Fellowship Bible Church What If? Series How It Is Sustained Dr. Crawford W. Loritts, Jr

Transcription

1 TEXT: Nehemiah 4-6 Fellowship Bible Church What If? Series How It Is Sustained Dr. Crawford W. Loritts, Jr It is good to see you this morning. I was in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, the other day and I was telling them about our Snowmaggedon last year, and they started to laugh at us. Well, yeah, at any rate, just in case, go to Publix and Kroger s and get your kitty litter and water. Did somebody say, kitty litter? Yeah, we are in the south. We do not have a lot of salt never mind. It is so good to see you here this morning. Brian took up a lot of time this morning. Why? -- because we want to err on the side of communicating what God has placed on our hearts. I want to give a little bit of framework as we transition into the book of Nehemiah. If you have a Bible, leave it open there. We are in the tech age, so if you have an ap, phone, pad, or tablet, do that as well. I must admit, I am a little suspicious of you guys when you are looking at your tablets. You know, Angry Birds, or whatever [laughter]. I am a little random this morning or sleep deprived, but one of the reasons we asked Brian to take some time to do that this morning is we want to err on the side of over-communicating. I know this may sound idealistic and unrealistic, but I believe with all my soul that what we are doing here is not a project. We are not into projects. We are into God initiating and putting on our hearts what needs to be done. I am not preaching through the book of Nehemiah to do mind games with people, but it is the pattern, if you will, of how God initiates, sustains, and brings into existence what He wants done. It really is a masterful blueprint. The book begins with where we always should begin, and this is how God always initiates a calling, an assignment, that He gives to people. It starts with Nehemiah minding his own business, and his brother and a delegation come to visit him, and he asks a question that changes the trajectory of his life. How are things in Jerusalem? Little did he know that God would grab him by the heart with the answer to that. Then, he prayed and in the context of praying, he got a calling. As he walked out of that and realized that he had access to the king who had resources, he acted. So, he listened, prayed and he acted. We are building this building because God wants us to build this building. You all do not hear me say stuff like that an awful lot. I am very careful about saying what God is leading us to do that is not clearly stated in the Bible. We believe this with all of our hearts, as several months ago we asked Brandon and Paul, How are things? God grabbed our hearts as leaders about what was going on. You heard the stories. We have room here, but there is no room in terms of our midsize communities and there is absolutely no room in terms of our kids. It gripped our hearts, and we began to pray and fast, and the LORD placed on all of us this amazing sense of unity that we want you to do this. We want you to do this. So, we believe God s will is a sacred trust. It is not an idea. We are building this building because it is going to give people room and our kids to have room to engage with Jesus, and it will give strength to their lives and clarity of vision so we can launch them, not just survive, but to thrive for the glory of God. That is why we are doing this. The other thing that I want to say as a pastor is this. Churches are wonderful places, but this is not a one-man gig and this is not just a group of people who are carrying all of the water. This is our vision. This is what God wants all of us to do. Much like Nehemiah, when he walked in and he shared the vision, he said, Are you 1

2 kidding me? I don't have enough dudes to build this wall by myself. We all have vested interest in what God has called all of us to do and to be. So, together they came to build. I want to encourage you, all of us, every last one of us, to fill out that intention card. The reason for that is it is an expression of our unity as a church. What you put down is between you and the LORD what you are going to give. I agree with Brian, we will have more than what we need. I really believe that. If you seek God and we do what God lays on our hearts to do, we will have more than we need. What we really need to do is to be unified together and to do this together so in this journey all of us don't miss out on what God can do in and through us and to make us who He wants us to be. I am struggling this morning because of the nature of my message. In order to deal with the book of Nehemiah with integrity I have to talk about something that we do not want to talk about; and that is, the whole idea of opposition. You cannot read this book, or a huge chunk of the book in chapters 4-6, without reading about opposition. I knew what was going to go on this morning. Okay, Brian is going to tell us and we are going to be excited about the vision, and Yo, dude, I have to talk about opposition. That ain t exactly the way you plan motivational things, but it is reality. It is reality. The work of God always takes place in the context of opposition. I want to read our anchor statement; however, before I take a survey look at Nehemiah chapters 4-6. Our anchor statement that we have been saying each week is this, which is the whole driving force in the book of Nehemiah. I will unpack it more in the last message in our series. The whole driving force in the book of Nehemiah is that: God uses what He calls us to do reveal Himself to us and to make us more like Him. The objective is not the wall. The objective is transformation. God often uses tangible assignments to produce spiritual transformation. That is what He did in Nehemiah s life and that is what He is going to do in our hearts and lives. In Division I athletic teams, football, basketball, baseball, whatever you want to call them, professional sports teams, the team scouts other teams, particularly if they are getting ready for some type of tournament, some type of major game, or some type of championship game. They scout those teams. Oh yeah. They send some of their best eyes to check them out, to watch them, and sometimes at more than one game to not just look at the stats but to watch them under pressure to see what they really do. What are their strengths? What are their weaknesses? How do they respond? In basketball, can he go to his left? Can he shoot with his left and right hand? What is the deal? What is all that stuff? Why do they do that? Then, they take all of that information and the coaches will watch film over and over and over again to see how they can exploit weaknesses, to see how they can compensate for their own weaknesses and come up with a game plan that gives an advantage. The way to read Nehemiah chapters 4-6 is to understand that this also is a portrait and a picture of what the devil does. I know Sanballat, Tobiah, and Geshem are the major culprits here, but really this is a portrait and a picture of what Satan does. The apostle Paul said in II Corinthians 2:11 that he did not want the believers there in Corinth to be naïve. He pens these words. It is almost as if he said, Yo, dude. Don't be ignorant. Get your head out of the sand, Jack. What do you think? Do you think Christianity is not opposed? What do you think that if you just have the right ideas and the right vision and the right dreams and just do it, it is wonderful and we think it is sweet, are you kidding me? Listen to what he says here. He says in II Corinthians 2:11: Don't be outwitted by Satan. 2

3 [then this line} for we are not ignorant of his designs. Let me say this before I summarize the five sources of opposition that Nehemiah faced and that we have to be aware of as we press into what God has called us to do. I believe, through all these years of studying the Scriptures and my own experience with the enemy, I really believe that the devil primarily comes at us in these four strategic ways. You can put all of Satan s attacks and all of what he tries to do in these four ways. 1. Doubt. Doubt is Satan s major thing. You can t do that. Really? That will never happen. Is that really true? Doubt rattling our heads. 2. Division The devil cannot stand the unity of God s people; so, he divides us. He gets us bent out of shape. There are these little scud missile opinions about stuff that gets way out of bounds and out of proportion. People end up splitting in churches and people and all of that stuff. 3. Discouragement He comes to us through discouragement. We are going to see this here as one of his attacks. It just knocked the wind out of them. It just knocked the wind out of them and just confronted them with disappointment, consistent disappointment. Discouragement erases hope. It lets the circumstances be greater than their dreams. Stop them. 4. Destruction The last one is really the target at which he is going toward; and that is, destruction. The devil does not want to just slow us down. He wants to destroy us. So, as you wander through these things, and again I know this sounds like a downer, but as you wander through these things you have to understand that the work of God -- listen, listen, listen to me the work of God is ALWAYS opposed. Do you hear me? That is one of the first things I share with younger leaders who come out of seminary with a lot of vision. It is wonderful to have vision, have dreams, have strategies, have goals, sharpen your gift, do that, but let me tell you something. This is not a game. God s work is ALWAYS opposed, and I say that just to wake us up. Sometimes I think we get discouraged because we forget that that there is a real enemy that is coming after what God wants done. So we learn from Nehemiah both the nature of opposition and how to respond with resolve. Here is the point I want you to remember. For the sake of time, I cannot keep you here all day. I am going to compress what I have to say today, but I want you to remember this. I want you to remember this. It is not whether or not we are going to be attacked. We are going to be attacked. All hell will break loose. We are going to be attacked and there is going to be opposition, but our resolve has to be greater than the opposition we face. It is the resolve that sees us through. As you look at the opposition that Nehemiah experienced and you watch how he responds to that, it is really amazing. Nehemiah faced five attacks or five sources of opposition. Now this is Crawford s organization here. In all fairness, as you will see in chapter 6, some will say that those are separate sources. I put all of those 3

4 under the banner of conspiracy, and you will see why in a moment. You can number them anyway you want to. 1. Ridicule. The first source of opposition is ridicule. Look quickly at chapter 4, verses 1-3. Now when Sanballat heard that we were building the wall, he was angry and greatly enraged, and he jeered at the Jews. And he said in the presence of his brothers and of the army of Samaria, What are these feeble Jews doing? Will they restore it for themselves? Will they sacrifice? Will they finish up in a day? Will they revive the stones out of the heaps of rubbish, and burned ones at that? I did not want to bottom line this thing. I want you to notice a little detail here. Look at whom he says this to. He did not say this to the Jews. He said it to his brethren. Do you know why? -- because he was losing face. He was losing face among his own folks. He did not take these Jews seriously. So, now he is kind of feeling oops. They are kind of coming together. They are building this thing. So, what does he do? He decides to play a head game. Bottom line: Notice that he ridicules three things. A. He ridiculed the people. He called them feeble Jews. How demeaning and dismissive is that? Feeble Jews. You all ain t never done nothing in your life. I know where you come from. I know where you come from. You are trash. That is the spirit of all of this. I am just keeping it real. You ain t never done nothing. You are just a remnant here. They took your mama and the rest of them, your grandparents, off to Persia in 605 BC. We control you. You ain t never done anything like this before in your life. What makes you think you can do this now? He calls them feeble Jews. B. He also ridiculed the plan. He said, Will you finish in a day? Seriously, why are you saving this wall? You have this carpet bagger that has come back from Persia over here to Jerusalem and by the way our research on him says he ain t nothing but a cupbearer to the king. He has access and this kind of thing. I do not know if he has ever done anything like that. What do you have but this little bargain plan. Do you think you are going to pull this off? Do you know who you are dealing with? C. They ridiculed the materials. You are going to build something nice out of stone and rubbish? I don't see you bringing in new stone or boulders. This stuff is old! What are you going to do? Ridicule is often the response of threatened jealous people. People sometimes make fun of you because they are scared of you. That is the reason why they dismiss you. It took me many years to come to that. It is interesting. There is trash talk getting into their heads. I think of my two sons when we play golf. Pray for those boys, especially that oldest one of mine, Mr. Trash Talker. I mean he will do this to me. I will have a little two-foot putt, he will come by, and just before I am ready to putt, he said, Dad, that is the hardest putt in the world to make. At any rate, that is another issue. All three of us need some sanctification help when we play that game. 4

5 How Does Nehemiah Respond? He Prays. How does Nehemiah respond? Well, in verses 4 and 5, the first thing he does is pray. You read the content of that prayer. Nehemiah does not pray an indirect prayer. He prays a very direct prayer. He says, God take care of these folks who are just ragging on your people. He prays. He Focuses. The second thing that he does is that he focuses. Notice, Nehemiah did not give this foolishness the time of day. He never engaged them. He never engaged them. He never had a conversation with them. He never tried to correct their assessment of what they were saying about him and about the people. He did not go there. There is a lesson in that! Do not waste time. Do not waste time chasing down foolishness. Don't do that. Nehemiah says, Look, what we are doing is too significant and too important for me to allow my ego to be bruised. Somebody needs to hear that today. I say this because I have been there. I have been a little sensitive about stuff. When someone says something about me, I will pick up the phone, call them, and engage them in a conversation. I then tell myself, Crawford, why did you do that? You could have been preparing your message, sharing the gospel with someone, or moving the ball down the field. What they say, let them say it. You know who you are. You know where you are going, so get after that! That is what Nehemiah does by his response. He responded by saying, So we built the wall. In other words, keep doing what you are doing. 2. Threat of Physical Attack and Disruption. The second source of opposition is found in verses 7 and 8 of chapter 4, and that is the threat of physical attack and disruption. Look at this. This is when it really gets amazingly serious. Verse 7 says: How Does Nehemiah Respond? He prays. But when Sanballat and Tobiah and the Arabs and the Ammonites and the Ashdodites heard that the repairing of the walls of Jerusalem was going forward a and that the breaches were beginning to be closed, they were very angry. And they all plotted together to come and fight against Jerusalem and to cause confusion in it. [look down at verse 11] And our enemies said, They will not know or see till we come among them and kill them and stop the work. 5

6 It is one time to play mind games, okay? It is one time to try to get into your head. It is one thing to ridicule you. It is one thing to lie about you. Another thing is they will want to come and kill you. This takes a little twist and turn there. Again, it is because they were threatened. They were threatened by success. They were threatened by the progress of what was taking place. It is amazing. So what does Nehemiah do? Well, in verse 9, he prays. And we prayed to our God, but that ain t all that he does. Well, for those of you who have pacifistic tendencies, you might want to close your ears right now. That is not all that he does. He Prepares to Fight. The second thing that he does in terms of response is preparation to fight, and now listen, while still pressing into the work. They are not coming off the wall. We are not stopping to have a little street fight with you dudes, okay. No, we are going to continue doing the work. Where do you see that? Look at verse 14. And I looked and arose and said to the nobles and to the officials and to the rest of the people, Do not be afraid of them. Remember the Lord, who is great and awesome, and fight for your brothers, your sons, your daughters, your wives, and your homes. He is not talking about fighting in prayer. Do you remember what I said last week about his brilliant plan, the next to plan, in chapter 3 where they put them next to one another and they organized them around families because he anticipated that this might happen? These dudes are crazy. He knew that you are not going to let someone hurt your family. Now this has some applications for us; and you might get angry with your pastor about this, but I have come to the conclusion that there are some things worth fighting for. Sometimes God deals directly with our enemies, but sometimes God deals with our enemies through us. Nehemiah was saying I do not know how God is going to do this, but I tell you what, we are going to be prepared either way. We are going to pray. Maybe He will deal with them directly, but this time we are going to have something to make them remember today. Some things, again, are worth fighting for. I am not one who draws lines in the sand with people and this kind of thing, but there are some things worth fighting for. Personally, and our elders feel this way, too; anybody that tries to sow some nonsense and mess in this church and divide our people, that is worth fighting over. We come after that. We come after the will of God, because what God says cannot be messed with. That is what Nehemiah says. God will protect us, but we have to stand our ground. Listen, listen. Hear me on this. Yo, dude, God s work requires courage. Did you hear what I said? It requires courage. When God calls you to do something, He assumes a sense of resilience. He assumes that. He assumes that you are going to fight for what he has called you to do. This sounds so ghetto and in the street, but I cannot think of another way to say it effectively. Some of us need to stop letting the devil punk us out. Do you know what I mean by that? What are you so scared of? The truth of the matter is I am scared, too, but if you fear God more than you do people, you will always come up courageous. Press into it. So, Nehemiah says, No, no. You can all come up here on the wall if you want to, but we are here. 3. Discouragement. The third attack, a source of opposition, is discouragement. These next two come from within. Verses 10 and 11 of chapter 4 say: In Judah, it was said the strength [referring to the Jews] of those who bear the burden is failing. 6

7 There is too much rubble. By ourselves we will not be able to rebuild the wall, and our enemy said, they will not know or see until we come to kill them. It is like the battle now moves from without to within. What appeared to be slow progress and fear pulled the people into discouragement. When hopes and expectations are not met, discouragement often sets in. That happened. Maybe the elders are putting me aside tomorrow and will say I should not have said this, but I have to tell you this. This is going to happen during this next two years. It is. It always happens. Expectations, things that you did not account for, stuff that you thought was going to happen, does not happen when you think it should happen. The progress you thought you should have made in this area. It is not exactly making that kind of progress. It is not tracking with projections and so you can easily get discouraged. There is this much to do and we have this much resources in terms of manpower, money, or whatever; and it always happens that way. It always happens that way, but I want you to understand something. He tells them to remember, but it is curious as you read these verses, it is curious to me that Nehemiah did not pay any attention to their complaint. It is interesting. Nehemiah did not even coddle them or try to comfort them in their discouragement. It is almost as if he ignored what they were saying. Now you have to track with me here a little bit. Pay attention to this because this is going to help somebody. I am telling you. You see, sometimes the answer to your discouragement is to press through. Did you hear what I just said? Sometimes the answer to your discouragement is to press through. There have been times when I have been so discouraged, and I pray, and I do not sense any answer from God. There is nobody that I can talk to, that I can share with, or whatever. I am just going to be vulnerable. There are times in which I have just sat in my car feeling discouraged, and even at this church, going home with tears trickling down my cheeks. The only thing I hear the Holy Spirit saying to me is, Press on. Press on. Sometimes we have to stick with something long enough to be encouraged. That is what you have to do. Let me just say it. With every assignment I have ever had, I have experienced seasons of discouragement, and that is true of everything. I was thinking about this text as I went back over my life of 40 some odd years in ministry. I looked back over my life and over events and major projects and things like that and I said, My goodness. Every last one of them had huge seasons of discouragement. There were great blessings on the other side, but that is the way God works. You do not stop because you are discouraged. You just keep moving. Actually, the discouragement begins the fertilizer that grows the resolve. So, what does Nehemiah do? He says, Remember the LORD. He does say that. He does not dialogue with them about discouragement. I just want you to remember the LORD. Who called you to do this? Did He tell you not to do it or are you just upset that things ain t working out the way? Okay that is fine. God does not have a speech impediment, and if He wants you to get off the wall, He will tell you that. So, you do not know what to do next. Assume you just need to keep doing what He last told you to do, no matter what happens. He says, Remember the LORD. He used the Hebrew word Adonai. He does not use Yahweh or Jehovah. He uses Adonai. What is significant about that is that the word Adonai is the name of God that speaks of God s rule and authority. 7

8 They got it, and we do not necessarily get it, but they got it. As soon as he dropped Adonai, what He was saying to them was that God is in control of everything, even though you do not feel like you are in control right now. So, remember the LORD. 4. Injustice. Quickly, first there is discouragement, and the fourth source of opposition, and again this comes from within as well, number four there is injustice. I do not have time to go through this, but it is in chapter 5:1-13 and I will summarize it. What was happening here was that the Jews were selfishly preying on one another. The context here is this. There was a famine in the land, and the enemy had some wealthier Jews that had come together, and they had brought up a lot of the grain and all this stuff. So, there were these poorer folks who needed the grain, and these suckers were charging an exorbitant amount to their own home people. Not only that, they were getting their property and giving huge mortgages to add insult to injury, which put Nehemiah over the top. Because they could not pay, their kids were made salves, into forced servitude. So, Nehemiah hears about this, and look at this line in verse 6. Nehemiah says, I was very angry. It is as if he said, Have you lost your mind? Do you know why we are here? People are trying to kill us. Here you are ripping off your own people. Yo, dude, we are here to get rid of that. He was angry, but what does he do? Nehemiah was not your basic consensus leader. I hate to say this to you. He said, Stop it, and you are going to stop it. This stops now. Period. So he stopped it. I want to say this. Let me just tell you this. You say, What is the big deal about this? Let me tell you what this is a picture of. This is also a picture of sin. Sin must never be associated with God s initiatives. Do you hear me? It must never be associated with God s initiatives. Anything God calls God s people to do is a call to holiness. It is a call to cleansing. It is a call to purity. Do not contaminate it. Aiken is another picture of that principle. Here in this passage is a picture of that principle. Nehemiah says, Do you think I am going to let you do this when we are rebuilding these walls as a statement of the glory of God and our need to come back in covenant with Him? Do you think I am going to let you do that? One of the things we need to pray, whenever there is an assignment from God, you need to pray that the people involved, especially the leaders, they are all involved but their hearts and lives are clean and pure before Him. So, Nehemiah puts a stop to it. Nehemiah s Response A Portrait of the Destination Not only does he put a stop to this, the other way he responds is by being a portrait of the destination. That is how he responds. He says, Look, here is the deal. I want you to treat one another the way I am treating you. That is the bottom line. You treat each other the way I treat you. God s name is at stake and my integrity is on the line, so I will not ask you to do anything. You treat them the way I treat you. He goes on to describe generosity in verses 14 and following. He said, Look, I want to feed you at my own table. I am not even going to send the bill to the king. I am going to pay it out of my own pocket. 8

9 One of the things I am so grateful for is one of my mentors, Olan Hendricks, who was my first boss in full-time Christian work. I will never forget what he said to me. I was about 23 or 24 years old. He said, Crawford, let me tell you something. As God gives you more responsibility and you get into leadership, keep this in mind. A leader does not always do the things that they can do. With some of the perks that you will have, you might have the privilege of doing them, but sometimes it is unwise to use them, and Nehemiah models that. Now I could do this, but I am not going to do it. If I am asking you to trust God, I am going to trust Him. If I am asking you to be generous, I am going to be generous. If I am asking you not to rip off people, I am not going to do anything to come even close to that. 5. Conspiracy The fifth and the final one is this. These dudes are scared to death in chapter 6, Sanballat, Tobiah, and Geshem, because everything has come together. Let me just quickly land the plane. I would say that the fifth and final opposition is conspiracy in three parts. There are really three conspiracies here. A. Harm or Murder (vs.1-4). Libby read that to us. Sanballat, Tobiah, and Geshem were sent to Nehemiah and in verse 2, saying, Come and let us meet together at Hakkephirim in the plain of Ono. But they intended to do me harm. Okay, now their strategy is this. Forget about the Jews. It is too late right there. We will take care of the leader and cut off the head and the body will die. All right. We have to off him. We have to off Nehemiah. So, they come and actually it says here in verse 4 they did it four times. So, the first time was to invite them to the plain of Ono, and Nehemiah said, Oh no. I ain t going. By the way, let me just say this as an aside. Satan is always more dangerous when he appears to be your friend. I tell younger leaders this because I have been burned by this. There is such a thing of being too trusting. If somebody has consistently messed over you, and the very next morning they say they have been converted and they want to meet with you and bless you, I would delay the meeting for a couple of weeks until there is fruit of repentance. I am just saying. When people show you who they are, believe them. Nehemiah said, Come on, man. You know. B. Slander. The second conspiracy was slander (vs. 5-9). They wrote an open letter accusing Nehemiah and the Jews of rebellion. So, they send it out. By the way, Nehemiah did correct this. Sometimes there are times in which you have to correct the truth or a lie, and he did that. Actually, Daniel did the same thing. You have to speak the truth. So, there are times you have to address stuff and say, Hey, that is kind of like that is such a big lie. C. Traitor. The third one was this. There was a traitor from within, whose name was Shemaiah. Now Shemaiah was a Jew who invited Nehemiah to come to see him. He pretended to be afraid and confined himself to his house. So, Nehemiah shows up. Well, he claimed to give Nehemiah a heads up on a plot to kill him. Of course, he was lying. He was actually complicit with this and wanted him to get into the temple so they could off him there. 9

10 Well, how does Nehemiah respond? He Prayed. He responded the way he has always responded he prayed. He prayed. Will you receive this? I do not mean this in an insulting way. You are not smart enough not to pray. Now I know they tell you how bright you are on your job, but Nehemiah prayed. Nehemiah was not stupid either. He prayed with discernment. He Focused. The other thing that he did was he focused. Where do you get that from? Libby read it to us. Verse 3 says in chapter 6: And I sent messengers to them, saying, I am doing a great work and I cannot come down. Why should the work stop while I leave it and come down to you? The only reason to stop what God tells you to do is when God tells you for whatever reason to stop. Stay on the wall. Stay on the wall. Stay on the wall. Stay on the wall. Give me another brick. Give me another brick. They are lying about you. Give me another brick. They are ridiculing you. Give them another brick. They said they are going to come after you. Give them a trial on the sword and give them another brick. Give me another brick. Give me another brick. Someone once said faithfulness is a long obedience in the same direction. We need each other to pray during this time that we will not get off the wall. Obviously, that we will respond to wonderful constructive criticism, but we need to be open that, and you have all done that already and it has been very helpful. We don't know what we do not know. We need to be open and we need to be learning and this kind of thing. Stopping is not an option. Stay on the wall. Some of us need to hear that for our personal lives, too. Some of you have stopped short of what God wants for you simply because you gave up on the dream. God did not give up on the dream. You gave up on the assignment. God did not give up on the assignment. Because you got distracted, God did not call you to climb down. I would like for us to pray about that in our own personal lives. LORD, what is there that is unfinished in my life that you called me to do, but I was intimidated, overwhelmed, discouraged, distracted, or allowed opposition to just take it away from me. Sometimes He puts dreams on hold. He does. I am not saying that. That is true in my life. There is a book that I wrote a couple of years ago that I wanted to write many years before that and God said, No. Yeah, I want you to do that but you ain t ready for that yet. So, I am not talking about that. Certainly, there are things that He will put on hold, things that I could not do because my kids were young and to add that to my plate back then would have been to hurt them. It was a dream and now Karen and I are free to do those things now. I am not talking about that. What I am talking about is about abandoning what you know God has called you to be. As a pastor I want to challenge you with this. Do not assign yourself to frustration. Finish the ride. Finish it. You do not have to be successful and neither do I, but we do have to be faithful. Let s stand. Let s pray for one another. Let s pray for one another. In fact, the elders in this service, Stephen Ministers, and staff will be up front to pray for one another. Pray for all of us. Pray for our team. Pray that 10

11 God will give us wisdom. Pray for a spirit of unity here. Pray that we will not get sidetracked by good ideas if it is not God s will with all these wonderful moving parts here. If you are here this morning, and you do not know Christ as your Savior and LORD, Jesus died for you. He loves you and all you need to do is say, LORD Jesus, I turn from my sin and I trust You as my Savior. It is as easy as that. If you have any spiritual need whatsoever, please let us know and let s pray together. Father, thank You for Your goodness. Thank You for the folks here. Thank You for the love relationship that we not only have with You but what we have with one another. I look around this audience and I see so many folks who have blessed my life. God, I just pray that this spirit will continue as we think about these young people in this building. May we bless them. Whatever little or however much that we give and we do, but may we do it for this time that we cannot see, and we look at that building one day and kids walking in there to engage with Jesus and we say look at God. Thank You Father for what You will do. Help us we pray. May we follow through from what You have placed on our hearts. Dismiss us from this place. In Jesus' name. Amen. 11