Built Different (Nehemiah 3) We Make It Better Together

Able to do this thing called life together.

And so if you got your Bibles, want to open up with me, we are right in the middle of a series called Built Different.

Look at your neighbor and say, We're built different.

That was me testing.

Okay, look at somebody else.

Look at your second choice and say, We're just built different.

Find a third person.

We're gonna get to it at some point.

It's gonna be good.

We we're gonna have some fun in here today.

I hope you've come prepared to because the joy of the Lord is our strength, and we're gonna have a good time.

And so while you are doing that, let me go ahead and say a quick hello to all of our first-time guests.

It's great seeing you today.

Uh, we would love for you to fill out your connect card and drop it off in the welcome center.

We have a free gift for you today, and we want to invite you to the craziest party you're gonna be part of all week, all month long called RLC Connect.

Also, today is a big day because we have our life groups launching today.

Can we put our hands together and be excited about that?

We love it so much.

We are so excited for the opportunity to be able to do life in groups together.

And here's the thing: there are some groups that are closed, and there are some groups that have already started to meet, but there is still room for you.

And so please, before you leave today, we're gonna do everything we can do to provide opportunities for you to get in a group because one of the number one ways to get connected at Real Life Church is in relationship with one another.

And so if you see anybody with the black shirt and that logo on, uh, they are going to know everything they've ever needed to know ever about life groups.

I just put all of them under the bus and just ran right over.

No, and that they may not know, but they'll find somebody who does, okay?

We would love to get you connected with life groups, okay?

All right, if you have found Nehemiah, that is good.

If you haven't, I'll give you just another second to find it.

Uh go to the book of Psalms and hang a left.

That's where Nehemiah is.

And here's a secret you may not know, and that is this.

If you can't find it, just stop where you are, nobody will know the difference, okay?

They'll think that you found it.

And kind of the idea of this series is this, and that is that I had a friend of mine years ago, and uh he was a kind of a private contractor, and he also had remodeled several homes.

And one day he had this big idea, and he said, I want to build a home.

And I was like, Well, praise the Lord.

Good for you, buddy.

You know, that is not on my bucket list, right?

But it was his.

And he's like, I want to build a home.

And I was like, Well, great.

Well, I had no idea what goes into building a home.

And so I actually go to see him about a month later, and because I have no idea, I'm thinking I'm gonna go see a home.

And I go up to this property and I just see a piece of land.

And I'm like, dude, where's your home?

And he looked at me as all good Southerners do, and he said, Well, bless your heart.

Which was not a compliment if you're not from the South, okay?

And he was basically calling me an idiot, and he was like, Pastor, that's not how this works, okay?

You you you gotta have an idea, but then you gotta do the rest of it.

It doesn't just appear.

And the reality is, as I was thinking about it, is that's really everything in life.

Like everything in life, it doesn't just appear, but we have to work at it.

We and we really need three things for anything to happen.

We gotta have a mission, a vision, and we gotta have values.

Like the mission is this is the big idea.

This is the goal, what it is we're after.

My friend's goal was he wanted to build a home.

And so that was that was his big idea.

And then when I saw him, he was on the vision part, which is the plan.

He had spent a month coming up with blueprints on how he was going to put together that house.

It doesn't matter how great your idea is if you don't have a vision for it, you know, it's not gonna do you any good.

And that's what he was so excited about, is he had blueprints.

I thought I was going to see a house.

And he was like, No, I'm just at this point.

But then after that, you got to have tools.

Like he needed hammers and he needed drills and he did ladders and all that kind of good stuff.

And he would get so excited when I would go see him.

And I would go see him and I would just see the other cement slab and he'd be so excited.

And I would see, you know, just the beginnings of kind of the wood framing and he'd be so excited.

All I saw was a mess.

But he's but he saw the end.

He's like, one day, this is gonna be where my family's gonna live.

I'm gonna raise my kids and grandkids here.

I mean, he saw the end from the beginning because he had a big idea, he had a plan, but then he also put the tools into place.

And I think that's so important that, and it's so important that actually twice a year we stop everything we're doing at RLC and we just pause and make sure that we have the plan, that we know why we do what we do around here.

Because my hope is it's not just so that you know what happens here at RLC, but it will also inspire you to have a mission, vision, and values in your own life, in your family, in your friend group, in your your relationships and all of that.

And so we just take moments and just make sure that we're saying the same thing so that we can do life and move forward together.

And so that's what this is, is we're in the middle of that series.

And so if you didn't know, here's your first blank, and that is this that at Real Life Church, we have a very hopefully clear mission, and that is that we exist to say it with me, make disciples.

Let's do that one more time so we can sound like we're a little culty.

One, two, three, make disciples.

There you go.

Everyone is in the same room, right?

We and we're on the lifelong journey of making disciples.

And we like to say it like this and that is that Jesus loves you and we have a plan for your life, and that is that we want you to become a fully devoted follower of Jesus Christ.

And you're gonna hear us say that over and over and over again.

There's two statements you're gonna hear, and that is that we want you to become a disciple, and you're gonna hear something like everybody's got a private battle that nobody else knows about.

We even put it on a t-shirt because we believe that so much.

That's the mission that we have here at RLC.

But the mission without a plan is just a wish.

We got to have a plan.

And so the plan on how we see that is that we exist to make disciples by knowing God together, by growing in freedom together, and by sharing Christ with everyone.

And that is a lifelong journey.

It's not a bunch of check marks that we do.

We never get to the place to where we say we fully know God until we get to heaven.

We're not gonna grow in full freedom until we get to heaven, not the least of which is because I don't know about you, but I have an amazing way of tying myself back into knots over and over again.

And God's got to continually bring freedom in my life, and that we're always in that constant process of sharing Christ with others, making a difference with our lives.

And so that's the mission.

We have a vision, but then we got to have values.

And that's what this series is all about.

We talked about the first two, and we're gonna cover the rest of them today because it's so important that we do it on purpose.

And so if you're taking notes, the idea of this series is that we wanna be the ones that live differently so we can build differently.

We wanna be the ones that in our lives, we don't want to just go somewhere, we want to go somewhere on purpose.

I love this idea that everyone is building a life, but the wise build with purpose.

So the idea is that if you're a parent in here, your kids, by God's grace, are gonna grow up.

But they might grow up on purpose.

Like if you're married, you might make it to your 25th year wedding anniversary or your 35th or your 45th or your 55th.

But some of us are trying to get there on purpose.

And we're trying to do these different things.

And so it's the idea that what are the ways that we need to live?

What are the values we need to have so that we can live that way on purpose?

And if that's the case, then what are values?

Here's values.

Values are core principles, they're core principles that guide how we live out our life's mission.

That's the purpose of this series is to talk about the core principles that we want to live by because we have this mission that we want to exist so that us and our neighbor becomes a fully devoted follower of Jesus Christ.

That sounds great.

By knowing God, growing in freedom, and sharing Christ with everyone.

That sounds awesome.

But here's the question how?

How do we actually do that?

Well, by having some core principles in our life, some non-negotiables that we rally together and do so that we can do this thing called life together.

And in order to do that, we always want to go back to the Bible, right?

Because the Bible is how we know God and we're we're looking at a guy named Nehemiah.

Some of you have told me you've never read the book of Nehemiah before, but it's awesome, isn't it?

Is the life of Nehemiah is so great because God used him and he used some principles that God put in Nehemiah's life to make a mission happen that was over a hundred years old.

Like, let me share with you what the timeline looks like.

The Bible tells us that after the nation of Israel had been overrun by the Babylonians, that 70 years later, according to the prophecies that God uh fulfilled, that he actually started uh letting them come back again under a guy named King Cyrus.

And he sent a guy named Zerubbabel, which by the way, if you're in here, you're expecting a child, Zerubbabel's open.

No one else has taken that name.

Okay, if you want to name your kid Zerubbabel, that they actually had a first wave of people that wouldn't come back to Israel.

And they had two main objectives rebuild the temple, rebuild the city walls.

And so they had this great mission and it was awesome.

And they did rebuild the temple, but they did not build the walls.

Well, 50, or excuse me, 80 years later, they sent a second wave of people because the mission wasn't complete.

And it was a guy named Ezra, probably under the leadership of Queen Esther.

And he had the vision.

And the vision was we can't do this without God's help.

So he went to reinstill the worship of the people of God.

So you had a great mission, you had a great vision, but 13 years later, it's still not done.

Like that almost nothing has been done because they had an amazing mission, they had an amazing vision, but there was one more component, and that is they needed the tools that God was going to give them so they can move forward.

And God put that in the leader, Nehemiah.

And I feel like that if we can learn from him, we can move forward with what all God's called us to do, too.

So let me kind of catch you up real quick.

Back in chapter one, when week one, he heard that the city walls had not been built yet, and he just mourned over it.

And so his first thing to do was to get God involved.

And he said, God, out of my love for you and out of my love for your people, I want to be the one.

Choose me.

I want to live differently so that I can build differently.

Choose me, and I want to go out of my love for you.

Chapter two, he goes to Jerusalem.

And what I love about it is he didn't show up and say, guys, what's up?

Y'all been here a long time.

Y'all ain't building nothing.

He didn't do any of that.

Instead, he saw that these were broken people that had a promise that seemed so far away.

And he said, Let's build this thing together.

And at the end of the second chapter, they were like, Let's do it.

But think about for a moment what an issue this was.

I mean, this is this is what they had.

They they had the temple, they had their homes, but there were no walls.

And so you got enemies like Tobiah, you got enemies like uh Geshem, and you got another guy named Sambal, and they could just come and go whenever they wanted to.

There was nothing to stop them from coming in, raiding, taking everything away.

It was completely vulnerable.

And for over a hundred years almost, that's the way it looked.

But Nehemiah comes in there and he says, But what if we could?

And they're like, Let's do it.

And so then they start doing it.

And it's what chapter three is all about.

And I gotta go ahead and give you disclaimer.

Chapter three is the chapter that most people skip over.

And it's because it sounds like the bigats.

You know, like in the book of Matthew, when you get chapter one, you skip over the first half of chapter one because it's all about this guy had had had a kid and this guy had a kid.

That's kind of what this is like, unless you realize what they're doing.

So we're gonna read this, and I'm gonna get most of the names wrong, okay?

But you are welcome to try to pronounce them with me so that we can be wrong together.

And we're gonna read these and watch what is happening.

So for almost a hundred years, they've been told it was impossible.

Nehemiah comes along and says, Man, we're gonna do it for God.

We're gonna see each other, we're gonna make it happen, and watch what happens.

The Bible said, They replied, Yes, let's rebuild the wall.

So they began the good work.

Then Elisha, the high priest, and the other priests, started to rebuild the sheepgate.

They dedicated it, set up its doors, building the wall as far as the tower of Hundred, which was dedicated, and the tower of Hanel.

People from the tower of Jericho worked next to them.

Amiramoth, the son of Uriah, and the grandson of Hazak, repaired the next section of the wall.

Next were the people of Tokoah, though their leaders refused to work with the construction supervisors.

The old city gate was repaired by Joiadah, the son of Pashiah, and Meshulam, the son of Bezediah.

They laid the beams, set up its doors, and installed its bolts and bars.

The valley gate was repaired by the people of Zenoah.

They set up its doors and installed its bolts and bars.

They also repaired 1,500 feet of wall to the dungate.

The dungate was repaired by Melajah, son of Rekab.

He built it and set it up its doors and installed its bolts and bars.

So exciting.

Each one repaired the section immediately across from his own house.

Next, Zadok, son of Emmer, also rebuilt the wall across from his own house, while Meshulim, son of Barekiah, rebuilt the wall across from where he lived.

Makajah, one of the goldsmiths, repaired the wall as far as the housing for the temple servants and merchants across from the inspection gate.

The other goldsmiths and merchants repaired the wall from the corner to the sheep gate.

Yay! So exciting.

It is when you realize that for a hundred years they have been told this isn't possible.

You can't do this.

You're not good enough.

You don't have what it takes.

But they had someone who had this value and said, But what if?

But what if we could?

And that's the value today.

The first we learned is that we love God.

Second is that we see people.

Here's the third one, and that is that we make a decision that we are going to make it better together.

Somebody say amen.

That we have the capacity.

It's a and here's the thing is that we're gonna make it better together.

And here's the hard part about this is it's a mentality more than anything else.

It is saying that what happened to me doesn't define who I become, that I actually have the capacity to do something with all that God has given me.

And the difficult thing about this one is that for some people, you just get this naturally.

You you just got this.

And for others of us, this is one that we that we seldom ever talk about.

So we're gonna talk about it because they started to do the impossible when they embraced this idea that we can make it better together.

So here's a definition of making it better, and that is this that we value working hard together to do the best we can with what God has given us.

Somebody say the best we can.

Okay, somebody else, not y'all.

Somebody else say the best we can.

There you go.

You people talk to me.

Okay, it's it's the value of saying that we work hard together, not to be perfect, not to do that, because you know what the enemy will do?

Is if he can't push you, he'll pull you.

And if and he'll say, Well, if you can't do it perfectly, you just don't need to serve God at all.

That's a lie.

But we just do the best we can with what God has given us.

And we say, you know what?

God has given me this.

Wonder what God could do with it.

If I would just do the best I can with what I have, look at what God could do.

Because that's exactly what was going on in the lives of these people that for almost a hundred years there were no walls, which means they were completely vulnerable to what anybody wanted to do.

And then Nehemiah came along and he said, But what if?

What if God raised us up for this generation for us to do it?

What if we could make it better?

What if we could make a difference?

And you know what happened is all of a sudden they started to believe that what if God could do the impossible?

And so what they did is they got together and there was one group of people that started to build this wall from the sheep gate all the way down.

Then you had another group that started to build this one, then you had another one that went over on the southeastern side, and then you had the north uh the northeastern side, and they started building it slowly together until they had a full wall.

They started with absolutely nothing and they did it.

And here's the amazing thing they had a mission for a hundred years and couldn't make it happen.

They had the vision part for now all the way up to 15 years and couldn't make it happen.

But when they took the mission and the vision and they said, But what if God could do it?

It took them 52 days to do it.

They go from a hundred years to 52 days when they said, I can't build this wall, but I can build this much.

I can do the best I can with what I have.

In my opinion, one of the greatest miracles in this story is how a struggling people unified to dare to do the impossible together.

That us together, if I work on my part of the wall, you work on your part of the wall, and I'm not perfect, I'm gonna get it wrong over and over again, but I'm gonna do the very best I can with what I have, you do the very best you can with what you have.

We're gonna look at making it better all the way around.

You can do, and I can do the impossible if we do it for the glory of God and we do it with one another, and there's joy there.

There's joy when we begin to do it together.

So here's the question of the day, and that is what does it mean?

How does embracing the value of making it better bring joy practically?

What does it mean that if we love God, see people, and then we say, you know what?

Put me in, coach.

I want to make it better today.

I want to take what God has given me and do the very best I can.

How can that bring joy?

Well, I want to share with you three things that happen in this chapter that I think God will use as we decide to make it better.

Do the best we can with what we have for his glory, that God will use it to bring joy.

So look at your neighbor and say, it's all about joy, baby.

And it was weird if you don't know that person.

Maybe take the baby part off and try it again.

Look at them again and say, It's all about joy.

Kind of, baby.

Yeah, it was weird.

I got it.

I got it.

Okay, here's here's the thing is it's all about joy.

Here's here's the first one.

You know why it's so joyful that when we make a difference together, we work hard to do the best we can with what we have, is because we can see it as an act of worship.

The reason why we go to make a difference with what we have, that we say, God, how can I make this better?

This is what you've put in front of me.

How can I make it better?

It's because we see it as an opportunity to bring glory to the Lord.

This is what happened at the very beginning when they said, Let's rebuild, it said Eliashab, the high priest, and the other priests started to rebuild the sheep gate.

And they dedicated it, set up its door, building walls as far as the tower of the hundred, which they dedicated in the tower of Hanel, and the people from out of town, the folks from Jericho, came up next to them and also worked as well.

So what happened was is the first people that realized what was going on were the worshipers, was the high priest and the other priest.

And they were in charge of this part right here.

And you know what they said?

They said, Why don't we go first?

The reason why this is so so great is the the eastern gate, or the sheep gate, rather, was the main gate that people went into to go to the house of worship.

It's also where they would bring in their sacrifices for worship.

And so what they said is, is let's not just rebuild the wall, but this is what God has put in our hand.

Most likely they lived right over in this area and they said, Let's do it, and let's do it for the glory of Yahweh.

Let's do it so that other people can worship too.

And then it's not just rebuilding a wall, but it's providing an opportunity for the people of God to worship in the house of God.

And when we start realizing that making it better is an act of worship, there's life there.

But we got to have a proper definition of worship.

Let me give you a definition of worship.

This is just mine, and that is worship is doing something that honors God for the glory of God.

Worship is something that honors God for the glory of God.

Now that's important because you know, if you were raised the way I was raised, I thought that worship was when we raise our hands and we we sing songs as we would say that's the worship time.

And it is.

That is a time to worship.

And then we had time of worship, which meant when we study God's word, and it is.

But but the thing is, is it's not just when we sing, it's not just when we share God's word with one another, but anything we do as an act of bringing glory to God in a way that honors God, there's joy there because it's worship.

Now, but notice it does say honors God.

You can't rob a bank and said, I did it for Jesus, okay?

Unless you give to the church, and then we'll talk about it.

No, I'm just playing, just play it.

You can't do that.

It's gotta be something that honors God for the glory of God.

And then it can be anything.

It reminds me of Mabrowski here, Brother Lawrence.

He was a 16th-century monk and he never actually wrote a book, but a book was written about him.

He was never even a preacher because what happened was is when he joined a monastery, he got very, very disenchanted, very, very offended because he thought, I'm gonna join a monastery and I'm gonna make a difference.

I'm gonna go and I'm gonna do mass because he was Catholic and he was, I'm gonna do all these things, it's gonna be great.

And they put him in the kitchen.

They didn't just put him in the kitchen, he wasn't even allowed to cook, he was there to wash the dishes.

And in my house, what you're supposed to do is you're supposed to take your dish when you're done and you're supposed to kind of wash it out a little bit and get it ready.

Apparently, Brother Lawrence was complaining because they weren't even doing that, they were leaving most of their food and just kind of slinging it at Brother Lawrence, and Brother Lawrence was offended.

I didn't join the ministry to clean plates, but as he kept doing it, he said, You know what though?

The people that do the work of ministry over there, they gotta eat.

And for those who have to eat, they got to eat on something.

And they can't eat on something unless I clean it.

So, really, the real ministry is coming from me.

They can't do ministry without me.

And he started to realize I'm actually making a difference right here because I'm providing the opportunity for these guys to do this and they go and do that.

Actually, what I'm doing is ministry.

And apparently he got to the place to where they tried to promote him and he wouldn't leave.

And he said, How dare you take away the greatest ministry in this monastery?

You can't eat without a monster.

Me, you fools.

So he's like, he's right back to where he was.

And his quote, one of one of the things he was quoted is he said, Don't be weary of doing the little things for the love of God who regards not the greatness of the work, but the love with which it is performed.

He's saying it doesn't matter what it is, what matters is why you do it.

And when you do it as an act of worship, there's life there and there's joy there.

And what the enemy wants to tell us is he wants to tell us only these things that are great in the eyes of men are the things of worship.

And what God says is not even about the things.

I created all of this.

I'm not impressed with you.

What gives joy to my heart is when you do it for me.

And when you do it for me, that's when I stand up and I say, Good job, son, good job, daughter, because it was all for me.

When we do it as an act of worship, it makes a difference.

It reminds me of uh one of my favorite stories about David in the Old Testament.

He wanted to worship God, but he didn't have a place where he was.

And so he wanted to go build an altar.

And he asked this guy if he could buy this piece of property so he could build an altar.

And the guy was like, dude, you're you're David, you're the king.

Just take it and go.

He's like, No, no, I want to pay for it.

He's like, No, you're you're the king, you can have it.

And David got angry and he said this.

He said, The king replied to Aruna and he said, No, I insist on buying it, for I will not present burnt offerings to the Lord my God that have cost me nothing.

David built an altar there to the Lord and sacrificed burnt offerings and peace offerings, and the Lord answered his prayer for the land.

In other words, he said, I love it when my worship cost me something.

I love it because God has been so good to me that for me to give something back to him, to take what I have and do the best I can with it, is my greatest gift of worship to him.

Well, what it look like in our lives if we stop thinking that worship is something that only happens on Sunday.

And worship happens anytime we bring glory to God by serving somebody else.

I don't know what this may do in your life, but I got you a couple of action steps.

I don't know which one you might want to write down, but one of them is you can do this in life groups.

Like you can be the one to say, you know what, I'm gonna live differently so I can build differently.

And I'm gonna see this opportunity to make the most out of what I can, and I'm gonna do it as an act of worship.

So I am gonna tell you right now, I'm making cookies every single time because I'm better at it than you, and I'm gonna do the best I can with what I have, and I'm bringing my cookies for the glory of God.

You never know what might happen.

You can be the one to say, you know what, I can't cook, but I know how to talk.

So I'm gonna come in there, I'm gonna do the very best I can with what I have, and you come in and you talk to everybody, and you just hug the whole room.

And you're gonna say, Listen, I'm gonna do the very best I can with what God has given me, and watch what God will do.

Maybe your next step is to see everything as an opportunity to worship.

Everything.

When somebody cuts you off in traffic, bless the Lord all the time.

And all the time, bless the Lord.

He is good, and I'm gonna forgive them in Jesus' name.

See everything as a chance to worship.

Show thankfulness to God by using his gifts to bring him glory, by using what he has given you and say, God, I want to give it back to you as an act of worship.

You've been so good to me.

And you know what happens?

When we begin to live differently, we start to build something differently in our life.

When we begin to realize that I can do all of this, I can make it better.

I'm not here to be perfect, but I'm gonna work hard to do the best I can with what God has given me to do as an act of worship.

There's joy there because you realize that everything matters because everything is an opportunity for worship.

And it becomes a joy to serve others and a joy to make a difference with what you have because it's not even for them.

It doesn't matter if they say thank you or not, because it wasn't even for you, it was for my king.

Therefore, the joy is mine either way.

And when we do that, we can see the vision and the mission come to pass.

Look at somebody and say, it's all about joy, baby.

It is.

It's all it's all about joy.

Number one is that it's an act of worship.

Here's the second one.

And it's also as a chance for God to grow us.

It's an opportunity for worship, but it's also a chance for the Lord to grow us.

One of the things I love about God is he did enough by saving us, but then he turns around and he starts healing us one day at a time.

You ever thought about that?

Once, once we receive salvation, he doesn't have to do anything else.

But then he turns around and he says, I want to heal you this, I want to heal you of that.

You're you're you're great just the way you are, but you're too great to stay that way.

I want you to be free of all these things.

And that's what he does, and over different things.

And through making it better, it's an opportunity for him to grow us.

Because look, look what happened.

It wasn't just, it wasn't just just just easy town in paradise.

Look, the Bible said that somebody else went to the fish gate, and their sons uh with Hannessanah were also there, but then they laid the beams, set up the doors, and installed the bolts and bars.

Next were the people of Tokoah.

But look at this.

Though their leaders refused to work with the construction supervisors, the old city gate was repaired by Joiada, the son of Paseah, and Meshulam, son of Bessiaidah.

Next was Uziel, son of Haranna, and a goldsmith by trade, who also worked on the wall.

Beyond him was Haniah, the manufacturer of perfumes.

They left out a section of Jerusalem as they built the broad wall.

And the dungate was also repaired by Mekazah, son of Rick, the leader of Beth Hakaran's district.

And he rebuilt it, set up its doors, and installed its bolts and bars.

So they began the good work.

In other words, there's a lot of work going on, a lot of drama going on too.

It was all kinds of stuff that was happening up in the middle of all that.

And what was amazing is God used all of that to be able to help them grow because they were working on this section down through here.

And so while God is moving and the sheep gate is getting rebuilt, they're going over here and they're doing this actually all the way over to the dung gate and they're rebuilding all of this.

But what God started to do through that situation that is also true is that sometimes doing the work of God takes time.

And it's not always easy.

I'm just going to tell you something right now that I don't know that I love, but it's just true.

Here it is everything of value in life is uphill.

Everything of value in life is actually uphill.

That when God wants to do something amazing in our life, he also wants to grow us in the process.

I've never seen anybody back their way into a healthy marriage.

I've never seen anybody back their way into passing all of their classes and getting going to college and all that takes time.

But here's the next one.

And this is the one I don't like, but it's true.

And that is this being in God's will does not mean life will be easy.

As a matter of fact, one of the ways you can tell if you're in God's will is if you're having a little spiritual warfare going on.

I mean, that is so good.

Being in God's will does not mean life will be easy.

That is so good.

I wish I had a big screen.

Wait a minute.

Being in God's will does not mean life will be easy.

As a matter of fact, it's in the hard things that God begins to move and work in our lives.

And what we can see in this moment is God isn't just rebuilding the wall, He's rebuilding His people in the process.

Not just through supernatural means, but through the everyday ordinary means of just the different things that they had.

And so when we make a difference together by making it better together, we realize that God uses it to grow us.

Let me give you just three examples of the way God grows us through these things.

Here's the first one in that God grows us through difficult people.

Selah.

Think on that for just a moment.

God grows us through difficult people.

I mean, you think about it for a moment.

Let's rebuild the wall.

Yes, let's do it.

You got the priests up here who were rebuilding this part.

You got other people over here doing this part.

And the Bible said that next were the people of Tokoah, though their leaders, the one who should know better, refused to work with the construction supervisors.

In other words, according to uh biblical commentaries, they did not believe in the message of Nehemiah.

They did not believe that they could rebuild the wall.

And so actually, the people of Tokoah did their part of the work and then they went and did some more work somewhere else.

So they started working all the way around them.

But they were hindered in what they were doing because God is good and some people are hard.

Some people are peoply.

And here's the thing that's a gift.

That's a gift.

That's one of the reasons why I love life groups.

I love life groups so much because in every single life group I've been part of, there's at least one person that is labeled extra grace required.

You know, you ever been around that person?

A little sandpaper.

They kind of help you with some of those rough edges that you might have, just a little bit.

They're great and they're awesome, but they got some rough edges, and the Lord uses you for it.

And every and every once in a while, sometimes a life group leader will come up to me and they say, Listen, I love everybody in my life group.

I got this one person, I don't know how to help them.

And I'm saying, No, that sounds like they're doing just fine.

They're helping everybody get just a little bit better.

And if you're in here and you're saying, Well, Pastor, I've been part of life groups for years, and I never come across that person.

May the Lord speak to you in Jesus' name.

Yes, you're maybe you're the one helping us, but here's the thing is that God not only gets the work done making it better, but he grows us in the process.

And one of the ways he grows us is by interacting with difficult people.

Here's another one, and that is that God grows us through changing our plans.

In Jesus' name.

The Bible said that they were they were building, and as they were working, they got beyond this certain area, and they actually had to leave out a section of Jerusalem as they built the broad wall.

There was a part of it they were not able to build, so they had to change their plans in the process.

Do you know what for some of us doesn't bother you?

Changing plans.

You're fine.

God will not grow you in that unless He asks you to keep your plans and you just wanted to change them so bad.

But there are some of us, and I just need to confess, just to y'all, okay, don't tell nobody else, so I'm just gonna confess to you.

This one right here, pray for me.

Because the thing is, is though heaven and earth may pass away, Pastor Brandon's plan should never pass away.

I do not like having to change my plans.

You ask my wife, you pray for my wife, one of the number one things that I have to work on is when plans change, I get unhappy.

And what I'm preaching to myself is sometimes that's the Lord trying to help you.

Amen, Pastor, you go ahead and preach that, even though I don't want to believe it right now in Jesus' name.

But the Lord will use that to grow us in the process as we are making it better.

I think sometimes God will change our plans just to remind us that it's all about Him and that it's all about seeing people, just to remind us that He knows what He's doing.

So we just trust Him instead.

I'm telling you that by faith.

Okay, and I didn't got there yet.

Here's one more, and that is what I like to call God grows us through what I'm gonna say is called joyful stinkiness.

I'm not sure if that's a word.

If it's not, we just made it up today.

Okay, joyful stinkiness.

Here's the reason why is the Bible says the dungate was repaired by Makaijah.

Now, the dung gate is exactly what you think it is, okay?

The dungate is where they would actually take out their trash and everything else to the valley of Shinnem where they would then go and burn it.

So the dungate was probably not what he asked for.

When they all signed up, hey, who wants to do the fish gate?

Got you.

Who wants a sheep gate?

I got you.

Who wants a dung gate?

Yo, go ahead.

But what was amazing is he was given that job, and it wasn't probably the best job that was out there.

But you know what's amazing?

Is sometimes the greatest growth of joy is when you do something hard, but you do it for Jesus.

Because when you see other people doing easy stuff, you see other people getting rewarded, you see other people doing all this, and you're here being faithful in the small things, what God is able to do to remind you that it really is all about Him and that success is not really what you achieve, but is in who you become in the process.

And as you get involved in just some stinky situations for a little while and you make it through it and trying to make it better the best you can is some of the greatest growth that God does in our life.

Can I tell you some of the greatest growth in my life was were my children when they were toddlers?

Because my children had this amazing spiritual gift.

When I needed to get up early and leave, they would stay up all night.

Like if I needed to leave at four o'clock, they would, they would stay up until 3:30.

And and then they would just go to sleep.

And I may or may not have woke them up before I'd leave, just to make sure that they got to suffer a little bit too.

The Lord needed to let me grow through that process.

But many times it's also in that that God shows us and grows us in his faithfulness.

And when everybody did their work and they grew together, it was amazing what the Lord would do.

I think that's what Paul was getting to when he said this.

He said, I give each of you this warning.

Don't think of yourselves better than you really are, but be honest in your evaluation of yourselves, measuring yourselves by the faith God has given us.

Just as our bodies have many parts and each part has a special function, so it is with Christ's body.

We are many parts of one body.

We all belong to each other.

In his grace, God has given us different gifts for doing certain things well.

And I can't help but wonder if he was sitting there and he was thinking about Nehemiah and he was thinking about how this is so impossible unless we do it together.

And I can't fix this wall.

It's been like this for a hundred years.

We've had an amazing vision for 15 years.

But what if I did the very best I could with what God had given me?

And I can't fix this wall, but I can fix this part, and then you fix that part and you fix the other, and you can take a vision that had been a mission that was a hundred years old and get it done in 52 days if we all do it together.

And there's joy there when you realize that God, I'm gonna do the best I can.

I'm gonna live differently so that I can build something differently, and I'm gonna do the best I can with what God has given me.

There's joy because, first of all, you realize it's an act of worship.

Everything I do is for Jesus.

And then you realize that, God, I know you're growing me.

I know that hard times don't come to destroy me.

They come to just they come to grow me because you are doing more in me than I realize.

And your joy grows as you realize that as we are being faithful, God is doing more than we can imagine.

One more time, look at somebody and say, It's all about joy, baby.

It's all about joy because we see it as an act of worship, as a chance for God to grow us.

And here's the last one.

This is my favorite, and that is it helps us so that we can make a difference where we are, so that we can make a difference where we are.

I love this so much because of what happens in at the end of this chapter.

When it first starts, it's these guys who are building these different gates, they're going to different places, but then it's like they they notice something and they notice what they're able to do.

Because the Bible says this.

It says, above the horse gate, the priest repaired the walls, repaired the walls.

Each one repaired each section.

Look at this, immediately across from his own house.

Say his own house.

Next, Zadok, the son of Immer, also rebuilt the walls across from his own house.

Beyond him was Shemaiah, the son of Shekaniah, and the gatekeeper of the eastern gate.

Hennaniah, the son of Shemaliah, and Hunan, the sixth son of Zalef, repaired another section, while Meshulam, the son of Barekiah, rebuilt the wall across from where he lived.

Here's the reason why that's so amazing is remember for a hundred years, these walls have been down.

And it was a shameful thing.

It was it was a way of saying, your God's not faithful.

Because it was considered to be the pride of a city that the walls would stand strong.

And they were saying, This is the city of God.

And they would say, well, then where's your pride?

Where's your walls?

If God is so good, if God is so faithful, where are the walls?

And so it was a shameful thing for almost a hundred years.

And then Ezra comes.

Now the walls are going to be rebuilt.

And this doesn't happen.

And so, for how long did they look at those walls?

If they lived there their entire life, they had looked at those walls for so long that they might have even forgotten why they were there to begin with.

That for so long they thought, well, I guess it just wasn't meant to be.

And so that they were looking maybe for other places to make a difference.

But then when somebody came along and he said, But what if?

What if we could do this together?

What if we lived differently so we could build differently?

And what if we could make it better?

What if we could do the very best we can with what we have?

And what was invisible all of a sudden became possible.

And they said, Man, I don't have to go somewhere else to make a difference.

There's a wall right here.

I forgot it was there for so long.

I just, I forgot that it was supposed to be fixed, but now I see it.

Put me on that wall, the one in front of my house.

And one of those amazing things is that when they stopped seeing ministry is elsewhere and they started seeing is what was right in front of them, it goes from a hundred-year vision to 52 days because they did it together.

And I think that's so important for all of us because what if God has you right where you are for a reason?

What if you are God's first choice, not his last option?

What if the reason why God hasn't moved you to a different job is because he needs you so bad to be that witness to those people that are there?

What if the reason why he hasn't changed this friend group dynamic is because your faithfulness right where you are is making more of a difference than you can imagine.

Maybe if the reason why God hasn't got you out of a season is because he has you right there to make more of a difference than you can see.

My prayer for you is that you will, if you are doing this, you will stop looking elsewhere for where you can make a difference and you can realize that it's right here that God wants to use you to make a difference, that right in front of you are the harvest fields that God wants to use.

And so instead, it's like, God, what have you put in my hands?

What can I do?

How can I make a difference?

How can I do the very best I can with what you've given me?

I think that's what Paul was talking about when he was talking to the church at Philippi, and he said, Is there any encouragement from belonging to Christ?

Is there any comfort from his love?

Any fellowship together in the Spirit?

Are your hearts tender and compassionate?

Other words, what do you got in your hands?

Is there anything in your hands you can use?

And he says, if so, then make my heart truly happy by agreeing wholeheartedly with one another, loving one another, and working together with one mind and purpose.

In other words, he's saying, Whatever you got, do it for the glory of God and watch what happens.

And watch what happens.

Because it's not for anything else other than for his glory.

That's one of the reasons why I love reading through the book of Psalms.

I don't know if you if you don't know this, we've been reading through the book of Psalms one chapter at a time, and we are in the 50s, man.

We are we are zooming along in the book of Psalms.

And you can join us by by scanning that QR code if you want to join where we're at.

But this week, we are going to, if you haven't noticed it already, you're going to see that there is a pattern in these songs, and that is everything's bad.

God is good.

God, I wish you would destroy them, and you're good.

It's just always back and forth.

It's back and forth.

It's the idea of, I don't know what's going to happen, but then I see you, God, and I see what you can do.

There's actually this moment when we're going to read it this coming week where he says this.

He says, I have dug a deep pit, or they have dug a deep pit in my path, but they themselves have fallen into it.

Interlude, which means let the band play.

Yes, absolutely.

That's that moment where everybody becomes Pentecostal for about three seconds, go, the Lord is good, you know, and they just kind of do a turnaround and then they come back again and he says, My heart is confident, not in me, not in what I can do, not in my perfection.

My confidence is in you, God.

My heart is confident.

No wonder I sing your praises.

Because when I think about the goodness of God, it reminds me that God is good all the time.

And all the time, God is good.

And it reminds me that I can do more than I realize if I do it with my brother and my sister.

And it's not about perfection, it's about faithfulness.

It's about doing the best I can with what I have.

And I don't know how that will work for you.

I don't I don't know like what it is that's in front of you that you can use to make a difference.

I will tell you one thing you can do is you can scan this that QR code in front of you, or the tab back card in front of you.

We have a serve week coming up in just a few weeks, and it's an opportunity for us to use what God has put in our hands to make a difference.

It's not to be perfect, just do the best we can with what we have.

And when we do that, God will use us to make a difference.

And here's the thing I love about it is that God has a promise that when we do what pleases him, there's joy in it.

He says this he says, For God is working in you, giving you the desire and power to do what pleases him.

That's what I love about this.

He said, You have a mission, you have a vision, but then you get to busy, get busy doing the thing.

And then when we get busy doing what God's called us to do, it can be something that seems so impossible for so long, and you begin to see it actually starting to happen because of the tools we are using.

And I love it so much that it took a hundred-year vision.

Our mission was done in 52 days, when everybody said, We're gonna do it together.

I can't do this by myself, but I can do this part of the wall, I can make it better, and if you will make your part of the wall better, I'll make my part of the wall better, we can do this.

And what seemed impossible, God started to do a miracle when we did one small piece at a time.

And the amazing thing is when we get that kind of vision behind what it is, it's amazing what God can do.

And I want to I want to give that to you, and I want to I want to kind of just pause on this for a moment because this week I've been hearing something over and over and over again, and it's this idea of God has a plan for our lives.

God's put some gifts, talents, abilities, and opportunities in your hands and in mine, and we're not called to be perfect with them, we're just called to make it better, do the best we can with what we have.

And here's the thing I'm gonna go ahead and tell you this whether you believe.

Or not, you're probably doing better than you realize.

God's for you more than you can imagine.

You've never been more loved than you are right now.

And the truth of it is, is that God is working in you right now.

He is giving you the desire.

That's the grit, that's the resilience, that's the stay with itness, and the power, that's the ability to do what pleases him.

And if you are trying your best to move forward and please the Lord, the Lord promises that he's doing something.

He promises that as you do the best you can with what you have, he's doing more than you can see.

Most of the time, we don't see 90% of what God is doing.

But you know what I've seen recently, especially in the past couple of weeks.

You ever been in a rainstorm?

And the rain starts to fall so fast and so hard that you know where the door is, but there's so much rain you can't see your way clear.

I feel like the enemy is sending so much discouragement in people's lives right now, so much heartache in people's lives, so so much just worry and fear that even though you're moving in the right direction, the enemy can't stop you from moving forward, but he can slow you down with discouragement and with anxiety to get to the point to where he doesn't have to make you bad, he just needs to make you distracted.

And for some of you, you you hear me saying this, and you're like, Well, Pastor, I do.

I want to move forward, but I'm so tired and I'm so weary.

What can I tell you?

God is doing more in you than you realize.

God is for you more than you can imagine.

God doesn't ask, He's not asking you to build the wall, he's saying, be faithful and do your part and watch what I can do.

But the enemy wants to come on all the time.

And if he can't pull you, he'll push you.

He'll tell you that if you were better, you'd be further.

Can I tell you you're in the Lord's hands?

God's moving in your life.

Can I just bind in the name of Jesus the lies of the enemy over the lives of the people real life church that want to tell you you're never gonna get there, that God's never gonna use you, that you're never gonna have a purpose.

All of that is a lie.

That God's moving in your life even right now.

And he has called all of us to make it better, to do the best we can with what we have, and there's joy there because we do it as an act of worship.

We do it and let God, old school, we used to call it sanctify us in the process.

And then we realize that he's making a difference in our lives.

In just a moment, we're gonna have a time of prayer.

And I don't know exactly what you need to do with this.

The band's gonna come up and they're gonna lead us in a song of worship, but I think there's at least two or three people in this place that you just need to be reminded that God's with you, that God is for you, that God's word says that in his presence is fullness of joy.

Jesus said, Come to me, all who are weary and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.

Take my yoke upon you, for my burden is easy, my yoke is light.

Yoke is not no weight, it's weight evenly distributed, to realize that there's a purpose in what God is doing.

And so, in just a moment, when we begin to sing this song of worship, maybe right where you are, you just need to raise your hands to the Lord and say, God, will you just overwhelm me with your presence again?

Remind me that you are close.

Remind me that I'm moving in the right direction.

It's okay to ask the Lord for just a double portion of his presence.

He makes us a promise that he says, if you will draw close to me, I will come and draw close to you.

Maybe that just needs to be what you need to do for a moment.

It's just to take a moment in an oasis of God's presence and just allow him to renew your soul and your heart.

Maybe you're in here.

And the other thing is your issue, and that is you don't know Jesus.

You know about him.

You've been trying to do this thing called life alone, and it's not working.

Can I tell you that's where our joy comes from?

It's not in who we are, but in who Jesus is, and that he's washed away all of our sins and he's made us new.

That's the source of our joy.

And if you're in here and you don't have the source of joy, which is your relationship with Jesus, today's your day.

Inside your worship God, on the back of your connect card is the plan of salvation.

It talks about how you can receive that joy because it's admitting that what you're doing is not working.

You're a sinner in need of a savior.

And when you come to him and you say, Jesus, I repent of my sins, wash away my sins, he does that.

He comes and lives inside of us.

Old things pass away, all things become new.

It's a dream come true.

Salvation for all of eternity.

If you've not made Jesus your Lord and Savior, today's the day.

And you can experience joy like never before.

I don't know what next step you need to take.

Maybe in just a moment, if you're in here and you know Jesus, but you're just weary right now, maybe you want to find a place up here when we pray.

Join us at the prayer table.

We'd love to pray over you.

Pray God's goodness over your life.

If today's a day of salvation, your next best act of worship is to join us at the prayer table as soon as we begin to sing and say, I want to receive Jesus.

But whatever it is, his presence is here today.

And I think he wants to tell you, you can make it better.

You can do the best you can with what I've given you, and it will be enough.

It will be okay.

I'm for you more than you can imagine.

Let's pray together right now.

God, thank you so much for today.