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At Sandals Church, our vision is to be real with ourselves, God and others. This channel features sermons and teaching from Pastor Matt Brown and other members of the Sandals Church preaching team. You can find sermon notes, videos and more content at http://sandalschurch.com/watch
This is the Sandals Church Podcast, a place for real people with real struggles learning to follow Jesus. Wherever you are right now, driving, working, or trying to make it through the day, we are really glad you're here. Let's get into today's message.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:Sandals Church, it is an honor to finally be back with all of you today. As many of you know, a number of weeks ago my mom went home to be with Jesus. And during that time, you afforded me an incredible gift from, pastor Matt and Tammy to our leadership team, our staff. You as a church allowed me to not have to be a pastor in that moment, but to just be a son to grieve his mom and to bury his mom. And so I'm deeply grateful for that, forever grateful.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:And for all of you who, called me, you sent me a text, you sent us food, you called the church to tell stories about my mom, or you wrote us just notes, just thank you, man. I can't begin to describe the kind of comfort a pastor feels when they are pastored by their own church. And so thank you for that. And you can imagine because of all that, we as a family are in our own season of rebuilding, looking to see how God creates a new life for us as a family. But unfortunately, that also comes with its challenges.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:Just last week, my dad suffered a stroke. And, thankfully, he is stable. He is okay. He's now in a rehab center looking to get some of his mobility back that he has lost pretty severely. So currently I find myself walking into another hospital, walking through another hospital hallway, sitting in another waiting room, and having more sets of conversations with doctors.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:With the beeping of the machines and the monitors kind of acting as the soundtrack that I hear every day. And in my journey from the hospital to home, I have noticed a few things on my car ride. First, my clothes smell like the hospital. This season of mine, it comes with a new scent. But secondly, there's kind of this inner voice, this inner critic that is starting to ask questions.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:Like, I do this again? How much more can a family take? Fredo, aren't you tired of this? Are you sure God is still with you? And maybe some of you through your own seasons of life are familiar with those kinds of voices too.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:Are you not? The inner critic, the person that starts to doubt. Right. Maybe even through a series like this, going through the book of Nehemiah where we are looking to see how God might rebuild our lives. Maybe there's that inner critic saying, yeah, but nothing's gonna change for you.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:Because maybe you've started to notice, this is certainly true about the Christian life, that anytime you try to do something right, life only gets harder afterwards. As you try to rebuild, as you try to follow God, you're met with opposition, you're met with discouragement, you're met with that inner critic on your way home after a long day. For some of you, you tried to make a choice to rebuild and choose forgiveness, and what happens? Old wounds open up again. For our youth, you've returned from summer camp.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:You're following Jesus. You've tons of zeal, but guess what? You have friends waiting for you to mock you, to slander you, to ask questions about you. And so I'm not sharing my story with you so that you would feel sorry for me. I'm sharing because I suspect that I'm not the only one who walked in the church today knowing what it's like to have both external voices and internal voices creating opposition and making it even more difficult for you to rebuild, for you to follow God.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:And so I just wanna take a moment to ask you, whose voice have you heard a lot lately? What's the inner critic maybe been saying? What's maybe been someone saying externally to you? Right. Because the truth is every single one of us right now in this moment are being formed by the voices we choose to listen to.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:And because of that, God has a word for us today out of Nehemiah four about what it's like to face opposition, to face both the external voices and the internal voices, and to learn to still rebuild. We desperately need this word today, church. And so in light of that, I'm gonna ask that if you are willing and able, you would stand with me for the reading of God's word. We're gonna read all of Nehemiah four, so buckle up, and just be open to how God might speak to you. Try not to lock your knees because I don't need anyone passing out as we read scripture.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:But Nehemiah four, then I'll pray. When Sandals heard that we were rebuilding the wall, he became angry and was greatly incensed. He ridiculed the Jews and in the presence of his associates and the army of Samaria he said, what are those feeble Jews doing? Will they restore their wall? Will they offer sacrifices?
Pastor Fredo Ramos:Will they finish in a day? Can they bring the stones back to life from those heaps of rubble burned as they are? Tobiah the Ammonite who was at his side said, what they are building even a fox climbing up on it would break down their walls of stones. Hear us our God for we are despised. Turn their insults back on their own heads.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:Give them over as plunder in the land of captivity. Do not cover up their guilt or blot out their sins from your sight for they have thrown insults in the face of the builders. So we rebuilt the wall till all of it reached half its height for the people worked with all of their heart. But when Sanballat, Tobiah, the Arabs, the Ammonites, the people of Ashod heard that the repairs to Jerusalem's wall had gone ahead and the gaps were being closed, they were very angry. They all plotted together to come and fight against Jerusalem and stir up trouble against it.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:But we prayed to our God and posted a guard day and night to meet their this threat. Meanwhile, the people in Judah said, the strength of the laborers is giving out and there is so much rubble that we cannot rebuild the wall. Also our enemies said, before they know it or see us, we will be right there among them and we'll kill them and put an end to the work. Then the Jews who lived near them came and told us 10 times over, wherever you turn, they will attack us. Therefore, I stationed some of the people behind the lowest points of the wall at the exposed places, posting them by families with their swords, spears, and bows.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:After I looked things over, I stood up and said to the nobles, the officials, and the rest of the people, don't be afraid of them. Remember the Lord who is great and awesome and fight for your families, for your sons, your daughters, your wives, and your homes. And when our enemies heard that we were aware of their plot and that God had frustrated it, we all returned to the wall, each to our own work. From that day on, half of my men did the work while the other half were equipped with spear, shields, bows, and armor. The officers posted themselves behind all the people of Judah who were behind excuse me, who were building the wall.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:Those who carried materials did their work with one hand and held a weapon in the other. And each of the builders wore his his sword at his side as he worked. But the man who sounded the trumpet stayed with me. Then I said to the nobles, the officials, the rest of the people, the work is extensive and spread out and we are widely separated from each other along the wall. Wherever you hear the sound of the trumpet, join us there.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:Our God will fight for us. Let me read that again. Our God will fight for us. So we continued to work with half the men holding spears from the first light of dawn till the stars came out. At that time, I also said to the people, have every man and his helpers stay inside Jerusalem at night so they can serve us as guards by night and as workers by day.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:Neither I nor my brothers nor my men nor the guards with me took off our clothes, each had his weapon even when we went for water. This is God's word. Let's pray together. Father, in this moment that we have gathered here together, we acknowledge that you are here too. And so we ask now that you would speak to us from your word and that as Jesus said you would give us eyes to see and ears to hear so that we might become all that you desire us to be in him.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:We pray these things in Christ's name. Amen. Amen. Thank you so much. You can be seated.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:You're like, thank God, man. What a chapter. Now to bring us up to speed, keep in mind that this story, the events that Nehemiah records for us in this book happens about four hundred and fifty years before Jesus arrives. Nehemiah is currently living in Jerusalem, but remember they're sacked as a city. They're completely overthrown.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:Think about that for a second. The school you went to high school at? Gone. Favorite pizza joint? Gone.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:Your barber shop? Gone. Haircuts can be terrible from now on. You have nothing left. He's sent into exile, living in captivity in Persia under the king Artaxerxes.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:And it's at this time he's looking for a job. He gets on, you know, indeed.com and sees there's an opening for a wine taster. Some of y'all would love a job like that. I'd love to be a wine taster, but it's not that kind of job, so take a choke, Bilbo. He is the cup bearer to the king, which means he is the last one to test both food and drink before the king has it.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:And so with Nehemiah, you never had to ask him if he had a good day at work, friends. Why? Because if he came home alive, he had a good day at work. Right? He made it.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:But there he is. His family comes, brings him news that his city is still in shambles, destroyed. And we remember it's at that news he laments, he grieves, he cries out to God, and then he takes action. And through the divine favor of God, through the king, he's granted time and resources and people to go home and begin rebuilding the wall. And last week, we saw that beautiful image of what it looks like for ordinary people who are not contractors to begin to do work together.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:But now we are met with something very very true about all of life and it's this, that whenever you start to rebuild, rebuilding my life will bring opposition and discouragement. Whenever you try to do something, I know that's not the most uplifting first point, bear with me, but it's true. Anytime you attempt to do a good work, you will be met with opposition. You will be met with discouragement. Now in our story, I want us to pay attention to the progression of opposition with these external questions, these voices that Nehemiah and the people started to hear.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:Let's look together there at verse one and two from the story. It says, when Sanballat heard that we were rebuilding the wall, he became angry and was greatly incensed. Now, if I'm Sanballat, I'm just angry because my name is Sanballat. But he ridiculed the Jews and in the presence of associates and the army of Samaria. So he listen now.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:We don't know explicitly from the text, it's implied through history and background that Sandals was a man of wealth and influence and power. He had it going on as the result of everyone being in captivity. So if the wall gets rebuilt, he he stands to lose everything. The way that they're following God is a threat to his existence. Don't miss that.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:That's why he's angry. That's what's bothering him. Notice the questions. What are those feeble Jews doing? You know what that question is?
Pastor Fredo Ramos:That's attacking your identity. Who are you? Who are you to do this great work? You know your past. Will they restore their wall?
Pastor Fredo Ramos:Will they offer sacrifice? Will they finish in a day? No one said they're gonna finish in a day. But isn't that how voices tend to work? Twisting, exaggerating, attacking our identity, attacking our ability.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:Will you be actually be able to do this? Alright. These these external voices are very real. And this grows. It moves from Sandals to Tobias to to the rest of the the nation.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:Right? The the progression is significant and this of course reminds us of Jesus' own words when he says, listen, if the world hated you or hates you, bear in mind and remember they hated me first. Opposition to following Jesus, it is inevitable, but friends, it's not eternal. And we see this progression though. Sandballat mocks, Tobiah joins in, the other nations start to get involved, they they start to conspire against them.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:There's now growing kind of whispers. There's there's threats being made about their well-being. And you and I know this in our own lives, don't we? Negativity is so contagious. Right.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:You got one cynical coworker. The whole office vibe is thrown off. Right? You put the World Cup on, someone's like, why we watching the game? Well, now we gotta go back to our job.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:Right? You got one bitter family member. Dinner time's ruined. One comment online, your day is ruined. An old friend teases you about your faith because you just got back from camp.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:You're feeling good. Now you start to question everything. But in all of this mockery pay attention. In all of the slander, the external voices that are starting to crowd and and and kinda press in on them, I don't want you to miss this point about the who about excuse me. The the the real enemy here.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:It's not just Sandals or Tobiah. We know the real enemy, don't we? We know the great accuser. The real enemy was the same enemy that we encountered in the very beginning of the bible on the first pages of scripture, who from the beginning has been actively opposing the people of God. This is why Paul in Ephesians six says, for we are not fighting against flesh and blood enemies.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:Right? What does he say? But against evil rulers. That's who we're fighting against. And authorities of the unseen world against mighty powers in this dark world.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:You know, opposition is bound to happen, but you know who your real enemy is, friends. You have one today. And his name, according to Jesus, is Satan, which uniquely enough is not just a name, it's actually his title, which means adversary. The word devil itself means slanderer. Right?
Pastor Fredo Ramos:So from the beginning, he has been accusing you. So the book of Revelation says, he stands as the accuser of the brethren. And in the garden, you remember, meets Adam and Eve, not with violence, but with what? A voice, words, accusations, questions, twisting. Did God really say?
Pastor Fredo Ramos:What I want you to understand now is that the enemy has always been using both external voices and internal voices to try to throw us off from rebuilding the beautiful work that God is calling you to rebuild right now in your life. You have a real enemy today. But listen, the great danger isn't so much the opposition, but what slowly starts to happen after that. Pay attention to what we read what we read in verse 10. Notice the shift, what we read.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:Meanwhile, the people in Judah said, take note of that. The the people in Judah said, the strength of the laborers is giving out. Let's just stop right there for a second. The strength of the laborers is giving out. Meaning some of you today have probably walked into church and you are tired, exhausted.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:Why? Because you have been about the good work. You're rebuilding. But notice what's going on. The builders are starting to preach sand ballad sermon.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:They're repeating internally what they have been hearing externally. It's like when you shout into a canyon. You know what happens. Right? The original voice lasts for a moment, but the echo is what keeps being repeated long after the speaker has stopped.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:You see, it's one thing when the enemy is the loudest voice in the room, but that's not the devil's greatest success. The enemy's great success isn't getting a microphone to be loud, but getting an echo that is repeated in your own heart. That's what happens. And so what voice perhaps is echoing in your life right now? Because when that echo starts to hit as you're on your way home from the hospital, that's when discouragement sets in.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:Real discouragement. And you start to say to yourself, maybe they're right. Like bear in mind in the story, these weren't contractors who were rebuilding the wall. We read it last week. Justin read all those crazy names.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:They're farmers, priests, merchants, coaches. Right? They don't know how to build a wall, and they're laughing at them like, wait. A fox is gonna jump on this thing and crumble it. Nehemiah said they got to half its height.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:Right? So it's maybe like six feet, eight feet up. Right? Like, if we're in middle earth, for sure a hobbit can't get over it. But real people can easily climb this thing.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:They're discouraged. And you see, discouragement is exactly when you start agreeing with the voices as they are trying to stop you from the work that God has called you to do. And so if you're curious right now as to whether or not you find yourself in a place of discouragement, I wanna just offer you this question. Whose voice do you hear when you fail? See, not when everything's going good, not when life is good, not when I nail the sermon.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:Of course, God loves me then. Right? But whose voice do you hear when you have failed? Is it like your middle school basketball coach? I can hear him still, get a rebound, Fredo.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:You're so big. Right? Or whose words do you find yourself repeating the most? The answer to that question will help reveal to you whether or not you find yourself in a season of discouragement. Whose voice do you hear when you fail, when you messed up?
Pastor Fredo Ramos:A parent who neglected you, an old coach, the bully from high school, your ex maybe, whose voice do you hear? Because at some point, friends, as hard as it is to imagine, rebuilding will come with opposition, and those voices are always always there. But I love even in Genesis when that voice, the serpent, first comes and tempts Adam and Eve. When God finds them, tracks them down in the garden, do you remember his question? He says this, who told you that?
Pastor Fredo Ramos:They repeat the lie to God, and then he says, who told you that? That's not what I said. And I I just think for some of you today, God is longing for you to hear him say to you, who told you that lie? Because it's not true, friends. As real as the opposition might be, you gotta ask yourself again, who told me this?
Pastor Fredo Ramos:Because it may not be true. It probably actually isn't true. And so let's think just practically from this story, how do we actually respond to opposition and discouragement? I love Nehemiah's response. Notice from the text, he doesn't waste a single moment of time or energy on the critics.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:Nowhere in Nehemiah four do you ever see Nehemiah respond to his critics or give them a time of the day. In fact, notice what he what happens in verse four. What do we read? Hear us, o God. He prays.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:He doesn't even write to us as in I prayed, which he did in Nehemiah one. He just says, hear us oh God for we are despised. Turn their insults back on their own heads. It's getting a little crazy. Give them over as a plunder in a land of captivity.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:Notice what he says, don't cover up their guilt or blot out their sins from your sight for they have thrown insults in the face of the builders. Now some of you might hear that and be like, wow, can we pray like that? Nehemiah did. Nehemiah did. Now bear in mind as we take in all of scripture, I don't have time to go into an entire sermon on imprecatory psalms, but that's what this is.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:Right? This this is an imprecatory prayer where they are crying out for God to act with justice. Yes. Jesus is absolutely correct and we take notes from him, sermon on the mount. What does he say?
Pastor Fredo Ramos:Bless those who what? Curse you. And so we bless those who slander us. And so what are we to make of this prayer? First, I would say, notice Nehemiah is not acting on vengeance.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:He is surrendering it through prayer. That's what he's doing. He's not acting on it. He's surrendering it. Thirdly though, or secondly, he's just being honest.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:Right? You need to remember as you read scripture, sometimes things are recorded in the bible not because they are theologically accurate, but because they are honest. And that's what happened. This is an honest prayer from Nehemiah. I would imagine some of y'all would have a less boring prayer life if you learned to just speak honestly to God and tell him what was actually in your heart.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:It might lead you to sound a little out of pocket, but that's okay. That happens. It happens to all of us. You know, LeBron left the Lakers. I used to pray for him.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:His back, his knees, the man's 41. I'm not saying I'm praying in purgatory psalms, but I probably won't always pray for him anymore because he's not in the purple and gold. Right? But listen, for Nehemiah, prayer Listen. Prayer is tuning his ears to still hear God's voice in the crowd.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:That's what it's ultimately doing. We read this again there in verse nine. Look at the the the text where it says, but we prayed to our God and posted a guard day and night to meet this threat. Notice that. We prayed to our God and what?
Pastor Fredo Ramos:Posted a guard. This is the problem for many of us. You pray but you don't post a guard. Or you post a guard but you don't pray. How do we respond to opposition?
Pastor Fredo Ramos:Firstly, with prayer and preparation. Both. Prayer does not replace your responsibility because prayer without obedience becomes passivity, but planning without prayer becomes pride. Let me slow down so some of y'all will hear the echo of that. Alright?
Pastor Fredo Ramos:Being dependent on God and diligent with your decisions. They are companions, friends, not competitors. Listen to Proverbs 21, a brilliant nugget of wisdom for us. The horse is made ready for the day of battle, but what? Victory rests with the Lord.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:The horse is made ready for battle by who? You and I. Preparation. But what? Victory rests with the Lord.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:The bible over and over again gives us a picture of both and realities. God, yes, is sovereign. And, yes, we depend on him through prayer as we face opposition, and we take responsibility for our actions. Prayer and preparation. What does this look like practically?
Pastor Fredo Ramos:As you are facing the discouragement of your addiction, you pray, and guess what? Delete some apps. Stop going certain places. Block some numbers. You you you pray for God's wisdom to what you should say yes to and no to as you look at your busy summer calendar, and you make a decision to Sabbath once a week, to give your soul rest, to remember your identity is not found in your work, and that God longs for you to enjoy him and to enjoy life and to worship.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:Right? Prayer, when you think about it, becomes the beginning of our obedience when we partner with God to do all of the things that we said we did before we said amen. God invites you and I to become part of the answer to our own prayers, friends. This is the secret, prayer and preparation. And for Nehemiah, this begins to actually do something in his own life.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:Notice what this actually creates within him. Verse 14, we read it a moment ago. It says, after I looked things over, I stood up and I said to the nobles, the officials, and the rest of the people, don't be afraid of them. Remember the Lord. I love that.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:Don't be afraid. Remember the Lord. So how do we respond to opposition and discouragement, friends? We remember the Lord. When you think about it, remembering is one of the most repeated commands in scripture.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:Why? Because we all have some level of spiritual amnesia. We are forgetful Christians. We forget grace. We forget forgiveness.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:We forget God's presence. We forget the gospel. Right? We have amnesia. And so when you think about what is it like to move forward through opposition, remember the Lord.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:Instead of fear, remember the Lord. Because notice the the builders, they see their enemies coming. They hear about it. We're told that Nehemiah said that Judah came back 10 times a day. They're all coming.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:They're all coming. It's like they wouldn't shut up about the complaints. Right? So they see the enemies. They see the rubble right in front of them.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:They're all very tired. And notice what Nehemiah says, don't be afraid of them. He doesn't say, remember the wall. Hobbits can't get over it. He doesn't say, remember your gifting.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:Remember what God has called you to do. No. He says remember the Lord. Nehemiah lifts their eyes not to the wall, not to their progress, not to themselves, but to God in heaven. Remember who he is.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:He does the same thing again later on in verse 20. When he says, when you hear the sound of the trumpet, what does he call? He says, join us there. Our God will fight for us. What some of you just need to simply be reminded of today is that your opposition has a greater defeater in God.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:God is fighting for you today. He is fighting for you right now. And guess what? God loves to fight for you. God's not burdened when you ask him to step in.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:He loves to fight for you. And when you realize that God is fighting for you, you realize you have very little to actually be afraid of anymore. I love Psalm 56, a phrase that I turn to often. Notice the words of David. When I am afraid, I put my trust in you.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:Some of you need to memorize that today. When I am afraid, I put my trust in you. In God whose word I praise, in God I trust and I am not afraid. What can mere mortals do to me? David says.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:Remember the Lord. He is your judge, not other people. Remember the Lord. He is your defender. No matter what they say, God has the final say in your life.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:Remember the Lord. He is your deliverer. He will bring you through every season. Remember the Lord. He is your provider.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:He will give you your daily bread. Remember the Lord, Sandals Church. He is your protector. You can take refuge in him. Remember the Lord today.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:Remember him. And it's just a simple exercise. I wanna just, for a moment, allow you just to be quiet. I'll be quiet too. And just hold out in front of you whatever it is that is just dominating your thinking right now.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:The loudest voice, whether it be external or internal. Like, what are you afraid of most right now? Just just hold it out in front of you. And with the help of the Holy Spirit, remember the Lord in light of that. Remember God is there fighting for you.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:Not far from that thing, but he is right in front of you. You guys can come back to me now. When you think about this act of remembering, this is not simply just kind of conjuring up something to your mind. It's about reorienting yourself around what is true. Like for example, I am an incredibly forgetful person.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:I forget stuff all the time. In fact, I forget that I'm the most forgetful person in my own life. And so when I'm with Ashley and I can't find something, she can tell when I'm about to get very flustered and antsy and she goes, uh-uh. Before you say it's a loss forever and go buy it again, remember when you last had it. Remember when you last had it.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:In other words, reorient yourself around your experience with the item that you said is now gone, that you wanna repurchase. Where is it? Before you say it's lost, before you give into discouragement, before you give into that voice, remember the Lord. Remember where you last had him. Jesus himself in his final meal with his disciples, what did he what did he say?
Pastor Fredo Ramos:Do this in what? Remembrance of me. What's the doing of this? It's the eating food. It's the gathering together.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:Right? So a gathering, communion, worship, what are they? They are acts of resistance against opposition. We gather every week. Why?
Pastor Fredo Ramos:Because we need to remember the Lord. We need to remember who he is in the face of our weeks, in the face of our fears. Worship and communion is something that what? We don't do alone. He said that to a group of people because discouraged people cannot fight alone, friends.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:And so every week we come together in groups, we come together, we serve together as a way to resist and push back the works of the enemy in our lives. We remember the Lord. And this kind of remembrance, friends, it will lead to a beautiful kind of action. As we close, I want us to notice something just beautiful that we read in our story a moment ago. There in verse 15, when Nehemiah said, when our enemies heard that we were aware of their plot and that God had frustrated it.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:Notice that line. I want you to take note of that. When God had frustrated it, we all returned to our work. We all returned to the wall, to each our own work. The enemies are still there.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:The rubble pile is probably higher than the new wall they've built. It's only halfway there, but how do they respond to their opposition and discouragement? They responded by simply returning to the work because God wasn't done yet. That's it. You waited thirty minutes to hear a really simple point.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:Return to your work. How do you deal with opposition? Return to the wall. Why? Because God isn't done yet.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:I love that Nehemiah notes that God frustrated their plans. We don't know how he did or what he did or when he did it. We just know that God frustrated their plans. And this friends is the testimony of the entire scripture. God in his power, wisdom, and timing always has a way of flipping evil on its own head and turning it for good.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:We hear this in Genesis 50, and of course this is exactly what we discover with Jesus on the cross. Because opposition and discouragement, yes, they are inevitable, but they are not eternal. They are part of your story, but they are not the end of your story. The hope is that we become the kinds of people who are formed into something more beautiful, not because we were able to avoid discouragement, but because God has carried us through it, friends. That's our hope.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:And the opposition that Nehemiah faced was just a picture of the greater opposition that God himself would deal with. The evil he would flip on its head when Jesus hung on a cross. Like Nehemiah, Jesus, in doing the work of God, in building the kingdom, in ushering in salvation for you and I, heard voices too, did he not? Pharisees, religious people of all people, come down from the cross, Jesus. He saved others.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:Why can't he save himself? But then on Sunday, resurrection day became the one voice that only mattered. He is alive and the work they said could not be done is now done, friends. Resurrection is here. And the good news of his life, death, and resurrection is that God is rebuilding.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:His work is not yet done. In fact, Jesus says in John five, the father is always working. He and I are always at work. Jesus left this word in the end of revelation. Behold, I am making all things new.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:So if you're asking, what is God doing right now? He's making everything new. All things new. Which is why you and I can go back to our work. Return to your work.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:Return to it. You know, after my mom passed, it was hard for me to find scripture, that was comforting, as strange as it is to say, and maybe even here. My thoughts were constantly scattered in prayer, but oftentimes I would turn to first Corinthians 15. It's one of Paul's just like long expositions on resurrection, on beauty and glory through death, and it brought me so much hope. I just wanna remind us that our work is not done in vain.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:Listen to what Paul says. The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. Verse 57, but thanks be to God. He gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. Therefore, pay attention to this part now.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:This is our part. My dear brothers and sisters, stand firm. God will do his part. He's brought victory. So you and I are to stand today.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:Let nothing move you. Always give yourselves what? Fully to the work of the Lord because you know that your labor in the Lord is what? Not in vain. Nehemiah returned to the wall.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:Why? Because it was not in vain. You know, today, tomorrow, the next day, I will find myself doing the same thing I've been doing for the last several days. That's driving back and forth between home and a rehab center. Home and a rehab center.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:And I guarantee you on those drives, there will be internal voices. I mean external voices too because you drive through Riverside, it's chaos. Right? But internal voices challenging me. Getting me to question what God is doing.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:Getting me to sit in my discouragement. And friends, my only option is what? To return to the work. To return to the work. To continue on.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:Why? Because God is not done yet. He's not done yet. And so as we close, I want us just to reflect on this question. What has discouragement been trying to convince you to stop rebuilding right now?
Pastor Fredo Ramos:What is the voice of discouragement, whether it's external or internal? What has that voice been trying to get you to stop rebuilding? Is it a relationship? Is it your obedience to Jesus? Is it the way that you live sacrificially?
Pastor Fredo Ramos:The way that you share the gospel because no one listens, you're not good at it? Is it church maybe? Identify that voice. Name it for what it is. And as we go to prayer, would you answer it with God's voice.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:Let him speak. He's not done. Let's pray. Heavenly father, we in this moment now as a church community confess that discouragement is real. Some of us today are tired.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:Some of us today feel like the wall is not being built quick enough. The enemy is encroaching and getting closer.