The Blueprint for Your Best Year

Oh, come on. He's the on-time God today. You made it. You made it, everybody. It's a new year. Come on. Can you give God praise for another year? He woke you up this morning. He gave you breath to breathe. There's air in your lungs. Oh, God is good today. Welcome to you today here in your town in Newport News in Virginia Beach. A big shout out to our online family and to the men at the Indian Creek Correctional Center. We are so glad you've decided to come to church today. There's no better place to start your year than right here in God's house with God's people. Welcome to church, everybody. Well, as we kick off this new year, I thought you might want to remain standing for one more celebration of the amazing work of God during 2025. You see, we have this little tradition around our church where we end every year with radical generosity. We call it heart for the house, and we give back to God our very best gifts because we believe that generosity leads the way, and we believe that generosity fuels faith. And so heart for the house isn't just a measure of our generosity. It's actually a measure of our faith. It's a measure of our expectancy. And I got to tell you that not only are you becoming the most incredibly generous people that I know, but you are becoming the most faith-filled people that I know. You better get ready for 2026 because I know God's going to work in our lives. So I wanted you to remain standing because I knew you'd want to shout and high five and jump up and down and lose your mind a little bit because it was another record-breaking year for heart for the house, everybody. Your generosity and your faith went to a whole nother level in 2025. Together, in faith, we gave a grand total of $1,243,785.16 to God be the glory. What? Oh, come on, you can do better than that. $1.2 million invested into God's kingdom. So generous. So faith-filled. Such expectancy as we step into 2026. And as I reflect on that number, I want to say thank you to you for your incredible generosity and faith. But more than that, I just want to say thank you to Jesus because he's worthy of it all. You're worthy, worthy of it all. So God, we stand today full of faith and expectation. We are grateful for a new year. And God, as we step into this year, we are filled with faith, believing that you're going to work this year. And you're going to use every little bit of faith that we bring to you. We're going to use every bit of generosity that we offer to you. You're going to use our lives in extraordinary ways to build your kingdom, to advance your mission, so that more and more people might know you and have a relationship with you. I thank you for this generous church and this faith-filled church. And I pray, God,

today, that as we begin a brand new year, we would step into it knowing that you are working in and through us. We love you, Jesus. You're worthy of it all. We give you worship and praise and honor and glory today. In Jesus' name we pray, amen. Amen, amen, amen. What a start to 2026. Hey, do this. Before you're seated, before you're seated, I wanted to let you announce this new series title to somebody around you. And you can pick your favorite person, all right? Just pick the favorite one that's sitting around you. And you're going to announce to them the title of this series. And you might join it with a high five, or if you're really fired up, a double high five. If you know them, you can hug them, all right? But if you don't know them, don't do that, all right? Here's the series title. I want you to get ready to announce it. We're calling this series Your Best Year. Your Best Year. Look at somebody around you, give them a high five, say it's gonna be your best year. Your best year. And then you can be seated. It's gonna be your best year. I believe it. I believe it. Well, we're believing. We're believing it's gonna be your best year. But more than believing it, we're actually gonna teach you how to have it. All right, everybody, we're gonna teach you in this series of messages how to experience it. Now, if you've been around our church for a long time, you might be suffering from a little PTSD from a January series titled something about best year. And I'll tell you why. Several years ago, I kicked off January with a similarly sounding title. The title that year was this is the year.

And we didn't title that this is the year. This title is your best year. I'm gonna tell you why. Because it was 2020 when I boldly declared to our church, this is the year. And it was. It was the year of distancing. It was the year of masks. It was the year of the shutdown. It was the year of gray hairs. It was the year of weight gain. Come on, somebody. 2020, it was the year. And I learned that year I need to be far more specific with the titles of my sermon series. And so I decided to call this your best year. Your best year. 2026, I believe can be your best year. And I'm basing this whole series off of one of my favorite scriptures in all the Bible. And it would be a good one, honestly, to memorize. It's straight from the first chapter of the book of Psalms. And the psalmist said this. He said, blessed is the one. And that is the subtitle of this series. It's your best year. Blessed is the one. In fact, would you just read those words with me? Those four words to start off the verse. Come on, read it with me.

Blessed is the one. I believe that if you want it to be your best year, then it has to be a blessed year. I thought about titling this series, your blessed year. Hashtag blessed. But I thought you might make fun of me for that. So I just decided your best year. But if you're gonna have your best year, it's gotta be a blessed year. In fact, read it with me one more time. I just want you to get it in your spirit today. Come on, everybody. Blessed is the one. One of my goals for this year, one of my goals is that when I ask for participation from the church, the back row starts to participate. That's one of my goals. I know I'm asking, come on, back row. I'm asking for a lot. I'm asking for a lot. But the sermon is better if you participate. I'm just telling you, I preach better. And even if I don't preach better, it is scientifically proven I preach shorter when you participate to everybody. So if you wanna beat the Methodist down the road to the IHOP, you better like clap and cheer and laugh and talk back a little bit in the sermon. One more time, everybody. Blessed is the one.

Blessed is the one who does not walk in step with the wicked or stand in the way that sinners take or sit in the company of mockers, but whose delight is in the law of the Lord and who meditates on his law day and night. That person, what person? The blessed person. The person having the best year. The blessed person is like a tree. It's planted by streams of water, which yields its fruit in season and whose leaf does not wither. And I know, I know you wanna read the last part of this with me because the blessed person, it says, read it with me, whatever they do prospers. I want that in 2026. Whatever I do prospers. That is the formula for the best year. It is a blessed, a blessed year. And my goal is, I'm gonna help you have it. I'm gonna help you know how to experience. There's something about this psalm that I need you to understand as we embark on this journey together this year. I need you to understand that I've never even noticed it or paid attention to it until I really started to dive in to study the context of the psalm for this series, but I need you to understand that the psalmist is actually not prescribing to us how to have the blessed life.

This is not a prescription for blessing. You need to get this. Instead, the psalmist is describing, not prescribing, but describing what a blessed life looks like. So when he says, blessed is the one, da, da, da, da, da, da, he's not saying you will be blessed if you do, da, da, da, da, da, da. Instead, he's saying that this is what it looks like to be a blessed person. This is what it looks like for the one who is blessed. He's describing for us. He's painting a picture for us. He's giving an image to us of a way of life, the blessed life. Your best year is a blessed year. Best equals blessed. And the psalmist is actually inviting us into a way of life that looks different than you might think. The psalmist is trying to reframe for you what blessing might actually look like. Now, here's why that's so important, and I'm really starting our series off with that, is because most of us, when we envision our best year, when I say your best year, when we talk about blessings, most of us immediately think, we immediately think a new car. 2026 is the year of the Mercedes, let's go. Blessed year, best year.

Or our mind drifts and we think, oh, no, no, maybe it's not a new car, but maybe it's, he's proposing this year. I'm getting married this year. It's the year of marriage. Or maybe we think, oh, no, this is the year where I'm getting a promotion. I'm being promoted this year. Or this is the year where I'm finally getting to buy that house and graduate and move on from where I am to where I'm supposed to be. Or maybe this is the year of the fancy vacation. Bora, bora, here we come. Y'all fired up about Bora Bora. Hey, hey, hey, what if we take next year's Heart for the House offering and start Water's Edge Church Bora Bora? I think we should go. You see, in our minds, we think material blessings. We think promotion, advancement. We think personal success when we think of the best year, but most of us have the wrong understanding of blessing. So when the psalmist says blessed is the one, he's not promoting new cars and fancy vacations, big houses. When he says blessed is the one, he's talking about a person who is flourishing, a person who is healthy and well and emotionally stable. He's talking about a person being happy, not in an emotionally shallow sense. He's talking about being on the right path,

living in a state of wellbeing on the pathway that God intends for you to be. And so the psalmist wants you to see, this isn't how you become blessed, but this is what it looks like to actually be blessed. So I hate to disappoint you, but your best year, it has nothing to do with circumstances. It has nothing to do with things. It has nothing to do with what you might call physical blessings, but your best year is a blessed year. And it has everything to do with being on the right path, has everything to do with the person you're becoming. It has everything to do with the deep joy you experience. It's everything to do with the overall condition of your soul, that's blessed. The Hebrew word that the psalmist uses in the Old Testament is the word ashir, ashir. It's translated blessed or happy or flourishing. Now, interestingly, Jesus actually uses the Greek equivalent of this word in one of his most famous sermons over in the New Testament. We call it the Beatitudes. And in the Beatitudes, Jesus uses, the Greek word is makarios, and it actually means the same thing. It means blessed or flourishing or happy. And I want to read to you how Jesus uses the word blessed. I think it'll help you understand the biblical context of this idea. If you're taking the Old Testament,

if you're reading the Old Testament, Notes today, write down Matthew chapter five. That's where the Beatitudes is found. Matthew chapter five. If you're not taking notes today, write down Matthew chapter five, all right? Because I want you to go back and read it on your own to see how Jesus uses, in context, this word blessed. Jesus says things like this. Jesus says, blessed are the poor in spirit, to which I want to say, time out, Jesus. What do you mean? Blessed are the poor in spirit. Anything that is poor is not blessed. That doesn't make sense to me. And that's because I'm still thinking about blessing as new cars and big houses. Jesus says this. Jesus says, blessed are those who mourn. What do you mean? What do you mean I'm blessed when I mourn? Look at this one. Jesus says, blessed are the meek. You see, Jesus is joining with the psalmist and he's turning our understanding of blessing literally on its head. Blessing is no longer about the outcome. Blessing is no longer about the external. Jesus says, blessed are the pure in heart. Jesus says, blessed are the peacemakers.

Are you getting this? Because blessing, listen, is not about what you get. Your best year is not about the circumstances of this year, the celebrations of this year, the accomplishments of this year, the highlights of this year. Your best year is about something so much more. That means that you could lose your job this year and still have your best year. That you could go through a painful breakup this year and still have your best year. That you could stand by the grave side of a loved one this year and still have your best year. You could get a bad doctor's report this year and still have your best year because your best year might look different than you ever dreamed it could or that you ever dreamed that it would, but you would still be blessed. Blessed is the one. I had so much fun studying this word blessed throughout the Bible. In fact, it's used 45 different times in the Old Testament, this word blessed. And I studied all 45 of them. This is like a good time on a Friday night to Stu Hodges. We're gonna jump in. Some of y'all are like, are you about to give us all 45? No, but I'm gonna give you a few because I want you to see how each time

the word blessed is used, it follows a similar formula. And I wanna show it to you. I wanna show it to you. I'll give you a few examples. The Bible says this. Blessed is the one who takes refuge in him. It's following the same formula, Psalm 1, blessed is the one. It's following really the same formula of Jesus. Blessed are those. Now think about this. If you're blessed, when you take refuge in him, there's a reason you gotta take refuge in him. And so blessing is not about circumstances. Blessing is not about outcomes. It's giving us a description that is different than our perception of blessing. Here's another one. Blessed is the one whose transgressions are forgiven, whose sins are covered. The scripture's saying you are blessed when you are forgiven. Why do you need to be forgiven? Because you've sinned. So when you make mistakes and you sin along the way, you are blessed because you can be forgiven. Come on, that should really get you fired up today. If you made some mistakes in 2025, but you're stepping into 2026 forgiven, I'm blessed. How can you say it's your best year?

Because you're forgiven, friend. That's how. The Bible says this. Blessed is the one who trusts in the Lord. And in Proverbs, it says, blessed are those who keep my ways. These are all descriptions of one who is blessed. Painting a picture for us of a blessed person. Life. And I'm putting all this time, energy, and emphasis on trying to help you understand blessing because a blessed life is a best life, a blessed year. year is a best year. And I don't want you to step into 2026 saying it's gonna be my best year so I'm gonna get everything I wanted this year. And God's gonna answer all my prayers the way I expect him to this year. And it's gonna be an easy year. Oh man, I fought some battles in 2025, but pastor said, this is my best year. So there are gonna be no giants in my way in 2026. I don't want you to step into this year hearing that, that is not what the best year is about. Your best year is about who you're becoming, the path you're on. It's about the person that God's creating inside of you. It's, listen, listen, it's about, it's about you being healthy and well and spiritually strong.

And you can actually experience your best year. Every single description I just read to you is a description of a person who is blessed. And I wanna tell you how to have that description of your life this year. I'm gonna tell you today how to have your best year. You ready for it? That was not convincing. I'm gonna ask you one more time. Granted, maybe I didn't ask it compelling enough. So let me give you a little more oomph. Are you ready for it? Yeah. All right, great, good, good, good, good, good, good. Here it is, here it is. You will have your best year when it's your best year spiritually. What about the car? I don't know about the car. What about the promotion? Couldn't tell you, don't know. But am I gonna find the love of my life this year? Not sure, not sure. Come to church more often. Serve at the front doors. It's the best place. I'm telling you single ladies, it's the best place. If he's coming to church, he's the love of your life. I just want you to understand. You wanna have your best year?

Of course you do. All of us do. 2026 is our best year, woo! Okay, make it your best year spiritually because it'll be your best year then because blessed is best. In every description I just read of you in the Bible is a description of a person. Blessed is the one who's advancing spiritually, growing spiritually, developing spiritually, pursuing God spiritually, a person who is flourishing. Happy and blessed is one who's experiencing something different, something unique, something special in their spiritual life. And my job today, and y'all I've been preparing for this moment for weeks. My job today is to help you know how to have your best year spiritually because your best year spiritually will be your best year. And that's why today I'm calling our church to 21 days of fasting and prayer. 21 days of a deliberate, concentrated, focused time of seeking God from a place of humility and dependence on Him. We're gonna actually start this year focused on the very thing that I believe can make it your best year, and that is our spiritual lives. And I believe the best way to do that,

the best way to focus on your spiritual life is through prayer and fasting. And so for the rest of our time together today, I wanna show you why prayer and fasting is in fact the way to have your best year. I really do believe that the next 21 days are gonna prepare us for the next 365 days. Now I wanna teach you about prayer and fasting. And so much of what I've learned and so much of what I'm about to teach you, I learned from one of my favorite pastors and authors, Pastor Chris Hodges, who wrote a book called Pray First, which is a great resource for you. Pray First by Pastor Chris Hodges. And I grew up knowing some things about prayer, but as you can tell from my waistline, I didn't learn a whole lot about fasting growing up. My body ain't built for fasting, y'all. So I wanna teach you about prayer and fasting and how it can be the catalyst to your best year. I texted my doctor and I said, Hey, what do I need to know about fasting? And my doctor texted back and said, don't eat anything fatty. Don't eat anything fatty. So I wrote back and I said, what do you mean? Like hamburgers and French fries? And he wrote back and he said, no fatty, don't eat anything. And... And...

And... And... And... And... And... And... And... And... Y'all that didn't happen. That's just a joke I heard one time about fasting. Didn't happen, but y'all thought that was funnier than you should have so. Oh. Oh. I wanna show you a story from the Bible that'll I think helped you understand the significance of the next 21 days. And... And while the Psalmist gave us a description for blessing, I wanna give you, while the Psalmist gave us a description, sorry, a blessing, I wanna give you the prescription. I think this story really tells us how to experience your best year. And this story, the story is of a man who brings his son to Jesus and he's desperate. He's desperate because his son is having seizures that are apparently caused by demonic activity. And the father has already gone to Jesus' disciples to see if they could drive out this demon

and they were unable to. And so now the father is desperate and he comes to Jesus because the disciples couldn't heal the boy, but maybe Jesus could. And this is really, I think, important for you to understand that the disciples had tried to do something for this desperate father, but they lacked the power to do it. And I think that's important because that describes many of our lives today. A lot of us have tried to live our best year before. We wanted last year to be our best year. We wanted the year before that to be our best year, but we've lacked the power to have it. And so this man comes to Jesus and I wanna pick up in the story here because Jesus expresses a little bit of frustration with his disciples because he wanted them to have the power to drive out this demon, but they didn't have the power to drive out this demon. And so he's a little bit frustrated with his disciples. And Jesus says this, Jesus says, you unbelieving and perverse generation. And I wanna come back to those two key words in just a moment, so hang on to them. You unbelieving and perverse generation, Jesus replied. How long shall I stay with you? How long shall I put up with you? Bring the boy here to me.

And Jesus rebuked the demon and it came out of the boy and he was healed at that moment. So Jesus did what he expected his disciples to be able to do, but they couldn't do it. And Jesus says, there's a reason why they couldn't do it. And the reason was because of, I believe, because of those two words. You can write them down today. Those two words, unbelieving and perverse. Those were the two words, unbelieving and perverse. And I would submit to you today that those two words describe why the disciples lacked the power they needed. Now, what do those words mean? I think when Jesus called them unbelieving, I think what Jesus was describing is that they were not connected enough to God. Their faith was weak. They're not connected enough to the source. And you know this, it's possible to have a relationship with God, but to lack the power and the strength and the blessing that's associated with that relationship. And I'm probably describing most of us today in the room. We know Jesus, but our struggles with our faith. We know Jesus, but we're not living our best year spiritually. We know Jesus, but we don't really walk in that power. And we don't really walk with Jesus every day. And Jesus said to his disciples, he said,

you're unbelieving, you're just not connected enough to God. That's why you lack the power. And then Jesus used this word, he said, you're perverse. And I would suggest to you the word perverse means you're too connected to the world. The word literally means corrupted. He's saying you've allowed too many things to corrupt you. And that really is true of all of us. Like we've allowed too much of the world in, we've allowed too much of the culture in, we're way too connected. connected to the world. And so Jesus says, these are the two problems. The two problems are you're unbelieving and you're perverse. The reason you couldn't heal that boy and drive out that demon, the reason you lack the power I thought you should have is well, it's because you're not connected enough to God and you're too connected to the world. And I would submit to you today, that's your problem too. You're not connected enough to God and you're too connected to the world. Why was it 2025 your best year? Because you're not connected enough to God and you're too connected to the world. That's the problem all of us experience. Actually, I don't even think I have to convince you of that. I don't see anybody getting red-faced and angry, puffed up and angry right now. Like you're gonna jump up and walk out the door.

I think we all know we could all use to be more connected to God and less connected to the world. So what do we do about it? Well, Jesus actually tells us because that's what the disciples wanted to know too. They wanted to know Jesus, how did you drive out that demon and why couldn't we? And Jesus tells them, look, let's finish the story. Then Jesus came to the, excuse me, then the disciples came to Jesus in private and asked, Jesus, why couldn't we drive it out, the demon? Why couldn't we drive it out? And he replied, because you have so little faith. Truly, I tell you, if you have faith as small as a little tiny itty bitty mustard seed, you can say to this mountain, move from here to there and it'll move. Nothing will be impossible for you, meaning for you with faith. And then he says this, but this kind, this kind of demon, this kind does not go out except by prayer and fasting. And it really is almost as if Jesus diagnoses the problem and tells us how to fix it. Jesus says, hey, your faith is too small, that's the problem. You're not connected enough to God, you're too connected to the world, that's the problem. How do I fix that?

Prayer and fasting. Prayer and fasting. What's the deal with prayer and fasting? Let's start with prayer. Prayer connects us to God. So today, if you'd say, yeah, Pastor, you're describing me, I'm not that connected to God. Well, prayer is a tool, the prescription to connect more with God. And there's a bunch of us, a whole bunch of us who have never really truly leaned into the power of prayer. Maybe you don't know how to pray, or maybe you only ever pray before a meal or before bed, or maybe you only ever pray a prayer you memorized as a child, or maybe you only ever pray what I call those flare prayers. You know, the prayers you shoot up to God when you're in real trouble. Like when you pass the police officer on 64, and you're like, oh Lord, please, please let his radar gun be broke today, please. Those are the only prayers you pray. Prayer's not really part of your life. And I wanna help you with that. And so for the next 21 days, I'm inviting you into a journey of prayer. And we have prayer resources available for you. We have tools and guides available for you so you can connect with God in prayer every day, every day.

In fact, right now on campus, if you do this, if you get out your phone here on campus online, there's a link over in the chat that you can follow. And we talk a lot about that little sticker on the seat back in front of you. And if you tap that sticker right now with your phone, some of you gotta, if you got an Android, you gotta tap it hard, all right? So like. But if you tap that sticker right now with your phone, it's gonna actually take you to a sign up for a resource our team has put together that's gonna be so incredibly helpful. It's a resource that we will send to you every day by text, so you have to sign up for it by text. We'll send it to you every day at 6 a.m. Come on, somebody, 6 a.m. prayer time. We're gonna remind you for the next 21 days, starting tomorrow at 6 a.m. If you don't wanna text from Waters Edge Church at 6 a.m., do not sign up, all right? But we're gonna text you at 6 a.m., and we'll send you every single day for the next 21 days this resource that is incredible. It shares a scripture, it shares a prayer focus, it even shares a worship song that we suggest that you listen to. And it'll help you focus on prayer for the next 21 days. Just sign up for the resource. We'll text it to you every day.

The goal here is I wanna help you connect more with God. Why, why? Because I want this to be your best year. And the only way for it to be your best year is if it's your best year spiritually. And the only way it's gonna be your best year spiritually is if you connect more with God. And the only way to connect more with God is through prayer. So let me help you learn how to pray every day, not just prayer. But let's also, let's also fast for 21 days. Jesus said prayer and fasting. What is fasting? Well, I would say this. Fasting is what disconnects us from the world. We're gonna give up something worldly for 21 days, starting tomorrow. Some of you are like, I got lunch plans today. Good, order double. So starting tomorrow, I'm gonna ask you to disconnect from the world. Why? Because we're connected to the things of the world way too much. We feed our flesh and we starve our spirit. And that's why you're not having your best year spiritually. So we're gonna flip that upside down. And we're gonna starve our flesh and we're gonna feed our spirit for 21 days. And you watch and see, oh my goodness, you watch and see.

It will revolutionize this year. By starting the year this way, you're setting yourself up for your best year because it'll be your best year spiritually. Now, if you never learned about fasting or you don't know anything about it, again, I wanna help you with this. We've put together really a whole website that's about prayer and fasting. It's at waters.church.net forward slash 21 days, okay? Forward slash 21 days, you can find it easy. And we've put all the resources there, prayer resources, fasting resources, articles that you can read and study scriptures that'll help you. In fact, what I'm about to teach you is actually there as well because I wanted you to be able to access it and find it and study it and learn about fasting on your own. I wanna though teach you the four types of fast that you might participate in. We'll walk through these quickly because again, the information is on our website. There's four types of fasting. I'm just praying that God will start to speak to you even right now about which one of these types of fast you might participate in starting tomorrow for the next 21 days. There's a complete fast,

which is drinking only liquids, all right? Only liquids, water and juice. And you abstain from food altogether. And you could actually do this. You could actually do this for 21 days. You would, you probably would wanna prepare for that and work up to it. It's probably not what you wanna start with tomorrow, okay? But you could, but you could also just think about a complete fast for one day a week for the next 21 days. Or maybe you do a complete fast to start the fast. So starting tomorrow, you fast maybe for one to two or three days, and then you end the 21 days with a complete fast. Again, a complete fast is something you wanna work up to and depending on medications and that sort, you might need some doctor support there, but probably not something you wanna jump into. The second type of fast is what's called a selective fast. And in this type of fast, you remove certain elements from your diet. So maybe no sugar for the next 21 days. Yeah, go home and finish that tub of ice cream today. Or no coffee for the next 21 days. How does some of y'all got the shakes at the very mention of that? The Daniel fast is a very popular selective fast. In the Old Testament, Daniel fasted and removed meats and sweets and bread.

So he only ate for 21 days, he only ate vegetables, fruits and beans, things that grow naturally from the ground or from the earth. That would be a selective fast. We did a selective fast as a church years ago. We did a Daniel fast as a church and based on feedback, everybody survived. All right, so you could do that, you could do that. The third fast is a partial fast. And that means that you would maybe not eat breakfast or lunch and you would only eat the last meal of the day. So maybe you do that for 21 days. Well, what I do during breakfast and lunch? You pray. You pray, see what's happening is as you're starving the flesh, your flesh is demanding. Your flesh starts demanding to be first. Starts demanding to say, hey, no, you depend on me. But fasting says you're not first and I'm not depending on you. And so every hunger pain you feel. causes you to depend more on God. You'll pray more when you're fasting. And then finally, if maybe all this talk of food and giving up coffee and no sweets, maybe that scares you, or maybe you have a very strenuous job, or maybe you have a medical condition,

you're on certain medications, or maybe you're an athlete, or maybe you're a student, or maybe you're looking for a way to like involve your kids in the 21 days, which I think you should, then the fourth fast is probably for you. And honestly, in our day and in our age, this is probably the most necessary and needed fast of all, and it's called a soul fast. And it's where you might give up something like TV or Netflix, or maybe even social media for 21 days. Can you imagine no Facebook, Instagram, or TikTok for 21 days? Can you imagine that? Oh, blessed is the man who does not have to scroll on TikTok for 21 days. I just, I mean, if that's what you turn to to feed the flesh, then maybe that's what you need to turn away from, to disconnect from the world, to connect more to God. 21 days of prayer and fasting. So let me just recap, because this is a lot to help you. Check out the 21 days website. It's got all kinds of resources there to help you click the, or tap the sticker in front of you on your seat back, or follow the link over in the chat, and sign up for the 6 a.m. prayer reminder text. And then I just wanna invite you to be here every week.

Like I can't really teach you how to have your best year if you're gonna be here for one out of every three or four Sundays, you gotta be here. And let me help you. Let me help you. And then every Wednesday at noon during these 21 days, starting this Wednesday, the auditoriums at our Yorktown and Newport News campuses are gonna be open for an hour. So from noon until one, and then online, Eastern Standard Time, from noon until one, we'll be joining online as well, every Wednesday for prayer. And the auditorium is just, you just come and it'll be kind of a self-guided time of prayer on Wednesdays during these 21 days. And then we're gonna end the 21 days with our first prayer and worship weekend for 2026. It's January 23rd through the 25th. So that's the end of the 21 days of prayer and fasting. So we're gonna end it with a time of prayer and worship. So Friday night, Saturday morning, and then of course, during our Sunday services, we'll be focused on prayer and worship. And I believe that if you'll join me on the journey, you'll have your best year. You'll have your best year. You can't expect this year to be different if you're not willing to start it different.

So come with me on the journey. And I'll just tell you honestly, I wrote this message, I don't know, three or four weeks ago, preparing for this start of the year. And I've struggled for the last three or four weeks since writing the message. I've struggled with how to end this sermon because I feel such a tension. I feel such turmoil. I feel, honestly, I'm just gonna be honest with you. I really feel such pressure because I so want this for you. Like I so want, like I feel this intense need to try to convince you or compel you or to pull you along and be like, come on, you want this, you need this. Everybody, let's go, you know? And I sat last night and I probably worked on, you know, five different ways to end this sermon. And I scratched them all at the end of the night. Because you don't need me to convince you. You don't need me to convince you. If you know Jesus, then you know, I wanna connect more with him. And I wanna disconnect more from the world. And so I'm just gonna let the Holy Spirit do the convincing and I'm just gonna play my role as tour guide. Like, come on along with us. And it will help you have your best year in 2026.

Here's why. Because blessed is the one who does not walk and step with the wicked or stand in the way that sinners take or sit in the company of mockers, but whose delight. is in the law of the Lord and who meditates on his law day and night. That person. And I'm praying it's you. I'm praying it's you. That person. I'm praying you are that person. It's like a tree planted by streams of water which yields its fruit in season whose leaf does not wither and whatever you do this year, may it prosper. May that be said of our year, our best year. Let's pray. Father, it would be so awesome to step out of these 21 days more connected to you and less connected to the world. So I've done what I think you asked me to do today. Now, Holy Spirit, would you do what I cannot do? And would you draw people and compel people and convince people? And may we all go on this journey together. And today, if you're here and you've never said yes to a relationship with Jesus, I just want you to know he loves you so much that he gave his life for you. And what he wants most today is for you to know him. So I'm gonna lead you in a simple prayer to receive Jesus as your Lord and Savior. And this will be your beginning, not your ending. It's your beginning. If you just say, Jesus, I want to know you. I want my sin to be forgiven by you. And now I want to live my life for you. So be my Lord and my Savior. The Bible says that Jesus will save you. God, I pray for every person praying that prayer and for all of us today going on this journey. Give us the courage, the faith, the strength. We say yes. It's in Jesus' name we pray. Amen. Amen. Come on, everybody. Can you thank God for his word today? you