SPEAKER_00: Well, good morning, everyone, and welcome to Redeemer.
SPEAKER_00: If we haven't had a chance to meet before, my name is Ben Anderson, and I'm one of the pastors here, and it's so great to spend a little time with you this morning.
SPEAKER_00: Hey, before we jump into our sermon for today, just a few quick things that I don't want to miss.
SPEAKER_00: Uh, first of all, if you are a first-time guest with us today, I want to give you a special welcome.
SPEAKER_00: I am so glad you're here.
SPEAKER_00: I don't know what brought you here, but I'm glad you're here, and I hope that you have a great experience.
SPEAKER_00: But if you're somebody who is newer to Redeemer and you are ready to be known, one of the best things that you can do is swing by our welcome desk, which is right back there in the comments.
SPEAKER_00: There'll be somebody there who would love to get to know your name and your story and help you find that perfect connection here at church.
SPEAKER_00: Speaking of a deeper connection, ladies, pay attention.
SPEAKER_00: On June 23rd, we have a special event just for you.
SPEAKER_00: So pull your phones, calendars, write it on your arm, whatever you typically do to keep track of stuff.
SPEAKER_00: On the 23rd, we have a women's connection event.
SPEAKER_00: And so if you've ever looked around this room and thought, I would love to get to know them, uh, this is your opportunity.
SPEAKER_00: Come enjoy each other, get connected.
SPEAKER_00: Your husband, he's got the kids.
SPEAKER_00: It won't be that bad.
SPEAKER_00: It's not for that long.
SPEAKER_00: He'll be just fine.
SPEAKER_00: Sneak away, put in your calendar.
SPEAKER_00: I hope that you can make time for that.
SPEAKER_00: If you want to know more about that, the website is a great place to go.
SPEAKER_00: You can get connected there, or just check out your Monday morning email.
SPEAKER_00: If you're signed up for that, that information is in there as well.
SPEAKER_00: We'll have one more exciting thing that I want you guys to loop you in on is next week is our 110th anniversary as a church.
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
SPEAKER_00: Now, here's what's really cool about that.
SPEAKER_00: It's not just kind of near the 110th anniversary, it's on the exact date when this church was started, 110 years ago.
SPEAKER_00: And that's something to celebrate.
SPEAKER_00: And if you're gonna throw a celebration, what do you need?
SPEAKER_00: Ice cream.
SPEAKER_00: If you said anything besides ice cream, you're wrong.
SPEAKER_00: Ice cream, you need ice cream.
SPEAKER_00: So, this is what we're gonna do.
SPEAKER_00: This is gonna be really fun.
SPEAKER_00: We're gonna have ice cream in the commons area, and we're gonna have 110 topping options for you.
SPEAKER_00: So I challenge at least one of you, all 110 toppings.
SPEAKER_00: Just like this high, eat the whole thing.
SPEAKER_00: You gotta eat to win.
SPEAKER_00: But it's gonna be a great time.
SPEAKER_00: So whether you have been here your whole life or you're just joining us, uh, swing by.
SPEAKER_00: In fact, even bring a friend.
SPEAKER_00: It's gonna be a great time that you won't want to miss.
SPEAKER_00: Well, today we are gonna step into our latest sermon series, Thoughts and Prayers, for one last time.
SPEAKER_00: Thoughts and prayers.
SPEAKER_00: This is a statement that you have probably seen online before.
SPEAKER_00: This is a statement that's probably been said to you before in some very dark times in your life.
SPEAKER_00: In fact, you might even had a friend or neighbor, someone close to you, come to you and tell you about something tragic in their life.
SPEAKER_00: Maybe there was a death in the family.
SPEAKER_00: Maybe there was a loss of a job.
SPEAKER_00: Maybe there was a diagnosis that they just got that they did not see coming.
SPEAKER_00: And before you even knew what was coming out of your mouth, you said, My thoughts and prayers are with you.
SPEAKER_00: But even as you spoke those words, you wish you could do more.
SPEAKER_00: You wish you could go further than thoughts and prayers, you wish you could help them, you wish you could heal them, you wish you could save them.
SPEAKER_00: Whatever it is, right?
SPEAKER_00: You felt like it wasn't enough.
SPEAKER_00: In fact, maybe in your life, as you're looking back, there's been times when you could have done more, but you maybe just never followed through.
SPEAKER_00: You never kept your promise.
SPEAKER_00: In fact, if you look online at any of these posts about tragedy and people write thoughts and prayers, one of the most common critiques is this thoughts and prayers are not enough.
SPEAKER_00: Right?
SPEAKER_00: We need to do something more.
SPEAKER_00: Or sometimes people say, thoughts and prayers are worthless.
SPEAKER_00: That's what we've been wrestling with throughout this series.
SPEAKER_00: Thoughts and prayers.
SPEAKER_00: Do thoughts matter?
SPEAKER_00: Do prayers work?
SPEAKER_00: I mean, when do we do more?
SPEAKER_00: How do we more?
SPEAKER_00: When you know, when are these times that we need to lean into action and how do we pull that off?
SPEAKER_00: Well, the good news and bad news is this is that tragedy is nothing new.
SPEAKER_00: It's been around since the beginning of the world.
SPEAKER_00: When sin entered into the world, what came with it is tragedy, right?
SPEAKER_00: Sin corrupted creation, sin corrupted the hearts of man, and as a result, we have tragedy after tragedy after tragedy after tragedy, right?
SPEAKER_00: That's the bad news.
SPEAKER_00: But the good news is this, and in the end, God's gonna solve that problem.
unknown: Right?
SPEAKER_00: When Christ returns, he's gonna put all things right, sin will be destroyed, and as a result, what will happen?
SPEAKER_00: No more tragedies.
SPEAKER_00: But in the meantime, what do we do with these moments in our life, these challenging times in our world?
SPEAKER_00: Well, the answer is we continue to care for the people around us.
SPEAKER_00: As followers of Christ, we have such an opportunity to limit the effects of sin in our world and to help people in the midst of their tragedy.
SPEAKER_00: In fact, this is nothing new.
SPEAKER_00: As we look in the Bible, we see this all over the Bible, and one of the people that we've been looking at in this series is a man by the name of Nehemiah.
SPEAKER_00: Someone who faced a very significant tragedy and served people well along the way.
SPEAKER_00: Now, if you're new here for the first time in this series, let me give you a quick recap of what we've been talking about and what's been going on in Nehemiah's life.
SPEAKER_00: It starts off in the month of Kislev, which means nothing to me and probably nothing to you, but to give you a feel for what that is, it's about November or December when we're encountering him in this piece of history.
SPEAKER_00: We also find that he's in a place called the Citadel of Susa, which is a place where the kings of Persia would come and winter.
SPEAKER_00: So during the winter, the cold months, it's a nice place to be.
SPEAKER_00: So he's surrounded by luxury.
SPEAKER_00: Now, why is he there?
SPEAKER_00: It's not because he's the king, it's because he's working for the king, he's serving the king.
SPEAKER_00: And as he's there serving the king, his brother comes for a visit.
SPEAKER_00: Now, this isn't just any visit, because his brother's coming from Judah.
SPEAKER_00: Probably specifically, he's coming from Jerusalem, which, by the way, would be about a two months journey at that time to get to his brother.
SPEAKER_00: So if he's coming, you know he's bringing something important, and that's exactly what happens.
SPEAKER_00: He he gets his brother's ear and he says that there's a great tragedy going on in Jerusalem.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, it's incredibly challenging there, which would come as a shock to most people in that day, and probably to Nehemiah, because things should be going well there.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, before this time, the the Jewish people were exiled by the by the Babylonians, but the Persians took over and they allowed the Jewish people to come back to Jerusalem.
SPEAKER_00: They rebuilt the temple, they instituted their law, right?
SPEAKER_00: It seems like everything was going good.
SPEAKER_00: But Nehemiah's brother said it's not going well.
SPEAKER_00: You see, we don't have walls, we don't have gates, and as a result, the people are coming in, they're taking our livestock, they're taking our crops.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, we're incredibly vulnerable.
SPEAKER_00: There's violence and threats of death, right?
SPEAKER_00: This is just a great tragedy.
SPEAKER_00: It's a big mess.
SPEAKER_00: Why was his brother there?
SPEAKER_00: He wants him to do something about it.
SPEAKER_00: Right?
SPEAKER_00: This is the person who has the ear of the king.
SPEAKER_00: Now, here's what I think is so challenging about this story.
SPEAKER_00: It's challenging me, it'll probably challenge you.
SPEAKER_00: Is that Nehemiah is not actually impacted outside of his brother about what's going on in Jerusalem.
SPEAKER_00: Right?
SPEAKER_00: If Jerusalem continues to live in the way that it's living and feeling this, these vulnerable realities and this chaos and this tragedy in that place, it doesn't impact him.
SPEAKER_00: Right?
SPEAKER_00: His life will be fine.
SPEAKER_00: Kind of reminds me of my life much of the time.
SPEAKER_00: Isn't it true we can flip on the TV, we can watch the news, and we can hear about the chaos in the world.
SPEAKER_00: There's there's war and there's starvation and there's disease and there's these natural disasters that are going on.
SPEAKER_00: And we think about it for a moment.
SPEAKER_00: It bothers us for a moment.
SPEAKER_00: Maybe we even toss up a quick prayer, like, God, watch over these people, and then we click off the TV and we can just move on with our life.
SPEAKER_00: This is what Nehemiah could have done.
SPEAKER_00: But instead, what do we see?
SPEAKER_00: When his brother tells him the story, he is broken.
SPEAKER_00: He cries.
SPEAKER_00: Right?
SPEAKER_00: He thinks about it, he cares about it.
SPEAKER_00: Do thoughts matter?
SPEAKER_00: Of course they do, because thoughts always lead to the next possible action.
SPEAKER_00: Because if you don't have thoughts, if you don't care, guess what?
SPEAKER_00: You're never going to act.
SPEAKER_00: But Nehemiah cares deeply.
SPEAKER_00: So what does he do next?
SPEAKER_00: I mean, does he act?
SPEAKER_00: Does he get a bunch of people together?
SPEAKER_00: Does he make a plan?
SPEAKER_00: Does he raise money?
SPEAKER_00: What does he do?
SPEAKER_00: No, as we learned last week, what he does next is shocking.
SPEAKER_00: It says in the Bible that he fasted and he prayed.
SPEAKER_00: In fact, all that sets up what we're going to talk about today in Nehemiah chapter 2.
SPEAKER_00: This is how it begins.
SPEAKER_00: In the month of Nisan, in the 20th year of King Azerxes.
SPEAKER_00: Now, if you were here last week, Isaac was preaching, and he said something that probably caught your attention, definitely caught my attention.
SPEAKER_00: He said that Nehemiah prayed and fasted for four to six months.
SPEAKER_00: Now, where did he come up with that interesting information?
SPEAKER_00: Well, it's tucked in right here.
SPEAKER_00: Because when we first meet Nehemiah, what month is it?
SPEAKER_00: It's kids' love.
SPEAKER_00: It's November or December, somewhere in that area in our mindset.
SPEAKER_00: Well, Nisan is March and April.
SPEAKER_00: So it's the longest.
SPEAKER_00: We're talking November to April, or we're talking December to March.
SPEAKER_00: That's four to six months.
SPEAKER_00: That is a long time to pray and fast.
SPEAKER_00: And that is a long time not to act.
SPEAKER_00: In fact, think about what Nehemiah's brother is probably thinking.
SPEAKER_00: I traveled two months' journey to talk to my brother so that he would do something.
SPEAKER_00: I traveled two months back home.
SPEAKER_00: I'm still dealing with the chaos, and I haven't heard anything.
SPEAKER_00: It's not like they had a cell phone, it's not like they had email.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, he's just sitting in silence, wondering if his brother still cares.
SPEAKER_00: Or if it's just a show.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, what's Nehemiah doing?
SPEAKER_00: Is he ignoring it?
SPEAKER_00: Is he indifferent about it?
SPEAKER_00: Did he just get too busy with his life and surely his brother can just take care of it?
SPEAKER_00: Well, that's not what Nehemiah is doing at all.
SPEAKER_00: You see, what Nehemiah wants is he wants it to be the right action.
SPEAKER_00: He needs it to be the right action.
SPEAKER_00: He wants it to be God's will.
SPEAKER_00: And in the end, he needs it to be in line with God's will.
SPEAKER_00: You see, before we act, we we need it to be in God's will.
SPEAKER_00: Because here's what's true.
SPEAKER_00: The only thing worse than no action is the wrong action.
SPEAKER_00: Maybe you guys have seen this said, maybe you you said it.
SPEAKER_00: Your silence speaks volumes.
SPEAKER_00: Sometimes people will say this to kind of guilt trip us into action because we didn't say something in the way that they wanted us to say it, in the time frame that they wanted us to say it.
SPEAKER_00: So we might have said this or heard this said to us, right?
SPEAKER_00: Your silence speaks volumes.
SPEAKER_00: What we're saying is, you need to act how I want you to act, when I want you to act, and if you don't do that, you're in the wrong.
SPEAKER_00: You see, in our modern culture, I think there's this tension that we live in that as soon as we hear about something, we have to respond like right now.
SPEAKER_00: Even when we don't know the whole story.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, how many times have you seen a news article?
SPEAKER_00: How many times have you seen a video clip?
SPEAKER_00: How many times have you seen a photo and you didn't know the whole story, but just based off of that little snippet of information, you felt obligated to say something.
SPEAKER_00: You had to post something, you had to change your profile picture on your Facebook, you had to put the sticker on your car, or you had a bold conversation at the coffee shop, like you were confident you knew the whole story, and then about a week or two later, guess what happened?
SPEAKER_00: You found out there was more to the story.
SPEAKER_00: You found out there was a different camera angle that changed the narrative a little bit.
SPEAKER_00: Or you found out that that photo was doctored by somebody who wanted you to think and believe the way that they think and believe.
SPEAKER_00: In fact, if you're a sports fan in the room, this happens to us all the time, doesn't it?
SPEAKER_00: We're watching our favorite sport and we are passionate about it.
SPEAKER_00: We we got our drink, we got our chips, like we got our jersey on ready.
SPEAKER_00: And we're watching this game in full speed, like real time.
SPEAKER_00: And all of a sudden something happens.
SPEAKER_00: And we are convinced that person was fouled.
SPEAKER_00: We are convinced that pitch was a strike.
SPEAKER_00: We are convinced that they caught the football and we're so upset, we lose our minds, we're screaming and yelling at the TV.
SPEAKER_00: Maybe we win throw our drink, hopefully it's empty when we toss it, right?
SPEAKER_00: We're just completely upset.
SPEAKER_00: And then what happens two seconds later?
SPEAKER_00: They show the replay and realize, oh, they actually didn't make the catch.
SPEAKER_00: Actually, that was outside the strike zone, or actually they never touched my person.
SPEAKER_00: He just pretended like he got hit while going out for the layup.
SPEAKER_00: And all of a sudden we have to we have to backtrack on what we once thought was true because we didn't take the time, we didn't know the whole story.
SPEAKER_00: So, what is Nehemiah doing here?
SPEAKER_00: What is he doing that is so wise?
SPEAKER_00: He's taking his time because he understands he needs to make the right action.
SPEAKER_00: And he knows that no action is better than the wrong action.
SPEAKER_00: In fact, if you read through the Bible, you find these stories all the time where people acted prematurely.
SPEAKER_00: God called them to do something, and they got impatient, so they acted and created a bigger mess.
SPEAKER_00: One of those people was uh Sarah in the Bible.
SPEAKER_00: You guys remember in the Old Testament there's a story of Abraham and Sarah, and this is a fascinating uh piece of history.
SPEAKER_00: God comes to Sarah and Abraham and gives them a promise that through them they're gonna become a great nation.
SPEAKER_00: Well, at this point in time, she's 65 years old.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, this is great news, but it's still shocking news at 65 years old.
SPEAKER_00: But then time passes.
SPEAKER_00: She doesn't see the promise fulfilled, and for 10 years she waits and she waits and she waits and she waits.
SPEAKER_00: Her trust in God begins to break down.
SPEAKER_00: She thinks, well, I need to take action, I need to do something myself.
SPEAKER_00: So what happens is she brings in her servant Hagar.
SPEAKER_00: Hagar sleeps with Abraham and they have a son, his name is Ishmael.
SPEAKER_00: Now, if you read the Bible, you know that this wasn't the plan that God originally had.
SPEAKER_00: It wasn't the plan that God had, period.
SPEAKER_00: But that comes later in a miraculous child at 90 years old.
SPEAKER_00: Sarah gives birth to Isaac.
SPEAKER_00: Now, we actually feel this choice every day.
SPEAKER_00: There's a tension because there's two major groups of religious gatherings that lean into the story.
SPEAKER_00: Both find their connection to this story in Abraham and Sarah, but three different sons.
SPEAKER_00: There's Isaac, who the Jewish people are connected to, and there's Ishmael, who Muslims are connected to.
SPEAKER_00: And in this choice, in this moment, there's ripple effects felt through history because of the impatience of Sarah.
SPEAKER_00: See, sometimes no action is better than the wrong action.
SPEAKER_00: And we take those wrong actions in our life, it does lead to ripple effects.
SPEAKER_00: So back to Nehemiah.
SPEAKER_00: Does he finally get around to doing something, to acting, to living this out?
SPEAKER_00: Well, this is what we read starting at the tail end of verse one.
SPEAKER_00: When wine was brought for him, so he's talking about the king, King Arxerxes, I, Nehemiah, took the wine and gave it to the king.
SPEAKER_00: I had not been sad in his presence before, so the king asked me, Why does your face look so sad when you are not ill?
SPEAKER_00: This can be nothing but sadness of heart.
SPEAKER_00: I was very much afraid.
SPEAKER_00: But I said to the king, May the king live forever.
SPEAKER_00: Why should my face not look sad when the city where my ancestors are buried lies in ruins, and its gates have been destroyed by fire?
SPEAKER_00: Now, once again, what is Nehemiah's job?
SPEAKER_00: He is the cupbearer to the king, so his job is to sample the drinks before the king has them to make sure there's no poison in them.
SPEAKER_00: Which, by the way, is a really sweet job.
SPEAKER_00: Unless there's poison in the drink.
SPEAKER_00: But because of this, he is a trusted person to the king.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, the king trusts him with his life, he becomes a trusted advisor.
SPEAKER_00: But this is not what this means.
SPEAKER_00: It doesn't mean they're best friends.
SPEAKER_00: And it doesn't mean that he's on equal footing with the king, right?
SPEAKER_00: In the end, the king is still the king.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, he's a big, big deal.
SPEAKER_00: And if you're going to go into the presence of the king or deal with any authority whatsoever, you have to be wise when you do that.
SPEAKER_00: Right?
SPEAKER_00: You don't show up and make the king mad.
SPEAKER_00: You don't show up and make the king sad.
SPEAKER_00: Now, is this the first time that Nehemiah has been in the presence of the king, even though he's with him day after day after day after day?
SPEAKER_00: Is this the first time that he's been sad?
SPEAKER_00: Of course not.
SPEAKER_00: But this is the first time that he's allowed the king to see him in this way.
SPEAKER_00: Now, is this because he's so overwhelmed?
SPEAKER_00: I don't think so.
SPEAKER_00: I think what's happening here is he wants the king to see him this way.
SPEAKER_00: Because in that culture, you couldn't talk to the king before the king spoke to you.
SPEAKER_00: And he's trying to draw the king into a conversation, a conversation that might not have happened unless he looked this way.
SPEAKER_00: And so the king looks at him with this curiosity: why are you sad?
SPEAKER_00: Like what's going on?
SPEAKER_00: Now then we see the emotion shift.
SPEAKER_00: What happens in Nehemiah?
SPEAKER_00: He goes from being sad to scared.
SPEAKER_00: Now, to understand why he's scared, we we have to understand some history here.
SPEAKER_00: If we do a little research and we go into the book of Ezra in the Old Testament, we see why he's scared.
SPEAKER_00: Because we see that this very king that he is serving, King Artaxerxes, earlier made a decree that the walls and the gates in Jerusalem will never be rebuilt.
SPEAKER_00: Now, the reason is there was a history of rebellion in that city.
SPEAKER_00: And if they have walls, and if they have gates, and if they have security, well then they might turn on the king.
SPEAKER_00: In fact, they've done this before.
SPEAKER_00: And so they came up with this idea that we're just not going to let them have walls.
SPEAKER_00: We're not going to let them have gates.
SPEAKER_00: So this is the choice of King Arzerxes.
SPEAKER_00: So when Nehemiah brings this up, this is scary.
SPEAKER_00: Because how can he look?
SPEAKER_00: He can look like a traitor.
SPEAKER_00: He can look like he's leading a rebellion.
SPEAKER_00: So at best, he might be put in jail for a long time.
SPEAKER_00: At worst, he'd be killed off as a traitor of the king.
SPEAKER_00: And so now you understand why he's scared.
SPEAKER_00: But what is Nehemiah doing here?
SPEAKER_00: He's using the resources that God has given him to make an impact in this moment.
SPEAKER_00: You see, if you want to know what you should do, figure out in life what you can do.
SPEAKER_00: Figure out the resources that God has given you.
SPEAKER_00: Who's Nehemiah?
SPEAKER_00: He's the cupbearer to the king, which means he has the potential to whisper in the ear of the king and influence the king.
SPEAKER_00: This is absolutely amazing that he's put in this position.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, I would love to be able to whisper in the ears of some of our leaders.
SPEAKER_00: Of course, I don't have that luxury.
SPEAKER_00: But what can I do?
SPEAKER_00: What can we do in those situations?
SPEAKER_00: Well, one of the things that I've committed to every morning is I pray for the president.
SPEAKER_00: I pray for President Trump.
SPEAKER_00: Now, before you get too worked up, if you're not a President Trump guy, it's fine.
SPEAKER_00: Before President Trump was in office, I prayed for President Biden.
SPEAKER_00: I've prayed for presidents year after year after year after year, not because I agree with what they say, what they think, or how they lead.
SPEAKER_00: The reason I pray for them is because of this verse tucked into the New Testament in 1 Timothy 2.
SPEAKER_00: It says, I urge you then, first of all, that petitions, prayers, intercession, and thanksgiving be made for all people, for kings and all those in authority, including the presence that we have and the leaders over us.
SPEAKER_00: That we may live peaceful and quiet lives in all godliness and holiness.
SPEAKER_00: Now, I can't speak into the ear of the president, but you're probably like me.
SPEAKER_00: Sometimes I wish I could.
SPEAKER_00: Right?
SPEAKER_00: Sometimes I have some thoughts that I would like to share.
SPEAKER_00: I have some feelings.
unknown: Right?
SPEAKER_00: Sometimes I feel like maybe these guys don't get what I get or what I experience in life.
SPEAKER_00: I have some advice.
SPEAKER_00: I'm not going to have that opportunity.
SPEAKER_00: So what do I do?
SPEAKER_00: I do what I can do.
SPEAKER_00: I pray.
SPEAKER_00: But when I do have the resources to make an impact, guess what I'm called to do?
SPEAKER_00: Well, guess what you're called to do?
SPEAKER_00: We're called to act.
SPEAKER_00: So the question is, what are your resources?
SPEAKER_00: For some of you, maybe you're a teacher.
SPEAKER_00: And this is kind of scary to me as a parent.
SPEAKER_00: But during the school year, you spend more time with my kids than I spend with my kids.
SPEAKER_00: That's a huge resource and opportunity.
SPEAKER_00: How are you using that?
SPEAKER_00: Some of you are great in the business world, you're great leaders, you're hard workers, you've done well financially.
SPEAKER_00: How are you using that for God's glory to make an impact in this world?
SPEAKER_00: Some of you are in the political realm.
SPEAKER_00: Right?
SPEAKER_00: You have leadership and influence over every single person in this room.
SPEAKER_00: Hopefully, you're doing that in a way that's in a line with God's will.
SPEAKER_00: Because if you do, what does this Bible verse say?
SPEAKER_00: You'll bring peace into our lives.
SPEAKER_00: But every single one of us, we have something, right?
SPEAKER_00: We have time, we have talent, we have treasure.
SPEAKER_00: These are the resources that God has given us, and He's given us all unique passions that point those things, all connected to God's mission.
SPEAKER_00: In fact, a quick side note, just for you guys, every single person in this room has a passion connected to God's work in this earth.
SPEAKER_00: And none of those passions are bad.
SPEAKER_00: None of those passions are less than others.
SPEAKER_00: We shouldn't get frustrated when people don't have the same passion as us.
SPEAKER_00: In fact, what I found to be true is that in the best churches I've ever been a part of, there are a bunch of different people with different passions that don't all align, which allows them to make a huge impact in this world.
SPEAKER_00: And Nehemiah, he is passionate specifically about what is happening in Jerusalem.
SPEAKER_00: So what does the king say to him?
SPEAKER_00: In verse 4, the king said to me, Nehemiah, what is it that you want?
SPEAKER_00: Then I prayed to the God of heaven, and I answered the king.
SPEAKER_00: Then the king, with the queen sitting beside him, asked me, How long will your journey take?
SPEAKER_00: And when will you get back?
SPEAKER_00: It pleased the king to send me, so I set a time.
SPEAKER_00: I also said to him, If it pleases the king, may I have letters to the governors of Trans Euphrates, so that they will provide me safe conduct until I arrive in Judah, and may have a letter to Aesaph, keeper of the royal park, so he will give me timber to make beams for the gates of the citadel, by the temple, and for the city wall, and for the residence I will occupy.
SPEAKER_00: And because the gracious hand of God was on me, the king granted my requests.
SPEAKER_00: So I went to the governors of Trans Euphrates and gave them the king's letters.
SPEAKER_00: The king had sent, had also sent army officers and Calvary with me.
SPEAKER_00: No, I I love this part.
SPEAKER_00: So the king says to Nehemiah, What do you want?
SPEAKER_00: Now remember, what has Nehemiah been doing before this?
SPEAKER_00: For four to six months.
SPEAKER_00: Fasting and praying and thinking about this moment.
SPEAKER_00: If the king says this, I'm going to respond this way.
unknown: Right?
SPEAKER_00: He should be ready.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, this is a half of a year of prep for one moment in time.
SPEAKER_00: King says, What do you want?
SPEAKER_00: What does Nehemiah do?
SPEAKER_00: He prays.
SPEAKER_00: I just want to make sure that God, I'm saying exactly what you want me to say, but after he prays, he just goes for it.
SPEAKER_00: I want to rebuild the walls.
SPEAKER_00: I want to put the gates back on their hinges.
SPEAKER_00: I want to protect the city of Jerusalem.
SPEAKER_00: Now remember, he'd be terrified because this is against the will, or at least the past will, of the king.
SPEAKER_00: And so here's Nehemiah, he's holding his breath, waiting to see what's going to happen.
SPEAKER_00: And the conversation continues.
SPEAKER_00: He's not dead, he's not in prison.
SPEAKER_00: And so Nehemiah is emboldened by this.
SPEAKER_00: And so he says, I need time off.
SPEAKER_00: If I'm going to do this, I need to lead through this.
SPEAKER_00: I need time off.
SPEAKER_00: How long?
SPEAKER_00: Doesn't say.
SPEAKER_00: The answer is a long time.
SPEAKER_00: He's got to rebuild a wall that's 2.5 miles around, 15 plus feet tall, nine feet wide.
SPEAKER_00: Right?
SPEAKER_00: This is a long time.
SPEAKER_00: In fact, we know it's going to be a long time because what does he say?
SPEAKER_00: I need some wood to rebuild and to build a house for myself.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, this is not a short-term adventure.
SPEAKER_00: This is a long, long time.
SPEAKER_00: I need official letters.
SPEAKER_00: I need product from your timber, right?
SPEAKER_00: I need all of these things.
SPEAKER_00: And what happens?
SPEAKER_00: Nehemiah gets everything that he wants.
SPEAKER_00: Is this because Nehemiah is so great?
SPEAKER_00: Of course not.
SPEAKER_00: It's because God is so great.
SPEAKER_00: Here's a way to hold on to this.
SPEAKER_00: If you act in God's will, your resources are not a limitation.
SPEAKER_00: What's amazing here is that King Arazerxes, time and time again, works against his own self-interest.
SPEAKER_00: It starts off by the building of the walls and of the gates, right?
SPEAKER_00: This is going to likely lead to a potential rebellion, which means he's going to lose tax revenue, which means he's going to have to deal with issues there, which means he's going to have to have people come to him and say, Didn't you say that you weren't ever going to do this and now you're doing this?
SPEAKER_00: I mean, this is not working in his self-interest.
SPEAKER_00: He has to also go against his own safety.
SPEAKER_00: He's going to lose his cupbearer, which means he has somebody that he's trusted with his life and now he's going to find somebody else.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, that's not easy.
SPEAKER_00: How about this?
SPEAKER_00: He's got to write a letter to the people around him, letting them know what he's going to do so that they buy into it and that they believe it.
SPEAKER_00: He's got to use leadership capital that maybe he wanted to use in a different way.
SPEAKER_00: He's got to provide lumber.
SPEAKER_00: Either he's paying for it or he's reducing his shortage, and he won't be able to build something else that maybe was in his dreams for the future.
SPEAKER_00: And then even beyond that, he sends some military to go with to keep Nehemiah safe, which means less military for him.
SPEAKER_00: You see, it's always important to look at the resources that God has provided us and be wise with those resources and live in reality.
SPEAKER_00: But there's a secondary truth there that we need to hold on to is that we cannot let our vision be limited by what we currently have, by our capacity.
SPEAKER_00: Our vision should be connected to God's capacity, which is unlimited.
SPEAKER_00: So here's God.
SPEAKER_00: He shows up in a huge way in Nehemiah's life, but does that mean that's just smooth sailing from here on out?
SPEAKER_00: The answer is no, and in verse 10 we see this.
SPEAKER_00: They were very much disturbed that someone had come to promote the welfare of the Israelites.
SPEAKER_00: So here the brakes did slam down.
SPEAKER_00: We expect to be smooth sailing.
SPEAKER_00: He's working in the will of God, and shouldn't that make everything just go swimmingly?
SPEAKER_00: No, these two guys are upset.
SPEAKER_00: And what happens?
SPEAKER_00: They question him.
SPEAKER_00: Did the king really give you permission?
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, the king really gave me permission.
SPEAKER_00: They keep building the wall.
SPEAKER_00: And then they start making fun of him.
SPEAKER_00: They keep building the wall.
SPEAKER_00: And they start giving him threats of violence.
SPEAKER_00: And so half the people are now building the wall, and half the people are protecting the wall.
SPEAKER_00: And then they start making up rumors about Nehemiah.
SPEAKER_00: They keep building the wall.
SPEAKER_00: And then they plot on killing Nehemiah.
SPEAKER_00: And they keep building the wall.
SPEAKER_00: See, Nehemiah is doing everything within God's will, but yet he was still experiencing resistance.
SPEAKER_00: Here's what's true of life.
SPEAKER_00: When you act, when you pursue a goal, expect resistance.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, this is especially true when it comes to spiritual things.
SPEAKER_00: If we're acting in God's will, we should expect resistance because God has an enemy trying to stop what he's doing in the world.
SPEAKER_00: But we experience this in everyday life, right?
SPEAKER_00: If you have a simple goal, maybe you're trying to lose weight, guess what?
SPEAKER_00: You will experience resistance, won't you?
SPEAKER_00: All of a sudden you stop eating all those sugars.
SPEAKER_00: We're not coming next week.
SPEAKER_00: Have all the ice cream you want next week, but you stop eating sugars, you stop eating pizza, right?
SPEAKER_00: You're trying to you're trying to lose weight, you will experience resistance because what has your body been taught?
SPEAKER_00: I want those things.
SPEAKER_00: I need those things, right?
SPEAKER_00: You will experience resistance.
SPEAKER_00: You will get in your car, you will drive down the road, and you will drive past so many restaurants that have drive-throughs that at a snap of finger, you can have a burrito in your hand while you're driving down the road, right?
SPEAKER_00: You'll experience resistance.
SPEAKER_00: When you get home trying to distract yourself and you pop on the TV, what will you see?
SPEAKER_00: Almost instantly, an advertisement for Papa John's.
SPEAKER_00: You will experience resistance.
SPEAKER_00: And then when you finally sit down with your salad at the table, you'll be surrounded by a family that is not eating salads.
SPEAKER_00: You'll experience resistance.
SPEAKER_00: But like I said, that's a small thing, that's a natural thing.
SPEAKER_00: But when you're trying to do something for God in God's will, you won't just experience natural resistance.
SPEAKER_00: You'll experience supernatural resistance.
SPEAKER_00: That's why the hardest day of the week for me is Saturday.
SPEAKER_00: A day when most people love Saturdays.
SPEAKER_00: I actually sometimes can dread Saturdays because I know I will experience resistance.
SPEAKER_00: Oftentimes that is my last moment to refine the conversations, the sermons that we're gonna have on Sunday.
SPEAKER_00: That's an important day for me.
SPEAKER_00: And oftentimes that means late nights.
SPEAKER_00: That means sleepless nights.
SPEAKER_00: That means early mornings, right?
SPEAKER_00: There is resistance.
SPEAKER_00: Because I'm hoping to come up here and give you guys something that will change your life and change your eternity.
SPEAKER_00: That's something that God has for you.
SPEAKER_00: And so, of course, if that is the case, if I'm work walking in God's will and I'm working in God's will, what's gonna happen?
SPEAKER_00: There's gonna be resistance.
SPEAKER_00: In fact, do you know what the scariest Saturdays are for me?
SPEAKER_00: When everything goes really well.
SPEAKER_00: Because I feel like I'm not gonna say anything on Sunday that's worth resisting.
SPEAKER_00: Now, good news for you.
SPEAKER_00: Last night was horrible.
SPEAKER_00: Stayed up late, couldn't sleep, got up early, so hopefully there's something here for you today.
SPEAKER_00: But in life, if we're doing something, if we're walking in the way of the Redeemer, guess what's gonna happen?
SPEAKER_00: We're gonna experience resistance.
SPEAKER_00: So we see that Nehemiah was on the right track.
SPEAKER_00: So what happens with Nehemiah's story?
SPEAKER_00: How does this memoir, this big vast memoir of Nehemiah, how does it end?
SPEAKER_00: Well, he works through all this resistance, and in the end, they build the wall in 52 days.
SPEAKER_00: Now think about that.
SPEAKER_00: He prays and fasts for four to six months, and he builds the wall in less than two months.
SPEAKER_00: This is nothing short than an active God.
SPEAKER_00: In fact, that's how the people saw them.
SPEAKER_00: The people saw it as an act of God, and they turned their hearts and their minds to God in this moment.
SPEAKER_00: This was miraculous.
SPEAKER_00: It changed their lives and it changed their eternities.
SPEAKER_00: But what if Nehemiah didn't act?
SPEAKER_00: What if he hurt his brother?
SPEAKER_00: What if he shed a tear or two?
SPEAKER_00: What if he prayed for a season and just kind of moved on because he had other stuff.
SPEAKER_00: He was busy with, I mean, he was serving the king.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, what if that was the case?
SPEAKER_00: Well, the answer is the wall wouldn't have been rebuilt.
SPEAKER_00: The people still would have been experiencing tragedy.
SPEAKER_00: We wouldn't have never heard of the story of Nehemiah.
SPEAKER_00: There would be no book in the Bible recorded as Nehemiah simply because he wouldn't have done anything about it.
SPEAKER_00: It wouldn't be a story worth telling.
SPEAKER_00: But what is the story that people tell about you?
SPEAKER_00: Is it a story of inaction?
SPEAKER_00: I mean, they pray, maybe.
SPEAKER_00: They think about it, maybe, but they never get to the point of doing something about it.
SPEAKER_00: Or maybe it's a story of acting outside of God's will.
SPEAKER_00: You get impatient.
SPEAKER_00: It's the wrong action.
SPEAKER_00: You hear a story or you see a picture, and you're like, I've got to act, I've got to act, I've got to act, I've got to act, and then you go and do something and you actually make a bigger mess because you didn't seek God first.
SPEAKER_00: You missed that crucial step of praying and trying to figure out God's will.
SPEAKER_00: Or maybe the story that people will tell of you or begin to tell of you is this.
SPEAKER_00: This is somebody who listens.
SPEAKER_00: This is somebody who cares.
SPEAKER_00: This is somebody who spends time in prayer truly trying to seek God's will.
SPEAKER_00: How should I respond in this moment?
SPEAKER_00: And then they are somebody who also acts.
SPEAKER_00: They lean in, they step in, they cared, and they made an impact.
SPEAKER_00: See, those are the stories that changed lives.
SPEAKER_00: Those are the stories that changed communities.
SPEAKER_00: Those are the stories that changed nations.
SPEAKER_00: Those are the stories that changed the world.
SPEAKER_00: Most importantly, those are the stories that change people's eternities.
SPEAKER_00: Let's pray.
SPEAKER_00: Thank you for your word.
SPEAKER_00: Thank you for these stories recorded of your people leaning into tragedy, caring about people going through tragedy, even when it wasn't going to impact them.
SPEAKER_00: Well, Lord, we're so grateful for people like Nehemiah who have cared, who have prayed, who have responded.
SPEAKER_00: Some of those people we felt in our own lives, and we've experienced the benefit of it, Lord.
SPEAKER_00: But we also want to be those types of people.
SPEAKER_00: Lord, may we be a people of intentionality.
SPEAKER_00: That we listen, that we care, that we pray, and not just promise to pray, Lord, but actually pray with intentionality.
SPEAKER_00: And then, Lord, when the moment is right, even if we have to wait longer than we would expect, may we respond, may we act, and may we love people well.
SPEAKER_00: We pray this all in your mighty name.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.