Restoring The Walls

Do you believe that your life matters? Not just in the general sense, of course everybody’s life matters, but I mean in the sense that if you don’t do what God has created you to do and uniquely gifted you to do that there will be a real loss to God’s work on this earth. I mean so many Christs, their life just doesn’t really matter. Their obedience doesn’t really matter. Maybe you’re young and thinking, I’ve got my whole life to serve God. I’m just trying to find my own way. I could sort of put off really seeking first God’s kingdom for right now and, and, and make up for that later on. Maybe you’re middle aged and you just feel overwhelmed. Look, we’ve got a family. We’re just trying to get things going on. We, we really don’t have time to seek verse God’s kingdom. We’ll, we’ll do that later when we’re maybe empty nesters.

But then the empty nesters say, well, you know, we spent our whole life doing this and that it’s time for us to sit back and just enjoy ourselves. We can collect seashells and grow our own garden instead of gods. And you think, well in the end I’m gonna be saved. And it really doesn’t matter that much. But what if does what you’re doing today really matters? What if your life matters more than you could ever dream? And what if the church needs you every bit as much as you need the church? That both of those are so true. They’ve done studies of suicide notes and what they found is that they rarely mention romantic heartbreak, which you might think, or even financial problems or even health problems far more often. They say people speak of being tired of life and not having a reason to keep on living.

Psychologist Julius Siegal wrote this, countless individuals beset by trauma report that their basic problem is an existence without meaning. In other words, they think their lives don’t matter. We’re in the book of Nehemiah going way back in time to the fifth century BC where God is bringing faith back to a world. Things had gone terrible in the sixth century. Babylon had utterly destroyed Jerusalem and the temple. And I want you to think about it because there are church everywhere around the world today. But for a hundred years of human history, there was no real visible presence of the worship of God. It had all been wiped out. But about a hundred years later, God, as he always does this, I’m bringing renewal. I’m setting the world back to rights. He inspires a man named Ezra to come back to Jerusalem. He begins to rebuild sort of a a, a portion of the temple.

And then 15 years later, Nehemiah comes back and he feels called by God to rebuild the wall around Jerusalem. And we might think, why does that matter in 2023? What can Christians today learn from people building a wall in such ancient times? But we have to remember, it wasn’t just a wall, it was a physical picture of God saying, the world is in a bad place. I’m back. I’m bringing renewal. I wanna bring my presence. I wanna build a community of people who will worship me to speak to the world. That there is a God, there is renewal. That better days are coming. And God does that through every generation. So we can learn a lot of lessons from Nehemiah three about how we can do that. In particular because just like in the fifth century BC, every person had to play the role that wall was built as we’re about to see by a lot of different people.

And I think the same thing is true today, that everybody who attends here or is a member here or watches online for us to be the community that God created us to be, to fulfill the mission that he wants to do. In this day and age, every person here matters. I don’t care whether you’re eight, I mean that, or 18 or 48 or 88 for this wall to be rebuilt today. We all have to do our part. And while the church needs you, I would say you need the church. When you understand your role in building the wall, your life will never be the same. We’re looking at Nehemiah three today. It’s considered flyover country by a lot of commentators because it’s literally just a list of names of people who are building a portion of the wall. And Kurt kindly assigned it to me.

You look at basically this phone book, Gary, I think you would be perfectly capable of preaching through this. I wanna just give you a portion just verses six, right? I’m not gonna have us read the whole chapter, we’d never get through it. But this is how the whole chapter reads. Beginning with verse six, the J gate was repaired by Joe, son of Pat and Malcolm. Son of Bob. They laid its beams and put its doors with their bolts and bars in place next to them, repairs were made by men from Givon and Mspa, Matthew of Givon and Jayden of Marinoff places under the authority of the governor of TransU, zeal son of Harry. Now I might be bugging some of you that I’m using anglicized names. Confession. I dropped outta Hebrew in seminary, right? Two years of Greek. Hebrew is really hard. Y’all, you have to go to Curt if you want Hebrew and, and I just don’t even know how to pronounce it. And I just wanna say, if we go, um, I would ask you, what would you do if you had to pronounce this name in front of all of these people? I’m gonna give you a chance. On the count of three, here’s the name. I want you to call out how you would pronounce this name 1, 2, 3.

Okay, you actually did better than I thought I could do, but I’m gonna stick with Harry. One of the goldsmiths repaired the next section and Hank one of the perfume makers made repairs next to that, the whole chapter. That’s what it’s like. But what we see that is so significant in that is that the wall was built not by one person, but a team that was inspired to bring the renewal of God to the world. We’re in the thick of football season. I know some of you don’t even want to think about it. Some of you are kind of mourning what’s happening with your team. But if you’re a fan, let’s just go with it. There’s a great analogy of this. I have a, a friend named Jeff Kemp. He played quarterback in the N F L for 11 seasons here with the Seahawks. He also played for the Rams, the 49 ERs and the Eagles.

I think of all the stories that Jeff has told me, the one coach that he was particularly impressed with was Bill Walsh. For good reason. Bill Walsh led to 49 ERs to three Super Bowl wins. And Jeff’s just saw he did things differently. One of the things that was so different when he’s installing a new play, a lot of coaches would separate the linemen and the backfilled and other positions, but Bill wanted them all to come together because he explained to all of them. I want you to see what they have to do and what they have to do. Everybody’s gotta sacrifice. Everybody’s gotta take the hit for this play to work. And in his book Facing the Blitz, which is a great, if you like football and faith, I really recommend that you take this out. You’ll, you’ll love this book. Jeff explains how um, bill Walsh introduced a play.

This is an actual play from the 49 ERs at the time. Brown, right? Fox two Z Post Brown, right, Fox two Z Post. It’s a play action pass. And Bill explained how the way that a play action pass works is that you have to sell the run. If the defense doesn’t think you’re intending to run, you’re not gonna be successful with the pass. And so the offensive lineman have to block as if it’s a run. They’re gonna go into the left. They might do a cut block. They know they’re gonna get kneed, they’re gonna get in a helmet likely be on the ground and they’re gonna have their hands stepped on the running back, will never touch the ball, but he has to sell it like he is. And so he’s wrapping his hands around an imaginary ball in one play. He goes over the center and he knows he’s gonna try to draw lineman to hit him in the head, to throw him to the ground ’cause they think he has the ball and he doesn’t. The quarterback knows because this play is

Go quick with a pass. Nobody’s gonna block the defensive left end. So he has less than two and a half seconds to get rid of the ball. And he knows as soon as he throws it, he’s gonna be slammed to the ground by a very heavy left defensive end. Every player is gonna hurt and every player is gonna sacrifice. And Bill Walsh wanted everybody to see how essential it was for each player to do his role. Here’s how Jeff describes it. Understanding the unique role and sacrifice of teammates at other positions gives every player a greater sense of purpose. It builds confidence in the value of doing his part, making his sacrifice, and making the play succeed in football. Unless every player plays his role, does his job and sells out for his teammates, there will be no success for everyone to share. I believe Nehemiah teaches us that what’s true on the football field is true in God’s kingdom.

It’s not built on superheroes, it’s built on people taking ownership where every person does his part. It’s a team effort. But let’s get more specific. A few things we can learn from this chapter. The first thing is that individuals will take ownership. Individuals will take ownership. Can anybody name one of the two quarterbacks of the 49 ERs who won a Super Bowl? Say out loud? Yes. A lot of people know it’s easy. Joe Montana, Steve Young, very famous people. Can anybody tell me the name of the starting center for the last two Super Bowls? They won. Call it out loud. Raise your hand. Call it out loud. I’ve got an autographed book from What’s that? No, <laugh>, no, no. Uh, isn’t Kelsey with Taylor Swift? Whole different Eer. You’re thinking a different Kelsey. All right. Uh, I’m gonna leave this here for the the other one.

It’s actually Fred Quillan. Fred Quillan was the starting quarterback the last two times they won, uh, the Super Bowl. And here’s the thing. Before every place started, Fred handled the ball. There were a lot of plays where, uh, Ronnie lot would never touch the ball. Jerry Rice would never touch the ball. No play happened on the offense without Fred Quillen getting it started. And yet he’s not even known by most people except for maybe a few family members or a, he happened to be visiting this Sunday. And the same thing happens in the wall with Nehemiah. A lot of people are named. But it’s interesting ’cause the chapter begins with people who aren’t named the men of Jericho. The men of Jericho built the adjoining section. We don’t know their names. They’re looked at communally. They got together and they got it done. And that’s how God’s church is built.

The center who snaps the ball is not gonna get a statistic if the play action pass results in a touchdown. The offensive tackle whose guarding will not get a statistic, nobody will even know they were a part of the play. But they are as essential to the success of the play as a quarterback and the receiver doing it. And the same thing is true in God’s church. Some people will be visible, some people aren’t. But every person is important. So then when somebody says to me, you know, Gary, I wish Cherry Hills would do this, or Why can’t Cherry Hills do that as a pastor, I just wanna say your Cherry Hills go do that. We’ll pray for you. We’re we’re excited. We’ll platform you as as much as we can because this isn’t just a top down organization. We’ve had a couple that did that.

I think of Tim and Cynthia Phillips, I’ve talked about ’em before, but their role as being a blended family has given them a passion and a zeal to help other blended families. They’ve gone to the conferences, they’ve read the book, they’ve lived the life. They have a small group that meets in their home. And next week, if you check out the app, they’re starting a connection class, a smart stepfamily class, go to the app, go under groups and you’ll find it. And so Cherry Hills has a great ministry to blended families that nobody is being paid to run. We don’t have a staff member that has to organize it. It was somebody just recognized, we’re gonna be one of the unn men of Jericho. We think the church needs this and we’re gonna make it happen. The second thing we see in the book of Nehemiah is that some do more than others.

There’s this man named Mary Moth. He begins in verse four by repairing the next session section. And a lot of people, okay, I I did that. It’s done. I’ve done my part. Let’s go on and do something else. But there’s something about Mary Moth that says, Hey, I I’m done. The wall isn’t finished. Well what, what can I do next? And so he pops back up in verse 21, next to him, Mary Moth repaired another section from the entrance of Elijah’s house to the end of it, every church to fulfill its function needs, mema. We have a lot of those here at Cherry Hills. I think of one couple in particular, I think of Corey and Lori Friar, you might have seen their testimony a number of weeks back, but they’re one of those precious couples where almost every Sunday you see them at Kids point in one of the services so that other people can enjoy the worship service here without their kids being with them if they don’t want them to be.

And then I saw ’em here on Monday setting up for Manna, which is our ministry to help families, uh, that that need some help getting some food. And then I’ve seen ’em here on Wednesday nights at date night. They’re watching kids so that other couples can work on their marriage. I’ve seen ’em here on weekends for the concerts and for Jingle Jam. And there are some people who volunteer, for example, love Extended, which we’re grateful for. We had so many people volunteer for Love Extended and, and they think, okay, I I did that. I’m good for six months. But Corey and Lori are one of those couples where they say, okay, we did this on Sunday. What can we do on Monday? And is there something we can do on Wednesday? And and what about on the weekend? Now look, they’re empty nesters. They’re in a different station in life.

But I still think it’s great to commend them as Nehemiah commends so many people where they could spend all of this time they have on something else. And they’re one of those couples like Mary Mammoth where they say, give us one task. As soon as that’s done, give us something else. We want to see this wall get built. We wanna see God bring renewal to our country and to our community. The third thing we see is that the call matters more than the qualifications. This is interesting chapter in verse 12 where he, this shallum ruler of a half district of Jerusalem repaired the next section with the help of his daughters. Now if you look at old commentaries as opposed to new ones, it’s fascinating because the old ones think there has to be a mistake here, even though there’s no textual evidence for this at all.

And the reason they think there must be a mistake is that it was physical labor. Think about construction in 4 46 BC putting a wall like this together. It’s heavy labor and it was dangerous. Well, we’ll see next week how some people told Nehemiah, if you don’t stop building the wall, we will kill you and everybody who’s working with you. Which is why some had to work with swords in one hand and a shovel in the other. And so earlier lyric commenters that it just can’t be his daughters, A man wouldn’t have his daughters exposed to that work and that danger. But he did. It’s so clear in the text and you look at every modern translation and they agree with that. And so it’s a picture of somebody says, the job needs to get done. We’re not gonna worry how others think we’re qualified, we’re gonna focus instead on the call.

And maybe some of you, you sense that call I I wanna do this. Oh, that’s not for daughters, that’s for sons. Well, Shalom’s daughters didn’t worry about that. ’cause if you’re passionate, if you get the zeal for building God’s house, you don’t worry as much about your qualifications as you do about the need. I was a much younger man in my twenties. I did what a lot lot of guys in their twenties do. When a guy, a buddy needed something done, we just get a bunch of us together. One guy was putting in a new hot tub. We had to take it from a truck in the street into the backyard there, slop in the grass. It’s probably six or seven of us. And it, it was really heavy. I’ll never forget walking down the grass hill. One started to slide a little bit and somebody said, hold on, we’re gonna drop this thing.

And one of my friends, Matt, he was actually a pastor of the church next to me, he dove under the hot tub and put his back underneath it to stabilize it. And I thought, I like his zeal. Not so much his intelligence here, <laugh>. He could lose his back for the rest of his life. But you know, when you’re 20, you don’t think about that. You’re thinking, Hey, somebody’s gotta stabilize it. I’ve got a back, I’m gonna get under it. I’m gonna get it there. And he was okay and he’s okay today. And those are sort of like the daughters of Shallum. They just say there’s the need. We’re gonna offer our backs to get it done because the wall gets built by people who listen to what God is telling them to do, not to what critics are telling them they can’t or shouldn’t do.

The next thing we see is that we’re called to start building the wall where we live. In verse 23, we read beyond them, Benjamin and Sup made repairs in front of their house and next to them, Azariah made repairs beside his house. And throughout the entire chapter, you see places like this, this was the most commonplace for people to build the wall right where they live. It makes sense. And so you might be feeling a tug of the spirit. Yeah, maybe I should be giving myself to this work, but where do I start? I, I don’t even know where to begin. And the question is, where do you live? What’s your passion? What are you already doing? Can you turn that into an act of bringing renewal to God’s world? We have a member here who’s a bartender. She works during the week and for a number of years she had a guy, an older guy, he was in late eighties and then early nineties he would come in the same time every day, sit in the same chair and order the same drink.

She didn’t have to ask him anymore. He liked Miller Lite draft. And she would give it to him and she could kind of tell he was waiting all day. He’d take a sip and he’d go, ha, beer. That’s the good stuff. And he’d do that every day. Well, he also came in on the weekend. She doesn’t work weekends. So he came in one weekend afternoon, took his same place, same chair, ordered the same thing, Miller draft light, he took a drink, then he fell over and he died. Not making it up. Now he’s in his nineties. His family was sad. But I think one of ’em was tempted to say, well, at least he died doing what he loved because he, he did. But the weekend bartender freaked out. I mean, what’s going on? We’ve got a guy just dying right here. What’s happening? So they called our member, she went out.

She’s sort of just a real stable, strong person. She could take care of the customer, she could take care of the staff and whatnot. Her intro to Cherry Hills came about because she wanted prayer for her family. And so she just came to the church and said, is there a pastor here who will pray for me? One of her pastors, Brian went down to talk with her and he listened to what she does and he changed her life with a new perspective. When she described what she does and he says, you know, you’re their chaplain. She said, what? You’re their chaplain. Think about it. You’re serving them, you’re listening to them. You’re cleaning up after ’em. He goes, you gotta tell some of these people. No, people are bar often don’t wanna be told no. He goes, you’re serving as their chaplain. And it changed the way she looked at herself.

It changed the way she looked at her job, realizing that a lot of those people would never come inside these walls. But she could bring the presence of God from these walls out to where she is. And that’s what we can do. What is your job? What is right in front of you? Begin there. I wanna make it clear. Cherry hills isn’t the wall. God’s kingdom is the wall at Cherry Hills. We see this as a place for you to be inspired, equipped, encouraged, and join with others to do the work that God has called you to do. But all the work won’t be done here on Sunday morning. It’s all about going out Monday through Saturday. And we see this in Nehemiah three. It’s stunning how many different roles people play. Not everybody here has a roles to do something on Sunday morning, but we can build the wall throughout the week.

Look at the number of people mentioned they use priests to build the wall. Perfume makers. Now, I don’t know about you if I’m building a wall, I’m not thinking I’m in recruiting. People make perfume. I just, but he does and it works. Political leaders, Levites, goldsmith, merchants, they all offer their thing. So do you see yourself as a chaplain? To those, you say, are you a coach? Do you cut hair? Are you a parent? Are you a teacher? Do you have a business? Can you change your life and say, I want God to bring renewal right where I am. God, help me to look at my job, look at my life in a different way that my life matters. That speaking up matters. That trying to get this person to see the truth that that matters, it needs to get done to see in the end.

If you take the big view of Nehemiah three, the one thing, he makes it so clear, it’s not about one hero here and one hero there. It is about putting together a team, the staff and leadership of Cherry Hills can’t build the wall because we need a team. This book came out just this year. It’s called Leadership is Overrated by Kyle Bucket and Chris Mefford. I, I don’t like the title, I don’t think leadership is overrated, but he’s making the point, which is a great point that the future of management in businesses, in churches, in academic institutions is to get away from this hierarchical superhero and realize how we need to build teams. Kyle is a Navy Seal and he talked about when they would go through their trainings, they had an exercise called Kill the Leader. And they would metaphorically in the middle of training, take the leader out to say, what is the number two man gonna do?

And then they might kill the number two man. What is number three gonna do? Because they realize if you’re out on a seal expedition, you don’t know they might get killed. And if taking one leader out destroys the operation, you’re very vulnerable. And so they realize as you have to put together a team that leaders matter. But if success depends on a single person, you’re gonna have a low level of success. Here’s how he explains it. Small but dedicated teams of empowered individuals can and do outperform large organizations driven by top down leadership. What makes organizations great, truly great and not temporarily successful is not a single leader but a culture of self-leadership. When done right, a self-led team will always be superior to the antiquated methods of a hierarchical organization. Look, in my years, I’ve seen this in the church, there’s some hotshot celebrity that comes up so successful for five or 10 years.

Everybody is gathering around it. Their identity is in this leader. And all it takes is it’s a scandal, it’s a health crisis. Somebody dies. And I’ve literally seen huge churches disappear ’cause it wasn’t built on a team of people passionate about seeing renewal come to the world. It was built on one man’s or one woman’s vision. That’s not what we want to do here. Kyle goes on to say this history maximizes the importance of heroes, but minimizes the significance of teams. It’s a great historical story to back that up. In the late 19th century, um, of ship named Belgica, it was a whaling ship sailed from Antwerp to go do research in the Antarctic. Now that was sort of a celebrated, risky kind of romantic thing to do. The ship was led by an admirable admiral named Gerlach. And he brought together all of these scientists and people to do the research, but they really weren’t qualified to face the, the rigors and the harsh climate of the Antarctic.

They really didn’t know what they were doing. And so the whaling ship literally got caught in the ice in March of that year. There’s ice all around ’em. They, they couldn’t get out. And then they tried for two months. They were unsuccessful. And so when the sunset in May, if you know your geography, it doesn’t rise for a number of months. So they are trapped in the ice. Terrible, cold, perpetual darkness without the resources they needed. It was awful. And men started to get sick. Kyle writes, the crew was filled with despair and death loomed over the darkened horizon of each day. Some men literally began to go insane. And then other men started to die one by one, but with an amazing story of perseverance and determination to survive. After 13 months of being trapped in ice, the belgica made its way into Antwerp. Deger was hailed as his hero. He was the celebrity of the day. He overcame the odds. And you can imagine the gratitude of family members and friends that thought their loved ones were dead. And he brought them back and he became the man of the hour in Antwerp.

But it was all a lie because Gerlach was sick for almost the entire expedition. He was so sick, he was confined to a deathbed and he wrote out his will. And in fact, this second in command, the captain also grew sick. He also was in bed almost the whole time. And he also wrote out his will never expecting to recover. The only reason the Belgian could got back to Antwerp is that two mid-level people, the first mate named Amundson. And the ships surgeon named Cook stepped up and said, if we’re gonna get outta here, things have to change. As a surgeon cook knew that one of the things that was killing the men was scurvy. And so he began insisting that they go out and hunt seal and penguins. And he had ’em eat it raw because then it has more content of of vitamin C, which he knew they needed to survive.

Deger Lock had forbid them when he was healthy to do that. He said, it’s disgusting. You know, we’re we’re refined, gentlemen, we don’t do that. But he was too sick to complain. And so Cook had do that and the men started to recover and then he organized fires on the ice at night to just give them some warmth and diversion. And he had ’em play card games with imaginary money, anything to keep their mind off their dire situation. The men started to get stronger and the Glock actually started to eat some of that meat, that raw meat. And he began to get stronger. And with renewed health, they gave it another effort. They used saws, they used explosives, and finally managed to get their way out of the ice and back to Antwerp. And while the Glock had gotten well enough to lead the ship into harbor, he was carried there by his team.

It wasn’t the story of a great leader, it was a story of an amazing team. So I don’t think leadership is overrated. Trust. I’ve been in a lot of organizations. I think leadership really matters, but for long-term success. And Nehemiah tells us in God’s kingdom, the team matters even more. People who step up, people I think like Morgan and Cole Walton, a wonderful family in our church with, with four kids. I mean, isn’t that a, a great family? I you think with so much going on in their life with young kids, Morgan is behind so much of what happens here that people never see. She’s a master of lobby decor. Have any of you taken pictures at the photo booth that we have at Christmas or Easter? You know how we met then You have a picture of what Morgan’s done in your camera. She’s here for mops, mothers of preschoolers.

She comes in on Wednesday nights to help out with date nights to make sure it looks great, which means Cole has to get all four kids here on his own on Wednesday night because Morgan has to come earlier to make it happen. And you might think they’ve got such a great family, they’ve got such a busy life. Why would she find time to build this church? And the answer is ’cause she loves Jesus. And if you love Jesus, you love his church. It’s a powerful story in the life of Jesus. He didn’t have to build the temple, it was already built by the time he came. But remember, he had to cleanse it. He was so offended about how it was being turned into a marketplace that Jesus went in and he overturned the money changer stables and whatnot. And as the disciples watched him, they remembered this passage from the Old Testament, that zeal for your house consumes me. Zeal for your house consumes me. What consumes you? The eternal work of God’s church on this planet. Are you more consumed with building your own Instagram house or finding your romantic partner or keeping your marriage alive, saving that number for retirement? Many people are consumed with

What’s happening with their football team. Or who is going to be elected president next? I’ll be honest, I’m still restoring a house. I work to keep my marriage alive and intimate. We’re saving for retirement and I, I care who wins on Saturday and I certainly care who the next president is. But what consumes me? What consumes you at the end of my life when I’m gone, when my friends and family members look back, what they say? What, what? Put an extra enthusiasm in his voice. Where did he spend his money? Where did he spend his? What was he most passionate about? I want it to be God’s house. And I believe you want it to be that as well because everything else that we might give our time to, it always disappoints, doesn’t it? Do you realize that 99% of college football fans will be disappointed ’cause their team isn’t gonna be there in the end.

In January we save money for retirement and then something happens in the economy and 40% of it is gone. I know, I don’t know who’s gonna be elected president next year, but I know this, 49% of the country is gonna be really upset about it. All of these things that consume us and we give our time and they disappoint us again and again. And Jesus offers us something eternal that’s fulfilling. And he dares to say, you have a role to play that this wall is being built. And look at this wall. If this stone weren’t there, if it was your job to put the stone, if this stone isn’t there, it’s really exposed, or this whole section isn’t done because people are off fighting other battles that don’t really matter. Will we let zeal for God’s house begin to consume us a church that will be filled with the unnamed men of Jericho?

You see a need and you’re gonna make it happen. Even if we’re not in charge of it. The the men of Marmo who get one thing done and say, all right, what’s next? We’ve got a lot to do. God is doing a new work here. The the Daughters of Shalom, they might think I’m not qualified or I’m not supposed to do that. I think God has called me to do that. I’m gonna do that and you’ll pull yourself together. If you’ve been coming here very long, you’ve heard us say this phrase that there’s a place here for you. It’s true. Nehemiah adds something else. There’s a place here for you that no one else can fill if you’re a young teen, if you are twenties, forties, eighties. I believe that’s true. And Nehemiah three is God’s wake up call for us to let

Something else concern us. Now, this is a great day to take this vision on ’cause we’ve got starting point. If you wanna know, well, how do I get plugged into this particular church right after the service today? You’ll go through these doors and go left. Ask somebody, they’ll point you to room 1 0 7. Starting point is a great way to hear what we do, what we’re about, and how you can plug in even if you’re not signed up. I told Bronson last week, let’s order extra. I’m gonna be mentioning it in the sermon. It’s just an exciting call y’all, that Jesus is building his church and says, you can play a role in the most important thing going on. And so what we wanna do is sort of worship this into our hearts and souls. Instead of just going, if this isn’t your passion, will you sing this song and say to God’s spirit, Lord, make this my prayer. Make this my song. I’ve been so focused on me and small concerns, Lord, I realize something much bigger is going on. Lord, use me to build your church.