OCT 23 2022 | Rebuild: The Story of Nehemiah S1E5 | Rubble and Rabble

Sea Change Church · OCT 23 2022 | Rebuild Ep 5 | Rubble and Rabble
Nehemiah 4:10-18
Automated transcript. Not reviewed for accuracy.

Counseling services Here on campus In the Renewal Center Which is on the other side Of the fellowship hall Over there If you have any questions About that Or are interested In services Or those kind of things Or resources In the community Feel free to reach out I'll be around This afternoon But today I'm here to read scripture So Today's reading comes From Nehemiah Chapter 4 Verses 10 through 18 Meanwhile The people of Judah said The strength of the laborers Is giving out And there is so much rubble That we cannot rebuild the wall Also our enemy said Before they know it Or see us We will be right there Among them And will kill them And put an end to the work Then the Jews Who lived near them Came and told us Ten times over Wherever you turn They will attack us Therefore I stationed Some of the people Behind the lowest points Of the wall At the exposed places Posting them by families With their swords Spears and bows After I looked things over I stood up and said To the nobles The officials And the rest of the people Don't be afraid of them Remember the Lord Who is great and awesome And fight for your families Your sons and your daughters Your wives and your homes When our enemies heard That we were aware Of their plot And that God Had frustrated it We all returned to the wall Each to our own work From that day on Half of my men Did the work While the other half Were equipped with spears Shields Bows and armor The officers posted themselves Behind all the people Of Judah Who were building the wall Those who carried materials Did their work with one hand And held a weapon in the other And each of the builders Wore his sword At his side As he worked But the men Who sounded the trumpet Stayed with me The word of the Lord Therou Therou Therou Therou Therou Therou Therou Therou Therou Therou Therou �� S.

e �� . �� �� �� �� �� �� �� ��? Thank you. Thank you. We need you. Lord, we just want to bless this scripture. Let it come alive. I just love the scripture. Just right now in your own heart, ask God to speak to you today where you are. You know where he is. You'll know where you are, depending on if you know where he is. So we bless you. We give you praise. In Jesus' name, amen.

We're in the end of the first month of a 52-day journey to rebuild the walls of your life and to fix the gates of your life. We talked about walls, bring security. Without walls, you don't have security. You don't have identity. But then you also just don't want to be cloistered so much that you never are making any difference in the real world.

So you got these gates, and they open and close as well. They let people in. They let people out. We've circled the walls and gates of our lives over the first month. We've looked at those. What are those different gates? We talked about how the importance of a gate, what they were in the ancient times. The gates were oftentimes used. You'd do marriages, business deals.

All types of things would happen at the gate. We talked about today, the phone actually is the modern-day gate to our lives. You can do business deals. I've bought a house on a phone before. Many of you have as well. You're just clicking things off on a phone. You know, like I said before, don't do the marriage proposal on the phone. I'm just saying.

There's a little tip for you guys. He's got that for you. I'm here for you all day. But we talked about the different things that come against us. We talked about having the courage, first of all, to start the process. Nehemiah had the courage to start the process. He asked King Artaxerxes at the possible suffrage of his own life to be able to go back and build the walls.

And then when he went back and he circled the walls and he went and he used discernment. Then we talked about some opposition. And the first opposition we talked about was thoughts. It was the kind of thoughts. It was that internal opposition, right? That stuff that we fight against. Those things that come at you at the middle of the night. Those thoughts of doubt, fear, worry.

Now we're getting to the external opposition. We're going to talk about external opposition today and how Nehemiah had to deal with that as well. We see the opposition comes in three ways today. If you look at your notes, it says opposition to the rebuilding of the walls of Jerusalem came in three forms. Rubble, rabble, and relatives. Okay? Rubble.

Everybody's like, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. What's that third one right there? We'll get to it. Rubble, rabble, and relatives. If you look at this scripture, that's what we see happening in this scripture. The song by Bastille asks, where do we begin? With the rubble or with our sin? Remember that when God sent his salvific messengers with Ezra and Zerubbabel and Nehemiah in, they started not with the rubble.

They started with the temple. We're going to rebuild that temple. We've got to get our hearts right. You always start with the acknowledgement of what you need to start. And so we see that. But today, in this passage, we're looking at three things that will oftentimes come against you, and you need to be prepared against these. And so the first one is rubble.

Let's look at rubble. It says, verse 10, Meanwhile, the people in Judah said, The strength of the laborers is giving out. And there's so much rubble, so much rubble, we cannot rebuild the wall. It means the people that he has led towards the promise, towards the victory, they got a vision of it, and they started the work, right? They started the work, and then halfway through the work, for one reason or another, and this one, just because of all the fallout, all the rocks, all the rubble, they said, Even the rocks have been burned, they said.

Because of all this rubble, they became overwhelmed because of the rubble. And they said, Because of all of it, they just gave up. Now, one of the things that we find out from these three, the rubble, the rabble, and the relatives, is you'll see in your notes, in each case, what was said was untrue. They were able to rebuild the wall, and they accomplished it in 52 days.

The wall was actually rebuilt. So when you're dealing with the rubble of your life, first of all, nothing is impossible with God, and it's so easy to think, How can I ever overcome this? There are so many obstacles against me. I don't have this. I don't have this. These people are against me. And all of that looks like rubble in your life. And oftentimes, some of the best strongholds are built out of rubble.

Realize that. Some of your best strongholds are built out of the rubble of your past. Okay? So this was not, they didn't go to the stoned RCB block and brick up at Encinitas and pick out and quarry the nicest stone. It wasn't like some of the builders in different times of history and antiquity where they would get builders and they would go quarry the stone.

They were using the broken stones of the past to build the stronghold of the present. They were using the broken rocks and rubble of the past to rebuild. Well, how do we do that? How can I do that? Well, one is just learning from your mistakes. Hey, this is a mistake. We're going to put it back. We're going to let it be strong now. We're not going to do that again.

And so they were living according to the lie. So let me tell you one of the biggest lies that will come against you will be the opposition from an exterior source of looking at the rubble in your life. You look at your finances, I'll never get out of debt. You can get out of debt. You can definitely get out. There are ways to get out of debt. No matter how big the debt is, if you are committed to getting out of debt, you can get out of debt.

That could be rubble and God can take that rubble and he can turn it into the reality of a stronghold. And so oftentimes we look at our debt. We look at the things that have been said in the past in a relationship. You've said too many things to each other. You've hurt each other so deeply that wound can never be restored. And once again, do we start with the problem or do we start with the solution?

I've been in church work and relational work is what it is. Church work is relationship, is relational work. That's all I do. Your relationship with God, my relationship with God, his relationship with us, our relationship with each other. That's all I do. And so as we look at that, sometimes being here, you can look at relationships and say that's too far.

But there is no relationship, whether it be with your children, whether it be with your parents, whether it be with your wife, there is no relationship if both people are committed to changing their ways and committed to healing that cannot be rebuilt with God in the mix. I've been in it too long to not, to, I've been in it long enough to know that that is a truth.

If people want to do that. And so the first thing is rubble. Don't count yourself out because of the rubble. Next one is rabble. Verse 11. Let's go to verse 11. Also our enemy said, before they know it or see us, we'll be right there among them. We will kill them and put an end to their work. Now this is Sanballat and some of the others. There was three armies and there was the Arabian and there was the Hornite and there was all these three, remember those three people that were coming against them.

And we talked last week, sometimes negative things come in threes. I don't know why that is, you know, but it just sometimes it comes in threes and you get overwhelmed. And these guys were making all this threats. A lot of threats. You know, imagine if it was online today and someone, you know, bullying you online. We just had a thing at the school where somebody was getting bullied at the school.

I heard about online. Just threats. You know, sometimes you will have this sense as people come against you, these guys are just rabble. You can look at them and you can give them this incredible, this credit. Sometimes we over credit the people who act as enemies in our life. I'm not saying we make them enemies. We're called to love people, to forgive them.

But if they are enemies of the cross and enemies of God's people, sometimes we give them too much credit. What I like to term is just rabble. Just rabble. You know, not too long ago in my past, a few years back, there was this one person and it was not in this setting, it was somewhere else. And I had turned them into a demigod. I had turned them into Zeus.

They had the ability, you know, to just destroy my thoughts and where I was thinking about all the time. I made them bigger than they were. You know, have you made the people who are perhaps coming against you, or coming against the work of God in your life, sometimes you need to realize, do they really have a point? You've got to ask yourself. That's a different conversation.

But let's say somebody's just really coming against you. You have an enemy at work and you're trying to treat them and love your enemies. And they're coming against you all the time. It's a boss. It's somebody else all the time. Sometimes we give them too much credit. We give them too much space, especially if you put them beside the eternal God.

You see, once again, start with the solution. You start with how big God is and everything else disappears. And so as opposed to turning them into Zeus or some superhero that is against you, you say, God, deal with the rabble of my life. Now, in the New Testament, we pray for our enemies, right? That's different than the Old Testament. Because if you look at Nehemiah, Nehemiah is like, bring it against them, you know, beat them down.

Like, man, it just felt so good to pray like that in the Old Testament. That Old Testament prayer against your enemies just feels so much better than that Jesus New Testament prayer. Because I've got to pray for blessing in the New Testament, and I don't want to pray for blessing. Like that Old Testament prayer. But nonetheless, you know, the way to do it is to pray blessing upon those people.

To pray blessing and to shrink them down. Just to shrink them down. Not by talking negatively about them, but just putting it into reality. Compared to you, God, you are so big. Let's start with the solution. God, you are great. You are big. You care for me. You love me. You're a loving Father. They will just shrink. It's the rabble of their life. Let me tell you one more truth.

They never ended up in the city. That was a lie. Let me read in verse 11 again. Also, our enemy said, before they know it or see us, we will be right there among them. We will kill them and put an end to their work. Lies. Never happened. Another lie. Never happened. That's two. Too much rubble. They rebuilt the wall. The enemy is going to come get us.

They never did. Are you really good? Are you a great screenplay writer for the negative things in your life? You lay there and think all the negative things. Why is it that we gravitate towards all that negativity? Why don't we gravitate towards the win? Why don't we gravitate towards the slam dunk? Why don't we gravitate towards the things where God is saying, I'm in your court.

I'm on your team. To say, God, you're going to fix this. I don't know how, but you're going to fix this. You got rubble. You got rabble. You got rabble in your life. You pray for them. You discount their ability to affect your outcomes. You discount their ability to affect your outcomes because God is writing your story. And if you are clean and you are making straight paths for your life, then you are protected.

All things work together for good for those that love God and are called according to his purpose. Even if you get fired by that boss that's your enemy, it will work out in your favor because all things, not some things, work together for good for those that love God and are called according to his purpose. You got rubble. You got rabble. And the third one, relatives.

Watch out. Okay, it's Christmas time almost. Thanksgiving's coming. You know what I mean? So, verse 12. Then the Jews. That's the relatives, right? That's relatives. They're a big end to being relatives, right? Then the Jews who live near them, okay, came and told us ten times over. Ten times. That's a lot, okay? Wherever you turn, they're going to attack us.

Wherever you turn. These are the Jews that had gotten comfortable. These are the Jews, the family that had never been taken to Babylon. They hadn't lived in captivity. Last week, you had captives, consorts, and conquerors. They were consorts, and they were captive. They lived under Artaxerxes, but they still got to stay in Jerusalem. They got to hang near the towns.

They never had to leave, change their way of life. They got to go to the same wells, fish at the same fishing spots. Not Nehemiah. Not Zerubbabel. Not Ezra. They got taken to Babylon. They understood. I don't want to live in Babylon anymore. Maybe you're living in Babylon, and you don't want to live there anymore. And if, you know, sometimes our lowest, when we hit our rock bottom, is when we turn.

It's when you don't hit your rock bottom, and you kind of just live in this comfortability of mediocrity. That's what these Jews are doing. And they were like, dude, don't mess this up. Don't mess this up. We got to, look, they don't mess with us. They let us do our thing. I can fish. I can do all the things I want to do in my life. We have our markets going on.

You know, my favorite coffee house. It's, don't, you're messing this up for us. He's like, man, we are God's people. God has given us a place. He's given us a city set on a hill. This is our city. What are you talking about? See, these relatives came to them. They didn't want their thing messed up. You know, low expectations. Low expectations sometimes will just kill you.

This is low expectations. I realized this week, because I was asking God, what am I doing? There's some places, a few places I'm investing in my life. I've been investing heavily. And I realized that I care more about it than some of the people I'm investing with. Spending my time, and I realized I got to back off. Because I care more about it than they do.

And I only have so much resource. I only have so much time. I want to find people who want to move forward in life. And that's who I want to partner with. If we're moving in the stream, not to go against that. And so he was telling them, he told these relatives in his life, that it came to him 10 times to dissuade him. They were very persistent. You have any persistent relatives?

Maybe you're the persistent relative. You got any persistent relatives? You always got to hold a mirror up with scripture, right? Always got to hold it. Might be you. Just saying. So you're looking at that. He says these persistent relatives came to him over and over again. They told him 10 times. Let me tell you another truth. This never happened. It's another lie.

They said they're going to attack us. They're going to kill us. Whatever it is. Did not happen. Another lie. They came to them. I'll tell you that. I talked about minimizing your enemies. I don't like using the term enemies. But the Bible says love your enemies. So it's obvious that we can have enemies. I don't like using that term so much. But one of the things that I realize is minimizing our enemies.

Sometimes we got to minimize our relatives. Oh, what's that? Wait a second. Just because your dad says it doesn't mean it's wise. I'm a dad. I'm going to speak from dads. Just because I say it doesn't mean it's wise. You still need to look at, you know, who you're talking to and say, is that wise counsel? You know, if your dad is a fool and he has proven that in his life, some of you are very wounded by your fathers.

Very wounded. I'm sorry for that. I'm really sorry for that. I love being a dad. And it bothers me greatly when I see fathers disrespect their children and their families. It bothers me. But I can be overbearing with my kids, too. And sometimes my kids need to stay. I've taught them enough where they'll step up and look at me and say, Dad, that's not, no.

That's not it. Just because your dad says it, just because somebody says it who's related to you doesn't make it true. You know who makes it true? The Holy Spirit. And so hopefully you're getting good counsel from your parents. Hopefully you're getting good counsel. But just because it's your aunt, we sometimes, we just make them so big. Why? Because they're family and we don't want to disappoint them.

I have a family member somewhere in my family universe. I got a big family. And they say, well, I just don't want to disappoint everybody. I said, first of all, that ain't going to work. And number two, please feel free to disappoint me. Do what God told you, not what you think I think you should do. Please, feel free. I'm going to hold it back. I'm not going to do this disappointing.

I'm not going to sulk. I don't want a bunch of family members that are my puppets. That I just puppeteer. You'll see it at Thanksgiving. The ones that want to puppeteer control. Where are we going to have the party? Where are we going to do all this craziness? What they do is it says they had three things that came against them here. They had the rubble, the rabble, and the relatives.

And the relatives oftentimes mean good. They think they're doing the right thing. But just because you think you're doing the right thing doesn't mean you're doing it. Just because you think you're doing the right thing doesn't mean you're doing it. I'm not telling you to disrespect relatives. I'm telling you to hold their counsel up against the word of God.

And to be able to love, go to them and say, this doesn't fit what the Spirit's telling me. This just doesn't fit with what the Spirit's telling me. Rubble, rabble, relatives. You see it all here in this passage. Napoleon Bonaparte says this in speaking of these three. Now I'm not sure I agree upon this with all history. But he said history is a set of lies that are agreed upon.

True, you know, the victors, right? The history. I love history. I'm a historian. I love it. But I will say, I will say this is pretty true for our lives, right? History, oftentimes, we just believe a history that's not true. You've been told you're no good. You'll never amount to anything. You're this, you this. That's why I love, I don't know about you, I love inspiring people.

I just love, like Sunday morning, I cannot wait to come bring you a word of inspiration. But with some challenge. You know what I mean? This inspiration with no challenge, you don't need that. That's just unicorns and rainbows and cotton candy. Yeah, you don't need that. You need some challenge as well. Let's go to the next level. And so, oftentimes, we believe in a history.

Do you have a history that you've written for your marriage? Or that there's this history you believe upon? Or have you created a history you can't let somebody else out of? You know, it's funny. Jesus says, you know, with him, the prophet in his own town, you know, is not respected in his own town. Sometimes I go back and I see friends from high school and they still think I'm high school Adam.

Do you get any of that? Especially if you're like, party boy, you know, like, you know, the whole deal. Like, I go meet with them and I'm like, dude, I'm not 17 anymore. I don't smoke the bong, dude. I'm not, like, I'm not that guy. You know what I'm saying? Because, like, did he just say bong in a sermon? I definitely did. Let me grow up. Change the history.

Just because of the history, let people, let people, let people evolve into what God's created them. Tell them, we're going to reset. That doesn't mean you don't guard your heart. You don't protect yourself. If someone's wounded you, you've got to have those walls. You've got gates. Maybe the gates open on a Friday, but we close it back up on a Monday, okay?

We're going to slowly enter this relationship. But change your history. Some of it's just a set of lies that are agreed upon. You're no good. And people will just, you know, they'll just step into that. Begin to be positive. My parents, I never remember once my parents ever telling me something negative about myself without challenging me to being better.

Meaning this. When they said, hey, you know, you failed at this grade, this test. They wouldn't say, you know, you never study. You're no good. You never, you're horrible. They would never talk to me like that. They'd say, we know you could be an amazing student. We can see it in you. We don't, we want you to be the best you can be. There's no reason you should have failed on that test.

You had the time, you had the effort. You can be here. Why are you there? You can be, they're always pointing me. They were always pointing me to the next level. That's how you talk to your children. You can tell them the truth, but point them to the future. Point them to the promise. Point people to the promise. Let's finish up. It says there's three keys to victory.

We had the opposition, the rebel, the rabble, the relatives. And now we got two. More R's. I had a lot of R's this week, all right? Response. And, oh, I got three of them. Response, relationships, and readiness. Let's go through these quick. Verse 13 and 14. Therefore, circle therefore. The conjunctions of your life. If, therefore, will change the trajectory of your life.

Therefore, I stationed some of the people behind the lowest points of the wall at the exposed places, posting them by families with their swords, spears, and bows. After I looked things over and stood up, circle stood up, and said to the nobles, the officials, and the rest of the people, don't be afraid. Remember the Lord who is great and awesome and fights for your families, your sons and your daughters, your wives and your homes.

Do not forget the God who will fight for you. If you continue to read through the story, they got up and they went back and they started rebuilding. That wall was built in 52 days. Let's look at a couple things just quick. Number one, therefore. The conjunctions of your life. If, therefore, but, but I did this. If I do this. The Old Testament is full of if.

If you do this, God says I will do this. There's conditional promises and conditional blessing. What happens when there's an issue that happens in your life? You get a diagnosis. Somebody says something to you you don't agree with. You get a thing in the mail you can't. Whatever. Therefore, I did this. What do you do? What do you do? The conjunctions are the crossroads.

Every time there's something negative, you have a crossroad. Just go escape into distraction. Escape back in like I used to do. Escape back into marijuana. The amount of people that smoke pot, by the way, these days. Crazy. I just did jury duty. They had to ask people if they smoked pot on a regular basis. I can't believe the amount of people that smoke dope.

It's incredible to me. And they had to ask for this jury thing. This is a side note, okay? Like the whole, the whole nation is sedated. Like 70% of the people raised their hands said they currently are, you know, had smoked or recently had smoked. Maybe 60%. I'm just going on by a hand count here. And about 20% of them said they couldn't get through their day unless they had it.

I got to take my gummies at night. Chew my gummies at night so I can fall asleep. You know, they got all these things that are holding them back because of the therefore in their life. Well, when this happens, I got to do this. I got to go to distraction. I got to, as opposed to therefore, stand up and take charge of your life. Therefore. Therefore, you did this.

Therefore, Tina did this. Therefore, Mike did that. Therefore, Sean did that. Therefore, put your name there. You did this when a crossword comes or you just fade every single time. Next one is this. Nehemiah, where did he start? Go to verse, go to verse 14. He says, station some of the people. And he says, look at this. Behind where? The lowest points of the wall and the exposed places.

This is so key. Do not miss this. Where is your life exposed? Where are the lowest places? Where is the thing like, okay, when I'm in a group, you know, I deal with young girls a lot. And one of the things I hear is there's one or two girls in the friend group that if they say something to them, their whole world falls apart. I'm with teenage girls a lot, right?

Work with teenage girls on the girls' basketball team. And it's like, these two girls have clout, and if these two girls say something to me, my world falls apart. You've got to know that that's like a low point. That's an exposed area. Where are the exposed areas of your point? Where do you fail regularly? Go back. I was watching the baseball, right?

Everything's analytics these days. This guy can pitch three innings. This guy can do this. This guy can do this. Just throw the ball is what I'm thinking. But nonetheless, everything's like based on analytics. Your life has analytics. Let's say you fail, you know, speaking to your wife on a regular basis. There's probably something that leads up to that.

You could probably catch that 24 to 48 hours sooner. Something's happening that you are not aware of the exposed places and the low places. He was aware. When you have your failures in your life or the things you're like, God, I don't want to be doing that, track it back. Go back and say, what is causing? Okay, you know what? When I don't have margin in my life, I'm not the person I want to be.

Well, you better get some margin. That's a low place for your life. Production is not everything. I know the world tells you it is, but production is not everything from the lowest points and places. Then finally, it says that he stood up with conviction and with courage. He stood up. He was good at this. So you all just need to stand up. I'm just going to stand up.

Brush yourself off. I laid down in the valley of the shadow of death. It says, though we what? Walk. Just keep on going. No more laying down. Some of us just need to stand up. Let's go. Relationships. Verse 16 and 17. From that day on, half my men did the work, while the other half were equipped with shields and spears and bows and armor. The officers posted themselves behind the wall, behind all the people of Jerusalem who were building the wall.

Those who carried the materials did their work on one hand, held a weapon on the other, and each of the builders wore his sword by his side as he worked. The walls of your life are maintained with the mortar of strategic relationships. The walls of your life are maintained with the mortar of strategic relationships. Some people are just going to build into you.

Like, you know, if I'm feeling low, I call my mom. Because, oh, it's just encouragement. Just, oh, I need, I know who my encouragers are. Okay? I know other people that I need, you're going to talk straight to me? You know, you're going to, I need someone to talk straight to me. I'm going to ask them questions. You know, those are the ones that are holding the sword with me.

Others are just, you know, they're just giving me encouragement. They're feeding me. They have strategic relationships in our lives. Nehemiah surrounded his life with strategic relationships. One of the best ways to change your life is with your relationships. Look at who you hang out with. Yes, yes, that helps you. I'm not saying you don't hang out with people that have challenges.

I'm not saying your gates aren't open. You can't have that gate wide open to everybody all the time, especially people that speak negatively to you, people that bring you down. You just got to, the Bible says, guard your heart, you know. You want to look at the Proverbs. It says, don't even share truth with these type of people. It says, hold yourself, don't even spend time with those type of people.

It says that. Is that judgment? No, it's just wise judging. Is that judging? No, it's just wise judgment. You see, there's a difference between judging someone and having wise judgment. And we live in a world that tells you that any kind of wise judgment is judging. That's not true. God has judgments. He's the judge. I agree with his judgments. I agree with what the Holy Spirit tells me.

And I'm going to live in accordance to those things. And so we see that we are built, walls are built and maintained by the mortar of the strategic relationships in our life. And the final one. We've got to come in for a landing. Readiness. Readiness. Readiness. But the man who sounded the trumpet, verse 17, but the man who sounded the trumpet stayed with me.

The man who sounded the trumpet stayed with me. Nehemiah kept somebody with him. They were ready. You know, it's hard to be ready. You know how hard it is? It's tiring. It's exhausting to be ready. You know what I found out? Is I have to plan my days off. I don't know about you. But if I don't plan my day off, it's a waste of time. Now, sometimes wasting time is really good.

But I need to plan my day off or just, I end up like, you know, too much time watching the news, listening to too many podcasts. My day just goes crazy. And I end up at the end of the day, I've distracted all day, but I haven't really been refreshed. I haven't really done the things I wanted to do, right? Your day off's hard, right? You want to go to the beach and put your feet in the sand.

You want to write that book that you've been wanting to write. You want to go to the gym. But you're just sitting there Netflix binging because it's just easier, right? It's just easier. And so he had a readiness. I tell you this. Why do I tell you that? Because even your day off needs readiness. Look at the Jews. They have a day of preparation. On Friday, you know what they do?

The Jews get ready on Friday for Saturday. Saturday is their Sabbath. They spend all day Friday getting ready for their day off. If the Jews throughout thousands of years have spent that much time getting ready for the day off, where you can actually rest. Because you've actually put people around you. You've put the alarms on. You can actually have a day of rest because you spent Friday getting ready for your day of rest.

How much more do we need to be aware when we're at work? You've got to be careful. Even today, I was tempted to read about the Padres, right? And this morning, I got up. And instead of opening my Bible, I was like, I just want to watch Padre stuff. And I was just really in the Padre game, you know? And I thought, I can't go to church not being prepared.

I'll say something stupid to somebody. I'll give you a quick one. Then we're done. But I was at church. And about 15 years ago, the church, a woman came. And she goes, oh, my cat died. Now, these days, that would really affect me. We've lost our cat. I totally get it. I'm empathetic to that. But back then, it wasn't quite the same guy. And so I said, let's get a new one.

Thank you. She told the head pastor, Monday, I'm in there. You know why that came? Because I just, my heart wasn't soft. Even if I'm not, even though I am now, but even if I wasn't empathetic then, if I had just spent time with the Lord that day, he probably would have prepared me for that. I can't show up unprepared. I can't show up to church unprepared.

I can't show up Monday morning unprepared. I got to be prepared. He had readiness. Final thing I wrote, it's kind of hard to sound an alarm if you don't own a trumpet. It's kind of hard to sound an alarm if you don't own a trumpet. You know, most of us, many of, not most, many of us, you know, remember the 70s, different times, before we had the phone, it was the remote.

We don't have a remote. We got a, we don't have a trumpet. We got a remote. Now we just got a phone, right? You can use your phone for good. You can set prayer times on your phone. You can set links. You can do all kinds of things to use your phone for good if you want. But it's kind of hard to sound the alarm for your life if you don't own a trumpet.

If you're just, just trying to get by, just trying to survive. If you've been living in survival mode for the last five years, it's time to look at the way you're doing things. You're not meant to live in survival mode all the time. Maybe, yeah, you're making good money. Maybe you need to quit that job. Maybe you'd be happier at Starbucks, working at Starbucks, and you are at your job.

But I make so much money, and my kids need a yard. No, there's a park down the street. They don't need a yard. That's if you want. One of the things I've said, one of the best ways to be happy, want less. Why are we not oftentimes not happy? We want too much. Be content with what we have. These are just the wisdom of Scripture. So here we go. That's the end.

Rebel, rabble, and relatives, response, relationships, and readiness. Hopefully you were filled today to make a change in your life. Hopefully today you want to go out and run through a wall, right? Change your life, and make God just the center, the diamond of your life, the apple of your eye. Let's stand. I want to bless you. I want to extend your hands.

I want to bless you. If you just don't know Jesus today, and you want to follow Jesus in a deeper way, or for the first time ever, just let me see who you are. Just like, oh, does anybody else want to go in a deeper way? Even if you're saved. There you go. Let's go. Right on. There you go. God, just tell them right now, I want more of you. I want more of you, Lord.

Lord Jesus, I pray for incredible vision that we don't go to the surveys, we don't go to others, we go to you first. We ask God for wisdom. He will give you wisdom, it says, abundantly, because he's generous, it says in James. So God, I bless those with wisdom, with new relationships, strategic relationships, with love in their heart, grace upon their tongues, Lord God.

Bless them, God, with your word. Bless them with margin. I bless them with hope. Bless them with a care for others and an empathy. Send them out now, God. Encourage and challenge. Let your people know how much you love them. God loves you so deeply. Let them know. Bless them with your love. Bless them with your tenderness. Bless them with your compassion.

Just put wings on their feet, Lord God. Let them fly. Will you lift them up, Lord God? We bless you now with God's love and grace. In the name of the Father, Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen. We love you. If you need prayer, come on up. Bye-bye. Bye-bye.