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Hey, that's good. People are awake.
Very good. So we continue our study on Book
of Nehemiah Chapter 11. Cool.
How many of you have read this chapter today and come?
No, only two people. I think I must reward you.
Definitely. You read faithfully and come.
Just somebody give them the chocolate please.
See this is one of the things I always say is that you read and
come for two reasons. 1 you know what is going to be preached on
the subject. 2 because you have read you will have some
questions. Oh I don't understand this and
when we are explaining this, oh now I understand what that
means. So that Eureka moment you get,
its just a kind of preparation. You just have to prepare
yourself to meet God and hear his voice through his word.
Cool. So now we what we are trying to
see in the Chapter 11 is verse one.
It reads like this. Now the leaders of the people
settled in Jerusalem and the rest of the people cost lots to
bring one out of every 10 to live in Jerusalem, the holy
city. I want to to observe that
Jerusalem is called holy city. Let's all say holy city.
Was it mentioned? How many times was it mentioned?
Jerusalem is holy city in the Bible.
The first one to mention it, call it holy city is Isaiah.
After Isaiah, there was another person who called city.
Holy city is Daniel. He says so it has been decreed
so many weeks, so many years, all that he says to this, to
holy city. And then you see that is holy
city is mentioned now by Nehemiah.
So holy city, how has it become a holy city?
Whereas you don't see that mentioned so many times anywhere
from the book of Genesis until now is mentioned very few times.
But in the book of Nehemiah, it is, it has now in Chapter 11
being mentioned as holy city. Not until chapter 10.
Only in Chapter 11 it is called Holy city.
So how did it become a holy city #1 This is a place where God put
his name. And it just begins with when
Abraham was asked to offer his son Isaac as a sacrifice and he
said, take your son Isaac, the only son whom you love, and
Ioffer him as a sacrifice to me on the mountain that I am going
to show you. He didn't tell him the full full
address. He didn't say this is take your
open your Google Maps and go and find this one.
No, no, no, no, you just have to follow God is set out and he
showed the mountain. He said, that's the mountain.
Do you see? That's where I want you to offer
your son. And that's where he exactly went
and offered his son. And that's the place where they
build the temple. How awesome is that for it to
happen after 1500 years? No one knows that that's the
place where Jesus is going to die on the cross mount of
Golgotha. That's where he offered his son.
Very pretty close. On the same hills, same place,
pretty close. But what I want you to focus on
is that this holy city had its glorious days, had its glorious
days, but it also had its low times, which was demolished by
Nebuchadnezzar. And I mean, different kinds of
kings came and burned on, broke down the walls and burned on the
thing. They literally looted the temple
of God because it was full of gold.
It was inside was paneled with gold and particularly in the in
8070 when the the temple was destroyed once for all, they set
on fire because by then all the gold was gone, but your some
still gold was still sticking somewhere in the crevices here
and there. They set on fire so that it can
melt and come down and they can grab the gold.
So not a stone is left standing on each other completely
destroyed. So what am I trying to hint at?
Is this Jerusalem, the temple and the city of Jerusalem stands
for the church. It has its humble beginnings and
it has its glorious days and more glorious days in the
future. So let's trace it how it all
begins. Think of Jacob running away from
his brother, and he travels and he comes to a particular point
called Bethel, meaning the House of God, which was later on.
He called it Bethel, but it was called loose before.
What did he have there? He had a stone for a pillow and
slept under a tree. Was God there in that place?
Can I hear us? Yeah.
That's a humble beginning. That's a humble beginning.
And you see that? That is how many of us begin
like Jacob humble beginnings, but then come down to the times
when Moses again is leading them out from Egypt.
And then you see the pillar of cloud by day, pillar of fire by
night. It is continuous travel.
During the night also, they were travelling because a light was
shining from the sky, a special light for them, a pillar of
light, a fire, and they were able to see and travel in that
light. And that is glory.
And whenever they set up a tent and Moses wanted to talk to God,
the glory would come and settle on the tent.
And no one was allowed to come near the tent.
Only Moses had access and his assistant Joshua would be at the
door so that nobody would enter in.
That's second level of glory. And then you see, when they had
a Tabernacle set up, when the sacrifice offered, fire came
from the sky and burnt up the offering, not because its
firewood and is lit up. And then slowly it takes half an
hour, one hour to burn the sacrifice.
No, the glory of God came and burned the sacrifice.
And the temple became a place of reverence, a place of meeting
with God, a place of receiving instruction, a place of having
fellowship with God, a place where you will receive a
blessing because you're interacting, you're coming into
the House of God, you're meeting God.
And that came to the next level when the king of King Solomon
wanted to, I mean, actually, King David wanted to build a
temple for God. And God says, not you, but your
son will build it. And he made the preparations.
He gave the plans, He waited in the presence of God.
And the Holy Spirit gave him the plan of the temple, and he drew
it up. And his son built a glorious
temple and the, and the fame was so great, even Queen of Shiva
came down travelling hundreds of miles to see Solomon, meet with
him, hear his wisdom, look at the temple, look at the glory,
connect with his God, Yahweh. But I tell you what, now it's
completely destroyed. And Nehemiah had the privilege
of rebuilding the walls. He had the privilege.
Ezra had the privilege of rebuilding the temple of God.
And now it is set up. It is set up and it is now
called holy because many things have been reversed.
What are the things? They have been reversed.
In the previous chapters, we have seen that they had to
separate themselves from the people around them.
Particularly with the mixed marriages.
They made a sacrifice by saying no to the foreign wives and the
children. They put them away.
Costly decision they have made. And then Neema says you guys are
not having reverence for Sabbath so he shut the gates before the
sun went down and would not allow the gates to be opened.
And particularly on the Sabbath, gates were not opened on
Sabbath. So nobody can come into that
city and do trade business. And you have so many things
going on there and everything is to cleanse the temple, cleanse
the peoples lives. And now the city is called the
holy city. Do you see how there's a price
before you can call it a holy city?
And today the church is also like that.
The call of God for the church is come out of Babylon.
What does Babylon stand for? The world.
The worldly system you have to come out of the worldly system.
Worldly system of making money, worldly system of prosperity,
worldly system. You have to come out and be a
holy people to God. And you see the pinnacle or the
high point of the church is when you see when you enter heaven
where there is no sun. Why?
Because God Himself is the one who gives light there and there
is no moon to give you light in the night because there is no
night. So we have to go through the
stages. This is the story of the church.
This is a story of every Christian.
Can you tell your neighbor? This is a story of the church
and the story of every Christian.
You will have a humble beginning, glorious times,
struggles, rebuilding, and ultimately you will have enter
heaven one day where there is no tears, no pain, no sorrow,
everything is going to be great. You will be worshipping God and
you don't need light because God himself is a light and you don't
there's no night because this is always God, is always God and
you are going to see him face to face.
So that holy city is just not a word there for you.
It is an encounter, it is an experience.
It is an experience in the past. It should be an experience in
the present, it should be an experience leading you to the
future. So into this holy city, after it
was rebuilt, the population at the time in Judea must be about
50,000 people. So they are all scattered all
over. If somebody can access the.
Sorry, I forgot to mention there's a map in the drive.
So when you look at the map, you understand how they are all
scattered. But the point I'm trying to make
is the city itself is rebuilt now.
Walls are set up, temple is. Audiences are going up.
Yeah. Thank you, Temple.
Things are going up now, but the people in the city, the
population inside the city is very less, very, very less
meager. And everywhere you see rubble
because many houses have been pulled down, many houses have
been pulled down and been destroyed by the enemy, enemy
army. So now you have to rebuild the
houses. And if you say if you, if you
are shown a place, oh, this is a place come and live, you'll say,
no, I am better off in the where I am.
Why would I want to leave my house?
Why would I want to leave my fields and come outside from
Jerusalem to come inside the Jerusalem and try to rebuild a
house, make a home for myself. It involves cost.
So here in the map, you see people were scattered all over.
Let's say the Temple Mount is that's where you have Jerusalem
and you got people as far as beer Sheba in Hebrew it is beer
sheva, but English is beer sheva.
So all over all the villages, all the townspeople have been
populated, but very few people who are living inside Jerusalem.
So now because of this, what they have done is some people
said, oh, particularly Nehemiah, the leaders say he himself was
living inside Jerusalem. Ezra the priest was in living
inside Jerusalem. So all the leaders were there
inside Jerusalem. Still the population is very
less. So some have volunteered to say
I want to make my home in Jerusalem.
So some people moved leaving their places and came inside
Jerusalem to make them make the home inside Jerusalem.
Now that is very important, very important.
Why is it important? If you don't have people, is
easy again to some enemy can invade and there's nobody to
defend the city, There's no one to defend Jerusalem.
So you need people inside. So what did Nehemiah do?
He had thought about it and he said we need people to come in,
but who will come in? We want God to decide who will
come and dwell in Jerusalem because this is a city that
belongs to God. So we need God to decide who
will come and dwell here. So he costs lots.
Out of every 10 people who choose one family, every ten
families who choose one family and say, hey, your God is
pleased to say you should move. So from outside Jerusalem, you
leave your house, you leave your field and move with all your
things and your children and come and find a place inside
Jerusalem and look at a rubble and then rebuild the wall there,
rebuild the house and dwell there.
So when you when God gives you invitation to build the church,
it involves 2 things. One, there's a cost.
Everybody say cost. It will shake your zone of
comfort. You will be shaken out of your
your own comfortable position and you'll have to make some
sacrifice. 2 There is a danger. Why there is a danger when the
enemy comes to attack who he will attack.
Will he attack somebody who is having a tent outside Jerusalem
or will attack the people inside Jerusalem?
Therefore, this is what it is. Many of us, we think church is
something fun, but when you take church seriously, you become a
target of enemy. You become a target of enemy.
So you need to be very prayerful.
I'm telling you this is a very, very important lesson.
But there was one man in history, at least from my
knowledge, Alexander Dovey, He is called the farm father of
modern healing ministry. And he discovered the healing by
the death of Jesus and this healing in the blood.
This is the first guy who really taught it.
And then after he discovered it and after he became very famous
because of traveling and many people started coming, he wanted
to, he wanted to build a city called Zion.
Zion. He built a city called Zion.
And what he did was he bought huge land and built a city, and
he would tell the people, OK, you want to come and live here,
you sell your property, come and buy your property here.
And he would sell the property to the people.
And he made heaps of money as well because of that.
And he built a city, but it involved cost for people.
But we don't do that anymore. That's not a model for every
church, every city, every nation.
That's not the model. But what the general principle
holds good is when church becomes serious matter, it will
shake you out of your comfortable zone.
It will expose you to become a target of the enemy.
That is the reason why we need to be prayerful people, people
of prayer, people of prayer, and that is what is going to save
you and make you an effective Christian.
So people give 110th from what they have tithe to the temple of
God. But Nehemiah said you give 110th
of the people to the to the city of God tithing people.
Did you hear about it? It looks funny, but what it
means is that you are saying I belong to God.
And I was thinking a little bit more about this tithing thing
somewhere. I came across an idea where it
says when you tithe, you're actually wanting to become like
Christ because Christ gave all his life.
And when you are giving your 10%, you're telling God I want
to be like Christ. It is a privilege.
It is something to shake you out of, shake us out of.
You can call it greed or self centeredness or just me, just
me. I need to be quite well.
I just me and my family, my children, my property, my
business. God will shake you out of the
out of the mentality by instituting this system called
tithing. It just not only valid for Old
Testament is valid for New Testament too.
But we don't make it compulsory here.
That's the good news. We just want people to
voluntarily partake in the in the will of God, in the plans of
God, in the purposes of God in the Kingdom of God South.
This is something you do voluntarily.
So we don't impose anything because some other time I spoke
and I didn't mention about this, I was told of so I am.
This is not very easy, compulsory, but just a way of
like many other disciplines. If you can give your time, let's
say for prayer one hour a day because you want God's Kingdom
to come into the world, Can we ties our time?
Is that a challenge? If we begin to ties time, I tell
you revival will come tomorrow. You begin to pray 2 hours a day.
God, I want the fire to come down on city of Christchurch
very soon. It's going to happen.
We are not willing to give. Its easy to give money than to
give your time. Its more difficult to pray.
But if you do, that revival is going to come very soon.
OK, so they volunteer to live in Jerusalem.
So what did the people do? The people commended all the men
who volunteered to live in Jerusalem.
The two categories of people, one category is those who
volunteered. The second category is the
people who are chosen by lot. It is commendable if people are
do things voluntarily. Voluntarily, whatever you do is
more commendable than being forced to do or being told to
do. And the Kingdom of God is more
willing to bless those who do things voluntarily.
You on your own decide, I love God, I want to do it.
It's easy to sing. Oh, the alabaster bottle is
broken, poured at your feet. Very easy to sing, very
difficult to do, very difficult to do.
I am telling you so many things. We sing.
I say, oh, it's not that easy. Just imagine today I was
imagining myself, my neck broken like this because alabaster
bottle was broken, You know, I said, oh, my neck is broken and
being poured out at his feet. Oh, that's too difficult.
But I said, Lord, give me grace. Give me grace that I may not
withhold anything, that I may be completely sold out to you, Your
purpose, your will, your Kingdom.
Next time you sing, imagine that.
OK next thing that we see here is that was very challenging
thought to me. Basically progressing from stone
as a pillow to walking into the heavens where Gods glory is a
son. You don't need a son because
God's glory lights up the whole place and you're going to live
there for eternity. Not for one year, not for 10
years, not for 100 years. You're not going there on a
lease. It is your citizenship.
You belong there and you have to put some effort now to merit it.
It is free basically by faith. At the same time the disciplines
are given so that you will not lose that vision of heaven.
The discipline of prayer, the discipline of sharing the
gospel, the discipline of giving, the discipline of
helping people out is so that you will not lose sight of the
heaven. Everything has a place.
Its all working together like a well oiled machinery is 1 big
picture. Christian life is 1 big picture.
Not in parts. You don't see Part 3 today and
part 7 tomorrow. Cool.
And then what happens here is all there's a variety in the
church. Everybody say variety in this
city. Who are the people who came to
dwell there in verse 3? These are the provincial leaders
who settled in Jerusalem. Now some Israelites, priests,
Levites, temple servants, descendants of Solomons,
servants, lived in the towns of Judah, each in his own property.
And then you see people from Judah and Benjamin, they wanted
to live in Jerusalem. And then you got priests, and
then you have the Levites and you got the gatekeepers.
You know, when you look at this whole city of Jerusalem, it is
one living Organism. Its not just people.
Somebody is living in this house here, somebody living in the
house there. No, they're all one.
Imagine if there are no Levites, how will the church, how will
the temple function? Imagine if there are no priests,
who will offer the sacrifices? If there are no gatekeepers, who
is going to protect the temple? If there are no all kinds of
other kinds of people who are involved there?
There are people who used to bring water for the sacrifices,
who are people who cut wood? This everything is in the right
place. Only then the whole temple
functions normal. It's very easy for me to stand
here and preach. OK, but who will put the chairs?
If nobody puts the chairs, who am I?
Who is going to come and sit? Who?
How am I going to preach if the people are not making the
morning tea? And after the service, how will
you have a good time talking to each other?
And if there's nobody, no volunteers, how will the
children be nourished? And how will you feed children
and prepare them for future? Everything has its own place and
there is a variety and there is a part for everybody to get
involved. Everybody has a part to get
involved. Only then the church functions
well. Otherwise it will be only few
people, always taxed. You want to have a meeting, same
7-8 people. You want prayer meeting, same 10
people. It is going to be like that, but
if everybody says I want to be part of this church, then find
something that you can do. Particularly right now, this is
the time we they're crying out there every Sunday.
They're saying we need people to volunteers to help with the
Sunday school to help with this, to help with that.
Find a place that suits you and say I want to contribute
something and then the church will function normal.
It becomes normal not be wanting anything cool.
During the time of Nehemiah, the tribe of Judah mainly consisted
of or the Judea areas or the southern Kingdom consisted of
people from the tribe of Judah and from Benjamin.
They are the two basic tribes and you have a place for leaders
as well, because leaders are the people.
When they come into the city, they give strength to the city
and they give honor to the city, dignity to the city.
So we need them. It depends on the size and
things like that. But here they have, whenever you
read this chapter, you see there, let's say here in verse
12, it says there's a big list of people.
And then who carried on the work for the temple?
822 men. And then it says and his
associates who are heads of families, 242 men.
And then it talks about other set of people, associates who
are able men. 128 Their chief officer was Jabdi al son of
Hagido Lim. Among the Levites.
You see again they were about among the Shamwa son of Galal,
son of Jerusalem was 18. The Levites in the Holy City
totaled 284 people. So they there is some the system
was very accurate. They counted.
Now here the for those people who are more brainy and you want
to find some fault in the scripture, there are some
mistakes here. In Chapter 11, when you read
these numbers and compare it with the numbers mentioned in
First Chronicles, there is a variation.
It's not the same number. So if you're taking count,
you're taking a census of the tribe of Levi or the priests or
anybody for the group of people during the same contemporary
time. The same number should be there,
but there is a variation. The variation can be explained,
but you need to sit down with the commentary.
OK, They will give you reasons why it is variation.
Like Nehemiah, he took just one head of the family and he
counted the number in that family and he gave a number.
But in the first one, because there are 4 heads of family, so
you got more people recorded there.
And in some other place there are six families and whereas
here he may be counting only four families.
So this is that kind of a variation.
It is not a mistake. It's not an error, it's just a
perspective. Hallelujah.
That is to encourage us that the Word of God is reliable.
But if there is a mistake, this is just human way of
argumentation. If there is a less error in the
number, is it going to change your salvation?
Is it going to mix up your message of salvation?
Is it going to make you less holy?
So if somebody says there are eight people or somebody says
there are nine people, that's not going to make a difference
in the main purpose of the organization.
So that's how I look at it. And it's not a major mistake.
It's not going to, particularly when you are talking to Muslims,
they find these kind of mistakes and they say, oh your Bible has
errors. You can laugh at them and say
what is error? Is it changing your destiny?
No, still go to heaven. OK, then let's look at something
else. Cool.
Then we see why this called city is called Holy City.
I think I'm not here over the Holy city, looks like, isn't it?
This is the place you have this temple and inside the temple you
have got the Ark of the Covenant, and inside the Ark of
the Covenant you have the 10 commandments of Moses.
The city is interested, the temple is interested with
guarding the 10 commandments. And that is the basis for the
whole world. Whether you live in Russia
without God or China without God or some other country with with
God, still those 10 commandments you cannot escape.
Every nation is governed by those 10 commandments.
Show me a country which says we don't have a court of law, we
don't have Police Department, we have got no jails.
There is no country like that. The church is given today in the
same way, a repository, it's been a deposit of the message of
salvation is given to the church.
And when the church fails to proclaim the gospel, what
happened to Jerusalem can happen to the church.
In fact, what did Jesus say to one of the seven churches he
talks about in the Book of Revelation?
If you don't change, I am going to remove the lampstand.
That means the church is going to disappear.
We need to be carefully guarding the truth, carefully guarding
the message God has entrusted to the church.
And we are the people who hold the treasure of the gospel of
Christ, which is salvation for everybody.
So 10 commandments given by Moses was to influence the
world, but not to be influenced by the world.
It is wholly get treasure. So also the Church is
commissioned to take the gospel to the whole world.
No other philosophy or God or religion is going to save
mankind. The Church has a unique deposit
of truth, which is the truth. As I was meditating, I just
wrote it down. Secondly, the Third Point, there
is order. Everybody say order, order in
the way things were done during Neymar's time.
You got people who were responsible for things outside
the city, outside the temple, and there are people who are
responsible for things inside the temple.
Let's look at it, verse 16. What does this verse 16 say?
Verse 16 says Shabbathai and Josepha 2 of the heads of the
Levites who had charge of the outside work of the House of
God. They had charge of outside the
work of the House of God, that is the temple.
Outside the temple they were in charge of it.
And then you have somebody else. In the verse 2022 onwards, the
chief officer of the Levites in Jerusalem was Uzi, son of Bani,
the son of Hasabaya, the son of Matanaya, the son of Micah.
Uzi was one of Asaph's descendants who were the singers
responsible for the service of the House of God inside the
temple. Everybody say inside the temple.
Worship is the main business inside the temple.
What is the main business? So when we say worship, we had
to be here on time. There's nothing to be offended.
That's the main business of us. We had to come on time to sing
to the Lord and to worship Him, because He paid for you with His
own life. And it is fitting and right to
worship God through singing. And this has been regulated by
King David. How did it all begin?
Because David loved God, He was a man after Gods own heart, and
he had appointed sons of Asaph to lead in worship and to sing.
And all these people who are from the Levites were supposed
to be completely in the right uniform and come to the temple
and be holy and worship God and to prophecy and to prophecy.
People who are singers who are also prophesying.
When, when you do so, when you worship God in the Spirit and
the same Spirit gives you utterance and gives you
prophecy. So music time, music, I mean,
one day expect the worship team to begin to prophecy.
That is your next goal. That is the challenge.
So that is instituted by King
David. It was rewired by Solomon.
Oh, my father did this. OK, let's this new temple I'm
building now, glorious temple called the sons of Asaph, The
descendants of Asaph, let them be the livers who will lead in
worshipping God, to sing unto him.
And they did lead in singing and worship.
It continued for some generations, rewired by
Hezekiah, again rewired by many other kings.
But now the temple, the temple was destroyed, walls were
destroyed, the temple is rebuilt, walls are rebuilt, and
now the worship is being reordered.
So what did they do? They called for descendants of
Asaph because they are chosen by King David.
So they called for descendants of Asaph to come and lead in
worship singing to God. I tell you singing to God is not
a new idea, is not a new idea. Its centuries old.
It is deeply rooted in the worship of the temple and that
is how we engage with God is by singing to him.
It is. Tell me, somebody who says I
want to come late next Sunday. No, no, no, that's not what we
are promoting here. All this energy I'm putting in
to make us all expect to meet with God.
The singing is not just somebody singing there and I just sit
there or stand there or have a snooze.
That's not the purpose. Purpose is to stand in the
presence of God. And as I told you, when you
sing, you engage with the meaning of the words.
As I talked about my neck being broken and offered, that is how
you engage with the words and you mean what you're singing and
sing what you mean. And then the presence of God
comes so powerfully in your midst because of the same
reason, because you're engaging with God, your heart, your soul,
your spirit is engaging God. That is singing.
Cool. So here you have outside Inside
all kinds of things are going on and this is the same thing.
Things have to be done in order. So Paul talks about how things
should be done in order inside the church.
He talks about in one Corus chapter 14 for God is not a God
of disorder, but of peace as in all the congregation of the
Lords people. He's saying, OK, this is not
just listening to 1 church is for all the churches.
Things should be done in order. One Corinthians chapter 14 was
40, but all things should be done decently and in order.
One Corinthians Chapter 11 was 16.
If anyone wants to be contentious about this, anybody
wants to argue about this, we have no other practice, nor do
the churches of God. What is He trying to say?
We don't compromise on this principle of doing things in
order. We do not have any argument
about it. Cool.
So, so much there to talk about inside, outside, and above all,
I wrote so much on my Bible. But I think I will conclude it
now is going on and on. It's not going to end so
quickly. But I'll read from somebody by
name W Clarkson, from what he has written about all these
things. Summing up, I'll read it for
you. There is an unsuspected strength
in the truth she holds. He's talking about the church.
The church is holding truth. And there is an unsuspected
strength in the truth she holds in the weapon she wields.
The church has weapons, and we have to begin to use those
weapons as a church, not as an individual, but as a church
together. So we have weapons to wield in
the cause of which there she is a champion in ways and by means
quite unsuspected by her enemies and equally unexpected by
herself. You are not expecting.
But together, when we begin to use the weapons of the warfare
God has given to the church, we are going to see breakthrough.
You are going to see new things happen which we we may not even
be expecting to see, but you are going to see them.
God will make His church His agent for the redemption of the
world. The hope of the world is in the
church, not in the political system that is making rules.
They should be influenced by the church.
They should be influenced by the church, and the communities
should be influenced by the church.
And we are a people, a peculiar people.
The Bible calls us a peculiar people, called out from the
world to belong to him, and the Jerusalem Temple is an example
of it. But today you don't have the
temple anymore, but we have the church to replace it.
But don't don't misunderstand me.
This is not I'm, I'm not talking about replacement theology
saying Israel is not important anymore.
Now I'm not saying that. But church has that unique
place, position, call power to do things in these times.
And when you realize it, church becomes meaningful to you.
When you don't realize it, it is a drudgery for you.
So we need to. As John read out today in the
morning, we are the pillar, Church is a pillar.
So we need to understand the unique portion of the church and
when we understand who the church is, again, remember
church is not calling out individuals to live as
individuals on islands, different islands.
No, it is a community. Church is a community where we
care for each other. When somebody hurts, you go
alongside and say, hey, how are you doing?
Put your hand up on them and you somebody needs a meal, you cook
an extra meal and take it to them and you visit them, you sit
with them, you pray with them. That is a community.
This is not again, a place where we want to show off.
It's a place of service, not a place of show off.
So yeah, we have variety, we have unique call, we have unique
position, we've got unique characteristics and unique
capabilities. And you are equipped differently
from the world. We are equipped differently from
the world. Somebody asked me a question,
how do I become successful in my career?
How do I become successful in as a Christian?
I didn't reply immediately, but I thought about it.
I said we don't plan, plan according to our own thing.
I want to be become a billionaire.
I am going to do this, this business, it's not me.
First requirement is to go into the closet and hear the voice of
God. Say what is your purpose for my
life? When God speaks, then you have a
plan or you have a goal. That's how you begin hearing the
voice of God. That is a uniqueness of the
church. Everybody should hear the voice
of God. It's not for a few people.
Whoever pays the cost, they can
hear the voice of God. Staying in the presence of God,
waiting to hear God, waiting to hear God, is very, very
important. Very, very important.
Actually, I had a word of knowledge.
I forgot God wants to save somebody, somebody in this
church who doesn't know Jesus yet.
And what the Lord said is how long you want to fight with me,
how long you want to question me?
Just say Jesus, come into my heart and you will see that I
really come into your heart. All that requires is to say
what? Jesus come into my heart.
So somebody God was he somebody God was to save.
And all that they have to do is stop the argument and say,
please come into my heart. Shall we bowed on our heads in
prayer? Father, we thank you for your
word. We thank you Jesus.
Thank you Jesus, thank you Lord, for you made the city of
Jerusalem a holy city, but it doesn't exist anymore.
But you're longing and looking for a holy city which is going
to come down from the heavens, bright and beautiful shining is
coming down from heaven. And we are citizens of that city
and we are looking forward for the city.
And we praise you for the hope you have given us and thank you
for giving us the grace to believe in your Son Jesus so
that we can be part of that citizen, we can have citizenship
in that city. We praise you, we worship you,
we honor you. You have called us with the
unique calling and You have gifted us with the unique gifts
you have. Oh Father, You have gifted us
uniquely so that we can contribute something for your
church, and we praise you for your enablement.
The enablement for us comes from your enabling us.
We give you glory, honor, and praise.
We bless your name, magnify your name.
We thank you for your mercy. We thank you for your grace.
Bless everybody this morning. Help us to understand why church
is your idea, not a man's idea. We worship a lot in Jesus name.
We ask. Everybody says Amen.
Thanks for joining us at Omega If.
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