Summary
Pastor James walks through Nehemiah chapter 4, emphasizing that opposition is inevitable when serving the Lord. He highlights how Nehemiah and the Israelites responded to ridicule and threats by praying and remaining vigilant, illustrating the importance of recognizing attacks and relying on God's strength. The sermon encourages believers to keep working together for God's glory, trusting that He fights for them while they remain steadfast in their efforts.
Welcome and Housekeeping
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Children are going to be dismissed at this time for Children's Church. I believe my wife and son are taking care of that today. And if you have your Bibles, it's going to be in Nehemiah chapter 4. We're going to look at all of chapter 4.
And we're going to walk through what this looks like today. I've entitled the message, When Opposition Comes, We Should Pray and Watch.
Just a response to when opposition does come. As we've walked through the book of Nehemiah, we've seen where Nehemiah has gotten the vision from the Lord and what to do. And then opposition came briefly, just one verse that was mentioned. And then he got to Israel, and he got to Jerusalem,
and he laid out his challenge, and then one verse again of opposition. Today, we begin to see the children of Israel. They're working. They're building the wall, as Logan said from last week.
Each person is doing their own job. Different people with different backgrounds. Different sections of the wall. And then we begin to see the entire chapter of this opposition.
And I think it's important for us to look at because opposition is going to come when we're serving the Lord, when we're doing things. And so oftentimes, we're going to talk about this, we think opposition is, we're maybe doing the wrong thing.
And so we're going to walk through what this looks like, how we should respond appropriately, and how the Lord gives us this wonderful passage. And so hopefully, I don't butcher some names today. My wife is doing children's worship. She can't read for me.
There's only just a couple of names that I'm sure I'm going to mess up. But if you have your place there, we're going to stand and read Nehemiah chapter 1. We'll read all 23 verses this morning in way of introduction.
The Bible says, When Senballat heard that they were rebuilding the wall, he became furious. He mocked the Jews. Before his colleagues and the powerful men of Samaria, he said, What are these pathetic Jews doing? Can they restore it by themselves? Will they offer sacrifices?
Will they ever finish? Can they bring these burnt stones back to life from the mounds of rubble?
Then Tobiah the Amorite, who was beside him, said, Indeed, even if a fox climbed on these walls that they're building, he would break down the stone wall. Listen, our God, verse 4, Listen, our God, for we are despised.
Make their insults return to their own heads, and let them take as plunder to the land of captivity.
Rebuilding the Wall
Do not cover their guilt or let their sin be erased from your sight, because they have angered the builders. So we rebuilt the wall until the entire wall was joined together up until half of its height. For the people had the will to keep working.
When Senballat, Tobiah, and the Arabs, and their Amorites, and the Ashdod's heard they were repairing the walls of Jerusalem, that was progressing, and their gaps were being closed, they became furious.
They all plotted together to come against them, and to fight against Jerusalem, and to throw them into confusion. So we prayed to our God and stationed guards because of them day and night.
In Judah, it was said, The strength of the laborers fail. Since there is so much rubble, we will never be able to rebuild the wall. Our enemies said they won't realize until they were among them, and they kill them and stop the work.
When the Jews who lived nearby arrived, they said to us,
Time and time again, everywhere we turn, they are attacking us. So I stationed people behind the lowest section of the wall, the vulnerable areas. I stationed them by families with the swords and the spears and the bows.
And after I made an inspection, I stood up and said to the nobles and the officers and the rest of the people, Do not be afraid of them. Remember the great and awe-inspiring Lord, and fight for your countrymen, your sons and your daughters, your wives and your homes.
When our enemy heard that we knew their schemes and that God had frustrated it, every one of them returned to his own work and his own wall. From that day on, half of the men did the work, while the other half of the men held spears and shields and bows and armors.
The officers even supported the people of Judah who were building the walls. The laborers who carried the loads worked with one hand and held a weapon in the other.
Each one of the builders had a sword strapped around his waist while he was building, and the trumpeter was beside me. And I said unto the nobles and the officers and the rest of the people, The work is enormous and spread out. We were all separate from one another along the wall.
Whenever you hear the trumpet sound, rally to us. Our God will fight for us.
So we continued to work while half of the men were holding spears from daybreak until the stars came out. And at that time, I also said to the people, Let every one of his good servants spend the night inside of Jerusalem, so they can stand guard by the night and work by day.
I and my brothers and my servants and all the men that were on guard never even took off our clothes. Each carried his own weapon even when he was washing.
Lord, we love you. We thank you for what you've done. Thank you for the reading of your scripture. Thank you for the challenging words that you gave us this powerful chapter of Nehemiah. Help us to take these principles and apply it to our life. In your name we pray. Amen.
You may be seated. Whenever God's people begin to work together for God's glory, we can always expect opposition.
Nehemiah chapter 4 is the first major confrontation between God's people working and the enemies of God coming against him and saying, How are we going to overcome this? The wall's going up. You know from last week that people are working. Progress has been made.
And these two men and the enemies, Sanballat and Tobiah, began surrounding and they say this statement.
They say, We've got to do something about what's going on over there because we don't like it. And if you begin to understand what's going on here, and we're going to walk through this very practically this morning, what happens is the enemy does not come against the people here with weapons.
They don't say, Okay, what is the biggest gun? What's the biggest sword? What's the biggest attack we can do to destroy the wall that they're building? They could have easily came in and set the wall on fire or destroyed it. What they did was they used these little four-letter thing called a word.
And they used their words to try to destroy the people that were doing the work. And I want us to understand that the enemy's goal is to stop the work that we're doing for the glory of God. And Nehemiah is showing us how we should respond when this opposition comes.
He tells them, Don't quit. Don't panic. Don't retaliate. What you should be doing is praying and watching the Lord work. One commentator said it like this by way of introduction. One characteristic of a combination of prayer and work. He took the opposition that was coming against God's people while continuing to work on what God had given them to do.
Opposition is going to come. Difficulties are going to come. How are we responding when that opposition comes?
And all of a sudden we begin to bring ourselves into this first point. And I've got to go fast because I've got a lot to talk about this morning. But we've got to recognize the attack. You cannot know what to attack or how to respond when you don't know what the attacks are.
A good coach takes film from the opposite team and studies the film to know where the weaknesses are in that team.
They begin to study, okay, who is the best player? Who do we need to plan for? Because when they lay out their plan of attack, they need to know how they're going to recognize the opponent so that they can take an advantage of a win, which is what my dolphins are not going to see this year.
We can do all the film study in the world. But when we get to that moment, all of a sudden the attack happens and we've got to know how to respond to it. And so when we look at this, we must understand there's some ridicule that happens.
And I'm going to talk through three ridicules that we see here. The first is the reason for the ridicule. Why in the world is Sanballat and Tobiah coming against the people?
The Bible says that when Sanballat heard what was going on, they revealed into the walls, he became furious and greatly increased and began mocking the Jews.
Opposition to Progress
He was angry because the Jews were succeeding. He was angry because the wall was going up. He was angry because the people were united in a progress of what was going to happen. And all of a sudden he said, if this happens,
Jerusalem is going to become strong again and I'm going to lose my influence. And so Sanballat is, begins to say, I'm bothered by the progress that's going on here.
And he begins to say, I've got to step in and stop this direction that's going one way and I've got to point it into a different way. Now understand that if Nehemiah would have never left Susa back in chapter one, he would have never had this opposition.
He's following the Lord. He's doing what God has called him to do. He stepped into the work of God. And all of a sudden that's when the opposition came.
Before this, there was no opposition. He was serving the king. He was eating with all the wealthiness.
He was sitting with the nobles. He was doing all the things with royalty. He had a pillow under his head. He slept good on the memory foam mattress. He had all the necessities taken care of in his life. And all of a sudden he follows the Lord and then opposition comes.
And I want us to understand that oftentimes we must not assume that just because we're having trouble, we're outside of God's will. I was preached and taught in my entire life.
If you ever have problems in your life, well, you're probably not following the Lord. And I've come to realize that when we begin to work for the Lord, when we begin to do the things for the Lord, opposition is going to come against us. When you're serving,
when you're witnessing, when you're doing the things that God has called us to do, people are going to come against us. As a young person, as a teenager, our church, we did door-to-door soul winning every Thursday and Saturday night. And we went door-to-door.
And I can remember I had an older man that I was going with. His name was Melvin Deal.
He's went on to be with the Lord now. And Melvin was showing me how to witness to someone, a cold call, knock on the door. And I remember as like a 16, 15-year-old boy, I went up and I'm watching him knock on the door. And he immediately went into a conversation.
And after that, when he looked at me, he goes, OK, James, you're the next door. All right. I just learned all in five minutes how to do this. And so I knocked on the door and I said, hey, I'm from Gospel White Baptist Church.
I'm just a young teenager. I'm here to visit you and invite you to church. I don't want to have anything to do with church. Whack! Slam the door right in my face. And I was like distraught.
What is going on? Like you just talked to that guy. And now this guy slammed the door in his face. And I'll never forget to this day in my life, Melvin looked at me and he said, sometimes that's going to happen.
Sometimes people are going to reject you, but you can't allow them to think that they're rejecting you. They're rejecting Jesus.
And it was a great encouragement for me because all of a sudden we're serving, we're building. The enemy doesn't like it. They're coming against us because they're trying to stop what we're doing. They're trying to stop the advancing of the kingdom. And we must not allow these things to overtake us.
A question that I came across that I thought was so thought provoking was, what would happen if we stopped viewing every difficulty as a reason to quit?
Oftentimes you're going to fail. If you're a young person here, you're going to fail a test one day in school. I've got kids.
I've got three kids. Each and every one of them have failed a test. I have failed a test before in my life. If I took that failure and I said, you know what? I'm never going to amount to anything. I'm just going to give up. Where would we be at?
Failure can allow us to look back and say, okay, how can I make this better? Lord, I failed you in this area. How can I repent? How can I work forward?
How can I glorify you in what I'm doing? How can I begin to move forward versus quitting in the work of the Lord?
Number two, the words of ridicule. Look at the words that Sam Ballett says in verse number two. He lays out these attacks that are coming at them. What are these pathetic Jews doing?
Are they going to restore this for themselves? Are they going to offer sacrifices? Are they ever going to finish? Can they bring these burnt stones back to life? And probably one of my most favorite statements of all time is by Tobiah.
He joins in and he says, you know what, guys? Even if a small little fox climbed on these walls, the walls would just fall over. They're not even doing anything.
I've been to the walls. The walls are still there. Jerusalem, the walls of Nehemiah that Nehemiah built are still standing today. I meant to put a picture up and I forgot, but they're there. And all of a sudden, what are they attacking?
I want you to look at, they're not attacking the people. Oftentimes we read this and we're thinking, man, they're just so mad at these people. They're attacking their ability. They're saying these people are too weak. They're not going to be able to do this. They're attacking their ambitions.
They're saying they're never going to finish it. And even if they do finish it, it's not going to be right. Why are they wasting their time? They're attacking their resources. It says, look, they're taking this rubble,
these useless stones, and they're trying to put them back into the walls. And they're saying, how would they do that? How are they doing that? And ultimately, this is where it gets to, they're attacking their faith. They're saying these people are so ignorant.
They're so naive in their mindset that they're going to start offering sacrifices. And they think God's going to come in and help them.
These walls are so pathetic, they're going to fall down. And when often these ridicules come, they're not saying that you can't do it. They're telling us that we're foolish for even trying.
You're foolish for even trying to build a family in today's economy. You're foolish for even giving of your tithe to the church when you don't understand how things are going to happen in your life five years from now. You're foolish for even trying to trust in the Lord to raise your family right.
And all of a sudden, they begin to attack us because they think we're foolish when we have to understand that God is coming in behind us. And we get this awesome, inspiring moment in a moment by Nehemiah where he says, think about the awe-inspiring God that we have.
But I want you to understand that the reason for ridicule happens, the words for ridicule happens, but the power behind ridicule.
There is this power that can happen behind someone's voice getting inside of your head.
I've watched a lot of videos and a lot of movies on torture and crime scene movies where they'll bring a guy in for interrogation and they'll begin to do some stuff. And our physical body, I've learned over the years, my father-in-law is a green bray in the military.
And he's told me often of the training they had to go through and the military regiment they had to go through to prepare their bodies to go into service. And it tells me a lot that our physical bodies can handle a lot of pain.
We can put up with a lot of pain in our life, especially when it's for a specific purpose.
But when a person can take a sentence and replay it in your mind over and over and over again, it doesn't matter how much pain you're going through.
That sentence in your mind begins to destroy you in everything you do. I want to illustrate it like this. Imagine my daughter, she's playing for volleyball right now.
And they played a game this past Saturday and I'll pick on her a little bit. They played really hard and they won their first game, their first match.
And they were excited and they had like 12 or 13 points in a row. And all of a sudden the other team came back a little bit and that momentum began to shift. And I saw it on the court. One mistake happens. And over here, another mistake happens.
The leader of the team, one girl looks at the other little girl and says, that you should have got that. Why weren't you there? And all of a sudden this girl begins to attack the other girl. And all of a sudden their own team begins to attack one another.
And they begin to crumble and fall apart because of the words that the people on the team were telling each other. They began to say things like, you should have gotten there. You should have done this.
And all of a sudden we in our life, we begin to say, you know what? We are never going to do these things. Our church is never going to make it. Our marriage won't make it.
We're never going to overcome the sin that we've got in our life. And the enemy loves to use the voices to discourage us to change our mind. To convince us that what we're doing won't work.
This is the psychological tactics that Satan has for us because he understands that our mind is the most valuable thing that we have. And if he can control our mind, if he can control our thoughts, if he can control what we do with our thoughts, he controls everything about us.
I believe this is why it's so practical and so important for us to use this thought of meditation, this thought of getting alone in solitude and thinking and meditating on the word of God. Oftentimes, if you look at what Jesus did, Jesus would minister to the people. He would help the people.
And instead of the people wanting more teaching from him, they would say, hey, can you feed us again? Can you do another miracle?
And Jesus would stop and he would walk away. The Bible says he would go to a very high mountain and he would get alone with the Lord, with his God, and he would reassess his mind.
He would refocus his mind because he didn't want to be puffed up in his own self of, look at how good I am. Look at these people that are coming after me. Look at how popular I'm getting.
I mean, he had thousands and thousands of people following him. And yet he walked away and he said, I've got to understand that I've got to think and I've got to have my mind right. I'm not a big boxer fan. I like to watch, I'm an old school WWE, Monday Night Raw.
Like that's my kind of boxing. If you want to look at the wrestling and oftentimes leading up to a fight, you'll see one boxer be trash talking to another boxer. One boxer is talking about how I'm going to come in and I'm going to do these things with this guy. It's not because he's a better boxer.
He's trying to psychologically change this guy's thoughts. And that's what the devil's wanting us to do. He's wanting to come in and change our mind before the fight ever begins. Don't ever allow someone else's opinion of you to be louder than what God's word has for us.
Response Through Prayer
We must understand that people are going to ridicule us. The power is there in the words that we speak. But number two, look at how the Nehemiah tells them to respond. He responds with prayer.
Recognize the attack. Know the attack is there. Don't be blind. Don't be so naive that you don't know what's coming after you and your family. But understand it is. But then when you begin to respond, respond with prayer. This is where Nehemiah separates himself from me and you and us.
Because Nehemiah says, I'm not going to immediately retaliate to what's going on here.
I'm not going to get on social media and talk about all of Sanballat's sins and all the bad things that he's done in his political career. He doesn't call a meeting and say, hey guys, I need you to rally against me. Look at what I did.
I left Sousa. I brought all these resources. I came into it. Like, you've got to get behind me. He doesn't do any of these things. He stops and he prays.
Verse four, in the middle of the attack, he says, listen, our God, we are despised.
They're coming after us. It's not a long prayer. It's not recorded of this 40 days of praying and fasting. It was just a small, as I mentioned a couple weeks ago, those arrowed prayers where he gets up and he shoots this little prayer. God, they're attacking us. You're in control.
Help us in this moment. It's an honest prayer where he begins to say that, God, we're hurt right now. People are coming after us. They're attacking us. They're saying things they shouldn't be saying. Can you come and fight for us?
First thing we've got to do is we've got to pray before we ever react.
It's one of the clearest lessons that Nehemiah lays out. Nehemiah, if you've been with us and if you haven't, go back and read the last three chapters. Nehemiah is a man of action.
Man, Nehemiah, he's like a man after my own heart. He wants to get things done. He doesn't want to sit around and talk about it. He doesn't want to sit around and just figure out how things are going. He just says, hey, this is what we're going to do. Let's just move forward.
I love the action that he has, but oftentimes he has to pray first. And he's repeatedly praying before the Lord. He's repeatedly going before God. He's saying, God, give me direction. God, give me vision.
God, give me wisdom. God, allow me to lead the right way. God, allow me to do these things. It's prayer and then action. It's not action of the anger and then reaction.
It's God, I want to pray. I want to come before you. People are criticizing me. When people do criticize me,
allow me not to defend myself, but allow me to come before you and say, God, take care of this battle for me. God, work in this way for me.
And how much different would it be if each and every one of us made prayer our first response rather than our last resort?
Church, we must be a people who are praying, who are down in our hands and our feet, who are saying, God, we can't do these things without you. We can't raise our families without you. We can't do anything without you in our life.
Not only does he pray before he acts, but he prays for God's honor. Look at verse four and five. He says, God, deal with those that are opposing me.
He's not simply saying, God, go get them. I'm mad at them.
He's saying, God, I know that you're for the work that's going on here. And I know that you're for me and for what these men are doing. I want you to go before us and I want our actions to honor you.
As we begin to translate this over to our own personal life and into the New Testament, what does Jesus say to his disciples? As Jesus is teaching his disciples how to respond when people are attacking you,
Matthew 5, 44, where Jesus says to his disciples, disciples, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you.
Oh my, is this us in the 21st century? Are we loving our enemies? I have children. I have three of them. And sometimes I think they're mortal enemies. Sometimes I think that when Jade breathes, Brody just thinks that she is just attacking her.
And I tell them often, will you just love each other? Like you're going to be best friends one day. Don't think that you've got to attack. Everything that happens is a personal attack.
But all of a sudden, Jesus is telling us there are going to be enemies in this world and you must love your enemies. And the part that we have to scratch our head is pray for those that persecute you. Pray for the ones that are attacking my family.
Pray for the ones that are taking my son and daughter's name and dragging it through mud and spreading rumors and gossip and lies. I should be praying for these people?
Lord, are you sure you're not messed up in the head? Are you sure something's not right there, God? You're telling me to pray for the people that are attacking me? This doesn't make sense.
What does Paul say? Paul says in Galatians, do not, I'm sorry, in Romans, do not repay anyone evil for evil. And a verse that I struggle with often, because this is just human nature, at the end of chapter 12, it says, if it's possible, as far as it depends on you, live at peace with everyone.
And then, do not take revenge. Allow the Lord to have his own vengeance. How do we do this? Someone attacks us and we immediately get in the flesh.
We immediately have to go back at them and we immediately want to take vengeance. Instead of entrusting God to be the God that is the just judge that is going to come in on our behalf and take care of these things. This is how we should be praying, God, protect your truth.
Protect the ones that you have entrusted. Protect your people.
God, stop the evil. God, expose what is wrong. God, bring this person into repentance. And God, if they refuse to repent, then you deal with them justly.
This is how we should begin to go against our, when our enemies and people come against us, is immediately say, God, you know they're wrong. I know they're wrong.
But Lord, you're the only one that's going to be able to help them. And this is different from,
God, I hope they suffer. God, because they hurt me, go and get them. It's simply saying, God, you be glorified and I want you to be proven right. Number two, number three here, resist the discouragement. Verses 10 through 12,
the discouragement's going to happen. All of a sudden, the attack happened. Nehemiah gave a moment of encouragement.
He gave a moment of what we're going to do when we pray. And now, all of a sudden,
they become to come back. All of a sudden, the Bible says the discouragement begins to come inside the wall. Verse 10, our strength is failing. There is so much rubble, we're never going to be able to rebuild this wall. The people here, they're tired. They're overwhelmed.
They're looking at their circumstances. And they began saying this statement, we can't do this.
We can't figure this out. There's three things that they begin to lose. I'll be quick with these three. They lose their strength. They've been working. The project is exhausting.
We looked at last week that every person is building the wall in front of their house. And when they begin to get discouraged, their neighbor comes and helps them. And then they go and help their neighbor. And they're working. And they're doing these things. And they're just simply tired.
And I want you to understand, there are times in our life where we're going to make temporary decisions based on our exhaustion that make a permanent impact on our life.
If you go back to the Old Testament again to Jacob and Esau. Jacob was hungry when he came in from the field that one day. And Esau had that bowl of pottage.
I'm sorry. Esau came in from the field. He was hungry. And Jacob had this bowl of pottage. And he said, Esau, can I have that food?
And he said, I'll give it to you if you give me your birthright. If you give me your inheritance, I would love to give it to you. Yeah, I'll give you anything. I'm starving.
I'm about to die. Just give it to me. It was a moment of temporary lapse where he made a permanent decision that changed the course of the Old Testament the way the structure was laid out. Oftentimes, we get temporarily exhausted and we make permanent decisions on what we are doing. We need rest.
We need refocus. But when the rest and refocus happens, there's a time to get back going. There's a time to get to do the work of what God has called us to do. There's a loss of strength. There's a loss of vision. All of a sudden,
as they're building, I mean, you can imagine the excitement that they've been living in these walls that have been torn down. They have been living in this place where animals were coming in and robbers were coming in.
And the Bible says that they had built half the wall back and there was excitement there. And then they got their eyes off the project and their eyes on the rubble that was sitting right there beside them. This is the same Jerusalem.
This is the same stones. This is the same circumstances. But all of a sudden, their perspective was changed because discouragement began to happen.
We've been working and we're almost done. We're halfway there. But I'm tired and I don't know if I can keep going.
And man, look at how much work we have to do ahead of this. And how long am I going to do this? And all of a sudden, the discouragement that began to creep into their life made their problem bigger than their actual circumstances. And it made God smaller in their own life.
Our eyes make a huge difference. What we're looking at, where we're going.
I tell my kids often, when you're driving down the road, where your eyes are looking is where you're going to be going.
If something catches your eye over here and you see a deer jumping around in the field and all of a sudden a little mini teddy bear comes out and they're beginning to wrestle a little bit. And you're watching that.
Your car is eventually going to go off into the side of the road. You're going to hit the ditch. You're going to destroy your car.
When you keep your eyes focused on the middle of the road and you blind out the distractions around you, all of a sudden that's where you are going to be heading. The same way as in our own spiritual life. Where are we looking?
Are we looking at our enemies? Are we looking at the rubble that's around? Are we looking at the problems in this world? Listen, you can spend all the rest of your life looking at the problems. It's not going to change anything. Keep our eyes fixed on God,
the one that is the creator of all these things, that is the sustainer of life. He is the one we must keep our eyes fixed on. There's a loss of strength.
There's a loss of vision. There's a loss of courage. Verse 11, the people begin to get discouraged.
They said, our enemies will not know or see anything until they're among us. They're going to kill us and they're going to stop the work. All of a sudden this fear begins to spread inside of the walls. Rumors begin to spread.
Jews that are living near the walls are coming in. They're warning them, hey, the enemies are here. They're panic.
Stop what you're doing. You don't know what you're going to do. All of a sudden people begin to get fearful. And if you remember, not one sword has been swung yet.
Not one attack has been brought against the children of Israel. And all of a sudden Satan has caused panic. Satan has caused defeat to ever happen before the wall was finished and before a sword was ever picked up.
Sometimes all the enemy has to do is convince you to stop doing what you're doing.
Are you even making a difference? Are you, is the things that you're doing, does it even make sense? Why are you doing these things?
And all of a sudden he's won by convincing us to stop what God has called us to do.
Nehemiah could have said, guys, I didn't sign up for all this. Man, the things I had in Susa were a whole lot better than what I got now.
I haven't even been able to wash my clothes. He says at the end of the chapter here, I've kept my same clothes on for multiple days. Man, in Susa, I had more clothes than I had to imagine. I had more food than you can imagine. I had safety.
I had electricity. I had heat. I had air. I had running water.
I had all these things. Man, I lived in a palace and I'm living in rubble. Guys, I'm done with this.
And he could have got discouraged and he could have left. And yet he is standing up and he's saying, listen, you don't understand what God's going to do. You don't understand the things that God's going to do if we can just continue to do what we're doing. Don't get discouraged.
And he tells us here in the fourth point, remember the Lord. Verse 13 through 16, he's saying the turning point of this entire chapter. He gathers the people around. And in verse 14, he says, do not be afraid of them. And he makes this statement, Nehemiah has got these statements.
The gracious hand of the Lord is upon me. Ready? This next statement, the great and awe-inspiring Lord. This is how he answered fear. He said, fear's coming in.
Remembering God's Faithfulness
The words are discouraging him. Guys, remember what God did.
Remember the faithfulness of God. Remember the goodness that he gave us. Look at how strong we are now. Look at what God has done for us. Remember the Lord. Remember who he is. Remember that your enemies may be large and your problems may be large.
And you may not understand how you're going to pay the bills at the end of the month or what's going to happen to your child that's not following the Lord. But you can step back and you can say, God, you've been faithful.
God, you've provided for me when all other things have failed me.
God, you're greater than my problems. God, you're greater than all these things. When you're afraid, look up. When you're discouraged, look up. When you're overwhelmed, look to the Lord for our encouragement. Remember who you're fighting for.
Not only remember who God is, but remember who you're fighting for. The Bible says in verse 14, he says, fight for your countrymen. Fight for your sons and daughters. Fight for your wives and your homes.
Church, there are things in our life that we're building that is bigger than just a wall. We're building something bigger than just this idea that God has given us. We're building our families on a foundation that is Jesus Christ.
That in the middle of their walk, in the middle of their foundation, in the middle of everything they go through, they're going to say, you know what? I remember that dad stood firm.
I remember that mom stood firm when she got that diagnosis or that thing happened or whatever it may be in your own life. I remember those things and someone is watching us.
Someone is watching how we respond and what we go through and we get to encourage that next generation because we remember who we're fighting for.
And church, remember who fights for us. Look at verse 20. Our God fights for us. This is the confidence that Nehemiah had. He said, guys, I'm not telling you this as a pep speech.
I'm not telling you this to get you excited before you go out and you face the undefeated enemy that's going to come into the house, that's going to take care of everything. I'm telling you this because I remember who my God is and I remember who I am fighting for.
This is confidence that we don't see in our day to day because Nehemiah is so firm in what and who God is that he says, I don't care who comes against me.
I know that I can just sit back and I can say, God, I'm going to work and I'm going to allow you to take care of everything else. I'm going to do what you called me to do.
I'm going to pick up the sword. I'm going to pick up the trail.
I'm going to begin to work and I'm going to trust that you take care of everything else because I'm going to do what I'm going to do.
I'm going to do what you've called me to do and I'm going to allow you to take care of everything else because the outcome ultimately is resting in God's hands.
He's sitting there and he's saying, if you'll just continue to work, I'll continue to take care of the things that are around you.
Story after story after story in the Old Testament, the children of Israel are fighting a fight and they're losing. And all of a sudden God says, hey, keep fighting. I'll make the sun stand still.
Hey, you keep doing what you're doing. I'll cause a plague to come in. I'll do the rest if you just keep doing the work that I've called you to do.
Remaining at Work
And Nehemiah is telling them in verses 17 through 23, the very end of the chapter, remain at work. Remain working.
This is the entire balance of the chapter. They pray, they watch, they say, God, we're trusting in you.
They're keeping their eyes fixed on God. And they say, we're just going to keep building what God has called us to build. One commentator said like this, the union of dependence upon God and the responsibility of our action is blended so well in this moment. They keep building.
Verse 17 says this, the laborers carried the work. In one hand, they held the weapon. In the other hand, they carried the trowel.
As Spurgeon used to say, he had an old magazine named after this, the sword and the trowel. I still read some of the articles, but the trowel is in one hand, the sword is in the other hand.
It's this picture of we're working and we're watching. We're watching and we're working.
We're doing what we've got to do, but we're alert and we're seeing what's going on around us. We're trusting in what God has called us to do, but yet we're still preparing for God to do a great thing. David says it like this in Psalms 127,
I am reminding us that unless the Lord builds a house,
the builders labor in vain. Unless the Lord watches over a city, the watchmen are alert in vain.
We work and we pray because God is sovereign. He is leader and redeemer over all.
He is the one that has his hand in everything. And we pray because God's work is, is what he's going to do. And we say, God, I want to continue to do the responsibility that you've called me to do. As we looked at last week, every single person has a gift, talent, ability,
something completely different than me. If we all look like me in here today, my wife would be able to get really upset because I annoy her on a daily basis. And she couldn't handle a hundred of me in here.
God has created each and every one of us different. Each and every one of us of a different age. The Bible says in the new Testament that the older there to mentor and train the young,
the younger there with their energy to begin to work and to do the work of the Lord. And we all have different roles in the church. We all have different roles in our community. We all have different roles in our families. And we must understand that God has created that prayer purpose.
And we must be working together. We must be continue to build upon what God has called us.
We must continue to watch verse nine. I want to go back to verse nine. It says that he, we made our prayer to God and we stationed guard. This doesn't say, you know what?
We made our prayer to God and we sat down and we didn't do anything. He says, we prayed and we said, God, work in our lives, work in what you've called us to do. And while they were praying, they said, we're going to stand up and we're going to know the enemy's real.
We're going to know the enemy's dangerous and we're going to stay alert. What does Peter say about our enemy? He says, be sober minded, be vigilant, be alert. Your adversary, the devil is prowling around like a roaring lion.
Doesn't say that he is a roaring lion. We know who the roaring lion is. Jesus Christ is the lion.
And we know that he is trying to be like that. And he says, be aware. Be on the lookout. Watch for your family. This, this enemy is coming at us and he's looking for anyone he can devour. Jesus tells us to watch and pray.
He doesn't say watch or pray. He says, you must watch and you must pray.
Church. We must be a people who are watching. We must be a people who are praying. And finally here. We must be a people who are working together. In verse 19, we get this beautiful picture because it is no one in this passage is working or fighting alone. They're working together.
They're working together. Hand in hand. Look at what it says. The work is extensive. The work is spread out. We're separated from each other along this wall. How are we going to do this? How are we going to be able to work and take care of these things?
They're going to find our weakness and they're going to be going to attack there. And Nehemiah says, listen, we're going to work together.
I'm going to have a guy over here with a trumpet. And whenever something happens, we're going to blow that trumpet. And we're all going to come together. We're all going to work together.
We're all going to do the work of the ministry together. The church is not designed to be little silos of ministry. We're all just doing our own little thing. We're working together for the glory of God.
We're working together for God to make a difference in our community. And the enemy wants nothing more than to come in and stop the work of the Lord. As Terry comes, I'm going to quickly wind down. Verse 21, Bible says that they continued to work.
I want this to be a reminder for us that we must continue to work.
The enemy is going to mock us. The enemy is going to threaten us. The people, we as well will be discouraged.
We must continue to work. The work belongs to God. It doesn't belong to Pastor James. It doesn't belong to anyone in this own building or church or community. The work belongs to God.
Sometimes the victory looks very different than what we expect. Sometimes the victory is someone saying, you know what, Pastor James, how can I serve?
How can I, how can I do what God is calling me to do? And you begin to look and you say, well, let's see what God has naturally gifted you with. You're really good at changing diapers. Amen. We need people to change diapers. You're really good at making desserts. I love desserts.
Let's, let's get you working, making desserts. All of a sudden you begin looking and you begin asking God, help us to be a people who are so unified, who are so working together that we're simply saying, God, I'm going to give you the glory out
of everything that's said and done. I'm going to keep praying. I'm going to keep serving. I'm going to keep parenting. I'm going to keep discipling my, my, my family. I'm going to keep preaching. I'm going to keep loving those around me.
I'm going to keep building for your honor and glory. And then we get to step back and we get to pray and we get to watch and we get to work and we get to say, God, this is all because of you. The enemy of Nehemiah ridiculed them.
They threatened them. They sowed fear and discouragement. But I want you to understand, this is what the people of Nehemiah's day did. They responded with prayer. First and foremost, the attacks came and they said, guys, we got to stop.
If we don't stop and pray, we're going to respond in the flesh. I know I would.
I know I have. Attacks come and I don't pray and I don't, I don't put God first. All of a sudden, I want to defend myself. How dare you say these things to me?
This is what happens. And Nehemiah is teaching us. We must pray first. We must make preparation for the enemy and we must persevere. We must continue to do what the work of the Lord has called us to do. Nehemiah's people had three things.
They had a mind to work. They had a mind to get the things done that needed to get done. They also had a heart to pray. And they had an eye to watch and to look at what the God was telling them to do. When the enemy attacks church, don't quit.
That's what the enemy wants. The enemy wants us to, he wants to attack us with words and deception and psychological warfare.
And he wants us to quit. And when we quit, the devil wins. He wants us to retaliate.
The Bible tells us that we should love our enemies. We should care about those that hurt us.
One of my favorite verses in Romans 12, it says, In doing good to those that hurt you, you heap lumps of coal in their head. They get so mad because you're doing good to them when they're trying to hurt you that they don't even know how to respond.
And all of a sudden, we must not panic. We must be confident that God is the ruler of all things.
He is going to be the one that works in our life. And he's going to be the one that is the one that fights for us. We don't have to fight our own battles.
We have the Holy Spirit in our lives, and we have God on our side that is working in and through us if we'll just simply trust in him.
Church, Jesus is building his church. I've said this for years. Jesus is building his church. The Bible says that when he was standing there in Caesarea Philippi, he says that the gates of hell will not prevail against my church.
He is the one that builds his church up. We just get to be a part of it. We get to say, God, how can I serve you? God, what do you need me to do today? God, how can I serve you by serving the church?
And you're going to come alongside of us, and you're going to build the church, and when the gates of hell try to come against me, I've got God on my side.
And it doesn't matter what they do, what they say, that I am serving the King of kings and the Lord of lords, and he is the one that's fighting my battles for me.
Closing Encouragement
A couple of closing statements. Keep your eyes on Christ.
Some of you may be sitting here this morning, you may be thinking, I've never really even accepted Jesus as my Savior.
I can't, you can't keep your eyes on something that you've never accepted. You must accept Jesus as your Lord and Savior. You must trust him, and today the Bible says it's the day of salvation, and we must trust in him.
If you're a believer this morning, keep your hands on the plow. Keep your hand on the trowel this morning as Nehemiah says that he worked and did the work of the Savior, did the work of what God called him to do. Have a heart for prayer, and more than anything this morning,
keep your eyes on Jesus, the author and the finisher of our faith. Hebrews chapter 11, fixing our eyes, Hebrews 2, fixing our eyes on Jesus,
the one that is the Savior of our life, the one that came to die for us so that we can work for him so that one day we'll be able to spend eternity in his presence,
worshiping him and singing the song, You are my all in all, because he is our all in all this morning, church. Let us pray. Father, we love you.
God, we thank you for who you are. We thank you for the goodness that you've given us, the grace that you've bestowed upon us. Lord, we thank you for the salvation that you've given us. If there's someone here that doesn't know you today,
would they come to this altar today and accept you as their Savior?
Would they come to me afterwards or one of our leaders afterwards and say, I want to be for sure that I know Jesus? Help us to work as if it all depends on us, but pray as if it all depends on you, God. We love you.
Thank you again for taking your time to listen to the sermon audio of Pleasant Grove. Please subscribe to get our latest sermons each week. Thanks for listening. Thank you.
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