 Right, good morning, success, Divya, good morning. Let's begin this time with the word of prayer. I'll pray. Father, we thank you for this day. We thank you for this new week that you've given us, Lord, and even as we just sit in your presence to pray and to read your word and to study from your word of God, I pray that, Holy Spirit, you will speak to us, you will minister to us, Lord, that everything that we study, Lord, will be used for your glory and your glory. Thank you. In Jesus' name we pray, amen. All right, so we've been doing the book timeless principles for the workplace and we have completed section one, which talks about complete chapters in section one, completed then. So last week we talked about, you know, right workplace attitudes and how we need to maintain integrity, truthfulness, work hard. God is not like laziness. Another important point we discussed was on, you know, the time that God has given us, how we use our time. Never stop learning. So keep learning, keep growing. And also when the unexpected happens, stay calm, stay focused, continue to pursue what God has for you. Right, so that is section one. Let's go to section two. Now we're gonna move from our personal things, you know, right workplace attitudes, all of that. And we're gonna move into corporate vision, mission, values and culture. Right now, even as, you know, maybe some of us are working for an organization or maybe we have our own business that's wonderful. Or even if you're working with a church, right? It is not just that we grow, you know, in our areas of, you know, work that is given to us, not just growth and pay or not, all that is important. But what we must also do is to really believe in the mission, the vision of the organization, embracing its values, right? Embracing the culture that is, you know, in the organization. Now, let's just look at a few points here, right? The corporate vision describes what you wish to become as an organization, right? So for example, right? If you are any organization, it does not have to be a big multimillion dollar organization. It could be something very small, a small-scale organization. But it is very important to have a vision, right? Because that's where you want to see the organization, right? That's where you want to see how you wish the organization to become this way, right? So if you look at, for example, like all people's church, we had a vision to be the salt and light in the city of Bangalore, voice to the nation and to the nations. Or we maybe started in 2001, there were eight people, right? So it's not like, you know, the vision is there. Certainly, we're going to achieve that vision in one year or two years. No, it takes time for that vision. But as an entrepreneur or as a leader, you must always envision what you want to see your organization or whatever role that you're leading, where you want to see it, right? So for example, if you're a team leader, right? You may not be the CEO of an organization, but maybe you're a team leader, but where would you want to see your team? You know, two years from now, right? Because there's a corporate vision, but then you instill that vision in your team as well, right? The mission describes how we're going to do things, right? To accomplish that vision. Like our mission is very important because we can use wrong methods to reach a target. But the mission is, again, describes how you're going to achieve what you have in mind, the vision. And three is the values. So the standards of the organization, right? For example, as an organization, we believe that men and women should be treated equally. Men and women should have equal pay, equal opportunities. We also, in an organization, we also have certain percentage of, no, for people who are disabled, maybe blind people who are physically disabled. And if they have the skills, we give them opportunities. So these are certain values that organizations have, right? And then is the culture. The culture is the intangible component, right? The work environment, how people work together. The culture is very important, right? If you look at an organization, so for example, if somebody comes to your company, a friend of yours, and they just walk around in the office, most probably they will get an idea of what the culture of the organization is, right? Now, okay, may not be the first time, but maybe if they come a couple of times, look around in the office, hey, okay. This is what, it looks like everyone worked together. It looks like, even the bosses working together. Recently, somebody sent me a picture of this, right? The CEO of Facebook and his desk, right? Because it was really nice to see that. He has, I'm not sure if you've seen that, but he has a desk, he doesn't have his own cabin, so it's just a desk, with his papers and all of it, and it's with the regular employees around, right? So it's not like there's a separate place, okay, on the boss, so it's really nice to see that, right? It just adds so much value. It's not like you're separating yourself, saying, hey, I'm a multi-millionaire, I'm the CEO, and you are working for me. No, he was there, and these are cultures that we can start, or it's a culture that we create in an organization, right? So many times, there are work benefits, right? So all that is good, but we can have work benefits but a very wrong culture or a culture in the workplace may not be very ethical, right? But the benefits are wonderful. So we must have a balance of all of this, right? So let's look at a few points here, right? Your vision influences your productivity, right? Proverbs 29, 18, where there is no revelation, very, very converse, or where there is no vision, where people cast off restraint, but happy is he who keeps the law. The word revelation is an inspired dream or a vision, right? So where there is no inspired dream or vision, there is nothing that compels us to do anything. It's like just wandering about aimlessly, and we end up unproductive. But a compelling vision captures the imagination. It grips people's hearts, it fires up passion, it inspires action, it just stirs us to do something. Like it creates focus, it creates, it births ideas, it influences our thoughts, it guides decisions, provides direction, it's wonderful, right? And all of this is a result of productive organization, right? Now, very important to have a vision. Now, the vision could be very big. Like right now we may be a small organization, a small church, a small ministry, but you must have this, have a vision, right? Because your vision will influence the productivity, your productivity, the productivity of your team, eventually the productivity of the organization, right? Now, a vision could be one or two sentences, it can be maximum three, so it shouldn't be like a whole paragraph, it's just something that will stir us all, right? It's something that can, you know, very descriptive. So when you see the vision, you will know, okay, this is what we want to achieve, right? For example, the Bible call it, our vision is to equip believers for the work of the ministry, very simple. We don't want to equip believers to, you know, just or to become famous. It's not, our vision is not, okay, just so that we have hundreds of people join and then, you know, we, everyone knows about APC. It's not that, we want every believer to be equipped to do the work of the ministry, right? And so where you do the work of the ministry, it's up to you, right, to be, as we know, like, you know, many of us are from different countries, but we feel, you know, just by doing this, hey, we are fulfilling the vision, what drives us? Yeah, we are fulfilling the vision, or to equip every believer for the work of the ministry, right? And so, have these vision statements, let it, you know, of course, you know, a fire always tries to die off, but we need to fan it. We need to, you know, just turn it up every now and then, right, you know, it could be even for your personal things. I've written here the example here that I've shared with John many times. John is right now in Anglore, looking out at the church there. And it's wonderful because when we went there, you know, it was a difficult time, but it was also a very encouraging time. So I just knew that, okay, God is gonna do something, but, you know, there was this feeling of, okay, I have to push on, I have to press on, I have to do something to see this church because to see the congregation being better. And of course, we had a wonderful team, right? We were maybe about five of us, five, six of us on the team. Now, as a team, we did so much. We just went out, we went out of our way and many of them in the team were elderly people, right? They're all above 55, 60 years old and they would come out with me or outreaches. So it was so wonderful because what happens is when you have a vision, you keep sharing it, people catch that vision. It's like a fire, no, it spreads. So people said, okay, you know, master, we'll come along with you wherever you're going. I didn't force them, but they started coming. And then as a team, we started going to different places, reaching out, your vision will influence your productivity. Right? Second point, your vision, you will light it, repeat it, repeat it, keep repeating it. Go back to your vision, read it. You could have a cook two and it was three and four. And the Lord answered and said, write the vision and make it plain on tablets that he may run who reads it. For the vision is yet for an appointed time, but at the end, it will speak. And it will not lie. Go with tatties, wait for it because it will surely come. It will not tatter. What a powerful words. Have a cook is saying, write your vision, make it known on tablets, write it down. If we have a vision, don't keep it here and say, okay, the vision is here. No, write it down, right? Because visions can easily be forgotten. New things may come up, right? This can be a corporate vision, personal vision, ministry vision, write it down. So for example, this is an example, right? You wanna start a church, you know? And your vision is to start your own ministry. Now, you feel, okay, this year 2023, you wanna start doing all the paperwork and maybe towards the end of the year, start the ministry. Now, you must firstly have a vision. What is the vision of the church? Have it in writing. What is the mission? Have it in writing. What is it that you want to achieve? What are the teams that, what is the culture, right? So you're fighting them all down and every time you look at it, you pray about it and you say, hey, one day, I am going to, as a church, we'll be able to impact at least 10,000 people in my city. And so that's the vision. So right now, it's nothing, it's only on paper. There's not even a place you haven't even selected. Maybe you haven't even selected a place to start the church, but the vision is there. But keep constantly reminding yourself of that vision. Keep motivated, keep being propelled into action. Continuous repetition of a vision excites people and when you keep doing that, the dream begins to take shape. If some of you have been called to be preachers and pastors, picture yourself, write it down. One day I will preach, I'll begin to start preaching. One day I'll begin to start teaching the Word of God. This is how I will do it. If you want to plan to start a Bible college, this is how I want to start the Bible college. This is how I will intake students. This is what, these are the subjects that I will teach. No harm in writing them down. Nothing wrong with it because it's just gonna fuel you up. It's gonna propel you to action. Because what happens is, say for example, you plan to start a Bible college and then two years is over and then it's your time, you're gonna start now. Everything is done, you've got the place, you've hired a place, you have the, oh, what do I teach? What are the subjects for the two year course? Okay, what do I teach? I don't know. Then now, so you're prepared. Wish I could say, okay, if I start my Bible college, I'm gonna start with these courses. These are the courses I'm gonna teach. First year, second year, these are the outreach ministries we will do. This is how the college will run. This is the vision, everything is done on paper. So you're not surprised. It's not like, okay, what do I do now? Now that the college has started. Very important in terms of vision is also, remember that we cannot work alone. We talked about it last time also, last few classes. We cannot work alone. The Lord Jesus being the son of God formed teams. And we must remember that everything that we do, we must work as a team. The Lord Jesus set a beautiful example. He raised up 12 leaders, then he did 72. He worked in teams. So it's never a single one-man show, right? It is your vision, but you need a team to fulfill that vision, right? If you want people to keep running with this vision, you've got to keep repeating it again, and again, and again, and again. I just want to encourage each one of us. Maybe some of us are very young, some of us are in our 30s or 40s. Maybe there are visions or plans or things that we've had in our heart, but we put it away. Go back to us God, God, write it down. Ask God, God, is this something that I can do? Is this something that you will open doors for me? Keep it open. For God, nothing is too late. He's still able to fulfill the things that you have in your heart, but again, there's a work that we must do, right? So there's a bit of an encouragement there. A compromised vision, next point, a compromised vision leads people confused. Look at this Matthew 6, 22 and 23. The lab of the body is the eye. If therefore your eye is good, the whole body will be full of light, but if your eye is bad, the whole body will be full of darkness. If therefore the light that is in you is darkness, how great is that darkness, right? So a blurred vision will keep people in darkness. It's like this, you know, I always picture it this way. You're leading a group of people and they're walking behind you and suddenly you enter a tunnel. What happens? There's darkness ahead. Being a leader, I may not know what to do, where to go. So how can I lead the people behind me when I myself don't know what I'm doing? Right? As, you know, if we are leading people, that vision should be strong in us so that the others following behind us don't go into a wrong direction. And, you know, if the leader falls, remember the whole team goes, right? So when we don't have a vision, productivity drops. The organization is affected. And it needs to be clarified immediately, right? So just have that vision. Don't have a compromised vision, right? Next one, state your mission loud and clear. I'm just gonna go a little bit quick because we have a lot to cover. But if you have any questions, as usually you can stop me, you can ask questions in between, right? So please stop me if you have questions. Right, state your mission loud and clear. Look for 18 and 19. Look at this wonderful Jesus comes in. He says, the spirit of the Lord is upon me. He's beginning his ministry. He said, because he has chosen me to bring the goodness to the poor vision. He set me to proclaim liberty to the captors and recover sight to the blind. To set free the oppressed and announced up. The time has come when the Lord will save his people. Okay, Divya has a question. What is the difference between a God-given promise conveyed through a Godly vision and a general vision? Okay, so a God-given vision or a God-given promise is usually very targeted. So for example, there is a general vision for all of us. What is a general vision? Hey, I grow up, I finish my studies and get a job, join the workplace, get married, have children, raise up children. That's a general vision. Now God is not going to say, He's not going to come and say, I'm going to get you married and you'll have two children. You have to look after that children. It is obvious that if God is giving us children, we have to look after it and we have to nurture them. We have to take care of the general vision. But God will put something in our hearts, which will burn so passionately that it will not let us rest. And later we'll talk about even how Nehemiah was able to build those walls in Jerusalem. And that's a God-given vision. Look at the apostle Paul. That's a God-given vision. But it's gonna burn in our hearts. It just, you just know that this is God and God is going to do it. So what happens outside will not matter. And we're so focused on, we know that, okay, there's God who's doing it. Look at people in the Old Testament. They knew that, you know, the prophets, Elijah, Daniel, they all knew that this is God who's telling them, right? So the way to answer your question, a God-given promise or a God-given vision is something that will burn in your heart. It's just going to, it'll always be there, right? But a general vision is something that we all must do. And I hope I answered your question. I hope you've got, if you have any follow-up question, you can feel free to ask. Yeah, thank you. Thank you, Pastor Paul. Yes, I understood. I was also trying to get the difference between, you know, a promise of God, for example. Abraham got a promise and it was conveyed to him through a, like, look at the stars in the sky or, you know, like something that's very visual, a visual representation of the promise. Maybe the vision is not a right word. Sorry if I'm going a little off track here, but I just wanted to know, like there is, probably there is no action in that particular, on the part of the man, right? There is no particular action required. It's just trusting the Lord. But in terms of like a purpose, like for example, as you said about Nehemiah, in that case, he had to do something, like he had to, yes, I was just trying to understand what is the difference between these two aspects? Like God gives us promises. We have to maybe do some things out of those promises, like trusting God and, you know, making decisions based on that promise. But what, there could be like a life vision or a purpose. So it was just trying to understand what is the real difference between these. Yeah, that's a wonderful question, maybe. So I'll begin by saying this, right? Now, whenever God gives a promise, right? It's always, it's, you know, nine out of 10 times, right? It's always God expects us to do something about it, right? So for example, even Abraham, so God told him, listen, you come out and look at the stars in the sky. I'm gonna make your, you the father of many. This is gonna be your descendants. Now, of course, Abraham didn't have to do anything about it, but God made him wait 25 years for that, right? There was this waiting time. There was this time where he had to go through, you know, waiting, trusting in the Lord, putting our faith. So promises are there, right? And it's always available. Sometimes God makes us wait. So sometimes, even if we don't have to do anything in that process of waiting, it's only that God is making us stronger. We are building our faith. We are beginning to trust God even more, you know, small things. We begin to, you know, look to God, even in our failures, we say, okay, God, because we hold on to those promises. Now, these promises are for everyone, right? So if you look at it, I would say that the Godly vision, now sometimes, you know, so for example, now the Holy Spirit always inside us, you know, he can speak to us through the word. He can give us a vision or a picture, right? Oh, he may, he may sometimes reveal to us through a vision, dream, however he liked, or he may just unknowing it within us. Okay, this is what God wants me to do, right? So if you look at it, whether it's a God-given promise, you know, which is conveyed through a Godly vision or a general vision, both ways, there is something that God makes us go through because, you know, God, right? He, it's not always easy. He wants us to, he wants to teach us. He wants to instruct us. He wants us to trust in him during those seasons, right? So the promise and these visions and what God is giving us is wonderful, but for it to get fulfilled, it takes time, it takes, God may take us through different seasons for that. And as we wait, as we trust in him, you know, we are so much encouraged. We are so much built in our faith, you know. When I look back, I personally, it's so encouraging. I say, God, I thank you for letting me go through these 18 times because if I had got something immediately, it would have respected it or wouldn't have valued it as much as I value it now, right? So, Divya, I hope that answers your question, right? Yes, yes, perfectly. Thank you, thank you, Pasipur. Yeah, completely understand, yeah, thank you. Thank you, yeah, great. All right, so state your mission loud and clear. The Lord Jesus, when he came, he didn't say, I just come into, you know, just come here to Jerusalem. He knew he's the son of God, but he didn't say, okay, I'll tell you later on who I am for now, just come. He stated his mission very clearly. He said, the spirit of the Lord is upon me. All right, talking from Isaiah. He has chosen me to bring the good news to the poor, to proclaim liberty to the captives, the recovery of sight to the blind. He is stating what he is going to do loud and clear. And he did this many a times before Abraham was I am. He destroyed this temple and in three days, it'll be raised up again. Unless you eat of my flesh and drink of my blood, you have no, so there's no place where Jesus is saying, what if they kill me? So I'll just be very quiet here. No, he has stated his mission loud and clear. He's also telling his disciples, one day I'm going to go, I'm not going to be here with you. But he knew from the beginning, right? But he also knew what he can do, what the disciples also will do. Look at this, the 12 disciples followed him and so did the crowds. Now it became quite apparent that if you wanted to hear good news, if you wanted to experience liberty, wanted to receive sight, spiritual sight, physical sight, set free from oppression, then all you needed to do was go to Jesus. And it's so simple. Remember the Roman centurion? Why did they run to Jesus? Because they knew, hey, Jesus is one. He can do something. Right? Look at Jairus' daughter. Oh, you know, daughter is all right. I can go to Jesus. I know that Jesus will come. Why? Because Jesus has already stated the mission before. The blind man, what a wonderful, so many people would have seen him there. But then when he heard Jesus was there, he said, I'm not going to let go. I've heard that he has healed blind people and he has cleansed the lepers. I'm going to go after him. The mission was clear. He knew that people knew that if I come to Jesus, I will be delivered. And there are plenty of examples in the Bible. I like those four men who carry their paralyzed friend and lower them from the ceiling. In this picture, the faith of those four, hey, you know what? You've been like this for so many years, but there's a man who says, if you come to me, I'll bring healing. He can heal. He has healed the blind. He has healed the lepers. Oh, but there's too much of crowd. How do we go there? No, don't worry, we'll do something. They open the ceiling and raise them. Look at that. So when we speak our vision out, state our mission out loud and clear, people will recognize it. People will recognize. They recognize Jesus. Now, there were some people who, more than recognizing Jesus and the works that he did, they were looking at who he is and what he is or where he is from. Look at the Pharisees and the Sadducees. Hey, this is Jesus. Isn't he the carpenter's son and his brothers here with us, his sisters also here with us, in March of three, I think. We've seen him. He's been running around here from the time he's a young boy. We've seen him. Now, he's saying he's a messiah. How's he doing all these things? Which school did he go and study? So they're doing all this research rather than looking at what he was doing, right? But when you and I state our mission, people will understand it. Tell it loud and clear. Look at John the Baptist. What did he do? John didn't say I've come to baptize everyone. What does he say? I have come to make way for the Lord. Very clear mission. He didn't say I've come to baptize people. Come, I baptize you. As one coming in the desert will prepare the way for the Lord. That's what the prophets wrote. That is me. This is what I'm doing. I'm preparing the way of the Lord. This is my mission. One day the messiah will almost beat. Even whose sandals are not worthy to touch. Like the mission was loud and clear. Next, the values. Clarify what you stand for. For if the trumpet makes an uncertain sound, who will prepare for battle? Some of the trumpet was the call for battle. It mobilized people to enter into high risk engagement, calling them to fearless action. Now, if we don't have values, not only for an organization, not only for our personal, for our ministry, not only for our families, not only for our personal lives, we don't have values for all of this. We will break down. Because our values stand for who we are. For example, one of the values that an ABC that we follow is, transparency in financial matters. It's something that we've always done. Honesty, integrity, excellence, equality, dedication, pursue, excellence. Just all these Christ likeness, these values. Right? So we want to do that, right? What happens if we don't have these values? We can do whatever we want to do. Nobody's there to question. Nobody's there to say anything. Somebody's there to say, don't do this, don't do that. Because we haven't stated down our values. So clarify what we stand for. As an organization, as a ministry, as a, even in your personal life, you have certain values. When we say this very loosely, hey, that person has a lot of values. He knows what he's doing. Or this person has no values. Every time he changes his or whatever he's saying, right? We've used it before. Why? Because if we don't clarify what we stand for, not only people, but as an organization, they will not know what we are or who we are, right? Now, even as you prepare to maybe start your ministry, start an organization, start your own small business, whatever you're planning to do, or even work under an organization, have certain values that you will follow. You'll know, okay, this is what I will do. 40 hours a week is what I must give in. I will give in that, right? And then there will be times I'll have to, given those extra hours, but I'll do it faithfully. Those are values. So some of our core values at ABC, one, integrity. We value integrity over profit. So we very, very importantly refuse to make profit while sacrificing integrity, right? So it's not about, you know, yes, we want to, you know, as a church, we want to, you know, touch many lives. Go impact the entire nation and the nations, but we don't want to do it in a way that is, you know, without integrity, right? Follow integrity, follow right way of doing things. Then excellence, passion for excellence, to keep doing the best in what we are doing. People, now we value people over policies. We don't treat, you know, people with partiality, you know, as a church, we have people from different backgrounds, different, you know, religious backgrounds, different ethnic backgrounds, different cultures, different languages, right? So different kinds of people. Now, we treat everyone equally. And that's something that we value. Like, it's not about, you know, what you can do for the church, how much can you give to the church, or are you willing to volunteer in the church now? Can be somebody who's just given two months in the church. They knew the church, right? Just value them, just like you would value anybody else. You know, I remember, you know, just a couple of months back, there was this auntie in church in our location. And every week I would see her, she would come, she would sit as a, you know, as a family. They would come and every, after every Sunday, after the church, she would immediately leave, right? So one week I spoke to her, I said, you know, I mean, why do you leave immediately? Stay back, fellowship with one another. She mentioned to me, you know, I don't speak too good English. I can speak a regional language, which is Canada. And I'm more, you know, I'm more comfortable speaking Canada, but I understand English. So that's why I come and I enjoy the sermons. I enjoy everything that's being taught here. But it's just that I'm not able to fellowship much because people may think, okay, you feel embarrassed or talking Canada. And I remember telling her, you know, I started speaking to her in Canada and she was so happy. Of course, my Canada was a little broken, but what happened was she felt so much valued. And she said, wow, you know, you're talking to me in Canada, even though it's, then every time I meet, I talk to her in Canada. It's not like, okay, you learn English. No, because we value people more than our policy. We are an English church, but the people is what we value, right? And so we don't say, okay, you're speaking this language. So, you know, nothing. All of them are equal in the eyes of God. We all stand on level ground, right? Then creativity. We pursue creativity in everything without getting blinded by the routine. So in every area, in media, in graphics, in our preaching, in our teaching, in everything we want to pursue creativity. We, in our programs, in our events, just trying new things, you know, over the years, we've tried many new things. Some have worked, some have didn't work, but we try to, you know, just the ones that work, we try and continue to build on them. The ones that didn't work, we just go back, see what happened, how it didn't work, and how we can improve. It's been creative. And most importantly, unity. What we accomplish is not accomplished by one person, but it is always accomplished as a team, right? So in APC, one of the things, very important aspects of APC in our leadership is we always, always, you know, want to form teams, grow teams, build teams, right? So it's never one person, right? We need teams, right? And looking at what we have on a Sunday basis, we need teams. If we don't have teams, we will burn out. So we have the ushering team, we have the book table team, we have the member care team, the greeters team, the sound and setup team, the media team, right? The FTV, first time visitors team, right? So we have so many teams. Now, as if there was one person, how will this one person do all of this? It's not possible, right? We have the children's church teams. And in children's church, we have smaller teams to help with different age groups. So teams. So as a church, we are united, right? We may have five locations, North, South, East, West and Central, but we all work together as a team. We never look at ourselves as, okay, you are in this location, you are in that location. We are all one team. The vision is the same. The mission is the same, the values are the same. One team. It's just that we have different locations. And the reason we have different locations is so that we can reach out to more people in different parts of the city, right? So these are some of our core values and there are many more, the Christ likeness, honesty, simplicity. These are things that we want to pursue as core values. Next one, create a culture aligned to your vision and mission, right? Nehemiah chapter two and verse 20. So I answered them and said to them, the God of heaven himself will prosper us. Therefore, we his servants will arise and build, but you have no heritage or right or memorial in Jerusalem. Now this was wonderful what Nehemiah did, right? Now, just a little bit of background. We'll touch on this and then we'll talk about three powerful values next on Wednesday. But let me just touch on this, right? The city of Jerusalem was destroyed by the Babylonians, 587 BC. Now, about 445 BC, Nehemiah was there in the Persian, in the court of the Persian king and his job was he was a cup bearer. So he was working in the palace, serving drinks to the guests, serving drinks to the king. Now, what happened? There was, he heard at the gates have been burned down and the walls of Jerusalem are broken, right? Now, this is a big task, big vision, but it is a vision that was burning inside. I can only, you know, I like what Nehemiah does. The Bible says that he went and he fasted and he prayed. Very, very important thing. You know, sometimes we have a vision, we write it down and we do everything else, all the practical things, which is very important. But here, what did Nehemiah do? He went, he fasted and prayed, put on sackcloth and actions. He fasted and prayed. And he said, God, the walls are down. Your city and the gates have been burned down. The walls have crumbled down. But that vision was burning. And because he fasted and prayed, he went to the king, he obtained permission and the king was favorable to Nehemiah, right? Now, one man, big vision, right? And he could not do this alone, right? Now, first was the burning vision was there inside. He did something about it. He fasted, he prayed. God's favor was upon him. He said, okay, king said, go, you can go and build a wall, I'll do what I can do. You know, some people, you know, there's some material that you need. You know, the papers, go start your work. Nehemiah is alone. Now, first thing, how do I get the people to believe what I'm doing to catch this vision? Now, the vision is burning in my heart, but they should believe it, no. I can't do it alone. So what did he do? First thing, vision. Nehemiah shared the vision with the people of Jerusalem. He shared how God has led them this far, giving them favor and support from the Persian king. Now, the vision was compelling. People were inspired to join the vision. Imagine this, Nehemiah standing there in front of the people of Jerusalem. They are doing their work. They're not bothered about Jerusalem. The gates are burned down, the walls are, doesn't matter to them, but the vision is burning and Nehemiah goes and says, okay, people of Jerusalem, whoever is here, maybe there were very few people. So here's the vision, here's what I've done. I've gone, spoken to the king, said king, the walls of Jerusalem are broken down, the gates are burned down. Now, I got permission from the king to rebuild the wall and to fix up the border, the walls of Jerusalem. Oh, the king gave you permission to do this. Yes. Okay, that sounds good. I'll join you, right? So the vision was compelling, right? People were inspired to join. Second one, the mission. Now, Nehemiah was a cup bearer. He was not an engineer in any way, but he was not a craftsman. He was not trained in building houses or nothing, but Nehemiah planned out how to reconstruct this wall. So the work was divided to the 10 gates of the city of Jerusalem now. He said, okay, some of you are here, you joined the vision, okay, you. Here's what we're going to do. The mission is this wall has 10 gates. We'll have groups of people in each 10 gates and we'll have team leaders on each of these 10. So all these 10 team leaders will come and let me know what's happening at their gates, right? So there's this section, section one, section two, section three, 10 sections and each of those 10 sections has leaders. Under those leaders, you have people. So everyone get involved in the work, right? So each one of them would work. Now, this is all over time, okay? This is not during their work hours because they had to work to feed themselves, to feed their families. So they worked and during their free time when they had time, they would go to the closest gate from their house. So they were from in gate two, they would go there and begin to do some work. This is during the free time. Why? Because the vision was compelling. So maybe they got home or nine to five job or tired on a rest, oh, and Amaya said, we have to, you know, whichever is, which part is closest to us, we have to start rebuilding the wall. He says, okay, it's everlasting, I'll go. I'll do my part, maybe two hours. I'm just painting a picture for you, right? I'll go two hours, build something, just do something there and then I can come back home and rest, right? So the mission was, the vision was burning. So people joined that mission, right? Third one, values. First, everyone believed that the God of heaven will prosper them. I can just picture Amaya saying, Amaya saying, you know, God is with us. Don't worry, we may not be skilled, but God can give us the wisdom. God is on our side. No matter what happens, no matter what opposition comes, God is on our side. So everyone believed that they had to do their part. Nehemiah said to everyone, you have to do your part. Everyone, and even Nehemiah put his hand, he's not standing there with folded hands saying, okay, you do this, you do this. He put his hand through the plow. He put his hand through the plow, right? Everyone believed that they had to do their part. Thirdly, they knew that opposition will come, but everyone was determined that nothing will stop them. All of them had the same mindset. And then because of these three powerful beliefs, they were able to complete building the wall. First one, God is on our side. We will all work. All of us will put our hand to the plow. And three, nothing can stop us. Three powerful values. We'll come back tomorrow, sorry, on Wednesday, and we'll continue from here. What I'd encourage you is just go ahead and read this portion of Nehemiah, where he gets this whole vision, just read it, so that when we meet on Wednesday, it'll give us a good background as to how God just put this vision and he was able to fulfill it, fulfill building the walls of Jerusalem, right? All right, thank you so much for joining. Have a great week ahead, and I'll see you on Wednesday. God bless, thank you.