Sermon Cloud

Nehemiah 2:1-8: "In the month of Nisan, in the twentieth year of King Artaxerxes, when wine was before him, I took up the wine and gave it to the king. Now I had not been sad in his presence.  2 And the king said to me, ‘Why is your face sad, seeing you are not sick? This is nothing but sadness of the heart.' Then I was very much afraid.  3 I said to the king, ‘Let the king live forever! Why should not my face be sad, when the city, the place of my fathers' graves, lies in ruins, and its gates have been destroyed by fire?'  4 Then the king said to me, ‘What are you requesting?' So I prayed to the God of heaven.  5 And I said to the king, ‘If it pleases the king, and if your servant has found favor in your sight, that you send me to Judah, to the city of my fathers' graves, that I may rebuild it.'  6 And the king said to me (the queen sitting beside him), ‘How long will you be gone, and when will you return?' So it pleased the king to send me when I had given him a time.  7 And I said to the king, ‘If it pleases the king, let letters be given me to the governors of the province Beyond the River, that they may let me pass through until I come to Judah,  8 and a letter to Asaph, the keeper of the king's forest, that he may give me timber to make beams for the gates of the fortress of the temple, and for the wall of the city, and for the house that I shall occupy.' And the king granted me what I asked, for the good hand of my God was upon me." 

 

INTRODUCTION

 

Last week we came together and God the Spirit moved in such a way that many of you were cut to heart and were broken by the needs of our city and by our apathy towards these needs.  I believe God was calling us to brokenness last week and I hope that you sense the same. 

 

This week we're going to look at the "what next?" question and discern from Nehemiah's response to brokenness what God would call us to as a community as we join in His great mission to this great city. 

 

The Church must respond:

 

The best response to the needs of our city is to plant Gospel-centered, Christ-loving communities of light throughout our city. 

 

• Giving to the ministry has dropped for the last 25 years straight. 
• A greater number of churches have split over the last 20 years. 
• 80% of churches are in decline or plateau. 
• 3,500 churches fail each year in our country and only 1,500 are planted.
• An average of 80% of churches planted in San Diego will fail within the first 2 years.
• Greater San Diego has about 3.2 million people and only 6% are actually following Jesus and believe the Bible is true and salvation is by God's grace.  This means that there are only 184,000 Christians in this city out of 3.2 million.  These are similar numbers to some communist countries! 
• Every major Protestant category of church has dropped over the last 20 years in San Diego (the only exception is Roman Catholicism which grew 27%).
• From 1990-today, due to population growth, we needed to plant 450+ churches just to keep up with population and maintain 6%. 
• An estimate claims there will be another one million people living here by 2030.
• The national average is 12 churches for every 10,000 people, but San Diego has 3.7 churches for every 10,000 people.  If we want to bring ourselves up to the national average, we'd need to plant 2,500 churches today and then we'd need to plant another 1,250 churches by 2030. 
• We'd be overjoyed to have eight churches for every 10,000 people.  We have our work cut out for us. 

 

This most certainly is a time for a flood of Nehemiahs to rise up and respond to the needs.

 

What can we learn about our mission through this great work of Nehemiah?  How can we put some meat on the bones of missional calling?  How should God's people now respond if they've been broken over the needs of our city?

 

Let's remind ourselves that: "All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness," (2 Tim. 3:16). 

 

Nehemiah is giving this to us to teach us, correct us, convict us and train us. 

 

God's People Know How to Serve

 

Verse 1:11b: "...now I was cupbearer to the king."

 

As cupbearer to the king, he was in a very dangerous role of tasting the wine to ensure it was safe.  Also, it was a position of great honor in that the king trusted Nehemiah with his life.  You got great perks like living in the palace with the king, eating incredible food and wearing royal clothing, yet there was a possibility you could die every day. 

 

Nehemiah wasn't a prophet, priest, or king.  He was the servant of a king.  Yet Nehemiah was a man of great integrity and character.  His humility and servant-heart allowed him to be in a place of great responsibility.  Through his faithfulness God raised him up and used an ordinary man in an extraordinary way. 

 

Some of you men need to realize that even though you may not own a business, lead a church, or ever become an executive, through your humility and character God may place you in a position of great responsibility one day.  Your faithfulness right now is how God is shaping you for such a task.  By hanging out with a leader, Nehemiah becomes a very skilled leader over the years until God calls him to the task of rebuilding the wall in Jerusalem.

 

God put him in this position and Nehemiah served right where he was.  He didn't complain about being a slave.  He didn't let despair consume him.  He didn't make excuses or blame others for his circumstances.  Nehemiah simply bloomed where God planted him and served right where he was. 

 

How many of you need to hear that?  You need to be freed from excuses, blame and the despair of your circumstances.  Nehemiah was a slave under a king who was an enemy of God's people, yet he knew what it meant to serve His God no matter where he was, and we need to learn the same. 

 

God's People Know When to Be Patient

 

Verse 1: "In the month of Nisan, in the twentieth year of King Artaxerxes, when wine was before him, I took up the wine and gave it to the king. Now I had not been sad in his presence." 

 

Nehemiah had been praying and fasting for four months!  What is so amazing about this is that Nehemiah is clearly a man of action, yet he realizes that without God's hand upon him, nothing will get done.  So Nehemiah is praying and seeking God for an extended period of time waiting for the right moment to speak. 

 

What incredible patience this demonstrates.  Yet patience is born by trusting in the One to whom you're praying.  Nehemiah is patient because he trusts in the God to whom he is giving his requests.  It isn't just a matter of Nehemiah's raw energy; it is a matter of God's timing. 

 

For some of you this is very difficult.  In a culture where we're told we can have what we want when we want it, we're not accustomed to waiting or being patient.  Yet this isn't just about a lack of patience, it's a lack of trust.  It's a demonstration that we want to run our lives on our timing and keep our agenda.  To pray is to admit our need and to wait is to exercise our trust. 

 

It is true that ‘fools rush in.'  Most mistakes I've made are due to a lack of patience and trust in the God I worship.  Prayer becomes nothing more than a way of sanctifying our own will rather than seeking God's.  Some of you have been in relationships where you decided to rush in apart from prayer, patience and trust and it ended in great heartache. 

 

I find that we speak loudly of God's sovereignty and control over our lives, and our great trust in Him, yet when the time comes for us to be patient and wait for God's timing and even receive an answer of "no" from Him, we struggle and often give in to our own desires. 

 

Some of you are pursuing relationships with someone that you know is not giving their life and heart to King Jesus.  In your impatience and lack of trust, you're trying to manipulate and control the situation instead of demonstrating that your Father loves you more than any man or woman ever will and He knows what is best for you. 

 

Nehemiah had been praying and fasting for months and was willing to wait for God's timing and not his own.   He knew that whatever door opened or shut was up to His true King. 

 

God's People Know How to Feel

 

Verse 2: "And the king said to me, ‘Why is your face sad, seeing you are not sick? This is nothing but sadness of the heart.' Then I was very much afraid." 

 

When you were around a king as a servant you were to not show your sadness or depression.  The king didn't exist for you, you existed for the king.  For Nehemiah to bring his stuff into the king's presence could have gotten Nehemiah killed, especially if this is a time of celebration as some commentators assume.   

 

You see, to serve such a powerful ruler was an honor and to act as if you were unhappy in his presence was a great dishonor to him.  For Nehemiah, this was not simply a small lack of courtesy.  For a man not to do what was required of him before his king was grounds for beheading.  This wasn't a democracy, it was a monarchy and the king's wishes, not your own, was what would have consumed you day and night.

 

For Nehemiah to come before the king and to show his sadness proves just how broken Nehemiah's heart was for his people.  

 

Before we continue, I want to address the men here this morning.  For some of you, the idea of weeping and mourning sounds not only odd, but impossible.  You've been told all your life that in order for you to be a man, you had to hide your emotions and just be tough.

 

Last week I called all of you to be broken and to grieve over your sin and the brokenness of our city.  For some of you that was easier than others.  For men in particular, this may seem totally out of place with the kind of image you have of a real man in our culture.  We think men like Seth Rogen from Knocked up and Superbad are funny and we kind of idolize them.  They're emotionally distant, apathetic and don't get emotionally worked up about anything because they don't really care about anything but themselves. 

 

For other men, you've simply grow up thinking that to grieve and to be broken is a sign of weakness.  You think that acting tough is equal to being a man.  You think tears are weak and effeminate. 

 

However, Nehemiah was a true man in every sense of the word and yet he wasn't emotionally distant. 

The kind of man that God is looking for is a man who can open up and share his need first with God and then with others.  Someone who isn't afraid of being viewed as weak and needy.  I think the surest sign of demonstrating how weak you are is the inability to share your needs with others. 

 

If you think emotions are a sign of weakness, I want you to study the emotional life of Jesus.  Look at how many times Jesus wept, or expressed sorrow, or had his heart go out to others, or expressed a righteous anger.  He was full of emotion.  And if we learn to stuff our emotions down so that we manage them, we're going to be poor examples of Jesus. 

 

Men, we need to see that the strongest people are the people who open their hearts to others and not feel one bit less of a man. 

 

Unfortunately we have very poor examples of men in our culture-men who are either very wimpy and are constantly sad and depressed but never stand for anything, or men who stand strong for everything but never show their weakness or need to others.  We need men like Jesus who are tender warriors who will step up for what is needed and right, but who can also open their hearts and share it with others.

 

Men, please get into community and stop hiding.  Find people to whom you can open your heart and express your needs.  It is in those moments that the Gospel does amazing work on our hearts and meets us where we are. 

 

If you're not able to share your heart with others because of pride and refuse to share your needs with others, just know that God opposes the proud and gives grace to the humble.  To isolate yourself is to place yourself in danger.  Proverbs 18:1 says "Whoever isolates himself seeks his own desire..." 

 

For the women, I want to ask that you pray for the men of our church, that you ask God specifically for tender warriors who will heed the call of God to give their lives away in humility and courage.  Who can stand before kings and trust their God.  Who are willing to pray hard and work hard for the sake of God's kingdom.  Pray that our men will have an iron rod of God's grace driven down their spine so that they can stand up and lead our church for the sake of our city. 

 

The king notices Nehemiah's sadness and asks Nehemiah what's wrong with him. 

 

Nehemiah said he was "very much afraid."  In other words, he went in with his Depends strapped tight.  He knew his words and actions could end poorly for him and for God's people if the king was displeased. 

 

God's People Know How to Submit

 

Verse 3a: "I said to the king, ‘Let the king live forever!'"

 

Do you see how Nehemiah begins his response?  "Let the king live forever!" is assumed to be nothing more than good negotiating skills or diplomacy.  I don't think that's the case. 

 

Nehemiah responds the way a servant should have responded to his king, with respect and honor.  I think this has much to do with Nehemiah's view of authority and leadership. 

 

What Nehemiah understands is something that you and I often forget: that the authorities placed in our lives are placed there by God.  If God is over all things, and He is King of kings and Lord of lords, then even the wicked authorities ultimately submit to God one way or another.  Even men we didn't vote for, or bosses we wouldn't have chosen, or parents we didn't ask for.  The best or worst authorities will all one day answer to God because He is just and will ensure that every wicked act is judged by Him. 

 

Nehemiah knows that even this king, though he doesn't worship the God he does, is under God's authority.

 

When Nehemiah goes to him with reverence and respect, he does so out of respect and reverence for God.  We falsely assume that we can act with great disrespect to those who are over us because we fail to remember that ultimately we will give an answer to God for how we acted towards them.

 

This is why Paul teaches us that the way we submit to them shows our submission and trust for God. 

 

For many of us here this morning, there is an undercurrent of a lack of humility to submit to any authority placed over us.  We want to stick it to the man because we think we should pick and choose who we're under.  We basically want to do our own thing and not answer to anyone.

 

Whether it is our government, our local authorities, the last church that you were in, your boss, your parents, your teachers or our local city officials, there is something in us that just wants to be pissed off and resistant to leadership. 

 

But look at Nehemiah.  He was able to work within a system and leadership that was in opposition to his people.  Like Daniel, like Joseph, and like Esther, he was able to trust God's sovereignty over his circumstance and it freed him to work and live with great integrity under those who had authority.  They didn't whine and moan, complain and make excuses for their poor work ethic. 

 

If we're going to see San Diego transformed, we need to be a people who knows how to honor authority and trust God's hand over all things.  If you are constantly stiff-arming them or dishonor them, even if you completely disagree with them, you're ultimately stiff-arming God's authority.  It shows you're unwilling to be shaped by God's choice that you should be under someone that He's placed over you.

 

Let's not be "those Christians" in our workplace or city who are the rock in everyone's shoe.  We unfortunately are excellent at bitching at leadership and taking shots at them.

 

Husbands and wives: How you demonstrate submission in your home will affect how your children will submit to others.  If your child always hears you complaining about your landlord, boss, president, elders, or husband, they're not going to see godly submission lived out and they will follow you. 

 

The word "submission" in our culture is taboo.  Yet Jesus submitted fully to the Father.  Was he somehow less than a man for doing so?  Just the opposite-His ability to submit demonstrated His strength, even when it cost Him His life.

 

This extends into our neighborhoods.  Some of you have neighbors who are nit-picky and nosy.  What if when you were asked to do something that you didn't necessarily agree with, you simply demonstrated submission and did as they asked instead of fighting with them and creating distance between you.

 

Nehemiah is showing the king of Persia what it looks like to submit to His God by serving him with honor.  He's able to do so because he sees the true authority behind king Artaxerxes.  This is why Jesus was able to respond the way he did in John 19:10-11 when Pilate said:  "‘Do you not know that I have authority to release you and authority to crucify you?'  11  Jesus answered him, ‘You would have no authority over me at all unless it had been given you from above.'"

 

Even in the face of His death and crucifixion, Jesus knew who had full power and authority. 

 

God's People Know When to Speak

 

Verse 3b: "Why should not my face be sad, when the city, the place of my fathers' graves, lies in ruins, and its gates have been destroyed by fire?" 

 

Nehemiah is given an open door to speak of his grief and concern for his people.  After waiting for months for the right time, God opens Artaxerxes eyes and Nehemiah's mouth.  The timing was important and God gave Nehemiah the opportunity to speak up and he did.

 

Nehemiah appeals to something that even the king would have sympathy for-that the place of his fathers' graves, lies in ruins and the gates of the city can no longer protect his people. 

 

God's People Know When to Pray

 

Verse 4: "Then the king said to me, ‘What are you requesting?' So I prayed to the God of heaven." 

 

This is the question that Nehemiah had hoped to hear.  "What are you requesting" is a way of showing that the king is interested in helping. 

 

In all of the excitement of the moment, Nehemiah realizes that before he says anything he needs to pray again!

 

This is such a beautiful picture of full reliance on God for every moment.  He's prayed for four months and yet he prays again.  This was probably a very brief prayer that was silent.  It was simply a connection between His Father in heaven and himself in the moment. 

 

It shows that we don't have to go to another room and close our eyes to speak to God.  Our hearts can go out to Him in prayer at any moment.  The moment he turns to his God he's ushered into the throne-room of God's presence. 

 

Don't you see what's happening?  The months of fasting and praying with great patience has shaped Nehemiah into a man that naturally turns to his God.  He's been molded by this painful and difficult circumstance to speak to God freely at any moment. 

 

When Madison was little, she would wake up in the middle of night every now and then and need something.  She was the only one for whom I would wake up at 3:00 in the morning to get a glass of water.  She didn't have to speak in King James English, she just said "daddy, I'm thirsty" and Grace and I would get what she needed. 

 

So many of us forget that God is our Father and we can come to Him at any moment for anything.  He's not too busy.  He's not handling more important things.  He is able and willing to receive you at any moment.  In fact, He wants you to come to Him.

 

When a young child of a president wants to see their daddy, they don't have to pass security clearance or make an appointment.  They stroll right past the Secret Service and walk into the Oval office, right into their daddy's lap.  They have full access to him.  How much more does our God, who brought us near by the shed blood of His own Son, desire for us to come in and spend time with Him at any moment?

 

This also shows us that prayer doesn't need to be a long drawn out affair.  We can speak to God throughout the day.  That is how I mostly pray.  I pray in the shower and in my office for extended periods of time, but mostly I simply pray and speak to Him throughout the day.  When I'm preaching, often times I'm praying too.  When I'm counseling, I'm praying and asking God for wisdom and to pour grace upon the one to whom I'm speaking.  When I'm not caught up in the emotions, I pray when Grace and I have a disagreement.  I pray when I'm in the car.  I pray when I have to call someone.  It becomes natural and conversational rather than formal and unnatural over time.

 

God's People Know How to be Humble and Courageous

 

Verse 5-6: "And I said to the king, ‘If it pleases the king, and if your servant has found favor in your sight, that you send me to Judah, to the city of my fathers' graves, that I may rebuild it.'  6 And the king said to me (the queen sitting beside him), ‘How long will you be gone, and when will you return?' So it pleased the king to send me when I had given him a time." 

 

In Ezra 4 king Artaxerxes received a letter from some who were opposing the rebuilding of the Temple and the walls of Jerusalem.  The king stopped the work and issued an edict that there should be no more rebuilding of this city because of its rebellious attitude towards his kingdom.

 

Nehemiah is asking for the king to change his current foreign policy.  This would be like a guy who brings the President his meals every evening and one night he asks the President to change his foreign policy in the Middle-East because his family lives there and he doesn't like his current policy.  Not only this, but he'd like to be made an ambassador of the United States and to be sent to negotiate peace talks between the Palestinians and Israel and to the chief leader to rebuild one of the cities.  The waiter?  C'mon are you serious? 

 

Nehemiah is basically saying, "I know you made up your mind on your policy for Israel, but I'm asking that you change your policy and then give me letters letting everyone know you've changed your mind."

 

Yet in all of this Nehemiah demonstrates great humility.  He doesn't begin with a tirade about his policy.  He simply says, "If it pleases the king, and if your servant has found favor in your sight..."  This is both humble and courageous.  It allows Artaxerxes to make the decision, but Nehemiah is able to appeal to how well he's served the king.  When he says, "if your servant has found favor," he is saying, "if you're pleased with how I've served you all these years." 

 

We don't need to tell someone that we've done a good job.  To be humble means that we let our work and actions speak on its own.  We can be courageous when our conscience is clear.

 

What I love about the Gospel is that it shows us our great need for grace and that all our work and self-righteousness will never impress God. We always need His grace, so we're always thankful.  Yet because God gives it to us, not because we're worthy, but because He loves us and is gracious, we can rest and have courage that we're loved and approved, that we're children of the true King and this makes us bold yet tender.

 

Though it doesn't say how long he asked to be away, what do we know was the length of time?  12 years!  Can you imagine asking your boss to give you 12 years off to go and change his policies and help a competitor?  This is exactly what Nehemiah is asking. 

 

What boldness and confidence he has in God.

 

God's People Know How to Plan

 

Verse 7-8a: "And I said to the king, ‘If it pleases the king, let letters be given me to the governors of the province Beyond the River, that they may let me pass through until I come to Judah,  8 and a letter to Asaph, the keeper of the king's forest, that he may give me timber to make beams for the gates of the fortress of the temple, and for the wall of the city, and for the house that I shall occupy.'"

 

 Nehemiah had been planning as he was praying.  He wasn't sitting back and doing nothing.  We have this false dichotomy in the church that we believe if we plan we'll not only have what we need, but we look down on those who are more prayerful and contemplative.  However, there is a self-righteousness that from those who pray and typically don't plan.  They think that they simply should pray and trust in God and that is somehow more spiritual.  Yet Nehemiah is a man of action and deep prayer.  God works through secondary means to accomplish His will.  He is a God of mission.  He initiates, is sovereign, and everything accomplished is all by His good hand, yet He chooses to use us to accomplish His purposes.  He chooses to lay His good hand upon us so that we're empowered to accomplish His great Gospel promise. 

 

Prayer and planning can never be divorced.  We do all we can to put our God-given talents and best efforts to plan and labor, but we bathe everything in prayer asking God to lead us and guide us from His word and Spirit.   

 

God's People Give God All the Glory

 

Verse 8b: "And the king granted me what I asked, for the good hand of my God was upon me." 

 

Nehemiah gives all the glory to God.  The way we can see that our labor has been God-glorifying is that when we're finished, we give all the glory to God.  We labor, but we know all along it is God's good hand upon us. 

 

Nehemiah is a man of great character, he's a man of action, he's brave and courageous, yet he's also afraid, weeping and mourning, fasting and praying, and asking something that only God can do.  When God answers his prayer he immediately gives God all the glory. 

 

Nehemiah may have those qualities, but those qualities are given by God and Nehemiah knows it.  God revealed the need, God opened Nehemiah's heart, God gave Nehemiah the job to be before the king, God prompted the king to ask him what was wrong, God gave Nehemiah the plan, God turned the king's heart, and God answered every one of Nehemiah's prayers.  Who else can take credit for this? 

 

You and I shouldn't worry about our positions, or whether we're noticed for what we do.  We should simply be humble before our God and trust that His hand is good.  God opposes the proud and gives grace to the humble.  Some of you feel as if God is opposing you by not answering your prayers.  He may be!  And it may be because you haven't learned to really trust Him.  It may be you are still very, very proud and He knows if He answers your prayer you will only bring glory to yourself.  The most loving thing God can do is keep you from self-glory, which will destroy you.  Anything in your life that is truly good is owing to the grace of God's good hand. 

 

Do you believe that?  Or do you give yourself all the credit for who you are, what you have, and how you got it?  Nehemiah was a humble, humble man.  He's been the faithful servant of an unbelieving king and now God opens Nehemiah's heart and the doors to accomplish His will.  

 

God loves to use the simple, common, humble people who He chooses to raise up and use in incredible ways. 

 

God is calling us to no less that what we see in Nehemiah's life and example.

 

This is God's Call for Us

 

The call from Scripture is for us to be wholly given to God's mission as Nehemiah was.  We're to give ourselves fully to the task without wavering, just like Nehemiah.  We're to be concerned for our city.  We're to weep and mourn for what we see as our eyes are opened and the news hits home.  We're to turn to God and get on our face before Him in needy prayer for Him to show up.  We're to fast and sacrifice our normal pleasures to seek His face.  We're plan and use all our God-given gifts to think through what it will take to accomplish His mission.  We're to leave our place of comfort and security and spend ourselves fully for His mission.  And we're to give God all the glory as we see His hand upon us through small successes and victories, as well as difficulty and pain. 

 

Now go do that!  How do you feel?  Do you do that?  Does your life look like this? 

 

Why not?  What stops us?  What keeps us from being so convicted that we change from here on out and simply do it?  (There are various reasons we don't do this: fear, pride, pleasure, comfort, security, control, apathy, business, hard hearts, a love for other gods more than a love for Jesus). 

 

If we were simply to stop with "Now go do it!"  We'd all be undone.  We'd leave here only crushed.  And if we're honest, we'll admit that the task before us is impossible considering the current state of our hearts.  Who could possibly live up to this? 

 

I want to tell you some good news.  There is someone who did all of this. 

 

Jesus is the True and Better Nehemiah

 

Someone much greater than Nehemiah left a place more beautiful than the palace in Susa, and didn't just risk His life, He gave it.  A Man so wholly given to God's mission that He literally spent Himself on a cross to accomplish it.  A Man whose heart was broken over what He saw.  A Man who wept over the city.  A Man who lived His life continually turning to His Father in Heaven.  A Man of great sacrifice.  A Man who came with a plan and used all His gifts fully to accomplish this plan.  A Man who left comfort and security to come and suffer.  A Man who gave all glory to His Father for success and suffering, because for Him, to suffer was to succeed in keeping His Father's plan from before the foundation of the world. 

 

This Man is Jesus the Christ.  The King of all kings and Lord of all lords.  The Son of God sent to this world on God's mission to call a people to Himself and by His suffering, make them His bride, empowered by His Spirit, to go into the world and make disciples of all nations. 

 

Because of Jesus' great work on our behalf, we're given the same Spirit and power to go into our city and love it with the heart and character of Christ.  Because of His incarnation, we can then go and incarnate Christ to this city. 

 

 

• We can serve because He first served us. 

• We can be patient as Jesus is patient with us.
• We can feel the needs of the city as Jesus felt our needs and met them.
• We can submit to one another and to authority as Jesus submitted to His Father for us.
• We can pray, knowing that Jesus is interceding for us even now.
• We can be humble and courageous because Jesus humbled Himself, became a man, and took all our sin upon Himself so that we would be forever loved by a Father who will never leave us.
• We can plan because we know that Jesus followed His Father's plan and calls us to join in His great missional plan for the world.
• We can give God all the glory because we know that from beginning to end, it's all of grace!

 

 

 

Prayer and Planning meetings occur every three months.  Our next one is 2/23 at 6:30 PM.

 

MC's are the way we plan, pray and work out Jesus' mission for the various neighborhoods of San Diego.

 

We need men to step up and heed God's call to follow Christ into this great city for His glory and our joy.