Clear for Take Off | Hervera Hambrick | Twin Rivers Church

Can you believe it? We've made it to the last Sunday of the year. It is the last Sunday of the year. 2026 is just around the corner. It's just a few days away. And I really can't believe that it's been nearly 25 years since I remember hearing about a news report of a tragic plane incident. There was an incident that took place in 2001 in which the incident happened in the Bahamas. And there was a young and upcoming artist by the name of Aaliyah. And she had actually passed because of some interesting things. You see, it wasn't the typical plane incident. The plane's medical or mechanicals, they didn't falter. The weather, it wasn't bad at all. It was some other things that took place. And when they investigated, there was two things that they discovered. The first thing is that she was overloaded with baggage. And the second thing they discovered was that there was way too many people unauthorized on that plane. Now, this is interesting because the issue was not the plane. It wasn't the pilot. The issue was the load. She was carrying way too much and way too many. And many of us are going to have to understand and learn from this because this is not an aviation issue. This is a spiritual issue as well. You see, we can't take things from the past season with us to the next. And we also can't take people with us where God is wanting to take us. Some people are going to have to be left behind. And it's really interesting because we're right now

in a very weird and awkward in-between space being the last Sunday of the year. I mean, come on now. I'm not going to lie. Yesterday, I really didn't know what day of the week it was. I really did. I didn't know what day of the week it was. But you're in a place now where you probably have Christmas leftovers still in your refrigerator and you don't know what to do with it because you've also set some goals for the new year. And so you're either going to throw it away or you're going to eat it because you technically have to the first. Right. So. So it's kind of a weird in-between place here. But it is spiritually a pivotal moment. It's a pivotal moment because you're not quite living in the past of last year and you're not quite walking in the newness of next year. You see, you are right now standing in between reflection and anticipation. And what you do in this moment matters because what you carry into the next season, it matters. And the scripture tells us in Isaiah 43, 18 to 19, tells us, forget the former things. Do not dwell on the past. See, I am doing a new thing now. It springs up. Do you not perceive it? I am making a way in the wilderness and streams in the wasteland. God didn't say I did a new thing. God is saying I'm doing a new thing, which means this is active. He is actively doing a new thing. And so often we get stuck in rehearsing the past, all the things that happened this past year, all the past failures, all the past hurts, all the things that we keep looking back at. And Isaiah is trying to remind us of something.

He's saying, put away those former things. Stop dwelling on the past because God is doing something new right now. This is what we have to hold on to. And it's interesting because you question and you say, now, how in the world can God speak to me now? But yet he's telling me about being in the future, if you will, or the new thing that he's doing. I'm here to tell you that God can tell you that because the God whom we serve, he is the Alpha and the Omega. He's in the beginning and he's at the end. He's outside of time. He's not limited by time because he is the author of time. He is an omnipresent God. That means that he's in your past, present, and future all at the same time. at the same time. And if you're here today and you didn't believe that you had a future, I'm here to tell you that anytime you walk with God, that you can walk in your promised future. Because God will never invite you into what is next if he hasn't already gone before you. You see, he's already gone before you. He's already prepared a way for you. He's already prepared something new for you. And all he's waiting for you is for you to step into it and walk it out in faith. Now we all know something new sounds good. But man, how do we miss it? We miss it so often because we try to carry the old in with the new. And that's exactly where we find ourselves in the story of Nehemiah. In the story of Nehemiah, many of you may not have heard, but Nehemiah, he is a Jewish royal official in the Persian Empire. And God has placed on his heart a desire to rebuild the city of Jerusalem. And he wants Nehemiah to start by rebuilding the walls. And so Nehemiah, he puts together a plan, and he says that, I need some help, I need some supplies. And so he gets the supplies to rebuild, and then he travels to Jerusalem, and he wants to get the locals to help out.

You see, Jerusalem had been destroyed by the Babylonians, and it had laid in ruins for 80 years by the time Nehemiah shows up. So when he shows up on the scenes, you have to understand what he's seeing. He's seeing 80 years of rubble all around. And he doesn't enter in and ignore that there's an issue or a problem. He doesn't downplay the damage. No, Nehemiah, he acknowledges it, and he recognizes the same thing that all of them recognize, things are broken. And I'm going to be honest with you, I'm glad that Nehemiah didn't step into the city like an upset parent coming home to a messy house. He could have easily walked in like, boom. Okay, what is this? It's a mess. Everything around here is a mess. This is a hot mess. You guys don't see this. Don't act like you don't see this rubble all over here. And you're telling me that nobody wanted to pick this up? How long has this been here? Eighty years. You mean to tell me 80 years it's been here and nobody wanted to pick it up? Is that a gate? I know that's not a gate in the middle of the road. Pick that gate up. And pick that wall up too while you're at it. The entire brick wall. Like, he could have came in grilling them, right, about the things that he saw. But instead, Nehemiah operated just like the Lord would. Nehemiah enters in and he begins to observe the damage. And aren't you glad that God enters into our broken places and he doesn't grill us for things that fell apart in our lives? You see, the Lord enters into our broken situations and he meets us with grace and with mercy. And he looks at the damage that's taken place and he says, yeah, it's bad, it's broken, but it can be rebuilt. And I don't know who this is for today, but before I move any further, I believe that there's some people here right now that you need to encourage yourself. Because right now, even as I'm speaking, you're struggling to believe that the situation in your life can be rebuilt. But I'm here to tell you that God can. And I want you to encourage yourself. I want you to say something. I want you to repeat it out loud. You ready? Oh, y'all ain't ready. I want you to repeat something out loud. Can you do that for me? Thank you. You got to speak. Listen,

I want you to say this with me. God is building something good in my life. Yeah, God is building something good in your life. Nehemiah 2 and 17, when he entered into the city, he says, then I said to them, you see the trouble we are in. Jerusalem lies in ruins and all the gates have been burned with fire. Come, let us rebuild the wall of Jerusalem and we will no longer be in disgrace. And they replied, they spoke, and they said, let us start rebuilding. So, they began. Again, this is good work. You see, many times we're going to have to speak things over ourselves. What you just said might have been the nicest thing you've said to yourself all year long. And I'm wondering, if God is wanting to rebuild, what's in the way? And the answer to that is, it's rubble. You see, rubble is nothing more than what's left over after something destructive has taken place. In Nehemiah 4 and 10, it says, meanwhile, the people in Judah said, the strength of the laborers is giving out. And there is so much rubble that we cannot rebuild the wall. You see, the issue is that they needed to deal with the rubble in their lives, like me and like you. And rubble being the remains of something destructive means that all of us, at some point, have dealt with some rubble in our lives. All of us have dealt with some destructive things. Maybe even this year, you've dealt with them, like a job loss or a bad doctor's report, or maybe your rubble is a loss of a loved one. Whatever your situation is, it's destructive and it leaves rubble behind. For me, I had to deal with a destructive moment myself. A few years ago, me and my wife, we were praying and we believed God was calling us to the St. Louis area and we were going to do a major work for the kingdom of God. And so, we stepped out in faith and we rented out our home in Kentucky and we moved in with my in-laws. Now, before you judge me, okay, I just want to say right now, I do love my in-laws. I love them and I like them. But I will say that it was not an ideal situation. And we were looking to move out because we understood that we needed a space of our own. And so, we believed God and we were praying and we

were able to put in an offer on a house and we got the contract on this house. And then, guys, life hit. I like to say sometimes, life be lifin'. And life was lifin' for us because in that season, in that moment, I got another call and that call told me that the company I was working for was actually downsizing its St. Louis branch. And that meant that I was losing my job. And because I had lost my job, I wasn't able to close on that house. So, I had lost my job and I had lost the house. And if that wasn't bad enough, when storms hit, man, they hit hard. I got another call and the next call I got was to tell me that my father had suddenly passed. Now, that, I'm going to be honest, guys, that one right there, that one hit really hard. And we had to make a decision. See, I would love to tell you that all these things happen over a long period of time, but everything that I just told you took place within a 30-day period. And so, me and my wife, we prayed. And we made a decision. It was a hard decision, but I felt like it was a wise decision. And we decided that we were going to put a pause on the ministry that we were starting here in the St. Louis area. And we allowed God to do a work. And we trusted the Lord during that season. We said, God, whatever you have for us, we trust and believe that it's going to be good. And God began to do a new thing in our lives. You see, that following year, I got a new job, and then we got a new house. And I didn't even tell you guys that somebody had hit my car, but we got a new car. Come on. Come on. Won't he do it? God will restore what the enemy tried to steal. And then I started attending this big little church that you guys all might know. It's called Twin Rivers Church. And before long, I was brung on staff to be a part of the pastoral team. And I'm happy to tell you guys that next Sunday, I'll be celebrating six years of full-time ministry here at Twin Rivers. Come on. God is good. And I told you that story. for a reason. Because surviving a hard moment is one thing, but allowing a hard moment to survive in your life is another. And sometimes we got to kill off those bad seasons. We have to forget those former things and move on to what God has for us in the future. But we have to remove the rubble first. And rubble

appears in our life in so many different ways. There's the rubble of unresolved issues that show up. And the rubble of unresolved issues shows up and it's loved by the enemy. You see the enemy loves to hide in unresolved issues. The enemy loves to hide like a snake hides in a pile of junk. When I was raising up I was told don't play around piles of junk because snakes could be lurking in there. And you don't want them to pop out, right? And so I was like oh my goodness I never played around a pile of junk. But the enemy loves to hide out in the junk that we don't deal with in our lives. You see unresolved issues can show up and it might look like old childhood trauma that you never dealt with. Or maybe it's an old memory of a toxic relationship that you never dealt with. But these things at some point have to be resolved because the enemy is lying and waiting for his opportunity to hop out and to affect you and to attack your life by using these unresolved issues. And in Nehemiah 411 he tells us this about our enemy. He says our enemies said before they know it or see us we will be right there among them and we'll kill them and put an end to the work. You see unresolved issues gives a spiritual enemy room to work and that's why it's important for us to close the door on him before he enters in. The other way that he tries to get in our lives is by using the rubble of unrepentant sin. To repent means to change in direction. What if the rubble that you're dealing with is not unforgiving sin? What if it's unrepentant sin? Meaning that you have taken things to the Lord and the Lord has forgiven you but yet you haven't changed direction and because you haven't changed direction you're headed right back into the same place. You see we're about to enter into a new year but if you don't go in a different direction you're going to have a repeated season and so for us we're going to have to change some things. When we walk into this new year the thing that we need to remove that's probably the heaviest to get out of our life is the rubble of unaware strongholds. Now unaware strongholds these are deeply rooted patterns you stop questioning. These are the things that you don't even see anymore. The reason you don't see them because you've adapted to them. You're used to them. You make excuses for them. You compensate for them.

You deny they even exist. These are the things in which the people of Jerusalem had to deal with because for 80 years they had stepped on, stepped over, and stepped around rubble. This tells me that the issue was not hidden it was just avoided and it's time for us to stop avoiding the issues in our life and begin to clear them out and so I just want to give you three quick things on how to clear out the rubble in our life and the first is we have to clear out the excuses because excuses man they are so self-deceiving. Some of the worst lies that you will ever hear are the lies that you tell yourself. They sound like excuses. You know last year I graduated from I graduated with a master's my master's I went back to school and but I'm gonna be honest with you I almost didn't go back to school because any and every negative thought that you could think of began to show up. I started thinking that it was going to be too hard. I thought I didn't have enough time. I said that I was going to be too busy. All the things and then I went to the Lord about it. I didn't even tell a lot of people. I kept quiet. To be honest with you, I kept quiet. I didn't want to tell anybody. And then I went to the Lord and he said, you need to tell me and you need to tell a few trusted people. And I did that. And when I did that, things began to shift. You see, when I told other people, then I started being held accountable. Some of us need to be held accountable for some things. But I was also encouraged. So I got accountability and I got encouragement by telling other people. And then when I started telling the Lord what was going on, I brought him all my fears and all my doubts. And in exchange, he gave me strength

and he gave me peace that I didn't have. And I don't know what excuses that you might be dealing with, but I want to let you know that you don't have to keep trying harder. Maybe you need to address these things by inviting the Lord and people into your situation. See, once you're able to clear out your excuses, then you can cut your ties. I want to challenge you today. Can you identify the things that's attached to the rubble in your life? The things that's attached to the remaining destructive things in your life? Like maybe you're still dealing with a substance that you use to help numb the pain. You don't have to cut that out of your life. Maybe it's an old email that you still hold on to to show how wrong they did to you. Maybe that email finally needs to be deleted so that you can move on and stop being bitter. What if it's old friends on social media that you keep looking at everything that you're doing and it's bringing up old memories and it's drawing you backwards instead of moving you forward? Maybe you need to unfriend some people. I don't know what it is that's keeping you tied up, but all I know is that when you are able to cut the ties on things, it leaves room for God to operate

and move in your life. Pastor John Bevere, he shares a story about being married and when he first got married, he was convicted because he held on to some letters and some old keepsakes of past relationships and the Lord started dealing with him about it and he ended up, not out of guilt, but he ended up just getting rid of it because he felt like the Lord was telling him to get rid of it and he wanted to get rid of it because he knew that if he held on to it, all the things of the past was gonna compete with his future and you don't need the things of the past to compete with your future. You need to be able to walk into your future freely and God is telling us that you should be able to make room for him by cutting these things off of your life because when you're able to do that, you're saying, Lord, I want what you have and not what I had and that's where we have to get to is a place of releasing the old, stepping into the new and we're able to do that, then you're gonna have to fill those areas and how do we fill in the areas that we've released? Well, in Ephesians 5 and 18, it tells us this, do not get drunk on wine, which leads to debauchery. Instead, be filled with the Spirit. In other words, God doesn't just tell us to stop doing something.

The Lord is telling us and showing us a better way of living. You see, so often in faith, we turn to a don't do list, right? It's like don't do this, don't touch that, don't go there. Everything is about don'ts but can I tell you that that's not freedom, that's religion. If you just focus on a list of don't dos, that's gonna keep you boxed into a religion and God is not just focused on removing all the unhealthy things out of your life. He's not just focused on that, no. No, the Lord wants to bring life-giving things in your life. He wants to produce things that gives you life and life more abundantly and so in 2026, I believe there's some things that you can put in your life that's gonna bring you more life and the first thing that you can put a little bit more of in your life is the Word of God. Ephesians 5 and 28 tells us, be washed by the cleansing of God's Word. Basically, reading the Bible is like taking a bath. bath for your heart and for your mind, and some of y'all need to take a bath. I want to encourage you, you know, in 2026 we're going to do a Bible reading plan. We do that every year. I encourage you to jump in with us this coming year and you can do it online. You don't even have to do just the reading at home. You can actually do the audio version. If you're not a great reader, that's fine. Just press play and let the word read over you. That's like taking a spiritual shower if you don't like that bath.

Either way, you can let the word wash over you. The other thing you can do to fuel up is you can increase the prayer in your life. Increase your prayer life. I don't know if you know this, but every Wednesday night we have campus prayer here. I'd love to see some of you. It's available. It would stretch your faith. On January the 14th, we're going to have 24 hours of prayer taking place here, and you can check a box of an hour and pray. Maybe for this year your prayer life needs to grow by praying for other people instead of always praying just for yourself and your situations. At some point, we got to get to a place where we're praying less about me and more about we. You know, that is called spiritual maturity. The last thing that you could do to fill up the areas in your life is you can fill it with ministry. Ministry means nothing more than serving. Romans 12 and 21 says this do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good. This is why we push so hard for you to serve here at Twin Rivers because we know that you can have victory in your life. We understand that purpose provides freedom, and if you're serving, you might be able to find the purpose for your life in this season. You got to find a place where you could serve. It reminds me of a gentleman that goes here. His name is John, and when John first started attending here, he actually was in a very hard season in his life. He was on the brink of a divorce. Emotionally, he was going through a lot, and he had nowhere else to turn but to the Lord. And when he turned everything over to God, he began to get involved. He joined the life group. He joined one of our men's groups because he wanted to be a better man.

And then he discovered that we offered a husband's group. So he joined the husband's group because he wanted to be a better husband. And then he joined our production team, and he began to serve. And then he started doing God work, and he enrolled in our school of leadership. And can I tell you that last May, he graduated with honors. Yeah. And today, John and his wife, they're doing well. And when I spoke to him a few days ago, he was so excited. He told me, he said, Pastor, I'm just blown away. He said, I've been working on rebuilding something for my wife. I said, what are you building for your wife? He said, well, my wife is getting a new location for her hair salon, and I get a chance to build out all the cabinetry. And so I've been spending all of my days building the cabinets for my wife's new salon. I thought that was so awesome. It shows that when you clear out the old, God can make space to build new things. You know, I've titled this message Clear to Take Off for a reason. Because that is an aviation term. That term means that you have met all the requirements and all the conditions are right and you are authorized to take flight. And as we end this year, I want to let you know that you are clear for take off. You're clear to take off all the past hurts. You're clear to take off all the past pains, all the past shame, all the things that tried to fight you this past year. You could take everything off, every lie of the enemy. You could take that thing off of your life. You don't have to carry that into 2026. You're clear to take off every lie and deceit that even you may have spoken over your situation. You're clear for take off.

you're clear to take off into the next. I feel like God is saying some of you are clear to take off into the greatest comeback in your life and I want to declare to you right now by the power invested in me that you are clear to take off into a new season and a new year.