OCT 9 2022 | Rebuild: The Story of Nehemiah S1E3 | Gate Keeping

Sea Change Church · OCT 9 2022 | Rebuild Ep 3 | Gate Keeping
Nehemiah 2:11-18
Automated transcript. Not reviewed for accuracy.

So I went up the valley by night, examining the wall. Finally, I turned back and reentered through the valley gate. The officials did not know where I had gone or what I was doing, because as yet I had said nothing to the Jews or the priest or nobles or officials or any others who would be doing the work. Then I said to them, You see the trouble we are in?

Jerusalem lies in ruins, and its gates have been burned with fire. Come, let us rebuild the wall of Jerusalem, and we will no longer be in disgrace. I also told them about the gracious hand of my God on me and what the king had said to me. They replied, Let us start rebuilding. So they began this good work. The word of the Lord. The rubble or our sins?

Oh, oh, where did we begin? The rubble or our sins? Oh, let me begin. The rubble or our sins? Oh, oh, oh, oh. Good morning. Just want to let you know, if you want to hear some of Chris's amazing worship, go to Spotify. We got a new Spotify channel. Two songs unloaded right now. We're loading a few songs every single week. And there's also LJCF Radio on Spotify.

They'll make a little radio channel for you with all kinds of stuff. So because we put hymns up there, we ended up, our channel is full of like black gospel, which is the coolest thing. And so if you go to it, I was so stoked to like listen to it all. And there you are with Helen Baylor and all the other gospel greats. So check it out and you can find that out, what we're doing and listen to it.

You can also find just the sermon on Spotify as well, YouTube, Vimeo. If you just want to hear the sermon or their full service as well. Let me pray. Lord Jesus, thank you for your scripture, your word, your call to be gatekeepers. And what you're doing in our lives and bless it. Expand our dominion over the territory you've given us. In Jesus' name, amen.

52 days to rebuild the wall. That's what Nehemiah does. Amazing. He comes and there's the walls and there was, I found out there was seven gates or excuse me, ten gates during the time of Nehemiah. The number of gates has changed. Took a while to find out how many gates there were. I spent probably a half hour trying to get the exact number of gates because there's, it'll say 14, ten.

I'm like, why is it that hard to count the gates? So I just went through and counted them and there's ten gates. I just read through it. I just went old school, took Google out of the picture and just read it. As Nehemiah went through, he's coming back, as you remember, from Babylon, one of three exiles who have come back to rebuild Jerusalem.

We started with Zerubbabel. Fun word to say. Let's say it all together. Zerubbabel, right? That means the offspring of Babylon. He's bringing people from a dark place, offspring of Babylon, but bringing them back to a good place. He's going to rebuild the temple. Remember, they rebuild the walls before, excuse me, they rebuild the temple before they rebuild the walls.

God said, we're going to do it, I'm going to, we're going to do it, you know, backwards of what you would normally do it. We're going to not start with the walls. Where do we begin? The rubble or our sin, right? That's what Bastille just said in that song. He said, we're going to start with rebuilding the temple of our hearts. Zerubbabel does that.

Seventy years later, Ezra comes, teaches the word of God, teaches the covenant. After him, Nehemiah comes and in 52 days gathers the people together to build something significant. In 52 days, he restores the walls and he restores the gates. Now, they weren't to their former glory, but they got the job done. And so he does that. And the call this week or this 52-day period, we're 14 days into it, is for you to rebuild the walls of your life.

We started the week of Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year, to call you into rebuilding a new year in your life, New Year's resolution in the fall. So when you get to January 1st, it's just going to be a little dust-up, clean-up work, right? Because you spent the whole fall getting your life ready and getting these things organized. What do walls do?

Walls and gates. They protect us. Walls are known to protect you, but what are gates for? Well, they protect you as well, but they have a different function. They allow things to come in and out of your lives. But as I was studying the walls and the gates of the ancient cities, it was so important because one small stronghold, you could even say your life if it's a stronghold, had the ability, because of that one stronghold, to take dominion over a larger area that was not within the confines of its walls.

God wants to give you dominion over greater and greater territory. He wants to expand your dominion over the hearts of your friends and other people in your life and the people you work with. He wants to give you a stronghold, but it's impossible to have a stronghold if you don't have walls. It's impossible to have a stronghold if you don't have gates.

And so I've been looking at the purpose of ancient gates in the city, and what I learned is this. If you turn to your notes, the gates of Jerusalem. The Jaffa Gate, which I've been to, shows us viscerally that ancient city gates were not just entrances. Instead, they were natural focal points of public life. The Bible itself records that city gates were used in various ways.

At the gates, people would finalize business deals, Genesis 23. They would arrange marriages, Ruth chapter 4, and settle disputes in the presence of witnesses, Amos 5. The king used gates to address his subjects, 2 Samuel 18. Gates are all throughout the Bible. If you've not gone to BibleGateway.com, it is a great resource. You can go in the search tab, just put gates, and then it will show you on the right every time the word gate or gates is used in the Scripture.

It is incredible the amount of times gates are used. It must be something important if it's in the Bible that many times. Jesus, as you know, entered through a gate, the east gate, they believe, coming into Jerusalem on a donkey. Interesting that Nehemiah is, what is he doing? He's on a horse, excuse me, on a mount. Didn't say if it was a donkey or a horse.

But just like Jesus, and he is going and checking all the gates. There is some similarities there. It says when Jesus comes back, he comes back to the east gate. The east gate is currently closed up. It was walled up in the Middle Ages. And they say that that is the gate that Jesus will be coming back from. And why is that significant? Because the sun rises in the east.

Jesus will come from the east because it is reminiscent of him being the light of the sun, but also the son of God coming back. And so we see this use of gates to be all about city life. One of the things I realized as I was studying and thinking about, well, what are the gates now that we have in society? And I talked last week about different gates, your eye gate.

What do you look at? I think it's Psalm 119 that says, I will not, you know, I made a covenant with my eyes. I believe that's Psalm 119. I made a covenant with my eyes. I will not look upon certain things. We can make a covenant with our ears, our mouth, what we allow in or out of our mouths when we speak, what we allow into our hearts. Proverbs talks about guarding your heart.

There's all these existential gates. But what actually acts as like a physical gate in our lives? Are there physical gates? Because we no longer live in ancient cities, right? Like Rotterdam, when I was a kid, we went to Rotterdam in Germany and it's this walled city. I was in England and Scotland recently and there was these still, they have these walled cities that were strongholds.

Well, we don't really understand that living at Windensee or up in Claremont or a place like that. So what are the actual gates of our lives that would be significant these days? And one of the things I've realized is that when I looked at the meaning and the usage of gates in the Old Testament, the one I just read you, probably nothing represents it more than our phones.

If there is a gate, a modern gate that all of us has, it would be your phone. Do you do business deals on your phone? Yeah, we can do business deals on our phone. Have you heard of Venmo? My daughter's regularly asking me for money on Venmo. Just, hey dad, can you float me some money on Venmo? I don't know how to use it. I'm old. Yes. You know, just throwing money.

You know, so we do business deals. I recently did something in regard to real estate. They sent it, checked it off online. You can actually buy a property on your phone. If you're stupid, you can ask someone to marry you on your phone. If you're just an idiot, you can buy tickets to, if the Padres beat the Mets today, you can do that on your phone as well.

This is the gate to your life. It is the ancient gate. These gates were so important. Everything that was done in a city, if you wanted to become famous, you would go to the gates and you would try to get to know people. Actually, only the elders of a city were allowed to actually sit. They had places at the gates, so when you came in, you would see the elders.

The elders would sit at the gates and then those that were begging would often sit at the gates. But you couldn't just roll up and sit with the elders if you weren't an elder. It was important because it was the life of the city. And the city was known, its culture was known, its security was known by its gates. And I would probably say today that if you were to look at your phone, you were to go through the history of your phone, you were to look at the calendars, you were to look at your Venmo purchases, which, by the way, if you buy stuff on Venmo, you can just click a thing so I don't have to know what you bought.

Like, oh, John bought donuts from Ted. You know, if we were to look, you guys, no one uses Venmo? You can see that? Forget it. A little techie advice right there for you all. If you were to look at your phone, your browser history, whatever it is, you probably get a good sense of the culture of your life, probably get a good sense of the health of your life, probably get a good sense of the different gates.

One of the things I found is if, in my own life, is it's hard to keep the culture and the security of the stronghold of my life if I don't have any gates. And I also learned that, unlike Nehemiah here, many people haven't examined the gates of their lives. What are the physical gates? We talked about the mouth and the ears and these, you know, listening.

But do I, you know, is your computer, is Netflix a gate to your life? Absolutely what you watch. Is the liquor store a gate to your life? Is the gym a gate to your life? It is. Is this church a gate to your life? The physical places you go will determine the trajectory of where you're going. The physical places you go on a regular basis, whether it be physical on your phone or actually brick-and-mortar places like this will determine the trajectory of your life.

The fact that you decided, I'm going to take my Sunday morning, could be in bed, could be at Harry's having the pancake breakfast right now or at the Art and Wine Festival, or you decided to come here, it's going to change the trajectory of your life. And so we see that Nehemiah was called to be a gatekeeper. You are called to be a gatekeeper. God wants every single one of us to be a gatekeeper.

There is no shirking the responsibility of being a gatekeeper. He wants you first to be a gatekeeper of your own life because you will take little if no dominion over greater and grander territory, the terra firma of your life, meaning having influence at your work, having influence at the company you run, having, and I mean spiritual influence, kingdom influence, not just you're a player and you make things happen and you sell real estate or whatever you do, but that dominion happens because you have a stronghold.

Strongholds are important. So we don't want to just live behind walls, right? What we find from Nehemiah here in this passage is there's gates. What do gates do? They allow the life to come in and out. I read about the Puritanical movement of the 1600s where there was a group of Puritans that were like, we're just going to live behind the walls. We're going to bounce and go to America.

I want to call it America, I don't think, or whenever they went in the 1500s, or maybe it was. I don't know about history. I'll have to look at my daughter's Western Civ book when I get home. But as they came, they decided, we're just going to bounce. We want to be completely cut off from that. We don't have any gates to that world. We want a Puritanical society.

Well, I believe personally we're called to live in the world, but not of the world. So what do these gates look like? And are you aware of your gates? Let's look at the different gates that are here because as he goes through these gates, as he walks around, each gate has a purpose. You're going to see the gates of Jerusalem. I believe they're in your notes.

Sometimes I add things on Saturday morning. One is the sheep gate. That's one of the ten gates. All of these gates have a meaning. Just like the gym is a gate to your life, it has a meaning. And it's meant to be used for its purpose. And so the sheep gate has a spiritual meaning as well. This is where the sheep would go to sacrifice. And Christ talks about lambs, and we are his sheep, and he is our shepherd.

The Jews rarely did anything without a meaning. And all of creation has a meaning, and everything God created, and the roles in which he created for us to live according to, each speak to his character. Number two was a fish gate. There was a fish gate, and obviously the scripture speaks a ton about being fishers of men in the New Testament. You have the old gate.

I don't know what that means other than it's just an old gate, but nonetheless, I didn't really have a meaning. I tried to find a meaning. I wanted to make one up, but it's just an old gate. I'm sure you can find it. That's your homework. Number four, the valley gate. There'll be what? Walk through the valley of the shadow of death, and also there is a valley there as well.

The dung gate, the fountain gate, the water gate, the horse gate, the inspection gate. We inspect our lives, right? You can actually go through. I saw things online where people go through the gates of Nehemiah, and they have an act of contrition, just like the Catholics walk the stations of the cross. They have this act of contrition as you go through the gates of Jerusalem, and they have this meaning.

And then the east gate. We love the east gate. One face is east, but Jesus is coming through that gate. As you look through your life, are you aware of your gates? As I do my values class, one of the things that I realize so often when I start helping people put their values together is many people have aspirations, aspirational values, but they don't live according to them.

And so a value is not a value unless you live it, right? If you have a value to be healthy, but you're never healthy, then it's not a value. Unhealth is your value. You have to look that in the face and say, look, I'm unhealthy, or addiction is a value of mine. I say it's not, but I live addictively, so yes, it is. Be honest and survey the gates because we see that God is calling gatekeepers, and I want to tell you what a gatekeeper is.

It says a gatekeeper is one who is charged with not only keeping a gate well maintained, but secured and functioning, but also decides upon what is allowed, in whom shall be allowed to enter, and what shall be allowed to lead. Two points today in the scripture, and then we're done. Number one, God inspires the hearts of gatekeepers. God has called all of you to be a gatekeeper, every single one of you, at least in the minimally, in the stronghold of your own life.

God has called me over this church to be a gatekeeper of this church. What will we allow in? What will we allow out? And will God give us dominion beyond the brick and mortar corner that God has given us for 100 years on this corner? Why are we at the Art and Wine Festival? Because we want to know more people. We want to share God's love. We want to release the kingdom of God in La Jolla and beyond, and we are a gatekeeper, and the gate is open.

One of the 2023 vision you're going to hear as I share the vision for next year is we want to be in the community. We want to be one of the most well-known places of faith, of sacred houses, in all of La Jolla and perhaps San Diego. We just want people to know that God's love is here, and you can love God, and you can know God here, and we are going to be out and about.

So if you look at my calendar, the majority of my calendar this fall has just been at stuff. I was at the Winnensee. I'm making pancakes. I was running. I was a runner running parking things yesterday, up and down Girard Street, just getting to know people. I had a foundation meeting. I'm working with the basketball team, the high school basketball team.

I want you to know that because of this incredible staff and because you guys have freed me up to be in the community because we want to take dominion. It can't just be about me. Okay, how can we get the small groups going a little bit better here at the church? Oh, let's make sure the chili cook-off's awesome and we get more people in the seats. We have got to expand the kingdom of God.

We have got to get out there, and I have to lead by example. I want to see you lead by example. How do we do that? By knowing the gates, and I will say that the number one point is God inspires the hearts of gatekeepers, that he will inspire your heart to where he is calling you to. Number two, gatekeepers walk in God's grace and favor. Those who determine, I will be a gatekeeper, that's a choice, if you want to do it or not, is up to you, but God's favor will be upon you if you are keeping the gates of his kingdom.

If you decide to be a gatekeeper, or you can just have no gates, you can just let whatever come in, comes in, but one thing I will say, it's impossible to be a gatekeeper if your life has no gates. It's impossible to be a gatekeeper who maintains the gates, and then also, other than being maintained, knows what goes in and what goes out. Verse 12, God inspires the hearts of gatekeepers.

Verse 12 says this, I set out during the night with a few others, circle a few others. I had not told anyone, had not told, circle how I had not told anyone what God had put, put, circle put in my heart to do for Jerusalem. Nehemiah was aware of an inkling of God's passion for others and a call beyond himself within his heart. He was aware of it. He was aware that God had something that he called him to do that was bigger than his own personal desires.

It was more than the house he wanted to own, the, I was going to say, the car he wanted to drive, the chariot he wanted to drive, whatever it would be. It was beyond himself. I am, I will guarantee you that God has a calling for your life, but he also has, I will guarantee you that he has a calling for you outside of your life, meaning it's not about you, meaning it's about Jerusalem, it's about La Jolla High School, it's about where you work, it's about a nation, it's about a city, it's about another family, it's about orphans, it's about something beside you.

It'll be an ancillary call that'll come alongside as a parallel call to all the good things God wants to do with you. We've gotten so, we have just binged on purpose. What's God's purpose for you? Where are you going? And it's usually an internal thing. Where am I gonna live? What job am I gonna do? Let's say God loves that. He loves your purpose and if you seek ye first the kingdom of God, your purpose will hunt you down.

It'll come and lay at your feet. You don't have to look for your purpose. You follow God and your purpose will hunt you down, but at the same time, being aware as a gatekeeper, he's going around the city at night. If you take that time to go and survey the gates of your life, as you do that, God will say, hey, there's another call. I gotta call to Jerusalem for you as well.

I gotta call for our people because I'm building a great nation and this nation will one day, you don't even know, in 1948, thousands of years later, will be built up and this will be rebuilt, but they will remember your name, Nehemiah, because of what you did for me. And so what you see is that God inspires the hearts of the gatekeepers. He inspires the heart and I pray as you go and look through the gates of your life that God will inspire your heart.

Let's look at a couple things in that verse 12. Set out during the night. You'll see multiple times in this passage that he didn't tell people what he was doing. There was, at first, there was an intimacy between him and God. I remember when I was in the charismatic and Pentecostal church scene, which I like, I like it, and I've spent a lot of time in there.

One of the things they're big on is God gives you a word. God speaks to your heart, either through a scripture or you get an imagination or an inkling or an idea. And one of the things I would do is as soon as I got that, I would go share it. I would be, oh, God told me. And I felt, eventually God said, hey, sometimes I just want to share something with you.

Can we ever have a moment of intimacy, just you and me? There's something I want to tell you. Eventually we might share it, but there's this intimacy. There's this thing that I want you to do, this kernel of God's truth and hope and desire and passion that I want to just, I just want it to build within you. It was building within Nehemiah here and he's doing that and it says he sets out with a few others.

I had to circle a few others. Why? Because gatekeeping is not an individual responsibility. It happens in a community and you surround yourself with other gatekeepers. Remember when I was living in Pacific Beach, one day I came home and somebody had broken into my house and stolen a bunch of stuff out of my house. Come to find out, it was one of my really good friends.

quote, really good friends. And so, I took care of that, but after, took care of it, it was a different time in my life back then, but took care of it. Haven't seen him since, nonetheless. Wasn't following Christ at the time, but I thought to myself, I got a bunch of losers around me. And then I realized, it's because I'm king of the losers. Because if you're surrounded by losers, it's oftentimes that perhaps you need to look in the mirror.

And I realized, I didn't have any godly counsel around me. I had separated myself from godly counsel. I knew godly counsel. I'd been raised with godly counsel. I didn't want to hear it. I just wanted people to agree with me and my lifestyle, but it was killing me. Nehemiah went around the gates of Jerusalem with others. Now, eventually, he shared what God had put in his heart, but they had seen the walls.

They testified to what he was doing. Who are you surrounded by? Who are the people? Who are the wise people in your life? I'm sorry to use the word, you know, you're surrounded by losers, but sometimes we need to look in the mirror and realize, hey, this is not the quality of people I want to be with and I want to inspire you to come with me. So go to your other people and say, hey, I want to change.

And if they say no, sometimes it's time to break. Remember when I was 19, I called my friends and said, you know what? I got sober. I won't see you on Friday night. The guy made fun of me, said I'll see you on Friday night. We're going to Mexico. I didn't show up that time. I will say that 15 years later, I did marry him and his wife and my other friend that went to Mexico that week.

I ended up doing their weddings for them and they're following Christ now and it's awesome because we all grew up in the church anyways. We knew what was up, but nonetheless, who are you surrounded by? He was there. And it says in this verse, then it says, I had not told anybody what God had put in my heart to do for whom? For Jerusalem. To do for someone besides yourself.

when was the last time God put a passion in your heart? I'm not talking about just like doing something for your wife or your kids and that's obviously important for your family, but like a people group or somebody outside of yourself where it was like a passion. Like passionate like you are about that farm you want to buy or that business you want to start or your sales or the thing you're passionate about, right?

I know we all have passions, things we enjoy, but when was the last time there was a passion in your heart, like a seed to like do something that doesn't benefit you at all? To love other people, to care for other people, to give your life in a way that really matters. I know I bring Joe up a lot because he's a real example to me because he has such a passion for orphans, but you know, he's not here right now because I probably embarrassed him like I did last service, but like he's raising money all the time for orphans and it's like, I know, I think he'd rather not be doing it because it's hard.

There's multiple days where I'd rather not be doing what I'm doing, especially in this culture because it's hard. It's hard to keep, you know, as they say, kicking against the goads. It's hard to keep going forward, but to do something with purpose and meaning when I do get that phone call that says, hey, my wife and I, we decided to start going to counseling.

We were going to get divorced. We're going to go to counseling and I'm like, ah, yes, let's go. You know, or I have a kid that's struggling and then they go, they, you know, either go to counseling or something happens and they get on a sports team or they come to youth group and there's a change in their life or you see those orphans, you know, get new classes and art classes or whatever it is.

Like that's that passion. It burns so different, but it's so easy to get detached from that passion because we're constantly here. We're constantly into distraction. We're constantly, you know, just, I just need a little, I just need to survive. One of the things I find as you'll see in just a moment is one of the things it says with God, with the people that are under his favor, that God, the people that God favors, it says the boundary lines will fall in pleasant places for them.

It means that all of a sudden there's margin in your life because God has released you from having to be on the treadmill or go harder than you should for whatever reason that isn't really for God anyways. That God wants to give this favor and this margin and so we find that here with this. God inspires the hearts of gatekeepers. God has a calling for you beyond yourself.

I will guarantee you that. It is more than you. You will receive a lot from it, but it won't be the kind of things you receive when we're doing something for ourselves. Are you aware of who that group of people is? Are you aware of who that person is? Are you even aware of it? One of the reasons we're not aware is because we don't take enough time because we're so distracted to sit down and walk the gates of your life.

All you have to do is this. When you go home this week, if you want to get a cup of coffee, make a circle and then just put you in the middle of it. That's the stronghold of your life and put some gates put like seven little gates around it. Seven, five, nine, whatever it is. And then name each of the gates. Physical health, finance, care for others, family, whatever.

Whatever the gates are of your life. Just take some time to think about yourself on what are these gates and then ask yourself, are they maintained? Is there, you know, I mentioned like, you know, with the financial gate, is it just everything you want? You just swipe it? So all of a sudden you got $40,000 in debt because you're like, dude, I want that.

No Tesla, you know. Whatever, we can't really swipe a Tesla. But nonetheless, like I want that, I want that thing. There's no gate. I want it. Or you got lust. Man, whatever, I'll just look at whatever because that feels so good. I got that lust, man. Or it's a lust for things or a covetousness. You just let, like anything can come in. You know what I mean?

Whether it be, you know, whatever. I don't need to give you all the examples. But that's the first one. Are you aware? Gatekeepers are aware. God's calling you to be a gatekeeper and he wants to give you a passion beyond yourself. And then the final one as we close. Gatekeepers walk in God's grace and favor. What does favor mean? Favor means God stepping into one's situation in order to make a worthwhile difference.

Favor is the highway of God that connects you to your destiny. You see, you can create your own destiny, but it's not truly your destiny unless it's God's destiny for you. I also don't think that you have to chase God's destiny for you. You just need to be faithful to the gates of your life and the stronghold that God has and he will bring your destiny to you.

You see, there is grace and favor that we see in these scriptures. I'm going to read verse 17 and 18. Nehemiah says, come, he brings other. He's a Zerubbabel. He's got that spirit of Zerubbabel, right? Come, let us rebuild the wall of Jerusalem and we will no longer be in disgrace because the walls were down. When your walls are down, you have no walls. I'm going to say, there are things that happen in our lives that disgrace us.

We allow things into our life that disgrace us. We allow things out of our mouths that we say to our spouses and to our children that if they were heard in public would be a disgrace. And so he says, let us rebuild these walls for we are in disgrace. And then in verse 18 he says, and I also told them about the gracious hand of my God on me. The hand of my God on me and what the king had said to me.

He's identifying that I had favor. That God's hand is on me. He is on me and everything I touch, he touches. That he is with me. There's two different kinds of grace. There's saving and prevenient grace. It's the saving grace of like, I got you, my love's on you, you're, you know, I favor you and every time you get in trouble God saves you, right? And I lived in that for years.

Just constantly doing what I want. Oh God save me. Okay, because I love you. I'm going to throw you the rescue beacon again or the life preserver. And I think God gets tired of just constantly throwing us the life preserver. You know, granted, he's gracious and he saves us a million times, but there's another type of grace which is called God's favor. And it's when we start doing the thing God wants us to do, then he's like, then I, oh, I don't have to just rescue you.

I don't have to rescue you from my will when you do the things that God has called you to do. I had a couple here today and they're like, we need to get married. They're like, we need God's favor. We're not walking in God's favor. We need to get married. We're going to get married because we need to inspect the fact of our lives because we want the favor of God on our relationship and the way we're living right now.

God's favor is not upon it and we know it and we're living in the saving grace. I don't want to live, I mean, granted, I do want to live in the saving grace. Thank you God because I need to be saved every single day. But I want some of that favor grace. I want some of that grace where God's like, called me to something and I'm like, God, I'm going to run into that with reckless abandon, with reckless courage like we talked about last week, like Nehemiah, who's willing to speak to Artaxerxes at the risk of his life and he's like, let me just tell you what happened.

I spoke to Artaxerxes and Artaxerxes told me that I could come back and rebuild this wall. The favor of God is upon me. You see, the favor of God is when God scoops his nature and he just drops it on you. God wants you to walk in favor and you will not have favor if you don't try to walk in the stream and the current and the calling of what God has said, of what God has called us to, to get our lives right, to look at our walls, to take our gates seriously and say, God, I'm going to run after that.

You're going to make mistakes. You're going to break those gates sometime. You're going to let things in that shouldn't get in. That's saving grace. You're going to get that saving grace. But then God also is going to say favor. You know when you see someone with favor. If you've experienced the favor of God, you know when you see someone with favor on him.

I was at the Art & Wine as I closed yesterday, Art & Wine Festival yesterday, talking to this woman. I didn't ask the question I normally ask because I will generally ask people. I can tell if Christ is on them. I can tell if they're believers. They radiate. They just hit different. I don't know if you know, but Christians that are following God hit different.

I was talking to her and I thought to myself, I can just feel it. Like I've gotten to the point where I can see favor on people's lives in conversations. I can just see God favoring people because people have taken the time to look at the walls of their life and move forward. He says this to them. The Zerubbabel calling, Nehemiah uses it. He says, let's start rebuilding.

Come, let us rebuild the wall of Jerusalem and we will no longer be disgraced. And I told them about the gracious hand of my God on me and what the king had said to me and they replied, let us start rebuilding and so they began a good work. You see, he didn't go alone. He took others with them. What are you going to rebuild? I want to rebuild this city. I want to rebuild the school system.

I want to rebuild this church and we've rebuilt this church. We got here with pastors before. It's awesome today. We had three pastors, two former pastors and myself that are here. So three pastors that have shepherded this church that we've all worked together in a triad with some of the elders like Dave and others to rebuild what had kind of broken down for a while.

If you were here earlier, you've seen us rebuild this together and it's amazing just the fact of what God is doing in this community, the fact that there's all these 20 and 30 somethings and young people at our church. It's amazing. God has brought this back alive. The amount of babies and pregnant moms that are here, it's awesome. It's alive. We've rebuilt it.

Now let's go rebuild something else. Let's go rebuild something else and let's do it together. This society is not lost. It needs gatekeepers. God's called you to be a gatekeeper. I want to challenge you. Walk in the favor of God. Be a gatekeeper. Amen? Let's stand. I want to bless you. Got my let's go energy. Got prophesied over at the staff retreat and it was all like words like that, like fighter, encourager.

We had the staff. We all get out. We pray over each other and we give words of encouragement and everything was like at the end, I just want to run through a brick wall. It's like, yeah, let's go. I don't know. I hope you want to do that too. God said to Abraham, whoever you bless will be blessed and so you can bless whoever you want and God said, if you bless them, I will bless them.

Scripture says that. Be a person of blessing. Bless your children. Bless your parents. Just bless people. That's what I say all the time when I leave people. God bless you. Bless you. They figure it out where I'm coming from. Bless you. I'm going to bless you right now. If you extend your hands, let me bless you. Lord Jesus, I want to bless people. God, just even if there's someone in here right now that feels like my walls are broken down, I just need to rebuild the walls.

If that's you, just ask God in your own heart. God, I need to, I want to rebuild my walls. I want my life to make a difference. I need to be free from this anxiety, this depression, this feasting upon my own identity and thoughts all the time. I need to get outside of myself. Ask for Jesus to lead you. Pray for his favor. Ask for his favor. God, I pray for God's favor upon these, God.

God's grace. Beyond his saving grace, his favoring grace. I pray for open doors for you that are going to move forward. You're going to start new things. Some of you have ideas that you're just holding back. God says, let's go. Ask, seek, knock, and the door shall be opened unto you. God is saying to some of you right now, I'm going to open that door. In other words, he's going to plant you where you are.

He doesn't want you to go anywhere else. He wants you where you are. I just see this picture of like roots in your feet that grow into the ground. And they just say, I got you planted there for a reason. I got you there. You're a cupbearer to the king for a reason. You need to stay there and have influence. Others are being called out. Lord God, we just bless you.

I bless you with God's favor and his grace and his love, margin that the boundary lines fall in pleasant places for you. We just, I just bless you. More blessing upon these people, God. More of your hand of protection. More of your hand of peace. More of your grace. More of your evangelistic spirit and your courage, God. So God, we send these people out now as a consolation of the love of God to a hurting and broken world.

Give us a calling greater than ourselves and I send them out and ask God that they would see it today and know it deep in their hearts. In the name of the Father, Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen. Be blessed. You need prayer. Come forward. You want to find out about our church? Go to the Next Steps table. If you want some cold brew, I made it. It's at the cafe.

Amen.