Mike Breaux - 9 Ways to Lead Like Christ (01/13/2026)

Summary:

Mike concludes the series on Nehemiah by highlighting the timeless leadership qualities embodied in this humble leader who rebuilt Jerusalem’s walls against great odds. Drawing from the entire book of Nehemiah, he emphasizes that true leadership is influence rooted in humility, courage to face reality, burden for change, bold asking, appreciation, serving by example, delegating, deflecting credit to God, and ultimately caring deeply about people coming home to Him. The core message is that all of us are leaders in our spheres, and by staying in the cycle of humility-obedience-blessing-praise, we point others to God’s goodness and help displaced people find their way back to a relationship with Him.

Welcome and Series Wrap-Up
What’s up, everybody? Great to see you all! Welcome to Lakepointe. I’m so glad you’re here. I want to welcome all our campuses, those of you that might be joining us online, and those of you that might be over in the Bridge. I’m so grateful we get to do this together. My name is Mike, in case we never met, and I get to be on the team here at Lakepointe. It’s just one of the great privileges of my life.

We are wrapping up this series today that we’ve been calling «Getting It Back.» We’ve been walking through a book called Nehemiah in the Old Testament section. So, if you have a Bible or an app, you can open that up, and we’re going to put it on the screens as well, and you can track along. It’s been an inspiring journey, and if you missed any of it, you can catch up on the messages online, and I hope you do that.

Everyone Is a Leader
Today, I want to ask you this: Who do you look up to as a leader? And let me ask you this: Who looks up to you as a leader? Maybe you’re thinking, «Me? Man, I’m no leader. I’m just an ordinary guy.» I may be a lot of other things, but dude, I am definitely not a leader. Now, granted, you might not be strategizing the globalization of your company, you might not sit on a board of directors somewhere, or on the city zoning planning commission, or serve as the director of the youth soccer league. But when it comes down to it, every single one of us is a leader because if you strip it all down, leadership at its most basic is simply influence. And in a culture where we highlight «influencers, » you are one of those. I mean, we all influence somebody—our kids, our friends at school, our co-workers. We are all leaders in some sense of the word.

You can walk through Barnes & Noble, or you can Google books on leadership, and it’s staggering how many books on leadership are out there. On my own bookshelves at home, I have a bunch of books on leadership, but my favorite book is the one we’ve been walking through that was written about 425 BC. It is an absolute classic on leadership, and what I love about it is that the leadership principles are not spit out from some six-part digital online course with stats and pie charts; rather, it’s fleshed out in the life of a guy named Nehemiah. This guy puts a team together, and he tackles a massive project of rebuilding the walls of Jerusalem, and he does it against incredible odds. I mean, he is one of those guys you’d look at and say, «You know what? I can’t write down a clear definition of what leadership is, but I know it when I see it, and he’s sitting right over there.»

So, I want to challenge you this week to maybe take the time and go back and read or reread the book of Nehemiah. It’s right before the book of Psalms, which is in the middle of the Bible, sandwiched between the stories of Ezra and Esther. It is inspiring and super motivating. I’m telling you, when you get done reading Nehemiah, you’re going to want to jump in your truck and head to Home Depot because you’re going to be knocking out walls. You’re going to be building a fence; you’re going to be cleaning out the garage, tackling some unfinished project around your place. But more than any of that, you will see leadership at its absolute best.

As I was reading through it again this week, I was thinking of all the things that leaders need to be—all the qualities I like to be true of myself. Chapter after chapter after chapter, you just see him highlighted in this guy’s life. I mean, this guy just had it. Like we’ve been saying, it always begins with humility. In week one of the series, Josh gave us this cycle he called the «It Cycle.» He said it begins with humility, which leads to obedience, which leads to blessing, which leads to praise. That is the «It Cycle, » and that’s a great cycle to live your life in. When you read the story of Nehemiah and the rebuilding of the walls of Jerusalem, this is the pattern that you will see all the way through there.

Last week, we saw from Chapter 8 that the people came together unified. They heard God’s word, they wept over their sin and rebellion, and they turned toward God. The chapter ends this way: It says, «And they were all filled with great joy.» The Israelites had not celebrated like this since the days of Joshua, son of Nun. In the words of Prince, they began to party like it was 1399 BC. Not since they had crossed over the Jordan River on dry ground into the Promised Land almost a thousand years prior had there been such a joy-filled worship service like this. You see, humility leads to obedience, which leads to blessing, which leads to praise.

Qualities of Great Leaders from Nehemiah
So this week, I went back through the story with a highlighter, and there are some things that just stood out to me about this humble guy Nehemiah that made him such a great leader. If you’re a stay-at-home mom, a supervisor in your workplace, a coach, a teacher, a CEO of a huge company, a small group leader, or you’re in charge of the night nursing shift at a hospital, or you’re making lattes in a coffee shop, wherever God has placed you right now, wherever your sphere of influence might be, I believe these are some qualities that all of us need to embrace and embody. So you might want to jot them down as we go along— kind of random thoughts. Take a screenshot if that would help you.

Courage to Face Reality
The first one I noticed in Nehemiah is that true leaders have the courage to stare reality in the face. They have the courage to stare reality in the face. Like Nehemiah, they refuse to gloss over the problem. They don’t pretend that things are better than they actually are. They don’t sweep stuff under the rug; they don’t ignore things. They are ruthlessly honest about reality. They say, «This is where we are right now. This is the way it is. This is our current reality.» Plus, they also ask for help with that reality. When Nehemiah hears about the shape of things back in Jerusalem, where the walls are in rubble and the gates are burned down, he writes about it in Chapter 1. He says, «When I heard this, I sat down and wept. In fact, for days, I mourned, fasted, and prayed to the God of Heaven.» Again, there’s that humility where he just says, «It’s a mess, God. We need you. God, I need you.» The reality is things are broken, and if we’re ever going to rebuild, God, you have to be involved.

Gang, I’m just telling you that’s the key to life—that’s the key to recovery, that’s the key to rebuilding a marriage, a friendship, a family; that’s the key to beating an addiction. No denial of reality, no rationalization, no justification, no excuses—just, «Oh God, it’s a mess. I need you. My life is unmanageable. Things have spiraled out of control. If I’m ever going to rebuild, you have to be involved.» I don’t know, but that just might be a prayer that God has been waiting, longing for you to pray.

Burden to Change Reality
The second thing I noticed is that not only do great leaders clearly see and acknowledge reality, but they carry a burden to change that reality. They have a passion deep inside just to make things better. Like Nehemiah, it consumes them—not in an obsessive, unhealthy kind of way, but in a way that says, «You know what? This reality needs to change.» I love how in Chapter 2, Nehemiah shows up to assess the situation, and I love how he doesn’t ride in saying, «Here I come to save the day!» or «Nehemiah in the house!» He didn’t do any of that stuff. He just personally takes a ride secretly in the moonlight, checking out the rubble for himself. Then he goes to the city officials and says, «You know very well what trouble we’re in. Jerusalem lies in ruins. Its gates have been destroyed by fire. That’s the reality. Let us rebuild the wall of Jerusalem, and let’s end this disgrace.» He’s able to speak the reality to some other people, share his burden, and then cast vision for the city and the people. He says, «It’s been like this long enough. We have been complacent long enough. It’s time for us to rise up together and make this happen.»

And they say, «All right, we’re in.» You see, most of the time, great leaders are also able to see the amazing potential. Not only do they say, «This is the reality—the way things currently are—and you know what? This needs to change, » but they also say, «And this is what it could look like.» They are visionary; they can see things that other people won’t see. They embrace reality, but they aren’t stuck there. They become this energetic force for positive change.

Now, I know he’s kind of a polarizing figure—like him or not, I like him. He’s sometimes flashy and sometimes brash, but he genuinely loves Jesus and the kids he coaches. Coach Prime took over a 1-11 team at the University of Colorado, and he has been lifting the vision and painting a new picture of the future for his players, for the staff, for the fans. They have become the talk of college football. Now, they have a long way to go as a program, but his mantra has been, «We coming! You better get us now!» He is seeing the potential of what could be someday, and Nehemiah was like that—this ordinary guy painting a picture of the way things ought to be. He said, «This is what it’s going to look like, and this is how we’re going to do it.» He even says to his critics—not in a cocky, confident way—he says, «With God’s help, we coming!» And man, did they ever!

Making Huge Asks
I’ve also noticed that great leaders are not afraid to make huge asks. There is a humble boldness about them— and no, humble boldness is not an oxymoron. They just believe in their cause so much that they’re humble enough and courageous enough to ask other people to partner with them. Nehemiah does that; he makes a big and bold ask of the king that he served as a cupbearer. I love how he retells it over in Chapter 2. He says, «I was serving the king his wine. I’d never before appeared sad in his presence, so the king asked me, 'Why are you looking so sad? You don’t look sick to me. You must be deeply troubled.'» Then I was terrified. I just love that he includes that. You see, courage is not the absence of fear; it’s moving ahead in spite of the fear. I replied, «Long live the king! How can I not be sad? For the city where my ancestors are buried is in ruins, and the gates have been destroyed by fire.» The king asked, «Well, how can I help you?»

And I love this: «With a prayer to the God of Heaven.» In other words, he said, «I prayed on the fly.» When he asked me that, I just uttered a quick prayer: «God, help me in this moment. Give me the right words to say, give me the right tone, give me the right humility.» So I replied, «If it pleases the king, and if you’re pleased with me, your servant, send me to Judah to rebuild the city where my ancestors are buried.» The king, with the queen sitting beside him, asked, «How long will you be gone? When will you return?» After I told him how long I would be gone, the king agreed to my request.

Now, Nehemiah worked for an unbeliever, and he doesn’t rush in and say, «Okay, here’s the deal: three years leave of absence, or I quit today!» No. He knew something had to be done in the heart of King Artaxerxes, so he goes to God first and starts praying for God to soften the king’s heart. Then he patiently waits for the right moment, continues to show up on the job, and just serves in a God-honoring way. That is great, great leadership. And maybe a good word for all of us who happen to work for someone.

The king not only honors Nehemiah’s request but goes overboard with supplies, even giving him a military escort. Sometimes I think God wants to say to us, «You have not because you ask not.» Wait, God already did say that! When great leaders have a cause they really believe in, they’re not afraid to make big, bold asks, and they also have the ability to motivate people toward that cause.

Motivating and Appreciating People
The way Nehemiah is able to rally and inspire and release people just blows me away. You ought to read or reread Chapter 3. It is so cool how he not only motivates a bunch of people who had zero motivation but then he organizes men and women—students, kids, young, old, rich, poor—and turns them into this fine-tuned, unified construction crew. What I noticed when I read it this week is that I love how he appreciates each person on the job for what they did. He lists in Chapter 3 the names of all the people and family members who worked on different sections of the wall. It’s like, «And so-and-so, they were over there slinging mortar, and they were over there laying stones, and that family was making iron hinges, and that guy was responsible for putting all the bolts on the Old City Gate.» I mean, on and on and on he goes, taking the time to give them the credit for their hard work. It’s almost like in Chapter 3 he’s writing a stack of thank-you notes to all these people.

You know, as well as I do, encouragement and appreciation—man, that feels good! Praise goes a long way in the hearts of people. So let me just say something to a group of some of the most important leaders in this place—parents: praise goes a long way in the hearts of our kids. Let them know regularly that you are their biggest fan. I mean, all people love encouragement, but especially our kids. They just love to be caught by us doing something right.

You might remember the story of a lady who walked out one morning to get her newspaper (remember those things from the front sidewalk?) and she opens the front door and finds this young Labrador Retriever sitting there on her porch with her paper in his mouth. He had brought it up from the sidewalk. She patted him on the head and said, «Good boy, » and went in to give him a treat. She gave him the treat and went back inside. The next morning she opens up the front door, and there’s that same dog on the front porch with seven newspapers.

When we regularly tell our kids, «Good boy! Good girl!» it is motivating, and it is nurturing. So you ought to build this praise foundation in your kids. Give them praise phrases like, «Man, I never did that as well as you when I was your age! Dude, you get better at that every single day! Honey, the way you handled that, it was absolutely awesome! Oh man, I just love to hear you laugh; you crack me up! You’re not scaring me as much now when you drive!» Just praise phrases like Nehemiah. You build this praise foundation with your kids, with your employees, with your students, with your players, with your staff. Your spouse needs to know that you believe they are good and capable and appreciated and deeply loved.

Leading by Example
Going back through this again, I’ve also noticed that great leaders roll up their sleeves and lead by example. Great leaders are hard workers. They aren’t afraid to get down and dirty and serve shoulder to shoulder with everybody else, and that’s Nehemiah. He wasn’t just the guy with the plan and the vision in his head; he was also the guy with the calluses on his hands and the concrete on his boots, and leaders like that inspire, don’t they?

Now, I’ve been in the church world a long time, and I’ve always told the different staffs I’ve gotten to lead, «Listen, we are never too good to set up chairs, never too good to mop floors and clean toilets and park in the worst places.» Because leaders lead by example! Jesus once said—in fact, greatness demands servanthood. And not only did he say that, but he rolled up his sleeves and modeled it.

Delegating and Bringing Out the Best
I couldn’t help but notice also that great leaders not only roll up their sleeves and work alongside people, but they are also really good at delegating responsibility, and they bring out the best in the team. Make no mistake about it—Nehemiah’s team, not Nehemiah, accomplishes something in 52 days that most people said would never be done, because everybody did it together.

You know, college football and the NFL are in full swing. By the way, who do the Cowboys play today? Sorry about that, but did you hear about the football game that went on between the small animals and the large animals? The large animals were ahead 40 to nothing at halftime, as you might imagine. They would just hand off to an elephant, and he would rumble down the field with squirrels and rabbits wrapped around his legs and birds pecking at his trunk—all unable to bring him down. It was demoralizing. To make matters worse, the small animals had lost the opening coin toss, so they had to kick off to start the second half.

Well, the kickoff is received by a gorilla at the 10-yard line. He takes a few steps, and bam! Drops to the turf. First play from scrimmage, a lion takes a handoff—bam! Stopped cold in his tracks. Second down, they run an off tackle to a rhino—bam! Thrown for a loss. Third down, the gorilla drops back to pass, but he sits so hard that the ball goes flying backward, rolls back into the end zone. There’s a mad scramble for the fumble. As the referees unpile the animals, they find this tiny centipede on top of the football—touchdown small animals!

His teammates ask him, «Man, was that you that dropped the lion in his tracks?» He goes, «Yeah, that was me.» «Was that you that threw the rhino for a loss?» «Yep, that was me.» «Was that you that hit the gorilla so hard he coughed up the ball?» «Yep, that was me.» «Dude, where were you in the first half?» «I was getting my ankles taped.» See, centipedes have 100 ankles! I’m sorry, but there’s just no such thing as a small player in God’s eyes. We are all supernaturally empowered teammates with our own God-given uniqueness. And when we sit it out, the team suffers. The world suffers.

That’s why it says in 1 Peter 4:10, «God has given gifts to each of you from a great variety of spiritual gifts. Manage them well so that God’s generosity can flow through uniquely you.» When we use our gifts and we allow God’s generosity to flow through us, we stand back and say, «Man, I think I was made for this!» and the church flourishes and the world takes notice of the goodness of God.

One of the things that I love about what’s going on here is that we’re doing it together. So many people using their unique gifts and their unique personality and their unique story to really make a difference. I mean, this isn’t a group of pastors or staff that’s doing all the work. Man, it’s all of us! It’s the thousands—literally thousands—of volunteers. It’s the people that lead groups and recovery meetings. It’s those of you that walk alongside hurting people. It’s the extreme generosity that so many of you show. It’s the baby rockers and the praying grandmas and the parking teams and the food bank volunteers and the artists and the designers and the musicians and GRE and coffee brewers and mentors and landscapers and cleaning crew. It’s everybody. And when everybody is involved, linking arms for something that matters, man, it’s pretty amazing!

Nehemiah’s team accomplishes something in 52 days that most said would never be done. Nehemiah writes about it in Chapter 6. He says, «When our enemies and the surrounding nations heard about it, they were frightened and humiliated. They realized this work had been done with the help of our God.» They realized that for a team to pull something off like that, God had to be in the middle of it. And when we come together in unity—like what’s going to happen next week in our Serve the City initiative—letting God just flow through our uniqueness, God shows up in the middle of it, and the world sees and takes notice of the goodness of God.

Deflecting Credit to God
Which is another thing that impresses me about Nehemiah and all great leaders: they deflect the credit to God. They deflect the credit to God. They know they’re just ordinary men and ordinary women who God just happened to use to flow through them and that only God could pull off anything that’s really good—anything that’s really lasting. In other words, they never lose that humility.

Could we throw that «It Cycle» back up for a minute? Where humility leads to obedience, leads to blessing, which leads to praise, which leads back to humility. Josh said in week one that the danger is when we replace praise with pride. Pride then leads to sin. Sin leads to humiliation. And gang, when a leader or an organization replaces praise with pride—when you and I stop throwing a floodlight onto God and we start claiming the spotlight for ourselves—that’s a dangerous cycle to be in.

I’ve eaten pizza there a few times at a pretty unique restaurant that sits right next to a major university where 30,000 students are trying to find their purpose and place in life. It’s within a two-block walking distance of that thriving campus and a revitalized downtown area. It is in a prime location, and it’s got great pizza and amazing calzones. But the thing that will really strike you about it is that it has the most incredible architecture for a pizza place—very high cathedral ceilings, huge exposed oak beams, beautiful old wood floors, and they have these exquisite stained glass windows that let the prism light filter through. And they’ve got great pizza, but there’s just something sad about eating pizza in an old church that has become lightless.

What once had been a shining light to the community is now full of video games and 30 flat screens. What once had been dispensing amazing grace is now serving up pepperoni and beer—no longer a force for good, no longer a haven for safety, no longer a beacon of hope, no longer an agent of change, no longer a vibrant church. It’s heartbreaking to me to see the number of churches that close their doors every single year because somewhere along the line they lost their passion, lost their focus, lost their vision. Perhaps their unity got fractured, or maybe they got seduced by the culture and they refused to lovingly stand on truth. Or perhaps they got so inwardly focused that those outside the walls were seldom thought of, and they grew apathetic toward the poor and the forgotten—those people in need of a new life. Or maybe, just maybe, one day they started thinking more highly of themselves than they should have, and praise got hijacked by pride and ego.

Listen, God is doing amazing things in and through Lakepointe right now. It is an absolute thrill to be a part of it. But gang, we’ve got to make sure that we always stay humble and grateful. Because make no mistake about it, God is doing it all. All the credit, all the publicity, all the praise, all the applause goes to Him. Jesus told us that we are the light of the world and that we are to let our light so shine so that people will see our good works and glorify our Father in heaven. It is so exciting to be a part of a growing, thriving church like this, but we have to be vigilant against any unhealthy pride that always deflects and directs praise to the only one who can rescue, the only one that can save, the only one that can transform a human heart, the only one that can set people free.

And I’m so grateful that we have a bunch of leaders around here that are committed to that. There are so many other things that stood out to me about the leadership of Nehemiah: the way he defends the weak and stands up for the oppressed, the way he leads with integrity and honesty, and the way he handles external and internal criticism. It’s like a clinic—it’s so good. The way he stays focused, the way he leads people to celebrate what God has done by telling them, «It’s the joy of the Lord that’s your strength.» If your strength is gone, it’s because your joy is gone.

Caring About People Coming Home
But there’s one more thing that just messed with me this week as I was going back through this. It’s so easy to skip over Chapter 7; it’s just filled with so many names of people and families and numbers—it’s a genealogy record. I love how Nehemiah again takes the humble road. He says, «My God gave me the idea to do this.» He said, «God put it in my heart to do ancestry.com and make a list of all the people who were coming home.»

So here’s my final observation—and the one that just wrecked me this week: Great leaders genuinely care about people coming home. Great leaders genuinely care about people coming home. You see, the big «why» behind rebuilding the walls of Jerusalem in Nehemiah’s heart was not because he loved remodeling, not because he loved tinkering with architecture, not because he wanted to make the city look good again, get the economy moving, or get some tourism happening. The reason he did it was to make a way for displaced people to come back to God—to help people come out of exile, to help people come out of hiding, out of separation, out of dysfunction, out of isolation, out of loneliness, out of despair, and help them just come home—not just to a physical place but back into a vibrant relationship with the Living God.

I love that Nehemiah lists all the exiles who return from their captivity and includes the exact numbers because the numbers were the lives of real people. And don’t worry, we’re going to throw them up on the screen, but I’m going to read them all: The family of Perosh: 2,172. The family of Shephatiah: 652. The family of Elam: 1,254. The family of Zattu: 845. The family of Zaccai: 760. The family of Bani: 648—and on and on and on! You can see name after name after name after name, name after family name because people matter.

And he writes this in Chapter 7: «So a total of 42,360 people returned to Judah, in addition to 7,337 servants and 245 singers, both men and women.» Isn’t that cool? He counted them. He took the time to look them all up and name them, and he wrote them down. Why? Because displaced people matter to God. He wants everyone home.

And that’s why we’re adding services; that’s why we open new venues; that’s why we start new campuses; that’s why we’re planting churches all over the place; that’s why we’re making more room for kids and students and Lakepointe Español; and making room in our lobbies at all of our campuses, and more space for recovery meetings, and more space in life groups. It’s why we count the number of people that show up here and people that show up online and in groups and the people that are baptized—not because we need to show some stat sheet to somebody, not so that we can compare ourselves and brag about our growth, but because every number represents a person in exile that has come home.

There is hope for everybody, and people need to know that. And that’s why we have to stay humble—that’s why we have to stay humble, and that’s why we have to follow His lead and get Him involved. And that’s why you and I can never trade out praise for pride. We have to continually throw a floodlight on the goodness and the greatness of God—the faithfulness, the unfailing love of a Father that just wants everyone to be home with Him.

Closing Prayer
Let’s pray together. Father, I am just so blown away by this story every time, God, I’ve read it and reread it and underlined stuff and highlighted things. It just blows me away! Thank You for putting it in Your book, recording this significant time in these people’s lives. Thank You for a leader like Nehemiah that shows all of us who have influence over people the best way to lead. So God, I pray that You would stamp all those things in our heart, that Your Holy Spirit would remind us through the week to treat people in an appreciative way.

And not be afraid to ask you bold things—always deflect credit to You, to stay humble, to never replace praise with pride and ego—all those things, God, You stamp them in our hearts and remind us throughout the week. Help us to go to work with a great attitude and serve people well, and so they might see that we’re different. I pray that would happen this coming weekend with all the Serve the City initiatives, that as we do that in a unified way, we would just love people till they ask why and we could point to You.

And God, I pray that as we try to be light, that we really would throw a huge floodlight on You, and we would never ever turn the spotlight on ourselves. God, thank You for the privilege of just walking with You and doing life with You. Just so, so grateful. Thank You for what You’re doing in this place, and just keep us humble.

And Father, I just can’t help but pray today because I’ve been praying for a couple of weeks now, and then reading through the story of Jerusalem in ruins and the people displaced. God, we just want to lift all those people up to You today. We just pray that You bring peace. We pray, God, that You would protect people-pray for people in Israel, people in Palestine — there are innocent people that are just caught up in the middle of all this stuff. And God, I pray that maybe this would be a time where people will be led to a saving relationship with Jesus, who came through the lineage of Abraham to be this blessing that You told him about that would bless the entire world.

And I thank You for Jesus and the way He calls people home, and I pray that Jesus would be clearly seen through all this. God, I just thank You for the way You love us, the way You relentlessly pursue us, the way You call us home. And I pray all this in the name of Jesus Christ. Amen.