(CLASSIC SERMON) Gate Keeping (Nehemiah 2:11-20)

Joshua Kehler: Good.

Come on.

All right.

Thanks.

Yeah, it's not too early.

Hey guys, good to, be with you this morning.

we're gonna jump right into Nehemiah chapter 2, so go there, in your Bibles.

Nehemiah 2 · chapter mention

Nehemiah chapter 2, if you need a Bible, please let us

Nehemiah 2 · chapter mention

know and we will get you one.

we'll give you that, so that you can, follow along, make notes

in your, in your Bible, and just grow in your knowledge of Jesus.

yeah, Nehemiah chapter 2 this morning.

Nehemiah 2 · chapter mention

This morning we'll be looking at verses 11 on.

so follow along, in verse 11 we begin.

I went to Jerusalem and was there three days.

Then I arose in the night and a few men with me.

And I told no one what my God had put into my heart to do for Jerusalem.

There was no animal with me but the one on which I rode.

I went out by night by the valley gate, to the dragon spring and to the dung gate.

I inspected the walls of Jerusalem that were broken down and its gates

that had been destroyed by fire.

Then I went on to the fountain gate and to the king's pool, but there was no room

for the animal that was under me to pass.

Then I went up in the night by the valley and inspected the wall and I turned back

and entered by the valley gate and so returned and the officials did not know

where I had gone or what I was doing.

And I had not yet told the Jews, the priests, the nobles, the officials,

and the rest who were to do the work.

Then I said to them, You see the trouble we are in, how Jerusalem

lies in ruins, with its gates burned.

Come, let us build the wall of Jerusalem that we may no longer suffer derision

or be a reproach to the people.

And I told them of the hand of my God that had been poured out on me for good,

and also of the words that the king had spoken to me, and they said, let us

rise up and build, so they strengthened their hands for the good work.

Let's pray.

God, we come to you.

Lord, we just are Just anticipating what you want to speak to us this morning.

God, we pray that you would, meet us exactly, where we need it, Jesus.

God, we don't want to just do sermons.

We don't want to just hear Bible studies and take in knowledge.

We want to know you, Jesus.

Lord, we want more of you.

And Lord, we pray right now that, you would search us, that you would

know us, that you would see, our hearts, that, Lord, our hearts would

be laid bare before your word this morning and before your presence.

And then God, as we even talked about last week, that potter taking that

clay, that Lord, you would fashion us and that you would begin that

rebuilding process in our lives.

We praise you, Jesus.

We thank you.

We know it's not by might nor by power, but by your Spirit.

And so Holy Spirit move this morning.

let us know you.

Let us love you better.

Let us love one another better.

For having been here this morning, hearing your word.

Take these lips, anoint them.

May they be your words.

And not just opinions of men.

And, God, we just pray that, we would meet with you now.

We praise you, Jesus.

We love you.

In Jesus name.

Amen.

Amen.

Amen.

Whenever you see testimonies or you hear the story of God working in a

life, often we hear of the, from time to time we hear of the triumph, of

what happened, the circumstances, that was happening in the life.

the horrible enslavement to sin, and then they met Jesus and, what happened then

is, life just transformed and changed.

And often those testimonies are given and where those things are true and where

God does change and transform a life.

What's often not spoken of is the year.

After you've been saved, that first year can be a gnarly kind of thing.

It can go on, into the next year and the next year after that.

And sometimes as we look back and we testify, we can remember that as we

came to Jesus, everything made sense.

Everything was right.

We were at peace with God.

He forgave us.

He cleansed us.

But then we realized that.

That, that the process of saving was an ongoing thing.

We realized just a few weeks after that we still struggled with sin, that

we still had to deal with it, that it was still there, the flesh in us.

And what's often, not talked about a lot is that first year, That first

two years, that first five years, that process of the rebuilding, that process of

rebuilding and, and how that goes about.

Nehemiah is a story of a man who heard not new information, but got

a new heart when he heard about it.

the walls of Jerusalem had been broken down by the Babylonians as,

Israel had rebelled, against the world ruling empire at the time.

And to, as they often did to a city, to, the center of that nation, they took stone

upon stone off, they destroyed the temple, they destroyed the houses, they burned

the place down so that they could not, Just get more people and rebel once again.

And so as the Israelites were carted off to Babylon, eventually Persia took over.

And here, Nehemiah is a cupbearer serving in the Persian court.

he's got, he's a slave, but he's in this position of authority.

So he gets a report and he hears back about the gates.

In the walls of Jerusalem, Ezra had gone before and you can read that story in

the book of Ezra and rebuilt the temple and, in the Lord began a work there, but

the work had been stopped and brought to a standstill because every time

the people would go to the temple to worship God, the enemy would come in and

they would rob and plunder and steal.

The enemy had full access to the city.

So the people lived in fear.

They were never bold.

They were never triumphant.

They were never victorious because they lived in constant threat of attack.

Any movement to better themselves, any movement to get past the rubble,

to begin that rebuilding process of their city would immediately,

be thwarted by the enemy.

As the enemy loved keeping a people in such a place and in such a condition.

And God, put on Nehemiah's heart.

As Nehemiah heard the information, 141 year old information,

it became new in his heart.

He heard about the people and the condition of the people

and his heart absolutely broke.

And so we learned as, in First chapter, Nehemiah and the heart of Jesus.

Very similar as Jesus looked at Jerusalem before his death, and he cried and he

wept and he said, Jerusalem, Jerusalem, if you had known in this thy day what

made for your peace and how we long to gather them as a hen gathers her chicks.

And so, we learn that's what God does in a life, is that somebody finally,

because they are in communion with God, gets tired of the status quo.

Gets tired of the way things are.

I'm excited about this time in Stockton's history.

I don't know if any of you caught the Forbes story.

We were voted the number one most miserable place in the nation to live.

that's quite a feat.

When you consider we beat Oakland and Detroit and Chicago

and, some of these places.

we're, yeah, a deal.

and, but, and some people would look at that and they would despair over such

news, but it's beautiful because I think what God is doing is turning the eyes of

the nation onto this, what is Stockton?

What is Stockton, California?

So that when He takes it and He turns it upside down, glory will be given

to His name because people can only,

they'll have to praise the Lord.

It's not a man, it's not a thing, it's not anything else.

But it's God working, it's Jesus working, and it's grace, and

it's kindness, and it's goodness.

And what God is doing then, in preparation for such a work, is He's raising up

people who are tired of the status quo.

Who say, this isn't the way that it's supposed to be.

Something needs to be done.

And they look at the gaps in the wall, instead of complaining about the gaps,

as long as there's been done instead of complaining about the churches

and the feebleness and the weakness.

They say, now is the time to stand up.

Now is the time to raise, and now is the time to stand in

those gaps as God's people.

We begin to see that we're on his mission.

His Nehemiah not only prayed for Jerusalem, but said, what can I do to

be a part of the restoration process?

So each and every single one of us called to be as ministers asked the same question

or should be asking the same question.

What is my part?

And the restoration process of the city.

What is my part?

We all have a part to play and we need to play it well.

And so we come to this section.

Nehemiah journeys, as we see in verse 11, from the winter capital city.

and he journeys to Jerusalem.

It wasn't a quick ride.

It was a two month journey.

And he makes his way there.

And it's interesting about Nehemiah because Nehemiah

doesn't immediately go to work.

He doesn't come in chaotic.

He doesn't come in and, get there and, have his guys blow the trumpet

and they roll out the red carpet and he say, this is what needs to be

done, get to work, start doing it.

Why haven't you been doing this?

But he takes time.

He gets there and he waits.

And one of the things that he does is before he makes known

the plan, before he comes in and he says, I've heard about this.

He identifies himself with the city.

He sits there, he waits, he walks the streets.

He sees the houses that have been burned down before telling anybody,

Hey, this is what you need to do.

He becomes a part of the city.

He becomes a part of the process and you can see and all his

language that it all becomes.

We need to do this.

We're in derision.

We are a reproach.

to the nations around us.

And so he takes and quietly, just with a couple people, he investigates the city

to see if what his brother said was so, to see if it really was in such a bad case,

to see what the condition was, to get a plan of how they were going to attack it.

And what's beautiful is Nehemiah sets out in the night.

Just very quietly, and he goes in the night.

Why in the night?

Because the night was the time when the enemy had most access.

It was the point of vulnerability.

It was the time to see where there was the most access as people slept.

To see the people in their true condition.

To see them in their houses.

To see them, on their roofs as they would set watches at night.

Families banding together amongst the rubble, hoping that, as one person

takes a watch and the next person that they'll have a night of peace.

And so Nehemiah rides about the sea and Nehemiah finds it broken down.

He finds it battered.

He finds it destroyed just as you said.

In fact, at one point as he's going from gate to gate or where the

gates used to be, He finds that he can't even get his animal across.

It's too battered down.

It's too destroyed.

And so as he looks, and as he oversees and investigate, he then begins to formulate

a plan as God moves upon his heart, as a wise leader, because in chapter three,

we'll find that what Nehemiah did is he strategically put people, in an area

to build that mattered most to them.

And so for the priest and the Levites, he had them build near the temple.

He had them rebuild the sheep gate because the sheep gate was where the

sheep would come in for the sacrifices.

It was a place that they loved.

It was a place that they cared for.

It was a place that they took ownership of.

He had the people who lived near the wall, that their houses were close to them.

He had those families band together.

Young girls, young boys, old men, fathers, grandpas, blacksmiths, perfumers.

from every walk of life, they worked on the area in which they lived.

Because it was the area that mattered to them.

It was an area that they lived in, that they did life in, and they said this

area is broken down, it's been battered, it's thrashed, the gates are burned down,

there's no safety, and so as they went to work, they worked in the areas that

mattered, and, that they, that mattered.

cared about Nehemiah defining some of the lines as there

was too much rubble in places.

And so they expanded in some areas.

They brought the wall in some areas.

But what he did is he investigated.

He looked at the walls in their state.

He brought back the report.

He wasn't this Positive kind of, encouraging, inspirational kind

of guy, that said, ah, it's really nothing, and don't worry about it.

Let's just sing some songs, can you play the guitar and let's just focus

on, that he wasn't that kind of guy.

He was realistic and he said, We're a reproach to the nations around us.

Here we are, in the city where we worship God, where it's supposed to be the center

of the earth, where the nations come, and they can gather to see the true and the

living God, and we are a reproach, and something needs to be done, and we need

to move, and we need to begin to do it.

And so he calls his people into action.

He calls them to action only after investigation and examination.

Very important.

That there is examination before there's action.

as he sees the gates burned down with fire, what Nehemiah would know is

that not only walls were necessary for defense, but gates were the

health and the vitality of the city.

A gate was the health and the vitality of the city.

Imagine, and we don't have modern day cities.

And so it's hard for us to imagine the importance of a wall for security, but

then a gate for health, for, bringing people in and out, being able to shut

the doors at night, being able to say no, when the enemy surrounds it, being

able to have a defense, but then being able to go out to bring the commerce in.

And in chapter three, you see 10 gates.

That eventually are repaired and rebuilt.

You have the sheep gate that's fixed, you have the fish gate, and that was

simply next to an area where they brought fish and there was a fish marketplace.

It just spoke to the health of the city.

This gate, once this gates repaired, once it's functioning, Once we can get through

it, once we can close it off, it can then begin to function like it was intended.

The city originally intended to be a city, flourishing, to have

businesses and commerce and an economy.

And so what happened is, as these gates were repaired and restored, so it brought

back health and vitality to the city.

The city began to function.

Like it was originally intended.

And so you had the Old Gate.

you had the Valley Gate.

You had the Dung Gate.

The Dung Gate is the gate in which they took all the refuse out of the city.

All the garbage.

And they dump it into the Valley of Hinnin.

And it was a necessary part of the city.

Because at this point, with all the rubble around.

The garbage just began to pile up more and more.

And so as that gate got put in place, it was not only a functional, but it

was symbolic that now we need to begin that process of this city being a city

of things operating and functioning the right way, functioning the right way.

And so these gates, as they were rebuilt, as the walls joined from

gate to gate, each gate important to the function of the city.

Of the city, every gate important to the city, the city and big cities like

Jerusalem were complicated and complex.

They did not just have one big gate.

you come in and you do all your things, but because the city was big, because,

there were hundreds of thousands of people who lived in the city, there had

to be multiple exits, multiple entrances.

It had to function.

You can imagine San Francisco.

And if you just take away and say, Hey, we're just going to

repair all the bridges at once.

So nobody can use them.

The city would go nuts, it would go chaos.

You say, oh, we're going to repair BART at the same time.

And you cut off all entrances and approaches.

What would happen to that city is the city would begin to wither.

The city would begin to die.

The city would begin, you couldn't get things into the city.

You couldn't take things out of the city.

The commuters would lose their route into the city.

and so it would begin to, be a huge thing against the city.

The city is a complex thing and all the things, there, turn with me to

John chapter 10 is what I want to do this morning in this passage is.

John 10 · chapter mention

First of all, look at our lives and I want us to be, just open, to the word

of God this morning, as it as we will see constantly throughout scripture.

Scripture like Nehemiah going around the city.

Scripture is calling us to examine ourselves.

To examine ourselves.

In Psalm 26.

2 The psalmist writes, Examine me, O Lord, and prove me.

Try my mind and my heart.

In 2 Corinthians, 13.

5 It says, Examine yourselves as to whether you are in the faith.

Test yourselves.

Do you not know yourselves that Jesus Christ is in you?

Unless, indeed, you are disqualified.

Speaking of every time that we take communion, and one of the reasons

we take communion every week, in 1 Corinthians 11 it says, But let a

man examine himself, and so let him eat the bread and drink the cup.

It's to be a moment where we look as if Nehemiah, the comforter, were

to go around the city and to find where there are gaps and holes,

where the gates are broken down.

And just as gates were a vital thing to a city, so is the gospel

of Jesus Christ vital to our lives in every avenue, in every respect.

The interesting thing about our lives is, what Jesus says

in John 10, notice with me.

In verse seven, he's talking to his disciples in this passage.

He's telling him that he is the good shepherd.

They don't really understand what he's saying.

And so he makes it a little more plain for them in verse seven.

So Jesus said again to them, truly, I say to you, I am the door.

All who came before me are thieves and robbers, but the

sheep did not listen to them.

I am the door.

If anyone enters by me, he will be saved.

And I will go in and out and find pasture.

The thief comes only to steal, kill, and destroy.

I came that they may have life and have it abundantly.

I am the good shepherd.

The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep.

He who is a hired hand, not a shepherd, is the one who does not own the sheep.

He sees the wolf coming and leaves the sheep and flees.

And the wolf snatches them and scatters them.

He flees because he is a hired hand and cares nothing for the sheep.

I am the good shepherd.

I know my own and my own know me.

Just as the Father knows me, and I know the Father, I lay

down my life for the sheep.

And what's incredible about this passage, and we're moved from that culture, but

what the readers and the hearers would understand is that what he's talking

about, as a shepherd would do, when he would set up his sheep for the night,

is they would take things, and they would build this enclosure, a pen,

if you will, to keep the sheep in.

But the pen never had a door.

What the shepherd would do is the shepherd would lay In the doorway.

And that's where the shepherd would sleep and the sheep knowing and being

familiar with the shepherd would not leave, would not exit over the shepherd,

but they would feel safe and secure.

And then, the only access for wolves to come in and to try to slaughter

the sheep would be the shepherd.

The shepherd would wake up, the shepherd would defend the sheep.

But when Jesus says, I am the door, he's not speaking in

some mystical kind of sense.

He's taking an illustration from the common day.

And he's saying, look it, I am the one, I am the doorway.

I am keeping you.

I'm keeping the wolves at bay.

I am the gate, as it were, to your city.

I am the door.

And so as we come to Christ, as we meet Jesus, as we begin and

we make him our savior, as he becomes our pastor, our shepherd.

Then what happens is we need to take and allow Jesus to be the gates in our life.

We need to allow the gospel to be the gates in our life, that as he rebuilds

us and joins us together, as we go through the first year, the second

year, the fifth year, what we do is we lay and we allow Jesus to be that gate.

We allow the gospel to be that gate.

So as the enemy rises up, we're secure.

That it speaks to the health of the entire city, that as we have often,

and too many of us, when we think about our lives, we've tried to put

things other than Jesus in that place.

We have tried to find security and a great many saviors other than Jesus.

And the thing is I don't know if you guys ever go to the beach.

It's amazing.

Come

back though.

But the thing is that sometimes you'll see on the beach, they have

these, competitions and there's these sand castles and they build

these sand castles and they build these incredible sculptures.

And you look at them and their artwork and you think, and some of

that, the sand castles, you're like, man, I want to live there, a thing.

And, but they only last the day.

And as soon as the tide comes in, as soon as that water hits them,

as soon as the wind begins to blow.

As soon as the waves and the rain hit that beach, it washes that beautiful

thing away and it reveals that it was never of anything of substance, that

there was no foundation and it washes out to become just another part of life.

And so often in our lives we take and we think about the gates in our lives,

those things that are defensive, those things that bring health and vitality

to our lives, the things that we seek to be a peace in our lives, and often

what we do is we build them out of sand.

We build them and we think, Oh, they're beautiful.

Oh, this is it, whether it's a person or a relationship.

And we invest everything in that and we work on it and we work on it.

But as the storms of life come, as the tide of life pulls in, it erodes it and

it washes it away and nothing is left.

So often we try to build these gates, with things that, can never hold.

It could never be a gate.

And Jesus says, I am the gate.

I am the door.

I am the gate.

The interesting thing is we are called to examine ourselves is sometimes we

think that examination is a process that only happens once in our life.

that is a process that happens as we come to Jesus, as we discover that He is the

door, that He is the gate as we enter in.

But throughout scripture is constantly calling us to continue to examine our

hearts because scripture knows, God the Holy Spirit knows, that the natural

proclivity, the natural inclination of our hearts is to return to a self salvation,

is to return back to a place where we're erecting gates that would be the answer.

You see it in the children of Israel as they were redeemed by the powerful,

hand of God, but they looked back and they turned so often back, going

back, wanting to go back to Egypt, wanting to go back into bondage.

And we read about that.

And we think, here's a group of people who, they were the workforce.

And so maybe, they just feel like they don't have a purpose there.

They had a purpose.

You don't understand.

It was a decree that they had to take their babies and that

they had to take their male sons and throw them and drown them.

That was what they were saying, I want to return to.

That's what they were saying, I want to get into bondage again.

When they left, the Pharaoh had declared, that the work would become so hard that

they'd make bricks with no straw at all.

And they're saying, that's what I want to go back to.

And the natural inclination of our heart is, once we've discovered grace, is that

we think we've got to keep ourselves now.

That we think now we've got to work to prove to God or to pay God back because

we have to prove that we really are good, that we really were worth saving.

So we return naturally to this self salvation and so throughout scripture

we are constantly being called.

To stand, to continue to grow in the gospel of Jesus.

In Romans 6 25, it says, now to him, who is able to establish, and that word means

rooted and grounded you according to my gospel, in keep preaching Jesus Christ,

according to the revelation of the mystery kept secret since the world began, one

Corinthians nine 14 says, even the Lord has commanded that those who preach

the gospel should live from the gospel.

That we should live from the gospel.

And often we think that the gospel is the gate we walk through and we don't

realize that it is also the path that we walk on all of our Christian lives.

First Corinthians also says, moreover, brethren, I declare to

you the gospel, which I preached to you, which also you received and in

which you stand in which you stand.

And in Galatians 1.

6 Paul writing to the Galatians says, I marvel, he's at awe, he's

dumbstruck that you are turning away so soon from him who called you in

grace of Christ to a different gospel.

So he says not only can you stand in it, can you be rooted in it,

can you live your life out of it, but you can be turned from it.

And the problem with the Galatians was that they went back to legalism.

They thought I have to keep myself.

Now that which they begun in the spirit, they tried to perfect in the flesh.

They thought, okay, God saved me, but now I've got to make sure I've got

to prove to him that I was worthy.

Or I've got to do my part or some people just love the work thing.

They love to think that I had some part in my salvation so that they can feel

better about themselves and that they can be better than other people around them.

In Galatians 2 5, it says to whom we did not yield submission,

even for an hour, that the truth of the gospel might continue.

With you all words of action, all words of growth, all words of something we

stand in something that we grow in something that we're rooted in something

we continue in Colossians 1 23 says if indeed you continue in the faith grounded

in steadfast and are not moved from the hope of the gospel, which you heard,

which was preached to every creature under heaven of which I Paul became a minister.

on and on, we're called to walk in the gospel, we're called to

live our lives out of the gospel.

Turn with me to 2 Peter chapter 1, 2 Peter chapter 1.

2 Peter 1 · chapter mention 2 Peter 1 · chapter mention

In verse 4 it says, By which he has granted to us precious and very great

promises so that through them you may become partakers of the divine nature,

having escaped from the corruption that is in the world because of the sinful desire.

For this very reason, make every effort to supplement your faith with

virtue, and virtue with knowledge, and with knowledge, self control,

and self control with steadfastness, and steadfastness with godliness, and

with godliness, brotherly affection, and brotherly affection with love.

For if these qualities are yours and are increasing, they keep you from being

ineffective or unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ, for whoever

lacks these qualities is nearsighted and so nearsighted that he is blind.

Why?

What is the reason?

Having forgotten that he was cleansed from his former sins, someone who has moved

away from the gospel, they moved away from the power and the life transforming

work that is the gospel of Christ.

Therefore, brothers be all the more diligent to make

your calling and election.

Sure, Take that examination.

Go around the walls.

Is Jesus the gate on your city?

Is he the gate of your life?

And we're complicated creatures.

We're complex.

We don't just have one gate that opens and closes.

But there's many aspects to our lives.

We don't struggle with one area.

But there's this area and we're this kind of person.

And we have this kind of thing.

And there's never a one size fits all kind of person.

So he says, Be sure to make your calling election sure for if you practice

these qualities, you will never fall.

For in this way, there will be richly provided you an entrance

into the eternal kingdom of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.

He says, Peter writing, he says, therefore, verse 12, I intend always

to remind you of these qualities, though you know them and are

established in the truth that you have.

I think it right that as long as I am in this body.

body to stir you up by way of reminder, since I know that putting

off my body will be soon as our Lord Jesus Christ made clear to me.

And so what Peter does is he tells them, he says, the problem is that we

stopped growing when we move away from the gospel and he tells them, so it is

going to be my heart, my mission and my passion as a apostle, a preacher of Jesus

Christ to proclaim to you the gospel.

He tells them, but you don't even.

Have need that I inform you.

It's not new content, but I'm calling you to remember, to ponder, to examine

it, to examine yourself in light of the gospel, to see if there's any

area that you've moved away from so that you might again, repent.

And come back into the simplicity of what Christ has done that you would

live your life out of what he's done.

And too often as Christians, we come to the Lord.

I'm saying it again and again, but we come to the Lord, we find grace, but

then we think we have to keep that grace that we've got to prove to God

when God would say, I've done it all.

again, Hebrews 11 without faith, it's impossible to please the Lord.

Is it mean we got to get more faith?

No, what he wants is he wants us to realize that he doesn't want our stuff.

He doesn't want our work.

He doesn't want our good behavior.

He wants us to live our lives in the fact that he's already done it.

That's what pleases him.

That we don't come and try to bring our own righteousness to him and

say, God, look at how good I am.

You got a good deal with me, but then we would see that our righteousness

is a filthy minstrel rag and that we would come and we would stand in

the righteousness he's provided us.

And so what needs to happen in the tendency of all of us.

It's in our Christian walk that if we are not pressing forward, if we

are not daily rooted and grounded, making sure that the gates are closed

in our life, that Jesus is our gate, that he's the chief cornerstone.

He's the one we're building our lives upon.

Then what happens is we begin to try to build that gate in some other way.

Then we give in to the rubble.

We give in to that state of discouragement, despair,

and doubt in our lives.

And it keeps us in a place where the enemy wants us, because we're

never living in the power, and the victory, and the authority that

was won, by the cross of Christ.

And so I'm not gonna, I'm gonna spend a little bit of time now closing

and looking because the gospel is not, the gospel is also complex.

It's like a jewel.

It's a diamond.

It's multi faceted.

And there's many aspects to it.

And so what I would ask this morning is that your hearts

would be open, truly open.

And that you would ask the Lord, like the psalmist asked the Lord, examine me.

Examine me today, examine my heart and that you would ask the Lord

that and that instead of seeing the problem and then saying, okay, I

know I've got to take care of it.

And then running out like every time before to take care of it, only to

have hands too feeble to lift the stones, only having arms too weak.

To carry the bars and to carry the timber that is necessary in the

construction that you would come today and say, God, I'm not worthy.

I see the problem and I need you to lay in my door.

I need you to lay in my way.

I need you to be my gate.

And he'll do that this morning.

Some of you, as you examine your lives, you would look and you would say,

my condition, my whole, the rubble in my life is that I'm ruled by sin.

I am ruled by sin.

I'm ruled by lust.

It seems I get next to a computer and it's a Jekyll and Hyde thing.

I am ruled by sin.

I'm ruled by my anger.

I'm ruled by it.

I'm a slave to it.

I'm a slave to it.

You need to know and you need to build your gate that Jesus is your redemption.

That Jesus is your redemption.

Titus 2, 11 to 14 says for the grace of God that brings salvation has

appeared to all men teaching us that denying ungodliness and worldly lust,

we should live soberly, righteously and godly in the present age, looking

for the blessed hope and glorious appearing of our great God and Savior,

Jesus Christ, who gave himself for us.

That he might redeem us from every lawless deed and purify for himself, his own

special people zealous for good works.

And so again, in the Bible, the picture of redemption is that of

the people being enslaved to Egypt.

And what happened was God heard the cries of their misery and

there were cries of misery.

They were not cries that said, I'm going to be the best slave.

I'm going to be this, but they realized what they were doing.

They realized that their work was a work of bondage and they cried out for a

deliver, and God had compassion upon them.

And the act of redemption in the old Testament is that of God coming

in strength and might, as he came through Moses, his instrument

to tell the Pharaoh it is time.

Your time of bondage, your time of enslavement of this people is over.

I want my people back.

I want my people back.

And the enemy of our souls fought against that said, no, I will make it harder.

I will turn up the temperature.

I will make it more painful.

And the, and what happened was.

Even by the grace of God, as He didn't just come in just and obliterate

the Pharaoh, but the hardness of Pharaoh's heart began to grow harder

and harder until the final act came.

And it was amazing, because what that act spoke of was that night,

in which, the angel of the Lord came down and took the firstborn.

And killed and destroyed the firstborn, unless there was the blood put on the

doorpost, the blood of a substitute, the blood of a lamb, that the angel

would look and say, there is a life that has already been given, that has

already been substituted for the lives in this house, and so I will pass over.

And that is why they celebrate.

The Passover because it was the night where, because the blood was recognized

of a substitute, it was passed over.

And then God took the people and he redeemed them.

And when the enemy came after them and the enemy surrounded them and they were

surrounded by the Red Sea and the enemy was charging hard on them there, the

enemy, even though they had been redeemed.

grip.

The people were in a state where they said, no, that is our identity.

Egypt is our identity.

we've wronged our masters.

They're mad.

They're upset with us.

And what God did is he opened miraculously the Red Sea, the

people walked through on dry land.

The Egyptians then wrote into it and God crushed them, redeeming them

and putting a barrier back to Egypt.

So some of us we're here and we're ruled by sin.

And I believe that we are ruled by sin because as the children of Israel in

numbers, as they came to the border of the promised land, Kadesh Barnea,

we find ourselves in Kadesh Barnea.

And here we are and God is calling us into abundant, amazing relationship with Him.

He's calling us into the fullness.

It's going to be a battle.

Yes, there's going to be the enemy there.

Yes, but it's going to be a place that he longs to be with us, that he

longs to put a permanent tabernacle that he longs to abide permanently in.

That we would make a home and dwell there, and he calls us to

that place, and yet what happens is we want to go back to Egypt.

Why?

Because we have unbelief that fills our hearts because truly in our heart

of hearts, we think if I abandoned myself to God and I give up this sin.

I'm not going to be satisfied.

I'm not going to be happy.

I truly won't because God's going to trick me or he's going to be like my

taskmaster when it's, it looks good.

Then he's going to pull it back.

It's because we have the sin of unbelief and it will keep us

out of all that God has for us.

And that needs to be repented of today.

You need to see that the enemy has been put down.

You need to see that He has redeemed you.

You need to remember once again the misery and the bondage of it.

And you need to build the gate of redemption that Jesus is your redemption.

You need to have Him lay in the door and be that security in your lives today.

Some of you say in this place, But I've done such evil things.

My past is so gnarly that I can't give my testimony.

It would be an offensive, or I've done things that I've never even shared.

I've done things that, that, are too horrendous for God to forgive.

And you need to understand today that Jesus is your justification.

And you need to build that gate of justification.

I heard a story about, this, World War II, this soldier in World War

II, and It's often told in the way, to get us to understand how

God's love operates in our lives.

And, as these men were lonely on, in the trenches and on the front lines, there

was a group that developed a service where you could write one another and

they developed pen pals And basically it's, before Facebook, the single

status now he's in a relationship.

Oh, now he's not in the, wow.

Now the whole world knows.

Great for good for you breaking up so much harder nowadays.

I was like, Oh, here, take this fake bear or whatever.

Have a drink.

You're like, it's virtual.

I guess so.

I, but, you've got this, you've got, this guy and they develop this relationship

with the run and they fall in love.

They profess their love through the letters.

And so the day when the war's over and he's coming back home is the

day that they're going to meet.

They're going to be married.

And so neither having seen one another, they, have a sign and a symbol and the

symbol is that she'll be wearing this, yellow, corsage, type flower on her lapel.

And what happens is he gets off the train and he's eager and anticipating

and he looks over and he sees a woman, with this corsage and she's

about 20 years older than he is.

His heart just sinks.

he's hoping he, it just such great things and just not.

It's not at all what he imagined and pictured, and so he takes his bag,

he turns his back, he begins to walk away, but then he remembers the letters

and how they got him through the hard night, and he turns around and he goes

up and he introduces himself and he says, I am so and And this lady looks

at him and says, I have no idea who you are, just this young lady over

here, wanted me to wear this flower.

And he looks over and it's the most beautiful girl he's ever seen.

And often that story's told as of, kind of God's love and how it operates.

My question's always the same.

What kind of a sick freak would pull a stunt like that?

Right?

He's been fighting, are you crazy?

But people think that God puts us through the paces, that God tests us.

We say, God, I've been too marred, and so what God would do is He would hold

back His love to make sure that He's gonna prove Himself, that we prove

ourselves to show that, okay, we really are different, we really are changed,

we really won't do that anymore.

And then He'll go, okay, now I'll love you, but God's

love is not like that at all.

It's not like that at all.

God declares that he has justified us in Romans 3 23 to 25.

It says for all of sin and fall short of the glory of God being justified

freely by his grace through redemption.

That is in Christ Jesus, whom God set forth as a propitiation by his

blood through faith to demonstrate his righteousness because of his forbearance.

God has passed over the sins that were previously committed.

He passed over.

Why?

Because he declares in heaven where your file was thick, where your file

was black, where it was all true.

And the accuser of the brethren stands night and day before

the throne accusing you.

And it's all true.

He stands and he says, yes, but I've justified him by my blood.

I've declared him righteous.

I've declared him clean.

I've forgiven him.

And as the accuser of the brethren makes his accusation and.

eloquence that has only been sharpened through the history of mankind.

He makes that accusation against the sons and the daughters of men and

yet our advocate Jesus Christ, the righteous stands and he shows the scars

and he says, I have given them my just my righteousness and he declares us

just and heaven of heaven declares that our current state, if we know

Jesus is that perfect righteousness.

Perfect righteousness.

So some of you are so in bondage to your old past and to your deeds.

And you hear things in third person.

Often you hear you're not good enough.

God won't love you.

If you ever hear something in third person, that's the enemy.

we don't talk like that to ourselves.

We're not like, Josh should go get a taco, you know, taco trucks are amazing.

we don't talk to our, so if the enemy, if you hear that it's the enemy and

we need to stand and we need to build the gate, of our justification that

it's not based on anything, it's based on the life of Jesus that he lived.

And as that gate begins to go up, we become strong in that area and the

enemy loses his place in our lives.

Some of us in this room are really convinced that we're good people, that

we're good, that we don't need a savior.

We're good.

I'm good.

I'm moral.

I'm definitely better than the people in this room.

Maybe some of us think I'm definitely better than my neighbor.

I'm definitely better than this.

I love Alfred Hitchcock and in one of his stories, Alfred

Hitchcock presents briefly.

There's a story of a girl who's in prison and she's awaiting to be hung.

She can't take it anymore.

She needs to escape.

And so she devises a plan with the caretaker.

of the prison and the caretaker was the guy who, made sure

everything was running smoothly.

If somebody died, he would take them out and he would bury them.

And so he devises this plan, there would always be this bell that

rung, whenever somebody died.

And so he would know to do his duty.

And so as they developed this friendship, she said to him and she

said, Hey, I've got this great idea.

The next time somebody dies, I will sneak out.

I figure out how to open my door and I will climb into the casket.

You take me out, you bury me, you come back for me and you get

me out of here and I can escape.

And so he agreed to it, thinking I'm going to, this is a way to help a friend.

And so sure enough, as weeks went by, the bell rung and it was her

chance and an only Hitchcockian way.

She nearly gets into the, room that's got the casket.

It's all dark.

And she feels it.

She.

Pulls the lid off and just in time, she pulls the lid closed and,

uncomfortable because there's a person in there and everything, but she feels

herself being loaded onto the cart.

The cart then takes her out of the city.

She feels the lowering of herself into the hole, the thud of thought soft dirt, upon.

the casket and, she sits there waiting so excited that she's figured

it out, she's beat the system.

She's smart, she's brilliant, she's, freedom is just minutes away and

as she sits there she wonders what poor sap had to die so that I could

have my freedom and so she takes her a match, she lights it and to

her utter horror it's the caretaker.

And the camera pans away from the ground with her screaming.

And I think, and not to be brutal and just to shove that in your face, but some

of us need to know, as we find ourselves and we think we're in this state, that

we've beat the system, that we're good enough, that we're moral enough, that

we've found people better than us, that we think that, man, I've got it together.

God would declare today that your state is the most ruin gate.

It's broken.

It's broken.

It's done.

It's nothing.

And that's the peril that you find yourself in today when you base your life

and your future and your eternity on your own righteousness and on your own works.

And God would say, don't do that.

What you need is to put me in the gate.

What you need is to have me lay there and you need me to be your righteousness.

You need me to be your righteousness.

Second Corinthians 5 21 said, for he made him who knew no sin to be sin, that we

might become the righteousness of God.

And so what Jesus did is he said, Your righteousness is

absolutely disgusting to me.

Even if you lived a moral life and you gave to charities, you went to church

every day to me because I am a holy God, because you've already sinned.

And because typically when we do things to better ourselves, we're

doing it through some evil motivation.

When we are true in our heart of hearts.

Because ultimately, when good works, it puts us in the place where we can be God.

We can control our lives.

We can do this and God has to do this.

It's an ancient form of idolatry.

And what happens is when we offer, can you imagine going to heaven and God saying,

Why should I let you into my heaven?

And you take some stained blood rag and you say, Here you go.

What do you think?

Holy and awesome God.

But Jesus says that he took.

And he took our sin upon him and he gave us his righteousness.

He gave you his righteousness and you need to live in that.

You need to know that before heaven you're clean.

When God looks at you, he's not looking at you and going, I hope you don't blow it.

But he sees you as righteous as Jesus is because Jesus lived

the life we couldn't have lived.

He obeyed the law.

He followed it.

We never could have.

That's why the law was given to show us our need.

And so he'd look and he did and he said, you can't live the life here.

Take my life.

Take my approval.

I approve of you.

It's all.

Often we try to find things to approve of us anywhere to find

that in the righteousness of Christ were to build that gate up.

Some of us say people have hurt me and we have tremendous bitterness

against them because people have because we live in a fallen world

and people take advantage of people.

They do things that are monstrous.

And we look and we go, what am I supposed to do as a Christian?

Am I just supposed to let that happen?

Am I just supposed to let that go?

Oh, I'm just supposed to say, I love you.

And they've destroyed my life.

They've ruined me.

They've stolen my innocence and they've trampled upon it.

What am I supposed to do?

And so bitterness wells up and it grabs our hearts and it begins to dominate us.

And we begin to pray curses upon people.

We think about hate and malice and all these things begin

to come out of our lives.

This bitter envy.

What are we supposed to do?

And you need to make that broken down gate.

Jesus needs to be your propitiation.

Propitiation, it says in 1 John 4 10, and this was love, not that we

loved God, but that He loved us.

Sin is sun to be the propitiation for our sins.

Beloved, if God loved us, we also ought to love one another.

Propitiation is simply the element of the gospel, the facet on the jewel that

says God's wrath was burning against man.

When man sins, God sees it.

He sees every molested child.

He sees every rape victim.

He sees every, thing done under heaven.

He sees it all, and his wrath, it says, burns against men.

It burns against injustice.

It burns against sin.

It burns against, it says, God says, whoever touches me, you is

like touching the apple of my eye.

It's not a pleasant thing, but God is communicating and saying, when I see my

people suffer, when I see them hurt, when I see innocence stolen from their life,

it's like somebody's taking their eye, their, Fist and shoving it in my eye.

It's uncomfortable.

It makes me rise up, and my wrath is against man.

And what Propitiation says is it says that God is wrathful, that God is going to do

something about sin, that God is, but that Jesus stepped in the way and that he bore

the wrath of God upon himself, upon his shoulders, and all of it was poured out.

Again, I come back to this illustration because it's beautiful and it's about

a true story of a family or a group of people who are coming over, to California

and they were making their way through the plains, where it was dry brush.

What happened was there was a wildfire.

It was rushing toward them because the wind was blowing against them.

So somebody had the idea they were going to be consumed.

There's no way to outrun it.

So they had the idea.

They said, why don't we light a fire behind us?

The wind will blow that way and then we can stand on the burned ground.

So they did it.

And, the little girl asking her dad, are you sure this is gonna be safe?

As the fire climbed like walls around them, as they stood on that

burned ground, they were safe.

And she, he said, and comforted his daughter and said, yes, because the fire

can't go where the fire's already been and the wrath of God has burned out for you.

And I, if we stand in Jesus and make him our gate, that wrath that

was due us, that wrath that was due us was been burned out on Christ.

It's been poured out on him.

He's become the propitiation.

And so when we look and we think about our own lives, when we look at people

who've wronged us, we have to first and fundamentally admit that we have wronged

God, that we deserved his wrath, that we have all sinned and fallen short.

We have to realize that and that God stood in the way for us and that

others he stood in the way for as well.

If they don't repent and they continue in their sin, they're going to sin.

Then they'll be judged.

But that God stood in the way be just as you hated because

all of us deserve hell forever.

All hell is God's active wrath.

And it's just that place where we've said, God, I don't want you anymore.

And so God says, okay.

And he gives us pictures in the Bible about what his presence not being

there is like a far horrible thing.

And so we come to that knowledge that we all deserve that, that there

was nothing in us just like anybody else, that we manipulated people.

We did things in our own lives and that it brought justice

and, and his wrath against us.

But he stood in our way.

And so some of us need to look and we need to first and foremost see our condition

where we were, what we deserved and Jesus.

Gladly, for the joy that was set before Him, stood and took that for us.

And then we need to rejoice as that gate goes up, that no, nothing, God

doesn't, He doesn't wrath us any longer.

He can't.

And so things that happen in our lives, they have to be seen as

He's making us more like Himself.

It's not because we're this and he's punishing us in

that sense because of this.

God's already born all that and so there's complete pleasure in who we are.

It's amazing.

Just let me just finish.

So some of us, our gate is that we have been sent against and that it's

left such deep scars and we feel dirty.

We keep going back to that place and we need to build the gate.

We need Jesus to be our expiation.

First John 1 7 says, but if we walk in the light as he is in the light,

we have fellowship with one another and the blood of Jesus Christ,

his son cleanses us from all sin.

And as we allow his work into our hearts, he begins to take the things

that were wrong and done to us.

And he could take even what Satan meant for evil.

And he can use it for good in our lives.

And the very scars can be marks of praising him as we comfort those

with the same comfort we've received.

I think often of one of the greatest things in my life, the, I never

experienced bitterness in my life.

I never had to deal with it.

And something was done to me, being abandoned by my brother.

family of God and just gnarly.

It tore, I was done.

I didn't know what to do.

I never experienced this bitterness and I hated people.

Just deep seated, absolute rage.

Just murderous thoughts.

Because I was wounded so badly.

And yet, this Hebrew was my propitiation.

I saw that.

I was just as wicked and he stood and he bore my sin.

But then I found in him the cleansing power of the cross.

And what began to happen is he began to take those very wounds and

make them portraits of his grace.

And I would not be here today if it wasn't for those things and those scars.

And if I was here without those wounds, I would be a much different man.

The expiating power of the cross, the being a blanket over that defilement.

That where sin was, it was scarlet, it was crimson.

That the snow of his grace falls and it makes it white as snow.

Do you understand why we need to stand in the gospel?

For Do you understand why we need to live our lives out of the gospel?

We need to establish ourselves that He is the gate and He is the door.

That we need Him to be that in us.

and on, there's many facets to it.

Some of us struggling with physical pain.

We wonder why is God upset and angry with me because of the pain

I'm going through physically.

1 Peter 2.

21 says, For this you were called because Christ also suffered for us, leaving us an

example that you should follow His steps.

That we look at Him, He suffered, and that He becomes Christ our exemplar.

He becomes our example, and that it's the very time that you crush

a rose that it's most fragrant.

And there's a doctrine that says that all God wants is you to be happy and

healthy and a whole kind of a thing.

And God calls us to deeper things so that he can, how could we ever exemplify life

transforming power to people unless we suffered loss, unless we suffered pain,

unless he allowed us to walk through the valley of the shadow of death that

we'd see there is one in whom we need not fear evil because he is with us.

So he becomes our example and then we build that wall Christ our victor Christus

victor and here It says in Colossians 2 13 to 15 and you being dead in your

trespasses and in the uncircumcision your fresh flesh He is made alive

together with him having forgiven you all trespasses having wiped out the

handwriting Of the requirements that was against us, which is contrary to us.

And he has taken it out of the way, having nailed it to the cross, having

disarmed principalities and powers.

He made a public spectacle of them, try opening over them.

And so what that says, and in that day when Rome would take over,

take people, captivity, a nation.

That would rebel against them, they would parade them into the streets,

they would parade and celebrate as they were victorious, and they would take

the king of that rebellious people, they would strip him of his clothes,

they would strip him of his crown, they would bring him before the king, and

then the triumphant king, the man would lay down on all fours, He would put his

head to the ground and then the king would step on his neck and make a public

spectacle saying, I have defeated him.

He is humiliated.

He has no power.

He is a defeated foe.

And some of us live and we think, man, the enemy sow this and the enemy sow that.

But Jesus at the cross, as was the Proto Evangelion, the first one.

The first gospel preached in Genesis chapter 3, that from the seed of the

Genesis 3 · chapter mention

woman would come one who would crush the serpent's head, and just in that

way, Christ on the cross made a public, display and a spectacle of the enemy,

having put him to an open shame.

He's triumphed over the, the false god.

and death.

he is our victory.

It's so this wall that's broken down, defeat, discouragement,

dismay, and the enemy has access to.

We say, no, I'm going to stand in the gospel, Jesus, you've defeated these.

That's the only way I can face these foes.

I stand in what you've done.

I stand in your love for me, that you adore me, that you sing over me.

I stand in the fact that you've betrothed me as a bride,

that you long to be with me.

I stand in the fact that you've gifted me your righteousness, that you've

borne my wrath, that you've taken my sin as far as the east is from the

west, that you've made me new, that you're not just reforming me, you

have radically had me been born again, that you've adopted me into your

family, that you call me your child.

Behold what manner of love is this, that we should be called the sons of God.

Amazing that we are now where we were enemies, where we were

violators of the law, where we were transgressors, where all we deserve

were the wrath that God rejoices.

And he kills the fatted calf and he makes a feast and he brings

us into his house to celebrate.

And he says, this, my son was a dead, but is alive again.

Rejoice, be merry and be glad.

We stand in the gospel.

Our power is in the gospel.

We move from that.

Our lives change by it as we don't go and say, okay, I need to work on this and

run away and drift into self salvation.

But we build the gate as Jesus is the cornerstone and the chief of it.

And what begins to happen is our lives change because he becomes

beautiful and we want more of him.

Because when the gospel is painted in such a beautiful portrait, it's beautiful

and everything else fades in this earth.

And the way we grow as we've seen as Christians is not by working harder

and earning it and earning his love.

It's simply by being intimate and coming near to him and nothing, not all.

The host of hell, not all the cares of this world that rise up to choke us out.

Once we see how beautiful he is.

Once when we were blinded, our eyes are open.

Once that nearsightedness is cast away.

Once we remember that we've been forgiven, our sins could keep us back

from such an incredible portrait.

He keep us back from so great a salvation.

We run with abandoned to him.

We give him everything and we find everything in him.

Amen.

So if we can have the band come up, we are going to close and we are going to allow

the comforter, the Holy Spirit of God to examine our hearts to see if there is

any part that has a gap that has a flaw.

Remember the substitute this morning.

there's these

story told sometimes and I try to not be, what's the word?

huh.

just to work on emotions.

I don't want to work on emotions.

I think the word of God wants to come and work on our will because that's where

things, that's where permanent change is.

But I am mindful and that we would be mindful of the substitute today.

And there's a story that goes this way, that there's a father

who brought his son to work.

This father worked and he operated a drawbridge.

And, and that there was, his son is, they're having fun times together and

here's this innocent little boy who's, there and he goes off to play and

everything and his father's just watching his son and all of a sudden he, he

realized that there's a boat going way past the speed limit and it's this boat

and then people are just going crazy on the boat, they're partying and that if he

doesn't open the bridge, the thing's gonna just, Hit the bridge and everybody's gonna

be lost on the boat And so he goes to push the bridge But he looks and he remembers

where's my son at and he looks to see that his son is playing around in the

gears and He begins to scream at his son.

He said get away from there.

Don't you know how and he's trying and his son the commotion of the

oncoming boat and everything.

And so with tears in his eyes, he looks at his precious, innocent son and he pushes

the button and his son is crushed so that it's raised so that the people can go

through not even knowing what took place.

And yet a few looking up scene, making eye contact with his father

as he's bawling his eyes out that he just lost so that they could gain.

That is substitute for their life, and we need to remember that this morning We

need to remember how we've been forgiven and what it cost We need to take the

broken bread in our hands of the communion before us and we don't just take it in

ritual But we remain to remember that this was the son of the Living God and

he became despised and rejected That he was crushed for our iniquities.

The chastisement, of, us all was laid upon him.

We need to remember that this morning.

That there was a substitute.

But we also need to rejoice that he was raised on the third day, saying

that God received that substitute.

We should be the most rejoicing people because we walk and we live in the gospel.

It isn't just take and we don't have to prove it now.

He's done it.

He's done it.

He's done it.

What pleases the Lord is that we stand and we live in that.

So examine.

Let the Lord do a work.

Repent.

Repent of false gates.

Repent of things that you've built up in life.

Saying, this is where I'll find my security and my identity.

And ask Jesus to come lay.

And your doorway and to be the gate to keep the enemy out and

to keep you near to him, that he would come in and sup with you.

He longs to know you.

He longs to be with you.

He longs to change you and transform you.

He loves you and adores you.

Jesus, thank you for your word.

Thank you for the story of Nehemiah this morning and make you Lord that this

leader went and he looked at the broken than the rubble and then Lord, he called

the people and that Lord, he called it a good work and the people responded.

It is a good work.

Praise you, Jesus, that you call us the good work.

That Lord, you look at the rubble in our lives and you say, he who's begun a good

work will be faithful to complete it.

Praise you, Lord.

You're amazing.

You're amazing.

You are amazing.

I pray, Lord, that you would, every facet of that jewel, it would build us up.

It would root us and establish us.

Thank you, Jesus.

Work now.

We worship you in communion, and we worship you in our tithes and offerings

this morning, and we just love you.

In Jesus name.

Amen.