Rise Up and Build (Part 5): When the Real Problem Is Inside

Dr. Gregg Marutzky:

Morning Church.

Welcome to One Hour Less Sleep.

Thank you, Sam.

I don't know if you felt it, but, uh, nah, I didn't feel it.

Every, every night seems like I need about one or two or three more hours.

Amen.

Amen.

Didn't, uh.

Uh, Kyle do an incredible job last week.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

It's good to have an incredible, great, awesome, talented, gifted

young campus minister in our midst.

I, uh, I just wanna lower expectations, though.

I won't be sitting on the stage.

I, because, you know, might not be able to get back up, so, uh, uh.

That, that was pretty cool last week though.

That that really is a visual we can hold on to.

We're back to Nehemiah and I'm preaching a sermon that, uh, almost wasn't, you

know, uh, every once in a while you have what I call brain irregularities.

Anybody have, these we're just something.

Misfires up there.

You know, our brains are such a incredible complex computers that sometimes they're

not always firing on every circuit.

And, uh, you know, I had two weeks prepare this sermon and so I felt so prepared.

I was so excited.

I was getting ready to send it in last night, and I decided to double

check it and I looked it over.

And guess what?

This is the wrong chapter.

Yeah.

Nehemiah chapter six n.

Next week's sermon's gonna be incredible.

I can tell you that already.

But thankfully I had the evening off and, uh, we were babysitting.

So gave Kathy a little more responsibility.

She's just such a great grandma.

She took care of both kids long enough for me to, uh, work on this sermon.

But this is a sermon that almost wasn't, and.

Sometimes you sort of think, oh, Satan was involved in this, that maybe

Satan didn't want me to address these things because next week it's about

outside persecution and all these evil people that all these bad characters

we really hate and we can, you know, really have a lot of fun going after.

But this one's about internal, it's sort of family problems.

It's, it's stuff that you don't always wanna share your dirty

laundry, you know what I mean?

It's the kind of stuff that families keep secret, they keep

from sharing with the outside world.

And this is the sort of the, the behind the curtain of God's people.

But you know, sometimes you need to have family time.

You just gotta get down to it.

You gotta look at the good, bad, and the ugly, right?

And so turn your Bible to the Nehemiah chapter five, and we're

gonna look at some internal struggles between God's people in the midst.

Of war in the midst of a building project, in the midst of needing to rebuild the

kingdom of God spiritually and physically.

They're fussing with each other and they're taking advantage of

each other, and it's just wrong.

Oh, it's so wrong.

And Nehemiah's even gonna say that, but we're gonna do our confession of faith.

If you have your Bible, raise it up.

All right.

You can put it in your right hand or your left hand.

I don't care.

Maybe we should all raise our right hand, you know, in pledge,

but let's say it together.

Jesus is the Son of God.

One more time.

Jesus is the Son of God and Jesus is Lord.

One more time.

Jesus is Lord.

That's what's called spiritual formation.

By us saying it together as a community.

This is the bedrock of our faith, who Jesus is.

We believe with all our hearts that he's divine, that he is the son

of God, that God sent him as the bridge, as the communicate, as the

one mediator, as the savior of our souls, the savior of the world.

We believe with all our hearts in Jesus Christ.

I believe that more than I even believe my own name.

Amen.

You know, because.

Most people, I've had friends tell me, I spell my name wrong.

It's not M-A-R-U-T-Z-K-Y.

It's SKI Greg, or it's SKY.

I said, no, no, brother.

It's ZKY.

No, that's not a Polish spelling.

I know what kind of spelling.

It's, it's, it's Prussian, it's an area of the world that's been Polish.

It's been German.

It's been Russian.

And so that way you can't be mad at me for anything.

Okay?

You know, I'll just claim the one you, you like, all right?

That's what I, anyway.

Jesus is Lord.

Amen.

And then I gotta give you a little bit of context.

It's not good to read the Bible without a little structure.

You know, we're not God's given us great brains.

A great mind.

And we need to use them and we need to understand exactly where this fits in

biblical history, and so it's so good.

To know that this is not the Book of Ezra, read the book of Ezra.

It's a, it's a backdrop for Nehemiah.

It was before Nehemiah 5 38.

And then Haggai and Zacharia are good books to read with along

with this in your Quiet Times.

That was before Nehemiah.

And then for, for for BC is Nehemiah.

But I think the world, and I hope I give this to you this morning.

What the world needs is one big thing right now, and I think a lot

of you need this one big thing.

You may not even know you need it, but you need it.

It's hope.

Greg, that doesn't look like hope to me.

That looks like despair.

What's hopeful about that?

That isn't the right picture.

You got this.

You got the wrong picture in there.

Well, we're gonna have to use our imagination then.

All right.

I don't know where that came from.

That's not for me.

All right.

Look it up on your phone.

Look up.

Uh.

In painting of by Whitaker of, of Woman Hope.

Of Hope, the hopeful woman.

And what you'll get pulled up there is a picture.

I'm gonna get that off the screen, get the, get the Easter.

Off the screen please.

Is a picture of a woman in a tattered green dress sitting on the globe,

sitting on the world, and she's hunched over and she's blindfolded.

And she got her arms above her and behind her head.

She's playing a harp, a liar, but there's only one string, and she has no shoes.

Her feet look like they're, they've been through a long journey.

They're soiled with a lot of dirt.

And you look at this, there it is.

Yes.

Good work guys.

Good work.

And Whitaker in the 18 hundreds painted this picture and he called it hope.

And when I saw it displayed at a conference on spirituality,

I'm like, that's not hope.

That's despair, that's discouragement.

That's what a lot of people in our world feel right now.

They don't feel hope.

But if you think about it, it is hopeful.

She's hopeful at least because she still wants to change the world and

she's still playing, even though there's just one string left.

She, that's hope.

She believes that she can make a difference and that she's gonna continue

her journey of encouraging others with her music, even if there's just one.

String left.

I just happened to feel, feel this desire on Friday to call an old friend.

We used to work together in the ministry.

We were very close, our families, and he left the ministry.

He got a divorce.

He's, he's left our church.

He goes to another church.

He's struggling, his relationship with God, but he, he got some bad

news just that morning, just right before I called him, his mother died.

I said, where are you going?

I'm going to the beach.

I just have to walk and pray.

And then he shared something else I'm not gonna share because it's

confidential about someone in his family.

But it was devastating.

That's E even worse than his mother died.

And I thought, oh brother, I'm so sorry.

I could feel his pain.

And it, and it hurt me 'cause we're, we're connected.

And then yesterday I took my 4-year-old daughter.

I was all excited.

I, I got to take her to TaeKwonDo, you know, I mean, that's how she says it.

T Papa.

Alright.

And she does all these things, you know.

And she got her little uniform, her little white belt, you know?

And so I go and I'm taking her and I, I'm watching her and, and, and I'm

having a lot of fun just watching the kids, you know, I mean three, four,

5-year-old kids trying to be athletic.

Yeah.

And, and, and, and, and this instructor.

He needed just a little more grace.

He, he really, I think he was getting a little tired of teaching that age.

Alright, I'm sorry.

When I make those, uh, those, uh, quick mo movements, uh, my phone thinks I fell down

and Notif notifies the, the authorities.

So, okay.

I'm all right.

Do not call emergency.

I'm gonna have to take this thing off when I preach.

Alright.

Okay.

Hey Sam, will you take care of that for me, girl?

Alright.

Sam's my, he my volunteer assistant.

I don't pay him anything, but he's asked to be my assistant.

But in the midst of TaeKwonDo, I got a call.

And it was from Kathy.

She said, Kathy, did you, Greg, do you see this text?

I said, yeah, I saw the text.

I was gonna answer it after TaeKwonDo.

She goes, well, I think you need to answer it.

So I went outside and I called another person back, another friend, another

person that had been in the ministry and got out of the ministry and just, just

some devastating news in his family.

Again, so confidential, I can't even share it with you, but.

We had several conversations with him and his wife yesterday on the

phone, and I just, I always believed that all these things tie together

that God wants me to understand how people are feeling and thinking.

Whenever I get up here and preach and there's a lot of hurting people and

Satan's on the attack, he's trying to destroy people I love and you love.

He's trying to disrupt their lives, not just a little but a lot.

And we've got to hold on to hope.

And one thing we're gonna learn from this sermon this morning is we've gotta be

united or we can give the world nothing.

We can give the world nothing.

Lemme tell you the story before we even get into it.

Okay?

And the story of chapter five is there's a famine in the land in

Israel and the poor people are hungry.

You know, people that are powerless and marginalized and barely getting by.

They're the ones that usually suffer the most from any kind of economic hardship.

And the bad thing is the rich Jews are extorting the poor Jews.

They're taking advantage of the situation, and so they're offering

them food if they'll sign over their lands because everybody's got land

that's part of God's plant for people.

It's always supposed to stay in the family.

It gets passed along and after ever gets traded, 50 years of the year of Jubilee,

it's given back to the original owners.

All right?

But the rich Jews are distorting the poor Jews.

The rich Jews are making indentured servants of the children of the poor Jews.

They're having to give up their children to be slaves and servants to the

rich Jews, and Nehemiah's ticked off.

We're gonna read a passage where he says, no, and I'm sorry if my loud voice

bothers you, but sometimes you gotta experience what the scripture says.

And he just said, no, no, this is wrong.

And so Nehemiah rebuked them publicly.

And he says, Hey, we need to be neighbors.

We're family, we're kin.

And he says, you must pay them back in full.

And Nehemiah sets him an example of, he doesn't, he uses his salary as

governor to feed 150 people every day.

And he doesn't take any land from anyone though.

All the other governors had done that.

And he, uh.

Sets an example of being righteous and spiritual.

So let's get into this.

Number one, unity is hard to maintain in a family, in a marriage, at work, in the

church, in our country, in our world.

And now you're really dreaming, Greg.

But you gotta have unity.

But it's hard.

It's hard to maintain.

It's hard.

And one of the reasons is scarcity.

When there's famine, when things are tight and there's economic hardship.

Let's read verse one.

Now.

The men and their wives raised a great outcry against their fellow Jews.

Why?

'cause they were hurting and God always listens to hurting people.

If you don't think God's been listening to you enough, you probably are, aren't being

real with the depth of your emotions and feelings, but he always listens to a cry.

And then in verse two, it's because of this famine.

Some were saying we are our, we and our sons and daughters are numerous.

For us to eat and stay alive, we must get grain.

And the Bible teaches the Jews in, in Deuteronomy 23 and Leviticus

25, that you charge no interest.

You don't take advantage of your neighbor, that you always

treat your neighbor as you.

You would yourself do unto others as you would have them do unto you.

That's the golden rule.

But too much of the world practices the iron rule.

Do unto others before they do unto you.

All right, but Jesus taught a whole different ethic.

One of love.

How many of you have ever lived in the Midwest?

It is some of the most barren land in the world.

I mean, it was called the dust bow at one time in our history.

It is flat.

It gets cold in the winter.

The snow comes in November, December doesn't leave until

March, and it gets dark early.

It can be dreary and the roads.

It is an ice, it isn't snow packed.

It's ice packed.

The first year Kathy and I moved Tooma, Nebraska.

I, I I, I'm sorry to have to say this, but I got in three auto accidents.

Oh, wow.

I have very good insurance.

Okay.

It only costs a lot, but I would slide a whole block and bump into a car.

I thought I, I'm, I'm gonna break plenty of time.

I'll have, and I didn't.

And they got out and they're so nice.

I'm so sorry.

You hit me.

We saw you coming.

I saw you in the rear view mirror.

I knew you were gonna hit me.

I was hoping you could stop, but you know, I slid that far too.

But there was just no one in front of me.

I'm so sorry.

You hit me.

The nicest people in the world live in the Midwest.

I mean, you get these three feet snowstorms and you'd come out in the

morning and your driveways, snow blowing all the, all the snow's off, and you go

around, you ask your neighbors, oh yeah.

Oh, Fred did that for all of us this morning.

And so then there's a race.

Who gets up first to do each other's?

Snow and, and I bought, I bought, I went to the store to get a snowblower,

and the only one left was the most expensive, and I went ahead and bought it.

And first year I used it.

I'm like, oh, this is so worth it.

I would've should've bought two.

You know?

I mean, but, but in the Midwest.

It's cold, it's dark, it's dreary, but people are neighbors.

They're neighbors.

And this is what Nehemiah was so upset about.

You don't charge your interest.

Now, in America, there's people that charge interest, especially credit

cards, but I don't want to get negative, so I'm gonna just keep moving on.

All right.

But here's something we're dealing with inflation.

Others were saying we are mortgaging our fields, our vineyards, our homes

to get grained during the famine.

And unfortunately, just like it's sometimes now, there was price gouging.

People were raising the price.

You know, I, I go a long way from the interstate to get my gas.

How about you?

There's, I either go to Costco, it's the cheapest, and then right across the

street from Guy Costco in my town is a Sinclair and they match Costco's price.

So I can do either one, but you anywhere off of one of these interstates, it's like

50 cents a dollar, at least 75 cents more.

And ooh, do I get an attitude when I have to pay that?

And I only put $20 in.

I don't fill up my tank.

I always fill up my tank at the cheap places.

All right.

But not those price gougers, but it, the people were hurting, they were hungry.

They were having to eat and do whatever they did.

They went into debt.

Verse four, still others were saying we have had to borrow money to pay the King's

tax on our fields and our vineyards.

See this Persian king that had given Nehemiah all these supplies,

he was taxing the people.

He was getting a return in his investment.

He wasn't just being a benevolent, there isn't too many worldly leaders

that are that benevolent, and so people were becoming indentured servants and

unfortunately, when there's scarcity.

Then there is in extortion, although we are the same flesh and blood as our

fellow Jews, and though our children are as good as theirs, we have to subject

our sons and daughters to slavery.

Some of our daughters have already been enslaved, but we are powerless because our

fields and our vineyards belong to others.

And so what did Nehemiah say?

Verse six.

When I heard this outcry and these charges, oh, I was just a little upset.

That's not what the Bible says.

I was very angry.

Jesus got very angry at times.

Oh, you shouldn't get angry.

Oh, never get angry.

No, it's an emotion.

It's natural.

Even it's used for protection at times, you know, especially in war.

There's some things to get righteously indignant about, and when the greedy

or exporting exploiting the poor, and there was corruption in the

Jewish nation, Nia Maya was angry and then he did something about it.

He was a good leader.

He confronted it.

He engaged the problem.

I pondered them in my mind and then accused the nobles and officials.

I told them.

You are charging your own people interest.

So I called together a large meeting to deal with them, a public meeting.

Some sins are public and so they have to get dealt with publicly.

I don't believe in public shaming, publicly humiliating people, but

sometimes it's already out in the open.

Everybody knows it, and it's gotta get reconciled.

It's gotta get resolved, it's gotta get confronted, and that's what Nehemiah.

Does.

He sets us an example, and then verse eight, he says, as far as possible,

we have brought back our fellow Jews who were sold to Gen, to the Gentiles.

Now you're selling your own people only for them to be sold back to us.

They kept quiet because they could find nothing to say.

When you're wrong, you're wrong.

Unfortunately, sometimes when we're wrong, we don't keep quiet, do we?

We give an excuse, we get defensive, we raise our voice, we fight back,

but thankfully, they knew what they were doing was wrong and somebody

righteous needed to just confront it.

Do we all need accountability?

You're thinking.

Yes, we all need accountability.

You know, we all need some partnership to help us to be our best.

We need some coaching.

We need some mentoring.

We need some discipling to be our best.

We have all have blind spots.

We all lose motivation.

But if you pair up two or better than one, you know, if you have somebody

that encourages you in doing it.

Together.

So many weight loss things don't work because people try to do it

by themselves, but if they have a partner to exercise with, to, to

watch their diet together, it works.

But by yourself, you're that target for Satan.

And so there needs to be at times some good healthy, not abusive

accountability, but accountability parents, you gotta parent.

You always got a parent.

All right.

Teachers gotta teach.

Coaches need to coach.

Leaders need to lead, all right?

Because otherwise, what happens?

We drift.

We drift.

And God's people we're taking advantage of each other

at the same time.

They're trying to rebuild the city, rebuild the wall, rebuild the

spirituality, provide a place to meet God.

And some of the Jews were taking advantage of one another.

So what does he do?

A public rebuke.

So I continued.

What are you doing?

What you're doing is not right.

Shouldn't you walk in fear of our God to avoid the reproach of our gentile enemies?

You're hurting the reputation of God.

You know, I am so glad I'm in the ministry.

Because I'm gonna be judged more strictly, and I, I need that.

I'm a very passionate person.

I'm a very, you know, reactive person.

And so by being in the ministry, I, I, I just feel so much accountability.

I can't let you down.

I can't let my family down.

I can't let God down.

I mean, I love that accountability.

I need it, it makes, it brings out the best of me.

Come on, Greg.

Come on Greg.

You know some people, they don't wanna be in the mid, I

don't want that responsibility.

You know, I, I need that pressure.

I always rose to the pressure when I was an athlete and practice, I'd slough off.

I was a receiver and a running back half of the practices my senior year.

My coach made me a guard because.

I'd, they, I'd run past patterns and they'd throw me the ball and I'd drop it.

You know, I'd do that about three times.

He said, Maki, you know, bill Havens, go over there, play Greg's position.

Greg, you play Bill's position.

You just blocked today, Greg.

'cause you can't catch anything.

Oh, Phi Beta Kappa.

You let see, I was a smart kid, so that was his nickname for me.

Five Beta Kappa.

I never dropped a pass in a game ever.

I dropped passes in practice all the time because I wasn't paying attention.

I wasn't focused.

I was sloughing off.

I was tired.

I didn't wanna be out there.

You know, this is in Fruit of Colorado.

Right across the tracks of the football field was a sugar beet factory.

It stunk.

You'd be out there and you'd be smelling that and you just wanted to.

You know what you wanted to do.

You know, it was gross and there are just some days I just didn't have it.

And so I got made a guard and I liked being a guard 'cause you could hit people

instead of getting hit all the time.

And so he didn't know that.

He was just bringing a dream come true for me.

When you're not right, you're not right.

Some sins are worthy of rebuke and then repentance, you know?

And there's times in our history that that's all we did was repent.

Repent, repent.

Rebuke, rebuke, rebuke.

I remember sitting in the audience once and say, if he tells me to repent

one more time, I'm gonna scream.

I've repented of everything I can think of and I can't think of anything else.

And so stop telling me to repent.

And then Kathy saw something was going on with me and she

just put her hand on my knee.

Calm down, Greg.

Calm down.

Started reading the Psalms.

If you ever feel that way during one of my sermons, just start reading the Psalms.

All right?

Just read the.

But sometimes the pendulums can swing and we never engage and we never confront sin,

and we never hold each other accountable.

We gotta have that right balance, right?

And when we need to repent, we should repent.

And then Nehemiah talks about his own personal example, verse 10.

I and my brothers and my men are also lending the people money and grain.

But let us stop charging interest.

Let's not take advantage of the situation and of one another.

And then he goes on to say in verse 11, give back to them immediately.

Their field vineyards, olive grows and houses and the interest you're

charging them 1% of the money, grain, new wine, and olive oil.

The commentaries say that they were probably charging about 12%.

12% in the ancient world was a lot.

Wow.

And so he's rebuking them and he wants them to repent.

He wants 'em to give it back corporate repentance, and then he wants them.

Not only to give it back, but he also says, I also shook out the folds of

my robe and said, in this way, may God shake out of their house and

possessions anyone who does not keep this promise, so may such a person

be shaken out and emptied at this.

The whole assembly said, amen and praise the Lord, and the

people did as they had promised.

You know what he did there?

He says, you keep your oath, you keep your vow, or God's gonna curse you.

There are always consequences for going against God.

There's always consequences.

Now, Greg, don't guilt people out and don't shame people into doing right.

You know, sometimes we gotta tell the truth.

You can either be blessed by God by trying to be obedient

or you can be opposed by God.

And I want us to be blessed.

Amen.

I'm saying these things, not to guilt you out and to shame

you, but to help you be blessed.

Amen.

Keep your oaths to God.

Keep even the oath we made at the beginning of this service,

that Jesus is Lord of your life.

Don't struggle with that every day.

I don't know.

I don't know if I want Jesus to be the Lord of my life today.

Today I think I'll take a day off from Jesus's Lord.

No.

You made it.

It's about do it the rest of your life.

You'll be blessed.

Amen.

And then Nehemiah sets an example of sacrifices servant leadership.

Moreover, from the 20th year of King Art of Xerxes, when I was appointed to be

the governor of the land of Judah until the 32nd year, 12 years, my brothers

nor I ate food allotted to the governor.

He earned his own keep.

He raised his own food.

He didn't take advantage of his position.

He was a servant leader.

He didn't have this entitled mindset, verse 15, but the earlier

governors, those preceded me, placed a heavy burden on the people and

took 40 shekels of silver from them.

In addition to the food and the wine.

Their assistance also lorded it over the people, but out of reverence for God.

There's a key word.

I did not act like.

That Nehemiah was a spiritual leader.

He revered God.

He honored God, he loved God.

He did what was right, regardless of what any other governor

or any other leader did.

It's between me and God.

You and God do what's right, always.

Can I get an amen?

Amen.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Because why?

We want to be blessed by God.

We don't wanna be opposed by God.

And he goes on He, he says He what a sacrificial leader he was.

Instead, I devoted myself to the work on this wall.

All my men were assembled there for the work.

We did not acquire any land.

And so this reminded me, this attitude of work, these

different brothers and sisters.

That I've been watching work, work, work around here.

They just, I mean, Gary ridden out.

Gary, stand up.

You're in the back row.

I saw you.

He's so humbly, he, he's gonna hate this, he's gonna hate this, but he's

been putting together children's chairs and tables and helping Kathy

out with the children's ministry.

He's devoted himself to the, to the fundraising ministry

and the bingo ministry.

What a precious brother, Stewart Stewart, you're in the sound booth.

Stand up a minute.

Stewart Stewart's been here.

There's times I come here and somebody's here, or I'm up in my

office and I hear noises and I'm like, somebody's in the building.

And I come down and I'm looking all over and the auditorium for some

reason the last place I come into and I come in here and Stewart's in here.

And he's setting up the stage and he's setting up the sound

and he's put so many hours in.

He's worked so hard.

DA van, he's probably out in the hall or he is in the back.

Yeah.

Woo.

With the ushers.

He working.

So he's texting me all the time.

Greg, I need a, I need a closet for, for, for, for the ushers.

I, I need some storage.

Greg, can we do this, Greg?

I said I after a while, I think, I'm sorry, dad.

I think dad leave me alone.

But it's 'cause he is so devoted.

He's a worker.

And Charlie, did you see those beautiful white leather chairs out front?

Yeah.

Steve and Charlie brought those.

You, you, they, they cost so little.

Some, some, uh, big doctor's office was closing down and they, they went and

they got 'em for such a cheap price.

Money ain't gonna tell you.

You might think it was extortion.

All right.

And they've done so much to Beau, Charlie and Steve have done so much.

Jesse.

What a workhorse.

Amen.

We honored him last week.

Michael Wooten.

Michael Wooten works for the LA church.

He doesn't work for the Orange County Church.

All the work he does for the Orange County Church is because he is a

member of the Orange County Church.

But we don't pay him.

The, the rest of the church is pay him, but he does so much and

he's here and he's calling me and, and Mike, I'm not gonna say it.

You can bug me as much as you need to.

'cause everything he bugs me about is very important and that he's so devoted.

And Kyle.

Oh, we couldn't even have service without Kyle guys.

Oh my goodness.

All that he's doing, and praise God.

He has a pickup too.

All right, Matt Stone.

Matt flies in, he's out of town where he flies in.

He's got a day to be with his family.

He's here for hours, setting up the lights and stuff and programming things for us.

And he gets on a plane and goes back and he comes back and he gets got one day

and he spends half of it here helping us.

I mean, sometimes I walk out.

I think I'm not worthy of these people.

I mean, they, they're such good Christians.

And Monica Lee, she's doing so she's not just an elder's wife, she's in charge

of our fundraising ministry and bingo.

And she's done so much.

And Daniel Samo, he is, he, he's, he's only part-time, but you never know

what he's doing more than full-time.

And Hailey Thomas.

And, and Erica Parker, they made that, that teen lounge back there.

It's so beautiful.

And Steve and Kathy, my wife's been here almost every day working so hard.

You know, she, she showed me her blister yesterday, you know, and I'm gonna have to

get her some gloves, you know, but she's been turning that screwdriver so much.

That she got a blister.

And Jasmine, she's made some, some of the, yeah, that food you ate this morning

and Moses, he, he's cleaning up after us.

He keeps this building so beautiful.

And it smells good too.

Amen.

Amen.

And I could go on and on and I'm sorry I can't take more time, but

so many great workers in verse 17.

A couple verses left.

Furthermore, 150 Jews and officials ate at my table as well as those who

came to us from surrounding nations.

So leaders, and I'm saying this for myself, we need to set an example

and you know, since I got down here, guys, I haven't taken, I take some

hours off, but I don't take a day off.

There's been too much work to do and I know how to pace myself and I know.

You know, when I need to slow down, but I don't have that much

time left, so I'm gonna use as much of it as I can for the Lord.

And my kids hate me, hate it when I say that.

They don't hate me.

They hate it when I say that.

You know, dad, you're gonna live a long time.

I, I don't know, but I wanna burn out.

I don't want to dry out, you know?

I mean, I'm gonna go out fast and hard.

That's, that's me.

All right.

That's me.

We need to set an example and then we need to be empathetic to one another.

That's what bothered Nehemiah the most.

You're not loving each other.

You're not putting yourself in each other's shoes.

You wouldn't enslave each other's kids if you had the right heart.

He says in verse 18, each day, one ox, six choice, sheep and some poultry were

prepared for me and every 10 days an abundant supply of wine of all kinds.

In spite of all this, I never demanded the food allotted to the governor because

the demands were heavy on these people.

We're not gonna burden you.

Folks.

We're gonna be treat you the way we want to be treated.

Verse 19, remember me with favor.

And he closes with a prayer.

This chapter, remember me with favor?

God, my God, for all I have done for these people.

He wasn't a politician.

He was a shepherd.

He was a spiritual leader and he had godly motives.

Amen.

So what morals do we learn from this story?

Thank you for staying with me.

Greed leads to extortion of people.

And disregards decency.

It just was indecent.

It was just wrong.

Some things that are wrong are wrong.

Price gouging and inflation destroys security and long term solvency.

The inflation that our country has gone through the last

couple years, it's so wrong.

It's so wrong.

I don't know all the MEChA.

I've studied economics, macro and micro from one of the brightest in

the world, and I don't understand what went on, but I know it was wrong.

I know it's wrong the way prices have gone up, economic hardship occurs due

to famine, natural disasters, and.

Probably mostly greed, godly leadership, de displays, anger, sometimes

confrontation, accountability, and rebuke.

Hopefully you don't have to see that much from US leaders, but

if it's it needed, it's needed.

Godly leadership also exhibits this, and this is what we prefer.

Empathy sacrifice, benevolence.

Service.

Godly leaders have motivation, motives to glorify God, not popularity,

not politics, not personal gain.

You're not gonna hear politics from me.

Politics don't save the world.

Jesus saves the world.

Worldly leaders, exhort, abuse, gouge, and practice corruption.

That's why I'm not for either party right there, right?

I'm just gonna lay it out.

Neighbors help one another and never take advantage of the situation.

California used to be one of the most neighborly places I've lived

here four times, maybe five.

I always forget the time I was in San Diego, four times

in la, once in San Diego.

Most over half of my adult life.

I love California.

It's a land of milk and honey, it's a promised land.

Well, we've gotten colder.

I remember moving from San Diego to Boston think, Ooh, these people are cold.

They're not very even friendly.

I like the Western people.

You know, I like Western United States.

These Easterners, man, they're the weather's cold and they're cold, you know?

And I'm so glad when I came back west, you know, and so.

Let's be neighbors.

Let's, let's, let's give our hearts to each other.

You know, I've been making friends with my neighbors.

I went over to a neighbor the other day and he had this dragster in his garage,

and I go, what are you doing with that?

He goes, oh, it's just a replica.

I've, I've never drag raced it.

It, I just take it to shows.

It's, it's a replica of one of the most famous dragsters in America.

I say, so you've never drag race?

Oh no.

You can't do that.

That's against the rules, against the, the, you know, but, but, but it sounds

like you could go drive it like that.

I mean, you've made a lot of noise lately.

I got a baby over there sleeping, you know, he goes, oh, I'm sorry.

Yeah, it's just for fun.

I just do it for fun, you know?

And then I went to the other neighbor and he was trying to fix his truck.

And so I went and opened up all my tools and tried to help him with it.

And you know, he, he didn't want my help.

I wasn't very helpful, you know, but I was a good neighbor.

I was a good neighbor.

And I went to the other guy and, you know, he walks his dogs and, you know,

he, he just, he, he just needs to talk.

You could just tell every time I've stopped this guy, he talks to me

for, I'm late for appointments.

'cause he talks, you know.

But I don't shun him.

I go over and talk to him, even though I know he is gonna make me lay.

'cause there's something in his life he needs to talk.

Doesn't have as many relationships as I do guys.

What's the point of this?

Hope and loving one another.

God bless you.

Amen.