Summary
Pastor Safrit walks through Nehemiah 2:11-20, emphasizing how God's hand guides success in rebuilding. He highlights Nehemiah's careful preparation, the importance of surrounding oneself with the right people, and the necessity of identifying needs before taking action. The sermon encourages believers to step out in faith, trusting God's provision while being prepared for opposition, as Nehemiah faced mockery and challenges when rallying the people to rebuild Jerusalem's walls. Ultimately, the message calls for active participation in God's work and reliance on His strength.
Welcome and Housekeeping
Thank you for listening to Pleasant Grove Baptist Church Sermon Audio. For more information, please visit our website, pgbcronda.com, or visit on all social media platforms. People, thank you for singing and leading us this morning.
If you have a child who wants to be dismissed to Children's Church, that's available at this time for you, and we'll have that taken care of. If you have your Bibles, we're going to go to Nehemiah chapter 2.
We're continuing our study in the book of Nehemiah, and I have enjoyed studying this personally. I hope you've enjoyed so far looking through this,
looking through this book together, and excited about where we're going to go today. Nehemiah chapter 2, verses 11 through 20. We'll finish up this chapter today.
If you have your Bibles there, and you'd like to stand with me, now the reading of God's Word, we'll read the 11th through the end of the chapter this morning.
The Bible says that Nehemiah, after I arrived in Jerusalem, and I had been there for three days, I got up and took a few men with me. I didn't tell anyone what my God had laid on my heart to do for Jerusalem.
The only animal I took was the one that I was riding, and I went out at night through the valley gate, toward the serpent's well and the dung gate, and I inspected the walls of Jerusalem that had been broken down, and its gates had been destroyed by fire.
I went on to the fountain gate and the king's pool,
but the further down it became too narrow for my animal to go through. So I went up by night by the way of the valley and inspected the wall. Then heading back, I entered through the valley gate and returned.
The officials did not know where I had gone or what I was doing, for I had not yet told the Jews, priests, nobles, officials, or the rest of those who would be doing the work.
So I said to them, you see the trouble we're in. Jerusalem lies in ruins.
Its gates have been burned. Come, let us rebuild Jerusalem's wall so that we will no longer be in disgrace. I told them how the gracious hand of my God had been upon me and what the king had said to me. They said, let's start rebuilding.
And their hands were strengthened to do this good work. When Sanbaut, the Hithorite,
Tobiah, the Amorite official, and Gisham of Arab heard about this, they mocked and despised them and said, what is this that you are doing? Are you rebelling against the king?
I gave them this reply. The God of heavens is the one who will grant us success. We, his servants, will start building, but you will have no share of right or historical claim to Jerusalem. Father, thank you for the reading of your word.
The Importance of Preparation
Lord, help us to honor you as we preach this message this morning. In your name we pray. Amen. You may be seated. Oftentimes in our lives, we get used to things,
some things sort of that shouldn't be getting used to in our life, in our home.
And I want to open it by sort of a way of analogy in your life and in your home.
Maybe in your house, there's an appliance that you have that's just sort of been broken, that you sort of just work around. You know that the temperature on your oven, when you set it to 350, it's actually less or more. And so you've got to account for the adjustment there.
Maybe there's a crack in the wall that you've been meaning to fill or paint or correct. And you just overlook it and you don't notice it. A couple of months or weeks ago now,
I was given a little mini fridge in my office. I keep some waters.
And if I bring lunch, I'll throw it in there just to keep it in there. And I think it was Caleb had come in and he was sitting there and he said, what is that noise? And I said, what are you talking about? And he said, you don't hear that? And the fridge,
the motor in the mini fridge was just making a little ticking or winding sound.
And I said, I don't even pay attention to that. That's just part of, just how it is. And he said, I couldn't even focus if I wasn't here. But this is how life gets, right? We get used to things. We get used to how things are. We don't, we overlook them.
And this can happen to us spiritually as well. Spiritually, we can get in a rut of doing things the way we've always done things.
And we can get to the point where we say, you know what? I just, I'm just going to keep doing the things how we're, how we're doing them.
And I think this is what Nehemiah was getting to when he got to this point. He came into Jerusalem and he said, God never intended the children of Israel to accept this way of living.
He looked at them and he said, does this not compel you to change what you're doing? He walked into Jerusalem and he's seeing something.
The walls torn down, the gates burned down. You couldn't even go into certain roads or streets. And he said, does this not bother you? Does this not motivate you to do something? How have you learned to live like this? There's rubble everywhere.
You're literally walking over piles of rubble to get over to here. And you're just accepting that this is just the way it is.
He says, I see the rubble and I understand there's a responsibility to begin to fix what is broken, to begin to rebuild and begin to say, God, I want you to help me through your power and through your instruction to do what is right.
And this is sort of where we pick up on the story today. And one commentator said like this, I thought it was fantastic. I wanted to pull it like this. When God puts a work on your heart, he expects you to pursue it with prayerful preparation,
with faithful participation and confidence in his provision. God has put a desire on each and every one of us, whether it be as a family, as a business owner, as a father, as a mother, whatever it may be in your profession, to do something to the best of your ability.
And when God has put this on our heart, we must prayerfully say, God, give me the wisdom to do this.
As we looked at in Sunday school in Psalms 19, God, give me the wisdom that I need to give the instructions that are going to help my life out.
He then tells us to begin to participate in what he's calling us and then trust that God is going to deliver the way he said he would do it.
As Nehemiah comes in here into the last half of Nehemiah chapter two, we see five specific things.
I know it looks daunting in your notes there, but I'm not going to be long on most of these. And so just follow along quickly with me. The first is this, we must fix our focus.
Or as Nehemiah, he came in and he fixed your focus on where it is. He says he came to Jerusalem and was there for three days. He had arrived. He had went through this journey.
He had all the papers. He had all the provision.
He had all the things that the king gave him with the timber and the armed service, the resources and the protection.
God had given him a burden to go to Jerusalem and fix the walls because he heard about this. And he doesn't immediately come into the city and go, okay, I need to have a family meeting. We need to all get together.
I've got to tell you what's going on. He comes in and he begins to do something that is so valuable and so important in our life. He takes another moment just to wait and figure out what's going on. He takes for a moment.
He says, let me just examine what's going on. Let me figure out what's going on here. And then we will begin to walk through this. And so the first thing he does is in verse 11, he waited for the right time.
Waiting on the Lord
Nehemiah spent three days in Jerusalem before making any move. He begins to say, you know what? I am going to wait, not I'm going to do nothing. And I think this is important for us to understand. Waiting on the Lord is not doing nothing for God.
Sometimes the most spiritual thing we can do as a believer, as a Christian, as a church is to wait and say, God, I'm going to wait for you to move in this area. God, I'm going to trust in you. I'm going to plan ahead.
But when you give me the permission, when you give me the opportunity to move forward, then I'm going to move forward. We live in a culture that says this. If you want it, get it.
What are you wasting your time on? Right? We live in an instant society with instant mashed potatoes and instant mac and cheese.
And you can have something within 30, 40 seconds, a minute, minute and a half. You can pop it in the microwave and it'll be done. I was watching a reel that came on the other day and it was a back to the future clip from
supposedly like 2026, where we were going to be at in the future. And you may remember this where Marty McFly's wife or mom or someone, she walks over and she opens up a Pizza Hut oven and she pulls out the little Pizza Hut round, puts it on the thing,
puts it into the oven, closes it for like three and a half seconds. And when she opens it and pulls it out, it's a hot, full pizza that was there. And someone said, when is this going to actually happen?
Like, when can I go to my fridge and pull out a pizza and put it in this little oven and within seconds, I'm going to have a full pizza.
Why is that? Because we want things and we want them now and we don't like wasting time and we want to move forward. And Nehemiah tells us that this preparation for what he's about to do is not procrastinating on what he is going to do, but it's preparing himself and preparing him to lead effectively.
Nehemiah's delay allowed him to personally assess the situation, make sure the plan that he had was right before he publicly announced it.
So it's important for us to know is we don't have to announce everything that God is doing in our life to everyone at all times.
There are some things that we can keep close to our heart and we can say, God, I'm just going to keep praying about it. I'm going to keep living the way you want me to live. I'm going to keep doing everything before I ever talk about it.
Oftentimes, and I'm guilty of this. My wife would tell me that I'm guilty of rushing into things and doing things fast. And I just, that's my personality. I'm a type A guy that wants to do things full speed. Nehemiah teaches us that, yes, there's a time to do that.
And we're going to see that in a moment, in a couple of weeks. But in this moment, he says, I am going to wait and allow the Lord to go ahead of me. Number two here underneath this, he sees that he is walking with the right people.
Nehemiah, as he's focusing on things, he says, I've got to get the right people around me before I even go forward, before I even step forward. He says, me and a few of the men that were with me.
You see, Nehemiah didn't say, I'm going to go grab a crowd and as many people as I can get to go, we're going to go and we're going to take an excavation trip and we're going to go and
figure out what's going on. He understood that the wisdom that he needed was to surround himself with the right people to accomplish the right thing that God was calling him to do. And we as the same thing must be surrounded by a few good people who we are giving permission to speak in our life.
This is good for me. It's good for you, but we need to have the right people that have the ability to speak into us. I've got a couple of friends that I talk to on a weekly basis, some on a daily basis.
John, who I'll be going to see here in a couple of weeks. He knows that he has permission that if he sees me doing something or act in a certain way, he has permission to correct me and tell me, hey, James, that's probably not the right thing to do.
Hey, James, you're probably not parenting your children the right way or you're not loving your wife the right way.
I may not like it when he tells me that, but I take a step back and I say, okay, I trust John. I know that he's got the best interest in my mind. And so I'm going to trust his advice when he gives this to me. I'm going to look into it.
I'm going to investigate it. We need the right people around us that are going to encourage us and prod us in the right direction. And I think this applies in ministry. This applies in marriage.
This applies in our businesses. This applies in our personal life. This applies in even how we begin to parent our children.
It applies in our personal life is who are you giving permission to speak into your life that's going to guide you and it's going to direct you into do the right things.
As a business owner, as you, I'm not a business owner, but if you see businesses, they've got board of directors and people that speak and give direction on how that business should move forward.
These are people that are saying, I think I have the best interest and the best mindset and they are leading and guiding and directing in this bigger organization. And so the same thing has to happen in our own personal life.
Are we moving closer toward God by the people that we're surrounding ourself with or are the people that we're surrounding ourself with drawing us further away from God?
I tell my children this all the time. Surround yourself with people and friends in school and in life.
They're going to provide an opportunity for you to grow closer to the Lord. If they're influencing you to do something that you shouldn't be doing, they're probably not the right people to be around.
And this is what Nehemiah is telling us. He said, I am walking with the right people. Verse 12 here, he continues on by saying that he withheld the plan.
He said this, I told no one what God had put on my heart. Now, I thought this was so fascinating because he has this plan from the Lord. He has this direction from God.
And yet he says, I am not ashamed of the work, but I'm going to have a strategic moment of silence where I'm going to sort of be a little bit wise as serpents and harmless as doves.
You can say as Jesus says, he said, I knew there was a time to speak. I knew there was a time to remain silent.
And in this moment, the best thing for me to do would have been to just a quiet, just a moment. Now, I think it's important for us to understand and know that when we go through life, sometimes there's a time to speak up.
And sometimes there's a way to sometimes be a little bit more discretionary in how we say things. The Cambridge commentary says like this, he was likely keeping the project quiet until he had personally evaluated the situation and had the plan sufficiently developed to answer the objections before he ever moved forward immediately.
He said, listen, I've got to go and I've got to examine the situation. I've got my own plan. I've got my own thing that I've gotten in my mind. I've got the provision from the king.
I've got the timber lined up. And if I come in and I say, hey, we're going to do this, this, and this, someone may say, hey, that's already all done. Why are we even worried about that? And so he personally had to go and figure out what was going on.
He had to personally go and see what was going on to allow God to change his heart or maybe affirm what was already in his heart.
And so the same way happens in our life. Sometimes we are so consumed with what everyone else is thinking, we forget about what God has for us.
And God is telling us that we must get on our hands and feet before we ever move forward with our family, before we ever move forward with our church and say, God, what is it that you have me to do?
What is it that you want me to do in direction for my family?
I'm not a, I'm not a archer by any means, but every once in a while at camp we'll have a kids camp, we take the kids and they do archery. And Jade and Brody just had a little spiritual emphasis getaway for their school. And they were playing archery tag.
And so it's basically, this is the coolest thing ever. They get a bow and arrow and they put like a giant marshmallow, not an actual marshmallow, but like a giant foam on the end of it.
And they get to shoot bow and arrows at each other. I'm like, this would be the greatest thing ever. Who invented this game?
And why are we not doing this more? Why are we not going around shooting people with these foam arrows? Like my wife gets mad at me. I pull out a bow and arrow and I get to shoot her with this thing. Like, this would be awesome.
And so she's talking about how she was running around and she got to shoot them. And I asked her this question. I said, Jade,
did you get to hit anybody? And she said, no, dad, I didn't get to hit anybody. I said, why not? She said, because I wasn't really focusing on where they were at. I was just shooting the arrows because it was so fun. And so all of a sudden she's running around.
Her eyes are not on the target. Her eyes are just so focused on shooting this bow and arrow that she was just, the arrows, I'm sure, were just going everywhere. And it was probably chaos, but it was awesome as she's explaining it.
How often is this in our life where we are so short-sighted, where we are so consumed about the things that are around us that we forget what God is calling us to actually do in our life. And that is what Nehemiah understood here was to rebuild the walls.
He came to give protection and he said, I'm going to be so focused on what this is that I'm going to give this my whole attention and this all of what I'm going to do. And this is where he said, I've got to withhold the plan until I am completely ready.
So first we must fix this focus.
Inspecting the Damage
Number two, he's got to find the facts. Verses 13 through 16 lays out this expedition that he does. He goes throughout all the town.
He sees what is about to go on. He begins to investigate what's about to happen. He gets outside of where he's at and he examines the situation and he begins to inspect the walls.
I want you to notice if you look through your Bible there in verses 13 through 16, how many times the word inspect or how many times a gate or a wall is mentioned. He is constantly saying, I went to this gate. I went to this wall.
I went to this pool. I went here. I was inspecting all of what Jerusalem had for me to offer because he said that before I can do anything, I've got to have everything right. I've got to know what's going on and how to fix the problem.
And so how does he do that? Verses 13 through 15, he inspects the damage.
The Bible says he goes out at night. He goes out and he sees all the broken walls. He sees the burned gates. He sees everything that's happened.
And he said, I got to the king's pool. Basically what it's saying here is I came to the king's palace. The king's palace, the most beautiful place in all of the town of Jerusalem,
the most beautiful area. I mean, they would have had all of everything there. He said, I went to the place that was supposed to be like the Taj Mahal and I couldn't even get to the pool. They were broken down.
My animal that I was riding couldn't even get down there. And he said, I discovered that it was so bad and it was worse than what I thought it was.
This is where the leadership mentality of what Nehemiah is saying comes in because he says, before I could ever rebuild the walls, I've got to understand the condition of actually how bad this is. He's not saying it in a derogatory way, but he's saying, I can't fix what I'm unwilling to face.
And I've got to go out and I've got to see actually how bad it was. I heard the report that as we looked at the very first week, three weeks ago, my brothers came to me. They began laying out all this. It hurt. I fasted and I prayed.
But now that I'm here, I've got to verify what they're telling me is true. I've got to verify what they're saying is what is actually going on. And so he goes out and he inspects the damage in 14 through 16. He investigates the details.
Nehemiah doesn't operate just simply on assumptions. He looks, he measures, he evaluates, he studies, he learns.
He becomes a careful inspector of everything that is going on. So he knows exactly how much of the foundation he's got to work on, how much of the walls he's got to work on, how many gates he's got to repair. He begins to investigate all of the details.
And in chapter three, when we get to this, we begin to see all these details come into light. Faith is not the substitute for careful planning.
You can't just say, well, by faith, God's going to take care of it. I believe by faith, God's going to take care of it. But he puts a human portion on us to have a willingness to plan and prepare our lives and our families to do the right thing.
If I just said, by faith, God's going to take care of all these things.
And I said, okay, Jade, you're 13 years old. Go ahead and go figure out life. And I kicked her out of the house. By faith is only going to work so much.
I've got to have enough discretion and enough planning to say, God, I want you to take care of these things. And I want you to do these things in my life. And I want to be a faithful father in order to lead my family.
Well, the same thing has to happen in our church. Faith doesn't mean you go without a plan.
And faith means you plan and you say, God, is this the plan that you want me to do? He went out.
I can almost imagine he went out the first night and he had his plan written down. And he come back that night, he pulled out his plan and he started changing it.
God, I think you wanted me to do this, but I think I actually need to do this.
And so he went out the second night and he goes out with that plan and he goes, and he comes back in and he goes, you know, that idea is probably not going to work. I need to mark it out. And over these three days, he goes out and he constantly investigates.
He plans. He prepares. He does all these things so that he can have everything right. Because he's saying, God, I want to trust you, but I also want to have all the facts in place. I want to know what's going on.
And then he comes in the last thing is he identifies the need. Amaya doesn't just simply walk into Jerusalem and say, okay, everybody, listen up. This is what we're going to do. He comes in and he says,
I want to know what's going on. Before he says we need a new program, before he comes in and says, this is what needs to change. This is what needs to build. These are the people we need to reach. He simply stops and says, what is the actual need? What is going on?
How can I help this? And as a biblical counselor, this is something I often do in biblical counseling. I'll bring a family in or a couple in or someone that's struggling with something and I'll say, what is the actual problem with what's going on? I don't want you just to tell me the symptoms.
Oftentimes we go to a doctor and we tell them all the symptoms of everything that's going on and they never actually get to the problem, the root of the problem.
We must get to the point where we can say, what is the problem of what's going on in my family, in our church, in my personal life?
What am I refusing to acknowledge because I don't want to face the hard truth?
We go to the doctor, as I mentioned just a second ago, and a good doctor doesn't just prescribe medication without ever examining what's going on. A good doctor will examine all the symptoms and everything that's happening and they'll run some blood work and they'll take all the tests they need to do.
They'll pull out their scethoscope and I still don't understand why they have to hear my lungs through my back, but they make me do it every time. I don't understand my lungs are up here and maybe some doctor, Hilda, can tell me one day how all that works.
But they go through everything they're supposed to do and then once they see all of the things that are going on, they have made the diagnosis of what's happening, then they'll come back and say, okay, you need to do this, this, and this.
You probably need to eat better. You probably need to watch your weight. You need to do these things. And then they give the instruction after they inspected everything.
This is the same thing we must be doing with our own personal life, with our families, with our marriages, with our church. We must inspect and then we must give instruction on how we have to fix the things that are going on. And Nehemiah understands this.
Maybe in this moment you're inspecting your life and you understand, I don't even know this man named Jesus. We've been talking about him the last couple of weeks.
We've been talking about building our life on the right foundation and I don't even have the right foundation. This is why it's so important because we have to identify the need of Jesus in our life. Number three, we must form a fellowship.
Identifying with the People
This is what Nehemiah did. He come in and he began to understand what was going on. He looked at all the facts. He found out what was going on. And now he began to form this camaraderie of brothers.
He moves from the inspection to the involvement and he says this word, come, let us rebuild the walls of Jerusalem.
I think it's so important because he doesn't come in and say, okay, guys, you messed everything up. You did everything that was wrong. You didn't do this. You didn't do that. Now you need to go out and fix this. He comes in and he says,
guys, some things have happened, but let us come together. Let us as a unit, as a fellowship, as a body of believers, let us rebuild what God wants placed before us. First thing he does here is he identifies with the people.
He says, you see the trouble that we are in.
He could have said, you see the mess that you created. But he says, we, we are in. He says, I want to identify with you. I understand.
I have been given permission from the king to come and be here for an extended period of time. Let us consider what is going on here and how we can work to make it better. He's not just an outsider coming in and criticizing what's going on. He says, listen, I am here.
I am bought in. I am part of this. And we are going to do this together. He identifies with the people because he understands that, as I say often, we can do more together than we can ever do separate. And we must be identifying with how we can work together and inspiring what's going on.
Number two, he inspired the people with a purpose.
Verse 17, Nehemiah gave them a reason. Look at what he says. So that we may no longer be a disgrace. This isn't merely about bricks and mortar.
This isn't merely about making a nation that was going to be a nation that was going to shine and all the other nations were going to look to them. He looked at them and he said this. We must be a people that are saying that we are God's covenant people.
And we are representing God when we are representing our nation.
And he said that this wall that we're building is bigger than just a wall. We are saying, look at what God will do with us and look at what God will use through us. The church, we need this type of vision.
It's not just that we're trying to fill a classroom. It's not just that we're trying to clean a building.
It's not just that we're trying to sing songs or teach a lesson or run a program. We are trying to build a body of believers for a people that can say, look at what God has done. Look at how God has worked in my life.
Look at how God has worked in my family's life. Look at how God has taken broken people and broken things.
And he has mended these relationships and he has mended these things in order for him to get the glory.
Not so that I can stand up and say, look at how great of a leader I am. But so that we can stand up and say, look at what God has done. It's all because of what God has done in our life.
Now he begins to say, guys, it's an invitation for all of us to work. He says, I can't rebuild this by myself.
He said, I've got the vision. God has given me this vision.
He begins to lay it out. He begins to plead with the people. He begins to tell them all the things that God's going to do. And he says to the people, now it's time for us to pick up the tools. Matthew Henry, you may have heard of him. He said it like this.
Nehemiah didn't attempt to do the work without the people. He stirred them to join him in this good work.
Oftentimes, and it's said many times, that 20% of the people do 80% of the work.
We must be a people and a group of people who are going to step up and say, I no longer just want to be a spectator that's sitting in the pews, but I want to be a participant that's stepping out and doing the work of the Lord.
And I want you to really, truly ask yourself this question. Where and how am I serving?
Where and how am I serving the Lord? Am I doing what he has called me to do? Am I using the gifts,
the talents, and the ability as one of our core values is, is to go and to serve. How are we going and serving in the church? How are we using what God has given us?
Maybe it's a financial ability to be able to bless the church. Maybe it's an ability to use your brain or your singing ability to help in our choir. Whatever it may be, how are you helping and serving for the glory of God, for him to be built up in this community?
He moves on from not only forming this fellowship, but he moves on to fortifying their faith. Verse 18, Nehemiah tells them,
I told all the people about the gracious hand of my God. That statement we said last week.
I hope you wrote it down. I hope you put it everywhere this week. I hope you keep thinking on this of the gracious hand of my God, the gracious hand of my God that was upon me. And he tells them all of the plan.
He tells them all of what God has already done. He tells them all of what God has given them through the provisions.
And he says, look at what God has done and look at what God is about to do. We're about to do something that the people are going to be amazed at, that people are going to come against us. We've already seen the opposition.
We're going to see it again. He says, we're going to do the things that people are going to say, I don't know how this has happened.
And we can look at them and say, it's only because of God. It's only because of his protection hand, his protecting hand of my life that I was able to do what I've done this far. He reminded them of God's faithfulness. Look at this. He reminds them that God gave him the burden.
It wasn't just by chance that these friends and these brothers came to Susa and came to the king and came to Nehemiah and told him all that was going on. He said that God gave him this burden. God opened the door with the king.
God provided all the resources, all the protection and brought him to Jerusalem for this time.
He said, listen, the success that I've gotten is not because of the accomplishments of who I am. He points everything back to Jesus. He points everything back to God. And he said, it was God's provision.
He doesn't take the credit. I want you to understand. He doesn't stand up and say, look at how great of a leader I am. Look at how great of a pastor I am. Look how great of a manager I am.
Look at the techniques that God has given me. He simply says, I'm going to credit everything that's been done for God and for God alone.
And how often is it that God blesses in our life and we get to the point where we get puffed up. The Bible says this happens in first Timothy.
We get puffed up on our own accord and we say, look at what I have done and look at how great I am. And it says,
listen, it's not about that. It's about giving the glory back to God. And it's about saying, look at how good God is. And he reminds them of their faithfulness.
I can almost imagine as he's rallying the people here in a minute, he tells them all of the things that God had done in the past and he begins to go through the history of Israel and he talks about all the great things.
He's reminding them of the faithfulness of God that he's done.
And then he turns into the rallying cry for them to participate. He looks at them and he says, these four words, let us start rebuilding.
He says, this is the point. He said, I've came and I've done everything. By faith, God has led me to this point. By faith, his faith has become their faith.
He has now confidently showed them the confidence of what God can do from a person that is willing to step out. He says, this is the burden God has given me. I want to show you the burden so it'll become your burden.
Sacrifices for God's Work
And now all of a sudden the people are willing to work because they believe the work is going to be done and God is going to bless it. I want you to think back. We're about to celebrate in just a couple of weeks,
173 years, I believe, of God's faithfulness here at Pleasant Grove.
173 years ago, people came together and said that there is a church that is worth building here in Clingman. There is a people that are willing to be invested in and families willing to be changed here by planting this church 173 years ago. They built the church.
They sacrificed for the pews. They sacrificed for the carpet. They sacrificed for the walls and the expansions. And you can see all the different things that have been done. But they continued to say, we're going to sacrifice to send people out on the mission field.
We're going to sacrifice to continue to see these things done, to see families raised. And we're going to sacrifice for the glory of God. They didn't have everything. I've talked to my grandparents and my great-grandparents that was raised in the early 1900s and they had nothing.
I've told you the story about my great-grandparents when they would go to Whataburger once a month.
Then they would go out to eat and they would get the tomato and they would take the tomato off and they would poke all the seeds out and put it on a napkin and then put the tomato back on their sandwich.
And then they would go home and they would plant those seeds because that's how important life was for them. They couldn't even waste the seeds of the tomato. And they had nothing, but yet I can remember them sacrificing for my family and my mom and my dad.
And I can remember the sacrifices they gave because they understood the value of what that was. And the people here, they're not asking, how is this going to help me?
The people began to look back and say, how can we do this for the glory of God? Maybe someone here today says, I don't have a lot to offer, Pastor James. The beautiful thing is God's not asking for a lot. He's already gave it all.
He gave his son to die on a cross for every single one of our sins. And he said, I have given it all. All I'm asking you to do is be willing to serve.
And all of a sudden we have to ask ourselves, am I willing to do what God has called me to do so that he can provide the success by me stepping out by faith? By me saying, God, I don't know how you're going to take my family from Idaho to North Carolina.
I don't know how this is going to work. I don't know how all these things are going to work together, but I'm just going to step out by faith and say, God, I'm trusting you. I know that you're going to provide for me. And I'm just going to step out by faith.
God needs us to step out by faith so that our hands can be strengthened for his work.
I'm telling you, church, the more you live in faith, the more you will trust in God, the more you will say, it's not because of what I've done, but it's because of what God has done. It's not because of how great I am, but it's how great God is.
And I'm just going to continue stepping out by faith.
I'm just going to continue stepping out and trust that God is greater than all of my problems.
Facing Opposition
Because number five, and the last thing here, after he fortifies their faith, something that will always happen is about to happen to them. The opposition begins to come. They face the opposition. Again, not only once here, remember he got all the letters,
he came everything, verse 10, Sanba and Tobiah, they came and they heard these things and they were displeased and they were not happy with what's going on. He lays all these things out. And now again,
it's not just Sanba, it's not just Tobiah, but another person has joined him, this guy named Geshem. He says, listen, we've got the vision, we've got the plan, we've got the people, the momentum's going.
And now all of a sudden here comes the enemy. If there's anything that I've learned in my years of coaching, in the years of watching my daughter play volleyball and my son play basketball and all the things that happen in life is momentum is a powerful thing.
You get momentum going and you get a rally going where all of a sudden you've scored. This happens most of the time.
Yesterday, my daughter played in the game. They were up like 20 to nothing. I mean, the momentum was swinging their way. And all of a sudden I look at the score, it's like 20 to 17. I'm like, how did this happen?
Because they lost their momentum and the other team got the momentum and it rallied them to come. And all of a sudden momentum is a powerful thing. And all of a sudden Nehemiah comes in.
He's got everybody ready. He's telling them what's going on. And now the momentum is going. And just as the momentum is about to kick off, we get introduced to a third person, Sanballat, Tobiah, and Geshem. They come in and they begin to express all of their displeasure of what's going to happen.
Church, as we go through our life, when we begin to do the things that God has called us to do, expect that the opposition is going to come. Number one, these are my last three things and we'll be done. Opposition will meet you.
Verse 19, they mocked them and ridiculed them. Look at the timing. Notice that the opposition comes after the people committed themselves to the work. The people said there is no battle until the Christians start working.
All of a sudden they say, we're going to start working and we're going to do this. Yes, Nehemiah, you're our leader.
Yes, you've got everything for us. Hey, I'm going to give this and I've got this hammer and I've got these bricks and I've got these things. Yes, let us get to work. And as soon as that happens, the difficulty comes.
As soon as they commit to doing what God has called them to do, now the difficulty begins to come and step in.
Many people will say this. When difficulty comes, it's because you've stepped outside of God's will.
Nehemiah has not stepped out of God's will. God has provided, he has continued to say that the gracious hand of the Lord is upon me. Look at what God has done. And oftentimes, this is really what it is.
Moving forward in God's will is when the opposition begins to come in our life. When the opposition doesn't like what's going on and the opposition is now coming against us.
And it's an important lesson for us to understand is sometimes we think if this is God's will, then everything's going to be easy. It was God's will for his son to come and to die on a cross for your sins and mine. And it was not an easy task.
He sat in the garden of Gethsemane and I've been there and I've prayed and I've cried and I've looked and I've seen where Calvary was at from the garden and I could see where he was about to go
and be tried at Pilate's house and where he was going to go to the Sanhedrin. You can see all of that from the garden. And all of a sudden, he's sitting there and he's praying and he's saying,
God, I know this is the will for my life. I know that I'm about to go and I'm about to die for these people. But if there's another way or if there's something else I can do to redeem mankind, let it be done. But not my will, but yours be done.
The will of God for the son of God was for him to die on a cross and it was not an easy task.
And all of a sudden, we begin to say that this is just going to be an easy thing and God is telling us that sometimes opposition is going to come and it's going to be difficult.
Not only are they going to meet you, but this is the hardest part for us here is number two, opposition, they're going to come and they're going to mock us. We don't like to be ridiculed.
We don't like to be questioned. We don't like to be accused. We don't like to hear these things against us. But what did the enemy come and say? Are you rebelling against the king?
Do you not care what the king has for us to do? And all of a sudden, they're coming in and they are bringing these mockery and these things that are coming in and they are questioning everything. Look at the strategy and tell me if it's not familiar. They mock the work.
They question the motives. They begin to create fear. And ultimately, the work will be stopped.
This tactic of Satan is not new. Just because we're doing the right thing, just because we're trying to do what God calls us to do,
doesn't mean opposition is not going to come. Doesn't mean your friend at work isn't going to mock you for what you believe or what you say. All of a sudden, you begin to question your motives.
Maybe is this the right thing for me to do? Is this the right way for me to raise my family? Is God's word really that important?
Should I put an emphasis on church and the work of the church? Should I do these things?
Or all of a sudden, you begin to question everything. And Satan goes from a toehold to a foothold to a hold of our entire life because we have allowed him to take over. Opposition is going to meet us.
Opposition is going to mock us. But I think verse 20 wraps it up pretty well. Opposition shouldn't move us. Nehemiah's response, I love it. This is what he says.
Trusting in God's Success
The God of heaven will give us success. He moves from,
look at the gracious hand of my God that's upon me, to this statement of, God, you're in heaven, and I'm trusting you to give me the success. He doesn't respond,
you just wait and see. You just wait and see how big my God is. Could have said that. He could have said, you just wait and find out. You come against me, you're coming against God. Very well, he could have. He doesn't say,
you know what, look at who's behind me. Have you not seen the papers that the king gave me? The king gave me provision.
Look at what the king gave me. He doesn't say, look at how much money I've got. Look at all the gold and the silver that the king allowed me to have. He doesn't look at them and say, you know what, look at all the people that have rallied behind me.
Look at all the people that I have rallied to get behind me. We're going to go out and we're going to do this work. He looks at them and humbly he stops and says, Sanballat, Tobiah, Gisham,
I don't know what's gotten into you, but the God of heaven is going to give me success. Man, I don't know what your foundation is. I don't know where you're trusting God today. But when opposition comes,
when we can stand up and we can say, God, you're in heaven. You're greater than me. You provided this, this and this for me. And I'm going to trust you to continue to give me success in this area as well. This is where Nehemiah's confidence was at.
And I believe that we need to get back to this same confidence and say, God, I'm going to stand on you as the confident work of everything that I do.
I'm going to say that your hand is going to be on my success. As Terry comes,
I want you to understand that Nehemiah's success wasn't because he was the smartest man in Jerusalem. He didn't get up and say, look at the wisdom and the big brain that I've got. And this is why I'm going to have success. He didn't have success because he had the biggest army.
He didn't have success because he had unlimited resources. He didn't even have success because everyone supported him. He had success because his plan lined up with God's plan.
And when our plans line up with God's plans, God's hand will come upon us and God's blessing will come upon us. And yet we have to notice as we walk through this, God's hand didn't make Nehemiah passive. Nehemiah didn't step back and say, God, you're going to do the work.
Your hand is going to be upon the success. I'm just going to sit back here and do nothing. I'm going to sit back and say, God, you can take care of all the rest. No, Nehemiah stepped up.
Nehemiah said, I'm going to trust in you. I'm going to grab the sword. I'm going to grab the trowel. I'm going to work. I'm going to do the will of what you have called me to do. I'm going to pray. I'm going to plan. I'm going to prepare. I'm going to participate.
I'm going to trust that you are going to be there and you're going to bless what I'm doing. And how often is it that we don't pray like everything depends on God?
How often is it that we plan like everything expects us to work out the way we want it to work out? We must be a people who are working as God has called us to work.
We must be a people who are trusting in God to provide.
Provide for our ultimate salvation, but also to provide for the success of our families, the success of our ministries, the success of our work, where we're at and where we're placed and where we've been put at. And trust that God will provide as he's provided so many times before.
I'm looking at people here this morning, myself included, who has seen the hand of God and seen the success of God in their lives.
And it's almost like we get to the point where we're like, yeah, God, I know you provided in the past.
God, I know you provided when I needed that big need, but I've just sort of forgot about it.
Just sort of forgot that I've sort of been living with that refrigerator that makes that noise. And all of a sudden you're like, God, I know it's making noise, but I've just got accepted to it.
I'm just going to accept that this is how life is.
And we no longer push forward and we say, God, can we just change what we've expected for so long?
God, can you work in a way that only you can work so that when that work has been done, we can say that it's only because of God that this has been done. Nehemiah used wisdom.
He used tact and he used careful planning. And through all of that, he still recognized that God was the only one that can give success.
Church, this morning, we must plan, pray, do all the things that God has called us to do. And then at the end of the day, say, God, we've done everything you've called us to do. Now we're going to trust in you to go from here.
We're going to trust in you to provide everything else that we don't even think about.
The enemy that's going to come against us, the opposition that's going to come, the inflation that's going to come, all the things that we didn't even think about. When it comes, we're going to trust that you've already got all those things taken care of.
And we're going to trust that as we move forward with our life, we're going to trust that you're going to guide us and you're going to lead us and you're going to allow us to lead our families in a proper way to glorify you.
I pray this morning that we would be a people who are not burdened down by the problems of our life, but we are people who are saying, God, I want to see your hand in my life.
I want to see your hand succeed in my life to where I can step back and say this is only because of God.
Closing Prayer and Reflection
And I pray this morning that each and every one of us would take a truthful evaluation of who we are and where we're at with the Lord and say, God, what is it in my life that I am not giving over to you? What in my life am I holding on to?
Am I saying, I'm going to be the one that does this? I'm not going to let go. I'm not going to let God take care of this. Is it a family member? Is it a spouse? Is it a son or a daughter? Whatever it may be.
Are you so holding on that you're saying, God, I can't even give this to you because I don't have enough faith to give it to you. Whatever it may be this morning,
trust in the Lord today. Father, we love you. We thank you for who you are.
Thank you for what you've done for us. I pray that you'd have your will and way in the service today. Help us to honor you through everything we think, say, and do. In your name we pray. Amen.
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