Today I’m going to start a semi-regular (or semi-infrequent) Monday post about Sunday’s message at church.
This week at North Point Andy Stanley kicked off the new year with a message called “This One Thing.” This message is all about figuring out what the thing you want to do this year is. It can be starting something new, or ending something negative. If you want to start a business or start a charity, begin that process this year. If you need to stop a negative habit in your life, do that this year.
Some of his other examples were:
A habit you must break.
A goal you must accomplish.
A project you must finish.
A relationship you must restore.
A relationship you must end.
A debt you must retire.
Andy focused his message on Nehemiah, who was a slave but made a huge difference in Israel’s history because he had one thing he wanted to accomplish and didn’t care about what others were saying. Nehemiah’s story is that he asked King Artaxerxes for a lot of time off from being a slave to go to Jerusalem and help them. The people of Israel were being exploited by powerful people in the area; they also had no wall to protect them from attacks.
Nehemiah got permission to go Jerusalem and King Artaxerxes even gave him a lot of supplies and safe passage to Jerusalem.
Once he was there he began work to rebuild the wall. The people who were taking advantage of the Israelites weren’t too happy with Nehemiah. They tried to get him to stop, but when he wouldn’t, they threatened him, then they blackmailed him. But he stayed true to what he felt God had called him to do and wouldn’t give up.
So I sent messengers to them, saying, “I am doing a great work and I cannot come down. Why should the work stop while I leave it and come down to you?” (Nehemiah 6:3 NASB)
Even though there were threats of telling King Artaxerxes that he was attempting to become a powerful ruler and getting him arrested and thrown in prison, Nehemiah refused to give up. One of his friends even tried to get him to give up and seek refuge in the temple where he couldn’t be arrested, but he saw through that plot as trickery.
Nehemiah knew what he had to do and he knew that the only way to get the job done was to stick to his plan. This was his one thing. It was his one chance to make a major impact on the lives of those in Jerusalem and restore their sense of pride as a people and a city. Fast forward a bit and Nehemiah gets the wall built and isn’t arrested.
Andy shared that Nehemiah 6:3 has become a life verse for him. Whenever he is tempted to do something that will distract him from his goals or his beliefs, he is reminded of that verse. It’s a powerful statement and question: “I’ve got something that’s more important than what you want me to do. Why should I stop doing it?”
“There are seasons in life that if you miss them you can’t go back and recapture them.” -Andy Stanley
If you’ve been following my blog you know that I have seven goals for this year as part my #FinishYear list. But of that list, if I don’t complete all seven of them, one of them is more important to me than all the others. My 7th goal is to be debt free this year and right now that goal will be accomplished in October or November. As Andy said tonight: “Debt makes you ugly. If you’re single, get out of debt as fast as you can so you don’t drag a third ‘person’ into a long-term relationship.”
That’s my one thing. What is your one thing? Do you have a list of goals for this year, but out of all those goals, one is far more important to you than all the others?
