THOUGHTS & PRAYERS | Thoughts | Ben Anderson

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Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:01

Well, good morning, everyone, and welcome to Redeemer. If we haven't had a chance to meet yet, my name is Ben Anderson. I'm one of the pastors here. It's so great to spend a little time with you this morning. Well, before we jump into our sermon today, I do want to acknowledge one special group of people here this morning. If you are a first-time guest, I'm so glad that you're giving us a chance, and I hope that you have a great experience. In fact, if this is your first time or maybe your first time in a while, you have picked the absolute perfect week to join us because we're starting a new sermon series today called Thoughts and Prayers. A series that will guarantee, I guarantee it will challenge every single person who's in the room and watching online. But it's always so good to be at here at the beginning of a series and so you don't miss a single thing. Another reason this is a great weekend to be here is it is Memorial Day weekend, a time where as Americans, we take a break, we take a moment, and we say thank you for all of those who made the ultimate sacrifice to develop our freedoms and protect our freedoms. And as a church, we celebrate that here every single week because what do we get to do? We get to come here. We have the freedom to gather and to speak God's truth without any fear that someone is going to try to stop us. And we don't take that for granted because we know there are many Christians around the world who do not have that same luxury. Also, this is a special day in the life of the church. This is Pentecost Sunday, the day that we celebrate that moment when Christ promised that He was going to leave us with something better came true. The Holy Spirit descended on his people and has never left. And so I hope the Holy Spirit meets you right where you're at today and moves in your heart in a powerful way. Well, uh I don't know about you, but it felt like this past year. I couldn't open up a newspaper, I couldn't uh pop open my computer, pull up my phone, turn on the news without seeing some news about Minnesota. And and I wish. I wish it was all good things. I wish we were celebrating headlines like the NFL Championship or the Major League Championship. I mean, I wish there was an article that I read that said, for the first time in history, one state has captured all of the championships. I mean, baseball, basketball, football, hockey. Wouldn't that be amazing? But of course, if you're a sports fan, you know that definitely wasn't the case. The Vikings underperformed. The Twins by the end of the season were shipping off all of their players. And just recently, the Wild and the Timberwolves both imploded in the playoffs. And honestly, that there was a moment of grief that welled over me during that couple weeks ago. But the grief that we felt as Minnesotans when we opened up those newspapers and when we saw the notifications on our phone was much deeper. We went through a lot this past year, didn't we? I mean, in January, there was the clash between the ICE agents and the protesters, resulting in the death of two individuals, Alex Predi and Renee Good. Back in June, less than a year ago, in our very own backyard, right, we experienced the assassination of Representative Melissa Hortman and her husband. And then as the school year started, what did we hear about? The shooting at Annunciation Catholic School, resulting in the loss of two precious lives, and 27 more people were injured. I mean, these were challenging things. And if you were like me, I couldn't help but go on Facebook and try to get the latest of what is going on, what is happening in our world, what is happening in our state, and how are people feeling about this? Because if you find one of those articles, you can see exactly how people feel about moments like this. In fact, I reviewed one of them this past week and reminded myself of what people were saying when it came to the annunciation shooting, which hit so close to home. Because as a father of three, I think about those things. What would happen if there was violence in my kids' school or shooter in my kids' school? But this is what people said in that moment. Someone started off the feed by saying, thoughts and prayers for the victims and their families, and they had a praying hand emoji at the end of that. Someone responded to that and said, The children were literally praying in a church. What a visceral reminder that thoughts and prayers are never enough. 382 people gave a thumbs up to that. Someone responded to that. Thoughts are not enough, but prayer is everything. Forty-one people responded with a thumbs up to that. Someone followed that up with if more people were in the pews praying, I'm pretty confident we've had a lot, we'd have a lot fewer reasons to offer thoughts and prayers. Four people gave that a thumbs up. Someone responded to that. That's not how mental illness works. Two thumbs up. Final comment. Thoughts and prayers are worthless. Throughout the series, we are going to wrestle with this. What do we do as followers of Christ when it comes to tragedy in the world around us, especially when it's in our backyard? I mean, do thoughts matter? Do prayers work? What are we supposed to do in moments like this? What are the actions that we are supposed to take? Maybe we're not supposed to take an action whatsoever. Now, the good news and simultaneously the bad news is this is nothing new in the world. In fact, if we look in the Bible, we see that tragedy strikes almost instantaneously when sin enters the world, which enters into the hearts of man, enters into creation. And ever since then, we have experienced tragedy after tragedy after tragedy after tragedy, and it will not stop until the end. That's the bad news. But the good news is this we have a God who loves us and travels with us through the ups and downs of life. And plus, he empowers his people to soften the blow of the results of sin in this world. One of those people that we are going to explore throughout the series was a man by the name of Nehemiah. You can find him in the Old Testament. But he was a man that experienced a tragedy, saw a tragedy, and God challenged him to move in that tragedy, to soften that blow. And we're gonna watch and we're going to experience and we are gonna study exactly how God led him through that moment. So if you have your Bibles, you can open up to Nehemiah 1.1, or if you have your phones, you're welcome to do that. Otherwise, the words will be on the screen so you can follow along. But this is where we begin. In Nehemiah 1.1. The words of Nehemiah, son of Hakulia, in the month of Kislev, in the 20th year, while I was in the citadel of Susa. So right away we are exposed to the author of this person, it's Nehemiah, and he's writing his memoirs about this specific time. Now, to understand this story, we have to understand who is Nehemiah. He is a Jewish person who's serving at the behest of Persia's king Artaxerxes. Now, his job is the cupbearer, which means he protects the king. The king trusts him immensely, and ultimately the cupbearer would become a trusted advisor to the king because of that trust that was built up. Now, as a result, this is what Nehemiah is experiencing in life. He's somebody of high status, and he's somebody of financial means. Because when you live next to the king, there's a lot of benefits to being near the king. He is living the good life. Now, even beyond that, we get more details about his life tucked into this tiny little verse. We see that he's in the Citadel of Susa. Now, to understand what that place is like, maybe the best way to explain it is it's the place where kings from Persia would winter during the cold months. It's kind of like our Florida, our Arizona, our Texas, right? You go there during the winter because the weather is nice there, but during the summer, you do not want to be there, right? You get out of there because it's miserable during those stretches of time. And so this is where the kings would go because they had the means to do that, and it was a beautiful, beautiful place. But it was far beyond Florida, Texas, or Arizona. I mean, this was a place reserved for luxury. This is a place reserved for the elite. It was kind of like Martha's Vineyard, right? This is a place where only the richest people, the most important people, can go and vacation and experience this life of luxury. And this is where Nehemiah is. He's surrounded by all of these things, the best that life can offer, and he's surrounded by the most important people in life. In fact, if you want to do a deeper dive for some reason into the Citadel of Susa, if you are a history nerd, or maybe in this room, you are a skeptic and you've wrestled with is the Bible true? Are these places real? Are these people real? Does this really matter to me? This is a great story to dig into. Because there is a ton of archaeological finds when it comes to the Citadel of Sousa. In fact, it's one of the oldest archaeological digs that we have, and you can find out a lot about it, whether you search online or whatever your study, you can find things like that. In fact, many of the artifacts have ended up in the Louvre. If you don't know, that's in Paris, right? So that would be a great trip for some of you. Just wander off to, you know, you've been wanting to go anyways, this is your reason to go. Now, there is the thing, because I told you about this, you have to bring me along with. So it's not gonna be as romantic as you thought. I would like to go with. But all these places are real, all these places can be studied, and all this information about Nehemiah, it sets the stage for what we're about to read next. What do we see? Hanani, one of his brothers, came from Judah with some other men. And I, so Nehemiah, I questioned them about the Jewish remnant that had survived the exile and also about Jerusalem. So Nehemiah gets a visit at this point in time from his brother. Now, we know quite a bit about Nehemiah. We don't know so much about his brother, but we do know enough to confidently say this. Well, Nehemiah was living the good life, Hanani, not so much. His life was a lot more challenging. But though they had these differences, they had one thing in common. They were both exiled. Now, to understand what that means, we have to once again do a quick history lesson. So at one point in time, the nation of Israel is one nation. They get a king, King Saul, then King David, and then King David hands it down to his son Solomon, and Solomon tries to hand it down to his kid, and that's when everything kind of goes off the rails. Between poor leadership decisions and idolatry that was rampant in the country, the nation splits. And so now there's a northern kingdom and there is a southern kingdom. There is Israel and there is Judah. And as time goes along, both of these nations are overthrown. In 722 BC, the Assyrians come and they take over the northern kingdom. And then later in 586 BC, the southern kingdom is taken over by the Babylonians. And this is where the major tension is because in the southern kingdom is where Jerusalem is. And so there's still Jewish people, they're living in this space, and they're kind of warring against the government, the Babylonians, and finally the Babylonians decide there's only one way to stop these annoying, pesky people from attacking us all the time. We just got to get rid of them completely. And so they exile all these people out of Jerusalem, and they only leave behind the poorest of the poor and the weakest of the weak to kind of tend the fields and at least maintain a little bit of what was there. Now, as they overthrow Jerusalem, some other things happen. They tear down the walls, they destroy the gates, and they obliterate Solomon's temple, the temple of God, at that point in time. And these people felt completely abandoned by God in this moment. But then in 15, 516 BC, something happens. The Persians come in. Cyrus the Great comes in and they wipe out the Babylonians. And they are much more friendly to the Jewish people, and so they open Jerusalem back up and allow the exiles to come back if they see fit, and some people do. In fact, they begin to live there and they also rebuild the temple, even though it's a more modest version. It could never meet the beauty of Solomon's temple, but they have the temple, they have the places to sacrifice their animals, that they have the law in place. And at this point in time, instead of feeling rejected by God, they probably felt loved by God and seen by God. And before this moment, when Nehemiah or other people would hear about Jerusalem and they heard these waves that the temple is back and the law was back, they would probably assume that things are going pretty well. But notice, and this is important. What does Nehemiah do? Instead of just assuming that things are going well, what does he do? He asks his brother, How are things going? Now, this doesn't seem like a big deal, but it is a huge, huge deal. Because once again, who's Nehemiah? He's someone of status. He's someone of importance. He's someone who's busy. He's somebody who people are constantly trying to get a meeting with him, have time with him. They're trying to get his influence pushed in their favor, right? Nehemiah is a big, big deal. But what does he do? He makes time to listen. He makes time to be curious about what other people are experiencing in life, even though it's not going to necessarily impact him in his life. You see, offering thoughts, it does matter. It does matter in life. But this is impossible. It's impossible to offer your thoughts if you are too busy. So, what does Nehemiah do once again? He makes time. You want to know what the difference between the worst dad in the world and the best dad in the world is? Or the most successful business person in the world and a person who tries and tries and fails and fails in the business world? Or the difference between the person who's in the best shape of their life and the person who hasn't left the couch in the last 12 months? What do they all have in common? Well, all these people, even though they have all these differences, what they have in common is they all have the same amount of time. They all have 365 days in a year. They all have seven days in a week. They all have 24 hours in a day. The only difference that they have, even though they have that in common, the question is, how do they schedule their time? Now I know we don't all live the same lives. For some of us, we have one job. For others, we have two jobs just trying to make ends meet. We're working 60, 80 hours a week. Some of us are retired, right? We don't have anything on the calendar unless we want to put it on the on the calendar. Some of us we have kids, and so our as soon as we're done with work, we are basically told where to go because of all the things on our calendar. We follow them to their sports and their activities and their plays and their recitals, all these things, right? We are booked solid. And some we don't understand that yet, because we don't have kids. Maybe someday you you will find out what that feels like and what that looks like. But no matter what your current life situation is, here is the truth. If you are too busy to make time for others, then bottom line, you are too busy. A number of years ago, I was serving at a church and we were gonna have a night of worship, which is a special night set aside from Sunday for people to come in to sing praise music, to read scripture, to tell stories. And I was walking through the lobby during one of these evenings, just trying to make sure that everything was going well. And I saw one of our pastors, and he was on his knees next to another person who was attending the church, and they were on their knees and they were praying. Now, this isn't normal behavior. And so I kind of just let it go, and I asked him later, I said, I what was going on? Because I didn't want to interrupt their special moment. He said, You're not gonna believe this. But this guy had just experienced something horrible in his life. He just recently found out that his daughter had been raped, and he was going to take that person's life to get vengeance and justice for his daughter. And so he's at a local bar and grill, and he was drinking to kind of build up the courage to follow through on what he felt he needed to do, and he started pacing around the restaurant because he was getting nervous as he thought through what was going to happen next. And there was a couple who had planned on going to the night of worship, and they saw him walking past and kind of agitated. And instead of just ignoring him or thinking he's somebody else's problem, they invited him to come sit in the booth next to him, next to them. And they said, You should come with us to this night of worship that we're about to go to. And this is the most shocking part. He said, Yes. And he showed up. And he listened to the music and he heard the scripture reading, and he heard about this God who offers unconditional forgiveness to those who repent. And he thought, if God can offer me that level of forgiveness, I can offer that forgiveness to somebody else who doesn't deserve it. As I was thinking about that story, I was thinking, how much different would that story be if that couple didn't make time? Because I get it, like date night, that's special. I don't want to be interrupted on date night. That's somebody else's problem. That's his problem, not my problem. But they made time, they invited him, and it changed his life. It changed the daughter's life. She would have had a dad who was in prison for the rest of his existence. It changed this other person's life. Even though he did something horrible, he still had a life to live and time to move towards what God would have for him. I mean, by simply making time. Here's what happens next in Nehemiah's story. In verse 3, it says, They said to me, Those who survived the exile and are back in the providence are in great trouble and disgrace. The wall of Jerusalem is broken down and its gates have been burned with fire. Now, oftentimes, I don't know about you, but when my life is going well, I think this is true of everyone, when my life is going well, sometimes I can be indifferent about the needs of others. In fact, maybe if I've dug myself out of a hole and now things are going well, I can kind of look at someone else who's kind of in that hole and think, well, they gotta dig themselves out too. And I can become indifferent to the hurts and the hangups and the challenges of others. And Nehemiah definitely could have gotten stuck here too. But what does he do? He gets curious. And as he asks about what's going on in Jerusalem, what does he find out? He finds out that they are struggling. It's far worse than he could ever expect it. Even though the people were back, the temple was built, the law was in place. Well, the people who used to live there weren't too keen on that. And they were threatening them and they were harassing them and they were harming them. And this was all happening because there was no walls and there was no gates, there was no place for them to be protected. And all this is new information to Nehemiah. New information that he would have never known unless he did what? He just listened up. Right? He made time and then he listened. You see, sometimes people just need a listening ear, don't they? They don't need a sermon, they don't need a lecture, they don't need a solution. They just need you to hear them. In fact, it reminds me of a classic marriage miscue. If you are married, you understand this. Sometimes you're just supposed to listen, is what I'm finding out. Sometimes you are not supposed to provide the solution. Facts, it reminds me of this great video I found the other day. Why don't you check it out?

SPEAKER_02 21:40

It's just there's all this pressure, you know? And sometimes it feels like it's right up on me, and I can just feel it, like literally feel it in my head, and it's relentless. And I don't know if it's gonna stop. I mean, that's the thing that scares me the most, is that I don't know if it's Ever gonna stop.

SPEAKER_00 22:06

You do have uh uh nail in your head.

SPEAKER_02 22:11

It is not about the nail.

SPEAKER_00 22:13

Are you sure? Because I mean I'll bet if we got that out of there.

SPEAKER_02 22:16

Stop trying to fix it.

SPEAKER_00 22:17

No, I'm not trying to fix it. I'm just pointing out that maybe the nail is causing.

SPEAKER_03 22:21

You always do this. You always try to fix things when what I really need is for you to just listen.

SPEAKER_00 22:26

See, I don't think that is what you need. I think what you need is to get the nail.

SPEAKER_03 22:30

See, you're not even listening now.

SPEAKER_00 22:31

Okay, fine. I will listen. Fine.

SPEAKER_03 22:34

It's just sometimes it's like there's this achy I don't know what it is.

SPEAKER_02 22:44

And I'm not sleeping very well at all. And all my sweaters are snagged. I mean, all of them.

SPEAKER_00 22:52

That sounds really hard.

SPEAKER_03 22:56

It is. Thank you. Ow! Oh, come on.

SPEAKER_01 23:03

If you would just don't. I think that perfectly sums it up. If you're married, you understand. If you aren't married yet, well, you will understand soon. Both people are trying to extend and experience love, aren't they? The husband hears the problem and he thinks, I'm gonna create a solution. This is my loving act to be the hero. And the wife hears it as, you don't think I'm smart enough to create my own solution? Or you want to create a solution so we can just stop the conversation because what does she really want? She wants emotional connection. She has far, far than more than enough capacity to create the solution. She just wants that connection. You see, sometimes one of the best things that we can offer people is simply just by making time, right? Creating that time and listening. That's what Nehemiah does. And here's what he does next. In verse 4, when I heard these things, I sat down and wept. Now, Nehemiah goes far beyond just simply listening, doesn't he? He doesn't just say, Man, that's really hard. That stinks for you. I'm sorry you're going through that. Instead, what does he do? He sits in it, he feels it. And he wrestles with this idea of if this was me, what would this be like? You see, this is not in action. This is actually an important part of the process. Because caring matters. What does Nehemiah do here? Like I said, he sits in it, he feels it, he leans in, he listens up, and he cares deeply. Now he doesn't have to. I mean, think about this. If he leaves this mess in Jerusalem alone, it will not impact him. After all, what do we know about him? He's good friends with the king. He is the cupbearer, he's a trusted advisor, he's a person of status, and as a result, he's a person of wealth. He's vacationing and living in these amazing places of luxury. He is living the good life, and if Jerusalem is struggling, it will not impact his day-to-day. But he chooses to care despite that. Maybe it's because it's his brother. Maybe it's because it's his people. Or maybe because he has this deep love for Jerusalem, right? This is their place as Jewish people, right? Jerusalem, the city of David, at all these things. But no matter his motivation, no matter his motivation, what he does is powerful because he cares. Oftentimes, when I am preparing a funeral with a family, when we get to the spot where we talk about the eulogy or the tribute, a lot of people get very nervous about that. I don't want to go up there and share my thoughts. Because I'm afraid I'm going to emotionally break down. I don't want to cry in front of people. I don't want to like stutter through a three-minute thing. I don't want to do that. And so let's just not do those. And when people say that, I always say, listen, there is power in the tears. Because it shows that you care. In fact, if you go up there and you do nothing but cry for three straight minutes and then hand off your piece of paper so someone else can read it, that will speak powerfully of how much you cared about this person and how much you loved this person. And it will do more than you could ever imagine for the people who are there. A number of years ago, I had the opportunity to do my great uncle's funeral. Now, to kind of set the context there, my grandfather died when my dad was in fourth grade, so I never met my grandpa. And his brothers kind of filled in that space to be my grandpa. And this one I was especially close with. He didn't have his own kids, so he kind of like took us on as his pseudo-grandkids. So after he passed, I had just recently become a pastor, and so they said, come do the funeral. And so I built out the funeral, was going through the rhythms of the service, and we got to the eulogy section. And this is where they just wanted to do an open mic. So people were sharing their stories, and finally, my uncle got the microphone and he begins to talk. Now, to set the context for why this is gonna matter, is my great uncle never talked about church. Never talked about Jesus. As far as I knew, he never went to I knew that somewhere along the way he told me that he had been raised Lutheran, but I don't know if he had darkened the door of a church in years. So I didn't know what his relationship with Christ was like. So my my my uncle started talking, he said, towards the end of his life, this great uncle's life, he said, I I pressed him on his relationship with Christ. Because my uncle wanted to know, and I wanted to know. Did this person have a relationship with Christ? Or were they just baptized somewhere along the way and kind of just walked away from church? Like, do they have uh eternity-changing and life-changing relationship with Jesus? And as my uncle pressed him, he said that my great uncle said, Jesus Christ is the king, he's the boss, and I trust him with my life. And I fell to pieces in that moment. To know that my great uncle, my step in grandpa's salvation was there, that he truly did have a relationship with Christ, even though he didn't vocalize it very well, even though we didn't talk about it well, like that was the best thing that I could hear that day, and I just couldn't stop crying for the rest of the service. And so there's still half a service left. And I'm stuttering and I'm stammering through this entire thing. Finally got to the end. But you know what? I don't think a person in that room remembered any of the sermon, but they remembered that I cared deeply because the tears that were streaming down my face. So, what do we do? What do we do when we experience tragedy? What do we do when we experience tragedy globally or nationally, or even in our state, or in our backyard of the Twin Cities? What do we do? Do thoughts matter? Of course they do. Because thoughts are giving people an opportunity to hear their story, to understand what they're going through. It reorients our heart and it leads us to what's next. In fact, on this Pentecost Sunday, I couldn't help but think of this specific verse about the Holy Spirit. It's tucked into the book of Romans, chapter 8, and this is what it says. In the same way, the Spirit helps us in our weaknesses. We do not know what we ought to pray for. But the Spirit Himself intercedes for us through wordless groans. And he who searches our hearts knows the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for God's people in accordance with the will of God. You see, the Holy Spirit is not too busy. The Holy Spirit is not distracted, the Holy Spirit is not disinterested. In fact, what does this section of the Bible say? It says that even when we don't know what to pray for, the Holy Spirit prays on our behalf. Because the Holy Spirit knows our thoughts. That even when we can't articulate what is bothering us, we do not have the words for what we're feeling on the inside or what we're experiencing in life. The Holy Spirit knows our thoughts and knows our hearts and works on our behalf. The Spirit makes time for us. The Holy Spirit listens to us. And the Holy Spirit cares deeply. And if we want to be a people who softens the blow of sin in this world and in the lives of the people around us, we have to do the same. Let's pray. Dear Heavenly Father, we thank you so much for these precious moments to gather. And Lord, I say that almost every week because I believe that is true. And this Memorial Day weekend, I can't help but think of the people around the world who don't have that privilege or that opportunity, that they're meeting in secret, they're meeting in fear. And so, Lord, I don't want to take these moments for granted. That we get to come in here, we get to be challenged by your word, we get to be shaped by your word, we get to have our lives changed, our eternity changed. So, Lord, may we not miss out on this opportunity. And Lord, as we go out into this world, a world filled with tragedy, as a result of sin, the chaos that we live in our lives, Lord, may we take this first step. May we make time and we connect with people and we listen to them and care deeply. We pray this all in Christ's mighty name. Amen.