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Ezra chapter number 3, and as we always do here, we're going to read the entire passage. I'm going to read it out loud. You could follow along silently. While I read Ezra chapter 3, starting in verse number 1, the Bible reads, And when the seventh month was come, and the children of Israel were in the cities, the people gathered themselves together as one man to Jerusalem. Then stood up Joshua the son of Jazadak, and his brethren the priests, and Zerubbabel the son of Shealtiel, and his brethren, and builded the altar of the God of Israel, to offer burnt offerings thereon, as it is written in the law of Moses, the man of God. And they set the altar upon his bases, for fear was upon them because of the people of those countries. And they offered burnt offerings thereon unto the Lord, even burnt offerings morning and evening. They kept also the feast of tabernacles, as it is written, and offered the daily burnt offerings by number according to the custom, as the duty of every day required. And afterward, offered the continual burnt offering, both of the new moons, and of all the set feasts of the Lord, that were consecrated, and of everyone that willingly offered a free will offering unto the Lord. From the first day of the seventh month began they to offer burnt offerings unto the Lord. But the foundation of the temple of the Lord was not yet laid. They gave money also unto the masons and to the carpenters, and meat and drink and oil unto them of Zidon, and to them of Tyre, to bring cedar trees from Lebanon to the Sea of Joppa, according to the grant that they had of Cyrus king of Persia. Now in the second year of their coming unto the house of God at Jerusalem, in the second month began Zerubbabel, the son of Shealtiel, and Jeshua the son of Jauzadak, and the remnant of their brethren the priests and Levites, and all they that were come out of the captivity unto Jerusalem and appointed the Levites from 20 years old and upward to set forward the work of the house of the Lord. Then stood Jeshua with his sons and his brethren, Cadmiel and his sons, the sons of Judah together to set forward the workmen in the house of God, the sons of Hanadad with their sons and their brethren the Levites, and when the builders laid the foundation of the temple of the Lord, they set the priests in their peril with trumpets and the Levites, the sons of Asaph with symbols, to praise the Lord after the ordinance of David king of Israel, and they sang together by course and praising and giving thanks unto the Lord because he is good for his mercy and doeth forever toward Israel, and all the people shouted with a great shout when they praised the Lord because the foundation of the house of the Lord was laid, but many of the priests and Levites and chief of the fathers who were ancient men that had seen the first house when the foundation of this house was laid before their eyes, wept with a loud voice, and many shouted aloud for joy, so that the people could not discern the noise of the shout of joy from the noise of the weeping of the people, for the people shouted with a loud shout, and the noise was heard afar off. Let's pray, dear heavenly Father, Lord, we thank you so much for these words. God, we thank you for the Holy Bible. I pray that you would please help me this morning. Lord, lead me, direct me, fill me with your spirit, dear Lord. Help me to preach on this subject and to be able to teach so that people wouldn't be distracted, but that I would be able to teach the way that you would have me to, dear Lord, and only say those things that are true and right. I pray that you would please help us all to be free from distraction this morning and help us to stay focused. And I pray that you please just stir up all of our hearts today. In Jesus' name, we pray, amen. All right, now. The title of my sermon this morning is Getting Back to Work. Getting Back to Work. And what we see here in Ezra is this is, this is, of course, the first book after the children of Israel go into captivity. So they're taken captive. They go, you know, they've had their long reign, starting with Saul and David, right after Moses leads the children of Israel out of Egypt. They've got the period of the judges, and then they set up kings after Samuel was basically the last judge, then King Saul, King David, Solomon, right? And it goes down that whole line. And over the course of that timeframe, they're kind of going back and forth between being on fire and zealous for serving the Lord, and then kind of turn their back on God and going astray and going after false gods and idols. And they kind of get to this point to where they've just really transgressed against the Lord, and God decides He's just gonna bring them into captivity, so that's it. I'm taking you out of their land, which was already foreshadowed, was already foretold, already promised from the Lord when He gave the law to Moses, saying, look, if you follow me, basically you're gonna be blessed. I'm gonna bless you. You know, you're gonna have things in abundance. I'm gonna make sure that you're in safety. And He says, but if you forsake me, then, you know, all these bad things are gonna come upon you, and they did. And they got taken captive. They were brought into another land. So, but now we're at the point to where things are gonna be rebuilt, because when they were taken over, they were conquered. You know, the temple was destroyed, Solomon's temple, and it was a great defeat. But God put it into the hearts of these kings that had taken them captive to allow them to start rebuilding and doing the work of the Lord, because there was a timeframe that was set of 70 years for them that they were gonna be gone before they were gonna be allowed to return. And what we're seeing here is the people basically getting excited, you know, to get back into things, to rebuild the work. Now, I understand, you know, what we've been doing is nothing compared to this. This is, you know, I just think this is a great story, and this is kind of the way I feel a little bit about even just not having our church services for a few weeks or however long it's been, right? It hasn't even been that long, but I'm kind of amped up and ready to go, and hopefully you guys are too, but I wanna kind of look at this and, you know, teach a few lessons out of here. The Bible says in Psalm 122, verse one, "'I was glad when they said unto me, "'let us go into the house of the Lord.'" Now, hopefully, church hadn't become just this, oh, we gotta go to church again. Oh, it's Sunday, oh, you know, whatever. We always ought to be happy to go to the house of the Lord. It ought to be something you look forward to. It ought to be something that it's not just some checklist thing that you gotta do because I gotta be right with God and I don't wanna forsake the assembling, so I guess I better go to church. You know, when you have the right attitude, we should be glad when we say, hey, let's go to the house of the Lord. Let's go to church. Let's go congregate around other like-minded believers, but I'll tell you what, I understand what it's like being in the flesh, being a human being, having a sinful body that sometimes doesn't wanna go to church, but you know what, just a little bit of that being removed goes a long way to bring back the desire to realize how important it is and go, man, you know, we've been missing this for so long. I need to get that back. And sometimes, you know, because things are, become normal and you get used to them being there, oftentimes you kinda have a tendency to, in your eyes, the value isn't quite as high as it ought to be just because it's expected, it's there, you expect to have things every day, you know, but once something gets taken away from you, all of a sudden you realize, wow, you know, this really was important, we need to get this back. You know, and even for the children of Israel, when God took them captive out of their land, it's one of the way of saying, okay, you know, I gave you all this stuff, I gave you the promised land, I gave you everything, and you basically treated it like it was nothing. It was just like, and he treated more importantly, they kind of just disregarded the Lord that gave them everything. And his punishment was, okay, well now I'm gonna take it away from you because that's gonna go a long way to getting them humbled to wanna go back and be appreciative of all that the Lord has done for them and to get back to doing the work that God has laid out for them because, you know, over time people have a tendency just to kinda get complacent or even lazy and get misguided, get off track. So I wanna use this event to just help reset ourselves to get back on track, to kinda reinvigorate things, get excited about the things of the Lord again, whether or not you were before, let's get excited about them now. You know, hopefully you were before, but you know what, we got today, we've got where we're at right now, let's move forward. One of the things I really like in Ezra, we're gonna flip over, we're done here with Ezra to Nehemiah, it's the same story essentially, just two different perspectives on the same thing, rebuilding the temple and everything. Ezra chapter three, where we started, look at verse number one, the Bible reads, and when the seventh month was come, and the children of Israel were in the cities, the people gathered themselves together as one man to Jerusalem. The people were unified in this effort to do this great work, because they were coming together to rebuild, they were coming together to lay the foundation of the temple, rebuild the walls of Jerusalem, and just kinda get things back to at least a shadow of what they were before. And when we see what ends up at the last few verses, there are people who had seen the original temple, they were still alive. They called them ancient men, there were some old men that were alive, and they saw the way the old temple was before, so now when they laid the foundation, they could tell this isn't going to be the same as what it was before, so they're kinda weeping, they're sad, but everyone else is excited. They're like, hey, what's in the past? They're willing to say whatever's in the past is in the past, but let's move forward and work with what we have right now. And that is exciting, and we can't dwell on the past or on the victories of the past, the successes of the past, anything that you've done in the past, don't let your mind dwell on that. Maybe you've already had some heyday of spirituality in your life, you go, oh man, I'd like to go back to that. Don't be like the guy who never leaves high school in his mind and is just always thinking about, oh man, those glory days back when I was in high school, everything was just so great, and I was at the prime, and I had all this, don't live in the past like that, okay? You're still alive right now. Don't die before your time. Don't look back to some heyday. You make the best with what you have right now, get excited about it, get motivated, and get to work. You can still do a lot right now, regardless of what you've done in the past. And this is a bad mindset for the people, oh, we saw the old temple, this is gonna be nothing like that. Look, don't have that bad attitude. There's a bunch of people excited already, what are you doing weeping about it? Why don't you get on board and get excited with them? But let's keep reading here in Ezra chapter three, verse number one, it says they're coming together as one man, they're unified to do this work. And I'd really like to see our church to just come together and be unified, moving forward to do a great work for the Lord and really be able to come together and I'm hoping to see a lot of people step up and be able to make extra sacrifices to do the work of the Lord. And look, I'm not saying this thinking that people haven't already made sacrifices. Okay, I'm not downplaying anybody in particular or even in general of the amount of effort and work. The people here are great and I love everyone here. I just wanna keep on moving forward and still just press even harder, let's come together. Let's make more sacrifices, do more as a church, as a group, as a team together to serve the Lord. Let's help each other and exhort one another to do that and to do more. And I'm taking this seriously for myself. I've already started making a list, we'll go over this probably this evening of things that I want to see get done that I think is going to be beneficial for the church. That is gonna be helpful. And I'm gonna appreciate any ideas too that you might have because this is our church, it's not my church. This is, you know, I may be running things here administratively, but everybody here is really important. All of you as members have an important part to play in this church. And I'm looking forward to getting more, just what more can we do? So I say, you know what more we could do? We could do soul winning marathons. I've got that in queue. There's a bunch of things. And again, I'm not gonna go through all the list right now because there's multiple things that we can be doing to try to reach more people. Ultimately reaching more people with the gospel of Jesus Christ, changing lives, helping people to become better Christians, you know, basically the Great Commission. That's our job and that's what we need to be focused on. And how are we gonna come together? I want us to come together as one man to our church and build and rebuild and keep moving forward. Look at verse number two, the Bible says, then set up Joshua, the son of Josadak and his brethren, the priests, and Zerubbabel, the son of Shealtiel and his brethren, and builded the altar of the God of Israel to offer burnt offerings thereon, as it is written in law of Moses, the man of God. So their very first priority here is, hey, we need to build this altar and get right with God as far as these offerings are concerned, right? Now, obviously we're not doing, you know, building these altars and doing, making these sacrifices, because Jesus Christ is our sacrifice. But we started today with honoring the Lord Jesus Christ and honoring what He did for us and the sacrifice that He made and putting that first. That was a primacy. That was something that we are putting Him first, recognizing our Lord Jesus Christ to maintain the focus of what we're doing going forward. They are doing something similar here with building the altar and offering these burnt offerings thereon and going right back. It says, as it is written in law of Moses. So they're going back to scripture and doing everything the right way. Verse number three, and they set the altar upon His bases, for fear was upon them because of the people of those countries. And they offered burnt offerings thereon unto the Lord, even burnt offerings morning and evening. They kept also the Feast of Tabernacles as it is written and offered the daily burnt offerings by number according to the custom as the duty of every day required. And notice there in verse number three, it says they set the altar upon His bases for fear was upon them because of the people of those countries. So while they're in the midst of getting back into serving the Lord and doing His sacrifices, they were afraid of what the people of the country around about were going to do. Because remember, they got taken captive and other people kind of had come in and were living in that area. And they're saying, you know, we don't know what these people are going to think or do to us because now we're bringing back our, you know, serving the Lord and bringing back the sacrifices, but they did it anyways. You know, regardless of what might happen, someone might get upset because it's not their religion or whatever, you know, or are they going to try to fight us? Who knows what's going to happen? They did it anyways. They did it morning, evening. They didn't hold back. Verse number five, and afterward offered the continual burnt offering both of the new moons and of all the set feasts of the Lord that were consecrated and of everyone that willingly offered a free will offering unto the Lord. And let's turn over, if you would, to Nehemiah chapter two. Now, Nehemiah was a governor of the land here, and we're going to see kind of his perspective of the same story. Look at chapter two, verse number 17. The Bible reads, then said I unto them, ye see the distress that we are in, how Jerusalem lieth waste and the gates thereof are burned with fire. Come and let us build up the wall of Jerusalem that we be no more a reproach. Then I told them of the hand of my God, which is good upon me, as also the king's words that he had spoken unto me. So up to this point, Nehemiah had in his heart, you know, he was longing for Jerusalem and he was serving the king at the time. And the king noticed that he was, you know, kind of visibly upset. And he asked him about it and Nehemiah told him, and the king basically gave him orders to be able to go back and rebuild and reconstruct and rebuild the temple and things like that. And that was God working in his heart. That was God allowing this to happen. And now when he goes here back to Jerusalem, he didn't even tell the, you know, the remnant of the people that were still there. He didn't go and tell anyone yet. He kind of surveyed the land and kind of got a good scope of the project of what needed to be done and didn't tell anybody. And he knew there was gonna be people that would oppose him. But before he even told anyone, he kind of looked around, scouted it out. And then he tells them, he says, I told them of the hand of my God, which was good upon me. So all the blessings that he'd gotten from the king and from God, you know, putting in his heart to go and do this great work. And he says, as also the king's words that had spoken unto me and they said, let us rise up and build. So they strengthened their hands for this good work. So that was encouraging, that was motivating. They hear, man, God's really worked in your life and the king's given you all this stuff and basically allowed for this to happen. So let's all rise up and build. Let's all work together. He's able to get the whole group of people that were there together for this good work. Flip over to chapter number three, Nehemiah chapter three, verse number one. The Bible reads, then Eliashib, the high priest, rose up with his brother and the priests and they builded the sheep gate. They sanctified it and set up the doors of it, even unto the tower of Mia, they sanctified it unto the tower of Hananel. And next unto him builded the men of Jericho and next to them builded Zachar, the son of Imre. And you're gonna see, it lists off a lot of different people and where they were located and what they were focused on building. But one of the things we see as a big overview is all these people working together. They all had their own area that they were working on, their own section, but it was all for the greater good, for the greater whole of building the walls all the way around. And they focused on their area to work together. But let's keep reading in verse number three. It says, but the fish gate did the sons of Hasanah build, who also laid the beams thereof and set up the doors thereof and locks thereof and the bars thereof. And next unto them repaired Miramoth, the son of Urijah, the son of Kaz. And next unto them repaired Meshulam, the son of Barakiah, the son of Mehezabel. And next unto them repaired Zadok, the son of Banah. Look at verse number five. And next unto them the Ticoites repaired, but their nobles put not their necks to the work of their Lord. When we build a great project, look, don't feel like you're too good to do any of the work that the Lord has for you to do. These nobles, I could only imagine here, there's a reason why it's put in Scripture just to let us know. Their nobles, they didn't put their necks to the work of the Lord. And notice, it wasn't that this work that they're doing is the work to their Lord, right? For whatever reason, they thought that they were too good to pick up a hammer, you know, to get dirty, to go and build this wall, that they were too good. Oh, I'm not gonna do that. We can't have that attitude, okay? We have few laborers already as it is. We all need to be in this together. And you know, in order for everything to function properly, everyone needs to be working. And no job is too little or too small. If we're gonna get something big done, we all have to be working together. And no one ought to have the attitude going, oh, well, you know, I'm too good for that. We're not too good for that. God's got a big work for us to do. Let's roll up our sleeves and do it. Jump down to verse number 12, because that was just those particular people that, you know, the Ticoites repaired, but their nobles, you know, they didn't want to get dirty. But it wasn't like all the nobles of all the people were like this. They were specific ones that were called out. Verse number 12 says, and next unto him repaired, Shalom the son of Helohesh, the ruler of the half part of Jerusalem. So it wasn't like all of these nobles were the ones that weren't working. It was just that specific sect. Because here we have a good example of the ruler of the half part of Jerusalem. It says he and his daughters. So he's bringing his daughters out and getting everybody involved. And we have a big work to do. You know, one of the best ways to teach your children is to bring them with you to do the work. You're doing a work for the Lord. Don't treat them as a nuisance. Oh yeah, you know, go away. I've got too many important things to do. How about you bring them with you? How about when you go solo and you can bring your kids with you, they can learn how to preach the gospel. They can learn how you do things and learn how to serve the Lord with you together instead of just brushing them up. This is what we see here that Shalom is doing, that he brings him and his daughters with him to help do the work. Hey, every hand on deck. Flip over to chapter number four. Chapter number four, verse number one, the Bible reads, but it came to pass that when Senballat heard that we builded the wall, he was wroth and took great indignation and mocked the Jews. And he spake before his brethren in the army of Samaria and said, what do these feeble Jews? Will they fortify themselves? Will they sacrifice? Will they make an end in a day? Will they revive the stones out of the heaps of the rubbish which are burned? Now Tobiah the Ammonite was by him and he said, even that which they build, if a fox go up, he shall even break down their stone wall. So what we see here when this great work starts is that the people that hate the Lord and that hate these people, they're gonna start mocking, right? And at first it just seems like it's too great of a task. There's no way they're ever gonna do it. So they're just gonna mock and ridicule. You know, we have a vision of reaching everybody in the Atlanta area with the gospel of Jesus Christ. You might say, oh, well that's such a huge task and it's easy for people to mock us. Oh, you're just some little strip mall church. What are you gonna accomplish? What are you gonna do? You're barely doing anything. Don't fall for that type of just negative attitude because all that they're trying to do is to get you not to do the work. But see, if the Lord is in the work, God can make anything happen, okay? If we're here just yielding ourselves, let's let God get the credit for the big work that's being done. As they were doing here, we work to come together to work for the Lord, but let's let God do the real heavy lifting and see what He's capable of doing and let Him get all the honor and credit anyways because He's deserving of it. But you see the attacks that come just immediately. Oh, they're trying to do something? Let's try to bring their spirits down. Let's just try to throw a big wet blanket on it. Let's just make fun of them. You know, be prepared of that. Be prepared. You know, I've heard people say, oh, you think that you're really doing any good by going out and trying to preach the gospel? Yes, I do. Verse number four. Hear, oh our God, for we are despised and turn their reproach upon their own head and give them for a prey in the land of captivity and cover not their iniquity and let not their sin be blotted out from before thee, for they have provoked thee to anger before the builders. So they just go to God and say, God, you know, hear what these people are saying. Hear how they're provoking you and distaining you, Lord. Don't blot out their sin. You know, bring it back on their own heads. Verse number six. So built we the wall, and all the wall was joined together under the half thereof, for the people had a mind to work. See, one of the reasons why this was getting done is because all the people were joined together and they had a mind to work. We need to have a mind to work, especially coming out of, you know, this whole shutdown and lockdown. It's, you know, for a lot of people, and I don't know how it's been individually for anyone here, but a lot of people have been, you know, furloughed, not working, kept home, you know, and kind of get into this routine of just not doing much. And I don't want that to permeate into serving the Lord and saying, you know what? I haven't been soul winning. I haven't done this, I haven't done that. Look, we need to have a mind to work. And whatever has been done in the past or not done in the past at this point, we need to move forward and come together and get a mind to work and say, you know what? We're gonna roll up our sleeves and we're gonna get back to work. We've got a lot of work to do and we haven't done nearly as much. You know, the building kind of stopped and took a hiatus. The main work that we were doing ceased. But we need to get back to work. We need to pick up the tools again and get back out there, take the sword with us, take the Word of God with us and reach the lost with the gospel of Jesus Christ. That is the main work that we have set before us. Verse number seven says, but it came to pass that when Sanballat and Tobiah and the Arabians and the Ammonites and the Ashtodites heard that the walls of Jerusalem were made up and that the breaches began to be stopped, then they were very raw. See, it just makes them angry. They see that they're making progress and it makes them angry. And these people just represent people that hate God. There's always gonna be people that hate God. They're gonna hate the gospel. They're gonna hate the Bible. They're gonna hate everything about it. And it makes them angry when you're actually doing something good and doing a good work. So instead of mocking, now notice, they up it a little bit. Verse number eight, it says, and conspired all of them together to come and to fight against Jerusalem and to hinder it. So they're saying, well, now we're gonna step in and do something about this. They wanted to start a fight. And it says in verse nine, nevertheless, we made our prayer unto our God. And notice again, the primacy. First, it's going to God, always going to God first. First, we're setting up the altars. First, we're doing exactly as the Lord. First, we're making our prayer unto God. When they started even just with the name calling and ridiculing, what'd they do? They went to God. When they're getting word now that, hey, these people actually gonna come and fight against us, the first thing you do is you go to God in prayer. And then it says, and set a watch against them day and night because of them. Now, real quick, I just wanna make this point too. You know, we know, as I mentioned in the announcements, I mentioned earlier that there's a lot of things I wanna do to kind of help build our church and to help grow our church. And I fully and firmly believe that the Lord builds the church, right? The Lord is the one that should be adding to the church. However, it's the same way. It's not like we could just sit back and expect this all to happen. The same way that we know that the Lord has promised to feed us and clothe us and stuff, but at the same time, you still need to get to work and work hard and you need to do what you can do, right? We're relying on God, but He doesn't expect you just to sit there and do nothing. We don't just sit back and say, well, I'm just gonna let God build the church and I'm not gonna do anything for Him. Why would God build the church if no one's doing anything for Him? We need to put forth the effort. We need to put forth the work. Yes, ultimately God will build the church, but let's do everything that we can to show God that we're serious about this and to do all that's in our power. Let God build the church, but He's not gonna do it if you're not putting forth the work. It's like He's not gonna put food in your belly if you're not willing to go to work. It's just not gonna happen. Now, yes, seek ye first the kingdom of God and His righteousness and all these things shall be added unto you, but you're still working, right? Because you're seeking the kingdom of God and you're doing the work of the Lord. If you choose to do the work of the Lord full-time, I fully believe that He will take care of you and make sure that you're fed and clothed. He promised that. I know that that will happen, but you're still working. Whether it be a secular job or not isn't the point. It's you're going forth and working and the promise is for those that are gonna serve Him and seek Him first. Put the Lord first. He'll take care of you, but you gotta do that. And if we want our church to succeed and to grow, yes, we're gonna rely on the Lord to build the house, but you know what? We're gonna put forth the work. We're gonna roll up our sleeves and do everything that we can to help and to be God's husbandry and to be the workers that God can use to actually build this place up. Verse number seven, excuse me. No, verse number nine. Nevertheless, we made our prayer unto God and set a watch against them day and night because of them. So, see here, they pray unto God. That's who they're relying on to defend them, but at the same time, they still set up a watch. It's still wise. It's still a good idea. It's still smart to have a watch out there. Yes, they're trusting in the Lord. It's evident. We know they're trusting in the Lord. They're doing these things, even though they have some fears about the people around them, but when you get wind of something like this, they're gonna do everything in their power that's wise. First, go to the Lord, trust in Him, but then, yeah, we're gonna set up a watch too. We're gonna kinda do things to make sure that we can handle this if they do attack us. It says in verse 10, And Judah said, The strength of the bearers of burdens is decayed, and there is much rubbish, so that we are not able to build the wall. And our adversaries said, They shall not know, neither see, till we come in the midst among them and slay them and cause the work to cease. And it came to pass that when the Jews which dwelt by them came, they said unto us ten times, From all places, once ye shall return unto us, they will be upon you. So they're hearing this over and over again, and they're just trying to warn them repeatedly. Hey, these people are gonna come upon you. Verse 13, Therefore, set I in the lower places behind the wall, and on the higher places. I even set the people after their families, with their swords, their spears, and their bows. And I looked and rose up and said unto the nobles, and to the rulers, and to the rest of the people, Be not ye afraid of them. Remember the Lord, which is great and terrible, and fight for your brethren, your sons, and your daughters, your wives, and your houses. And he said, You know what? We're not gonna allow this work to cease, even under these threats of violence. They say, You know what? We're gonna continue doing this work. We'll arm ourselves. We'll set up a watch, and we're gonna stay right here, and we're gonna not back down until we will get this work done. Now, they're not going out and trying to start a fight. They're just trying to do the work of the Lord. But you know what? If people were gonna come and try to stop the work of the Lord, they're saying, Not gonna happen. Not gonna allow it to happen. Sorry, I've got a work to do. I've gotta serve the Lord. He's got a job for me to do. I'm not gonna let that happen. Lord, we're trusting in You. God be with us. But at the same time, they're arming themselves, and getting prepared, and being ready. And we see this example over, and over, and over again throughout Scripture. This is the example that we ought to be following as well. Obviously, given the similar circumstances, I'm not saying we're in this circumstance right now, but this is the mind that they had set themselves to, that they're not gonna let anything stop them from doing the work that they're doing. Verse number 15 says, And it came to pass when our enemies heard that it was known unto us, and God had brought their counsel to naught, that we returned all of us to the wall, every one unto his work. So basically, the word got back and said, hey, they know what you're gonna do. They know you're conspiring against them, and they're prepared, and they're ready to defend themselves and then they just decided not to do it. They called it off and said, okay, fine, we're not gonna do that. So then they just get right back to work. There's this temporary problem. They get ready, they're armed, and they say, okay, well, back to work again. And then later on, they see they're working, and they've got their weapons with them. So they're able to continue the work and still be prepared. And then, of course, there's other things, I'm not gonna go through all the rest of the story, but they continue to try other tactics, to try to get the work to stop, to try to attack the leadership, to try to get Nehemiah out of the picture because he's kind of driving this work and is in charge of it, and they do all these different things to try to stop it, but it doesn't fail because the people that are mine to work and they maintained the right focus. The last place I want you to turn, if you would, please, is to Ephesians chapter number two. Short sermon this morning, but I just wanna drive home the point and just hopefully edify you and encourage you to ramp things up and get ready to do more work for the Lord. Because it is our job, God has a work set out before us. And I believe that this whole church coming together here is formed by the Lord, that God wants his church to be here, that God brought all the people together, and that we have a great work to do. And look, there's a lot of people in the past in Georgia that have done a great work for the Lord. And that's evident, but you know what? We're not gonna look back on the old temple as it were and worry about what they've done. Let's get excited about a new temple coming up, new churches popping up that are gonna have the same zeal or even more zeal to serve the Lord and to really just get the gospel out there to the people in our area that we could influence and we could impact. That's what we wanna do. And be reminded of this, of course, in Ephesians chapter two verse number eight, very famous passage that we always use going out soul-winding, I know I do. For by grace are you saved through faith and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God, not of works, as any man should boast, while yes, our salvation were bought and paid for, free and clear, and you just put your faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, He gives you eternal life. Amen and amen, that's great, that's easy, that's not hard, that requires no work. Your soul is saved forever, you are in God's family, you have a home in heaven, amen, but that is not where it ends, and we keep reading verse number 10 says, for we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works. That new man that is born again inside of you is created unto good works. God wants you and expects you to be a workman for Him, to be a laborer for Him, not just to sit at home, not just to spend time with your family, but to go out and do the work that He set before you. We are created unto good works, which God had before ordained that we should walk in them. While it's not a requirement for your salvation, it is what's expected of you, it's what you were created for, to do good works. God has work for us to do. Let's join together in one mind, and come together, and do this great work that's set before us. Whatever's happened in the past is in the past. Let's move forward from today, come together, work, do God's work, and really get excited about it. You should be happy, I'm pretty sure everyone is, I've seen a lot of smiling faces, and everyone's saying they're happy to be here. I know I'm ecstatic to be here, I'm so happy to see faces again sitting in this room. I can't tell you what it's been like coming here and preaching to a camera and just a few people, but having people in the church coming together is awesome. Let's just pray that God will lead us, direct us in the work that He has set for us, and let's bow our eyes and have a word of prayer. Dear Heavenly Father, Lord, we thank you so much for bringing this church together, for building this church as you have, dear Lord. I pray that you would please help us to do everything in our power that we can to serve you, to be laborers, to be workers, dear Lord. Equip us with what we need, equip us with the truth, dear Lord. Help us to be able to win people over, that their souls will be converted, and that we can do a really good job of showing them all the great truth from your word, and that your word can be sown in their hearts, and that they can receive Jesus Christ, Lord. And help us to not just stop with the salvation, Lord, but to be able to, as much as we can and as efficiently as we can, dear Lord, to be able to help make disciples and to get people stirred up and on fire to serve you. God, we need that direction. We need your help, but we are here yielding ourselves up, and I believe we're here together with one mind to work. Lord, we love you, it's in Jesus' name we pray, amen.