Keep sharing good news without ads.
No description available
Now, I want you to pay attention. It wasn't anything in Israel. It wasn't their military guys.
It wasn't the type of people they were talking about. Well, to be most honest and most emotionally vulnerable, my emotions are getting the best of me this morning.
Because, man, I'm telling you guys, man, I'm sick and tired. And I don't mean sick and tired as in broken, going, oh, why, why.
I'm talking about, like, I want to fight, you know? I'm tired of cancer.
I'm sick of it. I'm sick of hearing about it. I'm tired of my people getting hurt.
I'm tired of my people being in the hospital. I'm tired of our country continuing to embrace a humanism that is destroying in the arrogance of people who spurn the
Word of God. Yet we keep seeing successive generations that are imploding because they're walking away from the
Word of God. And the academia and the pundits and the philosophers keep looking to this euphoric utopia in a world absence of God.
Yet in 8 ,000 years of history, every time mankind has walked away from the
Word of God, they have suffered as a church, as a society.
It's amazing to me that we can have something in secular history called the
Dark Ages. And that when the Word of God is printed, they call it the Renaissance, we call it the
Reformation. But either way, mankind is benefited by the presence and adherence to the
Word of God. Yet we sit and people who call themselves
Christians vote for abortionists. People who call themselves believers are still looking down upon people who don't mimic or look like them in a mirror.
We still to this day have more allegiance to a denomination or a stupid church building than we do to the
Word of God. We memorize man's creeds. And we paraphrase
God's words. We raise our kids according to culture. And then in the height of arrogance, we stand around and wonder what happened when they rebelled.
We sit and we take the very thing that has every hope, that has the eternal benefits of eternal life.
And we put so more investment into this world and our 401Ks and we're worried about our house and our leisure than we are the work of the
Gospel. And then stand around and blame the liberals or the Democrats or the Republicans for where we are today.
Some of you young peoples still don't understand the emotional bondage you put yourselves in because of the insecurities of not being firmly cemented into the
Word of God. And you pass it again to another generation.
I'll be honest with you. I know this sounds childish and immature, but I want to fight, man.
You know? And that's just stupid. I know that's the old Jeff coming out when
I'm scared, when I'm hurt. I want to grab somebody by the belt buckle and witness to them.
How do we respond, guys? I mean, that's what these last two sermons or last sermon and this sermon is about.
How do we respond to everything going on in the world? Last week, we talked about what
Nehemiah did. Nehemiah heard about a problem. And he stopped and prayed.
Then he made a plan. Okay? And this sermon is brought to you by the letter
P. He prayed, he planned. Now we're going to see two other things that he did.
Number one, we're going to see that he had to create a partnership to see that plan come to fruition.
He had to create a partnership. And in that partnership, he had to understand that perseverance is the way you're going to win.
Guys, I'm telling you, I used to train fighters. I used to be in the ring myself once or twice.
And I tell you, it wasn't the guy that hits the hardest that you got to worry about. It's the guy that when you hit him, he still keeps coming forward.
That's the guy that will beat the brakes off of you. The guy that does not know quit.
The guy that though beaten will never be broken. And church, that is where we are today.
Not just myopically Witten Baptist Church. Oh my gosh. The church as a whole.
Remember, there is only one church. I don't care what you've been taught. Everywhere in the
Greek, in the New Testament, ecclesia is a singular form. It is plural in meaning by the individual members.
But it never ever meant anything but one body. One body. One heart.
One soul. Go look it up. Acts chapter 2 if you're bored. Go look it up right now. We as God's people have got to start coming to a place where our prayers and our plans start coming together in fruition.
So here we are. I don't have time to go back and review everything. But basically, and once again, y 'all remember, this is a historical fact.
You can look it up on Wikipedia. Because some of y 'all have more faith in Wikipedia. Or some snot -nosed punk kid playing
Combat Zone in his mama's basement on the internet. Than you do to the Word of God. That's fine.
There are many, many, many extra evidences out there.
The Cirrus Cylinder. The Babylonian Chronicle. You can go look up these things. This stuff really happened.
We're in about 444 B .C. Okay? Let me give you a great timeline of when this is.
This is Sparta! You know? Same time. Okay? It's around the same time.
This is a group of Jews who have been in captivity in Babylon who have come back to Jerusalem.
The temple is rebuilt, but they can't do anything in the town because there's no walls.
And raiders come in and are just stealing everything. So this guy named Nehemiah makes a prayer and makes a plan to go back and rebuild the walls.
So Jerusalem itself can be built and the people are safe. So he runs down there.
He takes four months. He runs down from Susa to Jerusalem. He gets there and he looks around the city.
He goes ninja style. And for the first three days, he arrests all his people. And he goes around the city and recons what's happened.
When he gets to that point, start with me in chapter 3, verse 8. When he gets to that point, he sits there and he says, chapter 3, verse 8.
He says this. I'm sorry. He gets all the people together and he says, Hey guys, we need to rebuild this quick, fast, in a hurry.
And so he divides the people up. And if you look at your little note things, last week
I showed you where everybody was rebuilding. This week, yeah, these are the group assignments of the people rebuilding the wall.
And some of you get confused and it's because I didn't have enough space. That is north.
And here's how I always remember it. A shoe. A little
Limburger there. It's a shoe. Think of Mount Moriah. Let's do it like this.
Think of Mount Moriah, the temple. By the way, if you look up on Wikipedia right now and look up Jerusalem, you'll see the
Arab, or I shouldn't say, the Muslim Dome of the Rock. That's on Mount Moriah right here.
This is where Abraham was going to sacrifice Isaac. This is where David bought the threshing floor.
That Mount Moriah is literally, not that road, this right here. This Mount Moriah was the place where the temple,
Solomon's temple, was built. And in 690, the Muslims took over and rebuilt the
Dome of the Rock, and it's still there today. But anyways, down here is Mount Zion. Remember Z in toes, toes at the end of the foot?
That's how I remember it. Mount Zion, down here, this is where David's palace was.
This is where David kind of ruled from. Well, all along here in old Jerusalem, there was this wall.
And once again, you can go look up pictures of Nehemiah's wall in real life. It's still in a lot of places standing there.
You can go look it up. And so what Nehemiah did is when he got there, he said, OK, boys, we all need to work together.
And he divided everybody up amongst their groups and assigned people different parts of that wall.
OK, you with me so far? All right. I'm not the greatest teacher in the world. I get it. I'm not the greatest preacher, but I just want to make sure y 'all understand it.
OK. And so, first of all, he made this partnership. And in that partnership, here was some realities.
OK. First thing is this. Everyone works. No one quits.
In my family, when my kids were growing up, I had five children. I made sure that if one person was working, we were all working.
If one was working, we were all working. If one was playing, then we all were playing. We did stuff together.
We made sure that if we had a job to do, it wasn't just half the people doing it.
My daughter and my wife could change oil. They can run a lawnmower. They can swing an axe.
They work it. They work like Hebrew slaves, man. They can cut their own straw for their bricks. That is who and what we were as a family.
And this is the same thing here in Nehemiah 3, verse 8. It says, after him, and I'm going to have a horrible time pronouncing these names, but we'll call him
Uz, son of Har. The goldsmiths made repairs. And next to him, Hanaiah, son of the perfumer, made the repairs.
Y 'all know some guys, dudes. Does everyone in this room know the difference between a guy and a dude?
You know what I'm saying. You know what I'm saying. There's guys out there, you know, that might be a little light in the loafers, you know.
Or they didn't, you know, they don't know how to use tools. Y 'all know what
I'm saying, right? Y 'all all staring at me like you're waiting for me to insult homosexuals. You know what
I'm talking about. And then there are dudes. Look at these guys right here. Look who was building the wall.
First of all, it was the goldsmiths, and then it was the guy who made perfume.
You know what I'm saying? I mean, think about that for a second. The guy who made, and guys,
I got gay people in here that are struggling with homosexuality. Everybody relax. Some of you new people are like, oh my
God, this is awkward. That's on purpose, okay? So relax, listen to the Word of God, and chill out. So the perfumers, the goldsmiths, the people who weren't used to making bricks, walls, and blocks, when it came time to rebuilding the walls, this guy wasn't going, well,
I'm going to use my spiritual gift. I'm going to make perfume for everyone. No, you know what he did?
He got a shovel and a hammer and went to stinking work. Some of you in this room need to understand this.
If you are a member of this church, it doesn't mean you get to sit in a chair in an air conditioning room.
It means that you are taking personal responsibility to get to work with the rest of us and build this wall.
And I ain't talking about this wall. And I ain't even talking about the wall at the Mexican border. Not that wall.
I'm talking about, metaphorically, the wall. We got people in this room that are lost, dying, and going to hell, and you have no effort in that job.
What is your ministry in this church? Where are you working? Anna, where are you?
Do you need help with the girls on Wednesdays in the GA thing? You don't? What ministry in here needs help?
Speak. The nursery. Where are you people with the nurseries? For 15 years,
I keep hearing, we need help with nursery. Guys, and dudes, stay away. Alright?
If you're a 40 -year -old male and want to work in the nursery, I'm going to punch you in the head. Okay? But, the rest of you peoples, you know, help in the nursery.
Sandra. Sandra, you actually get to be in here today. You know why she gets to be in here today?
Because someone stepped up. We need help in the nursery. Guys, SOG ministry, our
MMA ministry, every single thing we do. Jeremiah. Where are you, Brother Jeremiah? Where?
Brother Jeremiah is back there. Do you need some strong alpha females to help you in the youth group?
Are you a member of this church? Yes? Go to work. Guys, everyone works.
No one quits. And I know for some of you, you're like, oh, this is a weird church. Yeah, it's called a real church where you actually work.
I don't care what you're wearing. I don't care what your past has been. I don't care whether you're a murderer. If you have been regenerated by the power of the living
God and called to be a member of His family, then this is a place you can serve. That's what membership means.
Think about responsibility before you think about rights. But, number two, watch this. The politicians worked.
Look at chapter 3, verse 9. One verse down, it says, He went to work.
How much would you like it one day if the President of the United States picked up an
M16 or an M4 and stood watch on a line at that Cabal airport?
I would love to start seeing some of these four -star generals get off the well -fed behinds of the
Joint Chiefs of Staff, pick up a rifle, and stand post. That's what leadership is.
If you want to be part of a team, that means that no matter how high you think you are, the job has to be done, and you have a responsibility to get it done.
Look at this. Poor people. Poor people. Next to them, chapter 3, verse 30, if you look down, chapter 3, verse 30, it says,
Guys, in Jerusalem, some people had houses. But the poor people couldn't afford a house.
So what they did is, here was the wall. They would just simply build like an outhouse shed over it and then build little walls in between to separate it.
And each person got a little space. The guy that had least to lose still was part of the team.
He was still taking personal responsibility for the thing. And then the rich people worked.
It says the merchants worked. The business people worked. In verse 32, the goldsmiths and the merchants made repairs.
You want me to tell you the strategy of Satan? It's real simple. Here's the strategy of Satan.
To separate you from God and to separate us from each other. It's that simple.
He's been doing it since Genesis 3 when he sat there and told Adam and Eve, Did God really say?
You see, he's twisting the word of God. And then he puts enmity or he puts stress between man and woman, child and parents.
You don't believe me? Okay, go to the mall. You will. I ain't got to prove nothing to you,
Jack. Go look at our society. I mean, it could be that, yeah, the Bible is just made up by the
Catholic Church in the 300s and I'm a government agent of the federal government trying to trick you and control you societally for the government.
And there is no God, you dope -smoking idiot. Or there really is a
God. You're not him. He wrote his word down. He's coming back. And your rejection of him is going to cost you an eternal damnation.
Could be one of those two things. But we'll go with you and your sovereign intellectual superiority because you have a high intellect and you learn some big words and you can sit there and say, well, statistically speaking, you and your statistics are going to go to hell.
I'm telling you this. I don't know how I got off on this. Why is the room getting smaller and I want to wear high heels?
Okay, y 'all are here. Guys, watch this. Here's the big one.
And this is for Christians only. Listen. This is for church people only.
Look here in chapter 3, verse 11. You know who else was building the wall? Some of you people that have been in church for a long time.
I remember I had one of my senior ladies tell me this. She goes, in 50 years,
I have never had a pastor correct me. Well, I'm sorry, baby. And that's probably why your children and your children's children are godless heathens because no one's ever corrected you.
But here in this house, this is called accountability. When I screw up, y 'all correct me. When y 'all screw up, we correct each other.
That's how it works. Chapter 3, verse 11. Melchizedek, I can't say his name, son of Herom, and Hasheubah, son of whatever, made repairs to another section as well as to the tower of ovens.
By the way, those towers are still there. You can go look at them right now. But watch this. You know who this cat was?
Well, back 15 years earlier, when the guy Ezra and Zerubbabel were in town rebuilding the temple, this guy was in a mixed marriage.
He was. Now, let's talk about this. You can go look this up. I even wrote Ezra 10, verse 31.
Let's talk about this. If you are a white man married to some chick that's not white, you're godless.
You're going to go to hell. Right, Jeremiah? Right? Amen. Let's keep them races pure.
White power. Right? No, man. That's not what Scripture's saying. Every time you see in Scripture, every time you see him talking about unequally yoked, or mixed marriage, it has nothing to do, please, guys, please stop eating pink chips and think and read scripturally.
It's not talking about the color of your stupid skin. It's talking about a lost person and a saved person being together.
You know why? Because two cannot walk together unless they're agreed. One of you people need to get right.
One of you guys need to get focused. Guys, this kid right here, he had married a non -believing pagan.
And Ezra said, dude, what are you doing? You cannot be serious.
But this little Majeb guy was so insecure and he thought he would never find somebody else.
And, you know, that we had been shacked up together and, well, you just don't understand our culture today and all that other crap.
God said, do not be unequally yoked. It has nothing to do with skin color or culture or anything like that.
So he got put in his place. They repented. They got right. Fifteen years later, he's still in Jerusalem rebuilding that wall.
Why is that important, pastor? I'm going to tell you why. Guys, I am a licensed ordained senior pastor.
I have been a pastor and a counselor for now going on 31 years. I know
Scriptures. I can read Greek. I can read Latin. I'm okay with Hebrew.
I don't really understand them. But anyways, I'm all that.
But if I did not have you people holding me accountable, I'd be stealing this church. I would.
Oh, pastor, you would never do that. Oh, yeah, I would. Does that shake some of you to hear me say that?
Well, it's because you have a very jacked up view of what total depravity is. You see, there is nothing inside of me, of Jeff, of my humanity, that gets me one step closer to God.
Some of you people are banking your eternal life on that you're a good person. You know what
God says about you being your good works? He calls them filthy rags. You know what that is?
Those are used menstrual rags of the Old Testament. That's what He thinks about you going to church and you giving money and you helping an old woman across the street.
That's what He thinks about your good works. They don't mean nothing. See, inside of me, there is nothing worthy, all but the cross and the grace of God.
The fact that I am saved, not by my works, but by the grace of Almighty God. The fact that I can stand here today is not because I'm a great guy.
Guys, I'm a drug addict, ex -drug addict, high school dropout. That's who
I am. That's what I am in the flesh. But when you add Jesus Christ to a regenerated heart, man, when you can get corrected and have the humility to accept that correction and still do the work
God calls you to do, that's humility. And I'm going to give you a piece of advice here today.
If you are struggling with discouragement, depression, despondency, you're disenfranchised with the world and you don't know what to do with your life, let me help you out.
Humble yourself therefore in the sight of God and He will lift you up. I'm talking about a little humility will help you go a long way.
Hey, fellow drug addicts in here, fellow alcoholics, yeah, go ahead and raise them hands up.
That's right, that's right. How well does your sobriety work with pride?
It ain't going to happen. Now, some of you go, well, I'm not a drug addict. Are you addicted to an insecure, codependent relationship?
Welcome to addiction, you arrogant, self -righteous pig. That arrogance and thinking, well,
I'm not like that, is the very arrogance that's keeping you codependent on something other than God. It's not that hard.
It really isn't. I'm sorry, I'm getting carried away. But here's the point, guys.
Even a person who is corrected had enough humility to hear God and obey God rather than what's he going to look like in front of everybody else.
That humility is going to carry you a long way. Look at this, real quick, dadgummit, real quick, watch this.
Not just politicians, poor, rich, and corrected people. Watch this, chapter 3, verse 12.
Besides him, Shalom, son of Halohesh. I don't know, why did hash just run through my brain?
Anyways, ruler over half the district of Jerusalem made repairs. He and his daughters were making sandwiches.
Now, I know that you know that I know that you know that all you chicks in this room, you are good for two things in the body of Christ.
Come on now, let's all be serious. God said, thou shalt be in the kitchen, or in the nursery, and no else.
Yeah, it's in Hezekiah chapter 4. Go look up the book of Hezekiah chapter 4 right now. By the way, there is no book of Hezekiah.
Guys, let's talk just for a second, please. Let's talk just for a second. Besides the arrogance and the church adopting the culture of the world instead of impressing the culture of Jesus Christ, here's the other thing we've done.
And you young people, when I'm dead and gone, you young pastors, when I'm dead and gone, you remember this.
Remember, we have literally cut ourselves in half.
Cut ourselves in half. Because here's the truth of God's Word. Y 'all come on in.
I'm just getting started, man. Listen, we have cut ourselves in half by taking...
Look, people look up here. They're just people walking. Walk this way. Yeah, right here. Here you go.
How you doing, young fella? Good to see you, man. What's your name? Christian? That's a good name, boy. That's a real good name.
The same Spirit of God that's in me is the same Spirit of God that's in this little girl right here. Are you a
Christian? Okay, then the same Spirit of God is in me. Here's the hardest one to believe. The same
Spirit of God that's in me is the same Spirit of God that's in blonde women. Okay? Granted, when they're blonde, it's a little less academically.
You know, if you ever get around Candace and you hear the wind whistling, it's not the wind.
It's just... But, you know how you drown a blonde chick?
Put a scratch and sniff sticker at the bottom of the pool. Okay, anyways.
Guys, a partnership is this. Is that we stop saying this is women's work or this is men's work.
Now, before you liberals shout amen, come back over here, okay? Because there are roles for men and roles for women.
But the equality of value and worth, scripturally speaking, is the same.
Guys, you know that there were women deacons? Not in the office of deacon, but there are women...
Go look up Romans 16. There were women who were servants of God's people.
There are women in this room that are better preachers than I am. Remember, I'm not a preacher. I'm a pastor who happens to preach.
Okay? My job is to guide, protect, and lead this place. I guarantee Karina or Tiz...
Oh, yeah, they're not here. But I guarantee Karina could teach better than I ever will. Hey, whoa, whoa, whoa.
Slow that roll, baby. Slow that roll. Here's what happens.
If you're so insecure that you are threatened by someone else's ability to do something better than you, you're never going to be a leader.
You'll always be a tyrant and a totalitarian. Men, sometimes we fail as fathers and husbands because we get threatened by our own insecurities and that somebody else doing something will then by default motivate us to actually get up and go do something.
And so what we try to do is suppress and pull them down instead of lead them in the way they should go. And then you're the idiot who's going to stand around and wonder, what happened?
Why are my kids so rebellious? Because you're a hypocritical, inconsistent loser.
That's why. It ain't magic, guys. Cause and effect.
It's going to happen. Watch this. Gravity still works. The Word of God is still true.
Partnership. You've got to include everyone who is saved. And that is,
I don't care if you're a chick. I don't care if you're a dude. I don't care what color you are.
I don't care what freaking church you used to go to. I don't care what your opinion is. Right? Because our opinions don't matter.
The Word of God, if you are saved and regenerated, calls you to ministry and service.
Galatians says this. There is neither Jew, nor Greek, nor male, nor female, for we are all one in Jesus Christ.
You want to get this church strong? Understand this. It's only going to be strong together.
We are either going to come together as one and win, or we're going to die individually, each one of us, day by day.
And I'm going to close with this. Yeah, I'm going to get to point two. But it's going to be really abbreviated, okay?
I know y 'all get frustrated, but guys, I've got to be considerate of you people's time, too. Look here, look here.
Watch this. Partnership is great. So we start with prayer, we went and made a plan, then we made partners.
Now watch this. Here's where most of us get screwed up in our spiritual lives.
Our perseverance peters out. Man, I am a real Baptist preacher. I've got four Ps, don't
I? Okay, watch this. Chapter 3, verse 5. Here are things that are going to discourage you.
Here are things that are going to discourage you. Watch this. Besides them, the Koites made repairs, but the nobles did not lift a finger to help their supervisors.
You know what will discourage you in ministry? When you're sitting there working, and you see a fellow believer in Christ going,
I wouldn't do it like that. You know? I've seen it.
I've sat there and been working my brains out, and someone walks in and goes, Are you tired?
What do you want to do, Vicki? Right? Here's what I want to do. Hey, come here for a second.
Come over here. I want to beat their brains in, right? And it gets so discouraging, man.
It gets so stinking discouraging. Or you're sitting there and you're working your brains out to get something done, and somebody doesn't even say thank you for it.
But here's the danger, Christians. You cannot get martyr -messiah complex.
You cannot sit there and start going, Oh, I'm the only one doing anything.
If it wasn't for me, this whole place would fall down. Oh. You can't start doing that.
In your families, you can't start doing that. Oh, if my husband would only do this, or if my wife would only do this, or if my kids would only do this.
You have been called to a ministry, and if you're the only one swinging a hammer on that wall, you swing it to the glory of God, not to the praises of men.
Because remember, you ain't home yet. The award ceremony ain't going to happen on this side of glory.
The recognition isn't going to happen on this. You can keep your wooden plaques. You can keep your
Jeff Shipley ministries or Tanksley building. Keep your dumb memorials.
I don't want them. I'm waiting for the big prize when I get home. And that big prize is this. Well done, now good and faithful servant.
With my daddy issues, hearing God telling me, Good job, boy. Woo! It's going to be a good day.
It's going to be a real good day. Don't let the sinners discourage you. Look at this.
Look at this. Chapter 4, verses 1 through 3. Here come these idiots. Samballot heard that we were rebuilding the wall and became furious.
He mocked the Jews before his colleagues and the powerful men of Samaria and said this,
What are these pathetic Jews doing? Can they restore it by themselves? Will they offer sacrifices?
Will they ever finish it? Can they bring these burnt stones back to life? Then look at verse 3.
Then Tobiah the Ammonite said this, who was beside them, that even if a fox climbed up on what they were building, he would break down their stone wall.
Let me tell you all some truths about dissensions. Dissenters, they're called cowards.
Okay? They're called cowards. People who don't want to be a part of the job, they don't just simply sit.
They snipe. You know what I'm talking about? You know what I'm talking about. They'll start picking out to assuage the guilt of their laziness, to assuage the conviction, if they're
Christians, of the Holy Spirit. They'll start going, well, I wouldn't have done it like that. You wouldn't have done it at all, you lazy bum.
Or you would have been doing it. I remember when I got here 17 years ago, there was 6 inches of mud in the bottom of that building over there, on the ground floor.
6 inches. And I asked them, like, what's the deal? They said, well, the water keeps pouring in and, you know, flooding the basement.
Plug up the hole, right? I mean, dang. I mean, I didn't graduate high school, but dang.
Well, why bother? We're never going to use that building again. You know what the problem of this church was?
It wasn't that it was old people. It wasn't that, you know, it was everyone had lost the vision and the hope to think we could rebuild this place.
Guys, people will cut you down and cut you back.
The same guy who was in charge of this place when I got here, he and I got in an argument because I spent $3 .45
on a pair of reflectors for this back driveway because little Leetris Kennedy couldn't see to turn in.
And he had more titles than he had leadership. He was the chairman of the deacon, the chairman of the pulpit committee.
He was the guidance counselor at Briarcrest School. He was the Sunday school teacher. He was all that and a bag of chips.
He had every title but no intention. Real Christian leadership, real perseverance is not just pointing out the problem.
It's actually doing something about it. It's actually taking a step forward and sacrificing your comfort.
It's sacrificing something, who and what you are, to the betterment of something in someone else.
By the way, for all you millennials, that's also called love. Love is sacrifice.
It is not an emotion. Please stop equating love with emotion, okay? And make an appointment to come see me because you need it.
Guys, let me tell you something else about discouraging people. They run with other people who like to discourage.
They're like a pack of wolves, man. They're like a pack of wolves. They just want to rule the ruins.
Some of you peoples in this room, listen. You know how the conviction that you're feeling right now, that some of this is applying to you?
You know what you're going to want to do? You're going to want to walk out these doors, get in your car, go home and explain to somebody else and have them affirm the fact that you don't agree and that that guy's not right and he's too fat and he's bald and he's stupid and that Bible's just a bunch of moral whatever.
Did I just hit you? It's not because I'm smart. It's because God's Word convicts and the same human idiocies that were around 3 ,000 years ago are the same human idiocies that are here now.
Now, the good news for you is the same faith that saved Abraham is the same faith that can save you. Book it.
Watch this. Come on. Can you all give me five more minutes? Do you all mind?
Look, I tell you what. If you're bored and you've got to go, go on. But just five more minutes because everybody yells at me on Monday mornings instead.
Why didn't you finish your sermon? Okay, so I'm going to be finished in just a second, okay? Yeah, I know
I just turned the page. I ain't going to preach at all, but watch this. Here's the other thing. Here's the other thing, guys.
When you make a partnership and people mock you, when that mocking doesn't work, they're going to take it to the next level, okay?
Now, some of you kids, have you all ever been in a fight? I'm talking about a fight.
Now, there's different kinds of fighting. There's the fighting at school for most of, you know, you little middle -class, utopian, suburban kids.
This is what you think a fight is. Pastor, stand up. This is what it is. It's like, man, come on, man.
Do it to me. Come on, man. No, come on, man. What that is is you both are scared to actually throw a punch, but you don't want to lose face, so you sit there like two
Kansas City, two weirdos, pushing on each other to try to save face.
That is not a fight. That's two kids looking dumb. I'm talking about that one where you get clipped and your knees go a little bit weak and the front of your breeches got a little wet and the room's spinning and you got that sick vomit feeling in your throat, in your belly.
I didn't, I don't have anatomy. I'm talking about that kind of fight, okay?
Guys, that kind of fight's scary. It's scary, man. It's scary as mess.
I bounced a bar, never mind, a while back, and most of the time all
I did was wash dishes, to be honest with you, that's all I did, and sit at a little desk and drink orange juice and stamp people's hands.
It's not like, you know, you don't do nothing except move chairs and wash dishes. But anyways, there was this one group of ROTC guys and they were pinching
Christie's backside. And so I just walked up and I'm like, hey guys, enough.
You know, she's working, she ain't your toy, right? So I went back and sat down. Now, I never worried about the guys that stood up and go,
I'm gonna kill you, man! I'm gonna beat you up! Because they're all the way across the room, they're just showing out for the ladies and you just act scared and they calm down.
This dude walked up to me, all by himself, and just leaned over my desk and said, hey, let's meet and you go outside.
That's the kind of fight I'm talking about. He wasn't showing out, man. He wanted to tune me up.
Guys, when discouragement and dissension doesn't work, threats will start coming.
And some of you men and or women in here, you use threats as leverage in your relationships with your kids.
You know, there's never a time you should threaten your kids. Ever. Why? Don't touch that.
They touched it. You tune them up. It's called consistency. That's all it is.
Please don't ever be one of those idiot parents who goes, one, two, three.
Because all it's going to do is have your kid be in my office when they're 15, 16 years old. Trust me on this.
I've raised five of them. I get it. Threats will come from dissension.
But then here's the last two things. I promise I'm done. I promise. Look at verse 14 of chapter 4.
What did Nehemiah do? Somebody read it. Out loud. Stop.
First of all, you're a woman. You shouldn't read in church. Read, baby.
Read that again. Enunciate those first six words. Stop. You know how you deal with threats, guys?
When you see them, what did you just say, brother? It's time for us to stand up, kids. It's time for us to stand up.
Guys, I promise you this. Picking at problems don't make them better.
If you ignore them, you're just storing them for interest where you're going to have to deal with it later. You know how we deal with threats?
Oh, well, pastor, they're going to shut you down if you don't require everybody to get vaccinated that comes in your building.
Come on, try to shut me down. Well, you're going to lose your tax -exempt status. Take it.
Well, they're going to condemn your church building. I'll meet in the parking lot. You cannot defeat the people of God.
They've been trying it for 6 ,000 years and all you do is spread us like wildfire. You can't beat us because the worst thing you could do to me is kill me and send me home.
That's it. See, the difference is I really believe this crap. This is not just a job for me.
This isn't a Sunday morning belief. This is innate in the core of my soul.
I know that I know that I know. For I know whom I have believed in and persuaded that He is able to keep all of that which
I have committed unto Him against that day. Do you got that faith? Then dissension and threats won't hurt you.
And what do you got to do? You got to stand up. Don't be a punk either when you stand up. When I used to coach fighters,
I didn't let them talk trash. Man, I'm going to kill you. Man, I'm about to eat the heart out of your children,
Mike Tice. No, you're not. You're going to get in there and swing hands and we're all going to go home. Ain't no one going to kill nobody.
Well, I remember someone, Rocky Marciano. You ain't Rocky Marciano. Shut up. Ain't nobody going to die.
You're going to fight. You're just scared to act like a punk and try to play that dude out. Man, get in there and let your hands and feet talk.
When you deal with threats, just sit there and go, Okay, man. You don't even have to go bring it or anything like that,
Carrie. You don't have to go bring it, right? You ain't got to do that. Just keep building the wall. If they want to fight, bring them on.
Now, last thing. Watch. Last thing. Hold on. I'm almost done. Y 'all didn't know a fat guy could run, huh?
Watch this. Watch this. By the way, if you look at chapter 3, verse 1, you know the first guy to swing the hammer?
You know who it was, Pastor? Pastors. Pastors. If you want to try to find a church and you find one that sits there and goes,
God will just accept you the way you are, leave. Because that ain't a pastor.
If you smile, God loves you. God loves... That's bull crap. Okay? Alright.
Look at verses 4 and 5. Look at verses 4 and 5 of chapter 4. Listen to Nehemiah's prayer.
Nehemiah is not being nice. Listen, our God, for we are despised. Make their insults return on their own heads and let them be taken plunder to a land of captivity.
Do not cover their guilt or let their sin be erased from your sight. Wow! Now, I was never raised in church, but I bet a lot of you who were raised up in church were always told this.
Forgive. Don't ever get angry. Don't ever be angry. I will give you $1 ,000 if you can find me anywhere in Scripture that says, do not be angry.
And that's all it says. Because I know some of y 'all are going to Ephesians 4 right now. It says, be angry and sin not.
Anger is an emotion. It is emotion. Okay? The emotion is not wrong.
What you choose to do with it is wrong. Okay? Guys, I'm almost done. Hang with me. Nehemiah prays this prayer and says this,
God, let them go to hell. That's what he says. Let them go to hell. Do not forgive them of their sins.
That is not very nice. Right? I mean, where's the holly hobby, my little pony
Jesus dude? Right? Not there. Then look what Nehemiah does. Look what he does.
In the next 18 verses, this is what he does. He sits there and says, okay, they're going to kill us.
All right. Everybody in this room, get your sword right now. And this is what
Nehemiah does. You people who are bringing bricks from the mortar pits to the walls, bring only enough bricks that you can carry one hand and carry a spear in the other.
You people that are building the walls, put that sword on you. And here's what
I'm going to do. I'm going to, as the leader, walk around this wall, and I'm going to have a guy with a trumpet with me.
If you hear me blow that trumpet, drop your little tools, draw your swords, and come running.
That's not very Christian. You know it? Seriously, I mean, think about that. Is that very Christian, Diana?
I mean, you know, like, we have armed guards. Look at them.
On the doors, in the hallway, in front of the children's department down there. We got armed guards.
And when I say armed, I'm not talking a flashlight. Okay? There's probably more firepower in this building right now than in most law enforcement agencies.
And I'm good with that. Okay? I'm good with that. What's that mean?
Pastor, shouldn't you forgive people? Absolutely. I'll forgive you. I'll forgive you.
But notice this. Galatians says this. For whatever a man sows, that shall he reap.
You come down to tear this wall up, it's not going to be a good day for you. It's not going to be a good career move for you.
Because you're going to get jacked up. Guys, I know for some of you that feels awkward and weird in a church because you're dumb enough to actually believe that you're sitting in a church.
You were raised in religion to believe this is a church. This is the church to save people in this room.
And we have a responsibility to protect each other. Now, you right -wing black helicopter dudes in here that have like 400 million rounds of ammunition buried in your backyard with little granola bars.
And you know, you got the big Rambo knife and you practice and you got the little black paint on your face, you're sneaking around the woods.
Cool! I mean, if that's you, cool. Cool. Alright. Cool. Notice that there's no government or form of protection in here.
They had no other choice. Those churches that are like training people to take over the world or...
I'm here to preach the gospel of Jesus Christ. I'm here to spread the gospel of Jesus Christ. That's my mission.
We're not going to have gun turrets on the roof that you'll know about or anything like that.
Okay? That's not what I'm here to do. But, guys, you feel when depression turns to threat and threats turn to action, we're going to make a quick prayer.
We're going to stand post on the wall and we're going to do what God calls us to do no matter who tells us to stop.
Now, pastors, you come up. Music people, you come up. Yes, you can relax. I'm done talking.
Listen. And I know I went long today. Hold on. I know I went long today, but listen to me.