Fresh Start Faith

Well, well, well, 2025.

Here we are. Listen, new Year.

How many of you have been at a place in your life? We thought, you know what?

I could use a fresh start. Anybody? Yeah. I mean,

kinda like when you're out golfing, you line up perfect shot, big swing,

big slice, three fairways over. You're like, you know what,

I'm just gonna drop another ball. Here's a mulligan, I'm gonna start over. I,

I've been in some conversations, some intense conversations, uh,

with my wife Diana at times, and I've thought,

I have no idea how I got into a hole this deep, but if I could start over,

I'd take back everything that I said, I'd love to do that.

So we find ourselves in those places. And I know for a lot of us, man,

2024 was a tough year. Then we found ourselves thinking,

if I could just get a fresh start, well, guess what?

Happy New Year we are at a place, uh,

where the majority of Americans, uh, make a decision. Hey,

I'm gonna set a new resolution. Like I'm gonna make a change in my life.

I read a survey this week, uh,

and it said that 57% of American survey decided they're gonna go into

2025 with at least one new resolution.

So 21% said it's to save more money.

19% said it's to eat more healthy. 17% said it's to exercise more.

15% said they wanna lose weight. I think if you add those last three together,

you could put 'em in the same category and have over 50% people saying,

I need to be more healthy.

14% said they wanna spend more time with family and friends.

9% said they wanna quit smoking. I would advocate for that.

9% said that they wanna reduce living expenses.

And then 42% said, I'm probably gonna give up on my resolution anyway.

So, no thank you. And I know there's a lot of folks that would say, look,

resolutions aren't for me. We're not gonna stick to it.

But this is what I would say. Like, if you have a place in your life,

an air in your life where you know you want to take a positive step,

there is no time like the day to do that.

This is the perfect season to start a new day, to start a new era.

Maybe even for you to start a new legacy in your own life.

We can get a fresh start. I know for me in my own life, uh,

there are a number of areas where I could use a fresh start.

And I wrote some things down this week for me personally. And, uh, one is,

uh, I I want to be a better husband and dad. Um,

the good news is I don't think I'm the world's worst. Okay?

So I got that going for me. But man, like life is busy,

right? It's hectic, it's stressful. And,

and I come home from work and I have the best of intentions.

Like this is gonna be the night. We're gonna sit down,

we're gonna talk about the Bible. I'm gonna ask everybody how their day was.

I'm gonna look 'em in the eye.

I'm not gonna get overly angry when things don't go the right way.

And then you get home and the couch is there and you

can so easy to sit down on the couch, to turn on a football game,

to maybe start scrolling social media and the kids are in a different room and

it's quiet in the house. Can I get an amen from anybody? And,

and man, you just, but then you realize, man,

I don't have a whole lot more time with these kids in the house.

My twins are 16, my youngest is 13, my twins are gonna be gone soon.

How much more time do I have with them in the house to laugh every day,

to talk to 'em about their dreams, to set 'em up to succeed,

and what it is that God's calling 'em towards in their life?

And then in my marriage, like Diane and I, I would tell you,

I think she would tell you, we have a strong marriage. Uh,

it ain't perfect , but we have a strong marriage. But man,

we have to constantly fight this, uh, battle of just coexisting in the home,

making the wheels turn, getting everything done. It's a real thing.

But I know that's not the, the marriage that God would have for us. Um,

I'd like to see our church get a fresh start. Um,

we've been through some transition in the last few years, uh,

and I have this dream man,

I I wanna see us as a church family that is unified that,

that the community would look at and say, Hey, look,

that's a rowdy group of folks over there, .

But there is something different about them and the way they love God and follow

Jesus and share hope with the world around 'em. Like they have this,

for some reason, they, they have this, uh,

concern for the collective good of the community. Like for us, I,

I pray that we would have this, this,

this concern for the lostness of our community is that supersedes our own

personal preferences. And I know for that to happen, like I, I need to be a,

a better pastor, a better leader, a better follower of Jesus for myself.

And so there's areas I know I need to get a fresh start.

What about you and your life? Where do you need to get a fresh start?

Your personal life? Maybe it is you need to get more healthy physically

and your home, how you engage in your church family. I mean,

there's gotta be areas I gotta imagine in, in a church,

the size of hope where a lot of us are displaced.

If I could just get to a new starting line. And so if that's you, uh,

I've got some good news for you.

Our God is a God of new beginnings and fresh starts.

And and I hope that you will give yourself permission and the grace to actually

believe that. And so what we're gonna do is we go through the series,

we're gonna see in scripture that when as our hearts align with God's heart,

when our hearts align with God's heart for a new beginning, for a fresh start,

nothing can come against it. If you have your Bibles, uh, I want you,

and I hope you do, uh, I want you to turn to Nehemiah chapter one.

And so throughout this series,

we're gonna be walking through the book of Nehemiah. Uh,

I'll give you a little context while you're turning there. The book of Nehemiah,

it takes place in the fifth century around 464 bc uh,

about 70 to 80 years prior to where we're gonna jump in into the story.

The Israelites, God's people, uh, they had been exiled out of Jerusalem,

the land that God had promised to them,

and then they had been exiled into Babylon. Uh,

after they had been overthrown by the Babylon, by the Babylonians. Uh,

their city was decimated. Their temple had been torn apart.

The wall around the city that provided them protection completely destroyed.

And then probably most importantly,

they were forced to live in a foreign culture where they had lost like their

true identity of who they were as the family of God.

And I just want us to find ourselves in this story. Like,

have you ever been in that place where you just feel like, man, like I,

I don't even know who I am right now. Like, I don't know how I got here.

This isn't what I set out for. And while Babylon conquered them, right?

It, it's easy to look at the Babylonians as the bad guys,

but it's important to note, like when you read scripture, um,

what you see is that their exile was really a result of the Israelites

unfaithfulness to God while they were still in Jerusalem. Uh,

things like worship of other gods were taking place. Uh,

prophets like Isaiah and Jeremiah and Amos,

they had condemned them from things that were becoming a part of their society,

like exploiting the poor, uh,

corruption and really the overall moral decay of this society.

And so that's what led to their exile.

And then where we're gonna pick up in the story in Nehemiah chapter one,

the Persian empire had now overthrown Babylon,

and they'd allowed the Jews to return back to their homeland.

And so what we're gonna read in the book of Nehemiah,

it's a first person account from Nehemiah of God's people getting a fresh

start back in the promised land. Couple things to know about Nehemiah.

Uh, he was an Israelite, so he was a Jew. Uh,

he served a prominent role for the King of Persia.

He was a cupbearer to the king.

What a cup bearer did among other things. Uh,

he essentially tasted all the food and all of the drink before the king actually

ate it or drank it. So not a terrible job, right? You live in royalty, uh,

you eat good food, you drink good wine. Uh, but you,

you kind of are like one of the first lines of defense on the king's security

detail, right?

So as long as there's no one trying to assassinate or poison the king,

you're in a good spot. So good king, it's a good job. You got a bad king,

it's a bad job.

But what you need to know is he had proximity and relationship to the King of

Persia. He was trusted and he had this great job,

but he also had a heart for his people. He had a heart for the people of God.

And so here's what we're gonna do, we're gonna jump into Nehemiah chapter one.

We're gonna look at a fresh start. Here we go. The words of Nehemiah,

the son of Haal. Now,

it happened in the month of his live in the 20th year as I was in

Suse, the Citadel and Hanani,

one of my brothers came with certain men from Judah. So his live, uh,

is the ninth month of the Jewish calendar for us. That would be November,

December, uh, when he says the 20th year, uh,

most likely indicating the 20th year of the rule and reign of King Artis,

Xerxes and Nehemiah's brother, he comes to Sosa in the Persian empire,

really to give a report of what he had seen of God's people back in Jerusalem.

So it goes on, he says,

and I ask them to concerning the Jews who had escaped,

who had survived the exile and concerning Jerusalem.

And they said to me,

the remnant there in the province who had survived the exile is in great trouble

and shame,

the wall of Jerusalem is broken down and its gates are destroyed by fire.

So what you see here is a man who cared enough to ask how his people were doing,

like in the midst of his big, big job in the midst of the, of luxury all around,

he stops and he says, how are my people?

And I wonder,

how many times in our lives do we actually stop and take notice of how the

people are doing in the life in our lives around us? Are we,

are we even actually aware there might be things in our life that aren't what

they should be?

Or are we aware that there's things that are going on in the world around us?

Or are we so caught up and so busy that we actually don't realize it? See,

God's placed us in a specific family.

He's placed us in a specific church family.

He's placed us in a specific community. Do we slow down enough to ask?

So if we wanna align our hearts with guides, and if we need to,

if we wanna see the areas where God would have us, uh, pursue a fresh start,

we've gotta slow down and we've gotta look at the world around us.

And so that's our first point. If we wanna seek God for a fresh start,

we've gotta take inventory of what's going on around us in our lives.

Otherwise we just push through life, man. But we just let life happen to us.

And so ne Nehemiah asks, he says, Hey, what's going on?

And so then his brother tells him the remnant, like,

what's left of our people there? They're in trouble. Uh,

the wall that surrounds the city for protection, it's been destroyed.

And then not only are they in trouble, but he goes on to say,

he says they're in shame. Why would they be in shame?

Because.

As children of God, like this is not the life that they had signed up for,

like in their minds that they've been told they're supposed to be blessed to be

a blessing. This was not their identity. This was not their hope for a future.

And I want you to understand something. When people are in a place of, without,

when they're a pla in a place of brokenness,

there's a level of dignity that gets lost.

And some of you, like you can hear my voice right now, and you're like,

you know, yeah, I, I get it . I'm there right now.

And some of us, man,

we just need to be reminded like there are people around us in our lives,

some of us,

some of them are sitting right beside us in in the comfortable seats wherever we

are, across all of our campuses who are hurting, who were broken.

And I want you to know if that's you, as I told you earlier,

that is not God's heart for his people. We, we,

we have a God who is a God of new beginnings, who's a God of fresh starts.

And so if we want to,

if we wanna pursue these fresh starts that God has for us in our lives,

we've gotta take inventory of what's going on around us.

I want us to look at Nehemiah's response. And I'm gonna tell you right now,

it's the heart of, of truly a godly man. Like of a godly leader.

This is what he says, verse four. He said, as soon as I heard these words,

I sat down and wept and mourned for days.

I continued fasting and praying before the God of heaven.

So neman his heart, it was broken. Uh,

when we actually take the time to do an inventory of what's going on around

us, and we see things in our lives that aren't what they should be,

it should jolt us. Like when I sit down and ask my wife,

so how are things going in our marriage? And she gives me a hard word,

like it will shake me.

Like when we look out around us and we see brokenness and hurting like people

around it, it should jolt us. It should stop us in our tracks.

And so point number two, if we're seeking a fresh start,

if we're trying to align our hearts with Gods for a fresh start in our lives,

we've gotta be broken over our current reality.

Tony Robbins, uh,

he's quoted as saying Change happens when the pain of staying the same is

greater than the pain of change. That's what this tells us,

is we've gotta give ourselves an opportunity to recognize the pain of not

pursuing a fresh start.

Like we've gotta sit in the brokenness. And so I wanna ask you this,

when's the last time that you were actually broken over something in your life?

Like when you look at your own self in a mirror,

like when's the last time you were broken over your own sin? Uh,

when's the last time that you were broken over the fact that your relationship

with God maybe isn't everything that you could, that it could be?

When's the last time you were broken over the impact, uh,

that your church is having in the community? When's the last time you were,

were broken over The truth that at the majority of our campuses on any given

weekend,

it's a normal thing that we actually have to close the doors in our kid city

classrooms and say, listen,

we can't take any more kids right now because we don't have enough vol,

adult volunteers, uh,

to create space for them to come in and hear about the good news and the hope

that we can have in Jesus.

When's the last time that we were broken o over the lack of physical resources,

or even worse, the spiritual deadness of our communities.

There are men and there are women,

and there are students who are in trouble and who are in shame.

Does that lead us to weeping and mourning?

Because it did Nehemiah it also led him to praying, uh, and to fasting.

I want you to look at what he prayed. Verse five, it says, and I said, oh Lord,

God of heaven,

the great and awesome God who keeps his covenant and steadfast love with those

who love him and keep his commandments. Yeah,

I want you to see his confidence in, in who God is and the character of God.

He says, great and awesome God who is faithful to keep his promises.

And then don't miss the last part he says with those who love him and keep his

commandments. Remember what,

what he knew was God's people were in the situation that they were in because of

their disobedience to God. And if we're not careful,

like we can kind of lose sight, especially in today's world, right? Like you do,

you, you do what's comfortable to you.

Like there is an aspect of this to recognize, man,

we need to be faithful to God who keeps his promises to us.

But I also want you to see Nehemiah like He's,

it's clear he's not turning to somebody who, who might be able to rescue them,

who might be able to address the situation. He's saying, no, no, no,

our God is strong. He is able, he's faithful.

He goes on to pray. Verse six, he says,

remember the word that you commanded your servant, Moses,

If you are unfaithful, I will scatter you among the peoples,

which is what's happened, verse nine.

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 where I've chosen to make my name

dwell there. They're your servants and your people who you have redeemed.

Uh, I want you to notice like the brokenness and desperation of his prayer.

This is God. Like I'm praying before you day and night

like this is a big deal to, to Nehemiah. And I'm gonna,

I'm gonna jump back here 'cause listen, pardon me, I jumped to verse eight.

My Bible's highlighted in the wrong color here. This is really important.

I could skip this and go right on and you'd never know. Um,

that's not a good idea for this message. We gotta see this. Verse six, God,

his prayer, he says,

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, the people of Israel,

your servants confessing the sins of the people of Israel,

which have sinned against you, even I and my father's house of sinned.

We have acted very corruptly against you and have not kept your commandments,

the statutes and the rules that you have commanded your servant Moses.

So you see the brokenness there. He saying, man,

I I'm praying day and night over this thing.

And I want you to see the humility that he takes ownership of it himself.

He recognizes their sin has led them to where they are.

Then we get to verse eight.

Remember the word that you commanded your servant Moses saying,

if you are unfaithful, I will scatter you, which he's done.

But if you remain to me,

and if you keep my commandments and do them though your outcast are in the

uttermost parts of heaven, from there,

I will gather them to the place I've chosen to make my name dwell.

There they are your servants and your people whom you have redeemed.

If we wanna seek God for a fresh start,

what you see from Nehemiah is we've gotta turn to God in prayer.

And this might seem obvious, right? Like, yeah, when a fresh start,

we got a God that we're following. Of course, we want to turn to him in prayer.

But I want you to recognize a lot of times when we go to God in prayer is

to say things like, Hey, God, I I need you to gimme the money for the bills.

God, I need you to heal my sickness. And God,

I need you to help me make an a on this test.

I know we've got some college students back over here in the corner. Um, God,

I need you to fix my spouse God, I need you to fix my leadership.

If you're a leader, God, I need you to fix the people that that, that,

that you've called me to, to lead those that are following.

But when you see Nehemiah's prayer,

you can tell he is noticeably aware of two things,

his and Israel's dependency on God for a fresh start. Right? Great almighty God.

You are faithful to fulfill your promises.

He recognizes he needs to turn to God.

He's also aware of his and Israel's role and contributing to the brokenness

around him. Nehemiah recognizes clearly.

He says, you, you're an amazing God. It's you who rescues us.

We need to do that,

but we need to look to an infinite God because when we do that,

our problems and the challenges and the brokenness that we see in our lives,

they pale in comparison to the creator of the universe.

But we gotta see, like Nehemiah, he hasn't even asked God for anything yet.

He humbly recognizes the sins of his people,

of God's people and his own sins are really a part of the problem.

And you gotta be careful here. He, he doesn't say, Hey God,

your people have jacked this whole thing up and so just let 'em be right.

He doesn't say God, your people have jacked this whole thing up.

And so in spite of their foolishness do it. He basically says, God,

we have all played a role in the brokenness that we find ourselves in.

And in humility,

he can confesses his own sins and he confesses sins on behalf of the people.

You know, we see this model in the life of Jesus, right? Like,

this is the gospel. Jesus came to earth, he lived a perfect life.

And if there was anyone who ever lived, you could say, listen, uh,

they can save themselves, or God,

you can come up with another way to save them. I'm,

I'm not paying the price for them. But he didn't,

he humbly went to a cross and with his arms stretched wide, what did he say?

What did he pray? He said, father, forgive them.

They don't know what they're doing. And, and as a church family,

like if we're called to love God and to follow Jesus and to share hope,

like we just have to know what's gonna come and follow in the ways of Jesus.

And I'm telling you right now,

one thing that the world is good at is blaming other people.

One thing the world is good at is not showing ownership over current situations.

Uh, we live in a world that models a lack of ownership. It models blaming it,

it models pointing fingers looking for a scapegoat, gaslighting even canceling.

And, and I wanna tell you hope

that is not the way within the family of God.

And so whether you're a leader, uh, or a follower or a wife or a husband,

or a child or a parent, the way of God's people is to recognize in humility,

we're all part of the problem.

And unless we humble ourselves before God and our lives,

we won't see a fresh start.

And I want you to hear this in love. But,

but one of the greatest obstacles within our lives and within the church

is our own pride.

Two Chronicles seven fourteens. And look, every time I read this verse,

it like punches me in the face. Like this is a verse that like the,

the church of of America,

of the world that might forget that like if we as hope community church and

under our own roofs could get this. Second Chronicles seven 14, it says,

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.

If we wanna seek God for a fresh start, we've gotta turn to God in prayer.

He wraps up his prayer. Verse 11,

let's make sure I'm at the right verse this time. He says, oh 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 and the sight of this man.

What means He talking about? Uh,

what you might not know is Nehemiah is about to go before the king of Persia,

who is the most influential and and powerful man in his known world.

And he's gonna ask for his favor.

And he's gonna ask him to empower him with time and with resources to actually

go help his people get a fresh start. So this is a bold move.

Like this could cost him something. The king could say no,

the king could remove him from a cush job.

The king could take his life if he wanted to,

but Nehemiah was in a place where he'd taken inventory of the situation,

he'd been broken by what was going on around him,

and he'd spent time in humble prayer and it led him to action.

And so the fourth and final point is we, is we wrap this thing up.

If we wanna seek God for a fresh start, we've gotta be willing to act. Um,

I don't know how many of us are out here that have asked God to help us lose

weight, but continue to eat Twinkies at the end of the night.

Like it just doesn't work, right?

Like if you want to see God move and you ask God to move in your life,

you've gotta will be willing to show up. I mean, we ask God,

we take inventory of what's going on around us in our lives.

We sit in the brokenness. We see what we need to change.

We go to God in humble prayer. But unless we actually take a step of faith,

I mean, when David was facing Goliath, yes, he prayed,

but you know what else he did? Like you picked up a rock.

Like we've gotta be willing to get our hands dirty if we want to see change.

Nehemiah wraps up, uh,

chapter one with this one statement.

Now, I was the cupbearer to the king.

And I want you to see that's more than a statement of fact.

That's Nehemiah saying, listen, I I don't know what's gonna happen,

but I know who I am and I know what God's called me to do.

And so with confidence, he says, I am a cup bearer to the king.

We're gonna see over the next few weeks what what plays out throughout the rest

of the story. Um, but as we wrap up this week, uh,

I want us to take a look at, at ourselves. Do you know who you are?

Do you know what God's calling you to in your life?

Do you know the area in your life where you need a fresh start?

And I wonder, man, as we kick off 2025,

like what would happen if each one of us like took what Nehemiah did here in

chapter one and just applied it to our own lives?

Like what would happen in our families? What would happen in our communities?

What would happen in our church? And so this week, I,

I wanna call each and every one of us that can hear my voice and to following

these steps from Nehemiah this week. Number one,

I want us to take an inventory of what's going on in our personal life and our

church in our community. And man,

that might mean you need to ask some people.

'cause sometimes we're always not the best judge of what's going on in our own

lives, you know? And so if you're married, you might need to ask your spouse,

don't fight back. Just listen. You might need to talk to your roommate.

Hey, what are you seeing in my life? What do you think?

I tell you what you wanna make your campus pastors weak?

Go to your campus pastor and say, Hey,

what are some things around here that need some attention that would make this

campus family stronger? And just see what they say. I I, your,

your campus host is gonna come out and tell you later, like, go to next steps.

That's fine. You can go to next steps, but go to your campus pastor.

Secondly, allow yourself to sit in the brokenness of this situation.

And Nehemiah said, he sat and he wept and he mourned for days. Like,

don't just hear it and then move on about your life. Like actually sit in it.

Like, how is this impacting my life? How is this impacting my family?

How is this impacting the world around me?

How is this impacting my church family?

'cause what happens when we sit in it, we realize, man, there, there's hurt,

there's brokenness, there's shame. Third,

I want us to spend time in humble prayer.

Nehemiah said he's, he spent time in prayer day and night

humble prayer. Recognize it doesn't completely depend on us,

right? We look to God, we declare his goodness, his greatness.

We recognize who he is, his character. We recognize that he's faithful.

But then we also spend time

recognizing we've probably played a part in getting where we are.

And so we confess our sins,

confess sins on behalf of those maybe even that are in a situation that we're

going to serve. We spend time confessing maybe, uh,

our own passivity in our own apathy.

And then lastly, I, I wanna challenge us to take a step of faith

Like we gotta act. And I don't know what it is for you, it,

it could be for you personally. It could be like, man, I.

I.

I know that I need a fresh start in my relationship with God.

And so I wanna spend some more time engaging with God in scripture. Um,

if that's you, we have an app. It's called the Hope in Real Life app. We've got,

um, I think it's a 30 day, uh,

journey that we're gonna be walking through scripture together.

It starts January 6th.

So you can download that app and you can walk through that.

If that's a place that you want to grow, maybe it is your physical health.

And if that's you, I would encourage you to take the steps that you need.

Maybe it's engaging your church family. Maybe it's saying, Hey, look,

I I've been around here enough. I just show up, um, on,

on a Thursday night or on a weekend, but I'm not really known.

I don't really know anybody. There's no real way for me to even know needs.

Like I'm, I'm gonna get into a small group, maybe say,

you know what,

it's not gonna happen on my watch that there are young people who are in a time

and a place and a space to hear about the good news in the gospel of Jesus.

And on my watch,

we're not gonna allow them to be limited as to how many kids we can take in Kid

City because enough adults haven't jumped in and said, you know what?

I'll do what it takes.

Maybe it's to give financially and not because it's hope,

but like maybe it's to say, you know what?

It is time for me to take a step to realize everything that I have in my life

has been given to me by God. And I have been blessed to be a blessing.

And so I'm not gonna be a part of a church to just consume.

I'm gonna be a part of the mission and vision and what it is that God wants to

do to advance his work through the ministry of my church family,

our God is a God of new beginnings and fresh starts.

My hope is that as we head into 2025, man,

that this could be a year for all of us personally and for us as a church family

at at Hope, like we've never seen before. I mean,

I believe we can blow the doors off in 2025, but it's gonna take us being,

being aware of what's going on in the world around us.

It's gonna take us actually sitting in the brokenness, recognizing it by,

by praying to the God who actually can change our hearts and actually by taking

steps. Now, If you're here, uh,

and can hear my voice across the knee of our campuses,

if you're driving down the road and listening to this and you think, man, I,

the fresh start thing sounds good. Like I see it in Nehemiah.

I see a guy whose heart was broken for God's people,

but like that probably isn't gonna work for me.

Like I'm too far gone. I've taken all my mulligans already ,

I've taken all my do-overs already.

Um.

I want you to know, over 25 years ago, um,

I showed up to Hope Community Church for the first time. Uh,

the church was about 250 people. Uh,

I think I was the first college student ever, uh,

first college student that had ever been at hope. Uh,

I was in a place in my life.

I was in a relationship that I didn't have any business being in. Uh,

I was involved in a party scene, drugs, alcohol, you name it.

I had just been told I was never gonna be able to wrestle again. Uh,

like had no idea where my, talk about a person who lost their identity.

And week after week after week, I heard our founding pastor say,

it doesn't matter what you've done. It doesn't matter how far you've gone,

it's never too late to turn back to the father that loves you.

And he wasn't talking about behavior modification.

What he was talking about is there is a God who loves you so much that he sent

his son to this earth and he lived this life that you never did live, that you,

you could never live.

And he went to a cross to pay for the penalty of your sins so that you could

have a restored relationship with him.

That's what we just celebrated at Christmas. Jesus coming to earth as a baby,

our God is a God of new beginnings. Our God is a God who can take a, a dried up,

calloused heart and give it new life our God.

It is the same God who can take a troubled shame filled man

like me. And just like Nehemiah said, I'm the cup bearer to the king.

He can take my heart and he can take your heart and he can get us to a place to

where we can stand proudly with our chest out and our head up and say,

I am a child of God. And if that's you,

and if that's the fresh start that you need,

I pray that you will take the steps that you need to take. All that really is,

is just calling on the name of Jesus.

And if you wanna talk to somebody about it,

you can go to our next steps area at one of our campuses.

And I'm sure somebody would love to just tellem us and hey, I want,

I wanna get a fresh start with Jesus. And they love to talk to you about it.

Hey, look, as we wrap up this series, man, we're gonna, again,

I told you we're gonna continue to walk through this book of Nehemiah and look

like and look at what does it look like as you pursue, uh, a fresh start. Uh,

but for now, as we wrap up this week across all of our campuses,

just as a prayer of unity, uh,

I just wanna have us all stand together and I'm gonna pray for us.

And so go ahead just across all of our campuses, if you'd stand to your feet.

Father, I thank you for your word. Uh, I thank you for the truth,

that you are a God of new beginnings and fresh starts.

And I know so many of us are in a place right now that are like, good gosh,

I'm so glad to get 20, 24 behind me.

And some of us might be in a good spot, and then some of us might be like, Hey,

it wasn't just 2024, it was 2023 and 2022 and 2021.

Lord, we thank you that your word is true. Father, I prayed that this week

we would take the time to do inventory in our own hearts.

Lord, what are the areas in our lives that need attention,

whether it's personally for us, whether it's in the lives of others, around us?

Lord, would you allow us to be broken over the things that break your heart?

Would you allow us to recognize the part that we play? Lord,

would we confess our own sin? Would we be so humble,

is to confess the sins on behalf of others? And Lord, would we take a step?

Would we take the step that you have for us in our lives? Father,

I pray that 2025 would be a year filled with favor and blessing.

Lord,

we look forward to what it is that you want to do in our lives personally and

through the lives of all those who call hope, community, church home. Uh,

we love you and we pray these things in Jesus' name and everyone said together.

Amen. Love you guys.