Amen, amen. All right. Hey, across all of our campuses, man, it's a good thing to give God some praise for a life and legacy that we see like that that just casts a vision for our life. Today, we're going to be talking about godly vision, and certainly that is just something that defines the life of San James. Hey, to connect some dots for you guys, the brother is coming in at 93 years old to preach for us next week.
Okay, and yeah, I know. And listen, it's going to be incredible. You don't want to miss it. This guy is a living legend, all right? I know he would hate for me to even say this, okay, but it's just the truth.
When your missionaries that are sent from Mercy Hill go to be trained in Richmond, they are trained in the Sam James International Institute building.
Okay, I mean, this is kind of the legacy. Think about, yeah, he's a missionary for 50 years. Yeah, in Vietnam in the 60s and 70s.
Okay, so I mean, this is just as real as it gets, okay? And he planted the church that became the summit church, which planted Mercy Hill.
So he's like the grandparent of all of us that are here at Mercy Hill. And so, man, I just want to encourage you. This is one you don't want to miss. You don't want your kids to miss it. And he preached four years ago at Mercy Hill.
It is one of the most memorable sermons. If people were here, they remember it. Um and it was funny to me, he was 89 years old. And I said to him, because man, at that time, Mercy owned a smaller building. I mean, we had a gazillion services.
Like I'd preach on Thursday and then four on Sunday. All right. And I told him, like, hey, you know, we can do video. You could just preach Thursday. We can do video on Sunday.
And I was trying to walk that line of, like, you know, I mean, he's 89 years old. He said, young man, I'll be preaching all the services. All right, so they built them different 90 years ago, okay? Oh man, just really excited. You guys are not going to want to miss it.
All right. If you have a copy of scripture, turn with me to Nehemiah chapter 2. Guys, very serious sermon today. I mean, we're just talking about something that can absolutely change your life and change the lives of people around you when you begin to understand that for every believer, there are wirings and giftings, sure, but there's a burden. There is vision.
that God puts inside of our hearts. And that vision is meant to be verbalized. It's meant to compel people. It is meant to instill courage in people. And that's what we see in Nehemiah.
Y'all, the book of Nehemiah is an incredible reminder for us that God can rebuild what looks irreparably broken. It looks like it could never be put back together and yet. God can rebuild it, okay? But what we're gonna see today is: man, he doesn't rebuild it apart from us. He involves us, and a lot of what he does is birth vision in the hearts of his people.
In line, listen, in line with his word, in line with his mission and his vision for the world that we see clearly in scripture, but he gives every one of us, I believe, a unique calling, a unique burden to Ephesians 2:10, to walk. in the works that he has preordained for us. And a lot of that is vision. Here's the big idea this weekend. Godly vision is so powerful.
And I hope today, man, today is a wrestling match between you and the Lord: are you going to walk in the vision that God has put in your heart? For the things that he has called you to do? Are you gonna come down front after this sermon is over and sort of drive a stake in the ground and say, God, I'm gonna verbalize, I'm gonna compel, I'm gonna instill courage with the vision that you have given me? Maybe, fathers, it's a vision for a godly home. Teachers, it's a vision for affecting those kids in your classroom and moving them towards Christ.
Even in a public school setting, it's prayer for them. Man, it's having an opportunity if you're asked to give a testimony. Maybe it's for entrepreneurs in the room. I want to build a business that models generosity towards my employees and creates generosity opportunities with the prophets. Maybe there's some of you here today that God would give you a vision and a burden for planting a church.
Maybe even at our campuses today, you're like, dude, I'm a business guy or I'm this, I run a company. But maybe God is pulling you and you've kind of come to the right place. Because if you haven't noticed, we do a decent job of equipping people to go plant churches and be missionaries here at Mercy Hill. Maybe that's something that you need to talk to us about. I don't know what the godly vision is for you, but he puts things in our hearts.
And I wonder what he's putting in yours, all right?
Now we're gonna jump around a little bit here in chapter two, just to make sure we have the story, but let me start in verse four. Then the king said to me: so it's the king talking to Nehemiah. What are you requesting?
So I prayed to the God of heaven. And I said to the king, If it pleases the king, and if your servant has found favor in your sight. that you send me to Judah. to the city of my father's graves that I may rebuild it.
Now, if you remember last week, I left in chapter one, and the big point in Nehemiah's prayer was, God, give me favor with the king. You guys remember that? Give me favor with the king.
Now, why did he need favor with the king? For this request. Very similar if you've if you've ever had read or heard the story of Esther.
Okay, I need favor for the request to help rebuild the city of our people and see it flourish again for the mission of God. We know that there is a prophetic vision. That is, this people is gonna produce a serpent-crushing savior that one day will be a blessing and a light. to all of the world. It's kind of hard to imagine that happening if their walls are broken down and the city is in great shame and trouble, is what we said last week.
And they are in derision. And so Nehemiah has a vision in his heart. Rebuilding the city.
Now, I gotta make sure you understand, it's hard for us to understand how important the wall of the city would have been.
Okay, you and I think about walls and fences, and we're thinking about trying to keep stuff in, not usually keep stuff out.
Okay, think about it. You know, most of us have a fence, a dog, or something. I'm telling you, I have noticed over the last five years, the triad is the land of doodles. It's every kind of doodle there is. There is every, I mean, every doodle, and I'm not gonna have a bunch of people raise your hands because I know all of our hands would go up and I would just be shaking my head.
Okay, but it's a doodle, it's a doodle land that we live in. But it's funny, we used to have this dog named Big Haas. He was a 90-pound pit bull. Head like a basketball. He could jump in the back of my truck with the tailgate up.
Athlete. Listen. I had a fence for that dog. It was not to keep anybody out from getting in because nobody was going to get in. It was to keep him from getting out.
That's what we think about fence. All right, that's what we think about wall. But our students know, and many are our college students, and maybe some of you, if you've ever been around the world, you go on a mission trip, and what you find is, man, in a lot of places, Even the home doesn't have a wall just to keep the little doodle in.
Okay, you go to Latin America, Central America, many places around the world. Every home will have a wall, and on top of that wall is broken Coke bottles, glass sticking straight up, lining it. Why? Because there are places in the world, and we know even in our society as well, where the fence and the wall is really about keeping people out. And that's an important thing for us to remember.
This society. With broken down walls, that is a reflection of the people's spirit in a lot of ways. They are broken down. The walls are broken down. The people are broken down.
Their insecurity is going to be tied to the insecurity that their city. Can't even protect themselves. You're going to go to bed every night not knowing exactly what's going to happen. They're in great trouble. They're in great shame.
They're in derision. Nehemiah sees it. It's not right. We're going to fix it. He asks the king.
He prays for it, he asks for it, and what happens? The king grants his request. And so Nehemiah goes to the city of his forefathers. Verse 11: So I went to Jerusalem and was there three days. Then I arose in the night.
I and a few men with me, and I told no one what my God had put into my heart to do for Jerusalem. That is so important. what God had put in my heart to do for Jerusalem. There was no animal with me but the one on which I rode. I went out by night by the valley gate to the dragon spring to the dungate, and I inspected the walls of Jerusalem that were broken down and its gates that had been destroyed by fire.
If you're still looking at scripture, look at verse 12 with me again. I arose at night, I had a few with me. I told no one what my God had put into my heart to do for Jerusalem.
Now, this is very important if you understand, okay? Theologically, the way that I preach. We will lean more, what theologians call the revealed will of God versus the secret will of God. These are things you can go look up if you want to. That's the way we lean.
Man, if you've got a different opinion on that, that's one of those things we can agree to disagree, okay? But you'll hear it come out of my preaching. What I mean by that is. We take the Word of God, the Bible. And we look at that and we say, man, this is his word.
I need to conform my life to this. And when I'm thinking about God's will, it's that Bible.
Okay, so for us, I'm not sitting around saying, God, I need you to drop out of the sky where I'm supposed to go to college. I'm more concerned with who I'm going to be and the type of children we're going to raise that affect the college campus when they get there by the word.
Okay, so that's what we mean.
Now, I don't want you to hear something other than that, what I'm saying here. There's nothing in the revealed will of God teaching that we normally talk about here at Mercy Hill that says that God doesn't put burdens in our heart.
Okay, God can do whatever he wants. And it feels to me like when you think about just the individual call of a believer, you are spiritually gifted. If you're a Christian, he has wired you a certain way. He has organized the events of your life. to bring you to a certain way of looking at the world.
And yes, he burdens us. There are things that we see in the world that are wrong, that need ministry, and he burdens us for those things. That's what happens to Nehemiah. Nehemiah has a burden in him. Let me ask you a question, believer.
Has God ever slapped a burden on your heart? A burden for foster care, a burden for adoption, a burden for generosity, a burden to support one of our missionaries. A burden to get involved with something in our city. Maybe it's to do something with a nonprofit, Hannah's Haven, or the Pregnancy Network, or there could be a thousand ways. A burden to mentor young men and women in our student ministries.
I have no idea. It's gonna be as unique as everybody in this room if you're a believer. But have you ever felt the fire? Of the Lord slapping a burden on your heart. And if you're a Christian and you haven't, How distracted USB?
By the things in this world. That are drowning out what God put you on earth to do. For Nehemiah, there is this burden. God has wired me up for this, and He has put it in my heart: rebuild the wall.
Now, Here's what it says in verse 17. Then I said to them, You see the trouble we are in. I'm just going to get to my first point. We got a verbalized vision, okay? It's not powerful if it ain't verbalized, all right?
You see the trouble that we're in, how Jerusalem lies in ruins with its gates burdened. Burned. Come, let us build a wall of Jerusalem that we may no longer suffer derision. There are three things that I want to tell you today about godly vision. All right.
The first one is this: godly vision must be verbalized. Nehemiah doesn't just see the problem, he says the problem. He doesn't just Feel what God is putting in his heart, he says what God is putting in his heart. And this is what I need many of us to come to today: is this idea that the power of what we're going to see God do through a godly vision starts when we are willing to name a godly vision and to say it out loud. In other words, listen.
We need the courage. We need the tenacity. We are going to need to be the people who remember. That a vision, you can say it like this, an unspoken vision has no power. But a spoken vision has the power to compel and put courage in.
It's not enough for Nehemiah just to see what is wrong. He's going to say what is wrong. Y'all, somebody has to be willing to say it out loud. Let me put it in southern for you, okay? This is what, let me just do it.
Nehemiah looks around and he says, y'all ain't none of this right. Ain't none of it right. And we're fixing to rebuild all of it. And that is the power moving from men. I feel this way, in line with God's vision.
In line with what he's, I feel it, to now there is power. Behind it. And listen, it starts with this. It starts with not trying to paint something with the rosy colors. It starts with having the raw, brutal facts of being willing to say, These walls broken, these people suffering shame is not in line with God's will that we see his mission, and we have to be willing to say it.
We can't gloss over it. I have recently been introduced by my wife and my teenage daughter to a concept. Called girl math, okay? I don't know if you guys have seen this. All right, um, I had never heard of it before.
Sounds pretty sexist because it is, okay? And and but they're the ones that are saying it, you know. And girl, I guess girl math is when you, for example, um My awesome wife, who is here, okay. You know, she, hey, we got this great new fall decoration. And it's like, hey, babe, got this awesome fall decoration.
It was $60, but I got it half off. I saved us $30. I'm like, no, babe, you spent thirty dollars.
Okay, that's how that works. You didn't save the 30. You spent the 30. This is girl math, apparently. Girl math is: I bought the jeans last month.
but I took them back this month and got the money back for them, so I made $40. Right, that's and if you pay in cash, it doesn't count.
Okay, cash is magic. All right, so cash doesn't count.
So it's a funny, it's funny, I'm being funny, it's a funny concept, but the idea is here for Nehemiah, is like, man, we are really good at trying to spend something into something that it's not, right? And for Nehemiah, you have to have the strength of character. I think that comes with what, and he says this multiple times in this passage. He says, the God of heaven, the God of heaven. I think I mentioned it to you last week in chapter one.
He calls himself the servant of the Lord over and over and over. We end up. With this, man, I'm serving God of heaven, the character is built to say what it is. And to not be what the proverbs say is a muddied spring, which helps nobody, but instead to say what it is. A lot of people were looking at the walls, and listen, because of the familiarity, their senses have been dulled because that's what happens.
You look at broken walls long enough, they become normal to you. You live in great shame and trouble long enough, it just becomes what it is. And instead, you have this outside perspective that says no. And the godly vision is here corresponding with something wrong in the world, and he verbalizes it. My question for you guys is this: What might God be doing in you?
that is in this way. You know that there's a godly vision that is starting to come out of you. Maybe someone today. Husband or wife? Would say, you know what?
The reality is, if we just call it what it is, the temperature in the home is too hot. And we are acting as if in this home, but the proverbs are not true. We're making our children believe that death and life are not in the power of the tongue by the way that we talk to each other. It's one thing to feel that and know it. It's another thing to say it.
But you know where the power is? Man, the power To compel the power to put courage in is going to come from saying it out loud. You know, it's an envision, you know, our missions class that we do, over 200 people taking our missions class right now, Envision. And they just talked about it this past week. There are 3.2 billion.
billion people on the planet. that don't know Christ, don't have access to a witness.
Now, we can know that. We can feel that. Or we can verbalize that and say it out loud and in hopes of compelling change, people to join in. It helps of instilling courage that there is a God in heaven that heart is broken by this reality. It's one thing just to feel it.
And know it, it's another thing to say it out loud. That's what a prophetic voice is. And I'll say this: the church of Jesus Christ is called to be a prophetic voice in our culture. to call out what is wrong and say what is right. And how else do you interpret our call that Jesus put on the church to be salt and light?
And I don't mean me as the church, I mean us, all of us. One of the things that is slightly annoying to me right now, in the moment that we're in, is I'm seeing people online, pastors, even, and they're saying things like this because this kind of bubbling is happening, this sort of a little bit of an awakening is happening right now. And people are saying, Now is the time to be bold. The church needs to be bold in this moment. To which I reply, now is the time.
Where have you been for the last 20 years? We are in this moment. Because the church has been bold for the last decade after decade after decade. And I'm not talking about me, I'm encouraging you. Because when I mean, you know, it's one thing to be the spokesperson, but you guys are.
Are the everyday, all of our campuses, all over the nation, thousands of churches comprised of millions of everyday radical revolutionary believers that look at all of these cultural forces that are being pushed on us and say no. Like Nehemiah. We say, y'all ain't none of it right. We will never call abortion something other than what it is. We will never get okay with fatherlessness.
No, we will not stay home forever and not gather as a church during COVID. No, we will not be okay with blurring the lines between what a man is and what a woman is. No, we will not judge people. For good or bad. based on the color of their skin.
Like, these are the types of things that the church has got to just content. I would say, don't now is the moment. What are we talking about? Continue in the moment. Continue to do, church, what you have done in being a prophetic voice in an ever-growing darker culture around us.
And when we do that, And we stand strong on that. When we, like Nehemiah, are willing to say none of this is right. You know what happens? It ends up being compelling to people. Not everybody.
But it leaves no middle ground. You know, some people are going to hate it, but others are going to be compelled by it.
Something in their heart is going to wake up. And I think that's what we're seeing now.
So this is actually the second thing I want to say. Godly vision is compelling. Man, when you voice what God has put in your heart. It draws people. It moves people.
Look what it says in verse 18. And I told them of the hand of my God that had been upon me for good, and also of the words that the king had spoken to me.
So, what is he saying? Basically saying I gave him the context. I told them where we've been. God burdened me for this. I prayed for it.
He put me before the king, and the king has granted me this request. And now I'm here talking to you guys, saying, Hey, Y'all know ain't none of this right. Are we going to do something about it or not? And what do they say? And they said, let us rise up and build.
So they strengthen their hands for the good work. Godly vision, y'all, is more. Then interesting. It's intriguing. It pulls people in.
When we are, because we know it's in line with God's vision, we see it in His Word, and then we have a bold goal, a bold vision that we speak out loud. Man, it is compelling to people. The confidence is compelling to people. Booker T. Washington said it like this: There is nothing more compelling.
than someone who believes what they're saying from the bottom of their shoes to the top of their hat. And that is really true, okay? And you and I. That's who we get a chance to be in terms of boldness. Why?
I can stand before you. And I can say, church, the North Star for us is 500 missionaries by 2032. You guys know that, right? We want to send them out. I'm not talking about going on a mission trip, I'm talking about gone.
Leaving. For the nations, for church planning. I can say that with such boldness and confidence, no matter what the world says about it. Why? Because it's in line with God's vision, we see from Acts 1:8.
We see from Matthew 28 that we would make disciples of all nations.
So now we have this vision that God has put in us. We say it out loud, and it is compelling. It moves people toward a vision that is in line with what God has for the world. Same thing with adoption and foster care. In 2020, we made a goal as a church, we want to see 200 families.
In adoption and foster care in this church. And by God's grace, 2025, we hit that goal. That's in line. We know God's heart for the orphan. True religion is this: to visit the widow and the orphan in their affliction.
We can have confidence because we know it's in line with what God would have us do. But it's also this fingerprint for our church. where God has put that vision in us. He's birthing it through us. And now we say it out loud and it is compelling to people around us.
Y'all, what is compelling when you step out and you say, God has given us a heart for adoption? God has given us the heart to open up our home to a community group. God, maybe some of you dads, it's like, hey, all the people at work, man, they're going to brag about the vacation they took in the summer, and it's tropical, and it's this, and it's that. And you say, man, God gave me a vision to ride. Trains with no air condition across India.
to share the gospel with people when I took my oldest son. And they're going to look at you like you're the weirdest person in the world. That was your vacation, yeah. That was my vacation. You know, because but you know what they're also going to do?
They're going to lean in. It's compelling.
Some people might hate it.
Some people are drawn into it. You know, it's a great example of this. The best example I think right now in our culture. Is when I think about God's teaching on the family. We talk about this a lot at Mercy Hill because nothing else, nothing is more under assault than that, okay, in our day and age.
This is Ephesians 5. What I'm gonna do right now. Just for one minute. In the world, this would be considered radical. All I'm doing is just open, I'm just gonna crack open Ephesians 5, okay?
This is God's plan. for the family.
Now, none of us live up to this perfectly. And I'm not, if you're bringing stuff in, this is not for the point of shame or anything. Guys, we're in Nehemiah. God can rebuild anything, okay? He can rebuild what looks broken.
But this is his vision for it. His vision for the family is that it would mirror the church. That the husband like Jesus Would so sacrifice himself for his wife and make sure that everybody in the home knows, not him, not the kids, but she is the object of his affection. That he would sacrifice himself for her and raise her up, so much so that she would respond with submission to him. That he would have a leadership role, a vision in the home, but he would so die to himself and sacrifice for her that she would willingly want to become a helpmeet, is what the old version says, and come alongside and help accomplish that vision.
And then you have a family unit where children are not confused. He's leading, she's following, we're flourishing. Yeah.
Some people, what I just said, would call that radical and they would run away from it, right? And I get that. But having verbalized that vision from Ephesians 5, there is no middle ground. There's no middle ground. You either hate that.
Or you love it. And here's what I'm going to tell you. The lie of the world. Is that if we continue to speak boldly what the Bible says, here's the lie: that people will flee the church. And what they don't understand is that when you begin to water that message down, the church that does that has nothing to say.
You have nothing to say to the culture. You know, so so for uh okay, so for example I was in a conversation with a friend. Who was telling me that their church has gone completely theologically liberal?
Now, what that means, and I hate the terms because it sounds political and all that. I'm talking about theologically liberal. All right, what I mean is, man, they're not going to take the word of God as inerrant. Everything I just said about the family would be abhorrent to them. You know, there are going to be a lot of things that Mercy Hill is not.
Okay. And um And he said to me out loud, he said, well, you know, and this is funny, this church is all but dead. I mean, it's dying, dying, dying, okay? And he says, well, you know, we gotta be able to give on those things if we're gonna reach the young people. I said, well, how many do you got?
How many of those young people that you're trying to reach are coming to your church?
Well known.
Well yeah. You know why? Because you're so watering things down, they're getting nothing different from you than they get from the world. When you say the vision out loud, that it's in line with what, even when people don't like it, people might hate it. but they might love it.
The only chance we really have to be compelling. And to see the culture around us say, you know what? I want in on that, man. That's revolutionary, but it's compelling. I want in on it.
The only chance we have to do that is to not become the muddied spring. And what does Nehemiah do? As clear as a bell. This is going to be hard. People aren't going to like it.
But here's the deal. Ain't none of this right? and we're fixing to rebuild it. And what do they say? They say, let's get going.
Strengthen my hands. Let us rise and build. Third thing I want you to see about godly vision is about courage. Let me read this last part to you. But when Sanbalat the Horonite and Tobiah the Ammonite servant and Geshem the Arab heard of it, they jeered at us and despised us and said, What is this thing that you are doing?
Are you rebelling against the king?
Now let me ask you. If you come from a people who were absolutely crushed and exiled. A hundred some odd years earlier. for rebellion. Mm-hmm.
How scary is it when somebody says, oh, are you rebelling against the king? They're putting a label on you that has a lot of generational pain kind of wrapped up in it, where you're like, man, that. That strikes a chord for us in a way that it wouldn't for somebody else. It can strike a fear. Then I replied to him, The God of heaven will make us prosper.
And we, his servants, will arise and build. But you have no portion or right or claims in Jerusalem.
Now, we're going to talk more about San Ballot and Tobiah.
Okay, but I'm going to tell you something, Christian. There is always a sand ballot and tobiah. There are always people who want to strike fear in us about holding biblical convictions. And they want to strike fear by labeling us something that we're not, and we're going to need to have the courage. We're going to need to have the courage inside that God's going to give us to be able to stand against that.
The third and final thing that I want you to see about vision is this: godly vision instills courage. Godly vision makes us into a courageous people. Sanbalat and Tobiah are no different than the people that we encounter today. I'm going to tell you something that has always been and will never change. The enemy lies about God's people.
He does. The enemy lies about us. The enemy will say They are radical and they are indoctrinating simply by trying to raise our kids in the faith. The enemy will say they are so narrow-minded for simply being blown away that Jesus Christ. is a way that we can come back to God and be in a relationship with Him.
And that he's the only way. I mean, we're not, you know, we're narrow-minded for that. I mean, we can't get over the fact that there's a way back into God's family at all. I mean, we can't even believe it. You know, this is what the world will do.
The world will say, you and I, Mercy Hill, you're at our church. I know some of you guys might be brand new, but if you're here, We are a people who are all about Getting people to where the gospel is not being proclaimed. I mean, that's the biggest thing that we want to do collectively.
Now, we all want to grow, man, we want our families to grow. It's about our individual faith. I get that. But when the organization kind of comes together, the biggest goals that we have are a lot of them around sending.
Okay. You understand that the world looks in at that. And it says, oh, well all that is a vestige left over from colonialism. Trying to import your beliefs, export your beliefs to other places in the world. You and I are going to have to just have the courage and the backbone to say, man, you can call it whatever you want, and you can say whatever you want about me, but it's not true.
It's not true. What we're doing is living by biblical conviction. Where do we get that from? Where do you get that courage from? You get it from a godly vision.
And he actually says it out loud. Then I replied to them: The God of heaven. Remember, I said this last week. That's a Persian way of saying the big one.
Okay, the one that's over all of them. And we believe there's no others, but you understand, like in an environment where there would have been a lot of polytheistic thought, the big one. That's the God of heaven, and here's what he says. He will make us prosper. And I want to tell you today, Christian, that this is something that we got to grab on to.
If you need the courage. to stand in a conviction and to speak a godly vision. and to walk in that godly vision. One thing that we need to remember and do is to speak a godly vision out loud and remember. God of heaven, the God of heaven, will make us prosper.
It may not be exactly the way that we think it ought to be all the time. I'm not saying you will always get healed from the disease. What I am saying is that when we walk in a new heaven and a new earth, you will be healed and restored. Man, I don't know if the sin struggle that you're wrestling with will stop nagging at you in this life, but you are, if you're a believer, you are already forgiven in Christ, and there will be a day where there is complete freedom. You understand what I'm getting at?
Like, we need to grab onto this concept. The God of heaven will make us prosper. And when we get that, it puts so much courage in us. Man, to continue to do the right thing. to speak the godly vision, to compel others with it, and to put courage in people and strength in their own heart.
to do the right thing. Here's the bottom line, y'all. This is the conclusion more than anything else. If you want to walk out here with something that's kind of more action-oriented, I would just tell you this: lean into God's vision for your life. Lean into it, man.
Hey, it needs to be verbalized. Compelling. Courage. But you got to make a decision whether you're going to lean into it or not. If you are a Christian.
There are ways that you are wired. There are things that you're passionate about. God might have just already been slapping a burden right on your soul. Are we going to walk in that or are we going to keep it unnamed? We're going to keep it to ourselves.
We're not going to share it with anybody. Which way is it going to go here? All right. And I want to try to motivate you for it, okay? You and I may have a great motivation in the book of Nehemiah.
You and I can look back and we can say, God, I've seen you one time before in scripture. Put a burden in a man's life. And he was so moved by the brokenness of the world. That you empowered him to go and do something about it. And that is great motivation for us because we know if he did it for Nehemiah, he can do it for us.
But you know what a greater motivation is? See, Nehemiah was sent to restore a city, but Jesus Christ, the greater Nehemiah, the one Nehemiah points to. See, you got to understand. 2,500 years after Nehemiah rode into Jerusalem on a donkey, another prophet was going to ride into Jerusalem on a donkey. But this prophet, Jesus Christ, he was not coming to just restore walls, he was coming to build a city.
that Ephesians 2, 22 says this. In him, you me and you are also being built together into a dwelling place for God by the Holy Spirit. We are the temple now. He was not just coming to rebuild a temple and walls. He was coming to build a city that one day we see descend in the book of Revelation that is populated by people from every tribe, tongue, and nation.
Nehemiah restored what was broken, sure, but Jesus was broken. to restore our relationship with him. If we have a great motivation in God gives burden, he gives vision, we saw Nehemiah and we see the wall built. Great motivation. The best motivation is to realize, oh, but that points to another one who would rebuild something that we thought was totally broken.
And that was our personal relationship with God. And he brought us in and he raises us up. One pastor said it like this. Man. Jesus lifts up.
the same things that sin leveled. He does that in your life and he does it in mine.
Now, if that's true.
Now what type of motivation do we have to run with the vision that God is putting in our life?
Okay, so here's my question for you. All right. What is the vision that maybe God is giving you that He's pressing upon your heart? Is it a vision for a godly family? A family to be rebuilt strong on mission.
to be built around faith. Is it a vision for adoption? Is it a vision for foster care? Maybe for some of you guys right here at the Ridge campus, I know this is not at the other campuses right now, but maybe for some of you guys, it's to help free up space in January by making the decision to build a rhythm into your life now. by going to the seven.
Maybe it's a vision for increased generosity. You know, I was burning for this this week. I know in the economy of God's kingdom, And I'll bet you just in the statistics. Of how many people are coming to Mercy Hill. There are multiple people in our congregation that, either by themselves or if they got together with some other people that they know, could absolutely fund the retreat center.
They could see the generational impact that it's gonna have. They could say, man, I want legacy tied up in that. And they could be a part of funding it and saying, hey, we're not going to just keep talking about it, we're just going to go build it. Maybe God's putting a crazy vision on your heart like that. Increased generosity.
Maybe it's A vision to jump in with Declaration Church, a vision to jump into ministry. and mentor students, maybe a vision to start a business. Uh so that you can model generosity to your employees and Think about profits maybe in a way that others don't, in terms of generosity. You think about, you know, maybe a college student, maybe God's giving you a vision for next summer. Don't just invest the summer for an internship.
Invest the summer for the rest of your life and ask God to give you the courage to do it. What vision is he putting in your heart? Man, will we say it? If we will, it can be compelling. for those around us.
And we remember to anchor it. And a godly vision that he has given us. And give us incredible courage to walk in it. All right, let's pray. Father.
We come before you right now. And Lord, we just ask. that you would make us a courageous people. God, we would look back on the gospel. And we would know that if If we have been.
Wrapped up. and your vision of rebuilding. Through Jesus Christ, then certainly we can extend that blessing to others. Lord, I pray that people would... Just ask for bold things.
And God, maybe today will be a day that they make decisions. And don't flounder or waver between two opinions. In Christ's name we pray. Amen. Mm-hmm.
