Summary
Pastor James Safrit
that can be dismissed at this time and if you have your bibles we're going to be in nehemiah chapter 6 nehemiah chapter 6 today and i'm thankful for what god has done for us and that we can be
a living testimony for him and for what he has done for us and through us guys if this is gonna be a problem we can turn it off um and i'll just use a different mic uh but we're
thankful for what god has done over the years and that he's faithful uh to use us we all have a testimony we all have a a story to tell and i pray that we tell that story nehemiah chapter
6 we're gonna look at all 19 verses today uh the difficult part of homecoming is one of two things i know we're gonna eat afterwards so if i go a little long it's not going to be the end
of the world uh but we're all smelling that wonderful food that's coming up the the hallway there and so we want to get down and eat as well and so i'll do my best to to cut some of
this stuff out and we'll we'll get down there and we'll have a great time together but uh let's stand by the reading of god's word we're gonna read all 19 verses very quickly and then we'll jump through the
message today for what god has given us on this anniversary sunday bible says when send ballot tobiah and gisham uh the arab and the rest of the enemies heard that i had rebuilt the wall and that there was
no gap left in it uh though at the time i had not installed the doors of the city gate send ballot and gisham sent me a message come let us meet together in the villages of the onan valley
where they plan to harm me so i sent messages them saying i am not i'm doing an important work for the lord and i cannot come down why should the work cease while i leave and go down to
you four times they sent the same proposal and i gave them the same reply sand ballot sent this message a fifth time by his aid who had an open letter in his hand and it was written it is
reported to the nations and gisham agrees that you and the jews plan to rebel this is the reason you are rebuilding the walls and according to these reports you are becoming the king and they've even set up by
prophets in jerusalem to proclaim on your behalf there is a king in judah these rumors will be heard by the king so come let us confer together i replied to them there is nothing of these rumors and you
are spreading you are inventing them from your own minds for they are all trying to intimidate us saying they will drop from their hands from the work and it will never be finished but now my god strengthen my hands and i went into the house of shimea son of delilah son of
methebia who was restricted to his house and he said let us meet in the house of god inside the temple let us shut the temple doors because they are coming to kill you they're coming to kill you tonight
but i said should a man like me run away how can someone like me enter the temple and live i will not go i realized that god had not sent him because of the prophecy he spoke against me
to buy and sand ballot had hired him he was hired so that i would be intimidated and do as he suggested and give a bad reputation in order they could discredit me my god this prayer right here in
verse 14 my god remember to buy and sand ballot for what they have done and also the prophetess nobadiah and the other prophets who wanted to intimidate me verse 15 the wall was completed in 52 days the 25th
day of the month of elo and the enemies heard this and the surrounding nations were intimidated and lost their confidence for they realized that this task had been accomplished by our god during those days the nobles of judah
sent many letters to tobiah and tobiah's letters came to them for many of judaea were bound by an oath to him since he was the son-in-law of shechem the son of arab and the son of jehoihan
had married his daughter of mashila son of baraka these nobles kept mentioning tobiah's good deeds to me they kept reporting my words to him and tobiah sent letters to intimidate me father we love you we thank you for
the reading of your word help us to word to study your word properly and correctly today help us to grow in our faith as we look at what it means to press forward for you in your name we
pray amen you may be seated we get to nehemiah chapter 6 we've walked through lots over the last couple of weeks and uh if you haven't been here i challenge you to go and re-listen to some of
those messages and and get caught up i'm thankful for uh the ones that have come up to me over the last couple of weeks and just said i have really appreciated the the book of dmi i've never really
studied it in this manner of just going verse by verse and chapter by chapter and it's encouraged me in my personal walk and i want to thank you for being faithful to preaching the word and i do want
to do that even today but i want you to imagine this is something that i cannot this road band's gonna have to go my adhd is kicking in and i'm playing with it too much um so i want
you to imagine this is something that i have to imagine in my mind because this has never happened to me imagine a runner about going a marathon about to train for months and months and months at a time
i know logan does this and early workouts he told me the other day he gets up at like 3 30 or 4 and runs every morning and i don't understand that in my mind how why you would do
this your sore muscles not being able to walk around for days because your body is just aching but then finally the the race comes the the marathon comes you run the race you begin to go on this journey
and you reach the last mile now again this is all from people that have told me this but you get that last mile and your body gets heavy your your legs get tired your body wants to stop you
you get close enough to see the finish line and you get there and then all of a sudden like your body is is in this war with each other if i'm gonna am i gonna finish this race or
am i just gonna give up and this is what's going on here in chapter six there the temptation of the evil one is coming against them to tempt them to quit they can see the finish line there they
can see the walls are almost done and yet there is this over arching attack that is coming into jerusalem because they're almost completed they're almost where they need to be at and oftentimes this ridicule can happen we looked
at a couple of weeks ago from the internal conflict uh that they had this challenge that was going and now as they get so close the the opposition begins to intensify even more and nehemiah he tells them listen
there's going to be distractions there are going to be people that discredit us but we must continue to press forward in church this morning as we celebrate 173 years we must have this same attitude that we are going
to continue to press forward for god's goodness for his greatness that we're going to continue to be a place that worships we're going to continue to be a place where the word of god is preached we're going to
continue to be a place where families can come and know they can raise their families here where we're going to reach out and serve our neighborhoods and our community and proclaim the gospel for the
salvation of lost souls generations have come and gone as we looked at uh pastors have served you can look out the back door here and you can see families after families and people after people have gone on to
be with the lord children have grown up here and they've taken their last breath here and they've taken their they've raised their families here and now we have this opportunity to say how are we going to continue on
for the goodness of god as we live our lives we can remember what we've done in the past and we're going to do that as i walk through the message today but i want us to be consumed with
not just saying the task is finished but how can we move forward how can we say god i want to keep pressing on the attacks are going to continue coming the the things that are going to continue to
happen are there and we haven't arrived and we haven't finished and we must be faithful to what god has called us to do until as jade was asking me this morning as we were driving to church she said
dad how do we know or what's it going to be like when jesus comes back like are we going to see him is he going to be in clouds and then she asked this this has to be an
every girl question what's he going to be wearing i looked at her and i said you know jade i don't think we're going to be consumed about what jesus is wearing when he comes back i think we're going
to be so enamored by his goodness and the greatness and the the majesty of who he is like we're just going to be totally oblivious to what he's got on but oftentimes we ask these questions and and it
can cause distractions in our life and god is telling us hey remember the mission remember to preach the word remember to continue to practice hospitality remember to go into the darkness of our community and penetrate the darkness with
the gospel of jesus christ and as we walk through today we're going to look at how this can apply even in nehemiah chapter 6 this is 30 3 000 years ago when this happened and yet nehemiah is having
the same problems that we have today 3 000 years later the first one is this the distraction of the opposition we can all ask ourself and we can all look in inwardly and we can all begin to ask
ourselves you know oftentimes it is easy to get distracted from the work of the lord it is easy to get distracted even at work when you're at work all right you're sitting there at your dinner table with your
family and a news media pops up if you're old school and you've still got the tv on during news time during dinner time or someone texts you on your phone or you get an alert from uh tiktok or
instagram or facebook and all of a sudden what happens we pull it out and we look at it and we get distracted
distractions happen and even in this time the distractions were coming because they were attempting to stop the work of what was going on and we have to ask ourselves we have to be vigilant and say god allow me
to see the distractions allow me to recognize these distractions before they come in because ultimately when when i am sitting at the dinner table with my family and all of a sudden my phone goes off or someone calls
me or something happens and i pick it up and i go to that phone or whatever that is i am now telling everyone at that table that this is more important than them and the distractions begin to happen
and and nehemiah said listen i'm going to be so focused on what's going on here that the the distractions that we're going to look at that come in they're not going to distract me because i'm going to be
so focused on the work that god has called me to do the first thing we see here is the invitation to compromise the compromising distraction that comes in sam ballad is with tobiah and gisham say you know what
let's let's let's have a a friendly meeting let's invite him to a good dinner at lunch or or dinner at a good fancy restaurant over here in ono and let's bring him in and let's let's have this wonderful
time and and nehemiah could have said you know what they're going to pay for my meal they're taking me out to eat like this is a pretty good deal i'm going to go hang out with these guys and
see what's going on nehemiah in this moment through the discretion of the lord jesus christ through god working in his life with the holy spirit understood that this was a false invitation this invitation was not there with true
intentions and the bible tells us that they were there to ultimately harm him or stop him for what was going on but the invitation seemed very nice
and we must have the same discretion in our life we must have the same uh this not distraction but destruction in our life to say you know what i know this is right and i know this is wrong
i understand that if i take this opportunity it's going to lead to destruction and it's going to lead to the downfall of these people every opportunity deserves our attention everything that comes across our desk every invite that we
have we should pray over we say god is this going to benefit me or is this going to harm me this is what nehemiah did he understood this and sometimes the temptation of compromise comes in because you can
imagine nehemiah think about what happened in the last couple of chapters the the attacks came from outside he warded that off the attacks began to come on the inside he warded that off man the guy's tired the guys
wore out nehemiah's like you know what i just don't know if i can keep fighting i don't know if i can begin to do this maybe this is an issue that i can just overlook maybe this this standing
for this truth that is that's costing me time and energy and sleep and everything else maybe it's just not worth the problem maybe i can just compromise in this area and i'll make everyone happy and all the problems
are going to go away because i just compromise in this one small area maybe he said in his mind if i stop doing what god has called me to do the conflicts are going to cease wouldn't it just
be easy just to go through life without any conflicts
and i'm sure nehemiah began to think you know what if i just if i just change this one area if i just change this one small thing no one's gonna know it's not gonna be a big deal and
then we can just move forward nehemiah instead of those things in verse three he comes back and he says this i am involved in a great work and i cannot come down he shows us his priorities he shows
us that the work that he is doing is designed and dictated by god and he must obey god rather than man verse four says that that it wasn't just a one-time invitation they came four different times and
tried getting him to compromise four different times they kept pressing him they kept coming at him they kept deciding hey we're gonna do this we're gonna we're gonna throw this in your way we're gonna give you more money
we're gonna do this this and this and we're gonna bring you in here to to allow you to compromise i want you to imagine just for a moment you're you're riding down the road it's somewhat dark outside maybe
it's early in the morning or in the evening and and someone texts you and you look at your phone that one distraction doesn't really change a lot you look back and you see it and all of a sudden
you get another text and and you look down and before you know it you are so distracted that you almost cross the line and you almost hit the person beside you or you almost go off into the ditch
or you didn't see the deer that was standing the road and you plow right into it because of that little distraction that came in that you thought wasn't a big deal but now all of a sudden it has
taken your entire attention away from what was good and what was right in your life the danger here isn't that the the driver chose the wrong destination or chose not to look the danger here was the driver in
that vehicle chose to be distracted by something in their life that wasn't good honorable or respectable in their life god has called us to do a great work church and he is telling us there are oppositions that are
going to come and there's these invitations that sometimes seem small that we must be aware of
after he thwarts off the invitations and he stands firm the the enemy says you know what we've got to do something different and so now they begin to slander him and the accusations of slander begin to come in
they change their tactics the devil is a smart person our enemies are smart when they come against us they're saying you know what we're going to come at you this way and if this doesn't get you we'll come
at you in a different way and if that doesn't get you we'll come at you they're going to always try different tactics and we must be aware of these things the bible says that in verse five that the
sand ballot sends an open invitation i'm sorry an open letter to nehemiah now we don't understand what an open letter is let me explain it in our 2026 modern lingo they put a tweet out or a facebook post
out for everyone to read okay so sand ballot said hey have you heard the news about nehemiah he's not really listening lately he's going to set up his own kingdom and he said i'm going to push posts so
everyone can see it an open letter was that these people went around and they began spreading these letters to everybody hey here's a letter for you here's something for you here's what nehemiah is doing these are things they
began spreading these rumors all around the town all these accusations began to come in they were serious accusations all right all of a sudden he's like you you're you're doing this project for your own good you don't have
the right character you don't have the right motives and they begin to try to discredit him in what is going on in his life imagine if you can with me for a moment if you go back to maybe
fifth grade or sixth grade or seventh grade or middle school errors of your life or maybe even today in your own life when you go back in that one rumor gets started where that one person says hey did
you hear what happened to brody and they said they share this idea or this thing that wasn't true that no one knew about and by the end of the day sometimes by the end of the class period like
the entire school knows what's going on and you're like what this isn't true how did you hear about that who told you well so-and-so told me and so-and-so told me we're changing classes and this
person came and told me this rumors spread quickly and this is what's going on here in this passage they're trying to spread the rumors try to discredit what's going on so that ultimately they're repeating something that's not true
because they're trying to hurt someone else's integrity someone else's intentions and they're trying to cause harm in this situation i want to give you just sort of bring you into the counseling room for a moment as we as
a biblical counselor i counsel lots of people all the time these are some some practical things that you can do before you begin to believe or repeat something in your life the first thing you have to ask is
is this true is what someone is telling me true and this may involve you doing a little bit of fact finding or understanding before you ever repeat or even absorb it into your mind number two is it necessary
is it necessary for me to hear this cause hear this accusation hear this thing do i need to know this information and why am i even passing this information alone number three is it helpful if i share this
information i may have to do it to protect someone i may have to do it to resolve a genuine concern or am i just sharing it as a prayer request among the brethren to create suspicion doubt or complication
when we go through our life these are some good things to ask ourselves as we walk through our own practical life number three how does nehemiah respond to all this i mean we we've seen the the invitations we've
seen the accusations now all of a sudden nehemiah has this awesome opportunity how is he going to respond what is his behavior looking like how is he going to handle these false claims notice he doesn't actually ever directly
deny the false claims he comes to the people he doesn't accept the accusations he simply tells them listen we must turn to god in prayer he doesn't say these guys are wicked and they're bad they have no good
intentions he doesn't defend himself he doesn't try to go at any other way he just simply says i recognize what's going on i recognize they're the enemy and if i respond it's going to hurt me it's going to
hurt them it's going to hurt everything i'm just going to step back and say by now god you are my god strengthen my hands oh this is such a powerful thing he's saying listen i'm facing pressure i'm going
through some different things and instead of me praying god take this difficulty away god go and wipe out my enemies he says god strengthen me god help me remain faithful god help me to be true help me to
be right help me to be just in your eyes help me to have the right mindset as i keep working and i keep doing the things that you've called me to do we must continue to press on we
must continue to do what god has called you to do we must do the right thing and not the wrong thing number two the deception of opposition now the opposition changes their tactics before they try to distract him
now they begin to deceive some things that are going on every voice in our life has something to offer whether it's spiritual maturity or whether it's a distraction we have to be the ones that are able to flesh
these things out and say god who is it that you put in my life and how are they guiding me in my life the first attack was an invitation hey nehemiah i want you to come over here and
hang out with us for a little bit let us influence the way you're thinking what you're saying how you're doing some things we may even be able to help you in what you're doing i'm sure they came at him in a graceful manner
the first one didn't work and now the second attack comes as a accusation and now the third way begins to come where they begin to infiltrate the the people that had the most influence on nehemiah
look at the first thing here they the council of fear that happens in verses 10 and 11
nehemiah visits the shemaiah this is the priest the one that is trying to help him and and nehemiah is saying listen my enemies are coming after me and they're trying to kill me and he goes hey hey what
why don't you come hide in the church for a little while why don't you come lock yourself in a door don't worry about anything on the outside and this is going to pass and nehemiah in the ultimate beginning
he goes this doesn't seem right in my spirit this doesn't seem right in my soul he's telling me he's counseling me to live in a life of fear god has called us not to fear but to say god
is going to be the strength of my portion forever and i'm going to trust in him and all of a sudden he begins to say you know what i'm not going to allow this fear in my life to narrow my vision
when fear happens we have this response whether we're going to fight we're going to leave or we're going to freeze and and everything all of our senses begin to be heightened and we begin to narrow everything in and
begin to see what's wrong and he said if i live in this fear i'm gonna it's going to freeze me from being able to be effective for what god has called me to do and he says you know
what god is not asking me to do this fear says what can i do to protect myself faith in god is telling me what does god want me to do what is god requiring of me to do it
may be stepping out of my comfort zone it may be me reaching out to the person across the counter and just offering a prayer for them but what is god calling us to do we must never allow fear
to be the authority of our decisions we must be a person that is living a life that is trustworthy for the lord you know this this counsel that he got was was a shortcut for safety we lived in
in idaho for four years we took our teenagers up to a place called mccall idaho it's up to the northern part of the state if you look at idaho the little finger up at the top it's up in
the top and they have this massive lake in mccall and the the mccall lake froze over in like october because it got so cold and it froze over so much that by november december when we were there in january people were taking trucks massive big trucks and just driving straight across the lake
and and they this is what i was talking to one of the locals and he said yeah he said the deceptive part is is sometimes uh when you begin to get on this lake in vehicles it's really thick
at the shore but as you get in it gets thinner and thinner and these guys have this deception in their life that hey we can just go out here and do this and he said there are many times
where a truck will be going out in the middle of this river in the middle of this lake and it'll just break and the truck will just go into the middle because they were deceived into thinking it was
good at the beginning and so if i get to the middle or the end and i take this shortcut across it's going to be good in the end and in the end they got halfway across and the safety
that they thought they had gave way and oftentimes this is the same way in our life we think well you know god i'm going to go this way and everything seems fine at first and this must be the
way i'm going because it seems fine nothing bad is happening are you really a god are you really doing these things and so i'm going to keep going and keep going and all of a sudden you get so
far into our sin we get so far into our fear that we just lose track of what god is doing in our life god is telling us there cannot be any shortcuts in our life and we're tempted to
obey something that is more difficult or easier in our life so the first is the counsel of fear the second is the discernment of faith nehemiah responds with this clarity that i pray that is my clarity that i
pray that is our church's clarity that i pray that each and every man in here would say this is how i will respond he looks and he says why of a man in my position should i run away
and i flee into the temple he's revealing that listen i understand you're not from god and he's evaluating all these claims that are coming by him and he's saying listen god has called me to do this god has
provided for me he's provided for the enemies he's taking care of them he's called safety to happen inside of our walls look at what he's done how can i walk away from god when he has called me to
do these great things first john 4 1 this tells us that as believers we should test every spirit
every advice every thought that i give you as your pastor you should be testing them with scripture and you should say listen are these things true are these honorable are they just are the things that i should give
my life by in acts chapter 17 we come across a group of people called the bereans and the bereans were known for what they did because they examined the scriptures to determine what was right and true church we
should be bereans who are saying i want to examine what is right i want to examine what is true no personality no person no position should ever have the right that goes above scripture and we should say that
scripture is our final authority in faith and practice then everything i'm going to do if i'm going to raise my kids according to the word of god i'm going to live my marriage according to the word of god
i'm going to go to a church that will biblically aligns with what god's word is telling us to do church we must be a people and a position that we are saying god i want to give this you
the glory and i want to have discernment of my faith number three we must be
looking at what nehemiah gives this prayer for the future verse 14 i slowed down when i read it because i wanted us to understand he closes this section by saying god remember those that were coming against me he names these people he's saying god don't allow me to have vengeance on them
imagine the spiritual maturity that it takes for a believer to say god this person has ruined my reputation they are trying to hurt my family they're trying to invite me into compromise and ultimately the bible says they were
trying to kill me and him to sit down and say god bless them god work in their life god would you go and help tobiah and sam ballad they're distracted right now imagine the maturity that it takes to
step back and say i'm going to take everything that i want to do and i'm going to put it before god's feet and i'm going to say god allow me to to take on this romans 12 19 principle
that you are the vengeance you are the judge and you're going to take care of these things i'm going to trust in you i may not see it in my lifetime i may not see it in in next
week or next year but i'm going to trust that you are going to take care of this problem in my life church for 173 years our church has navigated through changing times different personalities different sermons different seasons different
pastors different challenges and we should be thankful that a group of people stood back and said you know we're going to remain faithful through all their seasons through as peter said through the civil war through the great depression
through 9 11 through covid through all these things a group of people stood together and said we're going to continue trusting in the lord and they begin to say god we're going to depend on you not only for
right now in the present but also in the future we're going to be faithful to who and what you have called us to do the very last thing here in the last four verses is the demonstration of god's
power i promise you i'll be quick the demonstration of god's power when all this has been done they step back and the bible says that even those around them have to give the glory back to god i think
this is such a powerful powerful moment because the in verse 15 we see what all this has brought us to it's taken us about 52 days probably if i were to put do the math this is my sixth
or seventh sermon that i've preached in nehemiah uh this is sermon number seven so you can divide that out it's probably been roughly that time so from when i started preaching on nehemiah till today is about the time they began working on this project
and the bible says in verse 15 the completion of the walls began to happen and it records that the walls were completed in 52 days think about that the ruins that was there the ruins that had been brought
in the people were living in the ruins the bible says that the animals were just coming in and destroying everything the enemies were coming in destroying everything and yet 52 days later one man come in and said listen
guys we can't live like this we can't allow the lord's people in the lord's city to be in this ruins and we must work together to to work in a determination to see god do remarkable things matthew henry
said it like this they were determined to coordinate the labor to accomplish a remarkable amount of work in a short period of time this requires commitment this requires people to say i am going to be committed to work
on my section of the wall i'm going to be committed that when my work gets done i'm going to step over and help my neighbor when they get done we're going to go and we're going to help somebody
else and we're not going to worry about our own little things but we're going to worry about simply saying god i want to see this project done
churches we celebrate 173 years no one person did everything it was a group of people that came together in all those different generations and saying hey can i help you we're going to eat this wonderful meal in a
minute not one person made every single thing in there by themselves okay if they would have they'd been cooking for the last two months okay we all came together we all brought something we're all going to enjoy them
all together this is the picture of what nehemiah is doing he's saying listen you come and you bring what you can bring and you allow you to do what you can do and allow this great work to be
done we are coming together and we are seeing what god has done through generations of people and understand that the people may change that the things may change the methods may change that we do but always know that
the principle of god's word will never change and as long as i'm your pastor here you may fire me after today uh i hope not i hope i'm here for another 70 years and and i can die here
as your pastor but i pray that over the next the faith that the next years that we will be faithful to god's word and that we will develop a church that has a culture that says we're going to
love god's word we're going to love god's people we're going to worship him with all heart and soul and mind and we're going to give him all the glory for everything we do so that one day there'll be
another generation that comes behind us that can say i'm thankful for that generation that stood on the truth that stood on the word of god and they have established this church for me to step up and me to
continue to go forward verse 16 look at what happens here they complete the work and nehemiah could have got up and said look at how great i am look at me but instead he said look at the recognition
of god's hand verse 16 tells us that when they surrounded nations began to hear what was going on that the walls had been completed that were once tore down that they came in and looted and they came in and did these things it says that they recognized that the work had been accomplished
with god's help the enemies attempted to stop it the enemies were trying to slow it down and yet they emphasize god's work and god's hand in all these things nehemiah could have stood up and said look at how
great of a leader i am look at how i took this misfit of people i put them together we didn't know what we were doing but but i was the guy that did it all no he steps back
and he says god is sovereign and he he is the one that has been working through all these things it doesn't eliminate what we need to do but it enables us to work and to do what god has
called us to do the success was not simply a monument of human effort it was an evidence that god was providing providential help in and through their lives and when they stood back and they said i'm looking at the wall and it's completed
how in the world did this happen and they all responded it was because god was in it because god was the one that received the glory god was the one that allowed these things to happen in their life
and god church god is the one that allows our church to continue to sustain for 173 years when we look on paper and we say i don't know how this is going to work i don't know how these
things are going to happen by god's glory by god's vision we're going to continue to press forward for what he has called us to do we should be grateful for the past we should be faithful in the present
and we should be praying about the future that god has given us to say god you have given me this for a reason
the last thing we'll look at is the continuance of opposition this is where if james safer was writing the story this is not how i would have been in chapter 16 right chapter 16 all these things are happening
the great things are happening and then they they finish the wall they give god the glory like end of story roll the credits story's over we're good what happens in verse 17 the enemies
are defeated the work is finished and tobias still has influence the relationship is is constant back and forth all of a sudden the challenges are remaining even after the project is done this should challenge us to say just
because we complete something doesn't mean the enemy's like oh well we're done i can't worry about them anymore no the enemy's going to come at us even harder then now we're unified now we're able to get up and
we're able to have a celebration where we can say look at what god did and satan's like okay who can i work on who can i come in and influence and all of a sudden the bible says that
tobiah one of the priests still had influence and people were still going to him people were still worried about these things and people began to spread rumors because all of a sudden this discernment in our life doesn't just
end once we've arrived the work of the church requires ongoing vigilance as we begin to work through things it's continuing to say god give me wisdom that's why every time i pray i say god give me wisdom god
help me to lead right help me to lead my family right help me to lead my church right help me to lead my family all the things in my work and in my friends help me to leave right
and do well because we must be vigilant of all things in our life as terry comes i want to conclude with some last things the pressing idea that i want to give us here at the beginning nehemiah had every reason to become discouraged and to quit and to go home
if you remember back chapter one nehemiah was the cupbearer he was sitting at the king's table he was enjoying all the wealth and prosperity of the king and all of a sudden he had this vision this desire from
god after he saw and heard what was going on and he says you know what i've got to go and help my people he could have said this is too much this is hard the the distractions are coming
in the the discrediting and the slander is coming in but instead he kept pressing he stayed focused on what god had given him and this amazing project was done in 52 days because one man challenged a group of
people to say let's stay committed let's stay committed to continuing to see what god can do
let's let's just put god at his test and say god we're going to do this for your honor and for your glory and when it's all done when it's done it's going to have to say that you did this not me
not nehemiah not a group of people that were really good but because god was the one that worked in their life the same way for us church we have the celebration of history that we get to look back
on and we get to say god you were faithful before you're going to be faithful again and we're going to trust you and the opportunities that you lay in front of us to continue to be faithful in the
future church our community needs the gospel now more than ever people are hurting people are in search of the truth people families still need biblical truth families still need to say we're going to build our life on the
word of god children still need to be discipled in the truth and people are still searching for the hope of the gospel found in jesus every single day outside these walls
are we going to have a church that continues to stay on mission to be faithful to tell others about him to say god we want to be faithful to you and we want to give you the glory when
all of it gets done not so that we can look up and say how great we are but so that we can give you the glory and ultimately this is one of my prayers so that we'll have a
generation that comes behind us that can say thank you for being faithful i was talking i think it was pat or someone this morning and she said you know these red carpets weren't here one day these pews weren't
here the tv screens weren't up here the the speakers and the sound system someone had church in here before all this was there and someone gave in order for this to happen so that we can have the the
be the recipients of the blessings of someone else what are we going to say you know what next generation i want to leave this for you i want to do this for you so that you'll be able to
come behind me and say let's just serve the lord and press forward because someone that was before me was willing to pay the cost for me to be faithful right now in today's generation what are we leaving behind
for our next generation a couple of questions and i'll be done what is god calling you to do that maybe you've been putting off nehemiah could have easily said i'm done with this i'm going to put it off for another year or
so we'll come back to it later once everything gets squared away he just said we're going to keep doing right now sometimes we've put some things off what are the distractions in our life that we need to remove
and say god this this area has been distracting me maybe there's a conviction in your life that you need to stand firm on maybe there's someone in here that says you know what i've been looking back at the
history i've heard what you've said pastor james and i just feel like i need to do more i need to i need to be a part of that history i need to be a part of saying i want
to do something not so that people can look at me and have my name up in light so that i can do something for the next generation so i can do something to help someone that's going to come
behind me 173 years from now and say you know what look at the work in front of us
someone was willing to do it 173 years ago man i want to step up and i want to do it my great great father did i want to step up and do it my great great grandmother did and
i want to be one of the ones that can step up and say i want to help build the wall i want to do something for the lord so that we can look back and say god you're still
faithful you're still on the throne and you're still the one that leads in every area of our life father we love you help us as we respond today help us be faithful to your word help us to honor
you in all that we do in your name we pray amen maybe you can stand up let's uh respond as you see fit this morning
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