How Is A Community Built | Pastor Greg Ford Sermon | One Church Columbus

Amen.

Okay, the month of September.

We're going to be in the book of Nehemiah.

So if you have your Bibles, you can head that way.

We're going to be in Nehemiah chapter 3.

Nehemiah 3 · chapter mention

Nehemiah's in the Old Testament.

We are in a series of messages that we're calling Finish Strong.

And there's really two things I would encourage you to kind of be looking for throughout this message.

One, there's going to be a very obvious application for our church in this moment in time.

In this moment in time, obviously, we have some projects, some things that are important to our mission, which is to serve people, to serve God, worship God, and to serve people.

And so some of that is are some projects that I already mentioned, but we've taken on.

And so there's going to be some application around that.

But second, there's really application that's far beyond just what we're doing here and now.

You have responsibilities in your life that you've taken on.

Some within your own family, maybe some of it has to do with a business or career project or a community project that you're taking on, and you've begun this project, and it's very important that you finish it strong.

I think it's important for people to have a pattern of finishing strong.

Okay, it's not enough to just start something well.

Some people are really good starters and not good finishers.

And I think this is a part of our pattern that we want to give to our children.

I think it's part of our reputation within the community.

We want to be people who don't just start off well and lose steam, but people that finish well and finish strong.

And so some of the things I want to share today, I want to encourage you beyond just this community here, to allow the Lord to speak to you about other areas of your life that you need to finish strong.

We're in Nehemiah, and let me give just a little bit of context.

Some of you will give you a little refresher from last week without re-preaching the whole sermon.

Nehemiah 1 introduces this character, Nehemiah.

These are his memoirs.

And Nehemiah shows up in 444, 445 BC in the Persian Empire.

Just like a good story, it starts to develop the character.

So in Nehemiah 1, it shares that he is the cupbearer to Artaxerxes, who is the Persian emperor.

That's significant because a cupbearer was more than someone who just brought the king his drink.

He was tasked with keeping the king from being poisoned.

One of the main ways you would try to kill an emperor would be to slip something, some poison into his drink and to kill him that way.

And of course, we looked last week.

So you would think if your dad died at the hands of his own bodyguard, you would probably have a paranoia that you can't trust anybody near you.

You would only let people close to you who had fully proven themselves.

So we see that Nehemiah was someone who had spent a lifetime being consistent and improving himself with consistent character, and because of that he had proximity to Artaxerxes.

So we see not only is he trustworthy, but he finds out from his brother that 700 miles away, the walls of Jerusalem are still in a big pile of rubble.

So they had been destroyed by a previous empire 150 years earlier, and they're still down.

And so it says that this hit him so hard, and it hit him for two big reasons.

One, um, because these people are now raising their children and raising their families in a city that is unsafe.

The walls of a city represent protection.

This is how you keep the vandals out by having another nation or another group of people come in and attack you.

And so these people are sitting ducks.

The second is their temple has been rebuilt 70 years earlier, and their holy place is also a sitting duck.

It has no walls to protect it either.

And so you have these two things.

One, he's concerned for their safety, and two, it says they're living in disgrace.

And right there, you have he's touched by a tangible need like safety, but also an intangible need like disgrace.

And his character is being built out in front of us.

We see he's not only trustworthy, but he's a person of great empathy.

Very easy to just turn a blind eye to something 700 miles away.

But it says he weeps, he sits down, he he he he mourns, he fasts, he prays, he asks God, he says, God, this bothers me.

And for four months it says that he continue to pray and ultimately come up with a plan and say, God, if you'll open a door, I'll walk through it.

I will leave this good job that I'm good at, that I'm comfortable, and I will leave, and I will go to a city with no walls to fix a problem that can be fixed if you'll open the door.

Of course, chapter two, then you have Artaxerxes sees him down in the dumps and he says, Hey, what's going on?

I've never seen you like this.

And he opens up about what's bothering him.

And Artaxerxes says something that had to make Nehemiah's heart beat out of his chest.

He says, Well, how can I help you?

When the most powerful man in the world says, How can I help you?

That's a good day.

And so he's ready with an answer and he says, I need permission.

You're the only guy in the world that can give me this permission to do this.

Second, I need safe travel because if I go and I don't have your name on a piece of paper, someone's gonna kill me in the process.

And three, I need tangible timber, I need resources to rebuild this wall.

And again, we see the relationship between the intangible and the tangible, between the supernatural and the natural.

And that's a theme all throughout the Bible that you know we see things that are intangible, we see things that are supernatural.

We understand that the kingdom of God is supernatural, but that doesn't mean it's intangible.

And so he needs walls of a city to bring not only safety and protection, all right, but to rebuild a community.

Uh I want us to sit with this just for a second on the relationship between the tangible and intangible, because I think if we're not careful, you see something material, you can almost lose track of the fact that is there's something deeply spiritual, something you can't physically touch, but is very real happening at the same time.

If you go to the New Testament in James chapter 2, verse 16, uh it says, Hey, if you say to someone, go in peace.

James 2:16

All right, at peace, be blessed, keep warm and well fed, but you do nothing about their physical needs, what good is it?

What good is it to wish somebody well?

What good is it to say, God bless you?

What good is it uh to say, you know, be in peace when they are hungry and they're cold and you don't do anything to help them be warm and fed?

And so he says, in the same way, faith by itself, if you just have faith that's not accompanied by action, is dead, is useless.

Verse 18 says, but someone will say, I have faith, I'm a person of faith, uh, you have faith, and I have deeds.

He says, but show me your faith without deeds, and I will show you my faith by my deeds.

So we know this.

God produces what only God can produce, but all throughout Scripture, we are repeatedly invited to bring tangible resources and to place them in the hands of God to bring about extraordinary results.

And sometimes the most spiritual thing you can do is to put something physical in God's hand.

Last week we uh ended off in chapter three, so go ahead and bring this up.

Nehemiah three, if you remember this, nope, yep, that is what we want to look at.

That is uh 40 names that are highlighted.

And these 40 names don't just represent 40 individuals, it's 40 work crews.

And you don't need to see all the names.

I told you last week we were going to zoom in on a few of these names, but this is showing the group of people that participated, about a thousand people that participated in the rebuilding of these walls.

Just to be clear, I mentioned this last week, but it's good to say again.

None of the people that did the manual physical labor to rebuild the wall were builders.

These were priests, these were Levites, these were local leaders, these were perfume makers, it says, Goldsmiths, these were merchants.

They weren't people that built.

What they had was building supervisors.

So there were competent people.

Uh the text talks about that, this building supervisors, but the manual labor was done by people who did not do this for a living.

Uh, I want to zoom in on a few things and really kind of get our bearings on what's happening here, and some really cool things are going to emerge.

Uh, Nehemiah 3.1 uh starts the chapter and it says, Eliashib, the high priest, and his fellow priests went to work to rebuild the sheepgate.

All right, go ahead and bring up that uh bring up that map here.

And what what this map's gonna do, if you can kind of see it, you see that uh the verses, you know, 3.1, 3.3, you see basically it when you read through chapter 3, it just makes a loop around the wall and is explaining how the wall was built.

And so I want to show you, I want to zero in on a few of them.

But you see up there in the the top right corner, um, you have the sheepgate that the priest built.

And when you hear sheepgate, obviously we know it it contained their livestock, but the sheepgate was the front gate or the front door, so to speak, of the city.

This is where people would enter into the city.

And it says here that they dedicated it and set its doors in place.

Okay?

Now think about that again.

I would just want to come back to this theme we've already been touching on and the relationship between the tangible, the physical, and the metaphysical.

Right?

So it says they they build this sheepgate, but then it says they dedicated it.

In other words, they came around with a ceremony, with a ritual, to be reminded that this isn't just walls, this isn't just a pen for our animals.

This is deeper than that, it's part of our community.

And think about what we just did.

A few minutes ago, we dedicated children.

Right?

And anybody who's ever raised a child knows that every season has its own challenges.

When they're little, you're getting up in the night and you're changing diapers.

Eventually, there's some temper tantrums, and each season of life, there's unique challenges, and a lot of it's dirty work.

Okay, but what do you do?

In these moments, we remind, we step back from the tangible and we think about the intangible and we go, Lord, this work is holy.

And we as a community are also part of that ritual because we realize we're supporting these caregivers, we're supporting these parents and grandparents and families that are raising these kids, but we know it takes a village to raise a child.

So in this dedication moment, we're all thinking about our responsibility in each other's lives to help to do this sacred thing, which is to raise people made in God's image up into their full potential, right?

So you have tangible work, but the dedication is the intangible.

We build the sheep gate, we don't just build the sheep gate and go, job well done, cut the ribbon and move on.

We stop to dedicate it and go, Lord, this is your community.

It's a tangible wall, it's a tangible space, but it's about something more than just that.

Um, it starts getting interesting in verse 5.

So if you go to verse 5, uh it says, next were the people from Tokoa.

Look at this.

It says, though their leaders refused to work.

Some of you have the NIV where it says, their nobles would not put their shoulders into the work.

Uh the ESV says their nobles would not stoop to serve their Lord.

Um, go ahead and go to that next one over here.

So this is to get your bearings, over here to the left, this is where the people of Tocoa were responsible to rebuild this wall.

And what it says is the citizens of Tokoa did the work.

The nobles of Tocoa refused to stoop down and bring themselves under someone else's leadership.

Um, it's a really powerful picture, and it's the only place in all of chapter three that we see somebody refused to participate in the project.

They felt that it was beneath them.

Now, sometimes people choose to not participate in a project because they may go, hey, that's not mine to do.

We talked about that last week.

Sometimes they're all throughout life, you're just inundated with causes and things.

You go, is that for me?

Is this mine to do?

Should I do anything?

And sometimes there are things you don't do anything with.

Sometimes people want to do something, they see that the wall, they see the need.

I see the wall being rebuilt.

And I've been in the position, maybe you've been in position, where you're like, I want to do something, but there's just I can't, I don't have anything.

I've told this story before, but it's been a long time, and it's true and kind of funny.

When I was in college, um, I used to uh I had a car and I would drive people to church, but I didn't have hardly any money.

I would cut hair in the dorms uh for you know three dollars a haircut uh so I could get some cheeseburgers and gas money.

And so all I basically spent you know my money on cheeseburgers and gas money, and so it was all I had to get to church.

And and then I brought people with me and none of them had any money, so I was paying for the gas.

And so I drive them to church, and at this church that I went to, every time they took the offering, they would have people take the envelope and they say, hey, take your offering and just hold it up to the Lord, you know, and people would would do it, but I didn't have any money.

But I I felt bad because everybody's everybody's doing this, and I'm like, I love this church, and I wanted to be a part of it.

And so I just grabbed empty envelopes and be like, Jesus, someday, Lord, someday.

In the name of Jesus, someday, Lord, fill this up, God.

I and I I waved more empty envelopes and you can possibly, they're like, just wave that offering in front of God.

I'm like, Lord Jesus, you know, you I know what you did with the loaves and the fish.

I think you just do something with this empty envelope.

I put more empty envelopes in that offering bucket you by faith.

Okay, so I I know I know what it's like.

I've been there in the place where you, it's not that you don't want to do something, it's that sometimes you you can't.

You're like, man, I'm out, like I don't have anything.

I'm fighting for my life here.

I don't have energy, time, money.

This is not about shaming that.

Okay.

What you have here is much different in verse five.

You have the nobles of Tokoa.

These are people who have resources, these are people who are in position to do something, but they refuse to stoop down to do the work.

Now, this is why we don't just skip over these chapter three, because it's got all these names, it's an easy one to flip past.

Watch this.

Verse five says that the people of Tokoa essentially picked up the slack for the leaders that refused to stoop down and do the work.

If you skip down to verse 27 and go ahead and go to that next slide, look at verse 27.

It says, Then came the people of Tokoa who repaired another section across from the great projecting tower and over the wall of Ofel.

So in verse 5, you have the people, the citizens of Tokoah, that say, our leaders are too proud and too good to help.

We'll pick up the slack for them.

And when they got done with it, they walked all the way across to the other side of the community and rebuilt that section too.

I they went above and beyond.

It made me think about as I was just sort of meditating on this text, I thought back on uh our youth pastor, Brady Black, a few weeks ago, was preaching on that great text where the Apostle Paul talks about the human body.

And he says, Look at the body, it's it's got all these different parts to it, and and they all have different functions, but they're all working together.

They don't look alike, they're different, but it all contributes to one body.

And he says, you know, the hand and can't say to the eye, I don't need you.

And so he was talking a little bit about, I mean, you think about like an eye, right?

How you know eyes get complimented, like, oh, you have beautiful eyes, and you know, uh just the eye is so so so cool, so um amazing the way it's constructed.

And I mean, you think about being able to take images through your eye into your brain, it's a huge part of our sensory experience and and quality of life.

And so you can easily taking that metaphor, you can see how somebody would go, you know, I'm I'm just a you know, big toe.

You know, that's all I am.

I'm just a big toe.

All I do is get caught on the blanket.

You know, that I don't, there's not that, you know, in fact I'm covered most of the time as I should be.

And and you, you know, you think you're not if I was an I, I would do more.

So some people don't activate, some people don't engage, some people don't, they're not part of the coordination because they think they're insignificant, they think their contribution can't move the needle.

They go, well, if I had more, I would do more.

You know, I can't, I'm no art of Xerxes.

I can't swipe a pen and and create access.

I I can't do this and that.

And and communities, guys, you gotta stop thinking like that.

If that's how you think, you are missing the point.

Communities are built on good citizens that say, look, I may not be able to do everything I wish I can do, and I may not be able to do some things I'll be able to do someday, but today I'm gonna do my part of it.

I'm gonna do, and I'm gonna be proud of it.

I'm gonna be good with it.

And and so what you see here are people that decide to step up and do their part, and then you have people uh like the nobles of Tocoa who don't engage, and it's not because they don't think uh they have anything to offer, it's because they think they're too good for the project.

And so this is where when that starts to happen, when people don't participate, now communities start to get off kilter, and and and communities don't work well that way because now somebody's got to pick up the slack because there's a hole in the wall with my name on it.

And I don't want there to be a hole in the wall with my name on it.

I may not be able to do everything that I want to do, but I'm certainly not proud, so too proud to throw my shoulder into the work.

Thank God that in chapter three there's only one group of people that didn't step up, and other people came around and picked up the slack.

And so I just want to encourage you today to to whether uh even if you think that your contribution isn't significant enough, do your part.

Do your part, whether it's here on these projects, whatever God has called you to do outside of these walls, don't diminish your own work.

Step up and do it, and don't become one of these people that's too proud.

Okay, there's a great, great quote.

I don't know who came up with it, but it's great.

They said, if you're too big to serve, you're too small to lead.

And the nobles of Tokoah had begotten so big in their own heads that they were unwilling to stoop down and to serve their Lord.

Let's keep going.

Nehemiah 3, 12.

This is oh, I love this one.

So this verse 12 says, Shalom, the son of Haloesh, and his daughters repaired the next section.

He was the leader of the other half of the district of Jerusalem.

Now, look what you just read.

One, it makes note, these are Nehemiah's memoirs, and Nehemiah notes hey, this guy, Shalem, he worked and he brought his girls with him.

He brought his daughters.

In our world, that may not be that abnormal, but in their culture at that time, um, because of, you know, they girls did not do manual labor.

And so this is something that was so abnormal.

It was such a statement that Nehemiah captured it and documented it and made sure we were still talking about it.

You think about Shalem, and by the way, look what it said in the second sentence.

Who was he?

He was also a noble, he was a leader.

So you have now this contrast between the nobles of Tokoa who won't throw their shoulder into the work.

They're too good to stoop.

And then you have Shalem who says, No, I understand the work that's being done here, and not only am I going to do it, I'm bringing my girls with me.

And that may not be culturally acceptable to you or socially acceptable and appropriate, but uh I understand the opportunity here.

I'm bringing my girls, and I want everyone in the community to see my daughters do this, and I know this is what this is doing for them.

Imagine being one of Shalom's daughters, and you have a culture that tells you what you can and can't be, and you're standing next to your dad and he's showing you how to do this trout, and you're putting the brick on there, and you're like, I can't lift it.

He's like, Yes, you can.

And you put that thing on there, okay?

And when the when this the when the community is now secure because the wall was built, how many friends do you think you brought up?

This was my section right here.

I did this right, I did this right here.

Shalom's daughters were learning their own capability.

They were learning how to be good citizens in the community.

They were learning that nobody was gonna define who they were.

And so Shalom's making the statement of the world, a noble who said, I'm gonna go to another district, and I'm gonna take my daughters with me, and everyone's gonna see it, and it's gonna be a part of their formation.

Uh, last week I I brought this card up, which we're we're asking this month on the card that there's in uh the pocket in front of you, these cards that just communication.

We're asking everyone to pray about and to do something in the next year for these next 12 months to help us to finish strong on these projects.

I can tell you.

We need it.

We need the help.

But it it we asked everyone to do this.

And so last week we received a few of these in hand, and then there's also a digital card as well.

And I want to show you this was really cool.

This came in.

Two of the ones that we received.

Go ahead and bring bring that up.

By the way, I said this wrong first service, I got it right second service.

But these are two different things that we received.

The first one I scribbled out the name on there because it's a child's name.

It's a six-year-old child in our church.

A six-year-old child who gave a dollar and sixty-five cents to the project.

And then underneath that, uh, we don't know who uh this person is, we don't know what their age is, they didn't include their name, but they gave six dollars to the project, and they said, Thank you, God, that I'm able to give.

And I thought about this, and I thought, you know, what better way to see in front of us the idea that, yeah, of course there's a bill to be paid, and yes, there's square footage to be built, but come on, this is not about buildings and square footage.

You think about a child that gave a dollar and sixty five cents that's gonna be building relationships, learning about God, learning about themselves in a room, and they're gonna go, you know, I help pay for this.

Look at the other kids and go, you're welcome, you know.

Wasn't for me, none of you would be here today, you know.

I love it.

I love it.

I love that the child has skin in the game.

I love that the child says, I'm gonna be a part of this.

I love that somebody said, you know what?

Of course I wish I could do more, but I'm gonna give my six dollars.

I'm gonna give it, you know.

It may not be much in your eyes, maybe it doesn't move the needle, but this is moving me.

Thank God I have the ability to give.

I'm giving I'm getting skin in this game.

I'm I'm a part of this.

I I'm a part of this.

Not only when we break the ground, but when I see the spaces work and do what God designed them to do, I'm gonna know I had a part of it.

So Shalom brings his girls along so that the community can see, but so that his girls can be formed.

We'll keep going.

Verse 14, Nehemiah 3, 14.

This is this gets interesting.

It says, the dung gate was repaired by Malchijah, the leader of Beth Hakarim district.

He rebuilt it, set up the doors, and installed the bolts and bars.

Okay, uh, we won't spend a ton of time here, but it's worth a little stop.

Uh you can probably figure out what the dung gate is.

Okay.

Uh if you don't know what dung is, just Google it and you'll figure out real quick, it's human waste.

So when you think about 400 BC sanitation systems, they didn't have uh a crew of people that came and collected their trash from the curb.

They didn't have toilets that you flush and a sewage system.

You collected everything from last night's pizza to broken pottery all in a container.

Someone's job is to carry that to, by the way, the dungate, which is the back door of the city.

So the sheepgate's the front door, the dungate's the back door.

Somebody takes all of our family junk, dumps it at the dungate.

Now, somebody's got to do that job.

Who did it?

Malkegeh did it.

Who is Malkegeh?

This is where it gets good.

He's the leader of Beth Hakarim.

He's a noble from Beth Hakaram.

Where's Beth Hakarim?

Nowhere near the Dungate.

He could have stayed in Beth Hakarim and said, somebody will do the Dungate.

This is not going to be me.

I'm a noble.

I don't put my shoulder into such work, I don't stoop to that level.

He could have sent somebody who worked for him, but it says that Malkeja said, give me the dungate.

Somebody's got to do the dungate.

And what it takes in a community, for a community to be the kind of community any of us would want to live in, is that everybody does their part.

Nobody leaves a hole in the wall with their name on it, and some people go above and beyond.

And sometimes the above and beyond is the citizens of Tocoa picking up slack for their bad leaders.

Sometimes it means Arta Xerxes swiping a pen and doing something that only the emperor can do.

Sometimes it's going and working in a district other than your own.

A lot of people worked across the street from their own house, like we said last week.

Some of them worked in their own space, some worked in their own district, and then some, like Malchija, said, Give me the dung gate.

I'll do the dirty work.

I'll do the things that are you know nobody gets a trophy for, nobody uh is proud of, but needs to be done.

So when you really look at Nehemiah 3, there are three sort of categories of citizen that comes to the surface.

Many did their part, some went above and beyond, and a few did nothing.

And at some point we all have to figure out which one we're gonna be.

Whether it's this particular project or anything that's in your life, you have to look and go, Am I gonna be the person who does my part?

And there are some projects that will be your part is to simply do your part.

There will be other projects or other things where you'll sense God tapping you on the shoulder and saying, I need you to pick up the slack over here.

For one reason or another, these people didn't do what they were supposed to do, and we can't have a hole in the wall.

I'm asking you to go the extra mile.

I'm asking you to do above and beyond.

And again, at some point you have to decide if I'm not willing to stoop and put my shoulder into the work, I need I need to be honest about that.

Of course, there are some things that you go that's not mine to do, and that's fine.

But when there is a something that God's calling you to do, you have to decide which category I want to be in.

Uh I end with this, and this is this is my favorite part of the whole thing.

This is um this is the literary element.

Uh, one of the probably the best literary element of Nehemiah 3 is 15 different times it mentions what shows up in English as next to them or next to him.

So it is it goes around the wall from verse to verse, 40 different work crews, it says this person worked next to them, worked next to them, worked next to them.

And those two words are the Hebrew words weel yado, we el yado.

And what it means is they worked hand upon hand.

Hand upon hand.

Of course, it's not claiming that they were holding hands while they worked, what it's doing is giving a visual that while this person worked next to that person, next to that person, that the work itself, the building of the wall, the project, became the community mortar.

If you walk out the door right now, you walk out this door and you look to the right, you're gonna see a huge brick wall being built, like now.

Go ahead and bring up that picture.

I asked them to take a picture of it this week.

There's a huge wall being built, and the wall is the wall between the new lobby and the new auditorium.

So I've been watching these guys, these masons are out there building these walls.

And go ahead and zoom in on this.

This is a small cross section of that wall.

It's a familiar thing.

You've and if you've ever looked at a brick wall, you've seen this.

This image right here, if you were putting Nehemiah 3 in a picture, it's this picture right here.

The term next to them, next to them, next to them that shows up 15 times is describing people as the bricks and the work of building the wall as the mortar.

It's using the physical wall as a metaphor for the more important work.

Of course, building the wall brings a tangible wall and it solves a real problem.

It gives us security so that we can live safely in this in the city.

So it, yes, it's something tangible, but the greater work is the building of the community.

And so it's saying because they did this the right way, this brick worked next to this brick, and the work itself brought them together in community.

It became community mortar.

This has been my prayer since day one, since before we moved one speck of dirt.

Lord, I believe I know these walls are gonna be built.

I know that this space is gonna be there.

It's not a matter of, are we gonna build it?

It's a matter of, are we gonna build it the right way?

And I've been praying every step of the way, whether it was inflation, whether it was delays, all kinds of challenges.

I'll get into some of that next week, because anything you do that's worth doing most of the time has challenges.

Very rarely, I just haven't talked to anybody do anything significant.

They're like, you know, it was like a hot knife through butter.

You know, it was just too easy.

It was too easy.

Like you expect challenges, you expect opposition.

We've had more than our fair share.

We'll get into that later.

But but the the the point is, I've been asking God, Lord, would you use every single part of this to be about much more than square footage?

About, Lord, would you keep us focused on building this community?

Lord, as we build these walls, as we build these buildings, Lord, would you build us?

Would you build us?

Um when we were, long story short, we've had to um in this project to finance it, we've had to borrow some of the money, and then we've done some of it with cash.

And so there was a part of the project we couldn't borrow for, and we need we needed to with cash, which is our our kids, our kids' classrooms, and we were short, we didn't have the money to do it.

And so I reached out to a few people and I reached out to this one guy and I said, Hey man, I have no idea if this is a good time or not.

Feel free to tell me no, but we need help.

This is where we're at.

Can you do it something?

So he comes uh and walks around the property and he looks at the work and he gets to the end of it and he says, Um, uh, I'm gonna help.

I said, Thank you so much.

I said, What are you gonna do?

And he and I actually I said, You can take some time and pray about it.

He goes, I don't even need to.

He goes, I've been praying about it.

I already know what I'm gonna do.

And then he tells me, and what he told me essentially made it so we could finish the work.

And so I'm in that spot where I'm like like uh like I don't have words to thank.

I'm like, I'm thank you, just doesn't feel like enough.

I'm trying to thank him on behalf of all of us and and behalf of all of our kids.

And I'm like, man, you know, thank you.

And and he goes, he goes, listen, so let me tell you something.

He goes, I uh sometimes I feel like I know too much.

He goes, I have my eye on what's happening around the world.

My business is affected by global politics, global economy.

He goes, and he's talking about the dollar, and he's talking about this, he's talking about that, and he goes, and he goes, and all of this, I've worked my whole life to earn some things.

He goes, and I've gotten to this place, he goes, where I've I've got a lot.

He said, but when I look at the world in front of me, I get so scared.

He goes, and in my fear, my instinct is to just hold on to everything I have, to hide behind it.

And he said, I've been praying because I've been so gripped with fear.

I've been praying, Lord, help me with this fear.

He goes, and God has been speaking to me in my heart and saying, You need to not do what your instincts are telling you to do, which is to become a hermit, to put up walls, me against the world.

He said, because when I he goes, when I become afraid, I become a terrible community member because I forget about every, I think it's every man for himself.

And so I take everything I have and I use it for me.

He said, and the Lord has just been he's just been challenging me.

The only way that I'm gonna help you get past this fear is that you take this and you actually become a great community member.

You stop forgetting about the community and you start giving to it.

And he said, I knew I needed to do something to have that fear lose its grip within me and to not forget that I'm a part of a community.

God has not created me to go isolate myself, bat down the hatches, and barely make it to death.

He said, My I'm actually supposed to be a part of a community.

God's created me for connection and my fear has been holding me back.

He said, So I've been asking God, Lord, give me something tangible so I can take this up as part of my formation.

So he said, I know the kids will be blessed, and I know that you guys will do good, great work with this and all of that.

He said, but this is part of my formation.

I step back, I was like, God, thank you for letting me stand right here, right now.

It doesn't get any better than this.

I know that we're helping the kids, I know the spaces are needed, I know the work's done, but I'm sitting here seeing this guy go, this is part of my formation.

And I just have to think that in this volatility of the world that we have, some of us can relate, if not all of us, to his position.

There is a there is a fear about what about me, what about me?

And when I invest in the community, when I trust the community, that I say I have something to give right now, but what happens if I don't?

Will the community be there for me?

It requires a community of reciprocity.

And this is why, again, in projects like this, often a bunch of individuals who are not connected, if we do this the right way, we do this the right way, God will use even the tangible work to do the intangible work.

Yeah, the walls are important because they're environments, but they're not nearly as important as the building of people and the building of community.

Look at these verses in the New Testament.

1 Peter 2, 5 says, You also like living stones, not inanimate stones.

No, you you're like you're like living stones being built into a spiritual house to be a holy priesthood, offering spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.

Ephesians 2, 19 through 21.

You are members of God's family.

Together we are his house, built on the foundation of the apostles and the prophets, and the cornerstone is Christ Jesus Himself.

We are carefully joined together in him, becoming a holy temple for the Lord.

1 Corinthians 3 9, for we are co-workers in God's service.

You are God's field, God's building.

Of course, we cannot manufacture God's results, but we can resource God's work.

We all know that money cannot transform or change a heart, but money can help build a space, build a room, facilitate.

Facilities facilitate the work of God where someone finds Jesus and He's the one that transforms a heart.

So here's how I want to end it today.

Uh I want to invite you to stand on your feet.

At some point this month, again, asking whether it's today or sometime soon, either in person or online, would you fill this out?

The more that communication you give us and say, Hey, here's what I plan to do the next year, it is so helpful to help us to make wise decisions and to do the things God's called us to do.

But before we do this, I'm gonna do my least favorite thing growing up in church.

All right, so any of you guys grow up in church.

I grew up in church, and and every so often, in fact, probably more often than I preferred, at the end of service, the pastor who was my father, um, would um he would say, All right, everybody join hands.

Okay, which I hated that.

I hated that.

I don't like holding people's hands unless it's Shaylin or my kids.

I just don't like holding people's hands.

And for some reason, I had this weird thing.

Whenever I'd hold people's hands, I think I got nervous and my hand would start throbbing.

And it was like a heartbeat in my hand, which I was like, they're gonna think I'm weird.

And then my hand, then I would get nervous and start sweating.

So my hand was sweating, and then I wasn't sure, frankly, if it was my hand or their hand was sweating, it was a lot of sweat that was mixing, and then my dad would reserve his longest prayers for when we were holding hands, and it just felt like it was never gonna end.

So if you've been here for years, you know we just we've not done this before, okay?

But I just feel like we should, right?

The text gave it to us.

It says hand upon hand, community mortar.

Come on, if we can't hold hands today, we'll never hold hands.

All right, so we're gonna hold hands today.

So go ahead and grab the hand of the person next to you.

Uh, do what they call bridging the gap in the aisle, okay?

So reach across the aisle and grab a hand.

I just think it's appropriate in this moment, right?

In this moment in time, in this moment in time that we stop, that we slow down, that we offer ourselves to God.

There's something, obviously, that we're all called to do as this community together, but there's a whole bunch of things that pertain to your life beyond this, and I pray that God will use that very powerfully today.

Lord, we come to you in Jesus' name.

Lord, even as I look out at the community mortar, bricks and mortar.

Lord, it is about so much more than buildings.

And in our humanity, so often we can get caught up in those things that don't matter.

And yet, Lord, I thank you that you help us to stay aware of what really does matter.

Lord, at some point, this property, these buildings, someone's gonna knock them down and do something else is temporary from an infrastructure standpoint, but from an eternal standpoint, there's things that happen here that last forever.

And so I pray, Lord, that you would miraculously provide.

Lord, help us each to do our part.

Lord, I pray from a dollar 65 cents all the way up to whatever, what whatever the top end is.

Lord, I pray that each person that does their part would feel the joy, the joy of generosity, the joy of participating in your work, just like Shalom's daughters putting one or two or however many bricks in the wall.

Every time they walk past that wall, they saw what they did, what you led them to do, what you empowered them to do.

And so, God, I pray that you would help us each to do our part.

And Lord, maybe there are some today that you are moving to go above and beyond.

They're in a position to maybe do more.

I pray, God, you would be specific with them on what that is.

I don't know what that is.

It's between you and them.

I pray that you would speak that, Lord.

And today, God, I pray that you would continue to use as we build these buildings, God, that God, you would build our community.

Build our community, bring us together, God, for your glory in Jesus' name.

Everybody said amen.

Amen.

Amen.