Built to Finish

This city is never going to get rebuilt. Jerusalem will never be its capital. Judah is a joke. There is no way there will ever be a restoration. And in 52 days, what couldn't be done in 150 years, God did. My prayer is that my life in our church be marked by things that only God can do. Well, this morning we're going to be in Nehemiah chapter 6. And Nehemiah chapter 6, uh you can flip there and we're going to dive into this in just a second. But this past week, um I got home from work and then I picked up the kids and it was probably around 4:30, 5:00 and and my wife uh she was telling me about she she's kind of had this hobby that she's adopted and this hobby what I found out is really more like a sport. um and the sport she's been telling me about and and I've tried to actually do it with her and I've appreciated how hard it is. Uh she has gotten really big into the sport of thrifting. All right, I went with her. I found out just like you know you need a runner's lungs and runner's legs. I don't have that for thrifting. My endurance, it's not there. All right, I petered out real quick. Um you need to build your immune system for it. Uh I was like going around Goodwill. I'm like, dude, I don't want to touch any of this stuff, right? like, can I burn my hands with sanitizer after this? Right? But she is great at the sport of thrifting with which with four kids and being a pastor, it is a blessing that God gave us, right? Um, but she is going to start a social media account, I'm pretty sure, pretty soon, showing all her Goodwill finds. But recently, she came home this past week and she was so excited. She found this Lego set. It was $5 at Goodwill. And we looked it up. It was like you built this whole little city little block thing. like there was an apartment and a coffee shop and a sushi restaurant and all this stuff happened in this little thing and we looked it up. It was $90 if you actually buy it at the store and we got it for five. And I'm like, "Jokes on us. There's going to be five pieces in this box that they taped." But as we got it out, my my son was like, "Hey, can we build this tonight after after dinner and showers?" And I'm like, "I don't know, man." Like, it's a school night. Like 7:00 they're in their rooms. I'm like, "We're strict about bedtime cuz I want to watch the Suns game." Uh, and and I was like, "All right, well, we'll try it out." All right. So, we start putting out the pieces. And as we're building this, it's getting later. It's getting later. She's like, "Are you going to finish that tonight?" I'm like, "I don't know. We're making good progress." Like, "Archie, line up the pieces." Right? And we're like building this. And when I say we, I mean me and the kids all watching and cheering me on as we're doing this. And it's getting later and she's like, "All right, I'm putting Alice, the youngest, to bed." And then it's getting later. She's like, "All right, I'm getting a shower." And she comes out and the three of us are huddled around that. She's like, "Are you finishing this tonight?" And at 7:15, I'm like thinking and weighing my consequences. Like, do I finish this now? Do I push through? I'm going to wake these kids up at 6:00 a.m. in the morning, and it might not be a pretty picture, right, as they go to school. Do we push through and finish the project? And I'm counting the costs in my head. Well, today we find Nehemiah in a similar situation, but instead of using Lego blocks, he's using real blocks. And as he's going into this project that we've been tracing through the book of Nehemiah that all of a sudden he comes to this point where they're so close to being done. They're on the edge of seeing this project be completed and they got to see what will it take to push them over the edge. And in Nehemiah chapter 6 starting in verse one, we pick up in the story and it says this. one sand ballot. Tobiiah, Gisham, the Arab, and the rest of our enemies heard that I had rebuilt the wall and that no gap was left in it. This is Nehemiah talking. Though at the time I had not installed the doors in the city gates, sand ballot and Gisham sent me a message. Come, let's meet together in the villages of the Ono Valley. They were planning to harm me. You see, Nehemiah is so close to the finish line. Nehemiah is the walls are up, but the gates are not in. project is not yet complete, but it is so close. And as it is so close, it's almost like this culmination of what we've seen throughout the book of Nehemiah. We've said this theme throughout this series is it's all about this vision that leads to victory. That this vision that God has given Nehemiah that I want you to go to your homeland, to a land you've never been in, he grew up in Persia and then this cupbearer turned construction worker, eventually turned governor. He's like, "I want you to go and I want you to mobilize these people. As you mobilize them, I want you to build up these walls. I want you to build up these fences. I want you to restore the nation." And it's so close. It's like Nehemiah can taste it. And maybe for you today, maybe God has given you a vision in your life and a vision of this new year. And maybe what does it look like to get closer to God? What does it look like to be involved in a church family, to read your Bible, to spiritually pursue him like you have not before? Maybe what does it look like to repair your marriage? To restore something that's hurting? To restore something that's maybe broken and just needs a breath of fresh air. Maybe you have a vision of how to lead your family differently than you've done. But here's the thing. No matter what vision God has given you for your life, that ne we have to actually go and finish the project if we're ever going to see the victory. And Nehemiah here as he's standing on the edge, there almost comes this question that if vision only really leads to victory if we actually finish, well, how do we finish God's assignments? Well, the things that God puts into our lives is how do we cross the finish line? How do we keep running? How do we keep moving? And we think about this not only from our projects, but also with the assignment of our life to live for Christ. Our world is full of people who live faithfully in so many ways, both inside and outside the church, who work so hard, who build legacies, but then at a moment's notice, you can see it all fall apart. Just this past week, a prominent Christian leader who who has written books, who has influence, and who has had an impact on so many, he came out and and admitted that he had had an affair during his ministry for eight years. And so much of that when we read something like that, it used to shock us and it doesn't even shock us anymore because we we know people are people and people mess up. But you see it over and over again of people not finishing well. And it begs the question of how do we finish well the task that God has given us, the character that he is building in us, the vision that he has for our life. And we keep going and we find the answers to this question in the life of Nehemiah. Starting in verse three, he says this. So I sent messengers to them saying, I am doing important work and I cannot come down. Why should the work seize while I leave it and go down to you? They're pestering him to go meet and he says no. Verse four. Four times they sent me the proposal and I gave them the same reply. All I picture is like the solar salesman at my door like, "I don't want solar. You want solar? I don't want solar. You want solar. I really don't want solar. Leave my property now. I wish I had a dog to sick on you. You really want solar? It's going to change your life, right? AND AND NEHEMIAH'S GIVING THE SAME ANSWER, but they're not actually listening. They're just keep pushing and pestering and pushing. But he keeps going in verse 5. And then sand ballot sent me the same message a fifth time by his aid who had an open letter in his hand. And it was written, this is reported among the nations. And Gisham agrees that you and the Jews plan to rebel. This is rebelling against Persia. This is the reason you are building the wall. According to these reports, you are to become their king and have even set up prophets in Jerusalem to proclaim on your behalf there is a king in Judah. These rumors will be heard by the king. This is King Artic Xerxes who reigns over Persia, most powerful nation in the world at this time. He says, "So come, let's confer together." But Nehemiah responds in verse 8. Then I replied to him, "There is nothing to these rumors that you are spreading. You are inventing them in your own mind. For they were all trying to intimidate us, saying they will drop their hands from the work and it will never be finished. But now my God, strengthen my hands. When we look at how do we finish God's assignments? Well, how do we keep going when things are so hard? The first thing that we see through this story and through the life of Nehemiah is we keep pushing through opposition. Here's what I love is as Nehemiah has gotten his enemies have tried to attack him before and then he even had internal opposition. He's had all these problems and you think by the time he's at the end of the project, it's going to be done with, but it just comes on even with greater force. And it comes in kind of a cloaked way. And in verse two, in verse one and two, it just says, "Hey, hey, come, let's meet together. Let's go just we want to meet over here in the Osho Valley. It's just it's really chill. We just want to talk about things. We want to negotiate." But Nehemiah knew who these guys were. He he knew that what their background was and it doesn't tell him he's like hey they might have bad intentions I I question their motives a little bit instead he calls a spade a spade and he says these were my enemies and his response in verse three he says I am doing important work and cannot cannot come down why should the work seize while I leave it and go down to you I think this statement is huge and maybe one of the most important in the book of Nehemiah is Nehemiah understood that sometimes some there some things that we need to uh desperately grasp in this is that sometimes our world approaches us with invitations with opportunities with paths that go down that are not what God has for us. And some invitations can be traps some opportunities are just distractions. Some meetings will exist to pull us away from what God has actually called us to do. You've probably seen this in your personal life. Maybe it's at work when when you know you're so close to completing a project or finishing a sale or whatever it is and then all of a sudden the distractions of life come in and and it's sometimes so random. It's like why is like when I'm feeling like so good, I'm about to complete all this and then all this mess of garbage just comes pouring down on me. You're like that's just inconvenient. That's just dumb luck. But is it? And sometimes even more so when we're being faithful and following God when all of a sudden things with your family seem to be going the right, things with your faith seem to be going the right. all of the sudden these distractions seem to rise up. How many times that all of a sudden that a new project at work finally pops up when you're finally making progress on having the work life balance you've been trying for? All of a sudden that there's drama in relationship when you feel like you're closer to God and more in line with him. And then all of a sudden this drama comes up to to to distract and make hard relationships. all of a sudden that a great opportunity that would pull you from your current situation all of a sudden moves you from the place where God put a burden on your heart. You see Nehemiah shows us that sometimes distractions that is all they are that we almost need to ignore him. In verse four it tells us they kept on pestering him. They kept on moving. But Nehemiah kept giving the same answer. The answer he knew that was burdened in his heart from God. And I think there's a little leadership lesson. And there's a principle in here that persistent enemies require persistent resolve. As Nehemiah said, "No, this is the path I'm going. No, this is what God has for me." And when the attacks escalate, when all this stuff comes, Nehemiah just stood firm on his ground. But here's what I love. As they continue in verse 5, then they start making more accusations. They start making public accusations. And then all of a sudden it it rises to then they start uh bringing different kind of attacks in verse 10. But as their accusations get public, as they start kind of tearing down his character, he doesn't argue with them. He doesn't all of a sudden like say, "No, you're wrong and I'm going to prove how I am right." Instead, the response he gives in verse 9, he says, "But now my God, strengthen my hands." He's like, "God, keep me focused on what you've already put me on." He's like, "No, no. Let me let me go make a post and own these fools and tell them how wrong they are. Let me go defend myself. Let me go start some work gossip to say how they're idiots and like my side is right. Let me go build my case." He doesn't do any of that. And so he says, "God," he almost prays this strengthen my hands to stay the course. Keep me focused on what you have for me. And then when that doesn't work and the opposition isn't successful in 10 through14 they start paying a false pre a false prophet to try to uh get Nehemiah into the temple and they use all this religious jargon to try to woo Nehemiah in. But Nehemiah is like no you guys are full of it. He's like this is not right. He's like he's like my spiritual garbage meter is going off. I know this is not what God has for me. And man, how important is that today? I I fully believe that we need a spiritual garbage meter. There's some other words you can use for that, but I already uh you guys didn't laugh that hard about the gender joke, so I don't think you're ready for it. All right. Um got an easy one of that. First service was nailed it. Okay. Um but we need like a spiritual garbage meter. When we hear things that sound religious, that sound Christian but aren't quite right, can we recognize it? I think of our world today. There are a lot of great leaders and great speakers and great content consumed whether it's books or podcasts or whatever else. And I think of guys like a guy like Jordan Peterson. He says a lot of smart things and sometimes it's not as smart as he sounds, but he says all these things. They sound brilliant. They sound smart. They even sound godly. They sound Jesus e. And then you dive into what he actually believes and be like that's not the gospel, bro. And we need to have this spiritual garbage meter that when our world throws stuff at us say that's not the Jesus that this book tells me about. And the only way that we know who that Jesus is, the only way we know what the right way to God is is studying the right book full of the right words that God gives us. And Nehemiah stood on this. Nehemiah know when he had all these oppositions from these enemies. And it continues in verse 17 through 19 as they're trying to pile on him. He's like, I know this is what God has for me cuz it's grounded in his word. It's grounded in my prayer life. It's grounded where I am going. We finish God's assignments. Well, when we push through the opposition, but he keeps going. Flip over to verse 15. In chapter 6, verse 15, it kind of culminates this. I love how this goes. He's pushing through. He's pushing through. be so close in verse 15. The wall was completed. We've been talking about this for six sermons. This is sermon number seven that it's like build the wall, do this vision, achieve what God has happened, all this stuff. Build, build, build. Like he's going through this. In verse 15, it says, "The wall was completed. In 52 days, on the 25th day of the month of Aul, when all our enemies heard this, all the surrounding nations were intimidated and they lost their confidence, for they realized that this task had been accomplished by our God." as Nehemiah continues and he goes through just keep pushing through. It sees they finally get to the finish line of the project and all of a sudden the walls go up. And I love this because here's how Nehemiah is different than me in my sin. The first thing I would think to do when that wall was completed as Nehemiah, I'd be like, I'm going to take pictures of this. I'm going to post it on social media. I'm going to tell everyone how I am such a boss. Like, dude, I was a cut bear for the kings. Now I'm a construction worker. I'm going to be a governor. Like look how awesome I am. And Nehemiah doesn't do any of that. He doesn't puff his chest up. He doesn't show how great he is. Instead, in verse se in verse 16, we see who he gives glory to. It says when all the surrounding the people that were trying to intimidate them, all of a sudden they were intimidated. But it's important in that last little part. It says because they saw they realized that this task had been accomplished by God. When we talk about how to finish God's assignments, well, we not only keep pushing, but we keep praising through the victories. Nehemiah did not take this as his win. Nehemiah did not say, "This is my victory. This is because of my leadership. This is because of who he is as a person." And in so many ways, he writes a leadership book in this story. But he wasn't interested in selling his book and puffing his chest up. Instead, he was interested in showing how this was a godsized project. And think about this for a second. The walls had literally been in ruins for 150 years. Generations had walked by those walls and been like, "Man, this place is a mess. This city is never going to get rebuilt. Jerusalem is never going to become Israel will never rise up as a people. Jerusalem will never be its capital. Judah is a joke. They're like, "God's people are scattered. It's going to stay that way. There is no way there will ever be a restoration. And in 52 days, what couldn't be done in 150 years, God did." But here's what's so important is God did. Not Nehemiah. Not the names of the people we can't pronounce that we've already kind of read some of, and we'll read more next week, but God did. My prayer is that my life and our church be marked by things that only God can do. Too often I think we live in a way that we do things that be like, "Oh, yeah, that makes sense. Yeah, that that they're talented enough to do that. They're smart enough to do that. They have enough money to do that. Oh, I can see how they achieve that because they are a bright, smart, resourceful person." But what if we were people marked by when the world saw what happened be like, "Man, I know Andrew is not that smart. God must have intervened in there. Thank you for cheering, but I'm not that smart. I appreciate that." But what if we WERE CHURCH LIKE THAT? THIS IS LIKE, "HEY, those people, they would never get along, but all a sudden they're in church and whoo, THEY'RE FORMING COMMUNITY. OH, WOW. THIS MARRIAGE was so broken. It was so wrecked. There was no hope in it. Wow. God breathed new life and God breathed grace and restoration into that. Oh, those kids, they were so jacked up. There was no hope for them. They came to church, trained them out with some Jesus rod, and all the sudden, God did a thing. What if we were marked by a church that we looked and said, "God did a thing." >> Amen. >> Our church staff and some of our other core members in our church, we've been praying for a little boy who's at another Southern Baptist church in our city. And as we've been praying for him, we got news uh just yesterday or two days ago, one of the last two days that all of a sudden this miraculous uh kind of diagnosis has been given. The doctors were so grim. The doctors were saying this, they were giving all these horrible things and all of a sudden it was not what they thought they were and it was something they could not explain. What happened? God did a thing. And God does things in our world just as God has always done things through his word. Just as God did a thing here, but here's what's awesome about this that you you think this is where the book would end. And this isn't even where we're going to end today. We're going to go into chapter 7. But in so many ways, like we've been saying like build the wall, build the wall, build the wall. Like that's what Nehemiah's goal is. But it doesn't actually stop there. We're halfway through the book. And in chapter 7, we see how the story continues. It says, "When the wall had been rebuilt, and I had the doors installed, the gatekeeper, singers, and Levites were appointed. Then I put my brother Han Hani in charge of Jerusalem along with Haniah, commander of the fortress, because he was a faithful man who feared God more than most. Verse three said, 'I said to them, 'd do not open the gates of Jerusalem until the sun is hot, and let the door be shut and securely fastened while the guards are on duty. Station the citizens of Jerusalem as guards, some at their posts and some at their homes. Here's what's crazy about this is right after verse 16 when it says the wall was completed but then there was accomplished by God. They then go into verses 17- 19 where they get more opposition and they keep on pushing through it. But then they start chapter 7. And if I was writing Nehemiah, I would have started chapter 7 by throwing a party. By Nehemiah probably deserved a sbatical after this, of maybe going on vacation, of hanging out, of taking more pictures, of enjoying the moment. And what does Nehemiah do? He says, "On to the next thing. Let's get going." They're like, "We just spent 52 days sacrificing our entire life, working tirelessly day and night, building this wall." And Nehemiah's like, "Guys, we're just getting started." He's like, "All right, station the guards. All right, finish those gates. All right, open the gates at this thing." And here's what Nehemiah did after he's pushing through the opposition. As he's praising God for God's victory, not his own. He keeps pressing the details. This is huge for us as we kind of talk through this line of how do we finish God's assignment? Well, is keep pressing through the details. Here's what happened in the life of Nehemiah is something miraculous happened. God intervened in a way that they couldn't understand. God intervened in a way that they could not do on their own. And when he did it, they gave him praise and and all of a sudden they saw this miraculous change. And all of a sudden, they could become a nation again because they had walls. All of a sudden, God's people could be restored. But then the details mattered cuz Nehemiah starts getting the logistics. And all of a sudden, he's like, "Hey, you guys need to camp out here cuz we need to have someone at these gates. Otherwise, we're just going to be in the same boat we were 150 for 150 years. All right. Here's how you open this gate. This is when it's open, shut, all these things. And Nehemiah made sure those details mattered. Here's how this applies to our life today is a lot of times as Christian, we have these miraculous experiences that God works. And maybe it's physically miraculous, maybe it's emotionally miraculous, and it's definitely spiritually miraculous where all of a sudden you find God. And maybe you find God in some crazy way where he hits you over the head and all of a sudden like your life changes 180. Maybe you're freed from an addiction or your marriage is restored or your kids' relationship is different or you're healed physically. Whatever that is, God does something miraculous and we're like, "Man, I'm fired up for Jesus." And then here's the trap is we sit around and we're waiting for the next miracle and we're like, "God, do another thing. Like, that was awesome. Like, let's keep going. Let's keep it flowing." And God's like, "No, no, no. Now is your time to start just being obedient. I saved you by his miracle literally of Christ of living fully God, fully human, living a perfect life, dying on a cross, raising from our again, the greatest miracle we've ever seen. He saved our sins. He forgave them. He performs a miracle of giving us a new life. And then he said, "Hey, here are the details that matter. Now go be part of a church family to hold you accountable. Do life with them. Even though it's messy, even though they'll drive you crazy, even though sometimes the pastor will tell inappropriate jokes that you don't laugh at, but you want to, and you're just secretly too afraid to. like go read your Bible every day. Go pray. Go do the things that all of a sudden don't produce a miracle tomorrow, but are the details that matter, the disciplines you've built of getting closer faithfully being obedient to getting closer to him every single day. And here he's like, keep pressing, keep moving. This isn't a time to relax. This isn't a time to celebrate. This isn't a time to take vacation. This is a time to push forward to what is next and see where it leads us in our passage and where we're going to stop today. And we'll kind of leave on a little bit of cliffhanger this morning and we're going to pick back up in our passage uh next week. But in verse four, it says this, and I got to almost imagine that Nehemiah, as he's writing this, I feel like he'd probably be like standing on the wall and like looking out. And he says this, "The city was large and spacious, but there were few people in it and no houses had been built." It was like surprise 20 years ago. All right, look out and it's just like nothing. Empty farms, no homes. Now you throw a rock and you'll hit five houses in surprise, right? Don't do that. But he looks out and it's large and spacious and there's this place that's protected with this wall, but there's no people in it. And then verse 5, and just we're just going to read the start of it. It says, "Then my God, put it into my mind." As Nehemiah looks out, he sees this spacious land. He sees all the potential of what God, but then God puts into his heart. Here's as we talk about what it looks like to finish God's assignments. Well, we need to keep pushing through the opposition that will inevitably come. It'll push against us. it will annoy us. But we just keep pushing through knowing that we are faithful to what God has called. Uh we we keep praising him for the victories he has and giving him the praise, not pushing up ourselves. We keep pressing through the details and making sure we're establishing the disciplines in our lives, but then it all leads to we keep praying through what is next. Nehemiah was like I I think he had this realization of like, oh, we're just getting started. my my job really wasn't to build the wall. He's like, "My job, my vision that God gave me was to restore the nation of Israel." He said, "Building the wall was just the first step in that." He's like, "Now's not a time to get complacent. Now's not a time to get comfortable." All of a sudden, he's like, "God, put into my mind, God, pray of what is next now for your people and for your leaders and for us." Maybe God has done something in your life and you are asking the question of what is next. Maybe you're young and you finished school and you got a lot of debt with your school, right? And you're ready to go into the real world. It gets so much better. And by better, I mean worse. Um, and you're going to become an adult and figure out how this life works and you're asking God, "What is next?" Maybe your young family, you start having kids. In every stage of kids, it's always asking like, "What's next?" Like, "How can I not screw up this kid in this next stage of life?" All right. Screw them up as less as possible. Um, it's like, what's next? May maybe you're a little bit older in life and maybe you're at a different stage. Your your nest is getting emptier and emptier and your life is changing. You're asking, "God, what's next? This isn't what I know. This isn't what I used to, but I know you're providing. Maybe you're retired and you have more time than you have ever thought you did before. And you're asking God, what is next?" And here's the thing. God is never done with you. God is always going to give you a next. when you pray, God, what is next for my life? And here Nehemiah, as he's going down this path, a he's seeing how this project becomes a reality and he's seeing how all of a sudden he's burdened with the fact that God is not done, but God is just getting started. And I love as we think about this, what all this kind of wraps up and boils down to this beautiful story of scripture that unravels this narrative that just keeps giving us inch by inch. Here's what we see throughout chapter 6 into chapter 7. This foundational truth that we get today is when the project is done, the work has just begun. And maybe you're completing a project in your life right now and you feel like it's been hard. You've had to push through. It's been tough. And you're like finally wanting to just get through it. You're like, "If I push a little bit harder, I'll be done." And all of a sudden, like I won't have to worry about it. It's all right. I'm done. But really, God's like, "I got something next." It's like when I finish a project at my house for my my wife's like, "I got something next." Right? Um I feel like all my projects are done. I know she has something next that she wants to do, right? It's like there's always that next out there. And spiritually when we're moving, God's like, "I am not done with you. I I want to see more growth. I want to see more push." Maybe your next is saying like, "God, how can you capture my heart more? How can I make more faithful to following you? How can I be more connected to a church family? How can I grow in my discipline for what you had for me? What is next?" And here's the deal is this next is possible because we serve a God who stepped down into humanity who lived a perfect life who died on the cross who rose again so that we are not stuck in our past but we can constantly ask God what is next that you have for me. I mentioned at the beginning of this sermon that the series had their baby this morning. Gender still in question. All right. They'll tell us eventually. check social media posts. But as they had their baby, and I was thinking about this this morning, when that baby was born at 7:10 this morning, that project was completed. Cara had a project for 9 months that she carried in her belly. And I hope she's watching this live stream. She's probably sleeping right now, but she'll be mad when she watches it later. All right. But for 9 months, she faithfully carried out this project. Nine months she made sure to take care of the baby. Nine months to nurture. Nine months of probably Josh driving her crazy. Um nine months of all of a sudden the the frustration, maybe the hurt. I've never gone through child birth. I've just witnessed it. It doesn't seem fun, right? Of 9 months of going down this road. But here's the beautiful thing about it. As the parents in the room know, once you have that baby, now the work really starts because nine months is nothing compared to the thousands of days that will be spent with that child to nurture them. Nine months will be nothing compared to the tens of thousands of difficult conversations you'll have and uncomfortable moments of trying to join them and try to move them into a functioning adult. 9 months is nothing compared to how you will love that child and the time and energy that will be spent in raising them in loving them in making them part and and hear the voice of God that he has called us to do as parents. You see, in our spiritual life, it is no different that when God completes a project in our life, he has something next for us. What is your next today? Maybe you've been saved for a while. Maybe you've been going doing this church thing for a while. Maybe it needs to get more serious. Maybe you need to start just kind of coming when it's convenient. coming when it helps coming when you need some free child care for an hour. Maybe you need to start diving in. Start being a part of the community. Start letting people into your life that is so uncomfortable. That can be so hard. But God, it is so worth it when we do it because he is so great. Maybe your next step is you need to start serving in his church. You start loving the people around you. You start being the hands and feet of Jesus. And maybe you've been sitting on the sidelines and God's like, "I'm ready to put you in." And maybe you're ready to start doing instead of just watching. Or maybe your next step and the next step that we're going to witness in just a minute in the form of baptisms is maybe you need to say yes to Jesus for the very first time. And for whatever reason, God might have been tugging at your heart. For whatever reason, you showed up here this morning or you watched this online and for whatever reason, God has been pushing and pulling on your heart and you're ready to say yes to him. The God who died in place of you to pay the price of your sins. The God who raised from the grave to defeat those sins. the God who came back to reveal himself to share the message of what he has done in the God that we confess with our mouth and we believe in our hearts that he is Lord and the God who gives us a new life here but also a new life for all of eternity. Maybe your next is saying yes to him is being serious about him. is serving in the church family that is all about him. Church, the project may be done, but I guarantee you the work has just begun.