NOV 13 2022 | Rebuild: The Story of Nehemiah S1E8 | The Vigil

Sea Change Church · NOV 13 2022 | Rebuild Ep 8 | The Vigil
Nehemiah 7:1-3
Automated transcript. Not reviewed for accuracy.

It is prophetic And it talks about who Jesus is And the practical element is It's also who are we called to be We're going to be counterbalancing The Isaiah prophetic With actually the life of Jesus And looking at that all the way through Christmas Eve On Saturday night And culminating with Christmas Eve With a sermon series finale That will be that night So bring friends, you can invite them to It will kind of be a recap And be awesome for that So I want to let you know about that With that, today is Baptism Sunday We're really excited to have Nicole Catalano Is here to be baptized Let's welker into the tub Let's do it Nicole, you had an amazing story You're one of those people that like Just during a sermon God touched you during a sermon, right?

Changed my own life In a sermon And that's so encouraging Because I do know That when I preach I mean, people make little Life corrections and alterations But when you hear somebody like Hey, there was a sermon God spoke What happened? Tell us So I'm honored today To read a piece of scripture for you That is the word of the Lord And also share my testimony But I do want to say hello To all my friends and family Who are watching online I'm thrilled that all of you And all of you Could share in this moment Of my public commitment to Christ In my life So I love you Thank you And all who have been united With Christ in baptism Have put Christ on Like putting on new clothes There is no longer Jew or Gentile Slave or free Male and female For you are all one In Jesus Christ Galatians 3, 26-28 I have lived many different worlds Had a wide range of experiences From good to bad Life has always been An uphill battle for me Struggling with disappointments And heartbreak Feeling overwhelmed And defeated As every step forward Turned into two backwards As a child I knew God And I understood my purpose Here on earth I was put here to love Unfortunately Life's challenges Clouded my understanding of God I found myself feeling lost Forgotten Unworthy I struggled to survive Through loss and trauma Feeling hopeless And alone I believed in God I believed he loved And could change lives Just not mine I used to make the joke That God and I were okay Just not ready to talk it out yet It was here at La Jolla Christian Fellowship That the light switch Was flipped on in my heart A sermon Where a couple sentences Spoken by this man Changed everything for me Understanding and healing Of old wounds Opened the floodgates To my heart I knew in that moment I wanted to be baptized My entire life changed I have more hope Than I've had in years He has put a fire in me So strong and bright That I could feel I could light up The whole world Glowing from God's love I never imagined Feeling this way Was possible I am so grateful For his healing My soul Is truly renewed I cannot wait To see How he uses me In life In closing Today is made Even more special Because it is the Anniversary of my Father's passing He accepted Christ In his heart Before he died Excuse me I cannot think of A better way To honor his memory Today I love you dad Until we see each other Thank you Thank you Thank you Thank you Thank you Thank you Thank you Thank you Thank you Thank you All right We're gonna We're gonna Baptize Nicole Which I'm super stoked Now when she comes Down the water We're gonna have Such an enthusiastic Amen It's gonna make The house Rumble Right Nicole We're gonna Baptize you now In the name Of the Father Son And the Holy Spirit Amen Congratulations Thank you Super exciting So exciting Thank you Amen Well I hope that was Inspiring for you And all the things That are going on We love you guys Thanks a lot We're gonna have Drea come up With our announcements Beautiful I love baptism Sunday It's my favorite Sunday Good morning church family I do have just a couple Of quick announcements For you My name is Andrea I'm the operations manager Here you can blame me For the lighting issues That are happening today You might have noticed It's a little dark In the room I've been praying For some soft lighting And I finally got it We'll have that fixed By next Sunday So thanks for bearing With us If you are new here Welcome To church If you would take a moment Inside of your bulletin There's a tear off It's a communication card That'll help us Keep in touch with you Throughout the week Let you know What community groups Or missions trips Or all the different things That are happening At the church That we can't always share From the pulpit And on the back of that card Of course Is our prayer request option And we have A really unbelievable prayer team Who prays throughout the month For your prayer requests They keep them on there For a whole month And we also pray for those On Tuesday At the Tuesday noon Prayer meeting Which you are all welcome To come to So turn those in You can drop them In the offering box In the back Or you can also do those Online on the home page If that's easier I want to mention again The member meeting If you are a member here That's been inducted It's really important That you mark your calendars For November 20th And be here We do need a quorum In order to be able to vote If you're not able to come I'm available to be a proxy And any member Can be your proxy If you have somebody else You'd rather send You just need to let me know Who that is They can vote for you On your behalf And that would work as well We will send out The ballot measures Ahead of time Via email So be watching for that Those will be coming this week And you can ask any questions You have And you know Cast your vote via proxy Or come in person Even better We'll have lunch for you here And we'll be able to explain And give some more updates And things like that At that meeting So plan to be here I also want to talk About Thanksgiving We have two events For Thanksgiving So the first one Is the drop and shop event That we have For Miss Kim You can come bring your kiddos At the end of their You know holiday week From 10 to 2 You can get a nap in Which is my plan Or you can drop them off And go shopping On Black Friday Or you can just run around And do errands And just whatever Have some peace and quiet While the kids are having A great time Because she's got a lot Of really fun activities Planned for them And a great team of staff That will be there with them So if you're interested in that You can register On the calendar page And if you'd like more info You can definitely ask Miss Kim Thanksgiving though The seat at the table program Is the one we want to talk about This we did get a couple people That said they would host And we're still looking For a few more hosts So if you have space And would like to host One or two people At your table We would love for you To do that You can register for that And let us know You're interested By filling out The little survey Quick survey That we have for you On our calendar page It's actually on Thanksgiving Day Where you can find that On the calendar page Or you can go to the Next Steps table After service And they can help you Find that if you need help With it But let us know If you're available to host So that we can start Getting people sent over To your house That might not have Anywhere to go This holiday season We have a lot of congregants Here that are traveling For college Or whatever the case Might be that they just Don't have family And friends here And we want them to Be with us during Thanksgiving That's all the announcements I have for you I'm going to call Paul forward He's got one last announcement And then he'll do The offering prayer for us Thanks Paul Alright thank you Drea Good morning everyone How's everyone doing today?

Alright I like That energy Alright Okay Any men here Like playing lawn games Cornhole Other games like that Anyone raise their hand I sure do Okay Well tomorrow We've got an amazing event Right here It's our anchored event It's called the summit event We've got an amazing message From my brother Chris Freund And it's really an opportunity For fellowship We're going to have A lot of cool games right here We're going to have Some good food Love to see you there It starts at 6 o'clock You can sign up online Just go to our website Churchoflajolla.org Or you can show up Day of That's fine too But we've got a really Amazing group of men here And we'd love to see you Love to meet you If I don't know you So love to see you there On Monday So with that I want to transition To the worship Through giving So the Apostle Paul In 2 Corinthians 9-10 Writes Now he who supplies Seed to the sower And bread for food Will also supply And increase your store Of seed And will enlarge The harvest Of your righteousness The seed here Is your time, talent And treasure The harvest Is what we just saw now With the baptism In the call I don't know any of you guys I was I felt something And we are changing lives Here at this church Through small groups Through Sunday Through our children's ministry We are bringing people The hope and love Of Jesus Christ And the harvest Is amazing here And it's plenty And we can't do it Without you So if you feel Compelled to give We always need your time Talent or treasure We see the Lord Blessing it If you'd like to give Your time or talent Please reach out to me Pastor Sean on the back Drea We always could use Volunteers I serve in four different Five different Volunteer capacities It's my favorite thing That I do Love to have you on the team If you feel compelled To give your treasure You can give online Church of La Jolla dot org We also have Offering boxes in the back Know that everything You're doing is being Multiplied by the Lord And we're seeing it today We're seeing it every day So with that I'd like to pray Lord Jesus You are always so faithful And we know With the seeds That we plant You provide Such a bountiful harvest We see it in lives change We see it in people Coming to know You Lord And they get that Incredible peace That surpasses All understanding And that's what we live for That's why we're here Lord I want to bless The resources of the church I want to bless Anyone's tithes and offerings And time But we continue to Do work For your kingdom In your name we pray Amen And then before we sing This hymn Number 799 together Are there any Veterans Here today And can you stand Can you stand We'd like to thank you All right Let's sing America the Beautiful Together Oh beautiful For spacious skies For amber waves of gray For purple mountain majesties Above the fruited plain America, America God shed his grace on thee And crown thy good with brotherhood From sea to shining sea Oh beautiful For patriot dream That sees beyond the years Thine alabaster cities gleam Undimmed by human tears America, America God shed his grace on thee And crown thy good with brotherhood From sea to shining sea Amen You may be seated Good morning church family It's good to see each and every one of you here today And Nicole you can come sit with your family I think that would be appropriate Congratulations Nicole Let's give her another hand That was beautiful As we've read and heard about the walls being repaired and restored in Jerusalem Through a man named Nehemiah and God's people It's the same thing God does here With us He wants to restore and repair lives And he uses God's family to do it The Holy Spirit And it's so fun to see how the community Has come alongside to support Nicole It was Pastor Adam's message that awakened her Which can happen to us So look out And yeah And then her family and friends Have been such an encouragement and support for her The small group that she participates in on Tuesday morning with India She's learning and discussing and wrestling with the word of God She goes to a Bible study on Wednesday evenings with Pastor Jim and Linda All those things are available for all of us And she's also being mentored and discipled individually And so if anything like that sounds good to you Go to the next steps table after the service and sign up Also maybe you're thinking about baptism What is it?

Why should I do it? Go to the next steps table Maybe you need to know who Jesus Christ is And what he has for you in your life And who he is So also next steps table It's all there It's a one stop shop So now I'm really up here to read the scripture for today And I just wanted to say That you may not know this But Nehemiah was the smallest man in the Bible Did you know that?

He was only knee high Maya If you didn't get it Raise your hand and I'll No Okay After the wall This is Nehemiah 7 verses 1 through 3 After the wall had been rebuilt And I had set the doors in place The gatekeepers, the musicians, and the Levites were appointed I put in charge of Jerusalem my brother Hanani Along with Hananiah the commander of the citadel Because he was a man of integrity And feared God more than most people do I said to them The gates of Jerusalem are not to be opened until the sun is hot While the gatekeepers are still on duty Have them shut the doors and bar them Also appoint residents of Jerusalem as guards Some at their posts and some near their own houses This is the word of the Lord The rubble or our sins Oh, where do we begin?

The rubble or our sins Oh, where do we begin? The rubble or our sins And the walls can't tumble down In the city that we love The rubble or our sins The rubble or our sins The rubble or our sins The rubble or our sins The rubble or our sins The rubble or our sins The rubble or our sins Gonna miss that one I like that one a lot That's a good one So we got a new one coming for the Christmas series Excited about it If you have your Bibles, open up to Nehemiah Chapter 7 1 through 3 The Nehemiah series has been incredible As we begin to look at a man who Spent 52 days, spent a lifetime But 52 days coming back From being human trafficked In Babylon To a nation That had fallen away from God And God had judged that nation For the decisions that they had made And then gave them another chance And Nehemiah came back To rebuild that wall To be a gatekeeper Remember God took him We said from a grunt He was a cupbearer to the king Artaxerxes He had some courage He asked a favor of the king The king granted it So we got to speak up sometimes He went from a grunt To a gatekeeper To a governor And God tends to Increase our influence To whom is faithful a little More will often be given The scripture says And so as we're looking at that today We're going to look at Nehemiah 7 Excuse me 1 through 3 And would somebody Chris Somebody Somebody on my team I've left my glasses backstage So if you can find those It would be helpful I'm going to do my best I am old these days But I think I can kind of Squint to it So I have a team That's going to go hustle And look for that They're amazing As we do that Here they come Hey Let's give it up for Chris I was stumbling and bumbling There right there I was like Where are we Alright If you have your Bibles Let me just read through this again After the wall had been rebuilt And I had set the doors in place The gatekeeper Circle gatekeepers The musicians Circle musicians And the Levites Were appointed Underline Appointed It's a key word They were appointed It didn't happen willy nilly They were appointed I put them in charge of Jerusalem My brother Hanani Along with Hananiah The commander of the citadel Because he was what A man of integrity And feared God More than most people do And I said to them The gates of Jerusalem Are not to be opened Until the sun is hot While the gatekeepers Are still on duty Have them shut the doors And bar them Also appoint the residents Of Jerusalem As guards Some at their post And some near their own houses I've been I'm fascinated with Fortification I don't know why It just fascinates me David in his stronghold Able to take 1,000 men And hold off 100,000 Because of the situated Of how this stronghold Was situated I look at King Edward And he went to Wales In the 1200s Built five castles Pretty quick And was able to Take dominion Over an entire area And over the entire Welsh people Because of some strongholds A couple walls That you might be Familiar with The first is Hadrian's wall That was a wall That was built And was between Scotland Actually it was on the Border of Scotland And England And Hadrian came up there And built that In order to keep The Scots away They're just a sassy people We're going to be there In about three weeks Hi to Tim And everybody watching Over there I know they watch On a weekly basis But they are a savvy Ruthless Amazing Hardy Group of people That really weren't Too into having The English around Now they weren't Quite the Scottish At that point They were the picks But they built that wall In order to separate And to bring Some territorial difference You also Maybe you've seen The Berlin Wall In 1984 I went to Berlin And when it was still Under the East German control And I went to The Brandenburg Gate And they had machine guns It was just an incredible experience That wall came down In 1989 And on my honeymoon We were there On my honeymoon A few years later And they were actually Selling giant pieces Of the wall With the rebar You could buy it For you know As art And it was 1800 bucks And back then When I was You know In my early 20s That was a lot A lot of money If I You know how much It would be worth today This massive piece Of the wall You could put on your wall And have that history Because I love history But that wall Was keeping people You know Out and in Another one That you think about Is the Great Wall of China Like do you know The Great Wall of China Is like 13,000 miles long Really It's 22,000 kilometers Or something like that I read Massive project That was taken Took hundreds of years To build it Under multiple dynasties It was built To keep the Mongols out And actually To preserve Chinese society Now why do I tell you All this I tell you because The thing that's interesting That can happen with us As well You can leave The Great Wall of China Up if you would Neva Is China Actually The dynastic period Of China While it kind of Lingered on Into the 19th century It actually ended Around the 1750s After about 1500 years of dynasty Why did that happen?

Did the Mongols Finally get to the gate And you know Get over the wall And did they attack? Was there an attack? Were they taken over By a foreign power? No The reason Arguably And that most people believe Is the reason That the dynastic period Actually changed Was because of A lack of vigilance When it came to opium If you've ever studied The opium wars Maybe you haven't I've read a couple books In the last couple years About the opium wars China itself said That it's inability To stop the opium trade Into China Actually ruined Their entire society They went into What they would call Then the hundred years Of humiliation You can look at that On Google And they call that When they lost Hong Kong To the British And the whole idea This incredible culture China is an incredible culture Ancient China Their medicine Their architect Their mathematics This incredible culture Why do I say this?

Why do I bring this up? Well we see something That Nehemiah does here That is so practical To our lives You can take that down Neva Nehemiah didn't just Build a wall And then move on With the gates Because it was there Nehemiah made a decision As you saw in this passage To become vigilant With the wall To keep watch Over the wall What happened in China To their own admission Was they stopped watching And they became More sated As things were Popular Not popular But as they were having Success in their society As they were having Good trade As the society Was doing well They began To become intoxicated By their own success And they began To have this opium trade That came in And it actually ruined The entire society There are a lot of parallels Right now in our nation Today with some of the Same things That are happening Today On that You know those years Of humiliation It was because of that That the Chinese Communist Party Came around in about 1915 With Mao In order to You know to base Those years of humiliation And you have what you have In China today Because of that This all happened Because of the vigilance I want you to write the word On the top of your notes Today Vigilance And by the way If we have a few Lighting issues We're having some issues With our board So don't let that bother you We're going to preach Right through it Write the word vigilance I put After the completion Of the walls of Jerusalem And the setting of the gates On their hinges Nehemiah implements A system Of vigilance Of vigilance A system of vigilance Let's look at vigilance What does vigilance mean?

You've heard of Holding vigil Today vigils Have changed a little bit Let's say there's A tragic event What do people do? They go and they hold a vigil Right? They get some candles They stand silently And it's more of an honoring And a remembrance But that's not really What vigil is It's a part of vigil But vigil actually means To oversee To be awake To be aware And to be a guard If you're going to have A stronghold in your life The main point for today Is if you're going to have A stronghold in your life You can't just build The walls of protection And the gates And have those things You are going to have To remain vigilant Nehemiah has this Incredible passage And this incredible Practical way Of how he became Vigilant And how he did that Let's look at what Vigilance means The state or character Of being vigilant Watchfulness In discovering Or guarding Against danger Or in providing For safety Circumspection And caution You'll see If you go to Verse 2 again If you go to Excuse me Verse 1 He says After the wall Had been rebuilt And set in place The doors in place The gatekeepers And musicians I had this door Set in place The gatekeepers And musicians The Levites Were what?

Appointed Circle that word Appointed Because what we're Going to see Is that Nehemiah Not just Randomly But appoints Individually People around His life To bring a Community Of vigilance How do you Remain vigilant In your life? It's hard to do it By yourself The only way I believe To remain vigilant In your life Is through The fabric Of community And we know that We know that In the Jewish state But we also know it With Nehemiah Here The opposite Of vigilance I wrote in the notes Is indifference The opposite Of vigilance Is indifference Que sera sera Epicureanism Eat Drink And feast For tomorrow We die It's just Live your life Do what you want No longer needing To be vigilant It's just indifference Whatever It's extreme libertarianism Now I lean libertarian I kind of like that But extreme libertarianism Is not somewhere I want to go You just You be you I be I We Do whatever you want Just let everything go No There's no vigilance In that There's no gatekeeping In that There's no honor In that That's the easy Route And so how do we Find that place I said the opposite Of vigilance Is indifference We have less and less Gatekeepers in the church We have less and less Gatekeepers in our society We have less and less Gatekeepers in our In our government In our governance In the world And we live in a world That is telling you Whatever you want to do Is yours Whatever truth you want Is yours And one by one As people make that decision And step into that understanding Of not having an absolute truth We lose our gatekeepers What do gatekeepers do?

They know the difference Between one side of the wall And the other side of the wall And they know the difference Between what is allowed in And what is allowed out And so we see that The opposite of vigilance Is indifferent Do not let the results Of the world And the things that happen In whether it be An election Or a relationship Change your vigilance To indifference We must remain vigilant But in vigilance In the things that really matter I learned a long time ago And you know how I'm a lot happier?

I don't put my trust In the politics Or the Padres One or the other Those are the two things I don't put my trust In the politics Or the Padres I want to put my trust In the things that we see That Nehemiah does here The Lord keeps vigil over you I looked up verses on vigilance I actually put Watchmen on the wall Verses A hundred verses came up Not all of them Had the word watchmen But many of them Did have the term watchmen But there was over A hundred verses About being vigilant If you want to look up Some amazing verses Go to Google And put in watchmen On the wall Verses in the Bible There should one Not right now Come on Mike I saw you look at your phone Stop doing that I'm just playing I'm watching you Mike I got my eyes on you Look up all this Different vigilance The Bible was full Of the vigilant The Bible is full Of the vigilant And without vigilance You cannot have A spiritual life That matters Vigilance over your heart Vigilance over your mouth Vigilance over your prayer Vigilance over your family Vigilance over your wife Vigilance over your husband Vigilance over your children Vigilance over your business I could go on And on And on Do not become indifference Because of the ways Of the world So easy Just to want to run away Right Just to want to run away I was looking at Just vacation property In Wyoming last night Just fun Just having a good time Just vacation property Not going nowhere But just Oh man You know If you get away From Jackson Hole It actually becomes pretty cheap So you know It's easy to just want to Step away Not keep vigil In Exodus We see the Lord In Exodus 12 42 Says because the Lord Kept vigil that night To bring them out of Egypt On this night All the Israelites Are to keep vigil In honor of the Lord For the generations to come Now let me say something About the vigil One God kept vigil As they left Israel How he's watching over them He's protecting them Like we need to protect Our children We need to protect Our marriages Our churches And such He's keeping vigil Over them Now what is interesting Is when he tells The Israelites They have this day Of keeping vigil Again Through these feasts That they have If you look in Exodus 12 42 in your notes It says on this night The Israelites Are to keep vigil To honor the Lord So if you were to stop there You'd think that's One of the vigils That we see after A tragic event In our country Where they just Hold candles out But that's not what it says It says to honor the Lord For what?

For the generations That are to come So in honoring the Lord In remembering the stories In mediating the prayer In singing the psalms In casting the vision forward They are actually protecting The society that is to follow them That is vigilance Vigilance just doesn't care About you in the moment Vigilance cares about The next hundred years The next thousand years As you move forward In your life Kai is one of our leaders Has always been challenging me Have a hundred year vision For the church And I brought that on board I want to have A hundred year vision You know the church This church has been here Almost a hundred years 1922 Somebody Maybe they didn't have A hundred year vision But we've been here a hundred Let's be here another hundred After that How are we going to do that?

By having a group of people In this generation Who decide we want to be vigilant To get up off the mat To whatever's been Knocking you down Whatever's been discouraging you To get back up And to keep that vigilance We see that One of the things we see Is a stronghold Devoid of vigilance Is a city in wait of destruction A stronghold Devoid of vigilance Is a city Waiting for destruction That's your life That's our life Whatever happens Happens I'm just cruising Just cruising No vigilance Things are good Got a little prayer time here A little bit there But no pressing for it No being vigilant Not saying being a fear monger Not saying overly being anxiety Over anxiety I'm not talking about Navel gazing To the point Where you kind of just Ruin your life I'm talking about being vigilant In the things that matter Here's the stronghold It says a stronghold Devoid of vigilance Is a city In wait of destruction Keeping vigil As we see here With Nehemiah Has some principles The number one principle In keeping vigil Is this It was done in community That when he kept community That when he kept vigil He did it in community With trusted spiritual people Vigil And strongholds Are kept strong In the fabric of community This is why marriage Is superior to living together Because when you get married You do it in front Of a group of people You do it with a contract Towards one another Even the civic state Understands this You speak to each other You declare your intentions To one another In a group In a society I do a thing In all the weddings I do Where I have a declaration Of intentions If you've been to one of my weddings Where I ask The family The groomsmen The bridesmaids And all the people That are in the audience Who are friends And family If they are willing To declare That they will support This couple That's why we do Marriage in public Because marriage Is we keep relationships Together in public So that is one of the reasons We have this And Nehemiah understands this If you are going to have A successful family One of the best ways To do it Is to be keeping vigil With other families That have your values Keeping vigil With other trusted Spiritual friends And partners And family members And people that have Gone before you Mentors We see that It's done in community Let's go back to verse one After the wall Been rebuilt I had the doors Set in place The gatekeepers The musicians The Levites Were all appointed You feel pretty good After you got that Gates up Feel pretty good After you get that Wall going Can feel pretty secure In that He didn't rest On his laurels Nehemiah didn't rest On his laurels But it said He appointed people As his gatekeepers In his life As his musicians And as his Levites We're going to look At the community That surrounded him And I want you To think about Your community That surrounds you And who have you Appointed Who have you appointed In your life To be able to speak Truth into your life I have another pastor I meet with Met with him Last You know A couple weeks ago And he was getting Into me He was just like Challenging me You know You're too content He's real hardcore Real hardcore So like He went He went into Iraq And went to go like Preach the gospel With a church in Iraq And he said he was hiding As they went by ISIS And the guy in the taxi Is like Hey there's ISIS And he told me If you ever go on a trip With me I just know that We won't negotiate for you I was like Okay I won't be going Not that guy Every But maybe I would be that guy Who knows Not in that moment yet But nonetheless As I spoke to him I have this guy in my life He's very trusted But he does look across the coffee On a regular basis And say like Are you going for it Or are you just comfortable You seem real comfortable Why are you so comfortable I left a squirming I left the meeting A squirming You know Do you have that person In your life I've appointed him In my life I appointed a best man In my life I've You appoint Who you appoint No one No one No one No one No one No one gets a free pass To speak into my life They've been appointed People speak to me All the time But only certain people Get a pass Because They've deemed themselves Trustworthy And as Nehemiah says here Often times They love God Just a little bit more Than most people That's what he says Actually in that It's really really interesting Now the question is Who are you appointing This isn't an arrogant thing This isn't a judgmental thing This is Who has God called in my life Who speaks truth to me You don't want a bunch of Yes people in your life That just tell you Whatever you want to hear You want people That can speak truth And do so in love They were appointed Who's appointed in your life I mean Do you have seven people Do you have a Do you have a pastor A priest Do you have a A A discipler Do you have a business mentor A coach A counselor A parent You know One of the problems In our society today Which you didn't have in China In their early society Is we despise The wisdom Of Of The old I mean People that have gone before The generations that have gone before We just despise their wisdom I mean Seriously Like our whole culture Is built upon 18 to 25 year old influencers I mean I don't need an 18 year old To influence me I mean Maybe with my shoe picks Or something like that But when it comes to wisdom Of what I'm going to do With my life I want to have somebody To have a little bit Of skin in the game Someone that's been a while I want someone that's been married a while To tell me how to be married I want someone who's been a pastor For a while To tell me how to be a pastor I want to sit under the wisdom And the teaching Of someone who's gone before me Look I was I wrote a whole book About giving autonomy To my children Giving them a voice And listening to their reason And young people Give wisdom They have a million things to say That I want to hear They give fresh takes Fresh approaches I talked to my daughter this week I said I have a problem My 14 year old 15 year old Thinking about becoming a psychologist I said hey I got this issue in my life I want to ask you She goes I'm 15 years old What can I tell you I said well you have some wisdom Right I said you have a fresh perspective Maybe I've never heard it Here's my issue I want to And we've always had that We've always given them A seat at the table I found that if you give your children A seat at the table And autonomy And you let them know That you respect them When they're 3 years old When they're 18 years old They'll do the same to you And we have found That there's that trade off They'll do that to you And so we respected them And they seemed to respect us And so I had this conversation I want those opinions But there's not too many 21 year olds No offense To anybody who's 21 That I'm going to appoint To speak truth into my life Now I'll listen And they might have truth But they might go to When I got No I want you to get some wisdom When you get to be 45 You understand what I'm saying Societies can't be built On the inexperience of youth And so this is a little bit Of a sidebar But in regard to the church One of the things We really want to do Is we want to honor That's why we have A multi-generational church One of our values Is multi-generational That we want to honor Those that have gone before us And find this blending I love this week That the 25-35 group Had Was with our adventurers group I think that's 55 An older group And they had like A hoedown over here Or you know A bunch of country music And they were doing Square dancing And whatever they were doing That's awesome That we had that That going on And so that was super cool He appointed them Who have you appointed?

Who's appointed in your life? Is there anybody Who speaks into your life? Is there anybody That you have That trusted people That you surround? Those are your gatekeepers Who do they have? They had gatekeepers Gatekeepers were keeping A physical vigil Over a stronghold That's what gatekeepers do Let me give you A couple examples Of some physical gatekeeping One, technology That's a physical thing That you need to have An eye on You need to have An eye on your technology How much time You're in the technology The movies you see The things that you The places you go The things you listen to I mean I went to a movie Yesterday I haven't gone to a movie A long time I haven't sat in a theater For a long time I went to this movie 30 minutes in It's like 25 bucks I don't know It's a lot of money To go to a movie These days right?

And so I'm sitting In the movie And I'm like I gotta tap on this movie I don't want This thing is bringing I can just feel it This is bringing me down I was with my daughter I'm like we gotta go And she wanted to go anyways And so we bounced Out of that movie And I thought you know what Sometimes you just gotta be Willing to like Pay the $39 it costs To go to the movie And walk out You know what I mean You draw a line in the sand Because you're a gatekeeper You're a gatekeeper You know If you're You know If you're just Whether it be news Or whatever The first thing you had Was gatekeepers You are a gatekeeper And if you do not have A gatekeeper You will just have Whatever comes in And flows And you have no vigilance Are you vigilant?

Are you vigilant About what you watch About what you say What comes out of your mouth What you allow into your heart The thoughts that you get You know in our Highly politicized Country I find myself Getting thoughts about people That I never thought I would ever have A thought will come Into my head About a certain person Or whatever And I'll be like That's just Like that's such That's Where did that come from?

Where it comes from Is leaning too much Into the secular And not doing the second thing here Which is having the musician And the Levites Which bring our focus upward Where's your focus? Do you have that focus? Do you have the focus That moves upward? We see here right now In verse 1 again That he had gatekeepers That's the physical thing Right? The next is the musicians And the Levites They were appointed What do they do?

What do musicians do? Now musicians Move our eyes upward Musicians are the one That bring worship Into our life I'd say Fill your life with worship It doesn't have to be Music worship Lately I've been getting Into the hymns I love the hymns I love gospel music I love southern gospel music And I love black gospel music Those two different types Of gospel music I've been really Digging into that And you know what it does?

It raises my eyes upward I mentioned During this sermon series And there is a difference You might know The difference between Black gospel And southern gospel Southern gospel Would be Hank Williams Black gospel Would be like Helen Baylor And others like that And so when I listen To black gospel One of the things That really stuck out to me And I'd never experienced before Is that the majority Of black gospel Starts with a solution And then it gets To the problem Whereas the majority Of modern day worship Starts with And I did a little bit Of this last time But they start with this Like oh my life Is miserable I'm horrible I'm such But God you're so good You're so good I'm lame I'm Whereas when I listen To black gospel When I listen To black gospel It's like hey God is good You know like get up God is good I mean listen to all this And it's just It starts at the throne It starts at the throne It starts at the solution And it works back To the problem And so when I've been Listening to that I've been like I gotta fill myself with it I don't Granted I know I'm miserable I get it I don't wanna start there I wanna start Let's start with How good glory You know Go to Spotify And listen to the LJCF That's our church We have our own Little radio channel You can find it on Spotify Just listen to the songs That start hitting You'll see It'll just start It's like you know Tabernacle choirs Musicians What do they do They raise your eyes upward Your eyes always hear Oh what's happening Georgia politics Oh what's happening This school board over here Raise your eyes upward Start with the solution He put musicians in place After the gatekeepers Gatekeepers What comes in What goes out But the musicians Put their eyes upward What do the Levites do He had Levites Once again He didn't do all this Himself right He did this in community He didn't go get a kazoo And start doing the worship Himself or a guitar And go around He got some people To do it with him He went and found Some worship leaders Had them do it He found some priests He didn't go put The priestly robes on I don't think Nehemiah Was a Levitical I don't know if he was From the tribe Of what tribe he was from But he went and got The priest He surrounded himself With people that worship Do you have any Worshippers You got people that Just like to worship All the time Sending you Spotify links And playlists You want those people In your life They are the ones That lift your eyes up Do the people You spend time with That you partner with In the fabric of your life Lift your eyes up They're always complaining Always complaining Always down We see here That he has them Lift them up What does a priest do A priest that says Does this Priests are mediators What does mediation do It's prayer You have people That mediate for you They pray for you Every week We pray for you Every week If you put a prayer On that prayer request card You drop it in that box You will be prayed for On Tuesday We will put it on a list And me and Kim And Sean And some of the other staff We're there every single week You can join us What does mediation do They mediate before God Do you mediate Prayer is mediation You can have people That you're praying with That you're praying for others But we need to be praying And mediating This is so important For the stronghold of your life Are you a person Who lifts people's eyes up Do you lift your own eyes up And do you mediate in prayer It says that they mediate They bring sacrifice You know the Lord Consumes the sacrifice You know what the Lord Doesn't consume No sacrifice If you want to have The Lord consume The work of your life Make it a sacrifice You have to sacrifice These things unto the Lord Because it says That the fire would come down And consume the sacrifice If you're not sacrificing Your time Your talent Your treasure Whatever it would be Your forgiveness Can be a sacrifice God cannot consume that And that's what makes it eternal You see the only things That are eternal Are the things that have been Kissed by God And if you do not do something In the name of God When time ends It'll be gone And so the final thing is this It says then I put In charge Of verse 2 I put in charge of Jerusalem My brother Hanani Along with Hananiah The commander of the citadel Why?

Because he was a man of integrity And he feared God More than most people do I love that How would you like that said about you? I'm going to have you I'm going to entrust you Remember we said Responsibility last week The ability to respond Responsibility Means you can respond well It says What have people said about you? I want them in my life Because they're trusted And it says They love God More than most people I want to say this in closing That We are losing More and more people That are having Keeping vigilant I believe the Lord Has told me To start preaching That our nation Is in jeopardy Not because of the Political stuff Because of the sins Of the people Because of the sins Of the nation And calling truth A lie And lies truth Because of how we have Not protected our children And the things We're giving ourselves over to And he's made it very clear To me over the last two weeks You need to start saying it Because it says If who?

My people Who are called by my name Will humble themselves And what? Pray I will restore their land So we need some people To be vigilant And as a church We need to be vigilant I believe God's vengeance Is coming to this nation I've never said that before And I believe that God said Very clearly to me You need to start saying it Now I could be wrong I could be totally wrong I'm not saying I'm the big prophet I'm giving a word of prophecy I'm just telling you What I think God told me to say And I think As I read through it It says If you do not warn the people It says in the prophets If you do not warn the people It's on you And I know what I thought It ain't gonna be on me And so what I want is this I want people That want to be We gotta be vigilant We've gotta be vigilant In our homes You've gotta call out What sin is It's gotta be called sin We've gotta stand up And make a change It isn't if the world changes It's if we change We need to get back On the wall We need to get on the wall Of prayer We need to get on the wall With our families We need to get on the walls Of our schools And our communities And to be there And not just dip You know the temptation Just to leave Is so strong I gotta tell you The temptation for me Just to go open up A coffee house Somewhere in the world Because we grew up In the restaurant business Like the thought Of just getting up Making a little coffee For everybody Every single day Hey that's a great career For those that have it But that's not what I'm You know I was telling my wife That yesterday She goes that's not What we're called to I was like ah Why do you gotta keep Reminding me of that I hate godly women Why do you gotta do that To me every time She said that's not What we're called to I'm like Can't take anymore But then I had A little baptism right You're like ah Just something you preached Just something you preached Something you said You're gonna say something In the line at Starbucks This week You're gonna give someone Some hope You're gonna give someone Some joy Bam God's gonna be on the wall With you as you keep Watch and we take dominion We've gotta take dominion Until our blood and guts Are left And our souls Are left on the ground Until we give everything Willing to die for the faith And go out no matter What the society says And be vigilant And it's difficult You just wanna comfort away And you have the same problem China had in 1650 Just escape You know To whatever it is We wanna move to that next level We wanna be a people of God Amen That's the end of the Nehemiah series Let's stand This is a church that believes in blessing God said to Abraham Who you bless This is a promise in the scripture Who you bless I will bless Whoever you bless He will bless Bless your enemies Just be so gracious With your blessing Lay your hands On your children's head On your grandchildren's head Say I wanna bless you People I say that all the time To people now I just say hey May God bless you today When I leave Every conversation When I meet new people Hey may God bless you today It's such an open door People wanna be blessed In a society filled with curses I wanna bless you If you wanna extend your hands Let me bless you And see what God brings Lord God We thank you God That you have blessed your people With this little corner This little corner church God That 100 years of faithful people God we pray you would bless This congregation With everything we need to survive But God also a new passion A removing of indifference From our lives A new desire to pray A new desire to care To be gatekeepers To be musicians To be Levites To be some people This church Maybe this church You would say of us We just love God A little bit more Just a little bit more Not in a prideful way But just like You spoke to the churches In Revelation And you had something to say About every church And they were real churches And you have something to say About this church Just in your own heart Right now Just say God I wanna love you A little bit more I just wanna be trusted I wanna live you A little bit more And if you've laid Your sword down In your marriage Or you've laid your sword Down in your family life Or in your business Or just your hope Is given up Just pick that sword Back up And say God I'm ready for duty Let me stand in the gap In the wall Pray for gap standers Those that will watch On the wall And I just wanna anoint you As gatekeepers And watchmen Who can just Blow the shofar Like they did in the Old Testament To let people know That it's time to arise And wake up We pray for God A church I pray for this little church God Changes the world However you're gonna do it Pray for the orphans God The lost The nations That have not found you Lord But for our and our house For me and my house We will serve the Lord So God bless us As we stand here In the midst of the fray And we thank you In the name of the Father Son and the Holy Spirit