[Music]

The hope of Mars Hill since the beginning is that Seattle is a great city, and what it needs is a great city within that city, a city that loves Jesus, a city that believes scripture, a city that lives for the good of the whole city, not just its own self-interest. And so Mars Hill started off as an experiment to see if we can build a city within the city that would love the city and seek a transformation of the city, as the city meets Jesus.

Very good to see you. Welcome to Mars Hill. My name’s Mark. We start a new book of the Bible today, Nehemiah. I got all dressed up in my South Park Jesus T-shirt to celebrate (Laughter). So if you’ve got a Bible, you can go to the Book of Nehemiah. One of my favorite things is to teach through books of the Bible. We just finished Ruth, and I really appreciated you guys allowing me to teach that. And Nehemiah is a great book as well. So it’s good to have you with us. I’m gonna go ahead and pray, and we’ll just get right to work, see what God the Holy Spirit has for us to night in scripture.

Father, we begin by thanking you for being a wonderful, glorious, good, loving God who cares for your people and has attended to their prayers. And so, God, we’re grateful that at any time we can speak to you, and you’re ready to listen and to hear the answer because you’re a father who cares about his kids. God, it is my prayer tonight that this city would learn about the greatness of Jesus, but that, first of all, your people would be clear about the greatness of Jesus and that it would begin with us here tonight.

And so, God, we ask, as we open the scriptures, that Jesus would be the center of our focus, the object of our affection, and the clear desire of our motive and deed and life in – always. For that to happen, we invite you, Holy Spirit, to join us, to lead us, to guide us, convict us, instruct us, to make the scriptures alive and applicable, and make Jesus real and personal. And we ask this in his good name. Amen.

Starting in Nehemiah, I’ll do a little bit of an introduction. And sometimes when you pick up the Bible, you’re looking at stories that are thousands of years old, written to people who live in places far, far away from where we find ourselves both geographically and culturally. And the question that begs to be answered is “Well, how does the Bible relate to us?” Here we are in an urban area in the United States of America a few thousand years, actually roughly two-and-a-half thousand years removed from the Book of Nehemiah. And, interestingly enough, Jesus talks about cities, and he talks about urban life, and he talks about our life in a city as his people.

He says in the Matthew 5:14 “You are the light of the world. A city on a hill that cannot be hidden.” Jesus says that in the city there should be another city, a smaller city, a city within that city, a city that is the church that lives according to the teaching of the Bible and honors the God of the Bible, the Lord Jesus Christ. And Jesus says that as there is darkness in a city like ours, there is to be light that emanates out from the church to the city. And the storyline of the Bible is actually from a garden to a city. The first two chapters of the Bible give us the Garden of Eden, sort of prototypical idyllic life in a rural setting. And then God tells our first parents to be fruitful, increase in number, multiple, fill the earth, subdue it, make culture, make babies, fill the earth up.

The Bible then ends with what that vision looks like in the last two chapters of Revelation whereby it is the city of the New Jerusalem coming down out of heaven. And I want you to get this picture that when Jesus comes, he will bring with him a city. And Jesus right now is living in a city called the New Jerusalem in heaven. And so God’s vision is urban. God’s vision is for the city. And this may shock some of you because Christianity has – I’m not sure why, but wrongly been associated with rural life. All right? If you believe in Jesus, you read books on the rapture, and you freak yourself out, and you move to a far away place, and you get canned goods, and you boil your water, and your wife wears a doily on her head, and your kids don’t watch TV (Laughter), and you make your own clothes, and you wait for Armageddon.

And that’s sort of, you know, the picture that even people in our own city have of Jesus. And when we’re talking about cities, we’re talking about two things sociologically. Density and diversity. Meaning there’s more people per square mile, and there’s more kinds of people. Races, religion, socioeconomic backgrounds, life stages, those kinds of things. And interestingly enough, as we read the storyline of the Bible, what we see is that there is a prototypical city in the scriptures called Jerusalem, also called Zion, mentioned roughly 1,000 times. And that city of Jerusalem is to be the city of God. It is to be the place where God is worshipped and God’s word is honored and God’s people live together, counter-cultural kingdom lives doing sex and money and power and gender and marriage and such things differently, which is what it means to be holy in a way that is different from people who don’t know God.

And that Jerusalem is typified in scripture as being a city that exists to be an example to the other cities to show what life could be like if people had faith in the God of the Bible and lived obediently to the God of the Bible. And this is important because as we get into the Book of Nehemiah, what we’re going to discover is that the heart of Nehemiah is to be laboring to build the city of Jerusalem, this big church, as it were, to be an example to the nations of the earth. And it gives us hope as urban people in a city that God has a heart for the city, particularly our city as well. And that Christianity has historically been an urban religion. This, again, may surprise you, but historians like Wayne Meeks and Rodney Stark say that. Christianity began as an urban phenomenon.

If you read the Book of Acts, you’ll see that, for example, the Apostle Paul moves from one city to the next, and many of the letters in the New Testament are written to the churches and cities like Thessalonica and Corinth and Galatian, Philippe. The church went from city to city almost altogether ignoring the suburban and rural areas, so much so that by the year 300 half of all the citizens of major Roman cities were Christian. Ninety percent of the people who lived on the farm were still pagans. Some etymologists will tell you that, in fact, pagan literally means the guy who lives on the farm. Okay? Are you saying you hate people on the farm? No, I’m not saying I hate people on the farms. I love them. Sometimes I covet their life. A lot of land would be nice (Laughter). But if God loves people, that would mean that he has a particular affection for the city because there’s more people there, right?

I was dealing – two weeks ago I was in San Diego, for example, and a guy who’s a pastor in Arkansas came up to me and he said, “Well, what do you think I should do at my church?” I said, “Well, tell me about your culture.” He said, “I’m in Arkansas. We got more hogs in our county than people (Laughter).” I was like “Dude, I do not know what to do with hogs. I do not know how to reach hogs. I do not know how to disciple hogs. I don’t have any hogology. I am hog free. I never even seen a hog, other than a Harley Davidson. I’m a city boy. I don’t have any hogs (Laughter).” I said, “I don’t know, dude. I mean, God’s eye is on the sparrow, so I guess it’s on the hog too, technically, but I don’t know what to do with a county that’s got more hogs than people. “ And I’m glad he’s there. I’m glad I’m not there. I’m glad he’s there.

And everywhere that there are people there should be a church. That can be rural and/or suburban or urban. But the strategic importance of the city is this, that in the city that’s where culture is made. That’s where the media outlets are located, radio stations, television, newspaper, colleges, universities. Courts are located there. Lawyers tend to be concentrated there. Population center is there, so the vote for what happens in a particular or region or state is dominated by the major city. Transportation. Import. Export. Trade. Travel. Medicine. All of those things transpire in the city, which means that if Christians care about culture, they also have to keep an eye on the city. They have to move to the city and live in the city and love the city and serve the city because as goes the city, so goes the region and so goes the world. And if you want to reach the world, you got to reach the city because it’s through those channels of communication and delivery of goods and services that the Gospel also has the opportunity, the good news of Jesus also has the opportunity of expanding out to the world.

And so as we examine the Book of Nehemiah, here’s what we’re going to learn, that the book is not just about building a set of walls. So many of the commentators will say, “And this is about a building project.” Well, it is, but it’s ultimately about building a home for the church, God’s people in the Old Testament to gather together to read scripture, to pray, to worship, to live in a city within the city, to live as a city of light that emanates out to the world to give an example of what life could be like through Jesus. And so when we read Nehemiah, I need you to understand that we really are talking about a group of people who are undertaking a project that is very much similar to ours. They’re urban, we’re urban. They love the God of the Bible, we love the God of the Bible. They’re in a culture that desperately needs the God of the Bible. We’re in a culture that desperately needs the God of the Bible. They are waiting for Jesus. We’re waiting for the second coming of Jesus.

And God is going to use this man, Nehemiah, to begin to lead God’s people toward God’s mission. And so I need you to start to think in the grand theme of the book, which is building a city within the city, about Mars Hill Church as being a city, a little city within the big city of Seattle. We’ll have about 6,000 people in worship today, roughly, give or take. There’s maybe about 8,000 or 10,000 people that call Mars Hill home. We’re a little city within the city. We’re the size of, for example, Gig Harbor or Port Orchard or Snoqualmie. We’re as big as those cities. We’re a city all unto ourselves right here in Seattle. We don’t hate Seattle. We love it. We’re not here just to do good to the Christians. We’re here to do good to everyone so that more people might become Christians. Nehemiah has a lot of insights about how we are to conduct ourselves in this city for Jesus, the God of the Bible, in building our church as a city within the city.

We’ll start in 1:1. The words of Nehemiah. There’s our main character. He is the primary human character in the book. God is obviously the hero. The son of Hacaliah. Couple things I’ll tell ya about Nehemiah. You’re gonna get to know him well over the coming months. First of all, he’s not a paid religious professional. Okay? 
One of the things that troubles me as a paid religious profession is that the Bible has a lot of bad things to say about us. That always concerns me. “You’re the guys who kill Jesus”, stuff like that. He is not a religion-paid professional. He didn’t go to seminary, Bible college. He’s not a pastor. He’s not a priest. He’s just a dude working a job. Okay? And for those of you that are just working a job, I hope that’s an encouragement, that God often times uses the skills, talents, abilities of people who love him, regardless of their vocation, to do amazing thing. Secondly, he’s never mentioned in the New Testament, though he is arguably one of the greatest leaders in all of scripture.

And thirdly, much of the Book of Nehemiah, as you read it, you’re going to be reading pages from his personal journal. How many of you are journalers, you right diaries, right, keep a journal? Two of you raise your hand. The rest won’t. You don’t want anybody to know ‘cause they’ll read it. I understand (Laughter). And with the Internet, that’s a terrifying thing to keep a journal lying around. The first seven chapters and the thirteenth chapter are, in my estimation, journal entries from Nehemiah. So as you read the book, you’re not going to get the external perspective of the media and all of those people that are looking in on what Nehemiah is doing to build this city within a city, this church. You will instead be looking inside out from the heart of Nehemiah, and you’ll get to know the man as he feels and as he thinks about what God has called him to do.

He’s a kindred spirit to my nine-year-old daughter who’s a journaler. She’s loves to journal. Every night she grabs her journal, she reads her Bible, prays, and she journals. That’s one of the spiritual disciplines that we get to enjoy as God’s people. And journaling helps us to pray, to focus, to repent, to learn, to gather our thoughts, to remember how God has been involved in our life, to cry out to him in our points of need. And the first seven and the thirteenth chapter are journal entries that definitely give you a sense of his heart. And you’ll get to know the man as he speaks for himself.

He goes on to tell the story. “Now it happened in the month of Chislev.” That’s in the winter. Maybe November, December. You’re looking at the winter months. “In the 20th year.” That’s the 20th year of the reign of the king. So this is about 445 BC. “As I was at Susa, the capital that Hanani, one of my brothers, came with certain from Judah.” So some visitors come to see him. “And I ask them, concerning the Jews who escaped, who had survived the exile, and concerning Jerusalem, and they said to me ‘The remnant there in the province who had survived the exile is in great trouble and shame. The wall of Jerusalem is broken down, and its gates are destroyed by fire.’” Okay? He’s working in the capital. You’ll see he’s working, actually, for the king. And what he says is that some people came to visit him from the town of Jerusalem. And what they tell him is very concerning, that the town has been attacked by the Babylonians and that the walls surrounding the city have been destroyed and that the gates have been burned. All right?

The way this worked in antiquity is that a city would be built inside of walls. And walls were to fortify and protect the city from war, from what we would call terrorist attack, people coming in and just killing innocent civilians. And they would put in the wall gates. And when there was danger or potential for siege, they would shut the gates and the army, the soldiers would defend the gates and defend the wall. So to survive as a people, you had to have a wall and an army, but without the wall, the army was altogether worthless because you had no point of defense. What he’s saying is that the Babylonians had come in, they had attacked the city, they had broken the wall, they had burned out the gates, they had hauled God’s people off into exile. So now God’s people can’t get together for church and Bible study and worship. They’re scattered this is a crisis. The handful who are left that weren’t taken off into exile are in shame, disgrace, poverty. Their city is destroyed.

You’re looking at people, modern day equivalent, who are living in conditions not unlike those in New Orleans where the city is just destroyed and it’s a ghost town and everyone is gone. And there’s no infrastructure, and there’s no safety. And it’s a deadly and dangerous and desperate place to be. And Nehemiah hears of this. He hears that God’s people have been destroyed. It would be the equivalent today to hearing that Mars Hill Church had been burned to the ground and that we couldn’t have church anymore and that many people had scattered. They’d either been taken or they had died or in fear they had run for their lives. And that we couldn’t gather back together for worship, and we couldn’t regroup, and we couldn’t rebuild, and it was a hopeless time. And I want you to see that within these walls the goal was to have a church. It was to have God’s people living together, obeying God, worshipping him, praying him, loving him, gathering together for church. And that is all destroyed.

And I want you think “What would it be like if we couldn’t even worship anymore?” I mean, how tragic would that be if we couldn’t enjoy the luxuries that we do, assuming “Well, if I go to Mars Hill, they’ll be there. No one will have killed the Christians, no one will have burned down the building. My brothers and sisters won’t be exiled. They’ll still be there.” They’d lost, I think, what they had taken for granted for so many years. Nehemiah’s response is devastation. The man is absolutely heartbroken to hear this news. Verse 4. “As soon as I heard these words, as soon as I got news of the news of this situation, I sat down.” And here’s what he does. “I wept and mourned for days.” He is absolutely devastated. Like Jesus who would later weep over Jerusalem, here Nehemiah is weeping for Jerusalem. He is weeping for his city. He is weeping for his church. He is a heartbroken, devastated man.

“And I continued fasting and praying before the God of heaven.” If you connect this with 2:1, you’ll find that he fasted, prayed and wept for three or four months. He is absolutely broken, devastated, deeply moved. Let me give you one piece of history that will absolutely clarify how shocking this is. The report of the Babylonian attack was a piece of historical information that was how old? How many years prior had that event actually taken place that led to Nehemiah’s complete, emotional breakdown? How many years prior? One hundred and forty-one years. Okay? Let me give you the equivalent. All right? Some of you are like “I went to public school. I don’t get it (Laughter).” Okay. Let me tell ya what I’m talking about.

That would be a kin today of me getting up and saying, “Abraham Lincoln, President Abraham Lincoln has been shot”, and then you all mourning, fasting, and praying for three or four months, complete meltdown emotionally. It seems a little much and a little late. Does it not (Laughter)? You would say, “We know. We know he got shot, you know. We heard that. Yeah, that was a while ago (Laughter). Emotionally we’ve sort of moved on.” One hundred and forty-one years. Some of the commentators, stating the obvious, say, “It seems late.” It does (Laughter). It does seem a little late. Others say, “Well, he couldn’t have just been told that the walls were destroyed and the Babylonians had besieged because that doesn’t account for his emotional devastation. He must have gotten some new news.” Yet as we read the text, all we hear is that he got the same news that everyone had known for 141 years.

So the question is “Why is Nehemiah weeping, praying, fasting, mourning for three or four months?” I think I know why. I do not believe that Nehemiah received new information, but I do believe that he received the same information that he had always known, but it was accompanied with a new perspective. I believe that God the Holy Spirit opened Nehemiah’s heart to have the heart of Jesus, to have the heart of Jesus for that city. Some of you argue, “No, no, no. Nehemiah’s not about Jesus. That’s – no, no.” Jesus is the God of the Bible. And Nehemiah was waiting for Jesus, and we’re waiting for Jesus to come again. And I believe that as Jesus would later weep for Jerusalem, so here Nehemiah is weeping for his city of Jerusalem. And Jesus’ heart has been given to Nehemiah through God the Holy Spirit.

Let me explain why this is important to you and I. We’re in a city that is no less spiritually bankrupt, destroyed and confused than the city of Jerusalem was in that day. But you and I, if we are Christians, have this proclivity to not be troubled by it because it’s all we’ve ever known. So to us it seems normal. In that day the walls having been broken for 141 years, it seemed normal. A few generations had come and gone. That’s all the people had ever known. And what can happen is that you and I become so accustomed to brokenness and spiritual bankruptcy and devastation that we no longer share Jesus’ heart. It doesn’t break us. It doesn’t bother us. How many of you – not a show of hands, but how many of you on the way here drove by churches that are absolutely destroyed? I mean, 3,500 churches die and close every year, 80% are plateaued and declining. In our own city there are churches, I could drive you to them right now, that still have leaders in position that have abused children, and the church has sort of covered it up.

I would today drive you to a handful of churches where I know the pastor is having sex with women he’s not married to, and the church knows too and doesn’t do anything. We don’t even need to get in the car. We could walk to churches that they don’t even believe in Jesus or the Bible or heaven or hell or anything. I was dealing with a pastor not too long ago he said, “Well, our church isn’t growing, and I want to know how to get our church to grow.” I said, “Do you ever talk about Jesus? Do you tell your people about Jesus?” They said, “No. We find Jesus to be very controversial (Laughter).” I start – literally, when I get nervous, I get a twitch. My eye’s twitching. It looks like I’m flirting (Laughter). I’m not flirting. I’m trying not to kill somebody is what I’m doing (Laughter). And I said, “What?” They said, “Well, we want to welcome all the different religions.” I said, “So do we. We want to welcome ‘em to Jesus.” I mean, “What?” I said, “What are you talking about?” They said, “Well, our theology’s kind of post Jesus.” Well, I said, “It’s pre-hell (Laughter). That’s bad. Post Jesus is pre-hell. That’s not good. You’re a Christian church. You do Jesus.”

I mean, I would be so frustrated. I mean, if I went to the swimming pool and I walked in and there was no water in the pool and the lifeguard said, “Hey, we’re post water”, I’d be like “Dude, you’re a lifeguard. That’s a pool. That’s what you do. That’s all you do. That’s your thing. If I can’t swim here, where am I supposed to swim?” You know, if you go to the church and they say, “Jesus, well, not here”, where else are you gonna go? Where else are you gonna go? I’ll give you some statistics. If you’ve been here for a while, you know them because I say them all the time and apparently don’t do a lot of new research. But anyways (Laughter). I want to give you these insights to our city and region. And what I’m asking is that the Holy Spirit would give you the heart of Jesus.

And I’m not saying these to make you feel guilty. I’m not. I’m saying that God the Holy Spirit wants us to have the heart of Jesus and to see the city in its condition as Jesus sees it and to feel as Jesus feels and to respond as Jesus responded, and that’s what Nehemiah does. I’ll give you some insights to our city. They did a city of surveys on various regions of the country, all the regions of the country. They grouped various regions into a few states, and then they would give people various polls as a non-Christian organization saying, “What’s, for example, your religious preference, Buddhist, Hindu, Muslim, Jew, Christian, Protestant, Catholic, whatever?” And they titled our area, our region of the country, the Pacific Northwest, the none zone, N-O-N-E, because the box that was checked the most, the most popular religion was none. No religion, no God, no – nothing. Nothing.

We’re in the least churched region in the United States of America. The least churched states in the United States of America are Washington and Oregon. The least churched cities are Seattle and Portland. See, the seminaries and the Bible colleges and the Christian church planting efforts they never got here. They’re on the East Coast and through the south. Well, we’re up in the middle of nowhere. They never got here. Statistically, as far as the research I’ve done, there are only eight percent Evangelical, Jesus loving, Bible believing Christians in the city of Seattle. Eight percent. A researcher who’s pretty prominent, a friend of mine, says that that is about the same as mainland communist China where it’s illegal to be a Christian. So we’re doing as good as people who are going to jail for it. Not so good. As Christians, we believe in sending missionaries to peculiar eccentric tribes of lost people. And so we send people to Africa and China and Brazil. And statistically, if we’re gonna send people to China, we should also send people to Freemont and Ballard and Queen Anne and Capitol Hill. I mean, you want to see tribes of eccentric natives (Laughter). I mean, seriously.

I don’t know if you know this: Down the street we have a statue of Lenin (Laughter). Maybe you’ve driven by that and it doesn’t – you go “Hmm (Laughter).” All right? I mean, that’s where we’re at. If you believe in sending missionaries to China, which we do, you also should believe in sending missionaries to Shoreline and, you know, over to West Seattle and to our city because there’s just as great of a need here as there is anywhere else in the world, and we believe in both. You’ve heard me say before there are more dogs than Christians in Seattle. There’s 136,000 Christians and 150,000 dogs. We love dogs, by the way. I’m not against dogs. Our new outreach slogan is gonna be “Every dog needs a Christian owner (Laughter).” That’s our new pitch, you know, ‘cause the best thing for a dog is a Christian who prays for it. And every dog needs a Christian owner. “Won’t you give your life to Jesus? I mean, your dog would be so blessed if you would (Laughter).” But that’s the city we live in.

What’s curious too is between the year 1990 and the year 2000 134 churches were planted in the greater Puget Sound Seattle area, but we needed 456 churches just to keep pace with population. We’re way behind. Additionally, nationally there are 66 churches in Seattle for every 100,000 people, but outside of Seattle there’s over 100 churches for every 100,000 people. There’s not a lot of churches here, and those that are here tend to be far more liberal theologically, not Bible believing, and they tend to be much smaller than the national average. What that means is that even if this week the city decided they want to check out Jesus, there wouldn’t be churches for them. And if they went to many churches, they may not even hear about Jesus.

I was in Tennessee a few years back, a small town, and we were driving in at this conference I was speaking at. And the guy driving me – I noticed that there were churches everywhere. Literally it’s like Starbucks. Like there’s a Baptist Church across the street from the Baptist Church. You’re like “Hey, that’s like Starbucks (Laughter).” Apparently they got in a fight and, you know – and that’s how it worked. And I said, “How many Christians are in this town?” And it was a huge percentage. It was like two-thirds or three-fourths. And I said, “How many churches are there?” And he said, “If everyone in town – ” and it was a fairly good-sized town. He said, “If everyone in town decided to go to church, they could.” That would never happen at – I mean, we can’t even fathom that. And even if they did, would they hear about Jesus.

I’ll tell ya guys what just kills me, a couple things. I mean, I listen occasionally to Christian radio and preachers, and I don’t mean to be totally negative, but it’s just weird that these things don’t bother us. I’ve listened even to some local preachers, some guys I know, and they are Christians and they are friends, actually. And I’ve listened sometimes for hours and never heard about Jesus. Not a thing. Not a thing. I heard on the radio not too long ago that there were churches that were inviting in non-Christian Jewish Rabbis to teach their people about the Old Testament. I just about wrecked my car. I was like “The Bible’s about Jesus. If you don’t like him, you shouldn’t teach the Bible to the Christians.” I mean, do I need to point out the obvious that if you don’t know Jesus, the Bible doesn’t make any sense? Jesus said, John Chapter 5, “He diligently started the scriptures, thinking that in them you’ll find eternal life, yet you fail to recognize the Bible’s about me.”

After his resurrection, two times at the end of the Gospel of Luke Jesus opens the law, the prophets and the psalms, the three kinds of literature in the Old Testament, and he explains how the whole Bible’s about him. You know what Nehemiah’s about? Jesus. You know what Daniel’s about? Jesus. You know what Zechariah’s about? Jesus. You know what everything’s about? Jesus. You say, “Well, they don’t know Jesus.” Well, then they probably shouldn’t teach the Bible. We can love ‘em. I love the Jewish people. I don’t hate ‘em. I’m not angry or anything like that, but we can have coffee, we can have dialogue, we can debate, we can open the scriptures, we can argue about who the Messiah is, that’s cool, but to bring someone who doesn’t love Jesus into the Christian church and put them before all the Christians and let them teach God’s people that it’s not about Jesus? What? How can that possibly be happening? In the handful of churches that do claim to be Christian and actually do believe in the Bible.

Furthermore, in the entire Pacific Northwest there is not one church that is among the hundred largest in the United States of America. Not one. You say, “Well, big churches. Who cares?” No. A big church, if it does its job right, has big resources to be a big help. Okay? Here’s the secret on Mars Hill. I don’t really care if they’re Baptist, Presbyterian, Independent, Assemblies of God. I don’t care. Do they believe the Bible? Do they love Jesus? That’s what matters. That’s what matters. I don’t really care whose flag is flying on the pole as long as Jesus’ flag is flying at the top. That’s what I care about. All right? And if you’re privileged, as we are, to have a larger church, you have facilities to do conferences to train other Christian leaders. You have resources to actually give money to help start other churches. I mean, one of the cool things we get to do, we get to give ten percent of our dollars to help start other churches through Acts 29.

Every quarter we bring in hundreds of pastors for training. Assemblies of God, Four Square, Presbyterian, Methodist. I mean, just all kinds of tribes of the Christian faith that come on in. And you guys buy them lunch and books and resources. And we train ‘em. We do the resurgence.com, which is more resources and training and an online portal and conferences. And we bring in speakers and authors. And we try to give training and coaching. And this year we’ll give away over a million dollars to other churches to help them. You know, I would love to see more big churches not just so that there could be big churches, but so that those churches could do some things to be helpful to the other churches, the churches who otherwise may not have access to certain resources or speakers or training or insight or relationships that – to give those. Because it’s not just about Mars Hill being a great church. It’s about Seattle being a great city. That’s what we want.

And the only way Seattle’s gonna be a great city is if Jesus is introduced to the city. Something that sadly to this point has not happened in large numbers. But how many of you this kind of thing bothers you? It bothers you? How many of you, you get Nehemiah’s tears? You say, “That bothers me when I drive by churches that are dead and dying or don’t talk about Jesus.” Some of them litter your neighborhoods. You drive by them all the time. I’m asking you to ask God the Holy Spirit to do a miracle in your heart, and to give you the heart of Jesus, which is the heart of Nehemiah, which is a heart of brokenness. I love the church. I love the church. I love this church. I love all churches that belong to Jesus. I do. I may have some disagreements on some issues, but at the end of the day they’re family, brothers and sisters, part of the same big dysfunctional family as I am (Laughter), right? We love each other.

I want to see every church that loves Jesus thrive, grow, succeed, multiply, expand. There can’t be enough of that in Seattle. There just can’t be enough of that. Does it break your heart that only eight percent of the people in this city know Jesus? Eight percent. It means next time you go to a Mariners game or even a Seahawks game if the stadium is full, if you took all the Christians out, that would be as many people that are currently at Mars Hill Church. The rest would all be going to hell. I can hardly sit at a game without just emotionally losing it, thinking “All these people don’t know Jesus. All these people are living a life separated from him. If they’re married, their marriage is not with him in the center. If they have children, their children don’t know Jesus. What are they gonna do with sin? How are they gonna live? How are they gonna work out their future?” I know where they’re going. And that was me. I grew up here. I grew up in Seattle. I didn’t know Jesus till I was 19. Before that, I didn’t care about any of this.

This wouldn’t have been new information to me. Had you came to me and said, “You know, it’s the least churched city in America, there’s not a lot of Christians, the churches aren’t doing well, it’s a very hard time”, I would have said, “Yeah, it doesn’t bother me.” And then God the Holy Spirit saves me, introduces me to Jesus, and now I’m heartbroken all the time. I mean, before I started this church, one of the things I did, I went out and I visited a lot of the other churches in the city on Sundays to see what they were doing and knocked on doors. And I talked to anybody who would talk to me. “How’s it going? What are you learning? What’s God doing?” And I tell ya what. I did find some places that were encouraging and God was working in and some people who did love him, but for the most part it was very discouraging. “Yeah, we’re not growing. People aren’t coming here. Elder so and so molested these kids and, you know, the pastor ran off with the secretary and, you know, we’re post Jesus.” It’s like “Oh, my gosh.”

One church I spoke to recently, I asked them, I said, “When’s the last time you had birth or new birth, a baby who was born or somebody became a Christian?” Church secretary. Nice gal. She says, “It’s been quite a few years.” Years. Years. I said, “Your church hasn’t seen one person become a Christian in years?” She said, “It’s been quite a few years.” I met a guy at that church, he came up to me, he said, “I think I was the last person to become a Christian.” I said, “When was that?” He said, “About ten years ago.” Ten years ago? See, these are things we know, but sometimes these are things we just don’t feel. We don’t feel like Jesus feels about it. Now, what I love is that Nehemiah has the heart of Jesus for his city and he – and Jesus wants us to have his heart for our city.

And, again, I’m not trying to make you feel guilty. I’m just asking you to ask the Holy Spirit to give you the heart of Jesus, and he’ll do it. You’ll feel just like Jesus, just like Nehemiah. What I love though is Nehemiah sees this, he gets heartbroken, and he goes to prayer. I love the fact he doesn’t blog about it. I love that (Laughter). I hate talk radio. I do it. I hate blogging. I do it. I know I’m a hypocrite. I hate it because what it is, it gives the illusion that you’re doing something. Right? Complaining is not the same as changing something. What I love about Nehemiah, he goes to prayer. He doesn’t just run out, do something haphazardly. He doesn’t work himself into a frenzy. He really prayerfully considers what God would have him do. This man is a man who prays. On no less than nine occasions he’s gonna pray throughout the course of the book. This is his first and most lengthy prayer.

We’re gonna look at his prayer. And as we do, let me tell you something about prayer. One of the sickest things that happens when Christians teach on prayer it they turn it into a magic formula like it’s a pagan mantra, and if you do it a particular way, then God’s sort of a cosmic piñata, and there’s a way to do it that you can whack him and get goodies. Okay (Laughter)? We don’t believe that at Mars Hill. We don’t believe that prayer is a stick and God is a piñata and that if you do it this special way, you get a cookie. We don’t believe that. We believe that God is a Father, that we’re his kids. That God loves us and will talk to us any time about anything. And we need to come to him respectfully as our Father, but we can come to honestly, and we can come to him boldly. All right? That’s prayer.

And there’s no one way to pray because it depends on what you’re talking about, how you’re gonna talk to your dad. He here is gonna talk to God the Father. Verse 4. “As soon as I heard these words, I sat down and wept and mourned for days. I continued fasting and praying before the God of heaven.” And then he tells us about his prayer in Verse 5. “And I said, ‘Oh, Lord God of heaven, the great and awesome God who keeps covenant and steadfast love with those who love him and keep his commandments.’” He starts with a prayer of adoration. Okay?

If Nehemiah just, as we would, looks out of his condition of a city that is set before him, there’s not a lot of reason for hope. But he looks up to God, and there’s the source of his hope. And some of you may not know how to kick-start your prayer life. Start by reading the Bible. That’s how God speaks to us, as scripture. And then we respond to God in prayer, which is how we speak to God. These are the lines of communication between us and God. He speaks to us through scripture, and we speak to him through prayer. And as you read scripture, and the God of the Bible, the Lord Jesus reveals himself to you, it’s good to stop and just thank God for who he is. If it says that God is holy, stop, “God, thank you for being a holy God that who is altogether without sin.” That God is a loving God, “God, thank you for loving me and us.” If God is a gracious and patient and merciful God, “Thank you, God, for hanging in there with me and us and not getting sick of me or us.” All right?

He is going to thank God for who he is. This is how your prayer life will sort of begin. He says that “God is the God of heaven, that God is great and awesome who keeps his covenant with steadfast love.” Do you get much time just to talk to God and thank him for who he is? It’s okay to make requests of God, but is your prayer life always “God, here’s my list of things, you’re a great administrative assistant, go execute on those tasks”? Or is it “God, you are a good God, you are a loving God, you’re a holy God, you’re a merciful God, God, I thank you for who you are”? And, again, I’m not saying this out of guilt. I’m saying that it is a wonderful opportunity. If you and I want to get a meeting with a doctor or someone else, it might take weeks. God at any moment is willing to meet with us, is willing to talk to us, is willing to listen to us, is willing to speak to us, comfort us, encourage us, be with us at any time. Nehemiah understands that.

So you’ll see that throughout the book he just prays continually. He stops to ask for wisdom. He stops to ask for encouragement and help. Anything he needs he just keeps asking. He asks all the time. Some of his prays are really short. You could be sitting at your desk at work, bow your head quietly in 30 seconds and connect with the living God, and ask for help and encouragement. Nehemiah does that kind of thing all the time. And he stops to thank God for who he is. And then he moves on to a prayer of confession in Verse 6. “Let your ear be attentive and your eyes open to hear the prayer of your servant. That I now pray before you day and night for the people of Israel, your servants, confessing the sins of the people of Israel, which we have sinned against you. Even I and my father’s house have sinned. We have acted very corruptly against you and have not kept the commandants, the statutes and the rules that you commanded your servant Moses.” This is confession.

He confesses his sin, the sin of his family, the sin of his church, the sin of his whole city. This is inextricably opposite to all of world in which I’m an individual, and I’m only accountable for me, and I’m not accountable for you. Paul says in the New Testament that “We’re a church, and that church is like a body. And if one part suffers, we all suffer. And if one part is honored, we all rejoice.” Guys, we’re in this together. I need you to get that. And what I love about Nehemiah is he doesn’t sit back and say, “You know, some bad people have really jacked up my church and my city. I’ll do a conference about jacked-up people, I’ll do a blog about jacked-up people, I’ll write a book about jacked-up people.” What he says instead is “You know what? I’ve helped create this problem myself.” He confesses his own sin.

And the truth is, the hard cold truth is that you and I can’t just sit back and criticize the sinning. We can’t say, “Oh, it’s the liberals or the conservatives or the republicans or the democrats or the white or the black or the rich or the poor or the young or the old or the male or female.” You know what? All have sinned, all have fallen short of the glory of God. Everyone individually and collectively has sin that is participating in the undermining of the forward progress of the Gospel, the health of the church, and the transformation of the city. And what I love about Nehemiah, he says, “I’m a sinner. I’ve done my part. My family, we got our own sins that aren’t helping the city. My church, it’s got its own faults and flaws and defects, and there’s sin all over the city.” And he confesses that.

Sin is what restricts the forward progress of the Gospel. So he starts by acknowledging who God is, and he’s revealed in scripture. And that he compares himself and his family and his church to that God of the Bible. And he sees where there is difference, and that difference is sin. That’s what sin is. Sin is being unlike God. We’re supposed to be the image bearers of God. We’re supposed to be holy ‘cause God is holy, loving ‘cause God is loving, tell the truth ‘cause God is a truth teller and such things. And the ways in which we don’t do those things that we were made to do are called sin.

Now, I’ve got to ask ya what sin is in your life that is really contributing to this remaining one of the least churched cities in America, this remaining of the darkest places for the Gospel that the nation’s ever known? It has become very, very in fashion to complain about the church. I’ve been to whole conferences where one speaker after the next got up and did nothing but talked about how the church was screwed up. You can come here and you could point out all the reasons that Mars Hill is screwed up. I know what they are. I made the mess. I’m fully aware of what I have done (Laughter). But complaining and blogging and more conferences of criticism and more book of criticizing and more people who say, “I’m de-churched, I don’t go to church, me and my three friends get together and that’s all that it is, I don’t do church”, you know what? Those people are just as guilty as anyone for creating the problem. Right?

I mean, if you’re here today and you’re a Christian, are you serving Jesus? Are you walking with Jesus? Are you praying for us as a church? Are you praying for us as a city? Are you giving generously to participate in the work of Jesus? If not, then I don’t understand where people get to criticize. I just don’t understand that. And there’s a lot of things to criticize at Mars Hill. You know, the seating is bad, the parking is horrendous. You know, it is. And I’ve heard people say, “The parking sucks.” I’m like “Well, it’s sanctification for you (Laughter). And God wants you to be lean physically, and (Laughter) you don’t exercise, so he has put that in your life as a gift. You have to walk 17 miles to get here (Laughter). You know, he also knows you don’t have much patients, but this is his gift to you. You’ll learn it (Laughter).” It’s a gift. You’re welcome. It’s a part of our discipleship processes (Laughter), long walks to church, you know.

And it’s so easy to stand back and to criticize. It’s so hard to make a difference. I was dealing with a pastor. And, you know, I love pastors, but it’s only ‘cause I have to (Laughter). And I was talking to a pastor not too long ago at a conference I was teaching at. He comes up to me, and he says, “Man, I just hate my church.” “That’s nice (Laughter). That’s nice (Laughter).” And he – and shockingly he said, “It’s not going very well.” I’m like “You’re kidding? That shocks me (Laughter).” “I hate them, and it’s not going well. I don’t know why. I can’t figure it out (Laughter).” “Well, if you hate them, they’re probably not enthusiastic to bring others (Laughter).” “He hates us. He’ll hate you too. Come on. Come on (Laughter).”

So I asked this guy – he says, “So could you answer – ” he said, “The church isn’t going. Could you talk to me about that? I want to learn some things.” And I just asked him, I looked around, I said, “Are you faithful to your wife?” He says, “Why?” I said, “I’m just checking. I’m so sick of dudes cheating on their wives. It’s like a 40% epidemic with pastors.” It’s like my new icebreaker. It’s my new icebreaker (Laughter). It breaks the ice. I assure you that (Laughter). And the guy says, “Yeah, I’m faithful to my wife. Why?” I was like “Just checking. Now I’ll answer the question. What was the question?” He said, “My people won’t give, they won’t serve, they don’t care. I’m just sick of ‘em. I’m frustrated. I hate my church. It’s not – ” I said, “Do you give generously to your own church?” He’s the pastor.

I said, “Don’t lie to me. Tell me the truth.” He says, “No.” I said, “Dude, if you don’t give, why would they give? And if you’re not gonna set an example why would they?” I said, “Dude, honestly, do you work hard at your job? Are you really devoted to your city and your church and Jesus and your people? Are you giving it your all?” He said, “No.” I said, “Do you ever pray for your people, pray for your city, pray for yourself, pray for your family, pray prayers of confession, ‘God, here’s our sin, here’s my sin, here’s the problem’”? He said, “No, not really.” I said, “Do you know what? It’s not about your program, your band. It’s not – first thing’s first. You need the God of the Bible. And you need to confess your sin, and your people need to confess their sin. Your family needs to confess its sin. And there needs to be repentance among God’s people.”

One of the great tragedies of Christianity is when we preach repentance to all the non-Christians and we don’t practice it ourselves. That’s hypocrisy. It’s not very attractive. Do I have my sin that I need to repent of so that the Gospel can move forward in Seattle? I do. I do. Sometimes I get angry and burned out and frustrated, and I say things that I shouldn’t. Or I say things that I should in a way that I shouldn’t. A buddy of mine says, “You’re gonna die.” I said, “How’s that?” He said, “Death by comment.” That was his (Laughter) – death by comment. A lot of truth to that. A lot of truth to that. I got my own sin to repent of, confess. I confess it to you. We need to be a people who are about confession. We are an army, but we’re an army that moves forward together on its knees humbling.

I love that Nehemiah doesn’t just stand up and say, “God, these churches stink, these pastors stink, these Bible colleges stink, these seminaries stink, these people stink.” Nehemiah says, “I’ve contributed to the problem. Haven’t given, haven’t served, haven’t cared, haven’t prayed. My family, we haven’t really done much. ___ a church that really lost its way. We’re all in this thing together.” I say this, again, not to guilt you, but to give you the wonderful gift of confession. I’ll tell ya, friends, it’s the greatest gift because you don’t need to be self-righteous and proud and arrogant and defensive. You don’t need to live in shame and guilt and try and hide what you’ve done. You can be honest. That the Lord Jesus went to the cross to die for any and all sins, and there’s nothing he can’t and won’t forgive. That means there’s nothing you can’t and shouldn’t confess.

And Nehemiah is leaning heavily here into the grace of God, and he’s inviting his people to do the same. He goes on, and then he prays a prayer of remembrance, and he’s going to grab sections from Deuteronomy here. He knows his Bible real well, so when he’s praying, he’s remembering the promises of God, is guided throughout Deuteronomy. Verse 8. “Remember the word that you commanded your servant Moses saying, ‘If you are unfaithful, I will scatter you among the peoples, but if you return to me and keep my commandments and do them, though your dispersed by under the farthest skies, I will gather them from there and bring them to the place that I have chosen them to make my name dwell there.’”

Here’s what he’s saying: “God, this is about you and me. When people think of your people, they think of your name. That if God’s people are not walking in holiness, if they’re not reading scripture, praying, worshipping, if their lives aren’t being transformed by the living, loving God of the Bible, then the name of God is in distain among others.” He says, “God, this is about your name. And, God, we don’t want to shame your name. We don’t want to disgrace your name. We want your name to be great.” And he’s clinging to the promises of God, to hold to that God has promised to never leave us, never forsake, that even when we’re faithless, he’s faithful. God has promised that there is no sin that we can commit that Jesus Christ cannot forgive if we ask him.

See, and there are times when we look at life and we look at the world, we look at ourselves, we look at our city and you can throw your hands in the air and say, “It’s a mess. It is totally beyond us.” No, it’s not. It’s not. The Bible says that “The Gospel is the power of God. It is much more powerful than a city. That God can and will do exceedingly, abundantly above and beyond all that we can ask or imagine.” Again, it is knowing scripture well enough to recall the promises of God so that when things look impossible that we don’t have this naïve and gullible faith, that we say, “God, I know you’re good, I know you’re loving, I know you’re powerful, I know you’re alive, I know you well, I know you care, I know you hear. I’m asking. I’m asking based upon what you have promised, for you to show up not so that I might be blessed, not so that my life might to easy, but that your name would be made great.” Okay?

If you want to boil it down, Mars Hill exists for one reason. That is to make the name of Jesus great. Guys, it’s all I care about. I’ll be honest with ya. I’m getting to be a tired, old man (Laughter) way too early. And more and more this job is getting really focused for me. Jesus’ name needs to be great. That’s everything. That’s all that matters. That’s all that matters (Applause). And, again, what that means is that we need to confess sin. We need to thank God. We need to remember his promises so that we’re not the ones that are ruining the name of Jesus. I mean, this is a heavy weight. And this is a burden on me, to be honest with you. It’s messing with my health and my sleep and everything lately. I don’t just speak for me anymore. I speak for Jesus. And that’s terrifying. It seems like he could have got an adult for the job, but somehow I got it (Laughter), you know.

AP story came out today calling me a frat guy (Laughter). That’s not what I was hoping for, you know (Laughter). And the name of Jesus needs to be made great because you know what? Jesus is great. I’m not making anything up. So many of you are in marketing and sales, and you know you’re pitching junk. You know (Laughter). You laugh ‘cause you know it. Jesus is great. And his name is great. And there is no other name under heaven by which it must be saved than the name of Jesus. And so that means that it really can’t be about the name of Pastor Mark or the name of Mars Hill Church or the name of your family. And we all lay down our agendas, and it just needs to be about the name of Jesus being made great in the city of Seattle. And then it doesn’t matter if people worship – if they’re Assemblies of God or Baptist or Presbyterian. There are distinction, we can discuss those, some of those are not unimportant, but, again, at the end of the day if the mission of us all is that the name of Jesus would be made great in the city of Seattle.

There is a possibility that we may see the kind of revival breakout that they saw in the days of Nehemiah when the people all decided to set aside their missions and their objectives and their agendas and their name and their reputation and just say, “As long as Jesus looks good, I’m gonna be happy.” And he goes on then to pray a prayer of thanksgiving that there are some people who do love God, and that there are some people who do honor the name of God, and there are some people whose hearts are already with him.” Verse 10. “They are your servants and your people whom you have redeemed by your great power and your strong hand.” This is a prayer of thanksgiving. “God, I thank you”, he says, “I’m not the only person who loves you. I thank you I’m not the only Christian around. I thank you that I’m not the only person that the Holy Spirit ___.”

And I will tell you that too, I’m under no illusion that Mars Hill is the only place God is working in Seattle. I’m under no illusion that I’m the only pastor that he is using. I’m under no illusion that I’m the only one who cares. I know that. I’m honored to be a part of what God is doing, to be sure. A little overwhelmed of my slice of the pie some days. But you know what? There are people in Seattle who already feel like Nehemiah felt. Some of you are that way. Some of you do pray for your city. Some of you do care. Some of you are serving, you are giving, you do want the name of Jesus to be made great, and you’re willing to do almost anything to make that happen, short of sin. And Nehemiah prays a prayer of thanksgiving. Yeah, there’s not as many people as he would have hoped for (Laughter), but there’s some really good people, and by God’s grace, their number could increase.

And then he closes with a prayer of supplication in Verse 11. “Oh, Lord, let your ear be attentive to the prayer of your servant, and to the prayer of your servants, those other people who love God too who delight to fear your name.” Again, it’s all about the name of God. It’s all about Jesus’ name being made much of. “And give him success to your servant today, and grant him mercy in the sight of this man.” He’s going to meet with a very wealthy, influential, and powerful man, and he’s asking for favor. He’s saying, “God, you have broken my heart. God, I see the city as you see the city. I see the church as you see the church. I’m not just angry or bitter. I’m not going to leave the church or get angry against Christianity or declare war. I’m gonna confess my sin, the sin of my family, the sin of my church, the sin of my city. I’m gonna fast and weep and mourn and pray.” He does it for three or four months. “And I’m going to ask you to hear my prayers, and I’m going to ask you to bring around me those people that you’ve already worked in their heart, that they share the same desire and passion to build a great church that can help serve a great city and make the name of God great in it.” And that’s his prayer.

Let me say this in closing: I think that there has been, to some degree, an underemphasis on the necessity of prayer at Mars Hill Church. Okay? I would say that personally, I hope my wife would attest to this, I’m a man who prays a ton. Not out of obligation or duty, but out of desperation, often times feeling in way over his head (Laughter), screaming out for rescue. I pray all the time. And things have been going pretty well at Mars Hill. We’re one of the fastest-growing churches in America. We grew by 1,000 people last month. We’ve turned people away from the two evening services. We didn’t add any new services or campuses ‘cause we were hoping to slow it down. It didn’t work. We hit the breaks, and the break pads just flying off the rig (Laughter). It didn’t slow down at all. That’s where we’re at.

So at Mars Hill things are pretty good. And at this point, there could be a proclivity to say, “Bills are paid, rooms are filled, services are rolling, campuses are succeeding, things are good. We’ve done our piece.” No. God has brought us together to have broken hearts and to pray, to pray that more churches would be planted, that existing churches would be renewed. To be a generous church of time and money and energy and service and encouragement. Not just so that there would be more Christians, but so that peoples’ lives would be transformed by Jesus, and that this would become a great city, a city on a hill that’s life could not be hidden or resisted. A city through which the Gospel of Jesus would shine forth into the world. That’s what we want.

And it all starts with prayer. And you’re gonna see in this book that God is going to answer this prayer. I think it’s very prudent that Nehemiah put the prayer up front because the rest of the book is showing how God answered the prayer. I might explore that for ya, but it took 141 years of failed efforts. Nehemiah finished the task in 52 days. You say, “What’s the difference between 141 years of failed efforts and 52 days?” Prayer. Prayer. God hears and answers prayer. I’ll give ya a couple of stories hopefully to encourage ya. And, again, I don’t want this to be a guilty message. I want this to be an encouraging, hopeful, heartbreaking message.

We have a campus in West Seattle. We’ve moved to doing campuses in the city. We’re in Shoreline, Ballard, West Seattle, and always looking for another places to go. So if you’ve got a building, give me a call (Laughter). You got a piece of real estate, leave your card. I’m serious. Anyways (Laughter). There was – I’ll tell ya this story. There was a man in Ireland – I’ll tell ya the whole story. There was a man in Ireland, loved Jesus, was a pastor and a church planter. He grew up in a very wealthy family. When he got saved, he wanted to leave the family business to go do ministry. And his family told him “If you leave the family business to go do ministry, you’ll lose your inheritance.” He said, “I love Jesus. I got to go to ministry. I forsake my inheritance.” He ultimately moved to the United States of America to plant a church.

And he came here, planted a church, saved up money to move his family, his wife and kids, to the United States of America to this church he had planted. He bought them a one-way ticket on the Titanic. His wife was running late, missed the boat. That frustrated him until it sank (Laughter). And then he realized it was God’s providence. They were on the next boat. The little boy, his son, who was on that boat was a man named Haldane. 
Haldane ended up pastoring a church in West Seattle that grew to be the largest church in West Seattle and one of the largest churches in the history of Seattle. He lost his building to the denomination over the doctrine of inerrancy of scripture ‘cause he was a Bible guy. He ended up buying it back after it went all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court and was the test case for whether or not a denomination or a church owns their building, and he lost.

He and the men bought that building, built it back. He then died. His wife, Ethel, his widow, was the church secretary. That church went into a steep decline cycle like a lot of churches have in our city. And she and a few of the 80-year-old friends of hers that we affectionately call the Golden Girls (Laughter) they would meet every Sunday in an upstairs room at this church that literally the walls were breaking, the roof was leaking, it was filling up with water, falling apart because they knew that if they didn’t have church there, they would lose the church, and it would be developed and torn down, and it would never be used for Jesus again. And so the widow with her friends met there for years every Sunday. Dress up and go there. And they prayed through the West Seattle phonebook. That’s what they did for years, prayed through the West Seattle phonebook.

They gave us, along with Pastor Bill, that building. That has been gifted to us. It’s 50,000 square feet. We’re doing $2,500,000.00 renovation on it right now. We’ve started services over in that part of the city. We’re already running 600 to 800 a week just a few months into it, and we hope to open that campus for Easter. You guys have helped pay for that. I encourage you to drop by and see it when it’s all done. It’s underway. Today I saw Ethel and the Golden Girls. They’re there every Sunday. They go to Mars Hill. They’re members now (Laughter). And the music is way too loud for them (Laughter). And they come every Sunday.

And I saw Ethel and the Golden Girls today. And one of the Golden Girls gave me a big hug, and she was crying. She’s an older woman. And I said, “Why are you crying?” She says, “God has answered our prayer. The building is gonna be open. People are gonna worship Jesus.” God answered their prayer. See, we’re reaping the fruit of other peoples’ prayers. I said, “God has answered your prayer.” I said, “And I’m really honored that you prayed for us before you ever even knew us.” After one of the services recently there too I met another older woman. God has unleashed grandmothers on West Seattle (Laughter). Praying, charismatic grandmothers. The force of hell cannot handle a praying, spirit-filled grandmother (Applause).

And this lady comes up to me, she’s crying, she’s an older woman. I said, “What is going on?” She had the heart of Nehemiah. She said, “I’ve lived in West Seattle my whole life, and I’ve been praying that there would be churches planted here like Mars Hill.” She said, “Me and my friends, some older women, we pray walk. And we’ve prayer walked almost all of West Seattle, almost every street in West Seattle. And we have prayed for almost every home in West Seattle.” And she said, “You’re finally here. God has answered our prayer.” I mean, it’s the most humbling thing in the world. ___ and think “We’re doing pretty good.” And it’s like “Ah, grandma did all the heavy lifting (Laughter). Grandma did all the heavy lifting on this deal.”

I really want you not to feel guilty like “I need to serve, I need to give, I need to be generous, I need to pray.” No. I want you to see Jesus as extraordinarily good. And I want you to have Jesus’ heart for our city. And I want you to have a heart for people who don’t yet know Jesus, that they would meet Jesus, and that he would do a work in their heart and in their life and in their family. That’s what we want. That’s all that we want. And some of you are probably thinking “What am I doing here? I’m not a Christian?” You’re here to get saved. That’s why you’re here. God determines when and where we live. God wouldn’t have us here today and you here today unless you were supposed to meet Jesus, so tell ‘em you’re sorry, and start a new life with him. That’s why you’re here. Make it simple for ya. You’re bad, he’s good. You’re going to hell, he paid the price on the cross. And if you ask him, he’ll forgive you and give you a whole new life. That’s Jesus. He’s great. It doesn’t matter what you’ve done. He’s great.

Some of you here you’re already Christians. You say, “What should I do?” I am calling as a church to a season of prayer. To a season of prayer. We have a lot of people, we have a lot of dollars, we have a lot of opportunities. We have a lot of possibilities. But what we really need is a lot of intercessors and a lot of prayer. I am firmly convinced more than ever that our war is not just against flesh and blood, but powers, principalities and spirits. I believe that there has been for far too long a demonic stronghold on Seattle. I believe that Satan and demons have had a field day. I believe that the Gospel has never really taken root. I believe that there is sin and corruption and false Gospels even in many of the churches. I believe that many of the pastors of those churches are not Christians. I believe that Jesus loves them too. I believe that we should confess our sin and repent and pray and ask the Holy Spirit to give us the heart of Jesus. And then I believe that revival begins in the churches as other pastors come to repentance. Some come to salvation.

And then repentance and love of Jesus breaks out in those churches, and then it spills out so that the city can hear about the goodness of Jesus, and the name of Jesus becomes great in our city, and that many will come to see and know the Lord. You’re gonna see that in the Book of Nehemiah. And that’s all that we want for the city of Seattle. We’re not just fighting against homosexuals and liberals and people who are into the new age or Muslims. We’re not fighting those people. Those are – our goal is to love and serve and to see the life change of those people. We’re not imposing Jesus on anyone. We’re proposing Jesus to everyone. That’s what we’re doing.

And we believe that really – that Satan has blinded people so that they can’t see the goodness of Jesus, that he has hardened their hearts, that they are captives ensnared to a bitter enemy that is leading them, marching into death and destruction and devastation. And we believe that the only way that this war can be won is not through fighting, but through praying and through contending together, as an army moving forward humbly on our knees. And our hearts broken and our eyes wet and our head bow and our Jesus lifted up so that we don’t obscure the view of him because we’re not getting in the way with pride or arrogance or self-righteousness or religion. I’m calling us all to be a people who are in mission with Jesus for the transformation of the city. And it starts today by being a prayerful, humble, repentant people who remember the God of the Bible and make it our exclusive aim in all ways at all times, in all circumstances to make much of the name of Jesus.

I’m gonna let you guys respond in prayer. Become a Christian by confessing your sin to Jesus and asking him to forgive you. If you’re a Christian, you, like me, have got sin to confess as well. And God is gracious, and he will forgive us. I want you to partake of communion, remembering the body and blood of Jesus and why he is so great. I want you to give of your tithes and offerings not because you have to, but because you get to, because the need is great, and God has called us each to be a part of it. And then we’re gonna sing and celebrate and worship so that the light of Christ would shine out from this place to the city. And we’re gonna do so prayerfully, praying against Satan and demons, praying against the spiritual blindness and oppression and the strongholds and the footholds in the city. Nehemiah knew it wasn’t just about having a great plan and executing well. It had to be bathed in prayer because ultimately it was a spiritual battle that was being waged.

And people are not our enemy. People are our mission. Satan is our enemy, and so are demons. We contend with them in prayer, and then move forward to humbly and truthfully love our neighbor. I’ll pray. Father God, we thank you for being a great God, a loving God, a just God, a holy God, a sovereign God by grace, our God. God, I pray against Satan and demons. I pray against the enemy of servants and their works and effects. I pray against the fact, Lord God, that the Gospel has never really deeply taken root in this city. God, I pray for over 141 years of very little fruit, many broken walls, many broken burned gates, many devastated lives, many exiled people, many hopeless, failed efforts to make a difference. God, may you, I ask, send your Holy Spirit to give us the heart of Jesus. May we weep over Seattle, as Nehemiah and Jesus wept over Jerusalem. May we, Lord God, not be able to drive by a dead or dying or corrupted church without pulling over to shed a tear and say a prayer and ask for your Holy Spirit to do something magnificent, and to be bring life out of death, and to resurrect even dead churches from their grave.

God, may we have a heart as we read about churches that are struggling not to criticize them, but to pray for them. As we hear of Christians who are struggling, may we not, God, seek to joke at their expense, but may we intercede prayerfully, asking you to be gracious to them, as you’ve been gracious to us. God, may Mars Hill be about one thing. May we be about the name of Jesus. May his name go forth from this place. May peoples’ lives be transformed. May we not just be a great church. May we participate in the building of a great city and be a people that are seen as a blessing to the other -