Revival Nights – The Finale

This podcast is presented to you by Pastor Jason Burns and Access Church in Lakeland, Florida.

For more information, visit Access.tv.

Before you have a seat, just two seconds.

I want to say it's so good to be home.

It's so good to be with you guys.

We've been in town just for like, I don't know, 24 hours almost.

And so many of you tonight, it's like a family reunion.

And this moment is precious.

You know, revival nights like this.

A lot of times when I was growing up around church, what happened is you'd bring a speaker in, and the expectation was they're gonna bring the revival.

You're like, all right, man, they're gonna bring some revival.

Like they pack it in a bag or something, you know?

Like, unpack the revival, sir.

Tonight I have one assignment from God, and that was to be soaked in gasoline and get around the fire.

I believe that God's already been doing a revival at Access, and tonight He wants to continue to expand that.

Does anybody agree with that tonight?

I believe He's gonna do something in our hearts.

I want you to do this.

Would you help me honor some of the greatest pastors, the most generous, kind, caring, compassionate people I know?

Pastors Jason and Liz Burns, love you guys.

Mean that.

Thankful that we're friends.

And just for the record, I say all that completely sober.

I do not indulge in uh the stuff of Denver.

Alright, love you guys.

Fist above somebody, you can have a seat right where you are.

Um I want to uh tell my SEU family how much I love you.

So many of y'all are here tonight.

I love you.

I'm glad that you're here.

If you are at Access Church, you call Access Church home, and we've never met, um this is kind of like uh, it's kind of like that moment on a talk show where they're like, and here's your relative, right?

And I don't know what it's gonna be like for you tonight.

This may be like the Oprah, really like cool moment where it's like, here's your uncle, and it's like, oh man, right?

And we love each other at the end of the night, or maybe it's like Jerry Springer.

You know, I don't know.

Some of you are old enough to know what that is.

If you don't know, well, we'll ask you how to work our new iPhone, right?

Um my wife and I did just move to Colorado, and my kids are growing up so fast.

It's funny.

Uh, we've been here for almost 24 hours, and the most asked question is uh we're glad you're here.

Where's Britt?

Um for the record, I'm married to one woman.

She has two names, don't get it the other way around.

Um my wife's name's Brittany, but I call her Britt.

Uh, but I had to show you a picture of my favorite people on the planet, uh, especially my boys, they're growing up.

You gotta check these guys out.

Look, they are suited up.

Three, two, one.

There's a pick, maybe they decided not, uh, because they look so good.

The kids look so good.

Nope, that's not it either.

You faked me out, you suckers.

Um I was like, there it is, but that says revival nights.

Um, anyways, these these kids uh have been having a blast in Colorado, and uh Braxton, who's now 10 years old, uh boom, there it is.

Look at these studs, my goodness.

Uh thank God every day that they look more like their mom.

Um but uh they've been adjusting to all the new things, school and all this, but Braxton's playing football and Grayson's doing jujitsu, which is awesome because he's always in this predicament of like, I want to be a UFC fighter or I want to be a pastor.

And I just tell him all the time, I'm like, dude, choke him out and then raise him from the dead.

It'll be great.

But recently in Colorado, I realized something I didn't know before I moved there, otherwise, I probably would have evaluated the move a little bit more uh in a negotiable pattern with God.

Uh I didn't know that you could measure things negatively.

Um, you don't measure height negatively, you don't measure weight negatively, but apparently if you live in Colorado, you can measure the temperature negatively, okay?

So this past week I realized I moved to a frozen hell, which is uh Denver.

It was negative nine degrees.

No, it's even worse than you thought.

You're like, I'm I got here and it's like 60, and I'm like, woo, it's summer.

This is great.

I was wearing a sleeveless shirt yesterday.

Um but I realized in that negative time, like we had to make the most of it.

And so my wife and I, we decided, okay, we're not gonna hit the roads because there's like snow and ice.

You know, they do, but we know why.

Um but we stayed home and we just decided we were gonna binge read books, right?

And by binge read books, what I actually mean is uh we decided to watch a lot of Netflix shows based on books.

And what we wanted to do is watch what are called limited series.

And here's the reason why.

Because I didn't know how much time we had, and we wanted to be able to get to the ending of it, right?

And it got me thinking on the end of something that a lot of times you don't really know if it's a good movie till the end, right?

You don't know if it's gonna be a good concert to the end.

You don't know if the Dallas Cowboys are gonna be good or not till the to the end.

We always know it's a closer ending than we planned on with Dallas.

Um, but an ending, and it's interesting about the ending because in our life, this is the time of year, especially in January, that we love to celebrate beginnings.

Oh man, we are good in culture at starting things, and we applaud real loud for people.

You're like, I got a New Year's goal, I am going to, and everybody goes, that's awesome! And you talk to them January 17th, National Quit Day, and you find out they're not doing that, right?

You're like, wait, I was applauding you.

Our culture celebrates great starts, heaven applauds great finishes.

Tonight, on the last night of revival nights, on the heels of 21 days of prayer, I want to talk to you about what it looks like to finish, not just start.

See, there's something about having the end in mind that changes the trajectory of what I do here and now.

At 38 years old, I've decided I don't want to get to January 2025 and go, I wish I had done something different.

I want to do it now, not regret that I didn't do it later.

A lot of us, if we're not careful, what we do is we start out strong and then we begin to falter and our trajectory, our race begins to get a little bit difficult, and we just change destinations.

We lower the goalposts, we lower the rim, and we just do things a little bit different.

I decided to do some research recently, and I found out that Bronny Ware, Bronny Ware is famous for going into places where there were terminally ill patients, and she began to research and find out what were the top five regrets of people who were dying.

You're like, that's hopeful.

Glad I showed up on a Wednesday night.

But I think it's important to understand what people regretted on the end so that I can live different in my middle of my life.

One of the first regrets was I wish I'd had the courage to live true to myself.

At the end of life, at the end of it, I wish I wish I'd lived true to myself.

I wish I hadn't played it safe.

I wish I hadn't played to the background of what everybody else wanted from me.

Or I wish I hadn't worked so hard.

See, that's important for those of you who are younger in the room.

Some of you are millennials, and it's important that you take a moment and analyze the regrets of a generation of people who are dying because if we're not careful, we will try to attack what the culture has labeled us as lazy.

We'll end up working so hard we get to the end of our life and go, I missed it.

I didn't spend time doing the right things.

Third regret, I wish I had had the courage to express my feelings.

Or uh fourth, I wish I had stayed in touch with my friends.

Uh number five, I wish I had let myself be happier.

All of these people at the end of their life have these commonalities in regret.

You go, man, James, this is just full of hope.

I feel revived.

Amen.

No.

I want us to realize tonight that on the last night of revival nights, looking at a clear picture of what the end of this year could be or the end of my life could be, I have the opportunity to live different because there are two types of weights in this life.

There's the weight of regret, and there's the weight of responsibility.

See, I could preach this on December 31st, and we would all go, hey, that's not very helpful.

I can't do anything for the next 24 hours that will change my year.

Or you hear this at the end of your life and you go, Yeah, I got the same regrets, but I'm telling you now, because Scripture says in Ecclesiastes 7 and 8, better is the end of a thing than the beginning.

Tonight on the last night, I want to preach from this title, The Finale.

The finale.

What does it look like to live with the end in mind?

You're gonna die.

Feel that?

That's your pulse.

One day it'll fade.

And one day you and I will be left with the opportunity to look back and examine what did we do with this finite portion of our life that will somehow impact the greatest amount of time spent, which will be eternity.

In scripture in the Old Testament, there's this man named Nehemiah.

And in the book of Nehemiah, it starts out in Nehemiah chapter one, and what we find is that Nehemiah is in a place of sadness and mourning.

The context for this book is that the Hebrew people, the Jewish community, the Israelites have been put in exile.

They've been kicked out of Jerusalem.

And now they're in oppression by this other regime, this other government and group of people.

And Nehemiah begins to weep and mourn because the temple for God had been destroyed.

The walls around the city have been destroyed.

And in that day and time, walls were important because they provided protection.

They provided protection from people on the outside and the ability to build up something great on the inside.

Nehemiah sits down in Nehemiah chapter 1 and verses 3 and 4, and he begins to talk about I sat down and mourned.

Nehemiah 1 · chapter mention

Why?

Because I saw they were in great trouble and disgrace.

I start out tonight with the context of Nehemiah so that we can all understand maybe 2024 has already got to the place that you're like, last year was better.

You're already dealing with bills that you didn't plan on, relational fallout that you didn't see coming, obstacles that you were unaware of, and you go, man, I really like the energy of January 1st, 2024.

I'm not really a fan today of January 2024.

I'm ready to get to next year.

Instead of skipping next year, what if we take a moment, we take a note and go, okay, if God could do something with Nehemiah, what does He want to do with me?

Between Nehemiah chapter 1 and the end of Nehemiah, we have Nehemiah chapter 6.

Nehemiah 1 · chapter mention Nehemiah 6 · chapter mention

In Nehemiah chapter 6, something crazy happens.

Nehemiah 6 · chapter mention

They go from they have no wall, they have no city, to Nehemiah chapter 6.

Nehemiah 6 · chapter mention

It says this, and in Nehemiah chapter 6, the wall was complete in 52 days.

Nehemiah 6 · chapter mention

Now I can tell for a moment that we're a little bit sedated by the scripture.

You go, okay, 52 days, that makes sense.

It's God, it's a miracle.

I lived in Florida for several years.

I just came back to town after being on seven months.

They're still working on the same roads that they were working on when I left.

We got modern technology and construction stuff.

These dudes were working with primitive tools, and in 52 days, they rebuilt the entire walls of the city with gates to the city.

I did some research on it and found that it could have been something like two miles in length if you were to straighten it out.

At some points in the wall, it would have been 15 feet thick.

What happens between Nehemiah chapter 1 of I sat down and I wept and mourned because we were in disgrace and in trouble, and Nehemiah chapter 6, and the wall was complete in 52 days.

Nehemiah 1 · chapter mention Nehemiah 6 · chapter mention

I have to take a moment and go, if I don't want to end up with a life of regret, and I want to finish something that I set out to start like Nehemiah did, I have to have a mindset and intentionality for the middle.

Now, a mindset and an intentionality for the middle means I have some idea of what I'll do later.

That no matter the difficulty, the circumstance, or the fallout, I'm willing to pursue this.

So I want to give you four essentials I believe that will help us live a better ending.

What's it like to live a better ending?

You may write this down as what do I want to see at the end of January or the end of 2024?

I get to December 31st, 11.59 p.m.

2024, I want to have a better ending.

Some of us, you go, man, for the end of my life, what do I want it to look like?

I believe there's four essentials that we find between Nehemiah chapter 1 and Nehemiah chapter 6 that absolutely change the trajectory, not only for Nehemiah, but for an entire group of people.

Nehemiah 1 · chapter mention Nehemiah 6 · chapter mention

Nehemiah chapter 2, verse 20, there is this verse.

Nehemiah 2:20

And I gotta tell you, I've hung on to this verse that every time my life has felt that it's been an upheaval or opposition or in transition, I've gone back to Nehemiah chapter 2 and verse 20, and I examine what was the mindset that Nehemiah had.

Nehemiah 2 · chapter mention

It says this the God of heaven will give us success, we his servants will arise and build.

In the midst of destruction, in the midst of attack, Nehemiah has this understanding and this mindset.

Wait, there is a plan and a purpose, and God wants to do something.

I'm gonna commit to this core belief the God of heaven will give us success.

We his servants will rise and build.

I want to break this down into four mindsets tonight.

Before I do that, I just have to take just a moment and ask for permission, okay?

Because I have been a part of Access on the weekends, and Sundays are a little different.

We have a TV out at my table over here.

I would give you a very poignant and poetic proliferation from the scripture.

I would I would just talk through all of the great things from a passage and I would I would have a great rhythm and cadence like that.

Uh I I did ask Pastor Jason tonight for a little bit of permission.

I'll ask you, is I said, hey, would it be okay tonight if I I just went zero to a hundred real quick?

Sorry, that's next gen talk.

If I just straight up preach tonight, can I get a little bit wild tonight?

So I'm gonna ask you guys for the same permission.

Would it be okay if I don't take the time to do some of the cute preacher things and we just preach tonight?

Is that alright?

Okay.

No, I need you to know you just signed up for something that you do not fully understand the outcome of yet, okay?

The first point is simply this the God of heaven, meaning this, God centered.

Putting God at the center of my life.

Nehemiah did not start this passage out.

I, Nehemiah, incredible, gifted, talented, and chosen by God construction worker.

I will build a great wall.

No, he didn't do that.

No, Nehemiah starts out this verse that changes mindset and the trajectory for group of people and said this.

He said, I'm gonna center on God, the God of heaven.

Oh, it's important.

Some of us have already started out our year with a different center.

We started our year out with me instead of God.

Oh, that's tough.

Listen, I need you to know that I've been preaching for almost 20 years.

And sometimes, like, there's this chasm that feels like it's more than four to five feet.

There's this chasm between a seat and a stage where we think that the guy on the stage has all the answers and goes, like, dude, I never struggle with anything I ever read in here.

Let me just tell you something.

I hope it's okay to just be fully authentic tonight.

I read stuff in the Bible that I struggle with.

I read stuff in the Bible I disagree with.

Don't cancel me yet.

The key is this is every time I disagree, the Bible still wins.

Because the Bible is the authority of God.

It is infallible, it is inerrant.

I'm not taking my cues from TikTok or from Instagram.

I have come to understand and discover that if this was true 2,000 years ago and it's still true today, it wins and I don't.

So if God is at the center, then tonight I can't give you inspiration to have more willpower.

I can't give you inspiration to have more self-esteem.

I can't just encourage you to be a better version of you.

Tonight, what I have to do is be honest that this book is not about you.

Forgive me, I love you.

This book ain't about you, it's not about me.

This book is not the roadmap to my happy life.

This this book is not the key to how I can have just a better blank.

This book is the ever-breathing word of God.

It's his word.

Okay, James, I agree with that.

I already know that.

Why are you saying that?

Because too often I put myself at the center of the story and not God.

Nehemiah could have centered himself instead, he centers God.

He's like, no, no, no.

Despite the problems and the purpose, God's still in the middle.

I have no problem putting God in the middle of my problems, but when it turns into purpose, I want to get back in the center.

I decided to break this down for you at what I think we put at the center.

And I needed to just take just a moment and break this down.

There are often things that we put at the center that are different.

Sometimes we put ourselves at the center, and this is what it creates.

It makes us insecure.

Self-centered leads to insecurity.

Whew! Nobody breathing in the room.

Just don't move, don't blink, don't do nothing.

It's not me.

I'm not self-centered.

You know what we do in culture when somebody's insecure?

We encourage them.

We actually encourage people to be honest about insecurity.

Somehow say they're insecure, like, I'm insecure about my shirt.

No, that's an amazing shirt.

I love that shirt.

Where did you get it from?

You actually hate the shirt.

But in our culture, somehow we've been wired to encourage people out of insecurity.

Maybe what we need is not to be encouraged out of insecurity, but to take ourselves out of the middle, put him in the middle.

I find security and safety when God's at the center and not me.

Because if I put myself in a position I wasn't meant to be, I will be insecure about the outcome and about my purpose in the middle of it.

Sometimes it's not that you need to change the thing or move the thing.

You just need to get out of the middle and put him back there.

Before I go on in these centers, you can leave them up.

Because you're already self-diagnosing where you belong.

I'll give you a moment to breathe through that.

When I was younger, we used to go to playgrounds and they were real playgrounds, not with like the bouncy turf that looked like grass but wasn't, you know, so safe, nobody gets sued.

I went to playgrounds that were so rusty and messed up that if you got cut, you went to the ER and you got a tetanus shot.

Like they were checking you for TB and everything else, right?

Mama's like, I don't know what you got at the playground, baby.

We gotta figure this out, right?

There was a couple of things that we had the merry-go-round, right?

And it had no speed limit, bro, at all.

Like you could wind that thing up and just take people for a spin.

Your favorite thing to do was this.

You ran, somebody tried to hang on, and you're like, How far can I launch them?

Talk about hard launch, safe launch, right?

It's off launch, you're boom, gone, right?

Or you are you have like uh the jungle gym, you do all these different things, but there was one that every single playground had.

It was the up and down, it was called the seesaw, 100%.

You know, right?

Because what did you love to do?

You would sit on one side, put somebody up in the air.

Boom, you let them fall, right?

You love to be in that position.

And what's funny is the seesaw can be a little bit how life feels.

That we think we're in control when I sit down and you go up, or you sit down and you go up.

I think one of us is in control, but actually the greatest point of force that carries the most weight is something called the fulcrum, and it's at the center.

Because whatever's at the center controls the most power.

See, when I put myself at the center, I'm controlling all the outcomes.

I'm responsible for everything that takes place when God's at the center, up and down, it doesn't matter.

I know that I'm safe and he truly has good plans for my life.

Well, if it's not me at the center, I can become look centered.

Look centered, I'll be unsatisfied.

Oh man, I hate this one.

I hate this one.

Because for my entire life, I've struggled with body image.

Now, a lot of dudes don't talk about this.

I've struggled with how I eat, what I eat, my weight, my entire life has fluctuated.

I can remember early on, uh, I never forget mom would make a dozen cookies, maybe two dozen.

I smashed the whole pan, man.

I mean all of them, right?

They let me join this the swim team.

I never forget the embarrassment putting a speedo on, going out there.

I got most buoyant that year.

It was awesome.

Um K to laugh.

Laugh through the pain.

Um when I was around 11, I began to get severe acne.

I would have knots on my head this big.

I would actually have to go to a dermatologist, and they would cut open portions of my face and put medication in because my face was so broken out, and they were trying to prevent as much scarring as possible.

My entire life, I struggled with the way I looked.

Now, what's easy to do is to sit on the stage and then God conquered it when I was 17.

Praise God.

We celebrate stories that have long-ago testimonies.

No, I I'll be honest with you.

I still have to slay that that dragon today.

I'll put on a shirt and go, gosh, I just feel I feel fat and I feel like I got this thing, and don't turn sideways in the camera because look at that, you know.

I'm not careful, I do that.

And here's here's why we know from God's word that we have to change our mindset and put God at the center and not even our looks at the center.

Here's the reason why it's a temptation.

We go all the way back to the story of.

David in scripture.

And a man of God named Samuel who went to pick the king of Israel and began to do it based on outward image.

Whenever the group of people got together, the Hebrews, and they said, We can't connect with God the way we want, we'll just create an image and we'll celebrate the image.

Images become the idol of our culture today.

And if we aren't careful, we'll work so much on the outside.

Don't forget God wants the center of the inside.

Tonight, if you feel unsatisfied with image, I'm not saying anybody in here is imperfect.

I'm saying all of us are imperfect.

And we need a perfect God at the center.

So if it's not image and how I look, it'll be failure centered.

It'll be I'm always focused on the thing I didn't get right, I'll live my life discouraged.

If I'm other centered, I'll live competitive.

Every time you're blessed, you decide whether or not the blessing was good based on what somebody else got.

You got a bonus, you got a raise, you got a car, you got a thing, your neighbor got something better, and you're like, oh God, would you do it again but more, right?

Or problem-centered.

And I live my life despondent.

Nehemiah did three things that were so key.

When Nehemiah gave God the center, he did these three things.

He removed, he revealed, he remembered.

That's that's part of what we do.

There's this spiritual practice called fasting, you may have heard of.

Part of what happens in fasting is I remove something from my life that's ordinary so that I can give God room to do the extraordinary.

In that, he reveals.

So in Nehemiah, what we see is there's this entire passage where he says, Okay, God, we're gonna do this thing.

I'm gonna align with your word and I'm gonna reveal.

He begins to repent out of the scriptures.

He repents for all the wickedness of Israel.

What he could have done is blame God that they were in exile.

Instead, he goes, God, I know that we're here because of our own sin, and I reveal that and I repent.

When I put God at the center, I remove some stuff, I reveal some things, but then the beauty is this: I remember.

Nehemiah remembers that God is faithful and that God always keeps his promises.

The reason that's important is when I remember God, he remembers me.

He puts me back together.

So all the things that I centered my life on that are now fractured and they're messed up, all I need to do tonight is go, God, I remove those things from my life, I reveal the areas that I need to repent, and you put me back together because I remember that you're faithful.

Number two, we gotta live faith-focused.

Faith focus.

The God of heaven will give us success.

Oh, this is a crazy statement.

Like we read this and go, yeah, Nehemiah, because you already know Nehemiah chapter 6.

Nehemiah 6 · chapter mention

Nehemiah's still living in Nehemiah chapter 2 on the hills of Nehemiah chapter 1, which is in the middle of 92 years of misery.

Nehemiah 2 · chapter mention Nehemiah 1 · chapter mention

In 92 years of misery, Nehemiah says, God's gonna give us success.

What?

Like if I had heard Nehemiah praying, I'd have been like, hey man, insert that part if it's his will.

God of heaven will give us success if it's your will, Lord.

That's what we do.

That's the that's the level of faith prayers we pray, right?

We're like, God, if it's your will, you'll do it.

And God's like, it's my will, you do it.

No, no, no.

If it's your will, Lord, you do it.

You got this, God.

And he's like, I gifted you, I called you, I purposed you, I picked you, do it.

If it's your will, Lord.

He's saying, It's my will.

Like God's already laid out his will, which was to create a place for this group of people to be able to worship him and for him to provide for them.

So Nehemiah says, He's gonna give us success.

The God of heaven will give us success.

We as servants will arise and build.

I want to break it down this way.

We all have two types of faith in this room.

And a lot of us go, okay, it's good.

I know where he's going.

Big faith or little faith.

Okay, I'm ready.

But he's had faith of a mustard seed.

So if he says little faith, I got him because that's a little bit and it's enough.

No, no, no.

We have two types of faith.

One of them is just spelled differently.

We have faith and we have fear.

Because fear is just faith and something else.

Faith is simply fear and something else.

See, fear is this.

Fear is what if?

What if?

What if somebody gets elected this fall?

Move on.

You know what?

Somebody just thought they're like, he moved to Denver.

We need to check in and see how things are going.

What if someone's talking about what if the economy?

What if inflation?

What if the doctor's report?

What if?

What if is the language of faith and fear?

What if something happens?

Nehemiah has a lot of what ifs in front of him.

But Nehemiah has faith.

And fear is what if, faith is even if.

Oh, even if.

Even if.

Oh, come on.

For a moment, what would it look like?

The same thing that you have what if and faith and fear about.

What if it was even if?

I got faith in God.

If he takes me to a sea that they call red and it's a body of water that we got across, it's okay.

Even if he doesn't, he'll split it.

Oh, there's a giant in front of me.

Even if he takes me to the battlefield, he'll slay that giant.

Even if he takes me to the walls of Jericho, they gotta fall.

Even if he puts me in a lion's den, he'll close the mouths of the lions.

Even if I end up in a fiery furnace, he'll bring me out.

I wish somebody on a Wednesday night in Lakeland, Florida, had a little bit of even if in them.

Let me make it real.

Some of y'all in this room, even if the divorce papers are filed, God's not done yet.

Even if the doctor's report said XYZ, I serve a God who's Jehovah Rapha, the God who heals.

Even if my mind is full of anxiety and depression, I serve a God who's Jehovah Shalom, even if I got peace in the middle of crisis.

Oh no, no.

Faith, faith is not crazy.

Faith is contagious.

Faith is I got around somebody who walked through a season and said, Oh, no, no, no, I gotta tell you.

I just heard about your doctor's report.

Can I tell you when I have mine?

And what God did, he healed my body.

That gives me just a little bit of room to go, what well, if he did it for you, he could do it for me.

What's the even if?

What is the thing that the enemy wants to do to change the trajectory of your life?

And if he can get you looking at fear long enough, that's what you'll focus on, and that's what you'll run to.

I don't want to spend my entire life avoiding the things that the enemy sends at me instead of pursuing the thing God has for me.

Even if I told Pastor Jason I was wrestling because I have been in the season of prayer and fasting and specifically for you guys, and this night I believe that God kept stirring up in my hearts that marriages are under attack.

And listen, I'm not speaking this uh globally.

We know there is a crisis.

I'm talking about in Access Church.

I said, man, I I'm dealing with this thing.

I feel like the Holy Spirit keeps making me a little bit uncomfortable in this.

If that's you tonight, I need you to know this.

Nothing else.

God sent me here to say this.

I don't know what has happened.

Even if it happened, God is still with you in the middle of your trial.

Listen, listen, listen.

Don't preach me for a second.

Because just for a moment, I just need to do a little bit of this.

I don't know what happened.

I don't know what the hurt is.

I don't know.

But I believe the God of heaven, who we know to know everything, brought it up in my heart so that tonight, if nothing else, you would know that He is still the God of each other.

He sees the pain, he sees the discouragement, he sees the division.

Please hear me.

There's never been a broken thing.

God couldn't.

I'm gonna ask you to do something a little abnormal.

And you're not a normal church.

Do you guys know this?

You're not a normal church.

That's why I get to come and hang around, right?

He's like, I told Pastor Jason, I said, you look around this room like that's not normal.

Like I've been going for seven months, and I get in this room and I go, dude, this isn't normal.

It's Wednesday night.

You're not normal.

So I'll do something that's not normal, and it's fine because we're not.

There we go.

Here's what I need to do.

I can we as a body of believers, whether you attend this church or you're visiting as the global church, can we take just a moment?

I want to pray for those who there's marriages struggling.

And if that's you, um, if you feel comfortable, would you just hold your partner's hand?

God, I thank you.

That you're not just the God that loved the whole world, you're the God that loved every individual in the world that you created.

That you divinely see throughout time and history and space.

You are beginning, you are end, but you choose to be right here in the middle.

I pray for my friends that are dealing with a mountain of hurt, of trauma, of pain.

Some of them, their mind spins all night about the things that have happened and the what if it happens again.

I want to love them, I want to embrace them, but what if they hurt me again?

What if they, God, I pray tonight in a way that only you could, God, would you begin to reunite, remend, put back together the ones, God, that have felt so broken and shattered.

There's never been anything, God, that you could not heal or restore.

And I pray tonight you begin to do that in this room.

We thank you for it in Jesus' name.

Everyone said, Amen.

I want to give you a list of things tonight because I say that about even if and what if, and then we go, Amen, and then you're gonna go home and you're gonna go like, but what did Nehemiah face?

So I made a list for you.

Nehemiah faced criticism in Nehemiah chapter 4, verse 1 through 3.

Nehemiah 4:1–3

He faced discouragement in 4, verse 8, fatigue in 4.10, frustration in 4.10, fear in 4.11, division in 5, 1 through 5, distractions in 6.2, and defamation in 6.6.

He faces defamation about the wall in the same chapter that we read and celebrated that he completed the wall.

And he had a response in Nehemiah 6.3.

And I wish some of you would just make this your forehead tattoo for 2024.

So I sent messengers to them with this reply I'm carrying on a great project and I cannot go down.

Why should the work stop while I leave it and go down to you?

Some of you need to just tell people, nah, boo-boo, I ain't got time to explain God's plan to you this year.

If he called me up for it, I'ma keep going with it.

Period.

Why?

Because you can be with me or not.

I'm gonna still be here because I got an even if spirit.

Tap your neighbor and say, even if.

Even if.

Come hell or high water, even if I know he's with me, and if he's with me, I know he's for me.

Number three is this is Nehemiah states the God of heaven will give us success.

We his servants.

Nehemiah decided to have the heart of a servant.

This is a slave who's been in captivity.

If he only leaned into his past, he would have a rejection issue with the word servant.

He would want to go, oh no, I've overcome my past.

Make me a ruler with Christ, make me a ruler with God.

I want to be a king.

And yet he chooses the highest title in the kingdom of God, which would be called servant.

He says the God of heaven will give us success.

We as servants will arise and build.

How many of you would just be honest enough?

I'm not gonna like point you out and ask you what you did, but how many of you go, like, I made some New Year's goals, resolutions, dreams for this year?

Just wave at me real quick.

Okay, if you didn't raise your hand, you're lying, and every time you lie in church, a unicorn dies, so don't do that.

Wave at me.

Okay.

A lot of us do that.

As I got ready to do my list this year, I had a moment where I was like, uh-oh.

Wait a minute.

If God does everything on my list, that really benefits James.

I mean, it'd be great.

I can get at the end of the year and be like, look what God did for me.

It's like, oh, praise God for you, brother.

But a servant always has a heart, it's not just me, it's we.

What would it look like this year?

And this would be easier to preach.

Can I just tell you, like, if I want to pull a real preacher move on you right now, here's what I do.

I'd be like, I'd be like, you know what?

This is your year.

It's gonna be your best year ever.

I'm telling you, you're the head and not the tail, you're the above only and not beneath, the first and the last.

I'm telling you, right?

Some of you are like, amen, I like that.

Like, go ahead.

What if this year is not the year of your come up, it's the year of your stoop down.

What if it's that year?

What if this is the year where it's like, wait, wait, no, this ain't my year, it's their year, and I'm gonna help them see it happen.

What if this is the year that I'm dedicated to the house of God in such a way that all the things that God wants to do through me benefits his kingdom and not mine?

Ooh.

My son Braxton, when we moved to Colorado, I was really trying to do stuff to connect.

When I was a kid, what you would do is you would go to the store and you would just buy like a football or a baseball, something really cheap, and it meets your budgetary restrictions, you know, real budget friendly.

Like, you got a baseball.

Yay! And you spent time with that.

Not now.

No, you'll do it now, you gotta get a game system and you gotta get a headset, right?

So I'm like, all right, I'm gonna get a game system, I'm gonna play with my kids, it's gonna be great.

So I'm playing with my kids, and then I hear my son start throwing out this lingo, and it throws me off, y'all.

He's like, he's like, oh dad, that guy's AFK.

I was like, ooh, son, uh, real quick, uh, you know, we love the Lord and we don't, I don't know what that means.

So, Dad, it means he's away from the keyboard.

I was like, oh, okay, well, you can say that, son, that's okay.

Just really run that by me next time.

And then a little while later on, you know, we're playing and he goes, yo, man, go touch grass.

I was like, no, son, I know we moved to Denver, but like, we not a grass-friendly family, like, we're not into that.

No, Dad, it means he needs to go outside and play.

Oh, then you can say that, son.

That's okay.

Yeah, man, go touch grass, you know.

I'm like learning all this stuff, right?

I'm I'm old, y'all.

All right.

But then he started doing this.

He's like, he would be playing, he would tell these people, like, oh man, you're an MPC.

I was like, hey man, real quick, son, we need to talk about that.

Uh, where'd you hear that from?

That really sounds bad to me.

He's like, Dad, this means they're non-primary character, non-player character.

I was like, don't fully understand it, but it seems logical.

Okay, great.

And then it made me think about this cultural colloquialism where we talk about main character, right?

You hear people say it's giving main character.

I don't know what it's giving, but fine, right?

Main character.

You can't live your life serving if you're the main character.

It's about what everybody does to serve you.

On the job, it's about how generous your boss is.

It's about how good they are to you.

You equate the quality of the job God blessed you with based on what they do for you.

You'll come into access church, oh man.

I know mess you up.

Online, I love you.

I probably disappeared for a little bit.

Y'all come into access church?

If you're not careful, this is what you do.

Or your church, wherever you're attending from, your pastor's gonna love this part, I promise.

Take this on, take notes, make it a next tattoo.

You come into church, you sit here, you know, you you maybe you well, y'all did that?

Y'all stayed with me?

Y'all good.

All right.

That must be Ian.

Y'all uh you come into church, maybe if you feel like worshiping that day, that's a good day, didn't fight on the way to church, maybe you give the one hand.

Maybe two, you're really feeling it today, right?

And then you like sit down and uh somebody does like the offering part, you're like, this is a great time to be on my phone, check Instagram, you know, scroll through for a minute.

Message happens, maybe you take a couple of notes, you're a little bit distracted, you're ready to go to lunch.

It was long today.

I need to go.

I want to hit brunch at first watch.

Can't even get a reservation, gotta get on the wait list once you get there.

Wrap it up, okay?

Give God a praise.

Amen.

And then I'm out, and somebody goes, How was church today?

And you say, I mean, if you go to Access, you say, great.

But your judgment of how the church service went is all based on what the church did for you.

Did he preach the word I wanted?

It better not be too good, because if it challenges me, he was just a little abrasive today.

I just don't, I feel like he was in his flesh.

No, no, no.

His spirit met your flesh.

And that's why you feel that way.

Because a submitted son or daughter to a house loves a gentle rebuke because better the rebuke of a friend than the kisses of an enemy.

I'm sorry, I know I didn't get permission.

How was worship today?

Well, you know, they sang that song.

They just, it's like every three weeks, we gotta sing that one again.

I mean, my goodness, we're not Mav City.

What did the church do for?

Now, I can say this in this house because so many of this church serve with our kids right now.

You know those people that are missing out right now, they're missing out on the revival, right?

No, just be clear, they're not missing out on the revival.

He said, stuff with the little children to come under me.

Oh no, they're living a revival, raising up a generation of revivalists.

What would it look like if I equated church based on how much I served?

I promise you nowhere in my notes, I apologize.

This is, I just think maybe.

Thank you.

What if, hey, how was church today?

Man, I got to open the doors for people.

I saw so many guests that had never been to church for the first time, and today they got some hope and a little bit of hope from our church.

Oh, I got to brew the coffee.

Do you know how many people come to the early service and usually they're sleepy?

I double caffeinated today they were worshiping.

It was so good.

What if I base church on based on my contribution, not my consumption?

See, if I live servant-hearted, it'll take me from main character to just support and cast.

I'll end up when they give out the Grammys just as the footnote is a footnote.

I just want to be a footnote in this kingdom.

Nehemiah was a cupbearer in Nehemiah chapter 1.

Nehemiah 1 · chapter mention

In Nehemiah chapter 6, he's a successful construction worker.

Nehemiah 6 · chapter mention

Because a servant says, I'll serve, we're gifted and we're needed.

Wherever the kingdom needs me.

What does the Lord need?

That's where I want to be.

I dare some of us to take from this revival not what did I get, but a mentality of what will I give.

There's this there's this law called Hebs Law, and I'm shortening it to Heb's Law because I think the other name is like Heblian, and you'll have to ask Dr.

Steiner, he can give you the actual research on this, but it's something called neuroplasticity, okay?

Neuroplasticity states this that neurons that fire together wire together.

And you guys, some of you are like, nerd, right?

Okay.

Now it's important because scripture says that you can be transformed by the renewing of your mind.

If anybody's ever told you that science and scripture are in conflict, no, they're not.

Science is just finally catching up to scripture.

When it's in conflict, they ain't caught up yet.

That's my thing, right?

Okay.

So Hebs Law states that neuroplasticity, that the mind can be re-rewired and refired.

It also states this that sometimes my body doesn't know the difference between me giving love or receiving love.

Okay, I'm tracking.

What if this year the thing you wrote down that you needed, you gave away?

What if the renewing of your mind re-engineered you to not be a selfish Christian which doesn't even exist into a servant-hearted kingdom builder?

And I go, wait a minute, my mind is being renewed.

I now receive as much joy from wait, it's almost as if there's a verse.

Some really smart people, what is it?

It's like, better to give than receive.

Thank you.

Right?

Phone a friend.

Better to give than to receive.

A servant is catching up to the fact that I actually get more out of this thing when I'm a part of this thing.

I wish there was a QR code right now I could tell you to sign up to serve with kids.

Why?

Because I believe that this year could be your best year ever if this year is not about you.

I don't want to be the main character.

I found that in this book that if you go to Hebrews and you get to the Hall of Faith, the Hall of Fame, it's a bunch of knucklehead, broken servants that God used to build his kingdom.

I just want to end up as a servant.

The fourth point, I've gone too long and I'm wrapping up, is this I want to live future oriented.

He said.

The God of heaven will give us success.

We his servants will arise and build.

We will arise and build.

Now, this is great because at this point, what we recognize is it starts with God.

The God of heaven.

God, in all of his magnitude and magnificence and all that he does, man, God is so big.

The God of heaven, he's gonna give us success.

That's awesome! We as servants, I'm included, will arise and build.

There's something in front of me left to do.

Tonight's not just a celebration of if God brought you to it, God'll get you through it.

No.

Tonight is going, wait, the God of heaven wants to deposit a little bit of faith in my life so that I move forward towards the finish line and destination that he has for me.

Five regrets they found of all these terminally ill people that were common.

If you notice, they all serve the same.

I wish.

I wish I had.

I wish I had, I wish I had.

Future orientation says, I will.

I will build a different life.

I will build for something better.

I'll build for something different, brick by brick.

God, as you see fit to use me, I'm gonna serve you in your kingdom and build towards the destiny that I believe you called me to.

But I wonder how many of us will get to the end of this year, look back, and it feels just like last year.

This year, man, we partied for New Year's Eve.

I mean, we went crazy, y'all.

My wife and I and our two boys, we played Mario Kart till 10:45.

And then I remembered that you can pull up a fake uh uh New Year's Eve celebration early.

We celebrate 11 in my house and send y'all to bed.

It's like, come on, we're gonna open some martinellies, yay, and go to bed.

Alright?

Next year, I'm gonna record it and play it at 8 o'clock.

Great.

Got to the end of the year.

I mean, there's been movement and transition.

My year's not exactly the same.

But is it different?

Am I different?

Is my mentality different?

Is my purpose different?

Am I further along in my spiritual journey?

Or have I kind of repeated some of the same sin cycles and patterns?

And I've kind of just gone like, ah, I'm more addicted to grace for forgiveness than grace for future.

Am I just living repetitive?

Because if I live every year that way, I'll get to the end of my life, and some of you, you're 50, but if you're honest, you're 25.

25 times.

You've just been living the same year.

You've had the same struggle for the last 25 years.

Since you were 25, you've been saying, This is the year I quit that addiction.

For 10 years, you've been saying, This is the year we go to counseling.

For five years you've been saying, and you keep repeating it, I don't want to get to the end of this life and be a hundred.

Long life, Lord.

And go, I'm really just 30.

I just kept doing the same things.

I kept just walking around the same problems.

I said, I want to live a life that progresses.

Let me get let me get that.

I I grew up in Alabama.

Anyone in here from Alabama?

I mean, you ain't gotta be scared of it, ma'am.

Like, we got the greatest football team in the history of college sports, and we can only celebrate it for a little longer.

Roll tie.

If you say we're eagled, God, we just rebuke the enemy.

There's gator fans in here, like you still can't talk.

All right.

Y'all got Tim Tebow, praise God.

Lord, thank you.

But I grew up in Alabama.

You know this is true.

In Alabama, like, every dude's got like a toolbox and a tool belt.

And in my my family, I gotta be real with y'all, like, my wife is way more handy than I am.

Like, she's amazing.

My wife's got like toolboxes on toolboxes.

Like, this is what she wanted for Christmas.

She wanted a table saw.

I was dumb enough.

I said, why you wanna make tables?

And then I thought I was like, You can't have a table saw because the neighbor will see the table saw, and they're gonna ask me, hey man, what are you sawing?

And I'm like, I don't know, right?

It's my wife's.

My wife's got all these tools.

Literally, for me, I got like hammer, I got the pointy screwdriver, I got the straight screwdriver, and then I got the uh fake scissors thing, I got that, right?

What do you call them?

Pliers, fine, whatever.

I got all that stuff.

But every Alabama boy's got two things.

Number one, you gotta have some duct tape, ball.

Duct tape will fix anything.

Oh, duct tape will fix my boots, seal my boat, oh, I you gotta have duct tape.

Duct tape will fix anything.

You got duct tape, and then if you're an advanced Alabamian, you got WD-40.

Squeaks or leaks, it'll fix it.

Come on, boy.

It sounds crazy.

I'll be honest, I've seen this around for years.

All I know is if the door creaks, right?

I just found out it makes stuff dirty recently.

I didn't even know that.

I thought it was one of those air compressors for a minute.

Turns out it ain't.

WD-40.

You know what's crazy?

This is one of the least creative names for a brand I've ever seen in my life.

Some of y'all are like, who's WD?

No.

WD-40 is actually the patent filed that secures this product.

W D-40 simply states that it's water displacement, the 40th formula.

Boring.

That could have helped.

I'd have been like, links and squeaks, 3,000, you know?

W D-40.

Water displacement to the 40th formula.

What seems boring to us is actually pretty profound.

And maybe even for some of us prophetic.

It simply states this.

We tried it for 39 times and it didn't work.

But on the 40th try, it worked.

You don't get it yet.

I don't care how many years you've been trying, that you've been planning, that you've been pursuing, that you've been praying, you may be on number 39.

And I dare you this year to say, I'm not giving up till it's done.

If God's not perfected everything in your life, don't you give up this year?

It may feel like last year, but I'm on 38.

I'm ready for 39.

Because when I get to 40, he gets the glory.

I wish some of us tonight would make a holy decision to say, I'm not gonna stop now.

I'm not.

Is it where you believe it should be yet?

Don't stop.

Don't stop because it's not bad.

Don't stop just because it's good.

I want to get to the end.

And I want to be able to say what Paul wrote to the Philippians church in Philippians chapter 1 and verse 6.

Philippians 1 · chapter mention

Being confident.

Everybody say confident.

Oh, I love that you said this.

Some of us need to get our confidence back.

Here's how we get it.

Being confident of this, that he who began a good work.

Come on, somebody say good work.

In me will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus.

I'm in process, I'm a product, being perfected for his purpose.

And I believe that tonight he wants to begin to complete that which concerns him.

I'm gonna ask you all over this building.

It's not normal.

I'm gonna ask you to stand with me right now.

We're gonna do something a little bit different tonight.

Because I believe that what has risen up tonight, oh, it's not inspiration.

Inspiration, that'll get you to like Thursday.

Thursday at noon.

Inspiration, like we get addicted to it.

Then you gotta go find the next podcast and the next song and let me get inspired again.

It's not motivation, it's not clever words.

I believe it's been the Holy Spirit that has been in this place speaking to you tonight that wants to build your faith because God always meets it at its level of expectation.

Wait, wait, wait.

You mean God could do something?

You mean my marriage doesn't have to be done?

You mean he can still work that thing out?

You mean that addiction could go away?

You mean he still wants to call me and use me in spite of my brokenness?

No, not just in spite of it, but he'll use it.

Your pain is connected to your purpose.

I think tonight what's happening in you is faith rising up.

The God of heaven will give us success.

We as service will rise in, build future-oriented.

What if we, as God's people, don't live on our heels any longer?

But get on our toes and go, I'm gonna be ready to pursue what God has for me.

I'm gonna give an invitation tonight in just a moment.

Here's what's gonna happen.

I'm gonna pray, and I'm gonna pray for two groups of people.

I'm gonna have every head bowed and every eye closed.

I want you to know ahead of time.

First group of people is this is you're here tonight.

You go, James, honestly, somebody bribed me to come to church.

They said I'd go to Grill Smith after if I came.

I didn't even know I believed in this, but you talked about how God could take broken things and make them new again.

And man, I'm there.

Listen, the answer is not try harder, it's trust him.

And tonight you get to trust Jesus.

He is the one who came and sacrificed everything so that one day you could be reconciled to God, so the God of heaven could begin to do something in your life to give you a different future and a different purpose.

I'm gonna give you an opportunity to say yes to him.

The second group of people, you're following Jesus, but tonight you know it's time to build, it's time to do something about it.

And we're gonna raise our hand and you're gonna think that's the end, and you're gonna be ready to go home.

But tonight, for some of y'all who are a little bit different, and you need something a little bit different, here's what we're doing: we're gonna open this space.

We could call it a response, we can call it a lot of things.

Old school, what you call this area, you would call it the altar.

Now we think that's just church tradition, it's biblical tradition.

The altar was a place of great exchange.

It's where I took something that would be dead and received new life.

Tonight, what I want to do after I pray for you, I want you to know I'm gonna say now.

And when I say now, here's what you're gonna do.

You're gonna meet me down here, and we're gonna pray.

Prayer team.

Prayer team.

We got a prayer team, amen.

Glad I was about to appoint one.

Prayer team, I'm gonna ask you while I'm praying to prepare.

They're gonna pray for you.

Here's what they're gonna pray they're gonna agree with you that the faith, even if that God's gonna take your dead, broken thing and exchange it for a new life.

As comfortable as you feel, share with them.

Hey, for my marriage, for my kid who ran away, for my job, it's going away.

I need God to provide something new.

He's provider, he's healer, he's miracle worker, he's the God that brings prodigals home.

That's who he is.

Tonight you shape dead for life.

Are you ready?

Listen, I don't care where you are in the room, you may be in the bathroom right now.

And I'm not being funny.

If God's speaking to you, you get down here.

If you're in the lobby, wherever you are, when I say now it's for you.

Are you ready?

Heads bowed all over this room.

I ask you to close your eyes.

First of all, you're here.

God loves you, and tonight you say, I want to say yes to Jesus.

I don't understand the whole Bible, but I know tonight I want to give my life to him, and I need him.

Tonight you didn't find him, he finally found you and caught up with you, and it's his love.

He's not judging you based on your brokenness.

He wants to heal you right where you are.

If that's you on the count of three, would you just slip your hand up and I'm gonna pray for you?

Ready?

One, two, three, right where you are.

Oh wow, I see you, I see you, I see you, I see you.

Come on, I see you.

You can raise that boldly.

I see you, I see you.

Come on, my goodness.

Hey church, can we just celebrate those decisions real quick?

That's amazing.

Wow, that's revival.

That death comes to life.

It's not good people or bad people, we're all dead people.

That he brings to life.

Eyes are still closed.

You're following Jesus, but tonight you know it's time.

I'm it's time to build.

I'm not looking back anymore.

I'm not going back to 2023.

I'm not gonna live with the weight of regret.

I will live under the glorious weight of faith and responsibility.

And tonight I'm ready to build again.

I need God's power.

I need to change some dead things for some life.

That's you.

On the count of three, would you raise your hand?

One, two, three.

Yeah, I see you, I see you, I see you.

Hands are raised.

I'm asking production and everyone, bow your head, close your eyes.

If you're a marriage and your hands raised, would you just wave it at me gently?

I see you, I see you, I see you, I see you, I see you.

Wow, okay, God is good.

You can put your hands down.

I'm gonna pray, and then we're gonna respond.

Prayer team move.

God, I thank you that you're in this place.

You inhabit the praises of your people.

Praise is a place where we do what Pastor Jason said.

We make you big, and then we receive from your miraculous work the life that you long for us.

God, tonight we repent of putting ourselves in the center and we put you back at the center.

For my friends who are choosing for the first time or the first time in a long time to say yes to you, your will, your plan for their life.

I'm thankful tonight they find not just new life for here and now, but life with you forever.

I pray that they would never be the same.

And for those of us who are your followers tonight, we commit to not stop.

We commit that tonight is the night that we build for a different future, a blessed outcome, a purpose-filled call from you.

I pray that tonight in this place, destinies are altered, lives are changed, and legacies are forever submitted.

We pray all of this in the name above every name, the name of our hope and liberating king in Jesus' name.

Amen.

Now, if that's you, move.

Don't wait for your neighbor, don't wait for your friends.

If you raise your hand, that's you.

We want to pray for you tonight that God would meet you at a place of greatest faith.

Church, can we celebrate as people move and faith?

That's a big deal.

Come on, you got safe.