been claiming and believing God to restore what the enemy stole from us on that day. And I'm just believing that this year as we move forward. So I just wanted you to hear this. And it's a great, incredible number. Now, one more thing. In missions, you're like, boy, this is a lot of data. But this is important. This gives us direction. It gives us a place to look back on, and it gives a place to look forward today. I remember when I was in Boy Scouts and I was using a compass and they said, you need a marker behind you and a marker in front of you. Now look at the one behind you and you're gonna find your way to where you're going forward. So we're getting the markers behind us and we're getting the marker in front of us in just a minute. For World Missions, we have a strict application at our church. Anything that was. As we give to Kingdom Builders, there's Global, Local and Future Christian Leaders. Three categories. It's where we do all of our buildings. All that happens. It's where we do all of our local outreach. We don't count the local outreach as missions. We don't count our building money missions. That's just a church being a church. But we count the money that goes to people outside of our sphere, that, that we're reaching with the gospel of Jesus Christ's missions. And I wanna let you know from the designated money, from the tithe on the tithe. Can you give the tithe. We take 10% of that right off the top and give it to World Missions. And then the amount from Kingdom Builders, the total for missions last year was $10,111,012 to go over $10,000,000 for world missions is incredible. Incredible. Incredible. I wanna let you know as we close out last year's just review, the Tokyo team was sent Kirby, Miwa, the boys and the entire team that are with them, they will be launching the church this year. They had to go there, set it up, build their launch team, and they'll be launching this year. Now our theme and focus for this year in 2026 is this. Speak, Lord, we're listening. Speak, Lord, we're listening. Now you're like, wait a minute, didn't we just sing a song about that? You're right. The team wrote that song for the theme of this year. Now I wanna let you know that that's very different than other themes that we've had as a church. If you've seen like, I'm like six arrow year, we're gonna take this. Find your spot, go. I mean, ask, seek, pray, take ground. I've always been like, forward, go, go. And. And as I'm ready for one of those this year, I just felt the spirit of God say to me. It's a different theme this year. The theme for the church is Speak, Lord, we're listening. Speak, Lord, we're listening. And in First Samuel, chapter three, this is where the verse comes from and the statement comes from. Young man Samuel is hearing somebody calling his name. He doesn't know who it is. And the old minister Eli says to him, God, go and lie down. And if he calls you, say, speak, Lord, for your servant is listening. So Samuel went and lay down in his place. The Lord came and stood there calling, as at the other times, Samuel, Samuel. Then Samuel said, speak, for your servant is listening. That's our theme for this year. Speak, Lord. For speak, Lord, we're listening. That's what we want to just say, God. Now, I believe there's gonna be plenty of action. And. And I'm telling you what, I'm shocked at how much action there is in listening to God. I'm just telling you right now, it's not like, oh, wow. I kind of thought like, okay, Lord, it's like, you know, like it's a rest in the music, you know, like, speak, Lord, we're listening. We're just gonna have a lot of prayer meetings and we're gonna just chill and you know, and then as I read this, I'm like this, speak, Lord. When the Lord speaks, it always involves action. When God speaks to us like, oh, thank you, wow. We're just gonna stay right here when he speaks to us. There's action. There's action that is happening. And so it really is an action thing. But I had no idea. And when I said this theme, but speak, Lord, we're listening. Now, I usually do goals at the end, but because I'm gonna make this a two part, I want you to know this I'm gonna give you some goals real quick. I want us to grow by over a thousand people. I believe God has called us to reach the people of Minnesota for our campuses. Our location numbers are on top of that. But I really believe this. God wants us to be a local church with a heart for the world, but focused on reaching the lost right in our own communities. And I just want us to make that a merit of prayer. God, help. Help us to reach and grow by a thousand people. I wanna see 1,000 water baptisms. We had 890. Here's something that is another goal. And I'm gonna go through these fast. We can see these online and I'll send them out. I wanna see 400 first time global team members. You've never been on a global team. 400. We used to say this in our church, and I think I wanna bring it back. We used to say, we want you to go on a global team within the first four years of you being at River Valley. And then somebody said, wow, that sounds a little like time constraining. Not all of us can get there. And then Covid hit and we said, as soon as you can. All right. Within the first four years of being a part of River Valley and somebody. I'm not really that mission minded. No. You will understand the heart of this church. You will understand why. He said, the harvest is plentiful and the labors are few. You're gonna understand why we wanna do the 500. You're gonna understand why we wanna do kingdom builders. You're gonna understand and your heart is gonna change. We need more people with more hearts change. And so I'm believing that 400 first time people will go on a global team. I'm gonna stick with the 15 million for Kingdom builders as a goal. Again, when I add up the 12, 5, the 500,000 that we were short, the 1.5 would bridge the gap. And a prophetic word that was given. Now, can I just say this? There's in no way are we trying to reach 15 million and I'm trying to squeeze a little more out of people. That's not what the prophetic word was. The prophetic word that was spoken over our church was God was gonna bring people into our church. God was gonna increase the amount of kingdom builders in our church. That people that sat on the sidelines will now become kingdom builders. Okay? And that people would literally join our church and say, I want to be a part of a church that wants to build the kingdom. So please, as I hold the number at 15 million. That's what I'm praying for. I'm believing God with this. And it's not to say, come on, guys. It's no. Those that are not active, would you be active? And those that have great resources, would you realize there's enough vision in this house for the resources God has asked you to steward? You're holding all this and you're wondering, who will help me with the amount that God has asked me to steward this church will. And if you don't know the prophetic word didn't stop at 15, it actually goes to 20 million. We have more capacity. And if you wanna know where my vision is, it's already at 250 million. We got room for your gifts. All right. We got room. All right. All right. I'll pray again once we go past 250. All right. We wanna launch Global 33, and this is something new. We have a lot of our missionaries that we send out of our 500. And as we send them out, sometimes they go to good leadership environments, sometimes they go to bad. Sometimes they come back with a bad experience. Sometimes it just doesn't click. They're like, the leadership level at River Valley is so high. And then I went to this organization or city, and it wasn't high. There was a lot of frustrations. I can't stay. We don't want that to happen anymore. And after prayer for this year, we were praying. We want to launch something new this year called Global 33. And we're saying over until 2033. We wanna see this fulfilled. We wanna see this happen. That we would pick 10 key cities in the world in five different areas. 10 key cities in five different areas that are strategic in reaching this world with the gospel of Jesus Christ and try to send 20 missionaries to each of those 10 cities. Are you tracking with me that way? Instead of going to a leadership culture that maybe is different, they're gonna go to one of our leadership cultures in a city that we pick, that we focus on now. I'll just tell you right now that we're gonna announce all the cities and way more details at Rope Holders Night this Thursday night at Crosstown 6:30. It's open to everybody. We will record it. But I'm just telling you, you're gonna wanna be there live. Let's pack the place and we're gonna declare those 10 cities there. And I wanna just. I'll give you two right now. Chiang Mai, Thailand, is one that we wanna focus on. We think it's strategic and the other one that I wanna give you is Tokyo, Japan. Right. Those are two cities that we believe. We need to have 20 missionaries in each that they can catalyze and start a movement that will then go and reach others. Okay, I'll give you the other ones on Thursday. All right. And it's a new thing called Rope Holders Night, based on that sermon that we did last year. We. We are the rope holders holding the ropes for those people that are willing to go to let the world know that there is a God who loves them and he sent his only son, Jesus, and they can be saved and changed. These are exciting things. The last thing I wanna say about this, and then I'm gonna get into just a little, little, little bit of the message. The theme is Speak, Lord. We're listening. And this is something we're implement at all of our campuses here. At our service today, Pastor Kirk said some prophetic things and said things like, our prayer team was praying for this. We are asking God to speak to us in our pre service prayer time to our staff, our intercessors, those that will show up to the pre service prayer time, that God will give them words of knowledge, things that they need, people that have needs, and he's gonna speak to us. And then those things will either be declared from the platform at the end of the service or. Or placed on the screen behind us. And it'll say like, it might say, like, there's somebody that's battling this. There's somebody that just found out that they had this disease. There's somebody that just lost this. There's gonna be specific. It's not gonna be like, we believe 10 people have headaches. We're believing for specific words from God because he's speaking. He's speaking. And we believe that God wants to speak in the middle of a church that's seating thousands. And he's gonna speak to an individual that wonders, do you care? Do you see me? And God's gonna show you that he cares and that he sees you. And faith is gonna rise up for healing. So all of our campuses will be doing that. It's brand new. We'll be launching that. Some might do it even this weekend, but by next weekend, that will be launched. All right. Speak, Lord. We're listening. Speak, Lord. We're listening. Now, I'm gonna tell you right now, there's gonna be multiple sermons throughout the year. I think I'm up to 20 right now. All right, that could be on this. So I'm trying to figure out how to Preach about all the other things, but how to hear the voice of God, how to flow in the declarative gifts? Like, you're like, wait a minute. God speaks to people and tells them, like, prayer needs of people. Yes, he does. How do I learn how to do that? How do I. So we're gonna preach about that. We're gonna talk about how Mary did the better thing by listening. I can't wait to preach this sermon I've been working on for, you know, six months called the God of the Whisper. We serve the God of the Whisper. It's an amazing. He's whispering to people even right now in this service. I can't wait to pray. There's so many more. But our theme, verse 1 Samuel 3, 10. Lord came and stood there calling. At the other times, Samuel, Samuel. Then Samuel said, speak, Lord, for your servant is listening. First thing I wanna tell you is God still speaks. It is assumed from that and it's assumed from everywhere in the Bible. It's not like God might be speaking, could be speaking. I wanna let you know, God is speaking, has been speaking, will speak. He is a speaking God. He speaks to us. And he's not like, making it a mystery that we're just walking around life going, hope he'll speak to us. He is speaking to us. He speaks to us through His Word, through His Son, by His Spirit. He speaks to us through creation. He speaks to us through spiritual gifts, the prophetic words, these words of knowledge. He speaks to us through his messengers. God is speaking to us. And in Hebrews, it talks about long ago. It says, in the past, God spoke to our ancestors through the prophets at many times and in various ways. But in these last days, he has spoke to us by His Son, whom He appointed heir of all things and through whom also he made the universe. God is speaking. And many, many times, in many ways, he's speaking to us. And he's like, I'm speaking to you. I sent my son. My son is speaking to you. I remember a sermon that I did years ago. He is the God who is. I remember God was like, don't you dare past tense me. You're acting like Jesus was back in the Bible and is waiting in heaven. Jesus is right now actively interceding at the right hand of God the Father for us. Right now, he's speaking to us by the power of the Holy Spirit. And we're saying, God, speak to us. Speak to us. You're speaking to us many times in many ways. And at the last days, He's Like, I'm not stopping. I'm gonna continue to speak. The second thing I wanna say about this is hearing God is relational, not informational. Don't think, speak, Lord. We're gonna learn a lot this year. We will learn a lot. But it's not about, boy, will I ever learn a lot. It's about I wanna be in relationship with the living God. John 10:27, Jesus says, My sheep listen to my voice. I know them and they follow me. Right before this, he was talking. He's like, I told you, I've been telling you everything, but you're not listening. See, the problem is not a lack of information. God's speaking. He's given us plenty of information. He. It's that we're not listening. We're not listening. We're gonna be here hearing, we're gonna be attentive. We're gonna follow, we're gonna say, I know God and I'm listening. If you were at Christmas Eve service or the Christmas Eve Eve, how many know? Like, one of the funniest moments in that video with the little kids when they're like, Abraham, the guys, I know him, he's my uncle, you know, like, no, no, he wasn't. It was funny. I wanna say, I know God, I know Jesus. I hear his voice. He calls me his own man. There's, all right, I'm gonna save it for the future. But in 1st Samuel 3, when he says, speak, Lord, I'm listening. All right? When he says, speak, Lord, I'm listening. He's saying, this is how the Hebrew reads. The reason why I ask you to speak, Lord, is because I'm listening. Isn't that interesting? The way it reads is the reason I'm asking you to speak, Lord, is because I'm listening. That should be our posture. That should be our. We should have a lean in posture like this. I mean, I'll give you permission. You can either raise your hand in church or do this. All right? This year, like, you can lead it if you do this. I know what you're saying, Speak, Lord, but man. All right, last one. Listening always means obedience. Matter of fact, worship team, come on out here at all the campuses, let me just call on this. Let's try to do it. Let's do that. Speak, Lord. And just take a moment to seal this. And then at all the campuses, let's give people an opportunity to hear the voice of the spirit saying, today is the day of salvation. Today is the day of salvation. In Scripture, listening always implies a response. Hearing is never neutral. To hear and not act is portrayed as self deception. It's not confusion. It's like, I didn't hear exactly what he said. No, no, you heard him. You heard what God said. And if you don't act, it's self deception. That's why hearing God speak in the Bible is treated as a moral act rather than a sensory one. Understand? We'd say, speak, Lord. We're trying to hear. And he's like, no, this is a moral act. You wanna listen and you wanna obey. You want. If you're listening to God and it doesn't lead to action, it's really like a self deception. Our oldest grandson, Beckham, he has this thing, he's being naughty and his mom and dad will say, beckham, what do we say? And he goes, I will listen and obey. He's got a lot of growth to do in that area, as do you. Because God would probably call your name right now. Hey, I will listen and obey. And by the way, God knows your middle name. All right? He knows your middle name. I will listen and obey. I believe God is gonna speak next steps to people. I believe God is gonna speak Breakthrough. I believe God is gonna speak. Guidance. I believe God is gonna speak. This is your year to go on a global team. I believe God is gonna speak. Say yes to the call. I believe God is gonna say, I'm speaking to you and I'm leading you. I believe God's gonna speak Kingdom builder amounts. I believe God's gonna speak sacrifice. I believe he's gonna say things to you that will change your direction. I. I believe God is speaking. Forgive. I believe God is speaking to you to speak up. I believe God is speaking to you to take the next step, to step up or to stay put. Speak, Lord, we're listening. God, we say speak, Lord, we're listening. Speak, Lord, we're listening. And it's not just going to be passive this year. It will be active listening that will lead to obedient steps following you. Speak, Lord, we're listening. In Jesus name we pray. Amen and amen.