Built on Justice

And too often in our lives, we don't like to say things out loud. We don't like to say, "I'm trusting God with this. All of a sudden, I'm going to become a better parent in this area. I'm going to become a better employee or better boss in this area. I'm going to actually attend church consistently in this area. I'm going to do such and such. Hold me accountable to it." We don't like that. So, a lot of times we keep that step out. Man, I'm excited about how God is going to stretch us, how God is going to move us, and God is going to call all of us to do something more, to do something greater inside his kingdom. And today, we start that journey as we get to dive back into the book of Nehemiah. So, if you have a Bible or you have a phone, you can Google this. We're going to be in Nehemiah chapter 5. Nehemiah chapter 5. And for those of you that maybe were with us last year in some of this or if you're new, uh, let me get catch you up a little bit. You know how when you watch a show and there's that recap button and you skip that recap usually cuz it's like 2 minutes of all the stuff you've already seen. But if you haven't watched the show in like two and a half years cuz it's a new season, you watch that recap because it's kind of important. And in Nehemiah, uh, this is this book that we kind of went into in the fall and we stopped about before Christmas, but it's this incredible story that is told by this character Nehemiah and he's telling this narrative from the first person. And it starts where he is born in Persia. He is raised up. He is a Jewish man, but he's been in exile his entire life. And as he's been raised up and kind of gone through, he he's become successful in his role, successful in the marketplace, but all of a sudden, he gets this news that in his homeland, the place he's never been before, but where his ancestors are from, where God has placed a calling in his life, he hears that these walls are in ruins. And it breaks his heart. And as his heart is broken, as he's going through this time of prayer and of seeking God and asking what is next, all of a sudden, God starts opening up doors. And one of the doors he opens up is to talk to the most powerful man, the king of Persia, at this time, Artic Xerxes. And and he says, "This is what I'm feeling." And he says, "Go build those walls." So he makes this long trek all the way back to Israel. They start rebuilding. And as they're building, he starts giving this rallying cry. And he starts telling the people and they're excited about it. And as they start building these walls, there's this opposition that comes, but they're keep on pushing forward. And in chapter 5 is where we pick up. And here's what I love throughout all of this. There's been this theme we've seen through the first four chapters and will continue through the rest of the book is Nehemiah gives this vision that leads to victory. He he tells the people, "God wants to restore Israel and God wants just to rebuild these walls. God wants us to go forward." And they are stoked up. They are excited. They see what God is starting to do. In the new year, you might have a vision for your life. Maybe your visions to get a little slimmer. All right? Not calling anyone out. I'm just saying maybe that's your vision. All right? Maybe the mirror called you out. All right? Maybe your vision is to get closer to God. Maybe your vision is to do whatever it is is is be more present with your family. Throw your phone in a lake so you don't have it as available. Whatever your vision is. I hope your vision hasn't died already cuz it is January 4th. So Kyle asked who started your resolutions. My question is who has stopped their resolutions? All right. Uh, one of my goals this year is to get in a better exercise routine and like because let's it's just or start an exercise routine is probably where I really need to be. But I've been thinking about this. I'm like, "All right, I could have woken up on January 1st at 5:00 a.m. and started running around my neighborhood or I could have done that gym membership starting in January." But I'm like, but my idea is to wait till February after everyone else quits and then start going running outside when the streets aren't so crowded and then go to the gym when the machines aren't all being used because everyone will have 90% of people will quit by that point. So that's when I'm that's my time to slot right in. But Nehemiah, as he gives this vision to his people, as God starts to work in them, there's this opposition that comes from outside, but they keep pushing forward. But today, as our story progresses in Nehemiah 5, and we're going to start in verse one, there's a different kind of opposition that comes. One that is scarier, one that they didn't see coming, and one that could threaten the entire project. And we start here in Nehemiah 5 starting in verse one. It says this that there was a widespread outcry from the people and their wives against. Okay, this is Nehemiah's people, the Jewish people talking. There's this outcry from the men and their wives. And all of a sudden, there's just this angst in here. But listen to this. Against their Jewish countrymen. You see Nehemiah as he starts in this chapter 5 as he continues this story. They just pushed back in chapter 4 it we covered this at the end of November and Pastor Kyle uh kind of covered this beautifully is they had this opposition from outside but all of the sudden they shift gears and the opposition comes from the inside. And you see what's happening here is these wealthy Jews were exploiting their poor brothers and sisters and all of a sudden there was this outcry happening and this came from a different few different areas as you kind of see the context around this is they started charging them crazy interest on loans they were giving out. They started seizing their lands and just taking it from them because they had the power and the ability to do so. And they even started selling children into slavery. Now, let this sink in for a second. God's people were enslaving God's people while building God's city. There is just so much irony. There is so much hypocrisy. There is so much craziness that is happening when you set this scene. It's like trying to renovate a house. And maybe some of you have gone through home renovations before. You've renovated parts of your houses. I I've renovated parts and and some things I can do on my own through YouTube and Reddit and sometimes I have to call someone that is more experienced than me. I just was showing a video of a light flickering in my attic when I turned it on and I was showing it to an electrician. He's like, "Huh, I think I could know what that is." I do not. I would have electrocuted myself about 20 times trying to change it. All right. and and but when you do a house renovation, you you can renovate the kitchen and the bedroom and the things, but if you've let termites eat apart the inside of your walls for the last 15, 20 years, it doesn't matter what you do to that house cuz eventually the whole thing will crumble in on itself. And Nehemiah as he paints this picture, he's saying this is insane that we can build God's city, but if God's city is going to be built by God's people, exploiting and enslaving other people of God's people, then this is just not going to work. And Nehemiah here is about to confront this sin directly. Because here he's going to show that this could not continue. and he's going to show that this injustice that was wreaking havoc had to be addressed. So this morning we're actually going to ask this question that feels incredibly relevant in our world today but also incredibly weighty is how do we deal with injustice in our world today? How do we counter social injustice? Now as I say that word, let me address some baggage that comes with that in the room today. cuz I say social injustice. I just heard someone laugh, right? Um because you're like, "Oh, we're really going here." And let me just show you. Your Bible probably has the title in chapter 5 of social injustice. But when you hear that word, some of you are like, "Man, he's going to talk about woke stuff, right? Like, I can't believe we're talking about woke stuff at church." And then there's other part of you on the other side of that. Maybe you are woke or you consider yourself or people have called you woke, right? You're like, "Yes, we're going to make statements. We're going to have protests. We're going to talk about what the Bible says." But here's the thing. As we get into this text, we're going to see scripture doesn't call us to the extremes and the craziness and the buckets that our world likes to place words in and change is the definition of those words. And as we get into this chapter, as we kind of check our baggage and check our preconceptions of what the world tells us injustice is, we're going to see what the true injustice they dealt with here and then how it speaks to how we respond today. And we start this journey as we continue on. We see this problem was here in verse one, but in verse two, uh, it continues on. And here Jer Ne Nehemiah starts to dig a little bit deeper into what the issue was. And it says this, "Some were saying,"We are sons and our daughters are numerous. Let us get grain so that we can eat and live." They're like, "We cannot provide for our kids." Verse three, others were saying, "We are mortgaging our fields, our vineyards, and homes to get grain during the famine." This is how these land seizures were happening is they had to kind of put up their stuff um for debt in order just to get food during a famine. Verse four, still others were saying we have borrowed money to pay the king's tax on our field and vineyards. In verse 5, we and our children are just like our countrymen and their children. Yet we are subjecting our sons and daughters to slavery. Some of our daughters are already enslaved, but we are powerless because our fields and our vineyards belong to others. You see, the first thing as we go down this road and how do we deal with injustice in our world? The first thing we see is we need to identify the problem. Ver verse one kind of sets the scene as we read that this outcry came. It was this internal issue is Jewish people, God's people hurting other Jewish people, other God's people. But the cry, this outcry, it is just, you think about that for a second. It is all of an internal family problem. Up to this point, we've heard some of the other villains in the story, guys like Sand Ballots and Tobaya. These were guys that were outside and were putting pressure on them and were enemies of God. But this is from inside. This is internally as we see this and this starts to unfold in many layers. Some were saying we have these families that we just need grain to eat and stay alive. I I have four kids and I found out the more kids I have, the more I can relate with this passage. I'm like, God, I just need some grain. But they don't even like grain. I need more chicken nuggets and mac and cheese to stay alive. You know what the most frustrating thing is? As a baby, all my kids would eat everything. We're like giving them food off our plate and they're eating it. They're happy. They're getting plump and fat like a good baby should. And then one day they just decide, "Nope, don't like that. Nope, don't like it." And they are the pickiest kids. We're like forcing food down their mouth and they're throwing fits. It's whatever. It's my problem. I know. But anyway, they had this problem, too. They needed food for their people, but then it keeps on going. It's And and why did they have this issue of not being able to provide? Well, here putting some context on it. Some of these people literally stopped working on their fields so they can work on building the wall. So, their fields are being neglected, their their livelihood, their grain, they can't do as much cuz they are sacrificing for God and it's hurting. How do they care? And and they're in this faith balance of how do we stay true to what God has called us to do without also hurting our family. Others were continuing on. They're saying we're mortgaging our fields, our vineyards, our homes to get grain during the family. They're leveraging everything they had just to survive. But there's still others that's saying we've had to borrow money to pay the king's taxes on our fields and now we're selling our sons and daughters into slavery. Can you hear through these verses just the desperation in their voices? They're they're saying in verse five, this is just so honest. It says, "We and our children are just like our countrymen and their children. Yet we are subjecting our kids to this. Here's what's happening is they're all sacrificing for this vision that God has given them for their lives. But while they are sacrificing, while God's people is sacrificing, there are some who are trying to take advantage of the situation. And the problem here is as people are being faithful to what God has directed, sometimes there are wolves, there are vultures who will come in and who will try to hurt other people because of it. In Nehemiah, what he is calling out here, what he is showing us is that these people were not following what God had. And and here's what's actually happening is the Torah, this is the first five books of the Bible. This was the law that was given to Moses from God for how Israel would conduct themselves. That the people who are taking advantage of their fellow brothers and sisters in Christ were not following what God had told them. For example, in Deuteronomy 23:1 19, God told them, "Do not charge your brother interest on money, food, or anything that can earn interest." Literally, God said, "This is how I want you to conduct yourselves different than the rest of the world." But they were not doing it. And here's I think what's important for us is in this instant where this injustice is happening, this problem is running rampant, Nehemiah did not stick his head in the sand. Nehemiah didn't say like, "I'm just going to ignore it and hopefully it will go away. I'm just going to keep going and eventually we'll forget about it and everything's going to be great. Instead, as this problem is arising, Nehemiah is taking notes that he's writing down later that we see today. But we also see how he's going to respond. Starting in verse 6, he continues on here and it says, "I became extremely angry." This is Nehemiah talking. He says when he heard all this stuff, all this happening, his first thing I became extremely angry when I heard their outcry and these complaints. He says after seriously considering this matter, I accused the nobles and the officials, saying to them, "Each of you is charging his countrymen interest exactly what was opposite of what God had called them to do." So he called a large assembly against them and said we have done our best to buy back our Jewish countrymen who are sold to foreigners. He's saying we have tried to restore our nation as we are calling to be done to restore God's people. He says but you now you sell your own countrymen and we have to buy them back. They remained silent and could not say a word. You know when you've won an argument, when people are silent and don't know how to respond, Nehemiah, as he lays this on them, they're just deathly silent. They don't know what to say. They don't know how to respond. They don't know what to do cuz they have been called out. Their hand has been caught in the cookie jar. And you see, first we see how do we respond to injustice in our world? We have to identify the problem. But Nehemiah shows us another path is we need to respond with passion and practicality. I love to just break down for a second here how he responds in this. First in verse 6, it says he became extremely angry. Nehemiah got mad. And I love that the Bible doesn't hide this from us. This is a fiery, passionate leader who sees injustice and his blood starts to boil. And and I think it raises an important question for us. Is it okay to be mad about the terrible things that happen in the world around us? And the answer is yes. Like when you flip on the news, when you scroll social media, when you see how jacked up our world is, we should not laugh and smile and say, "Yeah, our world is crazy." Like sociopaths do that, right? Um or we just give up at that point. But when we see injustice in our world, when we see evil run rampant in our world, it should make us angry inside. Now, can we fix every one of those problems? No. Then that's why too much Twitter or too much Fox News or too much CNN or too much whatever will drive you crazy because you'll want to fix all the world's problems when you might not have the power to fix the world's problems and you don't acknowledge the world's problems have been fixed for eternity by Christ. We'll get there. But when we see evil in our world, it should cause us to have anger in our heart. It should cause our blood to boil. It should cause movement in us to say this is not right. And when Nehemiah sees this, the first thing is he gets mad. But look, it it doesn't end there because I love verse 7. Verse 7 says after I seriously considering the matter. Here's the problem of what we often do and I say I do is I get mad and then I start talking. And when I start talking after I get mad, it's usually not nice words like, "I love you so much. I'm just so angry and I'm just going to yell about how much I love you." When I get mad, whether it's at my kids, whether it's at dumb drivers who cut me off that I want to then follow home. When I get mad, I want to express my anger right away. And all of us can fall into this pitfall of our anger. We we let it boil up, but then we want it to spill out. But Nehemiah shows us something different. is his anger boils up in his heart. But then he considers why he's so angry. He he starts to consider what is the heart of this. He starts to consider what he can do as a result. And it says after seriously considering the matter, he then accused the nobles and the officials. He was angry, but he ruled his heart. The the Hebrew word here literally says his heart was ruled. He got control of himself before he acted. And this is so important because righteous anger is appropriate but uncontrolled anger is destructive. Nehemiah felt the weight of injustice and then he channeled that energy into strategic conver confrontation. And look how he continues to do this after he accuses them. He brings these charges and then he brings other people around and presents this to show they were wrong. And in verse 8, as we said, it ends with them being silent and not having a word to say. When they were confronted with the truth, they had no defense because they knew they were wrong. But here's the thing that I think is so important in this section is Nehemiah didn't just get angry. He didn't just vent. He didn't just destroy things because of how messed up stuff was. He didn't post about it and say, "I'm so angry at this. Let me tell you how wrong it is." He didn't gossip about it. He confronted the right people in the right way at the right time to seek a solution. Imagine going to a surgeon who says, "I see the tumor. I see the problem. It makes me really sad. It makes me mad that that happened to you. I'm very passionate about your health." But then says, "But I'm not going to do the surgery. I'm not going to help you." It's like, that's crazy. And Nehemiah sees the issue. He he feels bad about it, but then he confronted the problem and he says, "I'm going to cut this problem out of our people." And it continues on in verse 9 as he goes down this as we see he identifies this problem as his righteous anger stirs up inside him. But then in verse 9, he continues and he says, "Then I said what you are doing isn't right. Shouldn't you walk in the fear of our God?" That's an important phrase. Shouldn't you walk in the fear of our God and not invite the reproach of our foreign enemies? Even I, as well as my brothers and my servants, have been lending them money and grain, but please, let's stop charging this interest. There's a couple interpretations there. Some say Nehemiah was charging interest as well, but that let's could just be collective. He's maybe identifying with all of this is hard at this time, whether he was doing it or not. But verse 11, return their fields, their vineyards, their olive groves, and houses to them immediately along with the percentage of the money, the grain, the new wine, and fresh oil that you have been assessing them. They responded, "We will return these things, and we will require nothing more from them. We will do as you say." What a baller Nehemiah is. It's like he bringing kids into the room and like, "Look, listen up. This is what we're going to do." And instead of like fighting it or saying, "Nah, like let's negotiate these terms," they're like, "Yep, you said it. Um, we know God's on your side. We know we're probably going to be smited, so we're going to do what you say." Second half of verse 12, he said, "So I summoned the priests and made everyone take an oath to do this." He ups the Annie. We're going to make sure you actually do this thing. And he said, "I also shook the folds of my robes and said, May God likewise shake from his house and property. Everyone who doesn't keep his promise, may he be shaken out and have nothing. The whole assembly said, "Amen." And they praised the Lord. Then the people did as they had promised. Man, there's a whole 40-minute sermon in this section. Are you guys ready for me to do a sidebar on it? But here, just as Nehemiah builds this, as we talk about how to respond when things are not right, when things are unjust, he starts and he says, "This is the problem. We need to fix this." He identifies it. And then he has passion and a practical solution on how they move forward. But then here is the practical solution is he calls them back to God's perfect standard. is Nehemiah doesn't say, "Hey, I'm smarter than you. I'm going to fix the problem." He's like, "Guys, I know what I'm doing, guys. Like, just do this, do that." Instead, he says, "Hey guys, I fear the Lord." He starts with that. He says, "We all need to come back to a fear of God." And he's not inventing something new. He's not inventing a solution that had never been there before. He's calling them back to the Torah in Deuteronomy, in Nehemiah. through all of this he's saying what you are doing is not right but what God has shown us is the perfect standard we reach for so let's return to it and here this is not mind-blowing this is not new this is not crazy but it is effective so often we want some new hack for how we navigate life we want some new things of like give me some new cool solution that's going to help me fix my problems let give me something new like let me give me another shot or a pill or a new workout routine and that's going to fix all my issues. And Nehemiah's like, I'm going to tell you the same thing you've been told your entire life is go follow God and go back to his perfect standard he gave you before. >> And so often we get lost in the ways in trying to follow God the way our world tries to follow the gods of our world as we're just picking from thing to thing to thing. And here Nehemiah is just calling them back to the thing that matters the most. And and here it all builds to this. And I don't have time to get through all the weeds here cuz we still got some more verses we're getting through. But I think it all builds to this is why this was so effective is he saw the problem. He called them and convicted them and say this is the direction you need to go. They were convicted then responded to God's standard. But here in verse 13, in verse 12 and 13 is so important is when he summons the priests, he made everyone take an oath to do this. He put accountability in this. He called them to God's standard. But then he says, "Are you actually going to follow through with it?" You know why most resolutions fail? Because it doesn't matter when we fail. There are no consequences to it. Is we have a resolution and a lot of times we don't like to share our resolutions. That's what I do personally, right? Because then no one knows if you actually kept your goals and resolutions for the year. And I actually respect some of the people that are really annoying on January 1st and they list everything they want to do through January 1st through 2026. They're like, I'm going to do this and this and this and this and this and then I'm just like bookmarking it cuz I'm going to revisit that in a month. No. Um, but I respect that because some of it of putting it out there is you are asking other people to convict you and keep you accountable. And too often in our lives, we don't like to say things out loud. We don't like to say, "I'm trusting God with this. All of a sudden, I'm going to become a better parent in this area. I'm going to become a better employee or better boss in this area. I'm going to actually attend church consistently in this area. I'm going to do such and such. Hold me accountable to it." We don't like that. So a lot of times we keep that step out. But Nehemiah, he says, "Hey, I'm going to call you to God's standard, but I'm also going to bring the community around you. I'm going to make you take an oath and then I'm going to tell you the consequences of not keeping that oath." His Nehemiah, I wish I had a big robe I could shake right now. But he shakes his robe and he says, "If you don't follow this oath, this is what God is going to do to you spiritually. He's going to shake you like the dust off his robe and you are going to be gone from him. is there are consequences when we do not live up to the standard that God has called us to. Nehemiah was calling them to an accountability. He was calling them to something greater. He was calling them to stop this injustice and look towards God. And I love how it concludes in verse 14 because he wasn't asking them to do something he wasn't willing to do himself. Keep going in verse 14 through the end of this chapter. It says, "Furthermore, from the day king articles appear appointed me to be the governor in the land of Judah. From the 20th year until his 32nd year, 12 years 12 years he was governor." He says, "I and my associates never ate from the food allotted to the governor. The governors who preceded me had heavily burdened the people, taking from them food and wine as well as a pound of silver. Their subordinates also oppressed the people be because of the fear of God. I didn't do this. Again, come back to his motivation. The fear of God is what guided Nehemiah. The fear of God is what he called them to. The fear of this standard that God has set. Verse 16, he says, "Instead, I devoted myself to the construction of this wall and all my subordinates were gathered there for work. We didn't buy any lands. He says there are 150 Jews and officials as well as guests from the surrounding tables and or surrounding nations at my table. Every day he had 150 people sit at his table. He must have had a big big table. And says each day one ox, six choice sheep and some fowl were prepared for me. An abundance of all kinds of wine was provided every 10 days. But I didn't demand the food allotted to the governor because the burden on the people was so heavy. Remember me favorably, my God, for all that I have done for this people. Nehemiah very well could have done exactly what the guys did before him of just to take advantage of the position that he was put in. He could have just siphoned off the people around him and made himself more powerful, himself more comfortable, himself greater in the eyes of the world. Instead, he decided to humble himself and lead by his own personal example. A Nehemiah led by a personal example that was so different than the world around him. Instead of continuing on with the people that came before him, these wicked governors, instead he decides to do something different. and he got this crazy allowance. I mean, think about this. Uh it would be kind of nice to eat uh one ox and six sheep every single day, right? That's a lot of food. And a lot of that food would have gone to waste and probably did go to waste with other governors. But instead, what he did is he invited 150 plus people to his table daily that ate from his household. That he was feeding the people around him. He was giving back. He was loving. He was using his position of power, his position of wealth in order to love the people around him. And why did he do this? It says because of the fear of God. There's that phrase again, the fear of God shaped everything that Nehemiah did. It shaped his finances. The fear of God shaped his leadership. The fear of God shaped what he was willing to sacrifice in his life. And here's what's so awesome about this is God put Nehemiah in a position of wealth, in a position of prosperity, and he never felt guilty about it. He He never made apologies for it. Instead, he used it to do God's work. And Nehemiah in here was incredibly gifted, was incredibly blessed, was incredibly fortunate. But everything in him was not to build up his pride. It was to do the work, the vision that God had given him to do. And in this story, when it came against things that people were hurting God's people around him, when God's people were hurting other God's people, Nehemiah called it out, he identified and said, "This has to stop." He not only called it out, but he responded with passion and with practical ways to fix it. He called them to this perfect standard that God had set. And ultimately, he led by his own personal example of how do we go? How do we navigate this tough world around us? And all of this leads to as we reflect on this passage, as we kind of say, what does this call us to do? What does this say about how we are to live with one another inside God's church and how we respond to the world around us? I think it gives us this foundational truth this morning that gospel community requires godly unity. You see, all this happens is Nehemiah realized that if they were going to keep building this wall, if they were going to keep having this gospel community, this community centered around God that he so wanted, it wasn't just about building walls. We'll get into that in a second. It was about rebuilding an entire people group, an entire community that would serve and worship God. He says, "If any of that is going to happen, we need to have this godly unity among us. We need to get rid of the relational termites that are wreaking havoc in the building. We need to get rid of the injustice that is happening between people and people, with one another, with brothers and sisters among them." He's saying we need to rid all of it and point ourselves back to what God has called us to do. And here for us today in 2026 as we reflect on this be like that's great but guess what? I'm not charging my brother interest. That's great but I'm I don't have these problems. That's great but I'm not seizing any land with a bunch of ox and sheep. Some of you might have ox and sheep if you live in like Wikcinberg or something. All right. It's like these aren't the same problems I'm dealing with today. But here's the deal is you can't have real community when people are exploiting each other. you you can't build something beautiful when you're breaking the people around you. You can't claim to love God while oppressing your brother. You can't claim to be making Jesus known while justice injustice rages on. But here comes the really hard question is how do we know what injustice is today? Oh, this is where I can make everyone in the room super mad. All right. How do we define injustice in 2026? This break of kind of this Christmas, New Year's. I'm not going to lie, I watched a lot of movies and I went to the movies a couple times. I went and saw Avatar. It was 3 hours of awesomeness with a terrible story. I went and saw Zootopia 2. I went and saw David. Both took my last kids with on those last two movies. And all of it was great. Uh and and I love movies. And I'm excited in this next year. A lot of great movies are coming out and one of those movies is Christopher Nolan's The Odyssey. And if you know what the Odyssey is, you probably read it in high school. If you're in high school right now, you're probably asking chat GPT to summarize the Odyssey for you and write a paper, right? But the Odyssey is the great Greek epic written by Christopher Nolan, the dude who makes epic movies like Oppenheimer and Batman and all other things. And the trailer recently was released and people got so mad because here, get this. They claim artistic injustice. They're like, "Hey, this this isn't what the Odyssey looked like in ancient Greece that it didn't look like in 7 BC. That's not how their their uniforms looked like and their armor." Like Christopher Nolan is doing an injustice to the text. But here's the hilarious part of that is the true injustice to the text of the Odyssey is the fact that they're probably going to rewrite the story. Cuz if you go to the Odyssey, there's a scene in there where a baby is thrown off a wall and killed. You read the Odyssey, there are times when men are killed who are innocent and then their wives claimed and raped and horrible atrocities happen. There are times in the Odyssey where people are unjustly held captive, are tortured, go through all these terrible things. And here's the kicker. It's done by the heroes of the story. You see, in 7 BC Greece, the idea of injustice in ethics was a lot different than is in 2026 today. But why is that? And here I think is comes to this is the greatest injustice we have today is we have this irony today that we live in a world that is shaped by Christian values but so against the Christian savior in Jesus Christ. And we live in this world where we want to live like a Christian, but we don't want to fully embrace following the Jesus who installed all these Christian values that have shaped our world and changed everything we know. And we look at history and history defined social injustice in a lot of different ways because it's seen through different worldviews. But as a Christian, we define it through the lens that God gives us in scripture. And I believe today that the biggest injustice of our world and in our churches is trying to live the Christian life without the Christian God in Jesus Christ. To live like we want to have the right family and I want to be a good dad. I want to be a good husband. to live like I want to be a moral and good business owner, to live like I want to be a good neighbor and all those things that in a sinful world mean nothing apart from Christ. And in 2026, my prayer, my heart is that as the church that we will stand up to the hypocrisy of our world trying to live like Christians without the Jesus who makes it all possible. that in 2026 we will stand up to the apathy of our churches trying to pursue the world's success rather than God's perfect standard that in 2026 we will stand up to the injustice of trying to be a Christian without the Jesus Christ who died and rose again for our sins and maybe today maybe that's exactly where you are that you've been doing this whole Jesus life and you kind of have it figured out that I can show up to church every now and then that I can be nice to the people around me that I can wave and say hi that I can be a good neighbor that I can be a good citizen and all those are great things but maybe you don't have this personal relationship with Christ that is transforming your heart that is breaking your heart that is molding your heart to get closer to him and remember who the God that makes all this possible in the first place. And maybe this year will be the year like you see Nehemiah in your life that when you see something's wrong, you'll know it's wrong. Not because of your opinion, but because of God's truth flowing through your life that you can call it out because you so know your savior. You know what he stands for and you know what following him perfectly looks like. Maybe this year we'll stop being just so apathetic to just falling into the routine of this Christian life and we'll truly pursue the Savior who changes the course of everything we do who changes our actions and truly makes us alive in him like no other God can. My prayer in 2026 is that we can truly follow the Jesus of the Bible who lived for us, who died for us, who paid the price for our sins so that we can know a new life in him. That we can know how to change the world around us. and that we can make Jesus known in a great way that changes the eternity of the people around us forever.