How magnificent is God's project, yet how small is our vessel. No one can complete God's plan alone; it requires many to accomplish it together. From Him, the whole body, joined and held together by every supporting ligament, grows and builds itself up in love, as each part does its work. (See Ephesians 4:16)

Reflection Questions:

• (Nehemiah 3:1-32) What is the profound meaning behind the seemingly mundane, ledger-like description of the rebuilding of the walls of Jerusalem?

• (Nehemiah 3:27-32) Are these unnamed individuals insignificant people, unacknowledged by God?

• What role do you and I play in the army that is building God's glorious temple? What is our function?

Today’s passage is filled with people's names, and our names are an attribute of who we are. Our God calls us by name. Our God has great respect for us. He does not call us by saying: Hey, you sitting in the corner, come here. The Bible is particularly concerned with people’s names. But I want to address this passage in several points. What is the theme of this passage? It is called Execution. This is Nehemiah's Execution.

Speaking of execution, if someone is good at dreaming and has a clear vision, but lacks the ability to execute and implement, then it is all for naught. Today, many businesses are particularly concerned with whether they have execution. If a business lacks execution, no matter how beautiful the dream, it is useless.

I want to develop an iPhone too. If you cannot develop it, at best you can carve one out of wood that resembles an iPhone. It has the appearance but lacks the substance. It is a complex system. Today, people refer to this as systems engineering. It requires a systematic approach to implement and create something. Creating anything is not a simple matter.

Planning

I have found that many people act without a plan. They suddenly have an idea to do something, but cannot follow through. Halfway through, they suddenly have another idea of what to do. As a result, their minds are in a whirl, and they cannot produce anything of substance. Acting rashly, always relying on spontaneous ideas, without a plan, is not feasible.

Brothers and sisters, you must learn to plan your actions. Planning is mentioned in Genesis. Do not think that our God acts whimsically, suddenly deciding to do something one day and something else the next. No. He chose you before the creation of the world. This is the original wording in the Bible.

Think about it, God’s plan starts and ends with Him. Therefore, God says, I am the Alpha and the Omega. This means that from beginning to end, everything is in God’s wisdom. You will find that God is very methodical in His actions. He has a perfect plan for what to do on the first day, the second day, and the third day. He even has a plan that extends to the Book of Revelation. He reveals it to us step by step. This means our God is very reliable.

In Genesis, it is continually mentioned that everything should be after its kind. After its kind means to be orderly. If chairs are not placed where chairs belong, backpacks are not placed where backpacks belong, and tables are not placed where tables belong, it is a chaotic mess. So, in my ministry, I have found that someone without a plan is basically living under constraint. They make a decision and regret it, then make another decision and regret it. Their decisions are based on impulsive thoughts and lack any real foundation.

You will find that confusion actually comes from the spiritual forces of darkness. If someone among us says, Pastor, I am confused, then they need deliverance. They need to be released from this confusion. So, brothers and sisters, we must be careful and discern whether someone is in bondage or in the freedom of God's Spirit. Someone in bondage brings confusion. Their actions are confused, their thinking is confused, and everything is confused, without any planning.

If someone trusts in God, they will definitely have a plan. This is a serious issue. You might find someone in church shouting, Hallelujah! with great emotion, but their actions are chaotic. What is this? This is a religious spirit. I strongly disagree with someone having a pious appearance but lacking the substance of being grounded and practical. That is, one day I ask you, Xiao Wang, how is your work going? My work is a complete mess lately. This indicates a problem with their spiritual life.

We must know that if you are spiritually prosperous, everything else will prosper. If you are not spiritually prosperous, nothing else will prosper. Why? Because the devil will cause confusion. So, the most important thing in execution is planning. Start learning to plan yourself.

Execution Means Taking Action

In the process of taking action, you will find that when there is a plan, the brothers and sisters in the church will know where your direction is. If the brothers and sisters in our church find that the pastor is unreliable, it is difficult for them to follow me. For example, in a business, if the boss makes impulsive decisions one day after another, the employees do not know what he will do next. If everyone from top to bottom is confused, it is a problem.

If a pastor always acts without direction and reliability, it is very serious. The most important thing in execution is to take action, to be grounded. We have a plan that is like this and that. You do a little today, a little tomorrow, and a little the day after; you do a little, I do a little, and he does a little; everyone has a division of labor, and we start taking action.

Therefore, in church governance, implementation is very, very important. On this point of implementation, I must say something heartfelt: my wife excels at implementation more than I do, following up step by step. I cannot finish reading everything in the WeChat groups, and sometimes I do not even look, but my wife does. She is excellent at implementation. So, in the church, I have the dreams, and my wife implements them.

But sometimes, there may be deviations in the implementation, but that does not matter; God will correct them. This is execution, which is very important. In the process of taking action, it is important to have a clear division of labor. Today, I want to share my insight with you. Today, many Christians in the church do not know what their division of labor is. They have absolutely no clue. Then they run around everywhere, running around to different churches, which is very serious.

Suppose we say we are building this wall today. If you lay a brick at this house today, and then lay a brick at that house tomorrow, and then you are not laying it in the correct place, wouldn't that be disastrous! So, we must be grounded in our actions. It is the same in a business.

If you are a nurse and you are on this shift, you should work this shift, right? If you do not come to this shift and go to the next shift when you are not scheduled, what are you doing? If you do not come when you should, and you come when you should not, then there will be complete chaos. If all the nurses were like this, the hospital would be extremely chaotic.

Spiritual Unity

Thirdly, I want to expand slightly on this point. Given that we have a plan and execution, what exactly is God doing? God has a wonderful work, which is to reveal, through this event of building the wall, what Nehemiah wanted to achieve.

I think building the wall is a very interesting event, reflecting something in the future, which is that there will be a new heaven and a new earth, a new city called the New Jerusalem. Where is that written? It is written in Revelation 21:12-24. Revelation is written in a very interesting way.

So, don't think that these things here are useless. I believe that when Nehemiah recorded this, he was clear that this has a very clear guiding effect on future spiritual careers.

**And he carried me away in the Spirit to a mountain great and high, and showed me the Holy City, Jerusalem

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## The Importance of Focus in Doing Things

Without focus, a clear division of labour, and prioritising one's tasks, things can go terribly wrong. I want to emphasise the importance of focusing on one's specific role. Of course, a newcomer to the church will not immediately be assigned a role. There's a need for gradual mentoring, training, to ascertain what their role should be.

Currently, brothers and sisters in the cell group all have their respective roles. If you are focused in your work, you are spiritually mature. **Focus means having a clear understanding of your role and direction.** A person without direction is immature. A lack of focus stems from a lack of direction. As the Old Testament says, Where there is no vision, the people cast off restraint.

Recently, someone approached me, complaining about being overworked in the church because their pastor kept assigning them different tasks. I chuckled and said, This is chaos from the start. We must know what our role is. If I am a cell group leader responsible for shepherding the group, I must do my job well.

If the shepherding is not yet done, setting it aside to clean is not your role. Extra effort to clean is commendable, but don't put the cart before the horse. The person I mentioned earlier wanted to go on a mission trip to preach the gospel, but when asked what they would specifically do there, they didn't know. If you are unsure of your purpose there, there is no point in going. We must be clear about what we do and where our role lies. We don't need to make up the numbers.

Our church has several characteristics: First, it is very practical. We must integrate faith into our lives. Without integrating faith into your life, even if you pray loudly and shout Hallelujah daily, it is useless—it is religious bondage. Second, we are reliable and focused in our work. The literature ministry focuses on literature, the hospitality ministry focuses on hospitality, and the pastoral ministry focuses on pastoral care.

Focus is a crucial factor in execution, with a clear division of labour, and knowing your role. If your leader keeps assigning you different tasks, you must ask where your role truly lies. We cannot have one person doing the entire wall-building project.

## The Effect of Your Work Follows You

Focus, a plan, understanding the spiritual meaning, and understanding your role. You will know that the effect of your work follows you. Where is this written? Revelation 14:13. The effect of your service lasts forever; God will not forget. If you neglect what you should do and do what you shouldn't, your work will likely be ineffective.

We should not do things that are ineffective. We have many divisions and roles in the church. When we start working, there will be a corresponding effect, which will also become the motivation for our service. Building God's glorious temple, you will surely see the effect of your work following you.

## Leadership

Without leadership, nothing can be done. Leadership is the key to sustaining the entire operation. Not only does the church pastor's leadership play a decisive role, but so do the cell group leaders and core co-workers. Leaders at every level play a decisive role. Many people do not understand the importance of leadership, assuming that things happen naturally. This is not the case. If you enter a hotel and everything is well-organised and handled properly, know that this did not happen by chance. It is because the hotel management put in a lot of effort to make it happen. If you remove the hotel leadership, even with established systems, it will all fall into chaos within a month.

A leader needs to sustain the entire team for an operation; leadership plays a crucial role in an ministry. A team will surely descend into chaos once it loses leadership and management skills. The Bible says that the universe operates in an orderly manner because God's omnipotence sustains all things. How does this relate to us? One day, you will need to start managing something. Once you lose leadership, what you manage will surely become chaotic.

We must all exercise management skills. I dislike the saying, Leave it to God. Using it properly is fine, but using it to evade responsibility is unacceptable. If we evangelise to our family and say, Leave it to God, is that acceptable? If God gives us a job as a head nurse and we say, Leave it to God, or if we are doing a research project and say, Leave it to God, these are all misapplications. We must not become religious, which is deadly. After some time, we will enter into a crisis and start asking God why we ended up where we are today. In reality, we shouldn't blame God; it is our own choice. If a person often blames God, it means that they have not been actively exercising their subjective initiative.

Nehemiah did not leave it to God. If he had left everything to God, saying, God, may Your Holy Spirit move them to do it, would that have worked? Take our Weibo ministry, for example. If we left it to God and posted recklessly, with the leader turning a blind eye, it would surely descend into utter chaos. If we still have such thoughts in our faith, we must completely eliminate them.

But when you start working together with God, God will surely start managing. If you come to God with a lazy attitude, God cannot work together with you. **Leadership is a role you must play; this role is active faith and positive faith.** This is what God has revealed. Passive faith will not accomplish anything. We must have God's image. God has a plan and focuses on implementing every detail, and we must start learning.

When we start doing this, God's hand of grace will help you. God's hand of grace helps the strong and courageous, and also helps those who have a plan and are able to implement it. If you are about to take the college entrance examination and you don't study, but only fast and pray, you will surely fail miserably! That is religiosity, not faith!

God helps those who know what they are doing. These people know the spiritual meaning behind what they are doing and are able to focus on their given role. They know that the effect of their work will follow them, just like doing it for Jesus. Thus, we don't need to distinguish between what we do as worldly or spiritual. Everything that concerns your life is what the church cares about. However, the priorities of life must be in the right order. It is important to exercise leadership and to exercise active and positive faith to accomplish God's work in your life.