So I just want to, you know, thank Pastor Nick for giving me the opportunity to come here and share with you guys, man. Me and Nick, I actually was praying in our business. We're expanding just recently. The Lord has opened some doors for us. And, man, I've never thought I was going to be a business guy.

You know, I thought I was going to, you know, be in a little grass hut in Africa somewhere. And me and my wife, it was funny, we first started dating, and, you know, she's a gorgeous lady, and we're having a walk together, and I remember our first conversation was, are you willing to live in a hut in the middle of Africa with me? And she looks at me all crazy like, hold on a second. Then she said, yeah, I'll follow you to Africa. So that's when I knew that she was the one.

But anyways, I was praying in our new facility. I was praying for God and. And looking for his direction. And there was a National Day of prayer. It chimed on my phone, and I decided to go out to Zephyr Hills Park.

And when I got out there, Pastor Nick was leading the whole entire National Day of prayer. I was just sitting around, I was talking to some people, and he came up, he approached me after. After the service was over or after the national prayer was over. He's like, hey, man, we should go eat. I'm like, hey, I can't give up an opportunity to eat.

So I went with him. And, man, he has such a passion for Jesus, right? He has a passion for the Lord. And believe me, being a pastor is one of the toughest things you could ever do in life, you know, And I would never try to be a pastor again. Father, please have mercy on me.

But Pastor Nick is an incredible pastor, and I'm such a. I'm so honored and privileged to just know him and have the opportunity to minister while he's out. I just pray protection over his family. I pray blessing over them. And I thank you for the vision, the great big vision that you've given them.

Just help him bring those things to pass. And we just pray those things in Jesus name. All right, so we're going to get in today's message. Like I said, I'm a preacher, so I'm sorry. You know, I.

Normally, what I do now is I don't preach at churches, but I preach at youth rallies, so I'm going to get excited. Just, just. I apologize in advance, you know what I mean? It's just I can't contain myself about the things of Jesus. Right, Man, I love him.

He's rescued me, he's protected me. He brought me out of the darkness and brought me into the light. He's incredible. He's an awesome savior, right? Man, if I told you some of the things that I did in my life, and then he still uses me, man, I'm the most disqualified person that you know.

But God will open up a door and use you just where you are. He'll use you to talk to somebody on the street. He'll use you to talk to a family that just needs encouragement. He'll use you, and he'll use every single one of us as we pursue the Lord. So today, my message is on reigniting our faith.

Okay, I don't know about you, but for me being a pastor, there were times that I didn't feel him as much as other times. You know, when you're in the faith for some time, there's things that happen in life and we just need a refiring, right? We need to feel them again. Because there's moments in my life, man, I felt them. I'm in a conference, right?

I'm going to share a story. I was in a conference in Nepal. We were packed in a facility much smaller than this. Probably half of this congregation, right? That's how big it was.

We didn't have air conditioning, we didn't have heat. And there's 350 youth packed in. It's packed, you know, it's sweaty, it's smelly, right? With you that you're jumping around. And we show up and we're about to minister.

We do these camps. It's three days, and we do prayer, and then we do workshops, and we come into the building. I remember I'm setting up my camera, man, and I'm setting up my camera. And my pastor in the press. We've been friends for now over 10 years.

And we're kind of like setting up the camera. He's setting up the pulpit, and all of a sudden, out of nowhere, everything gets silent. You know how much a miracle that is? 350 youth, silent. They were just worshiping.

They're silent. So I look at him, he looks at me, and we're like, what's going on? And all we see is the worship team get on their knees. And then all of a sudden, the Holy Spirit shows up.

The youth are wailing, they're crying. They encountered God. And I'm like, man, Jesus, you don't need me. What am I here for? You see, God shows up.

But in those moments, I Remember, it's not about me, but it's all about him and those youth, right? Those young people set a fire in you. So sometimes we just need something. We need something to bring us back to our faith. You know, I do missions.

That's why I do missions, because I love it, man. I get to see God all over the world. But we all need to connect somewhere in God. We all have a purpose. We all have a destiny.

We all have something God wants us to do. And at the core of who we are, we know what it is. Some of us are called to be givers, right? Every time we give, what happens, it ignites something in us. We feel the fire of God.

We feel the love of God filling us, right? We're called to be givers. And the thing about giving is that God always gives back. Right? But I'm going to get into the message.

I'm getting excited, right? All right. God will meet us just where we are. All right? So I was a young man, man.

I grew up in a horrible family. They, you know, did drugs, you know what I mean? They were abusive. You know, the cops were at our house. They probably had our address on speed dial, you know what I mean?

I knew the cops, you know, they would always come because they had to break up the domestic violence that was going on. Anyways, the Lord saved me, you know, I don't want to go too, too far in depth. I'm just going to go very short. I'll just share the testimony. I remember encountering God in a youth group.

I got saved, and it was like there was freedom. The first time in my life, all that weight that was on my shoulder just fell off me. And I met Jesus for the first time. And I remember going to my mother and I said, hey, Mom, I met Jesus and I want to tell everybody about Jesus. And she's like, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa.

You can't do that, son. You can't tell everybody about Jesus because not everybody's going to accept him. And I remember making a commitment in my heart saying, I don't care if they accept him or not. I'm going to tell everybody about Jesus. And that's how I came in the Lord, right?

So after that, what happens is drugs came in, right? You're in a family with drugs. What happens is you start experimenting drugs, too, right? I started experimenting drugs. I started going down the wrong path, okay?

There was a moment. I'm just glorifying God because I want to. I want to share with you that he is a miraculous God, right? I'm all by myself. I'm depressed, you know, I wanted to commit suicide.

And what happens is, actually I try, you know, I'm all by myself in the house. My father's doing his construction business. I'm staying at home, right? So I'm like, okay. You know, it's the time.

I remember giving stuff away to my friends. And it was. It was. It was that moment, right? And so you.

Not to be graphic, let's just say there was a rope involved, okay? And I'm about to do it. And the funny thing is, is as I'm making this decision, I remember being very scared. Like, man, this is gonna happen. I know it's not.

It's dark, but funny, right? I'm like, man, this is gonna happen. What's going to happen? You know, I'm going to lose my life. And I remember crying out to Jesus, jesus, help me.

And what is the one thing no construction worker will leave behind? Does anybody know he's worked his tools, his work belt? Well, that day, do you know that God orchestrated it for my father to leave his work belt behind? And do you know, it was right in arm's length that I grabbed a utility knife and I cut that rope. God is an awesome God.

And he saved me because he knew what I was going to do. I would never have dreamed to travel to 15 different countries proclaiming Christ. Man, I was in high school. I was a football player and I barely passed high school. But God is very gracious.

See, God knows what you're called to do, and he hasn't forgotten about you. Even at our age, right now, he hasn't forgotten about us. I don't care what we're doing in this moment. I don't care if we're walking so far from the Lord. God has not forgotten about his promise for you.

Hallelujah. That's a perfect time to say hallelujah. God hasn't forgotten about me. He hasn't forgotten about my purpose. He hasn't forgotten about my destiny.

God is there for me right now. Wait a second. Me, I'm old. Me, I'm young. Me.

Yes, you. God has not forgotten the promise he has over your life because he's rescued you. He's rescued you from eternal darkness. He's rescued you. He's protected you for a grand plan.

Now we must come back into the plan, come back into our purpose. Right. I remember. So I was a Marine. Okay.

And I don't know about you. Any military folk here? Okay, we got a couple, right? Marines we're known as Vikings, man. We're Vikings.

We come into the city, we rage and we pillage and we drink a lot. Let's just say that we drink a lot, you know, So I remember on Friday, we get paid every two weeks. And the first week I'd be. My check would be gone. That's how much I would drink.

You know, I was just, you know, a borderline alcoholic. So that night I was talking to God. You see God, I always heard his voice. I always felt his presence. I always knew that he was there.

You know, sometimes I would be doing something wrong and he would be like, hey, Tim, that's probably not the right thing to do. And sometimes I would listen to him, and sometimes I wouldn't. But in this moment, I was in the bar. I'm wasted by 9 o' clock. I remember sometimes we're so wasted at 9 o' clock, we'd be kicked out of the bar and we had to walk all the way home.

So I'm inebriated. And this time, after taking, let's say, 10, 15 shots, right, I'm a little sloppy. And I feel a conviction that comes over me. That's not me. It has to be God, because I don't know about you, when you're drinking, you're kind of having fun.

And in that moment, I'm convicted from Jesus, and I just feel this overwhelming burden to cry out to him for help, you know, at this bar. It's a buy me drinky bar. I'll save that for later. But I remember it was right up in front of American Village, and you would sign the bar, you know, saying that you came to Okinawa, you would put your year that you were there. And in that moment, I took up that little marker and I remember writing really big.

I always want to. To go back, God. You know, if you give me the opportunity, I would love to go back to Okinawa to see if that bar is still there, to see if I could still see that writing. And I just wrote real big. God help me.

That's it. It wasn't some, like, profound prayer, you know, it wasn't like some deep theological thing. I just said, God help me. You know what? God help me.

In that moment, he sent me a man. His name is Uncle Kirk. Thank you, Uncle Kirk. He used to pick me up at the barracks room all the time and bring me to church. And it transformed my life.

And I'm here today because that man was obedient to God. Okay, but the point is, and we'll just hold on to it is that God doesn't ask for a whole lot. God just asks us just for help. He just says, if you cry out to me and you ask for help, I'll meet you just where you are, right? And all of us know that we need a little more of Jesus, Huh?

Come on. We need a little bit more of Jesus, right? We've been praying, we've been seeking God. And the thing is, God hears us and he wants to hear our cry, right? So we're going to be studying about Thomas, okay?

So Thomas In John, chapter 20, verse 19 and 23, we. What happens is Jesus was crucified. All the disciples are fearful, right? They're running around. They don't know what to do.

What they do is they go into the upper room. Some people believe that the upper room is the same upper room that was in the Book of Acts. They're hiding, the doors are locked, right? And then what happens is Jesus shows up credible. I don't know about you, but that would cause all my fear to go away, right?

If Jesus showed up. Jesus shows up. But the thing is, is Thomas is not there. My question is, is why is he there? Where is Thomas?

You see, he was one of the disciples. Where is Thomas? He's supposed to be there. You see, there are places that we're assigned to in our lives and we're supposed to be in those God moments. But there are things that prevent us from being there.

And that's what we're going to look into today. What prevented Thomas from being where he was supposed to be, that encounter with Jesus? Because if you remember, Thomas was known as, you know, Thomas the Doubter. But really what Thomas was known for was being a martyr for Christ in India. He was a martyr for Christ in India.

He was stabbed with a spear. He gave his life for Christ. And there's churches that still rejoice over his name today in India because his sacrifice for Jesus, you see, God can turn it around. He can change your circumstance. He can move you from one place to another.

Thomas was missing God, but God turned it around. How many people believe it? God can turn it around. I don't care where you are in this moment. I don't care what you're dealing with.

I don't care what it looks like at home. God can turn it around. Hallelujah. We're, we're, we're. We're an amen church today, right?

Hallelujah. God can turn it around. He can change the situation just like he changed it for Thomas. Let's look at the areas that Thomas missed it. Okay, where was Thomas?

He was grieving. His belief system was shattered. Just imagine how he felt in that moment. Just imagine how we feel in the current moment that we're in. I don't know about you.

Have you ever had one of those moments? Something devastated has happened in your life, you know, something that you can't even talk about to anyone else. You're just going through it all. The church people around you might know about it, but they don't really know. How do I know?

Because I've been there. I was a pastor and I was struggling. I was going through some things in my family. Not sin, but just things. Couldn't talk about it.

I was struggling. My faith was being affected and I didn't even realize that I was getting distant from the Lord, farther and farther from God. And that's what happened to Thomas. Thomas was with Jesus. And then all of a sudden he goes and he hides.

He runs away. You see the disciples stuck together. But for some reason, Thomas wasn't there with the other disciples. Why? I don't know why, it doesn't say.

But this is the areas that Thomas struggled with. And I believe we all struggle with those areas. So let's see. The first root that separates us from God and our assignment is fear is fear. The first route that separated Thomas from his assignment was his fear.

The same fear disciples felt when they locked themselves in the upper room. It's fear. So what is fear? The Greek word is phobos. It's terror.

It's causing you to flee. Second Timothy 1 and 7 says, God has not given us a spirit of fear, but power, love, and the soundness of mind. So that tells me that fear is a spirit. And it tells me that because fear is a spirit, it brings a whole lot of other things with you. Have you ever been a fear?

Okay, come on, guys. Man, I remember when I was a kid, I used to watch some scary movies, man. Who's ever watched a scary movie? You know, sneaking out as a kid, you watch a scary movie that you're not supposed to watch. What are my parents talking about, man?

I can watch a scary movie. It's not going to bother me. I remember the first scary movie I watched outside of my parents care was the leprechaun. Has anybody watched that movie? Man, that scared the britches off me.

I remember watching that movie. Ah, it's not that bad. It's not that bad. And then you watch it and then you leave and all of a sudden all you can think about is that I'm looking for a leprechaun to jump out of the door, right? I'm like, oh, the leprechaun's coming.

That's a spirit. You. Fear is something that takes you over, and it brings you through things that aren't even a reality, you see? What was Thomas afraid of? He was probably afraid of being crucified himself.

But was he being crucified? You see what fear is? It's a spirit. It makes you be something different than you actually are. The other thing interesting about Thomas is what he was a courageous man.

You guys recall that? What did Thomas say? You remember, disciples, Jesus was like, hey, I'm going to give my life. And Thomas is like, hey, let's go give our lives, too. He was a courageous man.

How could the spirit of fear affect Thomas in such a way that it would reprogram who he was? That's a spirit, See? It's an emotion. So how do we deal with fear, guys, is how we deal with it, okay? Fear impacts our faith.

What it does is it isolates us from our community. Fear separates us from a mission. Fear paralyzes us in our prayers. Okay? And I already shared that scripture.

But what do we do to overcome fear, right? Because fear is a spirit. We know. We all experienced it. What we need to do is we need to bring trust back into our lives, right?

What is trust? Trust is batak, to lean on, to feel secure. Proverbs 3, 5, and 6. Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not under your own understanding. Psalms 56 and 3.

When I'm afraid, I will trust in you. You see, I don't know about you, but if my dad was around when I was a kid, man, this is what we'd always used to do. I remember my buddy, his father was in the military. He was in the Coast Guard. My dad was in the army.

And whenever we would talk, we would talk about our dads. You know, what we'd say is like, hey, my dad could beat your dad in a fight. And then we'd be like, well, my dad was a marksman in the Coast Guard. Oh, well, my dad was an expert, you see? But the point is this.

When my dad was around, I felt a little bit more secure. Even though our relationship wasn't good, when my dad was around, I knew I was good because he had strength, he had presence, right? And it's the same thing with our Father. You see, if our Father is in the. If Jesus was in the room right now and you were dealing with whatever you were dealing with, would you be afraid?

Come on, guys. I'm talking about Jesus the miracle worker, right? You wouldn't be afraid that sickness, then come on, guys, let's hear this. That sickness that has been consuming your mind, that has been plaguing your existence, that has brought terror into your heart, believing that God could not rescue you. My question is, if Jesus was in the room, would he heal you?

Without a shadow of a doubt, he would heal you. So then why are we allowing the enemy to steal from us, to kill us, to destroy us? We need to bring Jesus back in because he's an awesome father. We need to trust him again. We need to believe again.

How has the enemy come in and told you a lie, man? The enemy, man. I get frustrated about the enemy, right? Who else does? Man, he makes me mad.

You know why he makes me mad? Because he tricks me all the time. It's like hanging out with that friend that always tricks you. He's not a friend, he's an enemy. But some of us haven't realized that yet.

You know, it's that one friend that talks all that mess, and for some reason, you still hang out with them. And every time you come into their presence, you're like, man, why am I hanging around with this person? Why am I hanging out with this person? They're always talking gossip with everybody else, you know? You know, that one friend, I don't know, maybe we all have that friend.

They're always gossiping. They're always. They always have this negative view that messes up our view, distorts our view. That sounds like Satan, right? Maybe we just need to stop hanging out with that person that was free.

I'm just saying we need to stop hanging out with the devil because the devil tells us things that we don't need to hear, right? When the devil comes and starts saying things, oh, you're not worthy, you're not enough. That sickness is going to kill you. Come on. Anybody else hear it?

This is me. That sickness is going to kill you. You're not going to live. The devil's going to have victory over Jesus. What do you do?

You got to stand up, man. Come on, now. If somebody was messing with my kids. I'm just being real with you. Somebody messing with my daughters, and I see somebody messing with my daughters.

They're talking smack to my daughters. What do you think I'm going to do as a father? Am I just gonna sit there? Oh, you know, well, they're stronger than me. I really can't say anything.

Come on, guys. Come on, guys. Anybody, any parent out here would do that. Come on, guys. What would you do?

Get away from my daughter. Who are you to talk to my daughter that way? The same thing Jesus does for us. But we've forgotten that Jesus is there for us. And it's okay as his child to say no.

That's not welcome in my life. It's not welcome. You know, you ever get those thoughts, is it just me? Is it just me? You're driving and all of a sudden these thoughts come in about this, that and the other thing.

Come on, guys. It's okay by the blood of Jesus to rebuke those things off you. That's not my Jesus talking. That doesn't sound like my Jesus. My Jesus would never try to kill me or destroy me.

My Jesus would never bring fear into my life. Get off of me, man. I'll share this story because it's very encouraging. I just want to encourage your faith and your authority in Christ. You don't even understand how much authority you have in Jesus.

Come on, guys. Come on. You don't even realize, man. Okay, let me paint this scenario. Okay, let's say there was a police officer.

There's a police officer, he's standing on the side of the road, and there's this young girl and she's being pushed around. And that police officer, what that police officer is doing is just standing there with his ticket pad in his hand, writing the ticket. What would you say about that police officer?

He would be ineffective. Exactly. Ineffective. There are a lot of ineffective saints out there.

Come on. The authority that Christ died to give you is. Is active and living inside you. There are a lot of saints that would go, oh, Jesus, what do I do Right now? That police officer.

Oh, oh. He calls his sergeant. Hey, Sergeant, this little girl is sitting on the side of the road and she needs help. She's being battered right now. What do I do?

What would the sergeant do? I know what I would do. What would the sergeant do? Come on, guy. Exactly.

Get on the job and do what you're supposed to do or hand in your badge. Come on, guys. We were commissioned with the authority of Christ to affect the nation that we're established in. And this is a nation. The United States is a nation that desperately needs a move from Jesus.

And we are the advocates of Jesus. We have the authority of Jesus to affect nations. To rebuke that spirit off that girl. I'm talking spiritually. To rebuke that man away from that girl.

That's the authority we have, man. I was there. Me and my wife, we were getting ready. The kids, right? They're going to school, and the kids.

You know what my kids do now is they take their sister and they. They hook her up in the chair. My son gets the bags, they bring them out there. And me and my wife were getting ready to leave the house, and all of a sudden there was a cat, A black cat comes into the house and looks at me. I'm like.

I'm sitting there. He comes in the door, he looks at me. I look at him. And just something rose up in me. Without even thinking, I said, get out.

You know what that cat did? Did the cat just stay there? You know what that cat did? Got out of there. That's the authority of Christ that we carry.

You guys get it? That thing has no authority to be there. Get out.

Voice of condemnation, get out. Fear, get out. Depression, get out. Anxiety, get out. You have no place over God's people in Jesus name.

Come on, guys, you hear me? That's the authority we have.

Okay, so how do we regain that trust? Right? The first thing I said is, when God is in the room, we automatically have trust because we trust in him. But how do we redeem the trust? Because right now we're struggling, right?

The fear is overwhelming us. What we have to do is we have to start reminding ourselves about the victories in Christ.

It's okay to write them down. Come on, guys. I'm giving you some notes here. This is for me, too. There's certain victories that you have overcome that the devil has assigned to you, that you just reminding yourselves that Jesus gave you the victory.

You automatically believe in Christ again.

You know, I don't want to share the story, but me and my wife went through a devastating time about three years ago. Three years ago. It was a very fearful time because something was going on. You know, it wasn't sin, it was just something was going on in our family. I remember gripped in fear.

I was gripped in fear. I was scared. I'm like, what's going to happen, Lord? Where are you, Jesus? I need your help.

I need your rescue.

Then I started remembering about times, victories in Jesus. He actually would remind me about moments. He actually would come and we'd have conversations and he would be like, you remember this time?

You remember this time? Yeah, Jesus, I remember that time. I remember how you kept me in that season. And it would just gird me up in my spirit. It would strengthen me in my spirit to hope again.

Come on, guys, we got to write down the past victories so we can believe that God will give us the victory now. Hallelujah. Come on. Who believes that God is going to give you the victory now, man? I didn't hear you.

Who believes that God is going to give you the victory now? That was pretty good. I'll settle with that. You're not youth, so you're not youth. No.

The next thing we got to do is we need to remind ourselves of God's sovereignty. We all understand what God's sovereignty is, right? You know, sovereignty has gotten a bad rap over the years. You know, we talk about sovereignty, and all of a sudden it's aligned with some belief system in theology. But simply what sovereignty is, is kingship.

It's kingship. You guys realize. Let me just make this comment. Do you realize that God sits on the throne?

Do you know that his throne is above every other throne? Do you know that his throne is in the heavenlies? But here's the thing. Do you realize that if God stepped off that throne for a moment, what would happen?

If God removed himself from his throne for just a moment, we would cease to exist.

The weight of that God sitting on his throne secures us because he's in control. We might not know why we're going through what we're going through. We might not even understand what we're going through. But God sits on the throne. I'm running out of time.

Come on. Preachers are bad at this, man.

Okay, the final thing is you got to speak the promises of God over your life. There are certain things. There are certain scriptures that I have stored in my heart, and I speak them over my life on a daily, right? Psalms 103. It says, what is a benefit?

It says, Christ's healing is a benefit. You know, you can speak that benefit over your life. That was free. Let's keep on going. The next thing is distraction, right?

Distraction crept into Thomas life. That's why he wasn't where he was supposed to be. I'll be very open and transparent with you. I was a pastor. I was a youth pastor, man.

I love youth. Then all of a sudden, there was a church opening that happened. And my pastor's like, hey, you need to go become the senior pastor. And I'm like, heck, no. That wasn't from God.

But I listened, right? And I took over a church. It was, you know, it was on. You know, it was on 64 acres of land. It was in Salem, New Jersey.

And I'm like, what the heck am I doing? But anyways, what Happened was this. And I'm talking about distraction is there's a zeal that you have when you go into ministry. There's a zeal that you have when you start pursuing Christ. Let's just start there.

You know, if you can go back to the time when you accepted Christ for the first time. There was a zeal. There's a zeal there. There was a passion for Jesus and all the things of Jesus. Well, anyways, I was pastoring for some time.

Let's just say five, six years, right? And as I was pastoring, what happened is I didn't realize this passion was fading.

You know how I knew it was fading? One of my friends told me that's how I.

I go to a conference. And at the conference, my mentor comes to me. He's like, what the heck is wrong with you, man? The guy I met when he was. He was 20 something isn't the guy that's standing there today.

What's going on? You see, I lost him.

I lost Jesus because of distraction. You know what became more important? Business. The church. How much finances we were getting every Sunday.

How many people were sitting in the pews every Sunday that my relationship with Jesus started to dwindle. You see, I was doing God things. Hear me? I was doing God's things. Everybody on the outside would say, oh, Tim is a good pastor.

He takes care of his people. But Tim was dying on the inside. I was dying because I was losing him. I was becoming distracted. Come on, guys, right?

Luke 10:40, Martha, the same thing. Martha was at the right place at the right time, but she missed the right thing.

We can't let the main thing not be the main thing any longer. Christ is always the main thing. It doesn't matter about the work. It doesn't matter what you need. Those things are things that you need to do.

But the ultimate thing is him.

There was something Mary had that Martha didn't. She understood the timing. She had this precious time with the Lord and she wouldn't trade it for anything. When was the last time? I'm just being real, man.

Come on, let's be real together. We don't have to say it out loud. Let's just be real. When was the last time that we pushed everything aside and we let him be the main thing?

Come on, guys. I don't know. I'm just telling you the truth. Not as much as it should for me.

I'm telling you, I want it to be more right. I want him to be the main thing all the time. But there's other distractions that come in. The things that cause those distractions to fade away is our time with him. Our time with him causes those distractions to fade away.

The reason that Mary had an understanding of the time was because she was spending time with Jesus. You see that those other things didn't matter. She understood the timing of what was going on. She knew that Jesus was leaving. And the time that she had was short.

You hear me? When was the last time we just went and spoke to the Lord in the morning and we just heard his heart for that day, got alone with him. Oh, man, I'm getting. Okay, come on now. I'm just going to share a story.

I love stories, man. I'm so sorry, man. That's who I am. All I got is stories. I was in Poland.

I was in Poland. I was getting ready to minister. I was pastoring. I was doing ministry for about 10 years. 10 years.

I had this little guy, he's like Yoda man. He's a little Indian man. He's got all this wisdom. He's my mentor. His name is Richard Williams.

He used to smuggle. Don't tell Richard that. I said he was Yoda man.

He used to smuggle Bibles into China. And then we're sitting at breakfast in Poland, right? And Warsaw, and we're about to do ministry, and I'm sitting there and this guy prays for. Have you ever prayed for nine hours?

I've never prayed for nine hours. I've still been trying. I'm not there. God help me, I haven't prayed for nine hours. So he tells me about these incredible experiences with God, and I'm like, man, I want that.

You know, when you're in a relationship with the right leader, what it will cause you to do is grow in Jesus. Side point. Come on now. All right, so anyways, I asked him, hey, Dr. Richard, how do you pray for so long, man?

I'm thinking three point series, you know, a whole message, you know, keys, you know, to pray longer somehow. He says, you know, you pray in the spirit or something happens for a moment and all of a sudden God takes over. And then you don't realize that nine hours pass. That's what I'm hoping for. Can sit in an hour.

Man in prayer, it's hard. I don't know about you guys, but my mind is like. I'm like, lord, bring me back. Then I get hungry. Come on.

Right? So this is what he says, man. This is what he says. He says, you have to find them and Then. And then we go into the rest of the conversation.

I need you to do this. And he's like, I need you to do this. I need you this. And I'm sitting there. Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait.

You said find him Where? What do you mean? What do you mean, find him? How do you find him? I've been pastoring for 10 years.

I know how to find Jesus. No, he's. You find him. Okay, tell me more. And he's telling me all this other stuff he doesn't finish.

And I'm like, oh, my goodness. What the heck is going on, man? He tells me how to find him. I guess I had to find Jesus. I haven't found him yet.

It's like an Easter egg hunt, right? I start looking all over the place, pull over in the pillow, look under the pillow. Is Jesus, you there? Right? So I go back to my room, and I get to start getting ready.

I'm ready. I got 15 minutes. 15 minutes, guys. You know, I like to tell you I'm all deep and spiritual as a pastor, and I'm, like, studying my notes. But no.

15 minutes, I'm on Facebook. I'm on the bed. I'm ready. I'm on Facebook. I'm scrolling, and I hear, out of nowhere, I hear this.

You ready to find me?

I'd like to tell you, like I said, I'm very deep in spiritual. I'm a pastor now. Like to tell you. I was like, yeah, Jesus, I won't find you. No, no, no, no, no.

That's not what I said. What I said was Jesus. Now I'm on Facebook. Jesus.

Then something outside of me, I made a decision.

I threw my phone on the bed, I bowed my knees, and in that moment, I met him.

Fifteen minutes, God showed up and touched me. I haven't shared this with anybody, you know, because I don't want to create something superficial for you, because God comes and he encounters everybody differently. But I'm gonna share it with you because I love you, right? This is what happened to me. I bow my knees, I'm in prayer just for a moment, and I feel his presence like I've never felt before.

You know what happened? He hugged me, and I wept, and I wept and I wept and I wept for 15 minutes. I probably got out of the elevator, right? And the pastor's like, what the heck's wrong with you, man? I just wept.

Jesus wants to meet us like that. He didn't ask me. He didn't bring a list of things that I need to fix. He Just embraced me. And in that moment, I was good, man.

But you know the secret? You know the secret I want to share with you? Ever since that moment, that encounter, I can meet God anywhere.

I don't need some, like, prayer room. I. I have a prayer room. At least we call it that. I don't need some prayer room.

I don't need a church. I could be anywhere and I could bow my knee and I could meet him.

How many of you need a touch from Jesus? I'm running out of time. How many of you need a touch from Jesus? Come on, guys. If Jesus showed up, would you want him to show up?

Who wants a hug from Jesus? Come on, guys. I don't know about you. I want a hug from Jesus again. You know, it stirs me, man, when I want to go in prayer, it stirs me because I want to spend some time with him.

There's a guy again, man. I'm so bad at this, man. There's a guy, his name is DGS Dhundajan. Anybody heard of him? He was an Indian guy.

You guys hear of Benihan? You guys know Benny Hinn? Benny Hinn had DGS on his talk show, right? Because DGS had so many miracles that happened in his life that he wanted to learn how these miracles happened. All right, I'm just telling you what happened.

Listen, so DGs, right? He was about. And I'm closing with this thought. I have a lot more in my message, but I'm closing with this thought, DGs, because I think this encounter, this purpose of encounter is so important for us. Remember, we're talking about how to reignite our faith in Christ.

That's what we're talking about, right? The only way we can reignite our faith in Christ is to meet Christ. You know, the other areas that I want to talk about is I want to talk about fear. I want to talk about distraction. I want to talk about thinking about our past victories.

I want to talk about what. I want to talk about the doubt, but I just don't have time. So let's just focus on the things I can talk about. The most important thing, let's keep the main thing. The main thing.

Let's talk about some Jesus. That's what we need to talk about, is we need to talk about some Jesus. So anyways, this guy, right, his name is dgs, right? And DGS was a Hindu man. He was a Hindu man, and he saw the Hinduism wasn't working.

It was a dead religion. He prayed to these idols over and over again. Nothing would happen. He's like, man, I need something. I'm going to kill.

I'm going to kill myself. I need something real. So he calls out, he heard about Jesus through one of his friends, and he heard that Jesus was real. And as he's going to the train tracks to kill himself, he's just going to stand on the train tracks until Jesus showed up. He said, jesus, if you don't show up, I'm not going to leave the train tracks.

I'm going to kill myself. That's what he said. Simple prayer. A lot shorter than what I said. Jesus, you don't show up, I'm going to die, right?

So he's standing on the train tracks, and all of a sudden, Jesus shows himself. I'm talking about the same way Jesus showed himself to Thomas. He said, Look DGs at these holes in my hands. I'm the Jesus that you are looking for, and you can live for me. He decided to live for Jesus in that moment.

But here's the thing. From the time of him meeting Jesus to the miracles, there was a season, there was a period, right? So in this period, he said he would spend six hours a day before the Lord, six hours a day before the Lord, trying to meet him, crying out to Jesus. Then all of a sudden, one day, I'm just sharing this because we all can go there. You see that the great equalizer in spiritual things is prayer.

Is prayer. You don't need a. The theological degree, you don't need a master's degree, and blah, blah, blah. You just need Jesus. You see, prayer is the one thing that will supersede every other thing.

I don't care about how much money you have. I don't care about how much education you have. I don't care about how many businesses you own. It doesn't matter. But if you encounter Jesus, he can change everything.

Who believes it? Do you really believe it? Come on, guys. If you meet Jesus, it could change everything. So he's sitting there, and as he's sitting there, he's praying, and all of a sudden he hears a booming voice.

He says, a booming voice that erupts in the room. And it says this. Why are you here? He said it shook him so much that he was fearful and he was trembling on the floor in prayer. And he said he didn't know what to do.

I don't know about you, I would feel the same way. I'd probably run out the room, There'd be some big moving voice. Why are you here? I'm like, I'm here because I'm praying, Lord. That's why I'm here.

You hear me?

And then he says, the Holy Spirit very gently encouraged him to say something. And the Holy Spirit says, tell him you're here for him.

Not for things. Not for miracles, signs and wonders. Not for finances, not for prosperity, not for healing, but for him. So he says it out of obedience to the Lord, I'm here for you. And in that moment, God, he says, God's voice started laughing, that one of his children would desire just to spend time with you.

So if we could just endeavor this week just to meet God, just to spend some time with him, it could change our situation.