Built for Generations

The real goal was always about people, about preserving God's people, about protecting God's purposes, about passing God's promises to the next generation. It is God's word preserved for our gain. And when it is God's word, it is infallible. So, we don't skip over the hard verses. We don't catch up on our reading plan just because it's a genealogy. Instead, we dive in and see what God has for us. But today uh we are continuing on in our series through the book of Nehemiah. And as we press into Nehemiah chapter 7, which we're going to dive into just a second in here, we're going to see just kind of this amazing way that God kind of moves in this story. And as we get there, I just have a question for you as you begin to flip and we begin to contemplate and get ready our hearts for what God has for us. But here's my question for you is who are your people? Who are your people? Maybe who are the people that in the past have got you to the point you are at now? Maybe who are the people that currently you do life with that kind of excites you that pushes you forward? And lastly, who are the people that for the future will be impacted by you and that will be different because of the way you live your life? Now, a few weeks ago, I took my closest people, my wife and our four children, and and we went to we we had it was before school, got back in session, so we're like, we got to kill some time, do something fun. So, we're like, let's go to the Children's Museum downtown in central Phoenix. And we used to live in North uh Phoenix, and it was about a 20-minute drive there. So, we used to have annual passes, but now when it's a 50-minute drive from North Surprise, uh we don't do that anymore. And so, as we're looking up and and we're seeing it, it's about $19 a ticket uh per person, right? If you're two and older, actually one and older. If you're under one, you're free, but as soon as you're one, they start charging you 19 bucks a person. And maybe you're like, that's a good deal to, you know, uh keep your kids entertained. But when you have as many kids as me, I'm like, I don't know if I want to weigh the cost of this. So, usually we get some deals, but one of the deals that a loophole, right, is um they actually give if you are an Indian or Native American and you have an Indian tribal card, it is $3. Now, you're like, why would you share that? You're white as the daylight. All right, fun fact. All right. Uh my wife, who actually looks very much like me in complexion, uh her family actually traces her roots back to Cherokee in Oklahoma. So, she grew up going to the Indian hospital and having a tribal Indian card. And our kids have it, too. All right. Um you're like, I know it's so fun taking our whole family to the Indian hospital and we are the only pasty white people there. Um but it's free healthcare, so we take it. Uh anyway, but so we go and and and listen this and I told my wife I was like, "We only have three cards on us right now. We're still in process for a couple of the other kids. I will never get a card cuz I don't have that bloodline." But I told my wife, I'm like, "Just take my lead cuz there are six of us." All right. So I go up front and I'm like, "Uh" and she's like, and she looks at us. I'm like, "Yeah." I was like, "You guys do the tribal discount." She's like, "Yep." And I just had a stack of three cards. I didn't I was waiting for her to ask for them, but she's like, "Oh, six of you, $3 each. All right, that'll be $18. I didn't lie. I didn't say that that was all of us. I just didn't share information that she did not ask for. So, I paid $18 when one person would have been $19. All right? And here's the thing. Those are my people. All right? And that is how cheap I am. I know. But you would do it, too. But today, as we get into Nehemiah 7, we're going to see who is God's people and who is God building in this story. And as we see in Nehemiah 7, we're going to start in verse 4. And we actually left off here last week as we're continuing through the story. I want to pick back up in verse four and kind of sets the stage as we go into it. And it says this that the city was large and spacious but there were few people in it and no houses has been built. And then this is Nehemiah talking then my God put it into my mind to assemble the nobles, the officials, the people to be registered by genealogy. I found the genealogical record of those who came back first and I found the following written in it. You see, today we are continuing this story that of Nehemiah. And as we get in here and we read these verses, let me give you a little summary to this point. Nehemiah came from a distant land. He was in exile in Persia. God put a burden on him to come back to Jerusalem to where his people had started to where God had set aside his people. And he had come back to take what was burnt, what was in rubbles of stones that were just decimated for 150 years. And God called him back to rebuild something. And as the walls are rebuilt in 52 days, what had been torn down for over a 100 plus years, all of a sudden the people around see that God was doing something crazy. And Nehemiah quickly realizes as God orchestrates this miraculous rebuilding of the wall that the what he realizes is that walls do not make a city, the people do. And it goes further and it actually marks this great shift in the story that we see kind of halfway through this book of Nehemiah. in this story shift that is so huge and so important is that God's vision was not simply to build a wall but to continue a legacy. You see, as we've been going through this story, it's like build a wall, build a wall, build a wall, build a wall. And that's like the whole focus of what Nehemiah is doing. He's gathering the people. He's gathering the supplies. He's getting the resources. He's getting everyone on his side. And he gives us leadership lesson after leadership lesson. He gives us faith lessons of how we be faithful to God's vision. How do we execute God's vision? But we see as soon as he completes the project, God's like, "That wasn't the point of what I was trying to get you to do. That was just step one in my broader plan, in my broader vision." You see, the wall was never the goal. The wall was just a means to an end. The real goal was always about people, about preserving God's people, about protecting God's purposes, about passing God God's promises to the next generation. And God had put into the heart of Nehemiah. It wasn't Nehemiah's idea. It was God's idea. He put it into his mind. He put it into his heart. and he prompts him to pull out these genealogical records from the first wave of returnees nearly a hundred years earlier to set in motion of what he had next for him. Now, if you're like me and if you start skimming ahead in chapter 7, your eyes might start to glaze over a little bit. Like that's a lot of names that I cannot say. That's a lot of numbers that I don't understand the significance of. like this is not going to be an exciting chapter. But here is why we read things like this. Because if it's in the Bible, it has been something that the Holy Spirit illuminated through people. It is God's word preserved for our gain. And when it is God's word, it is infallible. It is used for the building up of his people up for the church. It is used to call people to salvation. And when we get to God's word, no matter where God's word is, there is power in what we read. So we don't skip over the hard verses. We don't catch up on our reading plan just because it's a genealogy. Instead, we dive in and see what God has for us. Just this past week, I was in kind of an intensive seminar with some other pastors around the country and and we were talking and and kind of working on studying through different genres of the Bible. And they asked the question, "Hey, would there be any passages in the Bible that you're too scared to preach from?" And I was like, "I don't think so." Cuz God gave us the whole scripture like, "What about Song of Solomon?" Those of you laughing know that we preached through that. All right. I was like, "We did that." And actually, we did it. And then COVID happened and we had an out to never preach the rest of the book. And for some reason, our pastoral staff was so convicted, we came back and preached the rest of it. All right. Um I preached a sermon called Hot and Holy Sex, but that's a different story. All right. It was a good one. It was a good one. All right. But hear this. As we walk through this list, we see that God had a plan for enduring his legacy. And we see that it starts here in verse six. As we look and see kind of how God moves through this chapter, it starts here in verse 6. He says, "These are the people of the province who went up among the captive exiles deported by King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon. Each of them returned to Jerusalem and to Judea to his own town. They came with Zerubbable, Jesua, Nehemiah, Azariah, Ramaya, Neahhemiah, Mori, Bilshon, Msbbeth, Biggav, Nahm, and Banana. The number of the Israelite men included. Here's the first thing we see as he opens up this record, this genealogy of these people who had come a hundred years before. And you notice these people actually came from Babylon because Israel was originally exiled. They were captured. They were defeated by Babylon. But then later on in those hundred years, Persia then came and and captured Babylon and conquered them. So all of a sudden they became Persian exiles. They were just handed off as prisoners. Like you're Babylon's prisoners. Nope. Now you're Persia's prisoners. And and a few of those names you hear are actually pretty similar. Like you hear a name like uh Morortei who is actually the same Morai that is in the story of Esther. And many theologians think that is the same person. But as these people come back a hundred years before, they had seen how hard and how desperate Jerusalem was and and how it was in ruins. But God was starting to plant seeds of revival. But here's the first thing we see in this that God has a plan for enduring his legacy. And the first thing we see is God's plan for an enduring legacy is always people focused. The the first thing that comes in here, it's not structures, it's not systems, it's not strategies, it's people. And here's what I want you to see is God's work is always done through people. It is not done through programs. It is not done through buildings. It is not done through technology. God can use resources, but God always does his work through people. I think of where we are here at Cross Church and and here at Cross Church, both in Surprise and across our collective. God is doing an amazing things. We we've seen this here locally at our church family right here that in Surprise, we just came off and we shared and celebrated this last week as we had the largest Christmas Eve that we've ever had. And we got to share the gospel and we got to see people impacted by the gospel in a scale that we never had. Last week we celebrated eight baptisms of people professing new life change in Christ. And here's the thing is we want to continue to grow. We want to continue to impact more people and and share the gospel and see more people come in contact with God. But here's the thing is our legacy will not be measured by how many people we can fit into a room and gather together every week. Our legacy will be measured by how many lives are truly changed. >> Amen. And when we see things like baptisms, the start of a salvation journey, when we see more churches started like what's happened in Phoenix and Elmarrage and Cornville and what will happen in Mayor and Glacia de la Cruz, the goal is not just to grow. We want to grow because we want to see more people be reached, but we also want to go and we want to go and see how God works. And here's just what's exciting. This is kind of a little side note in this, but I think it's so important is I believe that here at Cross Church Surprise, God has given us the staff. He has given us the resources. He has given us the building. He has given us the property that I believe we're at about 2third of our capacity in our current setting if you change nothing for how many people we can reach week in and week out. I could be wrong in that, but as I've seen the assessments, as we've tracked how we're growing, I think we're barely scratching the surface of what God is going to do here. But as we continue to grow at this place, God will continue to challenge us to go elsewhere. And God will continue to challenge of, are we just adding people to make ourselves feel better about a bigger gathering or are we truly changing lives that will then change generations after? You see, God's plan to endure his legacy has always focused on people, not on property and programs and technology and stuff. And Nehemiah understood that you can build. If you're going to build anything lasting, you have to invest in people first. But God's plan doesn't stop here. It's not just people focused. But he continues on in verse eight. In verse eight, we start getting into these names and numbers. He talks about Perash's descendants. There was 2,172. And he's going to start going through this list of people, going through how this changed. You skip down a little bit to verse 26. He says, "Bethlehem and Natas." Man, there's 188 there. You go down a little bit further in verse 33. I love verse 33. It says the other Nebo's men. Like there's Nebo and then there's the other Nebo. All right. And even below it, there's Elam and then there's the other Elam. Like they didn't have last names as then. They're like, "Hey, Elam." "Oh yeah, the other Elam. You're definitely the less important Elilam if you're the other one." All right. Just saying. And then this ver in this section kind of ends verse 38. I want us to stop there. And he talks about Cena's people. And then he gives a number there 3,930. Now again, you read these and your brain might start hurting. You might start drifting already. But I think here's kind of the next point we see here is that God's plan for an enduring legacy is not only people focused, it is also detailed. We get into the heart of this list and it is incredibly detailed. It names specific families, specific people, literally the other specific ones, right? And there's a number that's attached to them and it goes family by family, town by town, number by number. And why doesn't God include all these details? Because every single person matters to him. These aren't just numbers. These are names. These are families. These are individuals who choose to leave the comfort of what they're living like in exile. Exile was not fun, but they had made a comfortable lifestyle of it. and they chose to leave that in return to ruins of their old city because they believed that God had a plan for their life. One commentary I read put it this way that it may seem tedious to us to find so many lists of genealogies of places and names, but it reminds us again that God's work is done by individuals. Each person in the community is important and must be an integral part of the community's activities. Think about it. God kept these records for thousands of years. Preserved these when so many works from that time, probably no other works from that time were preserved. But God preserved these so that we could read them today. He cared so much about recording these names. Think about it. How much does he care about what's happening in your life today? How much does he care about your story, your contribution, your family, the details of your life? He cares about them so much because they matter. You see, God does not do generic. God does detail. He knows every hair on your head. He knows every struggle in your heart. He knows every step in your journey. And here's the deal. Details matter in our walk with God as well. That this past Wednesday, I actually had someone ask me this morning is how's your pickle ball game been going? And I'm like, yeah, it's getting there, right? Uh holidays were a little rough as we were trying to navigate and get together, but I have like three guys from the church that we play with, try to play with once a week, but last Wednesday we played and and and I'll just say, they might disagree, but facts are friends, feelings are enemy. Um I usually have the best winning record week after week. All right, it's just true. Uh I went six and two on Wednesday night. Um who's counting? Me. Uh but we did a set of three. It went to three games. It was ugly. But then our middle set, we did a set of three and and my pairing won and then we lost that first game 13 to 11 and I was so mad cuz we should have won it and it should have been a two game set, but whatever. Um, but our last two games I was tired. The rest of us were tired. It started being windy and so I blamed everything on the wind, but it was awful. Like we still won, but it was so bad. It was the sloppiest I've probably ever played. And as I was reflecting, I was like, "Why was I so terrible other than being really tired?" What happened is all the details of my game started to slip. I stopped moving my feet cuz I was too tired. I stopped getting my body in the right place cuz I was too tired. I stopped getting those knees bent just a little bit, Rick. You know what I mean? You get those knees bent just so you're in place, right? And all of those details started to slip and my game fell with it. You see, we have a God of detail. We have a faith that the details of how we follow him, of how we read, how we pray, how we follow, how we show up together, those details in our lives matter, but it's not the only thing that matters. We see he's focused on people. He his plan uses details. But we keep going in verse 39. And in verse 39, uh, he picks up and it says this, "The priests included Jedodiah's descendants of the house of Jesua who were 973." And here's what I love in this section, then it starts naming some different groups of people. Verse 43, it says, "The Levites included." You skip down a little bit more in verse 45, the gatekeepers included. Uh, go down to verse 46, the temple servants included. a little bit further down uh going through as in verse 57 it says the descendants of Solomon's servants. These aren't even the descendants of Solomon. These are the descendants of his servants. And then all this wraps up in verse 60. It says and all the temple servants and the descendants of Solomon's servants numbered 392. You see the list now starts to expand to get different groups. And this is where this starts to get really interesting as we see priests, those who led worship and offered sacrifice. We see Levites, those who assign were assigned in the temple and taught God's word. We see singers, those who led praise. We see gatekeepers, those who guarded the tape the temple. We see the temple servants, those who did the behind the scenes work. And all this is cool because we see different roles, different responsibilities, different gifts, but all were important to accomplishing God's task. And here's how we continue to see as we go through this is God's plan for an enduring legacy. It is people focused. It is detailed, but it is also inclusive. Now, you might hear that word inclusive and some different things might pop into your head because I think inclusive right now in our day and age can be sometimes a dirty word because I think that word has been hijacked to mean different things whether in religion or identity in politics and more. But the thing is it is a word that describes how God works is we serve an inclusive God. Now, before you get too mad, cuz some of you are like, "Well, let me tell you about how my God's not inclusive." Well, let me tell you. I'll make this statement. It might feel better. Is we will serve the most inclusive God in the in history and in the universe, but also the most exclusive God. Here's what I mean by that is our God is so inclusive because anyone can come to our God that we see in scripture that there are it doesn't matter where you're from that God can take anyone. Anyone can be a part of God's family. You don't have to be from a certain country. You don't have to be from a certain kind of economic class. You don't have to come from a certain ethnicity or cultural background. You don't have to come from a certain upbringing. None of that is a prerequisite to join the family of God. But here's where it's exclusive. The only way to be a part of God's family is by following and proclaiming Jesus Christ as Lord. And what Jesus tells us in the New Testament is he is the one way to the father. And here's the thing. This is this beautiful dichotomy. This crazy thing that is trying to wrap our heads around. We have this God who brings everyone in, but he brings everyone in through one door. That one door is big and that one door can fit as many people who are willing to go through it. But we see in this is we have this inclusive God in his plan to endure a legacy. He brings all these people in. And this is why this is so important is you don't have to be a priest or a pastor to matter. You don't have to be upfront to be significant. The gatekeepers and the temple servants were recorded right alongside the leaders. But here's where it gets even more remarkable as we continue to flesh this out. Look at verse 61. It says, "The following are those who came from Telmala, Tela, Cherub, Adon, and Emmer, but were unable to prove that their ancestral family in their lineage were Israelites." By the way, I don't know if any of those names are right, but if you say them with confidence, no one's going to question you. All right, but but skip down to verse 64. It says, "They searched for their entries in the genealogical records, but they could not be found." So, they were disqualified from the priesthood. They couldn't trace their lineage back. Verse 65. The governor ordered them not to eat the most holy things until there was a priest who consult the Aram and the thumb here. Now, now we come to a fascinating section cuz I just told you that's inclusive that that God lets everyone in. But here's the funny thing is that these people showed up and they could not prove their genealogy. They couldn't find their family records and their family tree. And for regular Israelites, uh this was a problem but not a disaster. But for those claiming to be priests, this was a very serious matter. Verse 64 literally said they searched and they couldn't find them and they were disqualified from doing that position anymore. Now, this sounds harsh, but here's the beauty that happens in verse 65. It tells them not to eat the holy food until a priest was present. In other words, that there's not saying no forever that you can't participate. They're saying not yet. Let's wait for God to make this clear. And here's what this points to is God's plan is people focused. It is detailed. It is inclusive, but is also gracious. Even when we are not faithful, these people were not faithful to preserve their line like God had ordered them to do. They were not doing what priests should have done at that time. But even despite that, despite them messing up, they should have been cut off. They should have been excommunicated. They should have had no part in God's plan. But God's grace was still there. He's like, "Hey, even though you messed up, don't worry. I still have a plan behind this. They weren't cast out. They weren't condemned. They were given space for God to work." I think every time the church gathers, there are times when all of us can fall into this trap. And maybe some of you are feeling like this right now where maybe you feel like you don't belong. Maybe you feel like you've messed up too much this week. and you feel like you're among people who are singing these songs. You maybe you're sitting someone and they actually raised their hand. They were, you know, you're like, they must not be Baptist, right? Uh but they look super spiritual. Maybe they called out a spiritual prompt during that and you're like, man, I feel inadequate. But here's the thing. Everyone else in this room is just as messed up as you. And in here, sometimes we feel like we don't belong. Cuz sometimes Satan puts things into our head that we are not good enough. that maybe you think like you you didn't grow up in church so you don't know all the lingo. Maybe you don't have a spiritual pedigree and a spiritual background to be able to trace through. May maybe you have a messy past that you're not sure if you qualify. But here's what I want you to hear is God's community is a bunch of people who do not qualify. But by the grace of Jesus Christ, he does qualify. And here all of this is showing how God is using people despite their best work, despite what they can do. And all of this builds to verse 66. And it says the whole combined assembly numbered 42,360. And all of a sudden, 100 years before Nehemiah was here, this 42,000 people came. And as Nehemiah is pulling this out, he's like, "Those 42,000 people couldn't have built this wall over the past 150 years. What were you guys doing?" Right? But here's the deal. It was only by God's grace that a disobedient people like Israel could come out of exile and be in God's will again. God by his grace preserved a people to still do his work to continue the legacy he was building that would eventually lead to Jesus. And finally, God's plan for legacy. And this is going to be the last point we see under this. Let's pick up in verse 70. It says this. Some of the people or some of the family heads contributed to the project. He says, "The governor gave a thousand gold coins, 50 bowls, and 530 priestly garments to the treasury. Some of the family heads gave 20,000 gold coins and 2,200 silver menace to the treasury for the project. The rest of the people gave 20,000 gold coins, 2,000 silver menace, and 67 priestly garments. Here's the last thing we see of this is God's plan for an enduring legacy. It is people focused. It is detailed. It is inclusive. It is gracious, but ultimately is also sacrificial. Look at how this chapter shifts after a list of these names. We then see the gifts that are attached to these people. The governor gave what he had. He gave gold and bowls and priestly garments. And it's funny because we see Nehemiah will actually follow this example later. Nehemiah was a very generous governor when he was in charge over there. Everyone gave according to their ability. The rest of the people, they gave what they could. Some gave more, some gave life, but everyone participated. And these people weren't giving to build something for themselves. Most of them would never see the full fruit of their sacrifice, but they were giving for their children. They were giving for their grandchildren. They were giving for generations they would never meet. And here's what's so important about this is this sacrifice. They didn't give so that they would get back and God would bless them. They gave because they were faithful. as as you break down many commentaries suggest that in the day before Nehemiah and in Nehemiah's day it was not a prosperous time there was famines there were hardships yet they were sacrificially giving to support their worship of God their perspective was whatever it costs we must support what God is doing that's what it takes to build for generations and here's how Nehemiah brings this into full picture in Nehemiah 73, the last verse of this very robust big chapter of God's word. And it says this that the priests, the Levites, the gatekeepers, the temple singers, some of the people, uh, temple servants, and all Israel settled in their towns. Here's what I love about this is this actually verse mirrors another verse that we see in scripture and is actually about the same exact wording is Ezra 2:7. And you can put that up because literally it's it's just what we read is Nehemiah. You look in your Bible, what we just read in Nehemiah 7:73 is the same thing that the priests, Levites, singers, gatekeepers, temple servants, and some of the people settled in their towns and the rest Israel had settled in their towns. It's what we just read. And here's why that's so important. Because we see these two lists. Because all of a sudden, Ezra, who came to rebuild the temple, came to build up God's people to restore the spiritual livelihood of God's nation and his people. All of a sudden, his project intersects with the project of Nehemiah. And Nehemiah was no longer just a project manager building a wall, but all of a sudden, these projects coincide. And it's about building these people that would spiritually follow God, that would come back to being faithful to what he has for them. And they would build something that would outlast them. They would follow God even when it was hard. And they would restore the spiritual lineage that led to God's work being done from generation to generation. But here's what made the difference in all this. as Nehemiah is connecting the generations, connecting the greater work that God is doing in the life in his life and in Ezra what started with their ancestors would continue with them. But what really made the difference is someone had to take the initiative to do it. And the one that took the initiative is Nehemiah. He pulled out these genealogical records and as he dusted them off and started reading the names, he's like, I don't even know most of these dead people, right? But as he's reading this list, he's seeing how God has been working before. He's seeing how God is faithful. Someone had to pull those oats. Someone had to establish the identity of what God's people would look like going forward. Someone had to think beyond the project to the people. Someone had to invest sacrificially. And that's what Nehemiah did. And that's what God is calling us to do. And here's where I think as we go down this road of this hard and this complex passage that you're like, how in the world am I supposed to apply this in 2026 in Surprise, Arizona, and Buck Sun City Festival or wherever you live? Like, how do I apply that today? Well, here's I think our foundational truth that we see illuminated from this passage that calls us into action is generational impact begins with godly initiative. You see, Ezra is going to impact generations and generations and generations. And we're going to look in just a second how far that impact went. But all of it started with him being faithful and him being attentive to what God had. And it begs the question for us is what legacy are we building? Not what projects are you completing at your house? Not not not what things I have to do on my to-do list, but what legacy are you building that will go beyond you? Because here's the truth. The wall Nehemiah built that literally the wall we put our artwork after. The wall that is such a big deal. The wall that we hear about Nehemiah. Eventually that wall fell down. The temple that they rebuilt, the temple that they restored, eventually that temple was destroyed in AD70. But the faith that was passed down, that endured, that legacy never ended. the people who were discipled, the families who were formed, the community that was built around God's word. That's what lasted. And in chapter 7, we see a list of people that are dead and gone. A list of names that we cannot pronounce. A list of people that were part of something greater than themselves. But here's what is so great. This list led to a greater list that still impacts us today. In Nehemiah 7:7, the first name it mentions that these people that came out, it says they came with Zerubbable. Great kid's name. I tried to get Josh to name his daughter that, but he disagreed. But here's why this name Zerubbable is so important. Cuz you flip over to the New Testament in Matthew 1 and looking in verse 13 here. What? Listen to this name. Starting in 12, it said after the exile to Babylon, Jakoa fathered Shiathal. Shethal fathered Zarubbable and Zerubbable fathered Abuad. It continues down the legacy in verse 17. So all the generations from Abraham to David were 14 generations. From David to the exile to Babylon, 14 generations. And from the exile of Babylon till Messiah, 14 generations. And verse 18, and the birth of Jesus Christ came about this way. These random people at a random time building a random wall that is no longer built today. We're part of the very line of Jesus Christ. God in human form who came down to us. God who lived a perfect life on our behalf. Jesus Christ who knows what it's like to be a man and a woman who knows what it likes to be to be flesh. to experience pain and suffering and hurt and heartache. These were in Jesus's line. The Jesus who would live faithfully all the way to the cross to take our place, our sin, our struggles, our hurt, our failures, and would die on that cross for us. They were in his line. The Jesus who would prove his godship, who would prove his perfection by raising from the grave, defeating death, leaving that cross empty, leaving that grave empty so that we could know a new life. These people were in his line. Yeah. >> And because of their faithfulness, because of them following what God had prompted them to do, eternity has been changed for us. And it begs the question that we get to ask is what legacy are we leaving? Are we leaving a legacy that in our family we cheer for these sports scenes? Or we live in this place, we enjoy these hobbies. Those are fun things. Those are great traditions to pass down. But are we truly passing down a legacy of faith that is rooted in Jesus Christ, the King who changes lives and changes our eternity for all time. I mentioned to you at the beginning as you all judged me that my kids can trace their line back to the Cherokee Nation in Oklahoma. And that tracing gets us free healthcare every now and then. That gets us discounts at the Children's Museum. But that's about where that tracing stops for us. And one day if they forget to keep the line going and they lose out on those benefits, I'm going to be okay if my family fails to do that. But my prayer is that we will never leave the true legacy of our family. The legacy of faith that has been passed down through my generations. I think of the faith of my grandparents that they passed down. this legacy of faith that they showed my parents and my wife's parents what following Jesus sacrificially looks like. I think of how my parents and my in-laws passed down the sacrificial faith of how hard it is to follow Jesus by why this is important to my kids' parents. It's me. And my prayer is that as I read this passage in Nehemiah chapter 7 of a list of a bunch of names that God challenge me to what am I passing down to my children? Am I teaching them what the voice of God sounds like? Am I showing them how this Christian life looks so that they have a model that they can look to and one day they not pull a genealogical record that shows where their blood is chased, but instead that they can be written in the book of life. that the lamb has written down so that when we stand in judgment before the creator of the entire universe, he will recognize them as sons and daughters to spend eternity with him. What legacy are you leaving for your children? You cannot save them, but you can point them to the Jesus, the savior who can. And my prayer, my plea for you today is that you reorient your life to prioritizing what matters to showing how God's plan is greater than anything else that you can do on your own and how when you live it out, you get to pass it on to the generations. S beyond you.