Walls and Gates

This next this next seven weeks, I would just like to soft reboot and give you some things to think about.

Like already two things have happened today, unprompted by me, that I have been quite enthusiastic about.

The first one was Dan, who said, Um, we're gonna come to a time of communion.

And then he said, if you're here and you don't know what that is, don't worry about it.

You don't have to have it.

You can ask questions later.

Just be free to sit there and not know.

And that's totally okay.

And I loved it.

And then the second thing, unprompted, that I loved was then Kay said, Um, here's a baptism announcement if you want to get baptized.

And that she basically said, wants, fine, sure.

But also need is probably a more appropriate word.

I want to talk to you today.

The topic of the sermon, uh, the title of the message is is walls and gates.

And those two little comments there, I think, wonderfully illustrate what it is that I want to communicate with you today.

And the first one is that we have to have walls that establish culture in the church.

That was what Kay said.

She basically said, hey guys, baptism's not just like a random throwaway thing.

She gave you a really short little theology on baptism.

She's like, Jesus said, repent and be baptized.

And sometimes the and be, we can take, you know, 15 years to think about it.

She's like, Don't think about it.

It's it's instructed in the Bible, you should do it.

Little teaching to do what?

Established culture.

That's walls.

And Dan, though, in the exact same service, and these guys are engaged too, which is just which is just brilliant, you know.

He said, Here's communion, which is another cultural dynamic of being a Christian.

And he gave you a little teaching on it.

But then he said, Hey, building walls is great, but let's make sure there's a wide gate.

He said, You can come into this walled city and it should be porous.

Like you should be able to penetrate this place and not know and be here, and that's okay.

And you might then go, not for me.

I think as Christians, we can spend a lot of time building the walls so much so that we get so comfortable because we want to build walls that keep us safe.

But I want to challenge and encourage us to keep doing that.

But in this series, I want to take another look at what else Nehemiah built, which was the gates.

Is that okay?

Thank you, Lord.

Father.

Father, we would just pray, Lord, for your presence, for your blessing in this place.

Father, we ask, Lord, that you would um that of the sermon that's preached, there might be many messages that are received.

Father, that you would take, Lord, what's on my heart that I think you've put there.

And I would just ask that you would just do something great with it in our hearts.

Let this sermon and let this series and let our time together, let it, let it bind us together.

Let it help us figure out what it is that we are doing here.

And I pray, Lord, that you would bless our hanging out in the wakka.

It's been windy recently, uh, but it's usually really nice out there.

But let us remember where we're going.

Give us intention and direction, we pray in Jesus' name.

And everybody said.

Nehemiah 2, verse 17 says this.

Nehemiah 2:17

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

Jerusalem lies in ruins, and its gates.

Now you know this is no misdirection in this sermon, you know exactly what we're talking about, and its gates have been burned with fire.

Come and let us rebuild the wall of Jerusalem, so that we will no longer be in disgrace.

I also told them about the gracious hand of my God on me and what the king had said to me.

They replied, Let us start rebuilding.

I love this last line.

And so they began this good work.

I'm asking us today to consider what it is the work that we are doing.

Acts 2, verse 42 says this.

Acts 2:42

You know this verse, but I think it's so helpful for us as we look at this dynamic or this dichotomy of the walls and gates.

It says this they devoted themselves to the apostles' teaching and the fellowship and the breaking of bread, amen, and prayer.

Everyone who was filled with awe, everyone was filled with awe with the many wonders and signs being performed by the apostles.

All the believers, that's us, were together and had everything in common.

That's a miracle.

They sold property, that's crazy, and possessions, no way, we would never to give to anyone who had need.

Every day they continued to meet together in the temple courts.

They broke bread in their homes and ate together with glad and sincere hearts, praising God and enjoying the favor of all of the people.

And the Lord added to their number daily those who were being saved.

And lastly, John 13.

Love one another as I have loved you.

So you must love one another.

By this, everybody will know that you are my disciples.

One more time.

Love one another as I have loved you.

So you must love one another.

By this, everybody will know that you are my disciples.

Uh I feel like I've chosen these verses.

I feel like the Lord's been speaking to me from this verse.

I've actually never preached from the book of Nehemiah, but over the last month or so, it's definitely been what the Lord has been uh impressing on my heart.

And in this, in this verse, we have these two pictures that are clearly established by Nehemiah, and then uh we think that um Luke wrote the book of Acts as like a Luke Acts little jewel volume combo.

We have these two pictures that are being established, and for us, I'm not trying to set them up as this ver as this dichotomy, as this rap battle, as this it's one versus another.

I'm not trying to set them up as two things that are opposed, but tensions that keep it held together.

I don't know if you've been on many nature walks to dock huts in New Zealand.

Um, but when you get to a tension bridge, a swing bridge, um, I'm glad that there's tension.

Because if there was no tension, there would be no bridge.

If the tension was too tight, you might stand and the bridge would break.

If it was too loose, you'd be in the river.

Uh I I'm not musical, but I did ask some musicians and and we saw Dan playing his string instrument this morning, and I was thinking, oh man, I have to buy him some new strings, but wouldn't it be funny if we got him up here and did a test of how much tension you could put on his strings before they snap?

Too loose, though, and and and we would turn them down through the front of the house.

Too tight and it would snap.

That there's music in the tension that we have here in the book of Nehemiah, these walls held in tension by the gates.

So you've got to have something to, I mean, your house doesn't just have doors.

Imagine that.

Imagine if you had no walls, just doors.

Anyone could come, but you would feel unsafe.

And so you would put up walls, but your house has doors.

Imagine if your house was just walls.

How would you get in?

There's a tension between the two.

Then we read in the book of Acts that you've got all of these, all these uh believers together.

I mean, it's a miracle that they did what they did, that they had what the scripture says that they have.

They had everything in common, they they sold their possessions, they owned nothing, and everyone gave to one another, and there was no need.

I remember someone prayed a prayer once that I thought was ridiculous.

He said, Lord, I pray that you would abolish prisons.

This is James Ducksfield.

And I was like, that's the most ridiculous prayer.

What does he mean by that?

And then he was like, Lord, that there would be no crime, that there would be no criminals.

And then it became, and I was like, wow, far out.

That's one of the most audacious prayers I've ever heard.

That he was praying that people would be so transformed that there would be no crime.

Well, we have this picture in the New Testament of a group of believers that there was no need amongst them.

Walls.

But then the Bible says that the Lord added to their number daily those that were being saved.

And so this community, this city, and Nehemiah is talking about the great city of God, the city of David, the city of Jerusalem, so wonderful that they're like, but just a just a wonderful shining light in the world.

That it was not a place that you couldn't get into, but the Lord added to the number daily.

We read here in the words of Jesus that he says that you will love one another walls, but that that love would be such a testament to the world that they would know that you are my believers because of your love for one another.

Walls and gates.

There were believers, but then there were those that were being saved.

I guess for us, a soft question we might ask this early in the sermon is how do we know that our faith community is effective?

Maybe we might ask ourselves, is the Lord adding to our number daily?

Maybe a test of our faith in the Lord might be whether we know that if we love the Lord based on the fact that Jesus said to love the Lord and to love our neighbor are the two most valuable commandments.

We might ask ourselves, do I know the names of my neighbors?

Someone challenged me the other day, they said, Oh, some people in the church want deeper teaching.

And I was kind of like, Yeah, you know.

I get it.

And then he said, uh, often when I encounter someone who wants deeper teaching, I ask them if they know the names of their neighbors.

And most of the time we don't.

Please, my goal as we talk today is not to set up uh a paradox, a dichotomy where we want one versus the other.

That you got the walls, I've got the gates.

That you pick one, I'll pick the other.

But as we talk, I wonder if what we'll find is that in your hearts, bubbling up might be one or the other.

I mentioned last week that Paul Stania is going to come and preach in a few weeks.

I can't wait to have Paul come and preach.

I wonder if we gave Paul the option.

Would you rather Paul choose the culture and the values of the church to be established or to make sure that the gates are repaired and people can come in?

I think that if you've met Paul, you might be able to answer for him.

You might even say that I'm not sure Paul is interested at all in what's happening in here, but very much interested in what's happening out there, that they might come in here and experience the love of Christ.

That's cool.

But you might go, ah, yeah, I get it, that Paul wants to bring people in from the outside that they might find Christ like we have.

But if there's no culture, what are they coming into?

And there are people in our church that nod like Paul or nod like the anti-Paul.

My goal is not to set up a versus, but to realize that they are those truths held in tension, that that bridge, that that string.

There's only music because of the tension of the two.

Um, our prayer meeting at church, we'll get to that, and you can join our prayer team.

Um, we'll get to that in later weeks.

Our prayer team is the least attended meeting in the church.

Today there were two of us.

I don't think the two of us are overly concerned about that.

But I just think that prayer is one of those things that when you gather to pray, if I if I had to like, if I close your eyes, raise your hands, there would be very few people that would go, I'm really excited to pray.

Probably the same amount of people that would be excited to go out and to preach the gospel on the street or give food to those who have no homes.

My point is this is that the wall illustration gives us an opportunity to realize that there's a place on the wall for all of us.

Walls and gates.

The music exists because of the tension.

Some things only work because tension is maintained.

Tension requires forces pulling in opposite directions.

Tension isn't necessarily evidence that something is wrong, but sometimes tension is what holds everything up.

In the church, we have kids' ministry.

That was one of the first ones for us, eh?

Because we had all these kids.

If you didn't ever come to the Monganui Community Hall, Mount Monganui Community Hall, in there there was like a quite a great little space.

It's kind of like an intermediate hall, like a primary school hall.

Wooden floors, stage, it was great, whatever, it's fine.

It was perfect.

It was great for what it was.

And then there was like a like a cafe lounge space.

And so we started the church, not knowing what kind of church we would, you know, what people we would gather, and the kind of people that would, yes, timing.

The kind of people that were, you're all good.

He's gone.

He Otis, he's yeah, okay.

We need a winger that has got courage and robustness like this young man, whether it's legal union, we're all good.

You know, we're happy either way.

And um, and then we had this, and what the church that we gathered was like my family, the teenage kids, younger kids, and the younger kids need supervision, and then there was a room for them.

And um, we almost um burnt out Anna Dixon, unfortunately.

That was not our goal, but it was like we don't have walls yet to help facilitate looking after the kids, which we also want to be safe and within walls.

All we have as a church is gates, we're just gates, just an open forum of people that would come.

And then as it went along, we kind of started establishing gate uh walls to take care of the things.

And then I imagine one day someone would be like, this is all good, but like we need a prison ministry.

And that they're not opposing, are they?

Only for the fact that we might not want them to be happening in the same place at the same time, the kids' ministry and the prison ministry, but the truths held in tension.

The visitors break, a chance for us to have a quick chat versus crisis care of marriages that are falling apart.

They both happen like truths, maybe not at the same time.

Christian ease, oh, we love it.

Versus talking regularly.

I'm not opposed to either, but the truths held in tension.

Deep teaching in the church versus new people to church.

They're not, I'm not opposed to either, but they community, new people, a worship team for everybody.

This is a good one.

That anybody might be able to be involved in the worship team.

I like that thought until we execute it.

But I also don't think that we should only have elite, skilled musicians, that we make practice six hours a week, multiple nights, give them lots of songs, difficult transitions, um, that they have to bring their own instruments that are that are worthy of the highest standard.

But the the the truths are the edges are ridiculous.

Like it's not good for the church if I do anything else apart from talking that involves a tune.

It's not good.

We would empty the church.

But at the same time, if you're kind of interested and you've got some skills and you can, the the standard can't be down here and be so high.

But truths are truths that are held in tension, like Dan's guitar strings.

Too focused on community and the new person feels lonely.

Too focused on new people, then the existing people can feel overlooked.

Walls and gates.

Walls establish and protect culture.

Gates allow people to enter in and participate in it.

It's not versus, it's both hand.

This is the challenge of the pastor, and this is the challenge of your pastor.

My humble submission contention to us today and for the next seven weeks is this it should be more than the challenge of the pastor, it should be the challenge of all the saints, especially those of us that have some skin in the game and have been around for a minute.

We should create and protect a culture so that people can enjoy it.

I don't know about you, but I'm a huge track pants fan.

Big fan, huge, big fan of track pants.

Just actually, I'm a fan, I'm a fan of a whole home fit.

I'm a pretty casual guy on the best of days, you know, and I wear reasonably comfy clothing.

Like I think today's a good example of that.

I've even got soft insoles inside my shoes.

But when I get home, oh man, at the door are my slippers waiting for me.

They also too have insoles.

Because I have plantar fasciitis and I want to keep running and not pay money to see the physio.

I like my track pants.

Uh I uh you might have seen me wear a green corduroy, it's like a thrifted, kind of like fleecy thing.

That that's that's a um that's a slashy, isn't it?

It's a slashy.

It's home slash out.

It's a slashy.

It's both.

I love it.

I love being comfortable.

I love making sure that the heat pump is on.

I'm having people over for dinner tonight.

I want them to feel warm and comfortable, fed and hydrated.

I want them to feel like they can be in my home and feel like they're having a good time.

But when it comes to the church, comfort needs to be met with caution.

Our natural tendency is away from challenge or difficulty.

We walk the path of least resistance.

The people pleasers among us find this the most difficult.

We were praying this afternoon and someone prayed and they said, Lord, we are thankful that we can meet without persecution.

And I was like, Yeah, yes, Lord, we are.

But I wonder, Lord, if our persecution is comfort.

That we're not being oppressed by people trying to remove our faith from us, but we live a life that there's no oppression of our faith, and so we kind of generate our own by being so comfortable.

And then we have an anxiety attack when we need to talk to the person next to us at church.

I shouldn't make light of anxiety attacks.

I do apologize for that.

I revoke that from the tape.

But the point partly still stands.

Luke 9, verse 23 says this whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me.

Luke 9:23

Discipleship involves the death of self-preservation and self-centered comfort.

But every time I make a point like this, just know that I'm not trying to land this with an overhand right.

They're all soft jabs to build the tension.

I said to someone, oh, in fact, in front of you, don't um you like that reference?

Yeah, was that alright?

Yeah, thanks, bro.

I appreciate it.

Um now, don't don't um don't do anything with the paper yet.

But in front of you, you can you can grab it if you want, but don't start writing.

But grab it, you can grab it.

But if you've already written, that's totally fine.

I just don't want you to be distracted.

We're only halfway through the sermon.

There is a there's a piece of paper.

Oh, can I have a copy of it?

Is that okay?

Thanks, bro.

Yeah, give me give me both.

This one here, so this one here, guys.

I did this.

Do you remember?

I've been telling you I was gonna do this.

Has you not been around long enough to hear me say that we're gonna do little printouts?

I did this.

And then Anna printed it.

Look how look how pixelated it is.

Look at it, it's terrible.

But it's also does the trick.

It's true's held intention, man.

And it didn't cost our church any money.

Thank you, Lord.

So this here, I've I've printed this off because I want you to know what we're doing for seven weeks.

So you can have a read of that at any time that you want.

Thank you, Klani.

But the second thing I want you to be writing down is is oh, thinking about and write down at the end, I'll give you a moment, is what are three words that describe local church for you?

Because when something like this comes up, bang, that's a challenge to your comfort.

And you go, ooh, yuck.

You might not write that down on your thing.

You might write down something else that's more just like, I feel like I can be comfortable at local.

And that's really cool.

But as you write your, and they're gonna be anonymous too, by the way.

You can write your name on it if you want, if you want me to see it, but they're anonymous.

But at the end of the series, won't it be great to see what are the truths and tension that we've all just together written?

Someone might say, I don't we don't talk about money at local, so we don't need to share about it.

Someone else might say, no matter if we don't talk about it, we need the highest degree of financial transparency.

Truth held intention.

Someone might say, we need to talk about money at local.

It'd be nice to talk about a little bit more.

Different people, different perspectives on different things, but building a community where we can live in harmony.

Nehemiah builds two things walls and gates.

Loving God is building walls, loving others is repairing the gates.

Building walls is for protection, repairing gates is to let others come in and experience that protection.

Building walls establishes culture.

Repairing gates allows others to live in those values.

Building walls, we build them to look after our family.

We repair gates to welcome our guests.

When my friends come over for dinner tonight, I'll definitely make sure that the door is at least unlocked.

Well, I'll actually make sure I have a door.

Because if I have doors and they're not working, how could they ever get in to experience the hospitality that I hope to share with them?

We spend time rebuilding walls as believers, but we are tethered to the gospel of Jesus Christ.

We're tethered to a message that needs to be heralded.

We're connected to a redemptive news that needs to be heard.

I think one of the challenges, I'm 42 years old.

I got saved when I was 12.

I've been walking with Jesus for 30 years.

I met my closest friends in church.

I met my wife in church.

We got married.

We had four kids.

A challenge for me, old sod like I am, is that I might just go, man, the Lord has answered all of my prayers.

I'm living in the prayers that I prayed.

And I when I saw you at special and we met that and I met that guy, I was like, hey man, how are you going?

And he goes, Living the dream.

And I knew he was a Christian straight away.

How you going, bro?

Living the dream.

I was like, yuck.

That's so classic Christian.

I didn't say that, I thought that.

You know, but hey, I get it.

I'm living the dream.

I am living, I'm living in the prayers that I prayed.

But the challenge is that I'm tethered to a gospel, that means that I can't now rest on those laurels.

I can enjoy them, but I have to then be stretched with tension like that guitar string or like a bridge where I can do both at the same time.

I can be excited about what the Lord has gifted me and the journey that I'm on with Him and know that others need to experience it.

The Bible says this in Luke chapter 19, verse 10.

Luke 19:10

For the Son of Man he came to seek and to save that which was lost.

Matthew writes it this way: Jesus is this is him recording what Jesus said.

It's not the healthy, the Levi, and that illustration I just gave you, that need a doctor, but the sick.

It's not wanting anyone to perish, 2 Peter writes, but everyone to come to repentance.

Now, this is my take on the whole thing.

I think we can all agree on this.

I think we can all agree that what I've been saying makes sense.

I think we can all agree that what I've been saying comes from the Bible.

Yeah, I get it.

But it gets hard when the rubber hits the road.

It gets hard when we then go, cool, what now?

That's what I want to touch on over this series.

The barrier to repairing a gate for others is my comfort.

It's easy to talk to people I know.

It's easy to sit with people I know.

It's easy to invite people I know, to stay within my friendship group, to not notice the person standing alone.

Oh, but even as I say that, I go, the greatest thing about church is that when people find friends.

That's the greatest miracle.

Then in a world that we live in where people are disconnected, where there's more information than ever, but people will live afraid and they can come to church and make friends, that's the greatest thing.

When I see that, I'm like, yeah, heck yeah.

And when people say there are clicks in the church, I go, that's probably a good thing.

Because the opposite would be that, well, what do we want?

What's the answer to that?

That nobody would have friends.

But we can't have impenetrable friendship groups.

That no one who's new can ever find a relationship or find a new connection.

Or they might walk in and go, man, that place was awesome, filled with the coolest people, couldn't make any friends.

You see our challenge with our faith?

My thesis point, I think, is this repairing gates costs us something.

Whereas building the walls is to my immediate benefit.

If we talked about walls, just briefly in the church, culture, values, things that make the church or our church better, improving it, it's immediately to our benefit.

Like I really liked having Kay up here.

She's so well spoken, eh?

She's brilliant.

You know, she's she's courageous, she's confident, qualified lawyer, Fijian, ticking all these diversity boxes, you know.

She's brilliant, she's brilliant.

And I'm sitting there so happy, and I asked Kay to do a I said, you can do this or this on Sunday.

She goes, Why don't I just do both?

I was like, this is amazing.

This is crazy that she's not jaded and just as happy just to just do stuff at the church.

It was crazy.

I just couldn't believe it.

And she gets up there and and just and just brilliant.

And I can't remember why I brought this up.

Oh, yeah, great.

Oh, what it's saying.

What do you think I'm trying to say?

That she does that immediate benefit to her or to us.

Because that is my point, that's why it's there.

Yeah, just receive it, okay?

Walls without gates, we protect the culture, but nobody can get in.

Gates without walls, everybody can get in, but eventually there's nothing distinctive to enter into.

Too loose, there's no music.

Too tight, the string snaps.

So here's my take-home question for us this week.

There's no big, you know, next step for you.

I enjoyed that.

We're all adults.

Here's some questions that I love for you to be thinking about, praying about today and this week.

The first is this Do you remember when you first saw the city?

Its people, its wonder, its possibilities, its grace, and its king.

Do you remember when you first saw it?

For some of you, it was recent.

There's this great man, the Lord of the Rings.

What a great book trilogy, what a great movie depiction.

There's this wonderful scene where they're describing Baromir before his fateful death, spoiler alert, um, by many arrows, he was slain.

Before his death, his untimely passing with the horn of Gondor, he describes Minas Tirith and its white walls and its flags gleaming in the morning sun.

And he describes describing his home.

This whole story about Nehemiah is rebuilding Jerusalem, which they believed at that time was the center of the world.

The most holy place, the city of David, a place that they protected and loved.

So much offense in the church.

Six people just left.

A place that they loved, that they protected, that they built, that they looked after for generations, and then they were ransacked and destroyed by the Babylonians.

And Nehemiah is now serving the Persian king, and then he comes into the king's presence for the first time, and the king looks and says, What's wrong with you?

This can be nothing but sadness of the heart.

And he says, You know, my home lies in ruins.

And he's like, Go, man, go and fix it.

In fact, take this army and these resources and go.

And then Nehemiah goes and goes to rebuild, because the Babylonians have now been taken over by the Persians, goes to rebuild the walls, but it's a city without walls.

So now you've got people, people living there that weren't there before.

You know, you've got parts of all.

I mean, this is a picture of a fully completed war.

Imagine if it was not a completed wall.

Where are the stones?

Where do we find them?

There might be people living in the war.

Oh, it's sorry, mate.

I've come to reclaim my homeland.

And now, obviously, you know, two and a half thousand years later, this is, you know, intense, recent geopolitical edge sharing, you know, consequences and all these kinds of things.

And we're not we're not going to dive into those things, McLeore.

But but historically, it's tight, but historically, the city was as meaningful then as it is now.

That real estate's so precious.

And Nehemiah, he's coming to build it.

But my question is, it's got nothing to do with Jerusalem, it's got nothing to do with Israel, nothing to do with that.

My question for us is this do you remember the first time you saw the city of Christ in your life?

Mine was a Baptist church on Park Road in Miramar, Wellington.

Nothing about that, let's go.

Nothing about that church was special.

It didn't remind me of Minas Tereth.

But the king did, and the people did, and the relationships, and the things that happened in my life.

The grass was greener the next day.

Do you remember?

That's my first question.

Second question I have, it's rhetorical as this how did you get in?

And the answer is you came in through the gates.

I came because my next door neighbor said, Hey, have you ever do you want to come to youth?

And I said, And I said, I don't know what that is.

I don't know what you're talking about.

And he says, it's a youth group at a church, and I didn't know what a church was.

And he says, You know, down next to Eagle Boys, across from the Ories Rugby Club rooms with the cross?

I was like, Yeah, I know the one.

He goes, Yeah, that's the church.

We're gonna go there for youth.

I'll pay for you, but it's an all-nighter.

There's gonna be seven, 12 hours from 7 p.m.

to 7 a.m.

of activities.

You come, we'll have a great time.

And I was like, this is the best night of my life.

How did you get in?

And my last question for us is this would you consider rebuilding the walls or repairing the gates?

If anything's clear, I think, it's that the church is broken.

And that's okay.

I'm not happy about that.

But that's okay.

The the the church, in fact, I read an article yesterday from a journalist who wrote an article about a church, but in that article was a report from a woman who had done um hundreds of meetings with people who have been in difficult who are in difficult church environments or a difficult church environment.

And her her conclusion was people need accountability.

Oh, people, sorry, people are looking for accountability, not an apology.

That was my take home.

I was like, wow.

So I saved it, put it in a you know, flag document, emails filed so I could read it another time because it was a Saturday.

And no one wants, you know, to read emails about church accountability on a Saturday.

Certainly not me.

Because I thought, how accountable am I?

They talked about financial transparency.

How transparent are we?

And there were things that I thought about about our church community.

It's broken.

But I wonder, would you consider repairing the walls?

Like at the moment, today, if you came to church for the first time, like I wonder, man, is our church clear enough for you to know what's next?

If you've been here for 18 months, I wonder if you have like found friends in a small group and whatever.

I don't know.

But like it's broken, hey.

Would you consider repairing the walls?

Or maybe as we talk, you're like, nah, not interested in walls at all.

What about marketplace stuff?

What about, you know, missions?

What about evangelism?

What about people that don't know Jesus?

So then the next half of that question is for you.

Would you consider repairing the gates?

So my prayer for us today, and I'll I'll wrap this bad boy up, is that over the next seven weeks, would you consider these things with me?

As I consider them too.

There are, you know, there's those values things.

I haven't even got a place there.

Can Heather, can they take them to you?

Is that okay?

Um, if you want to after the service, take take a minute to fill those out.

I've probably got about 15 people who have filled it out already, and I've just been so stoked and challenged to see some of the things that people have said.

I won't share one characteristic with you from that list because I do not want to angle you anyway.

But I will say this.

At the end of the series, I'm going to ask you a very similar question about values or characteristics that you wish were exhibited.

And then at some point, when we throw all those together, we'll be able to create, I think, a list that might have some tension.

Like you might go, yeah, I love it.

But I hate that we don't have an intermediate program.

But I really love, and our kids are about to go to intermediate.

That's crazy.

And then we start one a classic scenario where the pastor needs something done and it benefits him, he makes it happen.

Walls.

We'll build some tension in the church.

We'll build some tension in the church.

Yeah, can I pray for us?

Is that okay?

Yeah, cool.

Sorry, a little kind of a little different today, eh?

Yeah, thank you, Lord.

Oh, sorry, let before I pray.

Um after Nehemiah, we'll do revelation.

That'll be clear what the signups are for at the back.

But you'll be able to understand what the signups are for at the back without the sermon.

If you go there and you're wondering and you're talking K is going to be back there, um, and you want to sign up to help in an area of the church, feel free to do that.

But if you want to wait till you actually get, you can figure out what we're doing here, then that's totally fine with me too.

But when you do sign up, we've got some IKEA tea towels, and the whole the next sermon is going to be called Grab a Tea Town because I think that uh there was a guy who said to me he did a mongrel mob funeral in Palmerson North.

A friend of mine named Ken, who's not Māori, he not that you have to be Māori to do a Mongrel mob funeral, but I think that probably like you would probably be received more being Māori because he's Japanese.

Not that Japanese people aren't accepted at Mongrel mob funerals.

I just think you're at a Mongol mob funeral and a Japanese guy's taking it, it's like different.

So from his perspective, he said to me, I didn't know what to say, so I got up and then he he goes, um, he goes, I come in peace.

And they cracked up and barked and stuff, and it was all good, you know.

And then after the after the tangy, he said, he said, I did what I have seen is the only way to earn manak uh on the mudai.

And I was like, What's his what's his take on this?

And he said, I grabbed a tea towel.

And um, I'm not asking that any one person would do everything in our church.

And I don't want to be a church where 20% of people do, you know, 80% of the work.

I just I'm not into it, I don't want to do that.

Um I would much rather each of us just had a tea towel and just found our found our part of the wall.

And we just executed with love and humility and dignity and kindness and compassion our part.

Um last year we had camp and um and Joel Byrne.

I was like, bro, we've got 800 bucks for the first meal at camp, and I don't want it to be sausages, you know?

He's like, Yeah, I got you.

I was like, what are you thinking?

He's like, oh, give me a couple of days, and he calls me back, and it was like um, it was like pulled, hey, because we were the we you guys are the ones serving it.

Beautiful bread, pulled little beef.

Hey, it was amazing.

Anyway, I say that to say just one part of the wall, eh?

And when everyone came to camp, the smell, and they were like, wow, this is the best first meal I've ever had at a camp.

And I was like, Yeah, just just someone just putting their hand up in his wheelhouse.

Anyway, I'll stop talking.

Thank you, Jesus, Father.

We love you, Lord.

We um, yeah, maybe a team talk today, God.

Maybe that's what's happening.

Maybe a little holiday halftime break.

I'm not sure.

But there's a there's a tone, there's a tone of maturity, I think, in your church today, Lord, and we're really grateful.

A corporate ask to consider doing a little rather than an individual ask of someone to do a lot.

And I want us to consider, Lord, what you've what you've placed on our hearts today, which is what is it walls or gates?

Where do we feel like we can add value?

How can I how can I engage and contribute into my faith community?

And Father, I'm praying that over this this period of time that you would truly, you would truly speak to us.

And you would encourage us, Lord.

We thank you, Father.

Just while your eyes are closed, if you're here, and I've mentioned a couple of times already, um, people who might be here and and you're not a believer, you know, you're not a you're not a Christian, you're you're uh, you know, you're just new, it's new to you.

You're not a you know, you don't walk with God, you don't normally come to church.

All this stuff's kind of different, you know?

And you're kind of sitting there saying, Oh, Levi, I guess I came through a gate today.

The gate was my friend and whatever, I came through the front door, and and you're here, you're saying, but I uh now that I'm here, I would like to start a journey and and try and figure this thing out.

Maybe before when Dan said about communion, you don't have to take it, maybe you're thinking, Oh, I would like to know a little bit about that.

And so if you're here and you're saying that's me, uh I'd love to pray for you right now, just with every eye closed.

If I'd love to pray with you right now, and if that's you, you're saying that's me, I'm sort of like new to this whole thing.

Could you raise your hand so I know who I'm praying for?

And I would just love to make sure that before we close the service today.

Um, no one's looking around.

It's just well, it's just your hand and my eyes, that's it.

And you're saying, um, I would love to be prayed for or pray a prayer that can start a journey uh in my life with Christ.

And if that's you, raise your hand so I can see it.

Just I know I'm praying for.

Yeah, cool.

Thank you, Jesus.

Father, we thank you, Lord, for your presence.

We thank you, Lord, for your touch.

We thank you, Lord, that this sermon series is going to add some value to our lives.

And we we approach it, Lord, gently, we approach it humbly.

And Father, we ask for your guidance in this time.

That even back to the first illustration that we that we gave about a waka, a rudderless waka, we acknowledge that you are the rudder and you are the wind in our sails, and you are the energy in our drive, and you are the oars, and you are the trees that built the boat in the first place.

But we do, Lord, I feel personally, that you're calling me to have the courage to put my hand on the rudder and be guided by you.

And Father, in this time, give us all courage to acknowledge where we are on the waka and where we're headed, Father.

And we pray that in Jesus' name.

And we thank you, Lord.

Amen.

Well, be blessed.

Take your time, filling in uh well, my first design work.

Uh have a look at that.

Uh save your critiques for another time, although I'm happy to receive it.

Be blessed.

Grab a cup of TC next week.