Built Despite Opposition

Heat. Heat. [music] >> [music] [music] >> Well, good morning, Cross Church Phoenix. How are you? >> Good, good, good. I'm Pastor DJ. I'm the pastor here at Cross Church Phoenix. And if you're new here, welcome. Um, I always enjoy seeing new faces, especially when we have a baptism. We are celebrating uh baptisms today. We were going to have two. We have are actually going to spread the love a little bit and we've got one today and one next week. So, we just uh we keep going and pressing on. It's awesome. Uh if you would turn in your Bibles to Nehemiah chapter 4 and we are going to be in Nehemiah this morning obviously and then take a break and we will be doing a Christmas series the next three Sundays up to and then also including Christmas Eve which is a Wednesday evening and we will be in the Gospels for the Christmas series that we have. But for now, Nehemiah chapter 4. So, as you turn there, and there are Bibles in the seat back in front of you as well. So, if you want to use one of those, feel free to and make that your Bible. You can keep it. It's our gift to you. Uh keep the Bible, mark it up, highlight it, do what you uh want, but please read it and then, you know, bring it back next week and make it yours. Uh we will gladly replace it. Uh as you turn to Nehemiah, or maybe you're already there, um I wanted to share a quick story from this week. We had a uh Thanksgiving here on Thanksgiving day from uh noon to 2. And we have some uh pictures I'd like to share. And all I wanted to do is express my thanksgiving to those who came and uh prepared food. We had some people bring food and then go cuz they have some other things going on. We have some people stay. But we had a good if we could cycle through some of the pictures, we had a good amount of uh folks show up. We had people share what they're thankful for, give testimony. Um, but I just want to express my own thanksgiving to all of you guys who showed up Thanksgiving Day to provide um a Thanksgiving meal to those who may not have anywhere to go or just wanted to come fellowship here at the church. Um so we I appreciate you. Thank you. And um I just thank God for you guys. So um but let's give a round of thank you to the Lord for all that he's doing. Um it was truly a great time and uh I am very appreciative of those who participated and contributed to that. Well, [snorts] let's pray. Father, we thank you for this morning. We thank you for your word. And now as we come uh before you and sit under your word, God, I pray that you would impress upon our hearts what it is we need um this morning, God. For some of us it might be conviction of our own sin. Uh for some of us it might be encouragement. I'm always reminded week in and week out that we we all come each and every one of us here come from uh just different circumstances throughout the week and show up on a Sunday morning. Some of us uh have had a great week and come in excited and some of us come in weak and broken and um just hurt by some things, Lord. And um I praise you that you are above everything, Lord. And you deserve all the glory, honor, and praise that we could ever give. Each and every moment of our lives is dedicated to you. And I pray, God, that you would um just bring comfort and peace to those who need it. Joy to those who need it, God. And our ultimate source of of strength and refuge is in Christ alone. And we thank you, Lord, for the finished work on the cross. I pray now that your spirit would give us um ears to hear, eyes to see, Lord, what the spirit has to say to the church here at Cross Church Phoenix. In Jesus name we pray. Amen. One of the uh misconceptions of Christianity is that if you become a Christian, all your problems go away. You guys can, you know, give testimony to that, right? If you're a believer in here, all your problems went away, right? No, somehow, you know, life is supposed to get easier if we become a Christian. You know, we sometimes can get caught up in and I I talk with people about this um early on in their walk with the Lord too, especially if they came to know Christ, you know, sitting with me or or recently with someone else and they talked to me about it. You know, sometimes people think that loving and serving God means he's supposed to remove then all hardships and difficulties from your life. And while that sounds really nice, it's not biblical at all. Loving and serving God does not mean that now God is obligated to remove everything difficult from your life or to remove all uh all opposition or anything like that. None of that is true. And we're going to see that principle here in Nehemiah chapter 4. Nehemiah, if you've been with us, and if not, our our other sermons are online. But if you've been with us, you know Nehemiah is about God's business. He is doing the Lord's work. He loves God and he's serving God and his people. He's doing what God has called and commanded him to do. And yet opposition persists. Persecution really persists. Now, we know that God could just zap him out, right? just take him out. God could wipe out, you know, Sambalot, Tobaya, and the whole crew and just make it smooth sailing for Nehemiah. Here, I want you to build the walls and the gates and the temple for that matter with Ezra going on. Uh, I'm going to just remove everyone that would oppose you, and I just want you to build the wall and gates in peace. But he doesn't do that. God lets the enemies of Israel linger and it stick around and oppose. And if you look throughout the Bible, God, if you've read through Genesis to Revelation, if you haven't, you know, good challenge, start. But if you look throughout the scriptures, God rarely if ever removes all opposition to his plan and opposition to those doing his work. You're not going to find it. For example, and there's a few. I had to narrow it down for time sake because sometimes I'm tempted to preach for like an hour um but I can't. Uh but for example, Joshua, God says to Joshua, right after Moses has died, Joshua is the leader of the Israelite people. He's going to take him into the promised land. And God tells Joshua, "I'm giving you and the Israelites the promised land." Sweet. He's giving it to me. Awesome. And then God says, "Now go take it." Wait a minute. Right. But aren't you giving it to us, Lord? Yep. And we still have to go fight for it. Yep. Well, which is it? Are you giving it to us or do we have to go take it? Yes. It's a both and, right? It's not an eitheror. Either God's giving it to me or or I have to go uh fight the Canaanites to take it. It's not an eitheror. It's a bothand. God didn't just wipe out the nations and send Israel skipping in on the yellow brick road into the promised land, right? Like everything's rainbows and unicorns. That's not how it happened. God kept those opposing nations there and told his people that yes, it's theirs and yes, you need to go fight for it. If you remember God's promise that we all have stitched on our pillows, right? Be strong and courageous, right? For I am with you. Um God's promise to Joshua and the people really is that he would go with them as they fought, right? I will be with you Joshua as you go. God didn't say, "I already went, wiped everyone out. Enjoy the promised land. See you later." No. God's people have always faced opposition while on God's mission. And whether it's in the Old Testament or the New Testament, the question is how do we respond? What can we learn? Right? What do we do when the going gets tough? If you remember, what do what do we do when the going gets tough? The tough get going. I finally got it right at 9:00 a.m. I was like, I botched that, right? But but what do we do right when when the going of the Christian life gets tough? And that's what we're going to look at today uh today in Nehemiah 4. Nehemiah chapter 4. Basically, there's two things we're going to see. There's going to be opposition from outside, right? Opposition from the world. And then you're going to see how there's discouragement inside in the land of Israel. And what can we learn from Nehemiah and how he responds? So let's read um verses 1-9. When Sanot heard that we were rebuilding the wall, he became furious. He mocked the Jews before his colleagues and the powerful men of Samaria and said, "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 from the mounds of rubble?" Notice how he's left out God and everything, right? Can they? They they they he's forgotten somebody important. Verse three, then Tobaya the Ammonite who was beside him said, "Indeed, if a fox climbed up what they are building, he would break down their stone wall." I see this as kind of like little kids, right? Even a fox could knock that over. Verse four, Nehemiah, listen our God, for we are despised. Make their insults return on their own heads and let them be taken as plunder to a land of captivity. Do not cover their guilt or let their sin be erased from your sight because they have angered the builders. So verse 6, we rebuilt the wall until the entire wall was joined together up to half its height. It's halfway done for the people had the will to keep working. Verse 7. When Samuelot, Tobaya, and the Arab Zammonites, and Ashodites heard that the repair to the walls of Jerusalem was progressing and that the gaps were being closed, they became furious. They all plotted to come uh together to come and fight against Jerusalem and throw it into confusion. So, we prayed to our God and stationed a guard because of them day and night. So in these first nine verses, what we're seeing is opposition from the surrounding nations, right? Um Sanvelot, Tobaya, Ammonites, Ashites, all the other itesites are not Israelites, right? They're other itites. All the itites coming against Jerusalem. And notice, I'm getting ahead of myself, but external opposition. What can we learn from Nehemiah? Number one, remember that opposition to God's work is opposition to God himself. Opposition to God's work is [clears throat] opposition to God himself. Notice how Nehemiah doesn't even address his opposition. He goes straight to God and he basically prays, let's call it like it is, an impregatory psalm or an impregatory prayer against his enemies. You say, "What's an impregatory prayer or psalm?" It's basically like when you're going to God and praying really not for the good of your enemies, but for the justice of of God to prevail over your enemies and you're basically praying against them, right? And we see there are psalms where they're basically um crying out to God for his justice on enemies. And so Nehemiah basically prays, "Turn everything they're saying against us and put it right back onto them." Right? Kind of like when you're a kid and you say, "Whatever you say bounces off of me and sticks to you." Right? God is like, "Well, whatever they're saying against us, flip it around and put it on them." But notice how prayer is his first resort, not his last. How often is prayer like our last resort? But he does it first. And his response, I think, is a great example. He doesn't debate with them. He doesn't form a committee like a good old Baptist church would. He didn't deal with the enemies directly. What does he do? He just takes it to God. Nehemiah recognizes that though his enemies are opposing him and his rebuilding project and mocking the people. Yes. Yes. And yes. But what they're ultimately against is God himself. And so he goes to God himself and says, "I'm going to let God deal with this. We're going to continue working." Nehemiah ignores them and lets God do what he's going to do while he continues the work. The same is true for us. So, as we look at some of these principles, right, like we're not rebuilding the walls of cross church. I get that. But what can we learn from this spiritually? The same is true for us. Our opposition comes what? To the spread of the gospel. To the spread of making Jesus known, making disciples of all nations. We will experience opposition to that. There's not much opposition to false gospels where it's health, wealth, and prosperity. God is here to make you happy. There is a lot of opposition to the real gospel which what addresses sin. Jesus said, "I came to seek and to save that which was lost." People dead in sin. And so what we have is [clears throat] we have a mission, a commandment to spread the gospel knowing that there will be opposition and rejection. If you're about doing the Lord's work, it's not if, but when you'll experience opposition. For example, if you share the gospel with someone and are rejected, right? They turn you away. They they say no. They might even become um angry at you and a little defensive towards you. We have to remember that they're ultimately not rejecting you or me. They're rejecting God. Ultimately, >> I think sometimes we hesitate to witness and to share the gospel out of a fear of rejection, which is completely normal, right? I don't know many people who want to be rejected. I don't. You probably don't either. We like community, acceptance, positive interactions with people, right? Not many of us enjoy rejection. I hope not. That would be interesting. And our fear of rejection can keep us from talking about Jesus. But we have to remember that when we experience opposition or rejection in doing the Lord's work. It's not about us. It's about God. And I think if we keep that in mind, it is very freeing. It can be really freeing actually to say it's not about me. It's about they're rejecting God. The second thing we do is this. We endure the work and despise the shame. If you have a handout with you, um, those are the blanks. Endure the work and despise the shame. And I'm I'm borrowing, of course, from Hebrews 12:2 about Jesus. If you recall the passage, Hebrews 12:2 says this, "Looking to Jesus, the author or founder and perfector of our faith, who for what? The joy that was before him." What did he do with the joy that was before him? He endured the cross, despising the shame and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God. Nehemiah and the Jewish people here are being shamed. They're being ridiculed and mocked. And Nehemiah just like praise to God and keeps working, right? Endures, endures. The mocking is not going to stop. And if you continue to read through Nehemiah, it's like not going to stop anytime soon. They show up again in like chapter 6. They just keep coming. So they have to continue the work and endure it. But what are we learning? Building Jerusalem is worth it. Why? Because the right worship of God is about to start happening again. And that is extremely important for Nehemiah. the goal is worth enduring mock and shame for. And we see the same thing in Jesus Christ. How did Christ deal with the shame of the cross? Cuz Christ isn't the only one who was crucified in the first century. Hundreds of people are crucified in the first century. He's one of many. It's a shameful way to die. And how does Christ endure the cross? And how does he deal with the shame? The scriptures use an interesting and intriguing word. He despises it. You say, "How do you despise shame?" Interesting to me. I'm like, "How do you do that?" Right? And I like what John Piper wrote concerning this. Now, he's imagining Jesus response, right? This isn't in the scriptures, but he imagines Christ's thoughts on the shame of the cross this way. So, I'm quoting him. Quote, he says, "Listen to me, shame. Do you see that joy in front of me? Compared to that, you are less than nothing. You are not worth comparing to that. I despise you. You think you have power. Compared to the joy before me, you have none. Joy, joy, joy. That is my power, not you. Shame. You are worthless and you are powerless. End quote. despising shame. Whatever shame we may experience in serving God, brought from other people, it's worth enduring. It's completely worth being mocked, jered at, or even threatened for the sake of making Jesus known. Why? Cuz we too have joy set before us. Heaven awaits. Communion with God in his glory for all of eternity awaits. We have that to look forward to. We can handle a little bit of despising and shame and mockery and being jered at for the sake of Christ because of the joy set before us. We can endure anything the world throws at us when our hearts are set on the eternity of heaven. We can despise shame too. We see in Acts 5 with the apostles is great. This is awesome. Acts 5:40 it says this. And when they had called in the apostles, who's the they uh leadership in the time that are persecuting Christians, right? They called in the apostles, they beat them and charged them not to speak in the name of Jesus and then let them go. So what do they do? Apostles, come over here. Beat them. Charge them. Don't speak about Jesus. Go your own way. Verse 41 of Acts 5. Then they left the presence of the council rejoicing what? Rejoicing. Why? That they, the apostles who were just beaten for the name of Jesus Christ, that they were counted worthy to suffer dishonor for the name. And every day verse 42 in the temple and from house to house they did not cease teaching and preaching that the Christ is Jesus. So what do we see? We have apostles in the first century who are taken in by the leadership beaten down told not to speak the name of Jesus and they walk out of the place rejoicing. And we see two things. we see rejoicing that they were counted worthy to suffer for Christ and then a continuing of the work because they're they obviously if you remember they're going to obey God rather than men when it comes to the gospel. So if you tell us not to speak about Jesus, they're not going to stop. They're just going to continue though. They were just beaten for it. They were counted worthy to suffer for the sake of Christ. It's worth bottom line. You're like, DJ, what's your point? You've used a bunch of examples. It's worth it. It's worth enduring shame, enduring our own whatever comes our way for the sake of Jesus Christ. That's despising shame. The third way we respond to opposition from the world is to pray with the intent to act. Pray with the intent to act. Notice verse 9. It says, "We prayed to our God and stationed a guard." And throughout Nehemiah, you'll see the perfect balance between prayer and action. Prayer doesn't mean we don't do anything. It means we seek God and then go about what he's commanded us to do. Prayer doesn't replace action. It precedes it. Right? When you pray, when we pray, I include myself in all of this. Right? When we pray, do we intend to act upon what we pray about? For example, if you pray about the salvation of a friend or a co-orker or a family member, do you also intend or plan to be the one to share Christ with them? Something to think about, right? Sometimes God will use us to fulfill our own prayer requests sometimes. But we see Nehemiah turning to God, asking for him to take care of the enemies and his protection. And then what? Doing something about it by stationing a guard. Literally physically stationing a guard. It's not like God protect us while we sit here with our twiddling our thumbs. It's God protect us. We're going to station a guard and get ready. It's both. Now, I understand and I'm not saying that all of our prayers will require our actions. Sometimes we're just turning things over to the Lord. We are just turning something over to God and trusting him with that with it. I get that. But often times we need to add some feet to our prayers and get moving working toward what we're praying for. We see Nehemiah pray and then equip people to be part of the fulfillment of that prayer. You see that? I hope you see that he doesn't see prayer as an excuse to do nothing. And we shouldn't either. Let's read the rest of the chapter verses 10 to 23. In Judah, it was said, "The strength of the laborer fails since there is so much rubble. We will never be able to rebuild the wall." And our enemies said, "They won't realize it until we're among them and can kill them and stop the work." [snorts] When the Jews who live nearby arrived, they said to us time and again, "Everywhere you turn, they attack us." So I stationed people behind the lowest sections of the wall at the vulnerable areas. I stationed them by families with their swords, spears, and bows. After I made an inspection, I stood up and said to the nobles, the officials, and the rest of the people, "Don't be afraid of them. Remember the great and all inspiring Lord, and fight for your countrymen, your sons and daughters, your wives, and homes." Verse 15. When our enemies heard that we knew their scheme and that God had frustrated it. Key God frustrated it. Every one of us returned to his own work on the wall. From that day on, half of my men did the work while the other half held spears, shields, bows, and armor. The officers supported all the people of Judah who were rebuilding the wall. The laborers who carried the loads worked with one hand and held a weapon in the other with the other. Each of the builders had his sword strapped around his waist while he was building and the trumpeter was beside me. Notice Nehemiah is right there with them. Then I said to the nobles, verse 19, the officials and the rest of the people, the work is enormous and spread out, and we are separated far from one another along the wall. Wherever you hear the trumpet sound, rally to us there. Our God will fight for us. So we continued the work while half of the men were holding spears from daybreak until the stars came out. At that time I also said to the people, "Let everyone and his servants spend the night inside Jerusalem so that they can stand guard by night and work by day." Verse 23. and I, my brothers, my my servants, and the men of the guard with me, never took off our clothes. Each carried his weapon, even when washing. So, you see Nehemiah's in the thick of it, right? He's not an ivory tower leader. If you hear the trumpet rally here, where's the trumpet next to Nehemiah? Who's going to be fighting? Nehemiah, right? But here we see internal discouragement within Israel. The people are tired. There's a lot of work to do. We're never going to be able to finish this wall. That's what's going on. We could say like this is kind of the gossip, the stir of the town, so to speak. This is what's going around. And how Nehemiah handles this gives us in insight, I think, into how we deal with our own discouragement in the church. So, when there is discouragement within, how do we respond? First, don't substitute the fear of man with the fear of God. Don't substitute the fear of man with the fear of God. I'm sorry, the fear of God. Whoops. With the fear of man. At this point, the Israelites are allowing the voice of their enemies to be louder than God's. If you remember, and if you've been with us, maybe you will, or if you've read Nehemiah recently, what motivated them to start the work to begin with? And if you recall, what motivated them to start the work to begin with was Nehemiah had told them, right, the good hand of the Lord is upon me. Let's do this. God is in this. And then what do they say? Let's start rebuilding. Right? That's what motivated them to get going. And then the enemies start running their mouths. Right? And that becomes a discouragement. If you think about it, what they're saying isn't false. They probably are tired. That's legit. You ever get tired? Yes. There is a lot of rubble. It's not false. It's true. And it doesn't seem like we'll ever be able to finish this project when our enemy is surrounded. All of that's true from a human perspective. But let's not count out God, right? God is in this. And sometimes our mission to make disciples of all nations seems too tall a task to accomplish. How are we how are we going to make an impact on our own community when there's so many needs? And I hear them throughout the week. So much so many hurts, so much pain and suffering and brokenness. Can we really make a difference? And maybe, you know, on our own, not so much. But with God, yes. with the gospel. Yes, we can make a difference. And if you're ever tempted to let the enemy speak louder than God, go straight to God with it. If the enemy is just pounding you and hounding you, take it straight to God. That's what Nehemiah does. He says, "Remember the great and awesome God." So Nehemiah's like, "Israel, did you forget that God is great and all inspiring? Are you thinking that?" I love having the kids come in. It's like one of my favorite parts. And all the kids just come trickling in cuz we got baptism. We do that every time. But Isra Israel, are you thinking that your enemies are great and awesome? Have you forgotten that your enemies aren't great and awesome? God is great and awesome. Remember that. Don't forget God. Don't forget his power and his greatness and his awesomeness. He's bigger. He's bigger than our your greatest discouragement. I don't know what's going on in all of your lives. I know some. And however your discouragement level might be, so to speak, God is bigger and greater than it. Take it to him. Number two, remain steadfast knowing your labors not in vain. Now, once again, I'm I'm borrowing from other passages. First, it was Hebrews, now 1 Corinthians 15:58, where Paul says this, "Therefore, my beloved brothers, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that in the Lord your labor is not in vain." When we get discouraged, when we feel like we can't do anything, nothing's going right, everything's going wrong, continue to abound in the work of the Lord. We don't give up. We don't give in. We don't see Nehemiah throwing in the towel. We shouldn't either. We trust God and press on just like Nehemiah and his crew did. Notice verse 15. If you look down at verse 15, what does it say? God frustrated the enemy's scheme. Now look back at verse 8, what did Nehemiah's enemies desire to bring confusion into Israel? Right? What did God do? Frustrate all of it. I see that as God answering Nehemiah's prayer to turn it right back onto his enemies, right? What do what do the enemies want to bring confusion into Israel as Israel does God's work? What does God do? Bring confusion to his enemies and frustrates the whole thing. It's great. It's wonderful. I love how when God does that, right? All the Israelites do is get right back to work. And that's what we do. We remain steadfast. Our labor is not in vain. When we are discouraged, we remain steadfast. Number three, be confident in God's protection [clears throat] and go boldly go. Nehemiah's confidence in God didn't mean he wasn't also bold. He is confident. What does he say? God will fight for us. That's what he says, right? God will fight for us. Then what do they do? Carry weapons and don't even change into your pajamas when you go to bed. Right? You're keeping everything on. What does that mean? Be ready. Well, which one is it? Will God take care of it for us? Yes. Do we have to be ready to fight? Yeah, it's both. And the balance again between trusting God and going out and continuing the work. We see that their equipment describes two different things, right? Offensive and defensive weapons, right? If you're carrying a sword, a weapon, that's offense. If you're building a wall, it's def defense, right? It's all motivated by verse 14, right? Fight for your countrymen, your children, your wives, and your homes. Because in those days, that's exactly what the enemy would want to take and plunder, right? They would destroy your home and do away with the men and take the women and children as captives and enslave them. That's what they would do in those days. And so Nehemiah is like, "We need to protect our families, right? Protect your home. Protect all of this from the enemy. Well, our adversary, the enemy, Satan and his demons want exactly the same thing spiritually. What do they want? Destroy your home, destroy your family, destroy your children. It's exactly what Satan would like. If you can destroy the nuclear family, right? What God instituted. If you can destroy marriage, you're working against God. That's one of Satan's grand schemes. Destroy marriage and then destroy the family. If you want to summarize all of Satan's work, it's destroy marriage and the family. What God instituted, everything else will take care of itself. Right? If you can destroy marriage in the family, you you you the rest of evil and wickedness will take care of itself, right? The family is a defense. And we say, well, what's our sword then? Well, we have a description in Ephesians, right? The armor of God, the scriptures, the word of God. We have the sword. We must know the scriptures. What does Jesus do when he's facing temptation in the wilderness? By Satan himself. He quotes Deuteronomy three times. The second temptation, Satan quotes scripture. I forgot to tell first service this. I need to get I need to bring him up to speed, right? He Satan quotes a psalm in tempting Jesus Christ to jump off the pinnacle of the temple. Why? Because the Bible says that angels will carry you on their wings, Jesus, lest your foot strike a stone. You won't. You know, Jesus, that if you go to the pinnacle of the temple and jump off, you know the father's not going to let you die. You know that the angels will carry you. You can do this. And Jesus rebukes him, right? Absolutely not. Do not tempt the Lord your God. That it is written. It is actually written, right? What does Satan do? Quote a passage that's true. What does Satan do, though? Take it out of context. Does Satan know the scriptures better than you? He might. He might. Should he? No. And he knows script. If he knows scripture better than you, he can take it out of context and twist it to make you think it says all kinds of things they don't say. Right? He tried to with Jesus. If he's so bold to do it with Jesus Christ, the eternal son of God whom he knows, you think he wouldn't do with you and us, you and I. So, we have the scriptures, of course. What's our wall? I would say one wall we put up, right, is protecting what comes into our homes. Yes, we protect the church and part of my job as a pastor, I protect, protect, protect, but we also protect our homes. I can't protect your home for you. You guys got to protect your homes, right? What is our wall? Protect your home and what comes into your home? What are you allowing into your home? One of my favorite preachers who recently went to be with the Lord, his name is Vodie Bakam. Uh, one of his main ministries uh, focuses of his ministry was to families. He would travel around and preach and do conferences and stuff, but in my eyes stayed humble, never let it go to his head. And he his main ministry was to his families or to families, right? Encouraging fathers, encouraging um, leaders in the family, fathers and mothers to raise their children in the nurture and admonition of the Lord. uh protect your families. Um and he would call out families that turn their kids over to the world to train them up. And he said this, so I'm quoting straight from him. Quote, "We cannot continue to send our children to Caesar and be surprised they come home as Romans." End quote. Right? We cannot send our children to Caesar and be surprised they return home as Romans. Amen. >> What is he saying? Well, he said that in the context of the public school systems trying to expose children to evil, wicked ideologies. Right? So, he's a proponent of homeschool where you can. Right? Now, I'm not going to legalistically say that everyone has to be homeschooled. My kids aren't. But what do we do? We do protect our kids from what is coming at them. We must protect our children from the world. Whether it's at school or not. Sometimes it's what we allow into our home through what? Media. Parents, especially fathers, you are to protect and defend your family. And you say, "Well, I'm a single mother." Okay. Protect and defend your children as best you can. Be strong in the word of God. Don't let Satan know more of scripture than you. Know what it says. No one's taking it out of context. Build up protective walls in your homes. Look, parents, if your kids are spending more time with Netflix or YouTube than with you in disciplehip and learning, get rid of it or at least like pause it, right? Take it away for a time and just spend time with your kids, parents, if you have them. But don't let Netflix and YouTube raise your kids. You know why? It starts off like, well, I thought they were just watching Bluey or some cartoon and before you know it, what does it do? It deteriorates. Especially if you start on YouTube and you're like, how did you get on to that? It's because of suggested videos that they click on and do stuff, right? And do you think that it's going to progressively get better or more holier? No. It's going to get more and more wicked as you go, right? As you scroll, as you get suggested videos and all this stuff, what does it get better? No, it gets worse, right? And we can't expect our kids to protect themselves, right? You think they're going to know what to click on and what not to. No, we have to guard and protect them. I'm not saying that they can't be on it, right? You have a lot of times or whatever, but I'm just saying that I've talked with parents who are surprised that their child was exposed to something so wicked and horrible at a young age because like, well, they're just watching like kids stuff. It starts with the kids stuff and then if they click unknowingly, unwittingly, it's just like they're just clicking things, they end up on something that is completely awful, right? And you would never want them watching it, but they've been watching it for 6 hours because why? We're not with them. Not spending intentional time with them. Protect your children. Protect your family. Maybe you're just husband and wife with no kids. Protect yourselves, right? Spend time together in disciplehip. Spend time together in the Lord's word. Do devotions together. Do family devotions as a protection. The world will infiltrate your home if you let it. We cannot expect our kids to protect themselves. We have to. Don't let the world disciple your kids. You say, "I thought disciplehip was only for Christians." No, no, no. Disciplehip is just a disciplined one, right? We have academic disciplines. So you could be disciplined in anything. You think Satan don't make disciples? Of course he does. That's why when Jesus said, "Go make disciples, baptize them in my name, right?" Which we're going to do here in a minute, and teach them everything I commanded you. The world will make the world is more than willing and happy to make disciples of your kids. It ain't going to be Christian. It ain't going to be biblical. It's going to be their agenda, right? It's my encouragement to us. Protect, protect, protect. The word of God, scripture, the sword, build up walls, protect what comes into your house. Our closing thought is this. And I had I had many. I had to pick one. So, I picked really an evangelistic one. But our closing thought is this. Until Christ returns, there will always be opposition to making Jesus known. Always. That's not s that shouldn't surprise us. Who will make who will you make Jesus known to this week? Pray for them, witness to them, and invite them. I mean, we could insert a lot of other applications, right? Until Christ returns, there'll always be opposition to making Jesus known. So, raise your children in the nurture and admonition of the Lord. All the above. and we get to rejoice this morning in baptism. Um, so at this time I want to invite the worship team back up and invite uh Aubrey uh down here and we're going to shift our attention um to the Baptistry which is over here on the left um part of obviously our mission statement, right? It's plastered all over the church. Make Jesus known. That is what we're all about. That is what it is all about, right? It's the great commission. Make disciples, make Jesus known. And um that's what we want to do regardless of the opposition we face. This is what it's about, right? And this is Aubrey. Everyone say hi Aubrey. Hi Aubrey. >> Um she I just want to share a little bit uh about her story uh with you just like a minute or so. But she uh we had talked about baptism, talked about her salvation. and she had met with uh my wife and and just others in the church have been pouring into her and she she grew up in a Christian home but had recently um over the last few months really made it serious and she had not been baptized before and I was like we need to sign you up and plan a time to baptize you um because it's really following in the Lord's command right go make disciples and what do we do with those disciples we baptize them in the name of the father the son and the holy spirit that's what we do with and then we teach them. And so she's active in our youth group and teaches them and she comes to church and we teach her and we're just trying to teach everybody about Jesus and baptize them if they need it. But if you want to uh Yeah. Amen. Praise God. [applause] >> All right, [clears throat] Aubrey. Is Jesus Christ your personal Lord and Savior? >> Yes. Do you believe that he died on the cross for your sins personally and that he rose again from the dead on the third day according to the scriptures, showing his power over sin and death and that he has authority over your life? >> Yes. >> All right. Well, upon your profession of faith, it is my honor and privilege to baptize you, my sister, in the name of the Father and the Son and of the Holy Spirit. For we are buried with him by baptism unto death, and raised to walk in newness of