Until the Sun Is Hot | Pastor Marcus Mecum

After the wall had been rebuilt and I had set the doors in its place, the gatekeepers, the musicians, and the Levites were appointed. I put in charge of the citadel, I'm sorry, I missed that. I put in charge of Jerusalem my brother, Han and I. That's an important name, along with Han and I, another name, the commander of the citadel because he was a man of integrity and feared God more than most people do. I said to them the gates of Jerusalem are not to be opened until the sun is hot. That's what I want to talk to you about until the sun is hot. Jerusalem is not like other cities. It's been set apart. It's been separated from the destiny or the true purpose of other cities. It's kind of been pulled off to the side. There's something to treasure inside of the city of Jerusalem. But when you read the book of Nehemiah or even several places in scripture, it doesn't look special. It doesn't look like there's anything to treasure in the city. It looks the opposite of that. It's in ruin, it's completely destroyed in most cases. It's not the biggest city, it's not the wealthiest city. Nehemiah called it a trash heap.

So that gives you a sense that this is not really a city that you go look at and say, man, this is something special. This is something great. But yet God chose Jerusalem. As a result, we would know the significance of the city of Jerusalem throughout history. David would set up his throne there. The lineage of David and the kings would lead from there, Solomon would build his temple there, the ark of the covenant, which was the presence of God would dwell there. You would have the prophets speak specifically about the role that Jerusalem would play as far as what God would do around the world. Jesus would weep over Jerusalem. He'd be crucified outside of it. He would be raised from the dead right outside of the city of Jerusalem. The early church was born in Jerusalem on the day of Pentecost, and from there the gospel would be preached in the nations around the world. And there's one reason, one defining quality that made Jerusalem special, and it's that God chose it. Nothing else is stand out about Jerusalem, God, sovereignly chose the city of Jerusalem. And as it is with Jerusalem, so it is with you and I. You are the ecclesia if you are a blood-bought, born again, Christian, you are the ecclesia or the church that called out ones, the separated ones that set apart ones for one reason.

God chose you. John 15 and verse 16, Jesus said, "You didn't choose me, I chose you." Now when you hear the idea of God, you being somebody that God chose, it can be difficult to accept because when you look at your life, or at least I look at mine, I see all the places there's ruin, I see the brokenness in my life, or the weaknesses, I look around at all the ashes, all the burned up areas of my life, so it can be difficult to believe that there's treasure in the trash heap of our lives. But as it is with Jerusalem, so it is with you, there's one reason that you've been separated, set apart, it's because God has chose you. You may not look chosen, you may not feel chosen, you may not even act chosen, but God does not choose you and I based on our qualifications, He does not choose you and I based on our performance. The Bible says that while you were yet a sinner, in that good Christ loves you and gave His life for you. So this is the important quality of every life, of anyone that does anything special, unique, great for God is God chose you. It's not about you, it's about who chose you. I know it sounds small, I know it sounds insignificant, but I can't get to what I really wanna preach on until I settle that this is about who chose you. Thank you for watching. would ask over and over.

This rhetorical question to get you and I to really consider who is like our God. The Bible says, oh, come and magnify the Lord with me. A lot of people think, well, what does that mean? Magnify him, like, you mean I can enhance his greatness? No, God's greatness is established, it's infinite. There's nothing you can do to enhance his greatness. It's like a distant star, and that star is what it is. It may be small to you because of where you're looking from, but the star is what it is no matter how you view it. In the same way with God, his greatness is infinite. No matter how you and I see him, it does not change who he is, God is great, whether he's great. So we come and we magnify the Lord together. That's what we do when we worship and we praise and we bring adoration to God. It's because life has a way of causing us to get distant from his greatness. So when we magnify the Lord, we're like getting that telescope as we praise God and we're being brought into a sense of who is like our God. No one, nothing is his equal. Nothing matches his greatness. His mercy is unmatched. His love is unmatched. His power is unmatched. Every category you want to place him in, he is unmatched, and that is our God and that is who chose you. Your sin does not discourage him. Your past in no way causes him to freak out and think,

oh my God, someone with the past like that, I don't know what I could possibly do. He is greater than your upbringing, greater than your pain, greater than your problems, greater than your doubts. He is greater than anything you could possibly imagine and he don't need you to do what he wants to do. He is who he is and he needs nothing outside of himself. He's self-sufficient, he's self-reliant, he's self-existent, it's not 50, 50, 50 percent, you 50 percent God. It's not 90 percent God, 10 percent you. It's not even 99 percent you or 99 percent God, 1 percent you. It's all God. He chose you. I want you to get this. He chose you not because you are good because he is good. [ Applause ] >> All right, the city of Jerusalem is in ruin, maybe one of the falling down rocks that's in the rubble, gets this bright idea to cry out to God, burned up, broken, laying there, nothing to offer, probably on drugs, probably messing around, that rock cries out to God, God, if you'll just get me halfway there, I can do the rest on my own. You foolish rock, you're a rock. Only way you get anywhere is if you get from where you are and every step of the way God is involved. Well, if you'll just give me a jump start, then I feel like I can take it from there. You foolish rock.

There is no inerrant greatness in you, you are a rock, and there is no inerrant greatness in Jerusalem. There is no inerrant greatness in a rock. The rock can do nothing to rebuild itself. Jerusalem could do nothing to rebuild itself, and at some point you have to realize the reason that you and I are special is not because of who we are, it is because of who has chosen us. This is why you're not the excuse. I would not do what I do right now if it was about me. I would have given up a long time ago. [LAUGHTER] But I just come back to the place. You didn't bring me this far just to drop me off and say, now you do it. Somehow you were with me. You are the author of this, right? You were with me. Stage 1, stage 2, stage 3, whatever it works like. I don't know how God sees faith growing from faith to faith from glory to glory. I don't know how God sees the growth process. I don't know how he sees the-- got to keep it about him that somehow let his greatness be displayed through my life. Let his goodness be displayed through my life. So Jerusalem is great because God chose it. Any greatness that comes through your life is the result of God's sovereign choosing. Quit allowing you to be the thing that somehow discounts what God is able to do. God did not check with you, he does not look at your resume, he doesn't call references on you. He chose you and it is because of who he is. His greatness is the focus. So God sends Nehemiah to the city that's in ruin, it's in rubble. Nehemiah knows there's something

special about Jerusalem. He knows that it's going to cost him a lot to be a part of rebuilding Jerusalem. He knows the work is significant. He knows there's going to be a tax but yet he doesn't shrink back from it. He rolls up his sleeves because he believes that beauty can rise from those ashes. He looks at Jerusalem and he believes it can't end like this for Jerusalem. When he shows up to Jerusalem, he has a picture of what Jerusalem could be. It's not like he just shows up and he's randomly thinking through it. It's not like he's trying to, well, I think that this might work and I'm not really sure if that's not, he works from a blueprint. You can find that blueprint in Ezekiel 45-48. I won't go into the details of it but it talks about the amount of gates, each gate for a tribe. It talks about the qubits of each area of the city. You can go into first kings. You can go into second chronicles. You can go into the book of Exodus and again more in the earlier chapters of Ezekiel. All of them put together give you incredible detail about the blueprint of the city of Jerusalem and the blueprint of the temple. I say all that to say that God knew exactly what he was doing with the city of Jerusalem because he was working off of a model. He was working off of a blueprint. In the same way, when the Holy Spirit comes to our life, he is our Nehemiah. And the Holy Spirit has a picture of what you could be. Your life might be in run. Your life might be a mess. Your life may look nothing like that picture. But when the Holy Spirit comes into your life, the Bible says in Romans, he helps us in our weaknesses, helps plural. Doesn't mean he helps you one time and then stops. No, he helps and he keeps on helping. In our weaknesses, this means every area he works on. There's not one area that the Holy Spirit just says, well, that's an area where I don't think I can help. Every area of your life, the Holy Spirit is there. He's on a clear assignment and he has the blueprint. He has the picture. He has the model that he's working off of. He doesn't enter one person's life and say, well, I think I'm going to do it like this with them. And well, I don't really know because this problem popped up. Now I'm going to change directions. He works off of the clear model, the clear blueprint. And that is that through our life and in our life more and more day by day, piece by piece, they're a little, they're a little. We look more and more like the model who is Jesus Christ. That I look more like Jesus now than I did 10 years ago. Now I didn't know all that the Holy Spirit would have to have to do in my life to get me here. But the goal is that

when I see you, I see him. When I talk to you somewhere in there, I'm seeing him. That is the goal. All of us are on the same path. We have the same, the Holy Spirit is doing the same thing in every one of us that we would look more and more like Jesus. Little Jesus is, if you will, just small little kind of, not perfect like he is, but in the process of being perfected. I'm not like him, but I one day will be like him if I just keep letting the Holy Spirit have his way in my life. Well, we would know that Nehemiah did three things. And these are three things you need to allow the Holy Spirit to do in your life. The first thing Nehemiah did was he built walls. Boundaries are the result of limited capacity. Everyone in here has a limited capacity. That's not because you're selfish, it's because you are a human being. God's unlimited, I'm not. So I can't give everybody level 10 access, nor can you. Because as you learn along the way, if you give too many people level 10 access, some of them don't take level 10 responsibility. They'll take level three responsibility. And you'll think, man, but I gave you such a big part of my life. I was so open, I put everything into things. I gave you, there was no whatever I could do. I did, but they took level three responsibility. In other words, you start to say, man, I feel like letting you in kind of mess some things up. And then what do they do? They turn it and they blame, 'cause that's what the human condition does. We hide and we blame, we hide and we blame, we put it back. And you learn this enough over time

that people don't take responsibility. They don't take ownership. Very few people say this phrase, I was wrong, I messed up. I should have been better, I should have been more thoughtful. Very few people know how to form those words. And when you learn that over time, you begin to be considerate about the level of access, or you should be considerate. Let me put it like this 'cause you're still not following me. How many of you have a bank account? Just shout out your password real quick. (audience laughing) It's fine, it's fine, we're all Christians. Well, some of us aren't, but if you're a Christian and you really love them, then just go ahead and give them your password, right? (audience laughing) The point is that you have a password that is not unkind, it doesn't mean you're not a Christian. It means you're wise. Because there's something of value that you know that there might be somebody in here that won't give the level of responsibility to what you have worked on. Make sense? So if God has chosen you, the Holy Spirit is going to put some boundaries in your life. And it's not just to keep others out, sometimes it's to keep you in, right? The Bible says a man without self control

is like a city without walls. So walls are not just about keeping somebody out, it's about keeping me in, it's about keeping me safe, it's about keeping me in place. The second thing the Holy Spirit does, 'cause this is kind of changes the way people see boundaries, a lot of people don't even like the word boundaries. They feel like it's controlling, manipulative, in some way, shape, or form. So then the Bible says he put gates in the walls. Gates had to be added because life still has to be lived. I cannot close myself off completely. So if enough people wronged me, if enough people hurt me, and I build walls, and I insulate, and I isolate, that's not the will of God for your life. To be some monk, but we do this because we get hurt enough, I'm done, I'm finished, I shut down, they're cut off, but the Holy Spirit will teach you how to have a boundary, but then also to have a gate, where you let certain people in certain places, but you don't let everyone have access to every place. And you do this not because one group is more valuable than another, it's because if I give you more access, there is more responsibility you're expected to demonstrate. For example, in the Old Testament, the high priest was the only person, he had the greatest access in the Bible because he had the greatest level of responsibility.

One time a year, this one man could go into the Holy of Holies, but in order for him to go into the Holy of Holies, there were special garments he had to wear, there were special cleansing rituals, and did any of that stuff, inaccurately, he would drop dead. So he had the greatest access, but he had the greatest responsibility. So I have boundaries, but I have gates. That's why we encourage you to find small groups and do things like that because the point is, a lot of times it's not even physically that you're not present, but emotionally you've shut down, spiritually you've shut down, you build those walls, and yes, you should have boundaries, but boundaries does not mean you shut down. You have to add the entry points. Well, how do I know who to let in and let out? Well, Nehemiah told us. He said, I want Han and I, who was his brother, and Han and Ia to guard the gates. Han and Ia means grace, Han and Ia means mercy. So let grace and mercy guard the gates. This is so interesting. Mercy is not getting what you deserve. That's mercy. Mercy is you getting let off the hook. Grace is getting what you don't deserve. It's unearned, undeserved kindness.

So mercy cancels what you do deserve, the judgment you deserve, the consequence you deserve. Grace adds what you don't deserve. By standing before a judge for a crime and the judge says, hey listen, I'm letting you off the hook. That's mercy. But then I walk right back out to my life. But if I throw some grace in there, then what does grace do? Hey, nice to meet you. I noticed the judge was lenient there. I've got a great job for you. This is what I wanna do. I wanna set you up, I wanna give you a job. I don't even know who you are. Why would you be doing all that for me? That's grace. So grace and mercy are brothers. This is how you reduce or consider what you give or don't give, the access you give or don't give. What you tolerate, what you don't tolerate is boundaries are not a weapon. Gates are not a weapon. They're there to keep you safe, sane, and stable. Gates are about me loving others without me losing the best of who I am. So it's not mean and harsh guard the gates. It's not complain and criticize guard the gates. (indistinct chatter) It's not judge and condemn guard the gates.

It's grace and mercy guard the gates. (audience applauds) Doesn't mean I'm a doormat. It doesn't mean I let people do whatever they wanna do any way they wanna do it. Walk all that, that's not what it means, but it also doesn't mean you never have a sense where people are gonna, every now and then, have a misstep, maybe they're not gonna be sensitive to your needs, maybe, and you're gonna have to have some mercy and you're gonna have to let some people off the hook and you're gonna have to have some times in your life where you give of yourself whether the other person is deserving or not. If I don't have grace and mercy guarding the gates, we're helping me, working with me, teaching me, instructing me, I can't just live my life closed off, but I can't just live my life like an open freefrawl. So somewhere in their grace and mercy are guarding the gates. Now notice this grace and mercy say there's a time the gates are to be closed. We just read it. So grace and mercy have a standard. This is an important part, 'cause a lot of people don't get this part of the things of God. I thought judging somebody's a sin. What are you talking about? I mean, yeah, condemning somebody to hell, you're not God.

But as far as having judgment and discernment and consideration of the level of access, that's not a sin. That's not a sin. Not everybody is good for you and it's okay, it's okay. It's like, hey, I love everybody, but that don't mean I have to be close to everybody. I can forgive everybody. That don't mean I have to go back to how we used to be before I figured some things out. That's not what it means. So listen to the clear standard, Nehemiah. So grace and mercy, Han and I, and Han and I are up there on the gate. And Nehemiah says, listen, you're to guard the gate and you do not open the gate until the sun grows hot. Now all the other cities, they open up before sunrise and they shut down after the sun sets. They open up and it's dark out and they stay open until after the wee hours of the night. That's other cities and you can study it all across Israel. Other cities did not have this standard. The standard was unique to Jerusalem. Unique because of what the purpose of the city was. The call of the city. Its standards were different than all the other city's standards. So if it's dark, the instruction was don't open the gates. If there's, maybe the sun's coming up a little bit but it's still cast in the shadow

on the side of the wall, don't open the gates. If the morning fog or mist still hasn't lifted, don't open the gates. If it's cloudy, don't open the gate. If a storm's rolling in, you don't open the gate. You wait until the sun is hot. What happens when the sun is hot? The fog lifts, the clouds pass, the storms are over. The darkness is pushed out and you have full light, full sun and then grace and mercy. At that point, knows how to open the gate. Now, the problem with having a standard is there's gonna be people on the inside that don't like the standard and they're gonna have pressure because I need to get out there. I've got places to go. I've got things to do and all the other cities open the gates, why don't I live in that city? I'm here in this city, don't you appreciate me being in this city? If you really appreciate me being in this city, I think you could make an exception and let me out the gate. No grace and mercy, have a standard. And I don't care if you're on the inside, until the sun is hot, until I know I have full light, whether it's a decision I need to make, a relationship I need to enter, until I have full light, no access.

Now, people from the outside are gonna also put pressure. You know the distance we've traveled, you know how the extremes we went through, we've traveled all night, we're finally here. You know, all it is is a little miss, surely you could make the exception. All it is, I mean that's just a small little storm cloud, no big deal, I mean surely you could open up, but the standard had been said. For Jerusalem, not for the other cities, for Jerusalem, why? Because God had chosen. And because God has chosen you, the Holy Spirit will teach you how to have boundaries, He'll teach you how to manage access, all of my yeses have a standard. Because most of my messes are because of my yeses. Have you experienced people don't like no? They don't like no, people don't like not yet. They take great offense, but you cannot let the pressure from the inside or the outside change. That God's place treasure in you, and that treasure means every now and then, you have to say, man I know what the word of God says for me in that area, no. Man the Holy Spirit is helping me rebuild some things, no. I'm not as strong as I need to be yet, the answer is no. Well what are you doing on Sunday morning? I'm at church, come on, you have to do that all the time?

Yes, yes, yes I do, 'cause it's a standard. The leading of the Holy Spirit, what do I say yes to, what do I say no to? God leave voices in your life. What the Bible say about Hananiah and Hananiah, it said they had integrity, There's something about them when they looked at their life. These people have integrity and they feared God. So God loves you. God's chosen you. God has a picture of what he wants you to be and it's gonna include boundaries. It's gonna include some gates and it's gonna include some standards, some convictions. It's not easy to have those things, but think about Jesus, 'cause he's our model, right? Jesus had one thing about his life, a place that he had to go. And if you read the scriptures and maybe I'll preach this sermon sometime, but if you read through the life of Jesus, he had to get to Jerusalem. Jerusalem was where he had to get. Everything he said yes to and no to had to do with he had to get to Jerusalem. So there were sick people that he said no to because he said, "I gotta get to Jerusalem." There were needs that he didn't meet 'cause he had to get to Jerusalem.

If the Son of God had to say no, something tells me you might need to say no every now and then too. Just gonna throw it out there. If he could not be everything to everybody while he was in the flesh, 'cause you and I are in the flesh too. You can be something to somebody, but you can't be everything to everybody. He had to get to Jerusalem. Even Simon Peter, remember he got involved and tried to, and what Jesus had to do is get behind me Satan. This is his number one apostle, I guess that's arguable, but get behind me Satan. You're calling your number one apostle Satan? Yeah, he's stopping me from getting to Jerusalem. I know where I'm going. Well, Revelation 21 says we're on our way to a new Jerusalem. That's the end goal is we're on our way to a city whose builder and maker is God. And everything we got to do to get there. And I'm not talking about just, you know, live in some life where you're worried or afraid. I'm saying your focus should be, I got to get to heaven. I want to live my life in a way that he's going to be pleased with me. I know I'm going to stand before him and what he says matters. And he's not blind, he has eyes, he's not deaf, he has ears, and I want to stand before him.

And I want to hear those words well done, my good and faithful servant, that's your Jerusalem. And he's chose you. So I believe that the message I'm talking about is pretty basic, but it's a whole lot harder to live. The Bible talks about a spirit of wisdom and revelation. Something that comes to you just by the spirit of God. That God gives you wisdom that you don't possess because of what you've been through or a book you've read, just the wisdom of the Holy Spirit can come. And that's my prayer is we wrap our time up together is that the wisdom of God would find its way to your decisions, to your relationships, that you would let the good work that he's begun, be finished in Jesus' name. And so Father in Jesus' name, all across this room, speaking to the ecclesia, the set apart, that you place that treasure in earth and vessel. Not because of who they are, but because of who you are. So let spirit speak to spirit. God stir them up on the inside. You know the specific individual areas where maybe they've let the boundary go. Nehemiah, the Bible says that the enemy noticed there were no gaps in the wall. Man, let there be no gaps. No entrance point for the enemy into their lives. Give them great wisdom, great discernment, great judgment. I plead the blood of Jesus over their life,

keep the wrong people out and bring the right people in Jesus' mighty name. We thank you and we praise you for it. And we all said amen. Come on, let's give the Lord a good hand clap.