 All right, good morning, Radiant Church. Good morning, good to see you, good to see Portage. Welcome, and everyone who's watching online. I have a unique privilege today. Pastor Lee and Jane are taking some well-deserved time off. And so we have a guest speaker today, and I'm going to try not to take all of his time bragging on him and his wife. But Pastor Mike and Jen Popenhagen are here. They're the lead pastors of Radiant Church in Jackson, Michigan, which is a plant that came from here and started in 2013. Mike will tell you more of the story, but prior to that he was a worship leader here for 15 years and a massive and huge part of who we are as a church and who we are as our culture and our DNA and he's a dear friend of mine and his wife and my wife are best friends. They talk to like four AM, it's insane. But anyways, no, I'm just kidding. I want you to just right now begin to prepare your hearts to hear a word that is going to not just inspire you, but enable you to connect with the faithfulness and the miracle working power of God because Pastor Mike and Jen have lived that out and they're not special in the sense that God just rolled the red carpet out for them. They believed and they pressed in and they did the things that Pastor Mike is going to communicate to you today. And again, he has sons, three sons who I had the privilege of being a part in their lives as a youth pastor. And so when I go to his church in Jackson, they're leading worship and they're on the stage and literally I get emotional every single time and I just see the fruit of the kingdom of God at work in him and in his family. And so I want you guys to please stand on your feet and give a huge, warm welcome home to Pastor Michael Hopenhagen. Thank you. Thank you. You can sit down. It's humbling. Just so I know, how many have recently started attending Radiant in the last seven years? Basically six, seven years. Okay, well, almost half of you. So you have no idea who I am. So small correction. I was here 17 years, Pastor John, not 15. So let me just, if you're new here in the last seven years, which ain't really new anymore but it's been a while since I've been here. So this church saved my marriage and saved my life is 1996, just newly married, 20 years old, 21 years old. And we had a young child and I didn't know how to be a dad. I didn't know how to be a wife or a husband. Certainly don't know how to be a wife. I know times are changing, but that's not me, you know. I am a man. I identify as a man. Don't play that on the, hope that's not online. Let me rewind this a little bit. Let me introduce my wife, that helped me start over. This is my wife, Jennifer, would you stand up and say hello to everybody? So we got in a very difficult fight in August of 96 and I determined I'm done, I don't want this. We did have a child and so I left. I was at a friend's house staying because I left where we were living. And I prayed a prayer. I did come to faith at 10 years old but I hadn't really been following Jesus. I just live in my own life pursuing my own things. And my life was falling apart as a husband, as a dad. And so I'm at my friend's house and I go into the bedroom and I start praying and my child with me, he's in there. And I just said, Lord, I never thought I'd be at this place in my life. And the Holy Spirit said two things to me. And I know this was the Lord because these wouldn't have been thoughts that come into my mind. I was just desperately praying. And he said, go back to church and get a Christian counselor. I didn't even know if Christian counselors existed but I heard that. And so I did both of those things. And my mom told me about a church that was starting here in Richland. And it was the first Sunday in September of 1996. I called Jenny up and we talked some things out and I said, do you wanna go to church? And we walked into this church September of 1996 and God used this place to heal us. This church where you're at. I'll share more about my story throughout the message but I want you to know you're in a healthy place. You have a healthy pastors, Pastor Lee and Jane. They're really good friends of ours but they believed in us when they shouldn't have. They sowed into us and God used this place to heal our lives and change our marriage. The scripture say those who are planted in the house of the Lord, they'll flourish. When you go to church, you'll flourish. You'll grow and it wasn't a message series. It wasn't something someone spoke. It wasn't the community group that I was in or my involvement in the church but it was all of those things working in our lives and healing us. So just after a couple of weeks of being here music was part of the problem. I had a dream to go into music ever since I was a little boy and that was part of my problem is just pursuing that dream, neglecting the marriage. So I had laid down my desire to play music. I just come to that point that this is the problem so I set it aside. We walk in here. Next week I come up to Pastor Lee week two of the church plant and I said, hey, I introduced myself. I said, hey, I wanna get involved. And he said, well, what do you do? And I said, well, I'll do anything. Where do you need us? He said, well, what are you good at? And I was avoiding telling him I was a musician because that was the whole problem. And I didn't play, I didn't grow up in a church where there was a band, we had a piano and organ. So this was all new to me. And so I neglected to tell him at first that I was a musician. And there was a, so when he tells a story about worship leaders here, his first worship leader, no, it is not me. That all those number one worship leaders stories somebody else are all awful. So I always remind him, hey, when I'm in the room, could you at least clarify it? But he, he, I was watching worship that morning and I'm like, God, is this like, it was bad. And I'm like, is this what worship supposed to be? Like this guy, he played bluegrass in church. And it was like, boom, that got to go down. And look, no, you know, the church is clapping on the upbeat. I'm gonna, hallelujah, hallelujah. I don't know. But I, so I was like, I don't know if I want to be a part of that. What you guys have today. Oh my gosh, wasn't that incredible? You should have just recorded it, produced it, put it out. Yeah, that was better than three claps, but worship was powerful today. So I, he's just pushing me. I'll say, well, I got a kid. I can change diapers. I've got some experience with that. And he's like, well, is that what you want to do? Like, no, I don't want like, like changing diapers. But he said, what are you good at? And so he pulled it out of me. And I said, well, I noticed you didn't have a bass player. So I could probably learn bass for you and play bass. And he's like, you don't know how to play it. I said, well, I'm a guitar player. It's basically two less strings. Can't every musician play a bass like, like, just playing bass players, just playing. You know, you know how a bass player gets fired in a band? When he shows up and tells the band, I wrote a song. I just play it. I don't know what it, you know how to stop a guitar player, put music in front of them. We all play by ear. Anyway, so I'll rabbit trailing. I'm coming back. So I jumped in and started playing bass. That's a handful. A months later, Pastor Lee invited me to become the worship leader here. Again, my experience was the bars. My experience was something else. So four or five months in, I got invited to be the worship leader. I started out on Wednesday nights, ended up leading the worship on Sundays, the bluegrass worship leader. He got fired. They put me in the bar worship leader. So not much of an upgrade, but maybe a little bit better. Played at least something contemporary. So then four years in after my marriage was healed, after Pastor Lee and Jane invested into Jenny and I, I became an associate pastor here and we were here for 13 years full-time, 17 years altogether. But I just say all that to say, this really is home. Like I just love Kalamazoo. I grew up on Battle Creek. I just love, every time I drive in here, it never feels like I left. Like I'll go back and walk through the, sometimes look at my old office back there. And did you ever figure out who was in my office? Still not yet. Do you know what you do yet? Yeah, okay. All right, your job description, give it to Lee. He'll tell you. But, so thank you for inviting me back. Can we pray before we get into the message? Yeah. You're like, that's not the message? Pause and take forever. All right, let's pray. Father, I just love Isaiah 50 verse four that says, the sovereign Lord has given me a well-instructed tongue to know the word that sustains the weary. Your word sustains us. Your word sustains the broken, gives life to the hurting. And that's what we want today. Father, I pray that you would speak through this message. We give you permission to speak. It's one message, but we all hear it differently. And that's the miracle of your voice. And so we pray, Holy Spirit, speak to our hearts today in this room, in this place. In Jesus' name, amen. Hey, if you brought your Bibles, we're gonna be in Matthew chapter 17. I'm gonna start out in Daniel. So you go to 17, but they'll throw Daniel up on the screen. I know you guys have just finished a series called Stronger, looking through the book of Daniel. Basically a book of how to live godly in a pagan culture, in the Babylonian culture. And I know that Paschally talked about the conviction on the inside of us. So I wanna share one of my favorite verses just to launch this message from the book of Daniel. And it's Daniel 11, 32. And it says this, people who know their gods shall stand firm. And Daniel's talking about in a pagan culture, when everything is defiling all that's godly, there are some people who know God and they're gonna stand firm. They're gonna stay in their convictions. They're gonna live the faith for God. And then it says, not only do they stand firm, so it's just not that we're holding conviction, we're actually living out our conviction. We are taking action as the people of God. I love that word, our faith should have action to it, should have movement, should be propelling, should be going somewhere. The new King James says that people who know their God, they carry out great exploits. I love this. Paul said it this way in the book of Ephesians. He said, we are his workmanship created and Christ Jesus for good works. There's something good God has for your life. And not only is there something good for your life, there's something good that's gonna come from your life. There's a good work, there is an exploit. There's something that the Lord will be leading us into to take action, to take hold of a journey, a calling, a ministry, a purpose. And it says that God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them. Our faith is a walk, our faith is a journey. Our faith should be carrying out great exploits and taking action. So I wanna share this today. Now I've already said that I come from, my background is music. I've always wanted to go in the music industry. I ever, since I was little, when I was four or five years old, my favorite singer was Elvis Presley. I grew up in the 80s, but I liked the 60s music. I come from a line of musicians. My great-great grandfather was a musician. My great-grandfather was a musician. My grandfather was a musician. My dad was a musician. I was a musician. They were all atheists. So I didn't grow up in a Christian home until my dad gave his life to the Lord at 30, but he hated God, hated Christians, hated church. So it's miraculous that we all came to faith, but we did. But my grandfather was a musician who played with artists that's from the Michigan area. His name's Del Shannon. He became an artist. Oh, somebody know that. How many know him? Oh, a handful of you. How many don't? Let me see that. So a lot more of you don't. Okay. Those of you who don't know whom elifted your hand, how many of those who just looked at it and said you don't know him, how many you know who Tom Petty is? Same people. Okay, so you know Tom Petty. So you know the song Tom Petty, Running Down a Dream? Remember that one? You remember the line, and me and Del were singing, little runaway, running down a dream? That's who Tom Petty's talking about. So Del, he's actually in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. He is a, he worked with Tom Petty. He's responsible for bringing the Beatles to the United States of America. He opened the door for the British Revolution that just dominated the charts in the 1960s. I grew up in the 80s, but I love the 60s because of my grandfather's connection to Del, he was in his band. But for those of you who don't know, I'm gonna educate you. I bet you do know him. I bet you at least know his song. And I'm not gonna sing worship this morning because so don't judge me, that's what I mean. It's a Gibson. All right, if you know it, sing along. If you figured it out, join us. So this was Del's song. I'm a walking in the room, wishing you were here by. Yeah, that's all right, sing along. To end this dream, I wonder, I wonder. Oh, see, you did know it. Why, one more time. She ran away where she wills. Oh yeah, my little. Oh, give yourself a hand, that was awesome. Yeah. So that's who Del was. That's runaway. And so I pursued this dream of music. My grandfather played with Del. I had a connection. I met him at 12 years old. I'm growing and playing music. God is opening doors or at least I thought it was God. I was pursuing doors to open and I'm recording music, presenting it to Capitol Records in Nashville, Tennessee. I'm recording in Branson, Missouri, working with people who are working like Vince Gill and Garth Brooks. There was real momentum for my life in the music industry. And then it actually became the thing that started destroying my life and destroying my marriage. And that's why I laid it all down before I came here. But at the core of that, and I tried to think like, what drove me to that? And it was significance. I wanted to do something significant with my life. And I think it's what we all want. It might not be a music thing for you. It could be growing your business. It could be writing a book. It could be journaling. It could be you wanna be the best mom or the best dad. It could be that you wanna gain influence in the community to help those who are less fortunate. It could be that he's called you to start a business or to get involved at church. You just wanna help out. At the core of all of these things that are urges and on the inside of us, it is all God's leading us to something significant. However, there's something that keeps us from doing it. A lot of us, we don't pursue what God placed on the inside of us. We might be afraid or we feel like unqualified. I can't do it. Like I'm not smart enough. I don't have a good story. I don't have a, you know, I just, that's not who I am. Or maybe you feel disqualified to something in my past. I've done something terrible. God could never use me now that in all of those things, those are just the voices of the enemy trying to keep back what God has called us to do. So the end result is as believers, we're living far less than what God has intended for us to live. And so how do we move past fear and unbelief? And that's what I wanna give you three truths. The opposite of fear is faith because both paint a picture in your mind. Faith says, I'm anticipating and expecting this to happen. I can see God wants to do it. And fear paints something else. Fear paints failure. Fear paints disqualified. Fear just paints the wrong picture but both are the same thing. So I wanna give you three truths about faith this morning. And in Matthew 17, Jesus actually teaches on faith. And this is the story where his disciples had a man come up to them and say, my son is demon possessed, would you heal him? The disciples, they couldn't do it. They couldn't heal him. So what ended up happening is the father took the son to Jesus and said, your disciples couldn't heal my son. Will you heal him? So Jesus heals him. And well, this bothers the disciples because they wonder like, why couldn't we do it? So they asked Jesus the question and that's where we're gonna pick it up in Matthew 17, 19. And they said, then the disciples came to Jesus in private and asked, why couldn't we drive it out? Jesus, what disqualified us? And he tells him, he tells him it's your fear. So watch it, watch how he says it. He replied, because you have so little faith. In other words, you're seeing in the wrong direction. You're not seeing what God sees. And I don't know about you, but if you can cast a demon out of somebody, that's a great exploit. And so like, they're asking like, how do we do what you're doing? How do we live a great life? And he's saying like, it's because you're a little faith. Truly I tell you, now watch this, now he starts teaching us on faith. If you have faith as small as a mustard seed, you can say to this mountain, move from here to there and it will move, nothing will be impossible for you. So I wanna give you three truths today of how to carry out great exploits through faith, three truths about faith. And the first thing is, faith sees potential in small things. Faith sees potential. Jesus said, if you have faith, the grain of a mustard seed. Now, if I had a mustard seed, there's no way you could see it because it's such a tiny seed. So I brought one about four or five times, maybe 10 times larger. This is a sunflower seed. We have a bird feeder in the front of our home in our living room picture window. And the birds, they eat this seed, but this summer some of the seed fell on the ground and one of the grains literally got planted in the ground and we watched it grow all summer. This little seed produced a plant that was taller than me, the flower of the sun. It was this big, plus it had other ones sprouting off that were like this big. And I look at it and think, yeah, this little thing. Like, can you see that? Jesus said, if you have faith, the size of a seed, it's gonna produce something. Now, we know that if we plant a seed, it isn't gonna happen right away. We know that it takes time for it to grow. And this is what Jesus said, like faith takes time. Faith, there's a process to it. We just got done finishing a series at our church called Habits. This was kind of the tag phrase that I used over the three weeks of this series. And I would say this to everybody. Little things, the little potential, little things done consistently over a long period of time have big results. That's why it's so important that we can see potential in the small things. Pastor Lee is so good at this. He could see potential in me that I couldn't. He knew I had a rough marriage. He knew I come from a bar background. He knew I was rough around the edges. I showed up one Sunday morning leading worship with a hickey on my neck. And I wasn't embarrassed. I should have been, but I wasn't. I mean, he could just look past all of this roughness in my life and could see, no, there's something to this young man. He's seen potential in me. And when we went to plan a church in Jackson, Michigan in 2013, the year before, Pastor Lee sent Jen and I to get some training down south. And part of the training was that they were going to have, we had to go through this process to see if we qualified. So it was like this kind of like three or four days of testing. And then when they get all done, they sit you down and they share how you did. And it was a big deal because all my funding to plant was gonna come out of this organization. And I had to pass their examination. I had to pass their process. And I show up and I sit down with Jen and I and they said, well, we reviewed your background. We revealed, we just look at everything that you brought over the last few days and here's what they said to me. And I'm a worship leader here at this church and we're probably about 1500 people at the time. And they said, we don't think you have what it takes. And so therefore we're not gonna recommend that you plan a church. And I'm just like, oh. So I'm fighting back the tears. And so then they said, now we want you to go work at a church that's gonna kind of look like what you wanna plant for a year. And I'm trying to say like, no, you don't understand. Like the church is like, we're doing what I... But anyway, I didn't wanna seem unteachable. So I didn't respond. So I get out, we drive back to the hotel. This was in, I can't remember what state, Alabama. We were in Alabama. So I sent Jen back up to the room and I grabbed the steering wheel of the rental car and I call Pastor Lee. And I can't get two or three words out before I start crying like they said, I can't do it. They said, I can't do it. And now I'm not gonna be able to plan a church because I need the $50,000 that they were gonna loan us. And I don't know how we're gonna make it happen. And I don't ever forget what Pastor Lee said. He said, oh Mike, they didn't call you to plan a church, God did. Don't let what they say slow you down. You're gonna do this. You're gonna plan a church and it's gonna grow. And he just started speaking the potential in my life. And I'm so grateful he could see it. He could see it. So March, we move in August of 2013. We launched our first service March, 2014. So we're gonna be in our sixth year anniversary next month. And when we planted, you guys sent us, you invested into us as a church you sent, Jen and I with about $25,000. We raised 90 by the time we ended up planting a handful of months later. And a hundred and some people show up and they said, I couldn't do it. Then we keep growing. And about three years in, we're running two, 300 people and we're renting this old Baptist church that just seats a couple hundred people and we had someone come in and do analysis. Basically said, by the time if you keep the growth rate at where you are in 2018, you're gonna be out of room. And so we went to the church and we said, we gotta build a building. And so 2018 we started saving and we broke ground in September of 2018. 22 years of this is a church. Now we're in Jackson and we're breaking ground and this July we were in our brand new worship facility with over 500 seats. And now today between 708 people show up every Sunday to our church because Pastor Lee could see potential in something small. Are you seeing this? So don't despise the thing around your life, that thing you think is insignificant, that book you wanna write, the marriage that you wanna strengthen. It seems insignificant right now, but turn your heart towards faith and say, you know right now it looks like this, but I think it can look like this. Faith sees potential in small things. And right now maybe your marriage is struggling. It seems insignificant, seems like a small thing. See the potential in your spouse. See the potential in your children. See the potential in that dream in your heart. See the potential and the thing that the Lord is speaking into you. Don't despise because it looks small. You're thinking, man, I'm just showing up and I'm serving every Sunday in the church. I'm telling you I'm so grateful for everyone in Children's Ministry that invested into my kids in this church for 17 years so that today I have a worship year because someone could see potential in that our children depositing the faith into my kids. Do not despise where he's placing you. You have no idea where that's leading to you, but I'm getting ahead of myself. So number one, faith sees potential in the small things. Number two, faith believes the impossible is possible. Cause he said this, you will say to this mountain, move from here to there and it will move and nothing will be impossible for you. When I read this, I think, how's that possible? Jesus is exaggerating. So I went and looked in the Greek to see if he was exaggerating and he wasn't. He really means we can do the impossible. Blind eyes can open, the lame can run, the dream can come true, your marriage can be healed. You can get set free from the lies the enemy's been speaking, you can move past the wounds in your life. The impossible is possible. You do not have to live in depression anymore. You don't have to be stuck in your brokenness in the cycles that are destroying your lives. Jesus takes the impossible and makes it possible. You don't have to stay in debt anymore. You don't have to live in poverty anymore. Jesus takes what seems impossible and makes it possible. Now I grew up in poverty and I still fight a poverty mentality. I choose not to live with that mentality, but the enemy will keep speaking it into me. So when we moved to Jackson, we planted the church and we're gonna build this building and it's coming back that it's gonna be $1.8, $2 million. Then these steel tariffs things happened in 2018 and it jumped up 500 grand. And I'm like, that was just like a month ago. How can you like, and they're like, no, no, it's just steel tariffs. I'm like, whatever. So we go to a bank and we had saved about $100,000. And a year before this in 2017, I'm at this bank and I'm telling them like, we just had an analysis and they're saying our church isn't gonna grow anymore. We're gonna reach a cap by September of 2018 and I need a new building. It's gonna take $2 million to do it. And they said, well, how much you got saved? I said about $30,000 saved up in the church account. And his name was Justin and I'm not down in Justin but he laughed at me. He said, you've got a ways to go. Why don't you go back and figure it out? So he kind of gave me some steps. And so I left a little discouraged but I came back a year later, a year later I come back and said, here's where we're at. It's $2.5 million. I have about $300,000 or $400,000 saved up. And this was in May of 2018 and we know we need to break ground and we were hoping we could have broke ground by that spring but we had no funding and we're looking at multiple banks, multiple nonprofit organizations that just help us, help churches reach their vision and everyone's saying no to us. So I go back in May of 2018 and they tell me I'm only loanable about, I can't remember, there's 1.2 million or 1.5 and I'm sitting there and I'm thinking you're like a million dollars off. Like I can't, then they're like giving me, you're gonna have to wait another year and I said, I don't have a year but they're saying you're not loanable. So I walk away discouraged and it seems impossible because we're six years old now. All right, so we're a young church. So at the time we're having these conversations, we're like three and four years old and banks do not give money to churches that are three years old. It's like giving a 10-year-old keys to a car. You're growing but you're not quite ready to drive. So that's how banks are looking at us and I'm just frustrated because the potential's there but the banks can't see it and I get it because they're not believers but whatever. And so we're here at your Rieshine Conference in May 2018. I'm having all these conversations, super discouraged and I'm sitting over in this section over here by the wall worshiping and this young, I don't know who it was, but this young college age guy, he's a couple chairs from me and he gets a word. I don't know him, I'm worshiping and he turns to me and says, the Lord just told me you got money problems. I didn't say this but I'm like, yeah, about a million dollars worth and you don't know me. But then he said this and I just grabbed the hold of his word and he said, the Lord just want me to tell you, it's taken care of, you don't gotta worry about it. So a couple months go by and I found a bank that would loan us money if I could come up with another 200,000. So it's a different bank and so I called the other bank back and I'm thinking maybe I can play these guys and so I call bank number one and I'm like, hey, bank number two said they're gonna give me the loan but I'm a couple hundred thousand dollars off and I'm just wondering, I know you won't give me the 1.9 million I need. Will you give me a couple hundred thousand so I can get what I need? And he's like, well, where are you at, Pastor Mike? Now, this is a guy back in May. Just a couple months later told me no way. You're gonna have to wait a year. So I'm sitting there and it does seem impossible. Fine, but I'm just like, and I'm like, Lord, we're just so close or so close. And so he says, well, where are your numbers at? And I'm sure like our church is growing. Here's where we are. And he just randomly says, I can hear him like clicking while we're talking. And he's like, oh, no, we can loan you 1.9. I'm like, dude, you should have told me this in May. I've been discouraged, not sleeping and all of these other things and you were telling me it was impossible back in May. Now you're saying, but I said, well, what do I need to do it? And he says, you need about 500,000. I said, well, I got 400 saved. I'm a hundred off. And so then I just thought, I'm gonna ask it. It's crazy. What they're saying is I need 500,000 down to get the loan for 1.9. I gotta invest 500, but I only had four. And I said, well, I'm only off 100. I said, would you loan me the other 100? And he said, yes. And not only did that, he gave me another 100 on top of it. So they gave me a loan for 2.1 plus million dollars to get the 1.9 million. And we've already paid that off, but God worked a miracle. That was impossible. That's impossible. I'm not saying this hasn't happened, but I don't know any church that's under five years old that's built a building, has hundreds of people coming. We had a 67% growth rate from last January to this January because faith knows the impossible is possible. What's the impossible thing you're facing? Might be that hurting marriage. It may be some debt that you gotta get through. It may be you're believing God for a job or maybe a promotion, it seems impossible. It was the head usher that was with me, I don't know if it was a security usher, it was with me yesterday. He was telling me that he had wanted this promotion and didn't get it and was really discouraged, but then like a year later, they ended up giving it to him. And it seemed impossible because all these other people had more seniority, more time, but then eventually, they could see his potential and he gets promoted, but it was impossible to him. Don't underestimate what God can do for you. Number three, number one, faith sees potential in small things. Number two, God takes what seems impossible and makes it happen. And number three, faith produces unintentional outcomes. Faith produces unintentional outcomes. God gives you a direction and somehow you end up over here. Have you ever had that happen? Like you're thinking you're going this way and then all of a sudden the Lord, you think you're gonna be leading worship. I thought I was gonna be here at Radiant Richland for the rest of my life. Like I love this church. My kids grew up here. Like this is where I'm gonna invest in my life and I had 17 years here. I had no idea the Lord was gonna lift the grace off of me being a worship leader and then drop me into being a pastor because I never only spoken like two or three times. And so when the Lord's telling me you're gonna pastor a church, I'm thinking like, no, you got it wrong. I sing, Lord. That's easier because they give me the words in the back. Like, I don't know. Like, and he's like, no, you're gonna move over here. I had never intended to be a pastor and I never intended to be a worship leader. But faith brought some unintended outcomes and it does that. I love this about the Lord. My six word motto is this, surprised by God, anticipating the future because that's what he does. So check out what Jesus says about this. And Matthew 13, a close with this verse, says, the kingdom of heaven is like a grain of mustard seed that a man took and sowed in his field. It is the smallest of all seeds. But when it is grown, it is larger than all the other garden plants and becomes a tree so that, read these red words with me. So that the birds, say this with me, the birds of the air can come and make nests. When I read that, I'm like, is Jesus crazy? Cause that's not why you plant a garden for the birds, Lord. Cause if I'm a farmer and I'm planting mustard seeds, I'm not thinking about the birds. I'm thinking it's for culinary reasons. Like mustard for my hot dog. That's why you plant a mustard tree. Mustard for the hot dog, Lord, not for the birds. But Jesus said, no, it's not for that. You'll get that. That's the intended outcome. The unintended outcome is for the birds. You know what a nest is? It's home. You know what the nest is? It's where you come back and you really, you know what the mustard tree, it's provision. Your faith journey is going to create branches in your life that other people can come and land in. So when your marriage gets healed, it becomes a branch for someone else's marriage. You didn't intend it. All you were doing was fight for your marriage and now all of a sudden you're having an influence with other people who are struggling. You didn't know that when you conquered that addiction that one day the Lord was gonna give you a voice so that other people could land in your branches of faith. It's the unintended outcome. I had no idea when I was walking into the Blue Devil's Den in the Gull Lake High School, when this church planted that the Lord was gonna make me a worship leader four years later, I had given up on music, I had given up on my dream, but God had given me other plans that I didn't know was gonna be the outcome of it. And then in 2004, Pastor, we're in this other building over here and Pastor Lee is saying, I see thousands of people worshiping. I'm thinking, we're hundreds, are you crazy? And like he said, no, I see thousands of people worshiping in this place. We need to build a building. I'm just like, what? So we build this building. And I look at it, I remember the first Sunday standing in this platform, it used to be wood and not round and not a hole. This is all different. It's like blowing my story now. And just seeing for the first time, we were about 500 people, 700 when we finally got in here and just watching this church begin to grow and bloom. I didn't know that I was going to leave. I didn't know my kids were gonna become worship leaders when they did. Because Pastor Lee threw out the vision. And I know that we have what's going on in Portage and the last few times I attended, I've drove to Portage and seen what God's doing there and like, man, we had walked through that building in Pastor Lee and I in Portage 10, 12 years ago. And now we didn't intend that. And now you got this prayer center and this prayer room in downtown. It's just all of this has been unintended but it's been a beautiful thing because some people could see the potential of this church back in 2004. Now you're a church of thousands of people. I'll close with this story. When I came in last night to speak, they gave me a gift basket and I took it home. I got up this morning and Jen was getting around and I was looking through the gift basket, eating the candy for breakfast. And I picked up this book that I don't think I've ever met Corey, obviously I've seen him, but by Corey called Reckless Love a 40 day devotionals. I flip it open and I'm reading the introduction and he tells the story. He says, I could have never seen that when I wrote this song, I would get double awards, unintended outcome. I could have never seen a, I would get nominated for Grammy. I never knew that this was gonna be one of the most sung worship songs around the world, unintended outcome. I could have never seen, I didn't know this till I read this, that people are tattooing Reckless Love on their bodies. I'm like, that's crazy, but whatever. No songwriter is sitting down in a room when he's struggling in life. I'm writing this song so someone can tattoo it on their arm. I'm gonna get a double award. This never was his heart. His heart was God Unbroken. And I'm writing this song. Then he tells the story that one day Justin Bieber sings his song, posts it, and Corey's phone like blows up. He'll never tell you this probably, so I will. And his phone blows up, but one of the most significant stories was that day a young man decided he was gonna take his life and commit suicide. Here's Justin Bieber sing this song he had never heard before, lives. And I'm reading and I'm weeping this morning. I'm like, God, it's an unintended outcome of a broken person writing a song out of this house, out of this place. And songs are blossoming out of this place because someone will take the insignificant moment of being broken and writing a song or writing that journal. You have no idea what the Lord could do with your journey and I'm gonna say this, don't try to figure it out. I didn't intend any of it. I never intended to be a worship leader or pastor. I stumbled my way through this whole thing, but I had faith. And if you have faith, God will get you where he wants you to go more than you wanna get there. So you hang your head on him and watch what the Lord do. Faith can see the potential. Faith believes the impossible is possible. And faith will produce unintended outcomes. Stand up, I wanna pray for you. I believe in the room today, would you close your eyes and bow your heads? You have a dream in your heart. It's to fight for your marriage. It's to see that son or daughter that's a product will come back to Jesus. The Lord has given you a vision of something for the future. There's something the Lord has laid upon your heart and you've wondered how could I ever get there, Lord? And maybe you're hearing this message and it's just stirring you on the inside, and you're like, yeah, I need to do a great exploit. I need to take action with my faith. And if that's you, I wanna pray for your dreams. I wanna pray for the vision God has placed in your heart. I wanna pray for your purpose. You're calling that the thing that the Lord has put in you, would you just simply lift your hand, both hands? Father God, you see these, there are dreams in this room right now. Lord, songs coming out of these young worship leaders, prophetic words that will change the destiny of others. Books are housed in this room and imported this morning and online. Right now you're given a dream for the future spouse that'll become a dynamic marriage. Right now you're planning that dream to launch a business, but the whole reason is to advance the kingdom of God. Right now you're depositing dreams right now their son, they're lifting their hands and they say, I have no dream yet, but the Lord will give it. He'll birth it, he'll initiate it and he'll raise it up. Holy spirit, like a wave, just deposit life to those who he lifted in their hands. Give us eyes to see potential. Give us the confidence to say, you can do it. I believe the Lord will move this mountain for my life. Father, and give us the anticipation to see the unintended consequences and outcomes of following you. Do that, Lord. You can put your hands down. If you're here this morning, I do not wanna make an assumption that everyone in this room is following Jesus or has a relationship with him. So I'm gonna again ask you to close your eyes and bow your heads out of respect for the people around you. If you're here, you've never made a decision to follow Jesus. This morning you feel peace or you might call it, I feel good or you feel appalling. There's something in you like saying yes and you don't even know what you're saying yes to. That's God. Or maybe you're a follower of Jesus and you might have given your heart at a young age like I did at 10 but you've walked away from your faith. And today you're in this place and you're thinking I gotta go back in, I gotta jump back in, I gotta reengage with my faith. If either one of those are you, I wanna pray for you and I promise I wanna embarrass you but I'm gonna ask you to lift your hands when I count to three. One, how you know your heart's probably pounding. Something on the inside of you is saying I should lift my hand. That's the voice of God. Two, if you're thinking about God it means he's pursuing you. Three, quickly lift up your hands. Thank you, I see those hands to my left. I see those hands to keep them up. Thank you, I see that hand in front of me. These hands over here, thank you. The hands in the back, thank you. Jesus, thank you. Father God, thank you. You can put those down. We're gonna say a prayer together and if you mean that Jesus is coming into your heart today. Repeat after me. Father, I'm coming after you and I'm choosing today to follow Jesus. Come into my life. I pray you forgive me for my sin and heal me of my brokenness. I need you, Jesus. I believe you died and you rose again for me and I believe today I'm a new person. I'm a new creation created in Christ Jesus for good things. In Jesus' name, amen.