Nehemiah 2

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Through every battle through every heartbreak through every circumstance I believe that you are my fortress oh, you are my portion you are my hiding place oh, I believe you are the way the truth, truth and the life I believe you are the way the truth in the life I believe through every blessing, through every promise through every breath I take I believe that you are the oh, you are protector. You are the one I love oh, I believe you are the way the truth oh, in the life I believe you are the way the truth, the life I believe you are oh, you are oh, you are and it's a new horizon once set on you and you meet me here today with mercies that are new all my fears and doubts can all come too because they can't stay long when I'm here with you It's a new horizon and I'm set on you and you meet me here today with mercies out of new home yeah, My fears and doubts they can all come too because they can't stay long When I believe you are the way the truth, the life I believe you are the way oh, in the truth the life is a new It's a new horizon and I'm set on you and you meet mercy I believe you are the way the way But I believe Amazing grace How sweet the sound that sa like me I once was lost but now Now I'm found Was blind but now I see Twas grace that taught my heart to fear and grace my fears relieved how precious did that grace appear the hour I first believe My chains are gone I've been set free My God, my Savior has ransomed me and like a flood his mercy reigns Unending love Amazing grace the Lord has promised good to me his word my hope Secure my shield and push me as long as life endures My chains are gone, I've been set free My God, my Savior has ransomed me and like a flood his mercy GR Unending love Amazing grace My chains are gone I've been set free My God, my Savior has ra God his mercy Ra Unending love Amazing grace the earth shall soon dissolve like snow the sun forbear to shine But God who called me here below Will be forever mine Will be forever mine.

You are forever mine I hear the Savior say thy strength in thee this small child of weakness Watch and pray Find in me thine all in all Jesus made it all all to him I hope Sin hath left a crimson st. We was in white as snow Lord, now indeed I find thy power and thine alone can change the leper smiles and he melt the heart of stone Jesus made it all all to him I know Sin had left a crimson stain he washed it white as snow for nothing good have whereby thy grace to claim I'll wash my garments right in the blood of Calvary's lamb Jesus made it all all to him I owe Sin had left a crimson stain he washed it white as sn Stand before the throne I stand in him complete Jesus died my soul to save My lips shall still repeat Jesus made it all all to him I Sin had left a crimson stain he washed it white as snow Sin had left a crimson stain he washed it white as snow.

Lord, we thank you for this day. We thank you for your goodness. Lord, we thank you that as we worshiped you today, you know, we're reminded that through everything that you are good and you are there and regardless of certain circumstance here the way, the truth and the life. Father, I pray as we continue our study through Nehemiah that you will put into our hearts that we will. That will see the need, that will see the calling that you have, that we will obey.

And Lord, we thank you for these things. We pray and for your spirit to guide us in this conversation. In Jesus name, Amen.

Well, good evening everyone. Welcome back to Church of the Bible. We're for quick announcements before we begin first just so everyone is aware. I think really the only announcement announcements is I apologize we have cancel church. Last week I was hospitalized with pneumonia.

Still have it. So I'm gonna keep today's sermon short mainly for my lungs and my throat. But on Friday I also have a spinal tap. So please be praying for the spinal tap on Friday. That even reveals and gives us some answers as to what's going on.

And then finally I think we're still holding off on Wednesdays but I think we're here in just a couple weeks gonna be ready to start. I'll follow up with with people and make sure. So if we are gonna start, I'll announce it through text message. Otherwise, no Bible study this Wednesday. With that said, again, welcome.

It's glad I'm glad to be back. Glad to see you all here. And we are going to resume our study in Nehemiah. I'm going to go ahead and bring that up.

So just a reminder of the. Of where we left off because it's been a couple of weeks. We have the outline of Nehemiah here. The kind of what we're going to be following the. The background, the stage for what was going on.

Chapter one I think that's been two or three weeks now since we went over that showed the need for Nehemiah was presented to him that he needed to get up and he needed to go and do something for the kingdom of God. If you're, if you remember, he had brethren for Jerusalem that came back to Babylon, actually a little further than Babylon, but still. And gave him news of the terrible condition that Jerusalem was in. We then saw him pray. Right?

And that prayer, that, that prayer, I'm gonna pull it. You guys won't be able to see it, but I'm gonna pull it up just to read that prayer again to you and remind you how past powerful it was and what he prayed about. And this remembering, this prayer will be critical to what we're doing today. I wish I thought to put it in the slides for you all. Come on.

There we go.

Alright, so here's his prayer. He says, Lord, the God of the heavens, the great and awe inspiring God who keeps his gracious covenant with those who love him and keep his commands. Let your eyes be open and your ears be attentive to hear your servants prayer. Now I pray to you day and night for your servants, the Israelites. I confess the sins we have committed against you.

Both I and my father's family have sinned. We have acted corruptly toward you and have not kept the commands, statutes and ordinances you gave your servant, Moses. Please remember what you commanded. Your servant. If you are unfaithful, I will scatter you among the peoples.

But if ye return to me and careful fully observe my commands, even though your exiles are banished to the farthest horizon, I will gather them from there and bring them to the place where I chose to have my name dwell. They are your servants and your people. You redeem them by your great power and strong hand. Please Lord, let your ear be attentive to the prayer of your servant and that of your servants who delight to revere your name. Give your servant success today and grant him compassion in the presence of this man.

And the chapter then ends. It says at the time he was the king's cup bearer. Which is will lead us into chapter two. But in this prayer, what I want you to remember is that he begins first with worship to God and remember the circumstance that he's in. He's an exile.

They. They've been exiled for 70 years at this point. A hundred plus years. For, for some of them from Jerusalem they are under oppression from a foreign ruler. God has left the temple, the tabernacle.

He has taken his presence from there and it has not been seen back. And now he is being told that God's city, Jerusalem is in shambles and is being threatened. And with all of that going on, he begins with this praise and worship of God, Lord, the God of the heavens, the great and awe inspiring God who keeps his gracious covenant with those who love him and keep his commands. I only wish that we could pray in that manner.

When our life falls apart, when everything hits the fan, when things don't seem to be going the way we want them to go. I wish and desire that we would pray in that manner. But I also want to point out that he is aware that what is going on, that exile, the oppression, the, the fact that Jerusalem is endangered is because of sin.

And that's what he prays. He says, I confess the sins against you. And then he relies upon God for his success. And we're going to see that again today in chapter two. But he says to him, he's in verse 11.

He says, please Lord, let your ear be attentive and give, give your servant success.

Okay with that, let's pick up where we are here. So today we're going to read about Nehemiah being sent to Jerusalem and the way that he prepares to get ready for rebuilding. As we continue going through this, we're going to see not just the rebuilding of the walls, but the way that there's oppression, injustice, self sacrifice, that the law is re read, corporate confession of sin dedications. We're going to see all of this stuff as we go. But I want to pick up, we're going to start here in verse one.

Oh actually, never mind. First, to remind you all where we are, I put this timeline back up this red box for anyone who can. I don't know if you can see the red box. That red box represents the time frame of the Babylonian captivity.

The yellow box next to it is, it's roughly a years. It represents roughly 80 years where Zerubbabel goes with some exiles back to Jerusalem to begin building the temple. Now the screen box, this is the time period that we are in right now. In the Bible, Nehemiah is going to rebuild the walls and during the same period, time period, Ezra will lead a group of exiles back to Jerusalem. That's the purple box below all of that.

And then just to remind everyone where we are geographically, this red line represents the path from Jerusalem down into Babylon. Babylon is kind of modern day Iraq. But the circle right here, the circle is where Ezra is right now. This is the winter palace for the king. And that's where they currently are as these events take place.

Okay, now let's read. During the month of Nissan in the 20th year of King Artaxerzees. If I said that right, Right. When wine was set before him, I took the wine and gave it to the king. I had never been sad in his presence.

So the king said to me, why do you look so sad? When you aren't sick, there is nothing but sadness of heart. I was overwhelmed with fear and replied to the king, may the king live forever. Why should I not be sad when the city where my ancestors are buried lies in ruins and its gates have been destroyed by fire? Then the king asked me, what is your request?

So I prayed to the God of the heavens and answered the king, if it pleases the king and if your servant has found favor with you, send me to Judah and to the city where my ancestors are buried so that I may rebuild it. The king, with the queen seated beside him, asked me, how long will your journey take and when will you return? So I gave him a definite time, and it pleased the king to send me. I also said to the king, if it pleases the king, let me have letters written to the governors of the region west of the Euphrates, west of the Euphrates river, so that they will grant me safe passage until I reach Judah. And let me have a letter written to Asaph, keeper of the king's forest, so that he will give me timber to rebuild the gates of the temple's fortress, the city wall, and the home where I will live.

The king granted. My request for the gracious hand of my God was on me. I went to the governor's of the region west of the Euphrates and gave them the king's letters. The king had also sent officers of the infantry and cavalry with me. When symbolic the Hornanite and Tibia, the Amorite official heard that someone had come to pursue the prosperity of the Israelites, they were greatly displeased.

Whoops. Let's see if I can find a way to get me back here. Okay.

This is.

It's mostly narrative, and I struggle making sermons out of narrative. And I still feel that this is important for us to go through as we understand the calling of God on us as Christians.

So after Nehemiah had prayed and fasted, it said in verse four of chapter one, it says that he wept and mourned with fasting and prayer for many days. It doesn't specify how many days, but after sitting down, mourning and fasting, he goes back before the king. Now he has this awesome perk that most of the Jews, most of the Israelites did not have. And that is he was the cup bearer to the king. He had direct access to the king for the majority of the time.

So he goes before the king with his wine and the king notices something. He says, you are sad. Why are you sad?

And then he says, I'm overwhelmed.

I'm overwhelmed because the city where my ancestors are buried or my ancestors live, where my brothers live, it is, is, it's buried in ruins and lit on fire.

That is, you know, narrative. But that is so to the point of where we are today. Every one of us, we have family, we have friends or co workers or neighbors, people that we interact with on a daily basis. And they are, as Jesus would say, dead. They are spiritually dead.

In the, in the secular life, in our humanistic lives, we view life as we are living, living, and then we pass them to death. If you remember, as we study the Book of John, though Jesus called it the opposite, we are literally the walking dead.

From the moment we are born until our spirit is revived by the Holy Spirit of God, we are literally the one walking dead. Though our flesh and our body is alive, our spirit is not. Right? And our flesh and our body, this body is temporal, our spirit is eternal and it is dead. So Jesus says that when we receive the Holy Spirit, the Holy Ghost, that we pass from death into life.

So again, we all have family and co workers and neighbors, friends and other people that we interact with on a daily basis who are spiritually dead.

What are we doing about it?

Are we fasting and praying? Are we confessing the sins of ourselves? It's hard to ask God to give us success while we are not confessing our sins to him. Are we sad? Right?

He, Nehemiah says, I am overwhelmed. Are we overwhelmed by the fact that we know people who are spiritually dead and who will, who would perish should they die today? Are we overwhelmed about that?

The king asked him, what is your request?

And I want you to notice the response of Nehemiah. When the king asked him what he wants, the first thing he did is pray to God. Verse 4, it says, so I prayed to the God of the heavens and answered the King.

Most of you here will recall that I've mentioned 90% of our work should be done in prayer. If I'm going to speak, spend 10 hours on a, on an individual, and I'm just throwing out arbitrary numbers to keep math simple for myself. If I'm going to spend 10 hours on a individual working toward them, understanding who Jesus is and what he did and how he can give them eternal life. Nine hours of that, 10 should be spent in person, prayer for that person.

It should be one thing that we, we mistake when we share the gospel with people and when we try to, to show people is we think either that it's our job to save them and it's not. We can't. We, we cannot save anyone. It is God's job to save. It's only our job to share, to plant the seed.

But we also, we get into this thing where we begin to fight and argue and debate with them. And that's not what we're called to do either. When we start doing that, what we are doing is we are fighting the person.

That is not what we should be doing. Paul writes in the New Testament, he says that we do not fight against flesh and blood, but we fight against power, invisible powers, principalities, rulers of darkness. Right? Our fight is a spiritual fight, and that includes our fight to share the gospel with people. That it's a spiritual thing.

If we're not playing war in the spiritual realm, praying to God to remove those barriers, remove those principalities, remove those rulers of darkness from someone, then we are fighting with flesh and blood when our fight is against those invisible powers. So he prays to the God of the heavens in verse 4, 4. And then in verse 5, he answers the king and he says, send me to Judah, to the city where my ancestors are buried so that I may rebuild it.

So the response of Nehemiah so far is he, he has heard that there is a need. Heard of a need. He fasted and mourned and prayed.

He prays some more. And then as when he sees the need, he has a response to that need. Let me go. Send me. In this case, he is asking the king, but what is our need?

I think about that as we go on to finish out this passage out. What is our need?

So the king gives him, just so that we're going through the narrative and not leaving anything out. The king gives him permission, gives some letters and gives some passage, and even gives him some troops, some military troops for the safe passage home.

But I want you to look at the end here, verse eight. Verse eight is kind of long, but I want you to understand the heart and the mind of Nehemiah. The king granted my request for the gracious hand of my God was on me.

I don't know if, if we realize what Nehemiah just Told us his request was granted not because he was a nobleman, not because he was smart or wise or special in any way, but because the hand of God was on him.

If we understand that, and understand that in our own lives, we can be more successful, right? What is it that we are doing? And I'm going to ask not just if, if you are a Christian, if you are saved, there is a certain responsibility that we carry. But what, how are we doing that? We can do that by brute force, in our own power, in our own way, and we can fail.

We might see tiny successes here and there, but we can fail. Okay, I've been there and I've done that. I've done the arguing, the debating, the trying to push it through on my own. I've been convicted of how that is wrong and unhelpful. Most of you have heard my story from Walmart.

I'm gonna tell it again, though. When I was first convicted really of the way I was doing things was not God's way and not the way he wanted me. I was in Walmart. And I spent two hours on the show while in Cedar City talking with a couple of missionaries, more like debating.

And by the end of that two hours, by the time we were all ready to be done and to leave, get on our way, I had felt like they should have understood and accepted what I was telling them, and they did not. And I left frustrated and upset. And as I was standing in line at checkout, most, I don't know how many of you remember me telling the story. I'm standing in line at checkout and I become convicted.

I have a realization that God through, through his spirit convicts me. I was not upset that the missionaries did not receive God or the truth, but I was upset that they did not see me as right.

So my heart posture when I was talking to them was that I am right and you are wrong. And you need to see that I am right.

And if that is my heart posture, then I am going to do things in my own power and not by the hand and power of God. Right, but when the gracious hand of God is on you, barriers come down and success happens, and we ways that we can never truly understand. There is a parallel passage. It's not really parallel, but it's a similar passage. It's in the book of Genesis, one of my favorite stories.

Joseph in the book of Genesis, dearly loved by his father, Father, and despised by his brothers. And what happens to him?

Well, after conspiring to kill him, they instead put him in a hole in a pit until they sell him to slave traders, okay?

After he is sold to slave traders, he finds himself in Potiphar's house. This is a. An officer, a captain of the guards for the Pharaoh, and he is brought in to manage his house. Now, we all know.

We all know the story where he fled from Potiphar's wife when he refused to commit adultery with her.

And we often think we off, right? Often what we see in the story is a man who was sold, who is mistreated, who is imprisoned, who tried to do the right thing. But none of that is actually the point of the narrative. In Genesis, in chapter 39, verse 2, after he is sold into Potiphar's house, it says the Lord was with Joseph and he became a successful man. In verse three, it says that when his master saw the Lord was with him, and that the Lord made everything he did successful, Joseph found favor with his master.

Further down in verse five, it says that the Lord's blessing was on all that Potiphar owned for the sake of Joseph.

Now, after Joseph is thrown into prison, in verse 20, verse 21 of Genesis 39, it says, again, he's thrown in. He was just thrown into prison. And here's what it says. The Lord was with Joseph and extended kindness to him, and he granted him favor with the prison warden, right? And then look what it says in verse 23.

The warden did not bother with anything under Joseph's authority because the Lord was with him, and the Lord made everything that he did successful.

Then in chapter 40, you will see, or 41, you will see one again that the Lord was with Joseph. This is something that is repeated several times throughout the narrative, because the narrative was not about Joseph being despised by his brothers or being thrown in the pit, or being sworn into slavery or put into prison. But the narrative is about the fact that God was with him through all of that.

And then what happened at the end of that? Joseph became the ruler of Egypt, right? Ruler of all that there is. Commander of all that there is, except for Pharaoh, Right? Second in the chain of authority in all of Egypt.

And then God used that to bring his entire family during a time of famine into Egypt and to fulfill prophecy that he had promised to Abraham, right? But the Lord was with him. Is the Lord with us?

Let's finish this section right here.

So he then goes to the governors of the region west of Euphrates. He gives the king's letters to them, and when they hear especially that the Horonites and the Amorites when they hear that Nehemiah has come to pursue the prosperity of the Israelites, to restore Jerusalem, they were greatly displeased. But so Nehemiah is going to do something, and he's going to do something that is important, that is godly. That was God ordained, and they became displeased. Now, I want you to know that as we do what God wants us to do, we will displease people.

We will be persecuted. We're going to see persecution and depression on Nehemiah as we continue through this book. But even Jesus. Jesus became hated and despised, persecuted, then prosecuted, and then killed.

And he told us that if, if our Master of Jesus were to go through all of those things, we should expect to go through those things as well. So we do need to understand that if we see the need, if we hear the need and we are sent into that need, that there will be some form of opposition. Right? We are. There will be displeasure among people, there will be opposition, there will be persecution.

At times, there may even be execution. We've seen that happen in Iraq and bad Baghdad, in Iraq, in Iran, we've seen that happen. We've seen Christians beheaded, burned alive. We've even to a degree, seen it. A much smaller scale is mostly just areas that were targeted, but the number of church shootings that are occurring are increasing.

I find that in a. Interesting, right, church shootings, not Walmart shootings or mall shootings or other places, but churches specifically being shot up. I've been tracking the news over the last few weeks about this because most churches have something called vbs, Vacation Bible school that is a week. Some do it for more than one week, most do it for a week. But normally you have the majority of the kids in town in your building and your church during that entire week, and they're being targeted with shooters.

Why?

We could say because those people are sick or demented or evil. And that is all true. True. But the answer as to why is because we are doing what God has told us to do. And that brings with it these type of things.

Okay, we're gonna look at the last passage here. It's much shorter than this one.

After I arrived in Jerusalem and at been there three days, I got up at night and took a few men with me. I didn't tell anyone what my God had laid on my heart to do for Jerusalem. The only animal I took was the one I was riding. I went out at night through the valley gate toward the serpent's well and the dung gate, and I inspected the walls of Jerusalem that had been broken down and its gates that had been destroyed by fire.

I went on to the fountain gate in the king's pool, but farther down it became too narrow for my animal to go through. So I went up at night by way of the valley and inspected the wall. Then, heading back, I entered through the valley gate and returned. The officials did not know where I had gone or what I was doing. For I had not yet told the Jews, priests, nobles, officials, or the rest of those who had be doing the work.

So I said to them, you see the trouble we are in. Jerusalem lies in ruins and its gates have been burned. Come, let's rebuild Jerusalem's wall so that we will no longer be a disgrace. I told them how the gracious hand of my God had been on me and what the king had said to me. They said, let's start rebuilding.

And their hands were strengthened to do this good work. When Sanballat the Horonite, Tobiah the Amorite official, and Geshon the Arab heard about this, they mocked and despised us and said, what is this thing you're doing? Are you rebelling against the king? I gave them this reply. The God of the heavens is the one who will grant us success.

We, his servants will start building. But you have no share, right, or historic thing in Jerusalem.

Okay, this gets to the meat of what, what we need to hear for our present day. End time here on this first slide, verses 11 through 18.

I'm going to just kind of summarize what happens. Nehemiah arrives to Jerusalem, spends three days, and then he does a survey, right? He gets up and he goes, goes and he looks at the walls, he looks at the gates, he examines the extent of the damage, he examines everything, he inspects everything.

So he heard about the need while he was in. While he was over in oppression, while he was a captive. And. And then he comes to Jerusalem, having heard about the need and examines the need for himself. And what does he see?

He sees that the gates are burned, the walls are broken down, places have been destroyed by fire.

And so here is what he does. He tells the people about what God has done for him.

He doesn't go and rally them up and say about this speech, about how great and powerful almighty he is, or tell them to make him their leader. Instead, he tells them how gracious God has been and the need that was seen, that had been heard, and that he now sees. Here is how they respond to that. They say, let's start rebuilding now. I'm going to say this about the work that we have.

The work that we have is not something that can be done alone. A lot of people view it as the pastor's job. A lot of people view it as just the evangelist job or the missionary stuff. The reality is it's all of our job. And the task that we have can only be accomplished through collective work, right?

Not just a single person trying to save the world. We can't do that. So they say, let's start rebuilding. And I want you to see what happens after that. It says, their hands were strengthened to do this work.

Who strengthened their hands?

If we read this narrative the way it's written, their hands were strengthened immediately upon their acceptance of the need of the task in front of them.

We also know, know that it is God with Nehemiah, God who is pushing for the success and paving the way. So God strengthened them when they became willing to do the work.

Now a lot of us will say, well, well, I don't have the skills to do this, or I'm clumsy at speaking, or I might mess it up or any number of things.

But if we spend our time in prayer, in fasting, in asking for it to be God with us and us on God's mission. But I find what happens most of the time is we say, hey, God, this is what I'm doing. Please get alongside me and, and make it successful. What we need to do is say, hey, God, what are you doing? And we need to come alongside him and then we will be successful because we are doing what God is doing, what he wants us to do.

And when we spend our time in prayer, spend our time act, asking God to charge the way, and then accept the task, right? We see the need, we realize the need, we accept the need. Then God will strengthen us for that need.

Now, here's what happens. They are. They are mocked. They are despised in verse 19. But look at verse 20.

Despite the mockery, despite the accusation of rebelling against the king, here is what they say. The God of the heavens will grant us success. And as we are mocked and that that will happen, we will be mocked, we will be despised, we will be made fun of.

I know many of us, I who are here right now have been mocked and made fun of, whether in person or online by people who do not believe in God.

I know people who have been persecuted.

I know people who have been oppressed.

And that will happen. But even, even through that, the God of the heavens is the one who will grant us success.

You know, one of my favorite verses is Romans 8:28. In it, Paul writes that we know that God works all things for the better to those who love him and are called according to his purposes. That includes the mockery, being despised, the persecution, prosecution, oppression, sickness, illness, whatever. God works all of those things for the better of those who love him and are called according to his purpose. There's that end that a lot of people forget.

So what is our neat. What, what have I been focusing on lately?

Over the last a couple years actually, but particularly the last several months had a heavy emphasis on going out and doing the work, an emphasis on what the need is. Now I've not taken the time to, to do an assessment for everywhere that I have people here with me and watching and where all of us are residing it. But I have taken the time to do it in two places, right? So there is a need that Nehemiah heard a need and then he went and he surveyed the need and then he knew what needed to be done. So we hear a need and that need is there are people that we know.

There are friends, family, co workers, neighbors, other people that we interact with, with acquaintances, even people that we don't, you know, people we don't know they, that we just run into at Walmart. We interact with people on a daily basis and know people on a daily basis who are unsaved and perishing.

So to realize the need, what did Nehemiah do? He did a survey. I'm going to quickly tell you the survey I've done for two places. The first survey I did is for where I currently live. Now where I currently live, there's a population of 17,000 people.

I'm just gonna use round numbers.

I used U.S. census data to kind of figure out how many people are Christian, how many are not, based on what sent what people marked on census data as far as their religion and whatnot. And if we use just that data, which I think is a little on the, on the liberal side here, should we perish today? Should something happen that we all die today in my area where I live now, 13,000 people would die forever. Would perish out of the 17,000 people here, is that not a need that that should be realized? That's, that's what we call a brutal fact that 13,000 people would perish now in the place that I live right now, if we use the national average of how many people are, are actually born again Christians, then out of the 17,000 people in the valley I now live in, 16,875 of them would Perish for eternity.

That's they need. The second place where I did a survey like this for is southern Utah. Now, when I say southern Utah, I'm not talking just Washington County. I'm talking if you go from Beaver county and draw a straight line across the top of Beaver county down. Because in southern Utah, most of the population is spread.

There is 295,000 people there as of 2020. And I use the 2020 census for. To do this stuff. And then using the 2020 census, we. I was able to figure out of the 295, 000 people there, 287,000 of them would perish if we were all to die right now.

Think about that number. 295,000 people, but 287,000 would perish. That's only 8,000 people in all of southern Utah who would not perish. That's not a large number.

There is eight need, right? This is something we could do where everybody lives. And you'll see that the need is the same. People need God. People need the gospel.

We're going to continue going through Nehemiah next week, going to continue to see how they meet that need, right in the need of the wall, the need of rebuilding Jerusalem. We're going to see how that takes place so that we can relate it to what we will experience and how that our calling, our need will take place here. But before we go, I do want to say this about our need. I just. I just dropped some brutal numbers on everybody about how many people would perish.

In Matthew 28, verse 18, here is what Jesus says. All authority has been given to me in heaven and on earth. So we need to realize that Jesus has all authority everywhere. And as a result, in verse 19, he says, Therefore, make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe everything I have commanded and remember that I am with you always, even to the end of the age. Now, the end of the age that he is talking about is this age right now, that the end times he is with us.

And then he will be with us eternally in the new heavens and the new earth. But what he tells us is because he is king and has all authority, that we all have the job of going and making disciples.

That is everyone. There's one more before we end. It's going to be in Second Corinthians, chapter five.

Here is what we're going to read. In Second Corinthians, chapter five, it says, Paul is Writing. And he is writing about us. He says, from now on, then we do not know anyone from a worldly perspective. Even if we have known Christ from a worldly perspective.

Yet now we no longer know know him this way. That's important right there, right? Because there are people who think they know Christ and they don't. They believe they do, but they only know him from a worldly perspective. They know him from a spiritually dead perspective or even a demonically led perspective.

He says, but we no longer know him this way. If, and here is why we're 17. Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away and the new has come. So if we are in Christ, we know him from a godly and spiritual perspective, not a worldly perspective, but we also become a new creation.

The old person has died and we have been reborn through the Spirit of God. And it says, right, the oldest passed away. See, the new has come. Everything is from God, who has reconciled us to Himself through Christ.

That's right there. Look at that. God reconciled us to himself. So if we read Romans, Romans tells us that we are an enemy of God. While we are in the flesh and unsaved people, we are an enemy of God.

But God reconciles us. That is, he makes everything between him and us right through Christ, and then has given us the man ministry of reconciliation. So once we have been reconciled to Christ, to God through Christ, we then have the ministry of reconciliation, meaning we had the ministry of telling other people. And then verse 19 expands on. It says, that is in Christ, God was reconciled the world to Himself by not counting their trespass against them.

And he has committed the message of reconciliation to us.

This, if you understand what's being said right here, is one of the most amazing things to hear.

How did God reconcile us to Himself? First, in verse 19, it says, by not counting our trespasses, right? He does not count our sin against us. If he does not count our sin against us, then we are holy and justified. Stand before him with no guilt.

But how can a just God do that? One of the things that we know about God is that he is just. And if he just simply ignores our sin, our trespasses, then he is no longer just.

This answers it will continue. Therefore, we are ambassadors for Christ. As God is making his appeal through us. We plead on behalf of Christ to be reconciled to God. For he made the one who did not know sin to be sin for us, so that we might become the righteousness of God.

All right, so two things to say on this. I'm gonna start with the last verse here. How did he make. How can God be just and ignore our sin?

Well, verse 24 says that he made Christ the one with no sin to be sin for us, that we might be the righteousness of God. This is called substitution. Some people also call it a replacement doctrine. And I like both words because here is what is happening. When you receive Christ and His Holy Spirit enters into you, your sins are nailed to Christ on the cross.

And what you get in exchange for that is that you become the righteousness of God.

Think of how beautiful that is.

Our sins get loaded up on to Christ and we so he takes our filthy rags and we take his clean, pure white garment and we become in the sight of God justified.

He doesn't. He then does not count us our trespass against us. So we get to enter the presence of God by just by being in Christ. Alright, the second part, he says, therefore we are ambassadors. Okay?

So if you are in Christ, if you are a new creation, you've been saved, you know what the grace of God is, then you are an ambassador of Christ, meaning that you are represent Christ here on earth, you're his representative. And so everything in your life reflects not just on you, but on Christ. And not just that, but if you are his ambassador, then you have this mission. It says God makes his appeal through us. And so we plead on behalf of Christ to be reconciled, reconciled to God.

So for those in my area, those in southern Utah, the need isn't only heard but is evaluated. We see the need for those in areas that I am not, that I did not come up with these numbers for it. You can easily see see the need. Even if you don't know the numbers. You can see the need.

You can see the lostness of people. You can see that they need the grace of God and salvation. And we are his ambassadors to go and plead and make make that ministry a reconciliation. It's our job to go and say, please be reconciled to Christ.

As we come to an end here, there are many watching who may not yet know Christ, who may still be dead in their trespass, who may be depressed or broken, looking for something, worried about death.

And as we read what we just read now here, I cannot end tonight without putting on my ambassador hat and saying, please be reconciled to Christ.

Whatever you think is stopping you. I know some people I've talked to, they don't think they can because they think they're too bad. They need to get their life right. They need to get on the narrow, straight and narrow first. Or they need have this list of works that they need to do before they can be reconciled to Christ.

And it doesn't work that way.

You can. You can let go of that and put it aside.

The Bible has declared, and Christ himself has declared, that whosoever shall call upon his name shall be saved. Whoever would believe that he is God and that he rose from the dead and would receive him, they would be saved. Now I say the word reception. I used to say the word accept. And I want you to know why I changed from accept to receive.

It's easy to just say, I accept Christ. I accept him as my Savior. I accept whatever. But accepting is not the issue. Receiving.

It is the issue. Receiving Christ into your heart, you need to receive Him. And how do you do that? Well, first you admit that you are a sinner.

You admit that your ways are wrong, what you do is not right. And that no matter how hard you try, you can never make yourself right with God. That's not possible.

Then you believe that Jesus is the God man, that he stepped into creation. And when I say the God man, let me be clear. He's. He's the God of everything, the Creator of everything. Nothing was created outside of Jesus.

Okay? We need to understand that we were created by Jesus. Our souls and spirit were created by Jesus. Even Satan was created by Jesus, right? None of us are his brother in that sense.

So we believe that he is God who stepped into creation and died to take our sin, right? He. He took the wrath of God on the cross. He took our sin on the cross. That we would be reconciled.

That's what we believe. And then we confess that he is our God, our Lord and our King. A lot of people I hear say Jesus is my Savior. I don't hear a lot of people say Jesus is my God, that he's my King, that he's my Lord. Right?

And then in order to confess that, it means we have to take off our crown, right? The crown that we wear that thinks that we are in control and instead bow to the crown of Christ that we receive him, we discard ourselves, we pick up our cross and we receive Jesus.

And so I plead with anyone here tonight, if you have not done that, we can do that together in our closing prayer. I will walk through those steps right there and you can follow with me, and you can do that and receive Jesus. But I need you to understand, saying the prayer does not save you. It's your heart. When you say that prayer, do you believe it.

Are you convinced of it enough that you would die for it?

Receive him in your heart. If you do that, please let us know. Let me know so that I can praise God and be happy with you. Again. Again.

Unless something happens and I text everyone letting them know there will be Bible study on Wednesday. We are not planning for it this week. And then we'll be back here at 6:30 mountain time next Sunday. We'll be in Nehemiah, chapter three. For those who are reading ahead, let's go ahead.