Josh Howerton - Reigniting the "IT" Factor of Faith (01/12/2026)
Summary:
In this launch of a new series on Nehemiah titled "Getting It Back," the preacher defines "it" as the indefinable presence and anointing of God on a person, family, church, or nation. Drawing from Israel's history and Nehemiah's burden, the message explains how blessing can lead to pride, sin, and loss of God's presence—but revival begins with one person humbling themselves in grief over sin and God's purposes, then praying fervently. The sermon celebrates recent church plants and calls the congregation to the upcoming "Encounter" event for collective renewal.
Good Morning and Celebration of Church Plants
All right, well, good morning! Like my family, hey, the Dallas Cowboys play football today, y’all! Today it happens, today, and that’s all. All right, well, if you guys have your Bibles, head over to Nehemiah chapter one. Nehemiah one is where we’re going to be today. And hey, we’ll return there. Man, I did want to celebrate something that happened, actually not in but through our church this week. This kind of thing you’re doing that you’re not even aware of.
So, if you’ve been around LakePointe for a while, you know we are all in on doing anything, anything short of sin, to reach people for Christ. And a huge part of that for us is not just seeing our church grow, but starting new churches in cities that don’t have a lot of churches—very unchurched cities. So at this point, we’ve started, I think, 64. We’ve started 64 thriving churches in urban centers that are less churched all around North America, and I–I am, we’re all in on this. I am extremely excited; we need to celebrate this. Just this weekend, we started four new churches in new cities in America.
That’s right, man! Come on! I feel like we should be more excited about that! I am very excited about that. Now, I do just want to take a minute to make a point because I know a lot of you, you know, you’re seeing like, «Hey Josh, we’re launching new campuses, new services, starting the bridge venue; we’re running out of seats, we’ve got to do a deal party.» And you may have been asked this question in gentle ways before: you may be going, «Man, it’s probably expensive to start new churches.» And, oh by the way, it is, you know. But we’re starting 50 new churches in a five-year span. And so just a heads up: we’re all in, investing millions of dollars in starting these churches. And you may be asking the question, «Man, our church, Josh, is growing like it is. We’ve got to do a new campus and stuff; why are we spending all this money on other churches when we have our own needs?» And I just want to remind us of this: «Hey guys, it’s not all about us; it’s about more than us, for the glory of the One that’s above all of us.» And they’re like, «Man,» it’s like, so we’re all in on that. I’m proud of that. I’m not apologetic for that at all; we’re all in!
Introducing the Series: "Getting It Back"
So, awesome! Well, hey, here’s where we are today: we are starting a series that I am excited about; we’re preaching chapter by chapter through the book of Nehemiah, leading up to and past Encounter. And the title of this series is cryptically, „Getting It Back.“ That’s the title of the series: „Getting It Back.“ Now, you may be going, „Okay, getting what back?“ You’re getting it. Okay, what is that? Let me lead into it by telling a story. This kind of personal moment marked me in October 2004. I was, I think, a junior at Union University at the time—October 2004. God had called me into ministry, and so I was just really passionate. I just wanted to learn to preach.
There was somebody coming to our campus to speak at chapel. I’m going to not share the person’s name because most of you would know who it was, and even though this story is a compliment, some of you might take it as kind of a dig, so I’m not going to share the person’s name, but it’s somebody most of you would know. This person was coming to our campus to speak, and they had written a Bible study book that sold almost as many copies as the Bible! I mean, insane! In our generation, God has just used this person mightily. And they were coming, and so I was like, „Oh man, yeah, I want to learn to preach! I was like, oh, this is going to be incredible! You know, if they’re a great writer, they’re going to be a great communicator, and I can’t wait to see their communication! I’m going to learn about how to be a preacher! This is great!“ So I came in, and I had my notebook, and I was there in chapel early, ready. And you know, I’m like, I want to learn to preach. So I’m like, man, let me learn from their communication ability. So I’m waiting for this to be amazing.
Well, the person gets up, and just very frankly, from a sheer communication ability and giftedness standpoint, they were terrible! They were terrible. They kind of got up and walked up with hands in their pockets. There was no discernible intro, no discernible points, no emotional flow to the message. They tried a few jokes that totally didn’t land. I know you guys don’t know anything about that, but sometimes that happens. And so they, you know, they just kind of rambled a little—it just was there and little rambly. I didn’t even feel like they followed the passage they were preaching! You know, just everything; the communication ability was simply not great. But they finished their message, and me and all four of my roommates went back to our dorm. We got on the floor of our dorm, and we wept over the sin in our lives and the purposes of God in our generation.
Now, let me ask this rhetorical question. I don’t want you to answer out loud. This guy didn’t have cool, he didn’t have charisma, he didn’t have humor, he didn’t have communication ability, he didn’t have talent. What did he have? He had what we are going to call „it.“ It is that indefinable quality that someone has who has walked closely with their God. How many of you have ever walked into a church service, and as soon as you walked in—it may have been a large church, it may have been organizationally something large—but you walked in, and it was just dead? No one was spiritually alive, and you left going, „What did I just see?“ On the other hand, how many of you have ever walked into a place, and from the second you walked in—sometimes, even as you drove onto the campus—you could sense the presence of God? Leaving that place, you knew that you were different and that they were different, and you wanted to leave saying something like, „I don’t know what it is, but they have it.“
Here’s what you need to know: a person can have it, a family can have it, a church can have it, dare I say a nation can have it. There is a time—some of you hear your story—there was a time in your life when you looked back and you said, „Man, during that season of my life, I had it.“ You were hungry for the presence of God, you wanted to spend your life for the purposes of God, and your heart was broken for the things of God. But then over time, you don’t know what happened, but it slipped away. Bad news: if you have it, that does not mean you’re going to keep it. It’s possible to lose it. Good news: if you don’t have it, you can get it.
The book of Nehemiah is the story of a nation, Israel, that had it, and over centuries of rebellion against God, they lost it. And the book of Nehemiah is the story of how they got it back. You once had it, you lost it, and now you say, „I want it back.“ Nehemiah is the story for you. And for the next few weeks, we’re going to be looking at this: what do you do when you’ve had it, you’ve lost it, and you want it back?
Context for Nehemiah
Now, let me get right into this, and I need you to answer a question for me. In my opinion, it’s maybe the most annoying question anyone can ever ask you. Whenever you—In fact, I’m going to need some smart people. I’m going to need GG to finish a sentence for me in a second. The smart people in the room will be able to finish this sentence. In fact, where are my homeschool people at? Where are you at? Where are you at? Okay, at all of our campuses, I love to ask homeschoolers to raise their hands because they never got a chance! Okay, you never got to—That’s a joke! That’s a joke! It’s a joke! My family’s a homeschool family; I’m allowed to do that!
So here’s a question I want you to finish this sentence for me: sometimes when I lose something at my house—not that Jana would ever do this—hypothetically, I might do this, but I’ll lose something in the house, and I’m looking for it. And someone will see me looking and say, „Hey, Josh, what are you looking for?“ I’ll tell them what I’m looking for, and then they’ll ask me this question that is very, very annoying. Here’s the question: you finish the sentence for me. They say, „Oh, you lost it? Where’s the last place you remember having it?“ Why are you asking me that? It’s like if I knew the answer to that question, it wouldn’t be lost!
Okay, stupid question! But there’s a logic to that question: if you want to know where to find something, you’ve got to go back to where you lost it.
Now, let me do this. In the next, like, 60 seconds, I need to give us some context for the book of Nehemiah so you know what’s happening when we drop right into the middle of this getting-it-back story in Nehemiah chapter one. So here’s what you’ve got to know: once upon a time, God chose a little dude from nowhere with nothing, and He chose to make out of this one guy a great nation, the nation of Israel. And here’s what He told him: He said, „Hey, as long as you do justice and walk humbly with your God, as long as you do that, man, I will bless you. I’ll make a great nation of you. In fact, so great a nation I’ll make out of you that you actually will be a blessing to all the nations.“ What God was saying is, „If you walk humbly with me, you’ll have it. You’ll have it, and as long as you have it, I’ll raise you up, and I’ll bless you.“
And they did that for a little while. This nation did that, and they multiplied, turning into the great nation of Israel. God took His sacred people and gave them some sacred real estate in Israel, raising them up to this nation. And for a few decades, for a few generations, in general and imperfectly, they walked with God in humility and obedience, and they had it to the point that God raised them up to the point that Israel was the wealthiest nation in the world!
But unfortunately, the story did not end there. As soon as they were raised up—and you’re going to see why here in just a second. I’m going to show you a diagram. This happens to you. As soon as they were raised up, they forgot the source of everything with which they had been supplied, and they began to become prideful. And in their pride, they became disobedient, rebelling against God. Even after God sent prophet after prophet—Isaiah, Jeremiah—warning them, „If you continue in your rebellion against God, He’s going to remove His hand, you’re going to lose it, and you’ll be judged because of your disobedience.“ And that eventually happened! Eventually, Israel was conquered by a nation called Babylon. Essentially, the entire nation of Israel became human trafficked over to Babylon, taken captive in Babylon. We did Daniel a few years ago; that’s that story. They were in Babylon, and then eventually the Babylonian Empire was conquered by the Persian Empire. And when we get into Nehemiah chapter one, Nehemiah—you’re going to see in chapter one, verse eleven—was the cupbearer to the king of Persia.
Now, I just need to—this is very important. I need to answer this question. And those of you who know Nehemiah a little bit, it’s an obvious answer, but I just want to make a point. What was Nehemiah? Class, he was a cupbearer to the king. There’s your hint. Was Nehemiah a prophet, a priest, some sort of professional spiritual person? Yes or no? No! He was a cupbearer to the king! What this means is Nehemiah was a political official. He was a government employee. You’re going to see in the book of Nehemiah, essentially, he was a real estate developer. He was into construction. Throughout this book, you’re going to see—this was not some of you are like, „Man, Josh, you could start a move of God because you’re a pastor. You’re a professional; you get paid to be a Christian,“ that kind of thing. And you’re like, „Not me; I can never do that.“ In this book, Nehemiah, this is the kind of stuff he handles. This dude is into real estate; he’s into construction; he’s dealing with supply chain issues, budget forecasting, org charts, Gantt charts; he’s getting permits from the city. That’s the book of Nehemiah; that’s who he is!
Now, I just want to point this out because a lot of people miss this. Y’all, you’ve got to get this! God can use anybody! God can use anybody! God loves to use the foolish things in the world to confound the wisdom of the world because He’s the one that wants glory from the world! See, God loves to do that. In fact, if you go into your Bible—I love this so much, man—think about your Bible and who God uses. Here’s who God uses: Noah was a drunk; Jacob was a thief; Joseph was a convict; Moses was a murderer; Samson was a bully; Gideon was a coward; David was an adulterer; Solomon was a womanizer; Elijah had anger issues; Jonah was a racist; Jeremiah was depressed; Mary was a pregnant teenager; Peter was a hypocrite; Matthew was an extortionist; Thomas was a doubter; Paul was a terrorist; and Nehemiah was a general contractor! God can use anybody! It’s right there, man. Listen, you’ve just got to get this, man; God can use anybody!
And see, what the enemy wants to do is he wants you to take what you did—issues in your life—and make what you did who you are. And what that is, that’s called condemnation. Condemnation is a builder’s term that means unfit for use, and that’s what the enemy wants you to believe: that because of what you did, you are unfit for use. You are condemned. But the Bible says that there is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. See, what the enemy wants you to do is he wants you to define yourself by your sins and your wounds. And can I just say something? You are defined by some wounds, but not yours—the ones Jesus took for you on the cross. Those are the wounds that define you, and no other wounds. So God takes this dude, this general contractor dude, government official, and He uses this guy. I’m going to go Quentin Tarantino on you and tell you what happens at the end of the beginning: He uses this guy to spark the revival and restoration, a spiritual awakening of an entire nation, and Israel gets it back.
The "It" Cycle: How We Lose and Get It Back
Now, here’s my question: How did they lose it? I just told you the story. How did they lose it? Well, I usually don’t ask you to do this, but if you’re ever going to play with your phone, I’m going to show you a diagram. Diagrams are my love language; I’ve accepted diagrams into my heart! Okay? I love diagrams! Here’s a diagram. Now a little homework: if you want to do some homework in your quiet time this week, what I’m getting ready to show you—I call it the „it cycle.“ This is straight out of Deuteronomy eight. God tells them exactly the cycle that every person is going to be prone to going through. I’m going to show you it in a diagram.
Okay? So I call this the „it cycle.“ Now, the cycle in everyone’s life—the way that you get into a relationship with God is, watch this, right here: through humility. So it all starts with humility. You listen, you can’t come to God unless you realize that you have nothing to bring Him. That’s the only way. So it begins—before you stand up for the Lord, you’ve got to bend your knee to the lordship of Jesus. It starts with humility.
Now watch this: if you are submitted to the person of God, you will walk in the ways of God. Next slide. So humility always leads to obedience. You go, „Man, God, not my glory; Your glory; but also not my ways; Your ways.“ So humility leads to obedience. And watch this: God promised this next slide—that when you have humility and obedience, you have blessing.
Now this is important: we don’t obey to be saved, but we do obey to be blessed, y’all. There is simply blessing that accompanies obedience to God. When God says „don’t,“ He means, „Don’t hurt yourself!“ God doesn’t give commands because He loves rules; He gives commands because He loves you!
So this is what you’re going to see, man: humility leads to obedience, obedience leads to blessing. That’s what we’re going to call it—so it.
Now here’s what’s supposed to happen. Okay? Next slide. Whenever you get blessing, the Bible—the book of James says, „Man, is anyone among you happy? Let him sing praise.“ So whenever God blesses you, what you’re supposed to do is return Him glory for His gifts through praise. So praise says this: go back up here. So praise says this: it’s when you look at the blessing you’ve got and you say, „Man, thank you, God; this came from You!“ The book of Romans says, „For from You, and to You, and through You are all things.“ I’m giving You glory for what I’ve got; this didn’t come from me; it came from You! I’m returning it in praise.
Now here’s what’s amazing: God designed it like this, that when you praise Him for your blessings—next slide—the praise takes you all the way back to humility, and it restarts the cycle over and over and over and over again.
Now that’s what’s supposed to happen, but let me show you how you lose it. Okay? Whenever God blesses you, you have a choice between praise or pride. So next slide, show them this next slide. Go ahead and toss next slide. What you can do is—my pastor growing up used to say this—he used to say some people were born on third and act like they hit a triple. It takes you a second, you know, so I always give a second whenever I say that.
So here’s what happens to some people. Here’s what pride is: God puts you on third base, and you start acting like you hit a triple. God blesses you, and instead of you giving Him praise for what He gave you, you take credit for what you’ve got. You start thinking, „Man, it didn’t come from God; it actually came from me.“ And so you start thinking that you are the reason that you’re blessed. The Bible calls that pride.
Now here’s the problem with pride: pride always leads to the same place—next slide: pride leads to sin. When I stop thinking that, „Man, God is about Your glory,“ I also stop submitting to God’s ways. So pride leads to sin, and watch this: next slide: sin always leads to humiliation. So this is the cycle. This is the cycle of how you lose it.
Now, sin always leads to humiliation. The book of James says that sin, when it’s fully grown, leads to death. Some type of humiliation is always what sin results in. Now here’s why God designed it that way—check this out; I need you to get this! Okay? Because humiliation—there it is, they did it for me—because humiliation is going to take you all the way back to humility. See, you have a choice. Whenever God blesses you, are you going to choose pride or praise? Are you going to choose humility, or are you going to choose humiliation? That choice is up to you, and that’s where Israel lost it.
Sit Down to Weep
Now what do you—if you’re in that spot? Some of you are in that spot right now is that here’s how you lost it: God raised you up, and He’s blessed you; He’s given you a family; He’s done wonderful things in your life; maybe you’ve prospered; and somewhere along the way, can I tell you where you lost it? You started taking credit for what God has done in your life, and you lost your dependence on Him, and that’s how you lost it.
Now here’s the question: so what do you do? What do you do when you realize you’ve lost it? Now I’m going to show you two things in this passage. It’s a two-pointer right here, man. This is just two points. Here you go: number one is you sit down to weep! You sit down to weep! Check out verse two. Nehemiah says, „Hanani, one of my brothers, came with certain men from Judah, and I asked them concerning the Jews who escaped and concerning Jerusalem. And they said to me, ‘The remnant there in the province who had survived the exile’—watch this—is in great trouble and shame. In other words, God’s people, instead of being the glory of the nations, are being laughed at. The wall of Jerusalem is broken down, and its gates are destroyed by fire.“ As soon as I heard these words, I sat down and wept and mourned for days.
Now can I explain something? That’s a pattern that’s counterintuitive in the Bible. Have you ever noticed how often when God begins to draw near to people, they start to weep? Have you ever noticed that? So, you’ve got it right here in Nehemiah one. I’ll give you another one. Do you guys remember—Bible scholars remember in Isaiah 6? It’s the year King Uzziah died. There’s this prophet named Isaiah, and God actually pulls back the glory curtain and lets Isaiah see His glory with his own eyes. And so Isaiah—Isaiah chapter 6—he gets a vision of the glory of God, and the Bible says that he saw the Lord high and lifted up, and the train of His robe filled the temple.
So he sees the glory of God. Now what do you think Isaiah’s first response to seeing the glory of God was? Now pray that it’s amazing. No, no! Here’s what it says: he said, „Woe is me, for I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell among a people of unclean lips, and my eyes have seen the king, the Lord of hosts!“ The first thing he does when he gets in the presence of God is he begins to weep! Woe is me! Let me do another one. Do you guys remember that one of Jesus' closest friends was the Apostle John? Like, Jesus—this was like His ride-or-die. He had three dudes: Peter, James, and John; who a lot of times, He’d be like, „Other nine, y’all are out. Y’all three—Peter, James, and John—you come with me!“ You know? Gethsemane, raising people from the dead; it was like these three saw everything. So, like, they were super, super tight.
Now, John—In fact, you need to know this: John was so close; he was like Jesus’ best friend to the point that the Bible calls John „the one whom Jesus loved.“ That’s what the Bible calls John. Now there’s a problem with that because it only says that in the Gospel of John that was written by John. You don’t get to choose your own nickname! So John says that about himself. In fact, Jesus and John were so tight, this is a little weird to me, okay? Jesus and John were so tight—at the Last Supper, the Bible says everybody else was sitting around, but the Apostle John reclined against Jesus’ breast. Now, I’ll be honest with you: I’ve got some good friends that are dudes. I’m, like, close to some dudes. I love some. There’s even guys that, when I call them, I’m like, „Bro, I love you.“ I tell them that. There is a zero percent chance any one of those guys reclines against my breast at dinner!
Do not ever try to do that to me! Do not ever, ever try to do that to me! Okay? Now, so this is John, like super tight—knows what Jesus’ left pec feels like—super tight with Jesus. John writes the book of Revelation, and Jesus reveals Himself to this guy, to John. He sees the risen Jesus for the first time when he writes the book of Revelation. What do you think, John, best friend of Jesus? What do you think his first response was seeing Jesus? Was he like, „Oh, dap it up, Jesus! Let’s get in here, man! Bro hug! Triple tap! You know, let me see that left pec! I’ve missed this thing!“ You know? Was that it? No! Do you know what John said? Here’s what he said: „I fell down as though dead,“ and he began to weep!
Now why is this? Why is this? Well, let me say it and let me explain it. Here’s why: you begin to weep when the presence of God comes into your life because when you long for the presence of God, you grieve anything that separates you from God, and sin separates! And so watch this: this is really important for you to understand: a grief of God’s absence in your life is a sign of God’s presence in your life when God begins to draw near; you feel this.
Now here’s the question: what do you begin to weep about? Two things. Nehemiah is weeping about two things: the righteousness of God and the purposes of God. Check this out. Look in verse five. Nehemiah says, „O Lord God of heaven, the great and awesome God who keeps covenant and steadfast love with those who love Him and keep His commands, please let Your ears 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—watch this—confessing the sins of the people of Israel which we have sinned against You! Even I and my father’s house have sinned!“
So he’s feeling the weight of the sin of the entire nation’s rebellion against God, and he’s confessing it, and he says, „We have acted very corruptly against You; we have not kept the commandments, the statutes, and the rules that You commanded Your servant Moses!“ Now, so he’s weeping. He’s confessing sin. Can I be honest? In our culture, we do not confess sin; we do not own sin; we re-categorize sin so we never have to feel like we are sinners. That’s what we do in our culture.
And here we do this: let me—I’ll tell you. So here’s part of the reason we do this because what we are awesome at—here’s what we do: we’re awesome at this! When you sin, I become a judge. When I sin, I become a defense attorney. Have you ever noticed how amazing you are—when you sin, I become a judge; I sin, I become a defense attorney. There is one place—if you’re like, „Oh, that’s actually not a thing, Josh, that’s not a thing“—there is one place where every time you’re there, this happens. You sin, I become a judge; I sin, I become a defense attorney; it’s at the ten items or less checkout lane at Kroger!
Okay? Every time. When I take Eliana to Kroger and it’s like, „Hey, ten items or less checkout lane, we’re just grabbing a few things,“ when I get in that line, I’ll be really—I’m confessing sin right now! Literally the first thing I do is start counting the items of the person in front of me. That’s like the first! And listen, if I do this, I’m like, „Man, that’s—you know, it looks a little sketchy, a little sus up there, you know, let me see what’s going on.“ I start counting. Now, I’m like, „Okay, one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten, eleven.“ I’m like, „Ain’t no way! Ain’t no way!“ You know, let me do it again. Okay, one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten, eleven.
And if I get to twelve a second time, an explosive rage begins to well up inside of me! You know, I start, like, passively aggressively whispering things to my daughter just loud enough they—what do you think, Eliana? Can they not count, or can they not read? What do you think the problem is? You know, that kind of. Now so that’s what I do if they do it! Now if it’s me and I’ve got twelve items in the ten items or less checkout lane, I look down, and I’ll be like, „Yeah, but man, that’s Coke and that’s Diet Coke—same family, one item!“ You know?
So you see what that—you see, I become a judge, I said, I become a defense attorney! Or we’ll do this: listen, have you noticed this? We don’t call things sins; we call them mistakes! So like somebody can literally be talking about how they cheated on their wife to me, and they’ll say something like this, „Like, yeah, man, like I made a mistake.“ I’m like, „Man, mistake? That’s like an accidental small error! I think there’s a different word for what you’re talking about.“
We call them mistakes. Do you know why that matters? Because words mean stuff! Words mean stuff! And if you misdiagnose the problem, you’ll misprescribe the solution! If all we are is mistakers, all we need is a life coach! But y’all, we are not mistakers in need of a life coach; we are sinners in need of a Savior! Like that’s the whole thing, man! That’s like our whole thing that we’re about!
So number one, Nehemiah, the first thing he does is, you’ve got to sit down to weep about their holiness, the righteousness of God. But number two, you also begin to weep about the purposes of God. This is the kind of thing you’d never notice if you read this. So Nehemiah gets this news: walls are broken down; people are in shame. Did y’all know that when Nehemiah hears this in chapter one, it’s been 134 years since the walls were broken down? Nehemiah already knew the walls were broken down! He is not broken because of the news; he’s broken because he’s not doing anything to fix it.
Now can I ask you this question? What breaks your heart for the purposes of God? You want to get it back? You’ve got to know the answer to that question! What breaks your heart for the purpose of God? Some of you, it’s like you cannot see hurting children or hurting teenagers, and it just like something wells up within you. And that’s why we need you in kids and student ministry, making sure that at Lake Point Church, there’s no such thing as a kid without a spiritual father and a mother! Like, man, we need that! That’s some of you! For some of you, it’s seeing anyone enslaved by addiction because, man, God set you free, and you know that your Redeemer lives, and so you can’t stand to see somebody in the slavery that you’ve been set free from!
And so you’re like, „Man, it just breaks your heart to see somebody in addiction!“ For some of you, it’s people—seeing people who have been abused or trafficked. For some of you, it’s people who don’t have clean drinking water! Or there’s like a fifteen-dollar mosquito net, a few bucks, that could save a family’s life in a country that you’ve been to! For some of you, your heart breaks to get the Word of God into the native language of all people, to solve Bible illiteracy in the world! For some of you, your heart breaks for the unborn! You’re like, „Man, somebody has got to stand up for people who can’t stand up for themselves!“
But I’m asking this question: what breaks your heart for the purposes of God? Let me tell you a story that will explain why—I tell this story like, „Oh, that’s why he is like he is.“ Okay, this is my thing. So years ago, I was a youth pastor at a rural Baptist church. And by the way, not all—there are some awesome ones; there are some awesome awesome churches; that’s not—I’m not saying they’re bad! Okay, I’m just telling you that this one encounter that I had. And I was a youth pastor, and so there was a pizza place right across the street from the church that I would order all of the pizza for our youth events. And youth events were always the same night, so I would always go on the same day at the same time to get my pizza.
And because of that, there was always the same guy who was there checking me out at the cash register. And we just, like, developed a little relationship, and you know, I got to know his name; he got to know mine. And let me just say, it was very apparent from talking to this guy that he had not lived an awesome life. Life had been hard for this man just from the way he talked; he was missing some teeth, I think probably from some drug use—the language he used, the clothes he wore—the same pair of jeans every single time, the same holes, full of grease, kind of, you know, just looked like they probably had a smell to him. And you know, just very grimy.
But we developed a relationship, and like I just—I just wanted this guy to know Jesus, you know? And so I just kept inviting him to church with me! And eventually, he was like, „Hey man, I’m going to come.“ I was like, „No! Oh, that’s awesome! I’ll wait for you in the lobby, and I’ll meet you in the lobby! You come sit with me and my wife!“ And so that Sunday, I did. I waited for him in the lobby, you know, drove over there in my little Kia Sofia, green Kia Sofia, waited in the lobby. I’m waiting for him; I’m there thirty minutes before the service. Twenty minutes, ten minutes—he’s still not there. Service starts; he’s still not there. I’m on staff; I’m like, „I don’t care; there’s a lost dude! I want him to know Jesus—he’s my friend!“
So I’m waiting in the lobby, ten minutes after the service, fifteen minutes after the service starts, twenty minutes after the service starts—not that any of you would ever do this—and then you’re all doing all that, I’m waiting and he never comes. Well, that Wednesday I drive over there; I’m getting my pizza, and I walk in. I’m like, „Bro, waited for you this weekend, man! Missed you! Where were you?“ You know, „Come some other time.“ And he was like, „Oh man,“ his face kind of fell, and he said, „Man, actually, I did come, but I had a shift right after the service that day.“
And so I was wearing my uniform, and he said, „When I walked in, there was a man that stopped me at the door. And he said, ‘Son, do you have any better clothes than that? We wear our best for God in this place!’“ Now can I just say something? Because every now and then, some people hear—you’ll stop me, and you’ll be like, „Man, Josh, you need to tell people to dress better or dress different.“ Or some of you would be like, „Even sometimes you’d be like, ‘Man, Josh, why don’t you wear better stuff when you’re preaching? Because we’re worshiping the King of Kings!’ And would you wear that if you were coming to meet with the president of the United States?“
And here’s my response to that: I would if he was my dad! And guys, we’ve got a heavenly Father who put on flesh and adopted us as sons and daughters! And so like, yeah, man, so let’s ask—number one. But number two, it was in that moment when I heard that story, I got back in my little green Kia Sofia and I sat down, and I just wept. Partly because I was driving a green Kia Sofia, you know? I’m really honest. But I did; I just wept! And here, in that moment, here’s the decision I made: I made this decision: if I ever get to lead a church, if I’m ever the senior pastor, our dress code in that church will be very simple—very simple dress code.
Here’s the dress code: „Please do!“ That’s the whole dress code! „Please do!“ You don’t have to dress up to come here! Man, come with your doubts, come with your fears, come with your failures, come with your sins, come with your addiction, come with your insecurities, come with your pain! Come with everything you got, man; just come to Jesus! That’s all we want!
Kneel Down to Pray
So listen, you’ve got to get this: what is it that breaks your heart? Number one, you sit down to weep. Not every time I’m closing with this, it closes really quick! You’re going to see. Number two: step two is you’ve got to kneel once you’ve sat down to weep; you’ve got to kneel down to pray! So Nehemiah says this in Nehemiah 1:4: „For some days I fasted and prayed before the God of Heaven.“ Nehemiah 1 is the first of twelve prayers recorded in the book of Nehemiah. This is a prayer journal that we’re preaching through.
Now listen to me: can I just say this, y’all? If it’s big enough to weep about, it’s big enough to pray about! That’s always true, man. We sometimes like we will say the most insulting things about God without meaning to! We’ll say things like this: we’ll get a problem in our life and we’ll try everything we can without prayer. And then we’ll say something like this: „Well, I guess all there is left to do is pray!“ Oh, that’s all there is?
Can you imagine, like, we’ll say that? Can you imagine God in heaven hearing that? He’s like, „Well, you know, they’ve tried everything else; I guess all that there is left to do is talk to me about it! All that there is left to do is talk to the sovereign God of the universe who owns the cattle on a thousand hills, who from me, and to me, and through me are all things—who hold all things together by me, that I can do immeasurably more than they could ever ask or imagine! I guess all they can do is talk to me; they’re certainly screwed.“ No, no, guys, if you may go, „Yeah, but I’m just one person.“
Guys, God plus one is always a majority! That’s always true! In fact, look at what Nehemiah prays in this book. Check this out: in this—this, in verse five, he says, „Remember the instruction you gave to your servant Moses, saying, ‘If you are unfaithful, I will scatter you among the nations. But if you return to me and obey my commands, then even exiled people who are at the farthest horizon of the earth, I will gather them from there and bring them to the place I have chosen as a dwelling for my name.’“ This is a big prayer: „God, grab people from every tribe, tongue, nation, language, and bring them home!“
Can I ask you this question? What would be different in the world if every prayer you prayed in the last month had been answered immediately by God? For some of you, it’d be amazing! The world would be totally different! Orphans would be adopted, poverty would be advocated, eradicated, prodigal children would be coming home; there’d be an outpouring of the Spirit of God on our nation and among the nations of the earth! The glory of God would cover the earth as the waters cover the sea! It’d be amazing; the world would be totally different!
For some of you, if we’re honest, if every prayer you had prayed in the last month were answered by God, your food would be really blessed to the good of your body and your body to a service! For some of you, you’d have had incredible traveling mercies! Here’s my point: let me finish the sermon like this. Everything that happens to the entire nation in Nehemiah 8 happens to one guy in Nehemiah 1. It starts with one!
Okay? Check this out! So there was a guy; his name was Gypsy Smith. He was born outside of London in 1860. In and out of prison for the first twenty, twenty-five years of his life, he was a convict. He gets out, gets saved, and Gypsy Smith learned the power of prayer. Gypsy Smith, y’all, he had it! He had no education, but he was asked to lecture at Harvard twice! He was in and out of prison as a child; two presidents of the United States traveled him across the Atlantic Ocean so they could meet and pray with Gypsy Smith! He preached to over a million people in the late 1800s before the invention of microphones.
And everywhere he went, the blessing and the anointing of God fell! Somebody asked Gypsy Smith one time, „What’s the secret to revival?“ And here’s what he said: „You want to know the secret to revival? Lock yourself in a room. Kneel down in the middle of the floor with a piece of chalk and draw a circle around yourself there. Get on your knees, pray fervently and brokenly that God would start a revival within that chalk circle!“ It starts with one!
Some of you are broken for your family to come back to a relationship with the living God. It’s going to start with one father or one mother being revived themselves! Some of you are broken for the purposes of God in our nation. It’s going to start with praying people alone in closets begging God for consecration unto Himself again! Some of you—there’s a high schooler that you’re listening to me right now, and man, you’re experiencing what I experienced when I was a senior, and you are broken for the people in your school to know Jesus and to give their lives to Jesus! It starts with you, one person getting alone with God and saying, „God, awaken me! And once I’m awake, use me to wake up everybody else around me!“
You see, it always starts with one. And that brings me to this moment in our church’s life. It’s the entire reason we’ve been talking about this Encounter thing that we’re doing coming up in a week and a half! That’s the reason that we’re doing Encounter, is so that we as a church can have this moment as a church where we all gather and we draw a circle around our church, and we get on our knees and we beg God to be anointed by the power of His Spirit in a fresh way for His purposes-for our families, for generations, and our futures, and for our church as a man!
Like, let me just say, I want to see you on September 19, 2021! There’s a whole reason we’re doing this! Let’s go all in and see what the Lord would do with His power! Let’s do it! Man, I’m all in! Let’s do it, man! Hey, can I pray? Let me pray, let me pray for you!
Heavenly Father, thank You so much for Your grace and Your power! I pray that You would do this in the people that are within the hearing of my voice! God, I pray that maybe for the first time in some of their lives, they would begin to believe! They would believe that You are a God who hears, and You would stretch out Your hand, like Your Word says, to perform signs and wonders and bring many, turn many back to the name of Jesus! So Father, give us Your power! Give us a fresh hunger for You, Lord! Give us a new awakening to the depth of Your love for us; we’re just swimming in a thimble, and we want to swim in the ocean of Your great love for Your children! And so Father, we want to commit ourselves to You afresh! We pray it in the name of a crucified, risen Jesus!