Built by Willing Hearts

A lot of times in church today, you hear, "Hey, they didn't play the right song today. Hey, they didn't have the right lighting today. Hey, I didn't connect with that pastor today. He didn't say the things I wanted him to say." And we see parents and families jumping around trying to find this perfect church and find these perfect communities all the time because they're grumbling and complaining and they're not rejoicing the way the Israelites were rejoicing for all the people to see how great their God is. What's up church? You doing good? Love you guys up there. Hey, uh, open up your Bibles to Nehemiah 11. And we're going to be in chapter 11 to 12 1-47. That's where we're going to be at this morning. But hey, before we start in the text, I have a question for you. Why do we struggle with risk? Some risk we're willing to take and some risk we don't want any part of. Why do we struggle with risk? I think we need to talk about this word risk today. We need to talk about the fact that risk art is a good thing. Risk is a good thing and we need to be teaching this to our children. We need to be teaching this to the next generation. Gen Z has such a problem with this word risk. Gen Z does not like to do hard things. Gen Z does not like to take risks. But why is that? But why is that? Because they live in an uncertain world. They live in a very unpredictable world. That is the future. That is the reality of where they live today. But us as the parents, the millennial parents, have we done a good job in helping them in their uncertainty, helping them in their unpredictable environment? No, we haven't done a good job. When you look at us today, us as the parents, man, we are more helicopter parents than we are helpful to our kids. When we look at our our ways of parenting, we are more protective and we are less likely to allow our kids to venture out and take more risk in their life. All because of these questions. These questions like, "Is it safe?" Right? Is it safe? Is this wise? Is this going to benefit their life long term? Or this one, is this going to help my family? Is this going to make my family more secure? These are the questions we ask ourselves before we allow our children to venture out and take their own risk and step out into the unknown. And I think these questions are great, you guys. I think these questions offer great insight to how we should parent. But these types of questions will hinder our faith and hinder in our belief with God and how he can move in the individual life and how he can move within the church. As I was studying for this topic today, I found a lot of articles about Gen Z, I found a lot of articles that man, Gen Z is stressed out. Gen Z has anxiety. Gen Z is fearful of taking risk in their decisionmaking today. But it got curious for a second. I was like, hey, how does the millennial parent play a part in this? How do parents play a part in this? How do grandparents pay play a part in this? And this is the article that I found regarding us today, us raising the next generation. This study was done by the Arizona Christian University and the title of this is indifference to God, Jesus, and the Bible drives millennials faith. In this article, it spells out that millennials are moving away from biblical truths, moving away from the faith inside the Bible, and they trust in their own ideas, their own thought, and they think their ways are better than God. Look at this quote towards the end of this article. It says this, as Bara noted in the report, millennials are struggling to make sense of both this world and the next. They live in the crosshairs of culture influence influencers whose extreme messages about independence and self-reliance conflict with the biblical themes of Christ dependence and personal spiritual insufficiency. Unfortunately, the new faith practices rapidly being adopted by millennials have significant consequences for our young adults. This is happening in the church today. This is happening on our watch. So today, I don't want to address what it takes to have risk in a worldly way. Today, I don't want to address what it takes to have a willing heart in a worldly way. I want to address this question today. What does it mean to have a willing heart for Jesus? What does the Bible say about that? What does it mean to have a willing heart for Jesus? Well, we read in Nehemiah 11, the first four verses, and this is where we pick up. Now, the leaders of the people stayed in Jerusalem, and the rest of the people cast lots for one out of 10 to come and live in Jerusalem, the holy city, while the other nine tenants remain in their towns. The people bless all the men who volunteered to live in Jerusalem. These are the heads of the providence who stayed in Jerusalem. But in the villages of Judea, sorry, Judah, each lived on his own property in their towns, the Israelites, priests, Levites, temple servants, and descendants of Solomon's servants, while some of the descendants of Judah and Benjamin settled in Jerusalem. See, the first point I want you guys to see here is that willing hearts are blessed. Willing hearts are blessed. Let's break this down a little bit. First, we see that they cast lots. Means they roll the dice. They leave it to chance who is going to occupy this city. Now, us as believers, we don't believe in chance. We don't believe in fate. And same thing with the Israelites here. They did not believe in chance. They believed in the sovereignty of God. They believed in the sovereignty of God. That God knew who was going to live in this city beforehand. God knew how the dice was going to be rolled. This is what we see who is going to be called into the holy city. When you read further in chapter 11, you see in verses 3- 24, we see those names appear and those people would inherit Jerusalem. They would inherit the holy city. We see in the next verses in 25-36, these are the people that are going to live outside the city to help support who is living inside that city. Then we see in chapter 12 1-26, we see the priests and the Levites that would work in the temple as they occupied the city. But guys, what I want you to see here is this is that God was in this. God called these people by hand. It did not just go by chance. It was just not cast up into the universe. God was sovereign in this moment. See, the second thing we see right here is that we see a bunch of surrendering men. Surrendering men and women. They volunteered to go in the city. They were willing to surrender to God's plan. They did not fight with God's plan. They did not push back on God's plan. They were willing to accept their position in the holy city. Now, to do this was not easy. It required tremendous amount of faith, tremendous amount of trust, tremendous amount of of trust in their God to go live in this city. See, this is why I want you to pay attention to these four words in this text. It says, "Who stayed in Jerusalem?" Who stayed in Jerusalem? Why does that matter? Pastor Andrew did a lovely job of teaching us what commitment looks like. He gave us a great way of seeing, hey, this is the playbook. This is how we're going to run God's ministry. This is how we are going to submit to the playbook that God put in front of us. He showed us what commitment was. But I want to show you this is who is willing to stay in the holy city. Who is willing to stay in the holy city? When we look at this passage, you guys got to understand this. To live in this city means you are taking on a target on your back. More importantly, you are willing to take a target for somebody else. when armies or invaders would come along and they would see cities, they would go plunder the city that had the walls, not the villages outside because there's nothing there. When armies look at that city, when armies look at cities that have walls, they see riches, they see things they can plunder, they see things that they can go take, and so they're going to go on the attack for that. So when these people decided to take on the target, when they decided to take on the target for other people, they were willing to accept that and stay there. Guys, why do you think rich people are robbed all the time? Because they have nice things, right? My home state in California, people like to the thieves like to rob Californians because they have nice things by the beach. Okay? But that's what we need to see from this is that these people were willing to stay. They were willing to have a target on their back. Too many times in church today, we are not willing to have a target on our back. We are willing to rise to our own independence, our own resilience, our own way of doing things. We don't want to take a target on our back. We want to say, "I'm self-made. I'm going to help my community. I'm going to do all these things. I'm going to impact the way I want to impact. And nobody's going to tell me how to do these things. Too many too many times in the church, we are not willing to give up our comfort and our lifestyles for the way God calls us to live. My story being called into ministry. I was not groomed to be a pastor. My whole life I was in transportation. and I worked on the the ports of LA and Long Beach ports. And the time that God decided to call me to ministry was 2020. Of all the years to call me to ministry, I was like, "Really, God? This is the year you want to call me to ministry?" At that time, there was several containers being cancelled overseas to get into America. We had 600 containers being cancelled a day. Drivers were walking away from their trucks. That's why you see a lot of automation in the warehouse industry. That's why you see a lot of automation in truck driving is because guys were walking away during this time. Paychecks were being cut, commissions were being cut. It was a very uncertain time to go into ministry. And on top of that, God was like, "Hey, all of your insecurities are going to be displayed on stage as well, Kyle. All of your past, all of this sin you've done in your life, it is going to be displayed on stage. Guys, I am severely dyslexic and I hate reading aloud to you all the time. I would rather have the nerd Pastor Andrew read all these names instead of me. He's much smarter than me. But guys, going into ministry is super hard. Going to serve in a kids ministry is hard today. Going to serve in a student ministry is super hard today. Going and serving in the church is super hard today. I run First Impressions and you'd be surprised how many adults are angry when they come to the doors and we have to absorb that. It is super hard to work in the church today. But guys, are we willing to bless the ones that want to go serve in the ministries like we see from the people of Nehemiah? Are you willing to stay where God has called you to be? All of you, if you believe in Jesus Christ, has a spot for God's work. Are you willing to be a main target for him? See, the application I want you to see right here is that willing hearts for Jesus are blessed because they are willing to stay where God calls them to be. Look at verses 27. Now, this is where we pick up. They're getting ready to dedicate this wall. The wall they've been rebuilding, the wall they are shaping around their city. They are getting ready to dedicate it. And we pick up in 27, it says this. At the dedication of the wall of Jerusalem, they sent the Levites wherever they lived and brought them to Jerusalem to celebrate the joyous dedication with thanksgiving and singing accompanied by symbols, harps, and layers. The singers gathered from the region around Jerusalem, from the settlements of the Nephonites. I got that Josh. Heck yeah, bro. Um, for the Beth Gilgad and from the fields of Gea and Azmouth. And they had built settlements for themselves around Jerusalem after the priests and Levites had purified themselves. They purified the people, the city gates and the wall. See, what I want you to highlight right here is verse 27. Man, do you see how excited these people are? The Israelites are so excited to dedicate their wall. They're inviting instrument people. They're inviting musicians to come in and come celebrate. Come be part of this joyous day. Come celebrate and be joyful of what God is doing, what God has done. And then you skip down to verse 36, right? Verse 36, it says this that Nehemiah invites his relatives. And then this it says this, "With the musical instruments of David, the man of God, Ezra, the scribe went in front of them at the fountain gate, they climbed the steps of the city of David on the ascent of the wall and went above the house of David to the water gate on the east." See, what I want you to see here is that man Nehemiah climbed steps. Nehemiah climbed hard steps to go worship. As he's separating the choirs on this wall from the east to the west, he is climbing these steps, putting people in position. He is climbing these hard steps. When is the last time that you climb steps to go serve your God? When is the last time that you climb the hard steps to go serve your God? I don't think Nehemiah cared about how hot it was, how dusty, how windy, how cold it was. I don't think he cared about what type of sunscreen he was wearing that day. I think he was excited. It shows that he was joyful to go climb these steps. Are we joyful in climbing our steps for Jesus or are we grumpy all the time when it comes to serving God? >> Look at this. In 39-4, it says this. Nehemiah continues to write in 39 it says above the Ephraim gate and by the old gate the fish gate the tower of Hanal and the tower of hund of the hund the sheep gate they stopped at the gate of the guard the two thanksgiving processions stood in the house of God so did I and half of the officials accompanied me accompanying me see guys what I want you to Right here, I want you to stop and look at these words. The words that Nehemiah writes. He says, "So did I." He's in this moment of being in the house of the Lord. Guys, this is a huge moment right here in the text. This is a moment we need to lean into. This is a moment that we need to highlight. Nehemiah stops to write that I am in this moment as well. How do you think he was feeling in this moment? How do you think he was feeling in this moment? Think back to his journey of how he got here. He went through a journey of filling out documents, getting documents signed by kings, officials, people that probably didn't agree with what he is doing. He went through this journey of grumbling. His own people grumbling to build this wall. People outside of the wall, outside of Israel, they were grumbling constantly. You guys can't do this. We see also to the journey of him building the wall with his people. They had tools in one hand, swords in the other. All the opposition that is going on. And he has built up to this moment and is excited. He is standing right here. And he said, "So am I standing here. It has been a journey to get to this moment." How do you think he was feeling? He was feeling great joy. He was excited. He was anxious about this. He's like, "Man, we get to do this right here, right now, in this moment of time. I have great joy." Then I just love verse 43. Look at what ver uh verse 43 says. It says, "On that day, they offered great sacrifices and rejoiced because God had given them great joy. The woman the women and children also celebrated and Jerusalem's rejoicing was heard far away. I think a lot of times in church today people can't hear our rejoicing far away. Right now in church, we are struggling to be happy and rejoice who God has put on our stages, who God has put in charge of our church. And we would rather grumble about that. We would rather complain about that. A lot of times in church today, you hear, "Hey, they didn't play the right song today. Hey, they didn't have the right lighting today. Hey, I didn't connect with that pastor today. He didn't say the things I wanted him to say. And we see parents and families jumping around trying to find this perfect church and find these perfect communities all the time because they're grumbling and complaining and they're not rejoicing the way the Israelites were rejoicing for all the people to see how great their God is. You can clap for that. That's okay, guys. Are you grateful for the time God has put you on this earth? Are you grateful in this moment of where God has put you on this earth? Right now, we have an outreach program. We have a flag football league. We have a soccer league as well that we're going to launch to launch off. And when I got hired for this position, Jackie wanted me to start a sports ministry. And I love my referees. I love my referees more than my coaches sometimes. And uh these three referees every single Saturday they come over at on Saturday morning they help me set up at 8:00 a.m. in the morning and man they are excited to set up. You can see the joy that comes out of them. They're just like how this is the best day of the week for us and they are joyful about it knowing that they're going to step on a football field and the parents aren't going to agree with any calls they make on the field. Sometimes the coaches are yelling at the referees and I'm like, "I hired you. Stop yelling at my refs." But JT and Cooper and Brandon, man, they are excited to go serve the next generation. They are joyful to go be part of that ministry. When was the last time you took a moment and be joyful for God and praising his name that you get to be a part of his kingdom work? When was the last time you climbed hard steps even though parents are going to yell at you, even though people are going to yell at you and you are still willing to take those steps and you are joyful in that moment. When is the last time your rejoicing for Jesus was heard far away? See the application I want you to see right here is this. Willing hearts that are joyful to serve bleeds everywhere for all to see. Look at these next verses in 44- 47. It says this. On the same day, men were placed in charge of the rooms that house the supplies, contributions for fruits and tents. The legally required portions for the priests and the Levites were gathered from the villages fields. Because Judah was grateful to the priests and the Levites who were serving, they performed the service of their God and the service of the purification along with the singers and gatekeepers as David and his son Solomon were had prescribed. For long ago in the days of David and Asaf, there were heads of the singers and songs of praise and thanksgiving to God. So in the days of Zerbellum and Nehemiah, all Israel contributed the daily portions for the singers and gatekeepers. They also set aside daily portions for the Levites. And the Levites set aside daily portions for Aaron's descendants. See, the third point I want you to see right here is that willing hearts are grateful in all things. Willing hearts are grateful in all things. Guys, God has given you skills to use. God put people in charge and he wants you to use those skills in the church. Not everybody is great with money. Not everybody is good at organizing. Not everybody is good at distribution. I think I fall into that category. Every time I get my paycheck, I want to just like give it away. I am not good at saving. I am not good at holding on to my money. That is why my wife is in charge of our finances because we would be broke. Before I came to Christ, I was a Mormon missionary. I was born and raised in the Mormon faith. And before I came to Christ, I I I was on my mission in Chilea. And every time I'd get my paycheck, we lived off $125 a month. And every time I'd get my paycheck, I'd go down to the supermarket and I would start buying these jerseys for the kids and student the kids and teenagers that lived in the area that I became friends with. And I always ran out of money. God always provided me. There was always some old lady that kind of gave me food that needed to take care of me. And God always provided for me. I think it was worth it to go buy those jerseys for the kids. But here's the thing that I want you to see is that God gives skills to people so that he can use those skills in the church. And then we see a second blessing from this is that God is going to bless your skills. God is going to bless your performance. He wants you to perform well. He wants you to perform in his church. The services that they were offering to God, God was pleased in those performances. It is okay to perform for God. But the thing I want you to hone in on is these last two verses right here. Because this is what God is leading up to in this text. This is what God is exposing to us is that we are called to be grateful in all things because it affects our impact for eternity. It affects our impact for eternity. I love these three words right here in this text. It says, "For long ago, for long ago, God knew that these people would be rebuilding their city, rebuilding the wall, rebuilding the city of Jerusalem." For long ago, God knew that they would sin and their city would be in rubble and they would need to rebuild this. For long ago, God knew that they needed to be humble in this moment. They needed to be grateful for where they have been and to where they're at at this present moment. Guys, I think I think in church today, things that prevent people of using their skills, people that are preventing to perform from God is because you have been hurt by the church or someone in the church. Church hurt is real. I've been there. I know exactly how it feels. But you are preventing your skills. You are preventing and certain of serving God because you have been hurt by the church or someone in the church. That is a very real thing going on in our in our in our time right now with parents with adult with with grandparents. Someone has wronged you in church and it is a very real thing. But guys, I want you to know something is that Jesus, the church is still filled with sinful people. The church is still filled with sinful men and women all the time. There is no perfect church you can go to because the only perfect person that ever lived was Jesus Christ. >> And he is the head of the church. And guess what? Jesus is still going to call sinful men and women to be a part of his church and lead the church. We need to be on board with that vision. We need to be on board of what Jesus is doing in his church. That's the coolest thing about Jesus is that he had so much faith in us. For long ago, he said that I'm still going to call sinners to lead my church to be a part of my kingdom movement. That is the coolest thing about Jesus. And we need to embrace this mindset. We need to embrace what Jesus is telling us. Some of us need to be willing to bless others when they're called. Some of us need to find our joy again in serving. Some of us need to be grateful in our past and where God has put us in our past so that we can impact future generations. Like I said, I was born and raised in a Mormon family. And my dad, he was super prideful in his last name, Gallagher. And the Mormon faith, your name is everything. And my dad loved his his heritage. He loved his Irish heritage. Gallagher was huge in his name. And so he made a big deal about this. Every single day, us boys and my sister, we were reminded about our name and the impact of how our name impacts other people. And on the wall, every time we left the house and entered the house, there was a big huge decal on the wall and it said Gallagher in big bright green words. And behind it, it said, "Honor the name you bear." Every time me, the boys, we would enter the house, leave the house, we were reminded that every step we take, man, do we have integrity? Do we have character? Do are we living up to this Mormon name that our dad has given us, to this worldly name that our dad has given us, that we were born into. And I can tell you right now that probably if you ask my family today that I brought a lot of shame to that name that they do not agree with the things that I have done. They do not think that I have honored their name. Well, but you know what other name I have when I came to Jesus is the name Jesus Christ. That is the new name that I bear. When God looks at me, he doesn't see the name Kyle Gallagher. He sees the name Jesus Christ. When I look at these two chapters and I see the names in chapter 11 and 12, I see the name Jesus. I see the names that were willing to be targets for other people, willing to step into risks, step into uncomfortability, and be the name of Jesus Christ for the future king. The king that would walk in their streets. They were willing to serve joyfully. They were willing to break the chains of their past and serve in this city so that the future king that would ride on a donkey that would be crucified in their city and then 3 days later raised from the grave so all of us could believe in him and have eternal life. That is the name that they chose to bear. That would be the time to clap for Jesus. These people were willing to take big risks for their future generations. Yes, they're going to screw up. And yes, we're going to read about that in chapter 13, but at least they were willing to take the step on the battlefield before the stone of all stones appeared in the church. That is what we need to embrace. And that is the type of heart that you see from this. Are you grateful for your past and how you have risen out of your past? You have risen out of your sin. You have risen out of the rubble and you are completely new because of Jesus Christ. Today you're going to see a baptism of one of my student boys and he's going to be baptized by his buddies in his small group. Every single Wednesday night, we have the pleasure of raising the next generation and push them to uncomfortability all the time. Bentley has given his life to Jesus. He's so excited to get baptized. He came up to me after having a conversation with his leader. He's like, "How I'm going to get baptized this Sunday." I was like, "Dude, I heard and I'm excited for you, bro. It's exciting." You non-believer in the room, I know your life's in rubble, I know your life's in sin because I was there before. A lot of you are uncertain about your life right here. A lot of you don't know what's going to happen in the future. But man, if you give your life to Jesus, I guarantee you, you will be secure for all eternity because Jesus will have you for the rest of this life and for the life to come if you give your life to him. For you believers in the room, maybe God is calling you to ministry. Maybe God is calling you just to serve for the first time in the church, to commit yourselves to something greater. Maybe you need to find your joy again. Hold some babies that are crying. That's totally cool. We need to find our joy again in what we do here at church because Jesus's name needs to be here he heard far away. You guys, we need to be grateful for whatever scenario God has put you in. And you need to start living your life for Jesus because it will infect it will impact the future generations if we don't have a willing heart like Jesus. Church, that's my bottom line that I want you to see out of this text is that willing hearts today for Jesus become citizens of God's eternal city forever. That is what we are building. It's not some temporary thing here on this side of heaven. It is an eternal place where we as believers, we say we are a part of. We are citizens of his eternal realms.