Restoration! Seeking God's Plan | Dr. John Ewart

Hey everybody, this is Pastor John Ewart from Inglewood

Baptist Church in Rocky Mountain, North Carolina.

Thank you so much for tuning in to our podcast.

You're going to hear from God today as we share from His word

about important issues facing your life that can guide you

according to the Bible. Well, happy New Year, Inglewood.

It's good to see you all here this morning.

I know that several folks are out sick right now.

Pastor Charles was telling me that the hospitals are so full

right now that they have EMT vehicles lined up in the

driveways and are treating people in the vehicles.

And so we want to pray for them in just a moment and pray for

you. Thank you for praying for me.

I appreciate so much our team of pastors here for stepping up.

They did get a phone call or text message for me about last

last Saturday night at about 7:30.

And I appreciate Dylan stepping up.

Didn't he do a good job? Amen.

Yeah, I did appreciate him and all our pastors.

I need to confess to you, I really wasn't sick with the

Super flu. My grand, my grandkids gave me

another one of those 25 piece jigsaw puzzles that I talked

about at the Christmas Eve service.

Been working on it ever since as hard as I could.

If you were at the Christmas Eve service, you know what I'm

talking about. That might just be the fever or

the decongestants talking, so we'll see.

Listen, thank you all for being here.

I do appreciate what's coming up.

Please do look at your worship guide.

Also, we're going to have a special time with our deacons

having a Deacon workshop on Saturday, Deacon ordination next

Sunday night. So it's going to be a very

special time next few weeks. I do hope you'll come back for

the mission trip meetings this Wednesday night.

Midweek starts back, so come on back, we'll have a good crowd

here. Wednesday night I'm going to

talk about we're going to talk about engaging the Bible.

But this Wednesday night I want to specifically talk about how

did we get the Bible? And I don't mean we talked about

the doctrine of Scripture some already, but what I want to talk

about is how do we actually get this thing?

And why these books? Why not other books?

Who decided this? How did this whole book come

together that we know as the Bible?

And so it ought to be a fascinating study this week.

And then we're going to dive into how we study it and how we

can actually interpret it, etcetera, in the weeks to come.

So you come back for that also, I've been talking to our friends

overseas, had a long talk with them on Friday and they still

have a court date on January 9th that we need to pray for.

That'll be good. And pray the the court will

bring glory to God with their decision.

Our friends are also facing other decisions in the midst of

all this, as you can imagine. So we want to pray for their

wisdom and for their clarity. So I want to pray for them as

well As for the folks who are sick.

I know several of you are probably joining us online this

morning. Thank you for doing that at

home. And look forward to seeing you

back here in the next weeks as as we get kind of through this

time together. And so let's pray together and

then move forward with what God has for us.

Father, we're so grateful for your grace and your presence.

Father, I just pray that you'll give me a voice for the next few

moments, Father. Pray, Father, that you'll

continue to guide us as a church.

Father, we are so grateful, Lord, that that you are God of

healing and of sustaining. So, Father, I do pray for those

many people in our church who are not feeling well.

We know many folks are out today because they're sick.

We also have had several folks during the break who've lost

loved ones and us pray, Father, that you would comfort them.

Father, we also lift up our friends overseas that you would

give them great wisdom, be with the court that it would make the

right decisions that would bring you glory and allow your Kingdom

to continue to grow. And Father, just guide us now as

we open your word. We thank you for it in Christ's

name, Amen. Now bear with me.

The first service, my nose became very athletic and I'm

going to do my best not to cough my head off.

I have double double halls in right now.

And so we're going to do our best to get through this.

We we are feeling better. Probably not quite 100%.

So I probably won't be hugging you too much today unless you

just really want this. Then you come see me.

My mother flipped houses now. We didn't call it that back

then. We didn't, we didn't have a word

for it. She restored old houses.

It was partly because of my grandfather.

My grandfather had acquired a lot of real estate, etcetera,

and she learned from him and but there was another reason for it.

So anytime somebody moved and we lived in an old neighborhood, I

grew up in a house that was about 100 years old when I grew

up in, in it. And, and whenever somebody moved

in our neighborhood, my mom would buy the house and restore

it and resell it. Or when somebody moved near 1 of

the rental properties that my grandfather owned, she'd buy the

house and restore it. And so we were in this

restoration cycle all the time. And she didn't do that to make

money necessarily. She did that to absolutely

control her environment. That is no joke.

She, she wanted to be able to pick and choose.

She could buy this, buy that house, restore that house, and

then sell it to her preferred buyer herself to control

property values and to control who lived in her neighborhood.

And so her intentions and her motives were not always very

good. And so it's always been

interesting to me, somebody who worked so hard to control their

environment like that. And sometimes restoration,

sometimes respiration is needed as a needed part of the future.

Sometimes the motive has to be checked a little bit so we can

either attempt to control our own future or we can submit to

the plan that God already has for us and has orchestrated for

us. And we do have to choose.

We must choose, and frankly, we will choose.

Everyone of you will choose one way or the other.

You're either going to follow your plan or you're going to

follow God's plan. God.

God has a preordained and I'll just call him what I've been

calling him the whole time. Illustratively, he has a set of

train tracks for us, a train track for us corporately as a

church, but also for each and every one of your individual

lives. I believe this is with all of my

heart, my entire theology is built upon this, that I believe

that God has an intention for us, a plan for us, a place for

us, a purpose for us. And we need to discover that in

order to live this abundant life that He's calling us to live.

And these things have existed forever.

And so we spent the first few months of 2025, the first few

months, studying his plan and beginning to build the right

train, so to speak, by addressing some specific

assessment issues, by clarifying God's mission, by clarifying the

church's vision, by defining essentials of discipleship in

2025, and to to help us to in this ongoing work.

And frankly, God has blessed us for that.

He's blessed our faithfulness in two 22,025.

We don't want to ignore that. We don't want to overlook that.

We don't take that lightly. But we also recognize we can't

rest on that. We're just beginning.

And So what we're looking at now is, is 2026, believe it or not,

is actually here. And it's time to really begin to

move forward. And what I believe is this

incredible plan that God has not only for Englewood Baptist

Church, but for each one of our lives.

And so these next steps are going to include further

alignment of our ministries, developing spiritual gift

discovery and service placement processes, leadership

development, as well as our ongoing discipleship and

evangelism that God has continued to bless us with.

But God might still have some work to do in our hearts and our

spirits along the way as well. He might not quite be done for

us as we prepare to fully fulfil the future that I think he has

for us. I believe This is why I'm here.

I've had the awesome privilege Teresa and I have of watching

him place his hand on churches in powerful ways.

More than once in our life. I've seen this incredible,

powerful thing to where he he brings true revival to church

that then spills over into spiritual awakening in the

communities. And it leads to a future that

nobody could have predicted, nobody could have planned

themselves, where all the credit soars to God.

And that's what we want. We want to see something in 2026

that is so grandiose. And if you think I speak

dramatically good. If you think I speak in

grandiose ways, fantastic, because I believe that way that

God has such a plan for us that when 2026 is over, we're just

going to stand amazed. And the only way we can explain

any of it is to give total credit to God for what He's done

in our midst. And So what we see is that I, I

want to share about this kind of idea and there's a book in the

Bible that will help us to understand this story, and it's

the book of Nehemiah. Now, I know that some of you

wanted me to share my testimony last week.

Don't worry, I'm going to bring that back.

I promise I'll bring the baseball bat up here, the whole

bit, and we'll have the whole testimony one day.

But because of Easter and because of our timing, I want to

go ahead and dive into the book of Nehemiah for a while.

Then I promise I'll bring that back because what I want to talk

about is I want to talk about God's restoration and the way he

works in the hearts and the lives of his people.

And so one, one of the things that we have to do is it's, it's

wonderful to, I mean, think about what a place to be, to be

on the front row, to be in a front row seat, to see and to

serve sacrificially, to take part in what I believe will be a

movement of God, right? And the book of Nehemiah tells

us such a story. It's the story of restoration.

It's a story of rebuilding. We're going to watch God's

people move forward into the future.

God always had planned for them, and now they're being restored

to that plan, right? So this this morning, the first

thing we got to do is we've got to learn about step one.

How do we seek God's plan? How do we seek that plan that

God has for us? Now, let me give you a little

background. Ezra and Nehemiah go together.

If you look at your Old Testament, Ezra and Nehemiah go

together in time and context. In fact, in the early editions

of the Old Testament Scriptures, they were two parts of one book

and they would travel together. And so in fact, many believe

that Ezra wrote both books under the inspiration of the Holy

Spirit using Nehemiah's first hand account and Ezra was taking

it down and the prophets to add to that the prophets Haggai and

Zechariah go with this story. So if you really want to get the

full benefit of the Nehemiah story, read Haggai, Zechariah,

and Ezra along with Nehemiah in your personal study.

I've been doing that over the last several weeks.

It's been interesting to hear Zechariah.

Sometimes it's hard to understand because of his

visions, but Nehemiah then becomes one of the last books of

the Old Testament. So you have Nehemiah and

Malachi, which are not necessarily connected, but

Nehemiah and Malachi are the last books chronologically in

the Old Testament. Then you got about 400 years

before the New Testament sees. So these are the last words, the

last stories of the Old Testament, where Nehemiah

reveals God's absolute sovereignty as he fulfills his

promise to restore the people of Israel back from their exile in

Babylon. Right.

The people sinned. God used a Pagan nation to

punish them and take them into exile to humble them.

But as they are going into exile, he also promises that a

group is going to return. And then God uses Persia to

conquer Babylon so that the return can take place.

So that's where we are. So they returning groups to

restore the city, to restore the land.

The first group comes back to rebuild the second temple

because the Solomon's temple had been destroyed by the

Babylonians. And so they come back to rebuild

the temple. First, they face enemies who

don't want them to rebuild. It's part of the big story of

both Ezra and Nehemiah. These enemies don't want them to

restore, and so they faced enemies who settled in the land

while they were gone, and so they weren't able to finish the

temple. They just got the foundation

done and these enemies were strong.

And that they're always going to be those people.

They're always going to be those who oppose God's plan.

They're always going to be people who want to stand in the

way or criticize the way that we believe we're supposed to move

forward. They'd like to criticize the

path forward. They like to seek to discourage

God's people. We're going to see that in this

story. People who want to discourage

others from following God's future for them, they're always

there. So the prophets Haggai and

Zechariah come in and challenge them to finish the temple,

right? And then sixty years later, Ezra

comes with a group and encourages him even more, and he

opposes these enemies, challenges them to worship

Yahweh. They're supposed to.

And they finally are able to finish the temple, but the walls

and the gates of the city have been destroyed.

And so the city is incomplete. It's not ready to be resettled

yet. It's not safe.

They couldn't pursue their full future with God.

They couldn't worship him the way they were supposed to.

They weren't safe. They weren't secure from the

enemy. They couldn't obey.

They couldn't do what God wanted them to do.

They were to be a testimony to God's faithfulness.

They were to be a testimony of God fulfilling his promises.

And yet because of the city, because of the walls, the ruins

around them, they were not ready to do that.

So something had to change, something always has to change

for revival to occur. Something always has to change

for true restoration. So we see God building his

future for his people. Now Nehemiah chapter one verse

one, the words of Nehemiah, the son of of Halakhaliah.

Now it happened in the month of Kislev in the 20th years.

I was in Sousa, the citadel that Henani, one of my brothers, came

with certain men from Judah, and I asked them concerning the Jews

who escaped who had survived the exile and concerning Jerusalem.

And they said to me, the remnant there in the province who

survived the Exiles in great trouble and shame, the walls of

of Jerusalem are is broken down and it's gates are destroyed by

fire. We're just going to see four

quick things, simple things, but important things, progressive

steps for us to enter to 2026. The right way for us to enjoy

the restoration that God has for us.

The revival that I believe he intends for us to bring by by

walking through this passage. The first thing we see is the

recognizing the need. There needs to be a recognition

of the need at hand. Now.

The name Nehemiah means the Lord comforts, which is actually a

fitting name for what he's going to bring to his people, right?

And a group of men, one of whom might have been 1 of Nehemiah's

brothers, reports how bad things are back home.

Things are bad back in Jerusalem.

They're suffering great distress.

They're suffering reproach. They're struggling with

hardship. Frankly, they're struggling with

humiliation in front of these enemies.

They can't stand in front of them.

The walls and the gates are still destroyed.

They're unprotected. They're vulnerable.

They're living in ruins. And this represented great

danger. This represented great shame for

them. And so how could they worship?

How could they be a testimony when everything around them was

in ruins and their enemies bragged and boasted and

surrounded them and they had no protection?

Something had to change. Something new had to happen.

And Nehemiah recognizes this great need.

He recognizes that reality. That's always the first step.

That's always the first step. We have to recognize and be and

be honest about the actual need. Their world was broken.

Their world needed to be restored.

When my friends, our world is broken.

Our world is absolutely broken and it's in desperate need as

well. And we need to recognize the

truth that we are all lost sinners and we all need

salvation, and that our lives have been broken and the only

one who can restore us is this same Yahweh who sent His Son to

die for us so that we could be saved.

But before we can be saved, we have to recognize we're lost.

We have to recognize we need salvation.

We have to recognize and admit when our spiritual lives are not

healthy and in need of revival and in need of restoration.

Right. So as we begin 2026, let me ask

you a couple honest questions. What's broken down?

What's in shambles in your life that requires restoration and

rebuilding? Are your walls torn down?

Are your gates burned right now? Maybe something hidden deep

within you that only you know about, that you carry into this

new year? Maybe it's something others in

your life know about and they're praying about for you that you

carry into this new year. What are you dragging into 2026

from 2025 that belongs and needs to stay back there in 2025?

What broken down ruin, What burned gate is a part of your

life right now that prevents you from being?

Everything that God intends for you to be has called you to be

as a part of His plan, as a part of His future.

What in your personal life stands in the way of salvation,

of obedience, The belief of revival.

OS Hawkins wrote a book about Nehemiah and in it he says

revival never comes in any person until he realizes the

dire need of it. Nehemiah asked for a report and

received one, and something had to change.

Nehemiah understood the necessity to recognize the real

need. And the question is, is will we?

We can't rest on what God's done, what we can't.

We can't expect just God. You're going to continue to lead

people. We'll continue to baptize every

week. We'll continue to see people

join the church. We're going to continue to see.

We can't just rely on that. What do you want us to do?

God? What?

How do we serve? How do we obey?

What do we need to surrender to see something even more

abnormal, something even more powerful, something that would

be considered a movement of God's hand?

Look at verse 4. And as soon as I heard these

words, I sat down and wept and mourned for days.

And I continued fasting and praying before the God of

heaven. And I said, Oh Lord God of

heaven, the great and awesome God who keeps covenant in

steadfast love with those who love Him and keep His

commandments. Let your ear be attentive and

your eyes open to hear the prayer of Your servant that I

now pray before you day and night for the people of Israel,

Your servants confessing the sins of the people of Israel,

which we have sinned against You, even I and my Father's

house have sinned. We have acted very corruptly

against You and have not kept your commandments, the statutes

and the rules that you commanded.

Your servant Moses, our recognition of the need for

change. Must then drive us to prayer and

brokenness. Nehemiah had a great job.

He was the King's cupbearer. He he was paid well, lived in

the palace. I mean, I mean, if you're going

to live in exile, exile, this is the way to live in exile.

This guy had a maid in the Babylonian Empire.

And then this news hit his heart.

Nehemiah was so burdened, so burdened by this that he sat and

he mourned and he wept for many, many days.

He began to fast. He began to pray.

He could not eat, not with this burden for his people, not with

his burden for his home. So Nehemiah prayed.

And I just wonder when I read this passage, sometimes you

might see me if you drove down the highway with him.

You might see me shouting at myself in my truck about stuff

like this. That crazy guy driving a truck?

That's my pastor. I wonder what it's going to take

to dislodge the American church from its clutch on self comfort

to feel a burden for this nation.

I mean, what news do we need to hear to jolt US from our cocoon?

Prayer by God's people. Earnest prayer by God's people

is always a necessity for revival.

No great spiritual awakening in the history of humanity has ever

started from the book of Acts on.

Never in human history has a great spiritual awakening

happened without God's people being broken and in prayer on

their faces before God. What's it going to take?

We must weep over the ruins before we can begin to build the

future. We need to recognize the true

need for revival, and that should bring brokenness.

And then recognizing that true brokenness in and around our

lives should bring true revival. So we need to stop.

We need to seek the face of God and pray for his future as we

enter 2026 Inglewood. This is this is his church.

This is his future. What does he want?

Not what I think we ought to do, Not what I wish we had done.

Don't like that decision. Which we what does he want us to

do? Nehemiah's heart was broken for

his people. He was also broken over the sin

of his people. But notice this, He was also

broken over his own sin. He He was so deeply burdened, He

wept and wept. What would bring us to such a

place? What spiritual burden would lead

you to weep for days? What great spiritual need would

disrupt your normalcy and shake you spiritually?

He calls upon God, even uses his covenant on name, Yahweh when He

does it. He's the God of heaven, bigger

than any earthly barrier, bigger than any wall, big bigger than

any burned gate, bigger than any destroyed city, greater than any

earthly opposition, greater than any enemy that they could face.

And he remembers you always love his Hesed, love his covenantal

love to those who are his. And then Nehemiah intercedes for

his people. He prays for them.

The broken walls and gates had led to a broken spirit.

Broken walls and burn gates were stumbling blocks for his people

to move forward so that they could they could serve at the

future that God had called them to, to import himself out before

the God who could move any wall. It says, we have acted very

corruptly against you. We've sinned against you.

The word for sin there is habal, which means to offend God.

We've offended you. We've offended you by not

keeping your commandments. We've offended you by not

keeping your rules and statutes. We've offended you by not

worshipping you the way we should.

So he confesses national sins, He confesses family sins, and he

also confesses personal sins. Not just them, but me, Lord, Me

too, Lord. He doesn't simply point out

their sin. He confesses his own failing and

offence to God. Now you got to pay attention to

that because that's when the difference starts to happen.

That's that's when it starts getting different between normal

times and when God's doing something special.

People love to point out other people's sins.

People love to complain about the sins of the world.

There's nothing new about that. That's very, very normal.

People love to criticize. People love to even blame

others. They often even love to

criticize with no effort to help those who are seeking to

rebuild. But when they confess their own

sins, that's when God's doing something special.

And this is an absolute necessity for revival.

To confess and repent in prayer before God is absolutely

necessary for restoration to begin.

So Nehemiah knew that they had to turn from disregarding the

laws of God to obedience. That's repentance.

And he was broken before God when he recognized the great

need of his people and their sin.

And he admits that they didn't deserve his grace.

The very fact that they were in exile is proof of that.

And it was hard in Babylon to be obedient.

It was hard in Babylon to be obedient when they were removed

from the temple and when when they were tempted by the ways

and the gods of their captors. And that's the way the world

will do it. It'll make it hard and tempt you

to not be a part of this, to not be in a connect group, to not be

in a congregation, to not surround yourself with other

believers, but to go out there by yourself in the ways.

And the gods of this world are going to tempt you to follow

them. We can't blame the world.

We can't blame Satan. We can't blame our

circumstances. We can't blame another person.

We are personally responsible. We are to blame if we're

offending God and not walking according to His way.

We must confess our sin and repent for revival to occur.

What reality, what truth must you here to drive you to such

brokenness before the Lord? Revival is always preceded by

the weeping and the confession and the prayers of God's people

as they recognize the great need and repent of their sin.

Something must change, but still more is necessary.

Look at verse 8. Remember the word that you

commanded to your servant Moses, saying, If you are unfaithful, I

will scatter you among the peoples.

But if you return to me and keep my commandments and do them,

though your outcasts are in the uttermost parts of heaven, from

there I will gather them and bring them to the place that I

have chosen to make my name dwell.

There They are your servants and your people, whom you have

redeemed by your great power and by your strong hand.

So after we recognize the need and we're broken in prayer, the

third necessity for restoration to begin is we have to remember

God's promises. See, there's hope.

Nehemiah remembers God's word from the Old Testament.

He remembers the promises from Leviticus chapter 26 and

Leviticus 26 · chapter mention

Deuteronomy chapter 30 that God is giving to Moses.

Deuteronomy 30 · chapter mention

He promises 2 things to the Hebrews.

First, I'm going to punish you, even to the point of scattering

you if you don't stop sinning and chasing after foreign gods.

And then secondly, I'm going to bring you back if you'll repent

and you'll obey. And, and that's exactly what God

has done. God's always faithful.

He promised, He always fulfills his promises.

He fulfilled the first part and cast his people into punishment

with the exile and with their land in ruins due to their

chasing after the foreign gods instead of him.

Now please, Lord Nehemiah's reminding him, remember the

second part and bring restoration.

And God orchestrates history, lays down the tracks for us.

You're the only one who can do this, Yahweh.

That's what Nehemiah said. You're the only one who can

redeem by your great power and by your strong hand.

No one else has the power of revival.

No one else can restore. Only Yahweh can bring true

change. We need you, God, to bring

restoration. We need you, God, to bring

revival, because you're the only one who can.

And if we forget this, it'll never come.

If we think somehow that if we organize ourselves the right

way, if we organize ourselves the right way and we give enough

and we do enough, and we hire the right leaders, and then

somehow move forward by our own power, we can force certain

spiritual dynamics to occur. We are guilty of idolatry and a

human works based salvation and sanctification.

It will not work that way. This is a supernatural journey,

a spirit LED journey that we must be a part of.

And though though our obedient discipleship certainly a vital

part of of the building process, we always have to remember who

brings revival, who brings salvation, who answers prayer,

who can forgive and who can restore.

So God had to be remembered. God has to be acknowledged as

the author and creator of all of this, and the soul head and the

owner of this church, Inglewood Baptist Church, belongs to Jesus

Christ. He's the leader.

We have to follow him. He alone can redeem.

So we have to remember who he is and his word and his promises.

So, So restoration won't come without this focused

intentionality. Something has to change.

It's necessary to recognize the great needs.

It's necessary to repent and pray for the repentance and

brokenness of souls. It's necessary to remember who

God is and His promises to us and His absolutely absolute sole

authority to redeem and to forgive and to revive.

We need to recognize the need for revival.

Be broken in prayer. Remember Him.

And then finally, verse 11, O Lord, let your ear be attentive

to the prayer of your servant and to the prayer of Your

servants, who delight to fear Your name and give success to

your servant today, and grant him mercy.

In the sight of this man, the last thing was we have to

believe in God's sovereignty. He's in complete control.

Revival is a work of grey of faith under grace.

Nehemiah relied upon God to obtain favor with the king.

That's the man he's talking about.

He, he held this special position with the king.

As I mentioned earlier, he was the cupbearer.

So he was the guy who tested everything to make sure there

was no poison for the king. That was a much higher position

than it might sound like in our world today.

It's like a bodyguard. He had direct access to the

king, one of the few who would very close tight knit circle

around the king. And he and he was he was in this

high and trusted position. He prayed that God would grant

him favor to the king so that he could be used in the restoration

of his people. We're going to see next week

that he's actually taking his life into his own hands by even

making this kind of request to the king.

He knew he was totally dependent upon God to grant him the

necessary mercy, but he was willing to give up that special

position. He was willing to give up

everything that would be called earthly success.

He was willing to give up everything that was comfortable

to him, everything because he wanted to surrender it for his

people and for God. And he was willing to do this

because he desired to fear the name of Yahweh more than an

earthly king. He desired to do this.

He knew this was only possible if God willed it and moved the

heart of the most powerful king on earth at the time, the King

of Persia. So today, as 2026 dawns upon us,

do we still believe our God can move a world?

Do we still believe God is orchestrating and can move the

most powerful earthly forces around us in order to do His

will? Will we totally rely upon Him as

we move forward? Will we totally depend upon Him

to bring about His plan? This must be our hope.

This must be our faith. Not in me, not in you, but in

Him. Will we weep?

Will we pray to Him to have mercy upon us and to give us the

strength to truly repent for our sins, from our sins, and to

serve Him well. Well, we pray that our heart

would be moved by God. So this morning, first Sunday of

the year, whether you're here or at home, whose heart must be

moved by God first, right here, right now, this morning?

Whose heart must be moved first for this to begin, for this

movement to begin? Whose heart needs to be changed?

Will we pray with tears streaming down our faces for the

heart to be changed and God's mercy to be evident, even if,

especially if that heart's mine? Will we beg God for this?

My friends, God has a plan for Inglewood.

It's been laid out from before the beginning of time.

He's got a plan for each one of your individual specific lives.

Whether you believe in Him or not, whether you believe me or

not, your spirits going to impress upon your soul that I'm

telling you the truth. He has a plan for purpose for

your life, and He wants you to know it.

He's always had this, and He's faithful to fulfill that

promise. He's sovereign and no

circumstance can stop His plan. No earthly force or opposition

is too great. The only thing that stands in

His way is our obedience. But He's stubborn in His love.

He's stubborn in His will for us, so fortunately it's not

based upon our actions or works, but upon His choice and will.

He loves us whether we choose to love Him or not.

You can't escape it. You can't run from it.

He loves you and He wants you to know Him and to know His purpose

for your life. But He also calls upon us to

submit for those of us who know Him, and to demonstrate our

faith in Him. One of the most famous verses

perhaps in all the Old Testament, quoted and quoted and

quoted, Second Chronicles 714. If My people who are called by

My name humble themselves and pray and seek My face and turn

from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven and will

forgive their sin and heal their land.

We must seek the Holy Spirit to move us from the normal to the

abnormal in an abnormal, powerful, strong new way.

Are you weeping before God for such a thing?

Are you asking God to change this city, to change this whole

area, to bring revival and spiritual awakening?

That's what I believe 2026 is for.

That's why we're still here. I believe that's why he's

tarried and not come yet. But have we turned to look upon

him only and his future? Or am I still hanging on to

something back there? Leave it back there and let's

move forward in a new way. Father, thank you so much.

That you've got a plan. I don't have to dream up a plan.

I have to talk to you and understand yours.

Father, that's just not true for me as a pastor, Father, that's

true for every one of us as believers.

You have a will and a way for each one of us.

For some this morning or those listening online, this is

salvation. There's a recognition that they

need to be saved. There's someone here, Father,

who doesn't know you. I pray right now that they'll

recognize the reality of your existence.

They can't deny it. They feel it in their soul.

Right now. Their spirit is acknowledging

the truth that you're real. And Father, I just pray, Lord,

that they'll understand that the Father, we're all sinners.

We've all committed things. We've all said things, we've all

thought things. We've done things that that are

contrary to what you want. We've offended you and I pray,

Father, that they will repent of that sin.

They'll they'll feel sorry for their sin.

They'll want to turn from their sin and they want to turn to you

recognizing that that's why Jesus came to die on a cross to

pay for that so that we could know you and we could live out

the perfect plan that you have for our life.

Father, in just a moment as we sing, I pray that those who I

need to talk to someone more about that might come and talk

to a pastor or go to our next steps room and talk to a

counselor. Father, others, maybe they

recognize I need to be baptized. I need to join the church.

I need to join a connect group. I need to pray for my neighbors.

I need to pray for our city. I need to pray for the broken

down walls and ruins in my life, the brokenness that I have, the

burden that I carry. I pray, Father, that they would

come. They can use these steps as an

altar. They can pray with a pastor

again. They can pray with our

counselors. Father, I just pray.

We'll surrender, Father. That's the only way revival will

come is by our submission to you in Christ's name, Amen.

Our worship team is going to lead us.

There'll be some pastors here. I'm not going to stand here

because none of you need to talk to me right now, But other

pastors are going to be here. We have counselors in our Next

Steps room. We also have a Next Steps table

out in the lobby. People who just love to pray

with you, have private conversations with you about

what God's doing. But as we start 2026, let's not

be in a hurry to leave. Let's be in a hurry to reflect

and to respond. As we stand together and as we

worship Him. Thank you so much for listening

today, and I also hope that you'll go to

[email protected] as well as our app and find many

other resources that will bless you and your families.

Thank you once again.