In this sermon, the speaker discusses the state of the nation and the loss of their ability to protect themselves from evil. The gates are burned with fire, symbolizing their inability to keep out destructive forces. Nehemiah, upon hearing this, is deeply moved and begins to pray and fast before God. He acknowledges the reproach on God's name and asks for God's intervention. The speaker emphasizes the importance of taking action and not sitting back when faced with evil. Nehemiah prays for strength and discernment as enemies conspire to attack Jerusalem. The speaker encourages the audience to pray for strength and a deeper relationship with God. The sermon concludes with a reference to Nehemiah's inquiry about the condition of God's people in Jerusalem, who are described as being in great distress and reproach.

Father, I thank you, God, this morning with all my heart. Lord, you are calling us to something much deeper than what we have realized in the past. Give us the grace, O God, to hear your word. Give us the grace to respond to your call. Give each of us, Lord, faith in our hearts to believe that you can take us, Lord, no matter where we are, and take our mess and create an enduring message from it. Oh, Lord, you're the same yesterday, today, and forever. You show us the patterns in scripture of how you work through any surrendered vessel, and you bring them and you bring us to a place of understanding that you've not changed. You're calling again to another generation. You're calling to another group of people like us who know that we need you. But, Lord, you're able to do so much more than we can even think or imagine or ask. So let faith arise in our hearts. God, give me your anointing to speak this, and give us the anointing to hear it. Lord, lift us out of a consumer mentality and bring us into the reality of a living relationship with the living God. Father, we thank you for this with all of our heart in Jesus' name. From a mess to an enduring message, Nehemiah chapter one, beginning at verse two. Then Hanani, one of my brethren, came with men from Judah, and I asked them concerning the Jews who had escaped, who had survived the captivity, and concerning Jerusalem. In other words, this man is in a different place than that testimony that was once established by God in the earth in Jerusalem. And he's simply asking the messengers who have come, what is the condition of the testimony of God among his people in Jerusalem? And they said to me, the survivors who are left from the captivity in the province are there in great distress and reproach. The wall of Jerusalem is also broken down and its gates are burned with fire. So it was when I heard these words that I sat down and wept and mourned for many days. I was fasting and praying before the God of heaven. In other words, that which marks the boundaries where the people of God, those who are called of God to be appraised in the earth, that which there has to be a separation, folks, if you're living for God, if you're called of God, there's a separation. The old things are passed away and behold, all things are become new. There were certain things you could do before, but now as a believer in Christ, you're called to be separated from these things and separated unto God. And the report that came back was the wall is down. The separation is down. It's like somebody in our generation, it just comes into your heart. Oh God, what has happened to your church? Your church that used to be separated and holy, your church that used to pray and believe for miracles. What happened to your people? How did the wall get broken down? How come there's no line of demarcation? Why is the divorce rate as rampant in the church today as it is in the world that surrounds it? What happened to us as a people? Why are we in such reproach? Why is it so that our voices are not even sought after? And if we speak, we're mocked. What happened to the fear of God in the nation? What did we do? What was our responsibility in this whole thing? And he says, the gates are burned with fire. In other words, our ability to keep out what's trying to get in and destroy the nation and destroy the testimony of God, our ability to keep it out is gone. Not only are we no longer separated from the people around us, but we have no power to fight against this onslaught of hell, this absolute tsunami of evil that wants to baptize our society in filth. And so it was when I heard these words, I sat down and wept. I mourned for many days. I was fasting and praying before the God of heaven. You see, this is when the call of God begins in somebody's life. It's when people like you and I finally say, God, I can't sit back and do nothing about this. This is not right. Your name is in reproach. It's not right that children are being thrown in the river of confusion. It's not right that I should be living for myself. And he had a good job. He's living in the foreign King's palaces, the cup bearer to the King. He's got access to the court. He probably has a real nice apartment somewhere in the back. He's got it made really in a figurative sense until the day that this report comes into his heart, until the day that the spirit of God begins to move on an ordinary man to do something extraordinary for the kingdom of heaven. And I said, verse five, I pray Lord, God of heaven. Oh, great and awesome God, you will keep your covenant and mercy with those who love you and observe and observe your commandments. Please let your ear be attentive and your eyes be open that you may hear the prayer of your servant, which I pray before you now day and night for the children of Israel, your servants, and confess the sins of the children of Israel, which we have sinned against you. Both my father's house and I have sinned. We've acted very corruptly against you and have not kept the commandments, the statutes, nor the ordinances, which you commanded your servant Moses. Remember, I pray the word that you commanded your servant Moses saying, if you are unfaithful, I will scatter you among the nations. But if you return to me and keep my commandments and do them, though, some of you were cast out to the farthest part of the heavens, yet I will gather them from there and bring them to the place which I have chosen as a dwelling for my name. Now, these are your servants and your people whom you have redeemed by your great power and by your strong hand. Oh Lord, I pray, please let your ear be attentive to the prayer of your servant and to the prayer of your servants who desire to fear your name and let your servant prosper this day. I pray and grant him mercy in the sight of this man. For I was the King's cup bearer. You see, this is the reaction of a godly person. It's the reaction of you. It's the reaction of me. When God begins to speak about something that's supposed to be an enduring message, but it has become a mess. It could be your own life today. You might be sitting here saying, God, I believe I was created for more than what I've become. I believe that my life is called to be a testimony of who you are. It's called to be a message to a generation, but instead it's turned out to be a mess. But Lord, I'm starting to understand that if I will pray, if I will humble myself and pray, and if I will seek your face, and if I have a willingness to turn from my wicked ways, you promised me in scripture that you will hear my prayer. You will forgive my sin and you will heal my life and my land. It's the person that says, I'm not living here anymore. I've lived here long enough. I'm giving myself an eviction notice today. I'm not living like this. I'm not living in these pursuits. I'm not living in mediocrity. I'm not living in self-focus. I'm not living in mixture. I'm not living to seek and serve myself and find my own comfort. When the name of Christ is being reproached in the nation by God's grace, I'm going to get up today and I'm going to become everything that God's calling me to be. And I'm going to believe in the strength of my Christ, the living God inside this earthen vessel. All things are now possible to him who believes. I believe that no matter how big the mountain is or how deep the roots of a rotten tree system go into the ground, by the faith of Christ's victory, I believe that mountain can be moved. I believe that tree can be uprooted. And I believe that I can become, I can and will become the man, the woman that God has created me to be. And my life at the end of my days is not going to be some mediocre whisper in the dust. By the grace of God, my mess is going to turn into an enduring message, not just a message, but a message that lasts after I'm dead. A message that people are still talking about after I'm gone. A message that my family will talk about. It will change the course of my family. When I get up to walk with God, I'm believing that with all my heart. I'm believing that my sons, wife, husband, daughters, grandchildren, cousins, whoever it is are going to walk with you, Lord, because I make the choice today. I make the choice. I live for the moment. You might say today when my grandchildren long after I'm gone said you had to have known my grandma or my grandpa, my grandmother, my grandfather, God raised that man. God raised that woman up, brought them out of obscurity, put a new song inside his or her heart, which many began to see and fear and trust in the Lord. And we walk today with God because that chain of iniquity in our house, that mess in our family lineage was broken because somebody got up and said, I'm going to pray. And when God speaks, I'm going to move. And when God moves, things are going to change. Healing is going to come. Prison doors are going to open old ways of living are going to pass away. It's a kind of a person today. Maybe maybe your family is not in a mess, but your community around you is. And it's a kind of a person that says, God, I don't want to be a non-participant in the work of heaven. I don't want to be passing through society every day. And I, as the scripture says, I'm supposed to pass through the valley of weeping and make it a pleasant place or a well, the scripture says, God, I don't want to be passing through the valley of weeping. And as I pass through, everybody's still weeping after I passed through, I want to make a difference in my community. I want to make a difference in my workplace. I want to make a difference in my apartment building. My God, I want to live for you. I want your presence in my life. I want your wisdom, God, to be in the center core of my being. Maybe it's somebody here today that your calling is bigger than that. It's for a nation. Your calling is to affect your city. It's to affect your state. Maybe you're already in a place of influence in a political sense, but not in a spiritual sense. And God speaking to your heart today, because there's so much more that he wants to do through your life. We live in a society today that is broken down and it's amounting to much less than God intended it to be, but he has left you and I here. We are the answer from God for the dilemma of the moment that we now are facing. Nehemiah in his prayer is someone who accepts responsibility for the situation. And here's God calling him or her to make a difference. He doesn't blame somebody else. We're living in a society of blame. Everybody's blaming somebody. These people are responsible. Those people are responsible. He did it to me. She did it to me. Everybody is passing the buck and everybody's blaming somebody else, but not Nehemiah. Nehemiah said, no, we, my father's house and I have sinned against you. In as much as I'm not part of the solution, I'm part of the problem. That's what he was saying. We've sinned against you, God, because our lives are not making the difference that they should be making. I'm in a foreign King's palace and I'm bringing him his plate of food every day and I'm bringing him his cup to drink. And that's all that my life to this point has amounted to. All people might notice what I'm doing. They might notice me walking up to the throne, but there was a sense that came into his heart. My life is destined for more than this. God, you're going to do something more. But first, first, I have to accept my responsibility for the situation. Folks, if the nation is perishing, it's time for you and I to accept the responsibility for it. It's time for you and I to say, God, this is because of your house and I'm part of your house. Your house has not stood the way it should stand. 120 people in the book of Acts stepped out of the upper room and eventually Rome bent its knee to Christ, took down the most powerful army on the face of the earth. We can have 120 churches on every block and not affect our community. We have to take responsibility for what we have become as the people of God. We can't keep blaming somebody else for the situation. If the city perishes, it's because I have not been the fullness of the testimony of God that I'm called to be. Nehemiah begins to pray. He begins to ask that God would give him favor in the sight of this foreign King. And in chapter two, we see his next prayer, which I'm going to, I'm going to show you the sequence of how he prayed and how that will mirror itself in the life of any of us who have the courage to pray like this man prayed. The courage to say, God, it's, it's this simple. I want to make a difference. I don't want to just live thinking about myself any longer. I want to make a difference. I want my life to count. I want heaven to be populated because of me and hell to be depopulated because of me. I want people to be at the throne one day that can hug me and I can hug them. And we can weep together as long as tears are allowed before we get into heaven. And we can thank God and we can dance as we sang. We can rejoice in the presence of the son of God. I want my life to make a difference. I don't want to wind up there with my basket empty. And now the King said to me in chapter two, verse four, what do you request? So I prayed to the God of heaven. And I said to the King, if it pleases the King, and if your servant has found favor in your sight, I ask that you send me to Judah to the city of my father's tombs that I may rebuild it. Then the King said to me, the queen also sitting beside him, how long will your journey be? And when will you return? So it pleased the King to send me and I set him a time. Furthermore, I said to the King, if it pleases the King, let letters be given to me for the governors of the region beyond the river that they must permit me to pass through till I come to Judah. And a letter to Asaph, the keeper of the King's forest, that he must give me timber to make beams for the gates of the citadel, which pertains to the temple for the city wall and for the house that I will occupy. And the King granted me them according to the good hand of my God upon me. Here's where we start. When we start to pray God, I want to make a difference, but I'm asking you for two things, protect me on this journey and give me provision for what you've called me to do. And those are good things to ask for. I remember when I was a young believer in Christ, feeling the calling of God, Lord protect me was the cry of my heart. God protect me from everything that would come to discourage me. Protect me God from every weapon of hell that will be formed against me and my family. As I rise up, I recognize that I'll be going into a spiritual conflict and give me the provision I need Lord, for I don't have what it takes to do this. That was my constant prayer. It still is today. I don't have what it takes to do this, but Oh God, you do. And so give me the provision and God delights to give you what you need. All things, all things, all things are available to those who ask, ask, and it will be given. You seek and you shall find, knock and it will be open to you. Ask James says, if you need wisdom, ask, and God will give it liberally to you and freely. If you ask for the right reason, not to consume it upon yourself, but for the purposes of God and the earth. Nehemiah chapter four verses four and five, as he starts heading out on his journey, he now prays a specific prayer because the mockers rose up and they said, well, even if he builds, starts to build something, even if a Fox goes up on it, he will break down their stone wall. It's that voice. It's that mocking voice that comes to you and say, who do you think you are to believe that God will use you? What kind of a testimony do you think you're going to build? What kind of a separation is going to come to people's lives or victory because of you, what you're trying to build, even if a Fox little light Fox runs on it, it's going to fall down. And Nehemiah praises that hero God, for we are despised and turn their reproach on their own heads is Nehemiah chapter four, verse four and give them as plunder to a land of captivity. Do not cover their iniquity and do not let their sin be blotted out from before you. For they have provoked you to anger before the builders. And when you set out to serve God and to make a difference, the markers will come and they'll come in different forms. Some of the markers will directly accuse you of pride. They will accuse you of all kinds of things. Some of the mockery will cut, will be demonic, but you'll hear laughter. Some of it will come from your own heart. Am I really on a journey? Has God really spoken to me? Is my life really going to make a difference? But nevertheless, he prayed, he prayed God turn the reproach on their own heads. In other words, do something through my life that will cause these evil voices to gnash their teeth and to mourn before you. When they see that your hand has been on my life and what you've done through me. Next, Nehemiah prays for strength and for discernment. And verse seven of chapter four says it happened when son ballot, Tobiah, the Arabs and the Ammonites and the Ashdodites heard that the walls of Jerusalem were being restored and the gaps were beginning to be closed. They became very angry and all of them conspired together to come and attack Jerusalem and create confusion. Nevertheless, we made our prayer to God. And because of them, we set a watch against them day and night. Oh God, give me strength. I can't tell you how many times I've prayed that over the years. I don't know. I don't know if the math in my head goes that high. Oh God, give me strength. Have you prayed that lately? Oh God, help me to understand which voice is from you and which voice is not from you. God clear up the confusion. The enemy has come to create confusion in my mind and trying to imitate your voice and the voice of the condemner as well. So God give me strength. In the early years, I prayed one prayer consistently. It was the one prayer that Jesus seemed to answer all the time. I used to be an avid runner when my youth, when I was a young Christian, my whole time, I'd pray, Jesus, help me. Jesus, help me. Jesus, help me. Jesus, help me. That'd be my whole prayer. And you know what? He answered it. He helped me. In chapter six in verse nine, now the next stage of his prayer is he prays for strength against accusation of having false or hidden motives. In other words, the people said, you've established prophets to announce that you are the new King in Jerusalem and in Judah. Then I sent him saying, no such things as you say are being done. Chapter six, verse eight, but you invent them in your own heart. For they're all trying to make us afraid, saying their hands will be weakened in the work and it will not be done. Now, therefore, oh God, strengthen my hands. God, keep my motives pure and what you've called me to do. Don't let me go astray and don't let me be taken down by the accusations of wicked people. When you set out to rebuild the testimony of God, you will be opposed. You set your watch by it. You're going to find out there is a devil. You're going to find out there is a spiritual warfare. You're going to find out also the devil's afraid of you. You know that he's afraid of you. He's afraid of every saint, every child of God that rises up and say, Lord, I'm asking you to build something through my life that can't be done by human means. It can only be supernaturally done. He will oppose you with everything conceivable. You will fight. When I first came here to New York city, I was told I would fight in my mind, but I had no idea the fight was going to be that intense. I remember one time being down on a 51st year at eighth. I was going to cross over to the parking garage. And I heard an audible voice. I, an audible voice say, you're finished here. Your time here is over. It was so shocking. That was, of course, that we know that's the devil. That was like 18 years, 19 years ago. I'm still here. Nehemiah chapter six and verse 14. He prays against the fear of physical harm. God, my God, remember to buy on sun ballad, according to these, their works in the prophet and the rest of the prophets who would have made me afraid. Now here's what they were saying. Hide yourself. They're going to kill you. Hide yourself that your public ministry that God's given you is going to, the enemies of God are going to kill you to try to stop the ministry. I've heard that one before. Do you know that? So the wall was finished on the 25th day of Elal. That's chapter six, verse 15 and 52 days, 52 days, 52 days, a wall around about Jerusalem was rebuilt a miracle. Even the enemies of God had to admit that the hand of God was upon this man and upon the people that had risen up to rebuild the testimony of God in the earth in their time. Verse 16 says it happened when all our enemies heard of it and all the nations around us saw these things. They were very disheartened in their own eyes for they perceived that this work was done by our God. Oh God, send an awakening in our generation. Oh God, push back our enemies in this generation. Oh God, set our children free in this generation. Oh God, heal our homes in this generation. Push back evil and bring righteousness back within our borders again. Oh God, raise up your church again in this generation. God help us to get out of self-focus and poverty of spirit and bring us back to an understanding of who it is that lives inside of us. That we have power to tread on serpents and scorpions and over all the power of the enemy and nothing shall by any means hurt us. We have power to rise up and push back this agenda of hell that wants to swallow a whole society. All these things, Paul says in Corinthians, happened to the people of God as examples to us upon whom the ends of the age have come. These stories in the Bible, when God speaks about using an old man, a young girl, a bankrupt man called Gideon, who lives in the smallest house in the smallest tribe, the smallest family with an idol in his backyard. And yet God calls him and says, you have incredible resource because my word is with you. In chapter nine, a new kind of prayer arises. The whole chapter is a chapter of God. Nehemiah and others giving praise, a chorus of praise for the victory. This is the cry of my heart. This is the prayer I prayed for this church that one day we're just going to dismiss early on Sunday. We're going to go out on Broadway and we're going to sing. Only God could have done this. Only God could have done this. Only God could have done this. The whole chapter is a chapter of praise and glory and victory. And that's the song you will see. You will have a chapter nine in your life. If you get up today and say, I'm going with God. I'm going to let God use me. I'm going to rebuild that wall of separation. I'm going to put up the gates to keep hell out of my life and out of my family and my testimony. If you will get up and make that commission, that dedication to God this day, you will have a chapter nine moment. I'm having mine right now at home. All I can do now is walk around and say, God, you've been so good. I haven't deserved anything, but look what you've done. Look what you've done, Lord. Look at how you've done it. Look at the miracles you've done. I've seen it all over the world. I've seen it now in my own home. I'm taking my two oldest grandsons to Ireland this June to join in a national conference. Then we're going to Scotland where I'm going to be speaking in Scotland as well. Both those boys love God. One of them feels that God's called him as he's called his grandpa. Oh, folks. Oh, God. Oh, God. Oh, God. Oh, God. Hallelujah. Hallelujah. Hallelujah. From a mess. When you get a copy of this book and you're going to see the mess I was in. You see, my marriage was a mess for the first 10 years. A lot of heartache and harm even done through my hand. But oh, God is so faithful. God is so faithful. When you just rise up and say, Lord, build something through my life that will last, do something that will endure. I just don't want to be a picture on the wall of my house after I'm dead. I don't know how you feel. Have your grandchildren walk in and say, who is that? I want to be more than a picture on a wall. I want something in my life that long after I'm dead, if the Lord tarries it, it will just linger through the, through the quarters of my family. It will, it will, it will be forwarded to children that are not born yet. Children that would be born of my grandchildren. We'll remember who the great grandfather was. We'll read this book and say, God, if you can do that for my great-grandfather, you can do that for me. That's called a legacy. That's called an enduring message. That's called something that doesn't die with me. And that's available to everyone here. God is no respecter of persons whatsoever. It's available to the hungry heart. It's available to the person who's willing to press through the crowd and not care what anybody says, not care who tries to turn them back. It's available to the person who's, who knows they can't see a way forward. And that the side of the road that is saying, Jesus, son of David have mercy on me. And they don't care who tells them to be quiet. That's who gets the victory. It's something of the heart. It's the heart that says, God, I want my life to count for you, for your kingdom, for the sake of your name. First for my family, second for the community, for the nation, maybe even for this world, who knows, because there are no limits with God. Then in chapter 13, I'll close with this. The last near the end of the book of Nehemiah, he's praying another prayer at the end of his life. Verse 14, he says, remember me, oh my God concerning this and do not wipe out my good deeds that I've done for the house of God and for its services. Don't let me be forgotten. Don't let the things that you've used me to do disappear. When I do don't let the wall be broken down, let it stand, let it be known. And you know that God answered his prayer, right? Because we're talking about him thousands of years later, God answered him. We're talking about, he said, don't let the good that I've done for the house of God. Don't let it, don't let it fade. Don't let it be forgotten. Verse 22, second half of the verse, he says, remember me, oh my God, concerning this also, and spare me according to the greatness of your mercy. In other words, don't let me blow it at the end. You've used my life to do great good for your kingdom's sake. Now, don't let me fail of the grace of God at the end. Keep me Lord until I draw my last breath. Let the testimony remain. Let it be a message that lasts. Let it be an enduring message. Don't let it falter at the end. And the last verse of Nehemiah, he prays one last prayer. He says, remember me, oh my God, for good. Remember me, oh God. And let good be done. Let others be provoked to do good. And here we have his story recorded in the word of God. It's like God said, done, done. Everything you've asked me for, I've given you. You were just an ordinary guy doing an ordinary job in an ordinary place. And suddenly you opened your heart to my voice and you heard me calling you to do something extraordinary. And you got up. I gave you a favor with the king and I protected you. And I gave you provision and I kept you from the voices. I kept you from the fear. I did a work that could only be done by the hand of God. I gave you a new song of praise and glory. I gave you wisdom. You read the book, you'll see he was given great wisdom after the wall was built in resetting that society in its proper order. And I answered your prayer at the end of your life. And I gave you, I took you to a mess and I took you through a mess. And at the end, I gave you an enduring message. Praise be to God. And so that's the cry of my heart today. It's not for me, it's for you. You are God's answer to this dark moment we're now living in. You are the answer. There will be no angels flying through heaven, preaching the gospel. There's a work that only you can do. It will start with something coming into your heart that leads you to pray. Something impossible that only God can do. He was a cup bearer, not an architect. He knew how to bring a cup of juice or wine to the king. He knew how to taste it in case it was poisoned so he would die first. Yet he ends up building a wall, leading people, just an ordinary guy like you, ordinary person. And suddenly something starts stirring in the heart. I know that feeling. It happened to me when I was young, a sense that your life is destined for more than what you think it is. And you will go farther than you think you will go. And God will do more than you've ever thought he could do. This is my legacy to you. This is the message God gave me. And I preached it here as senior pastor here for 18 years and overall for about 25 soon. This is the message. The Lord can take anyone. Now, the question is, do you believe it? Do you believe or will you stand at the shores of promise and look at the giants and do your calculations and say, no, not me? Or will you go in and say, God, I want to live a miraculous life. I want your name to be exalted through me. And when I'm done, my days, I want to leave behind something that will last starting in my home. If that's the cry of your heart today, we're just simply going to pray. It's time to pray. I was, I was about 26 years old and I heard a message, something like this, I guess. And I couldn't speak publicly. I remember saying, God, if you need a bad temper, I've got that. I had no resume. I had no, no experience, no skillset. But I came and I said, Lord, you in the Bible, you took a little boy's lunch and you fed 10,000 people with it. You know, there's 10,000 people in this church now. I'm the little boy's lunch that God took to feed you today. And I got on my knees and I remember there's only two of us. And I just said, Lord, I have nothing, but if you can work with nothing, you know, I'll go. What you asked me to do, I'll do. And, and when Nehemiah, when the call first came to him, then he prayed for provision and then he got on his donkey and he, he headed to the mess and just surveyed it. Now, some of you are going, you're going into a mess, right? Your community, your family, whatever it is, maybe your own life. And you don't need to know the plan. God gave him the plan as he surveyed it. He just, he just rode around it. He spent a day just driving around, just riding around on his donkey, just looking at the mess. And some of it was so big, the donkey couldn't even cross it. It was so much rubble, but God gave him a plan. And the rest is miraculous. God, God will give you a plan. I want you to know that he will give you a plan. He will show you what to do. And you just start at the beginning and do that. And he began to be able to inspire others to work in the kingdom of God. Again, people who had just gotten so used to the rubble that they didn't even see it as anything that could bring glory to God, but he began to inspire them. It's, it's a type of you going to your neighbor, your brother, your family saying, you know, God can do something marvelous in our family this year. If we will just start and pray, the Lord's spoken to my heart that he wants to do something. There's not too many people are going to turn away from that. People are going to listen to you say, if we will rise up and build together, God's going to do something that only God can do is going to change our situation and change our family and change our future. Some of you, it'll be a bigger, a bigger environment than your own home. It'll be maybe your community around you. Who knows? There's no limit to God, to what he will do. But you are the answer of God to this generation. You are the answer of God to the, all of the, all of the darkness that's trying to swallow our society. You, you are God's answer. So father, I just lift up God, these precious souls to you here in the sanctuary, people online, people around the country, around the world. Father, in Jesus name, we are your people. We are the testimony of who you are, that you have left in the earth. Lord, we do confess that we have not lived up to what we should be. None of us have, but God, we're willing to go. We're willing, Lord, you give us the protection, provision. You give us the power, Lord, to fight against our enemies and we will go. And we thank you, Lord, that in this little offering we bring to you, Lord, you can feed thousands with it. We thank you, Lord, you can push back darkness with it. We thank you, God, you can defeat hell itself with the testimony that's here. And so Lord, we put ourselves into your hand and we ask you to do what only you can do and bring glory to your own name through it, Lord. But all of us here at this altar, we all want a chapter nine moment where all we can do is sing and shout and dance the whole chapter and thank you for what you have done and what you have rebuilt. And God, we can pray after that, Lord, don't let what I've done fade away when I do. Let it live on. Let many others be encouraged by it. And so Lord, you'll answer these prayers, all of them, O God, we give you the thanks and give you the praise in the mighty name of Jesus.