Vivi Diaz: 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. Welcome
Claude Hickman: back to Sandals Church. I wanna ask you a question and I I think I know the answer to this already, but how many of you want something in the world to change right now? Raise your hands really high, if you want something in the world to change. See, this is how I figure out who the visitors are, because if you live in California, you're hands up. Know, you definitely we got a whole list of things that we wanna change, right?
I wish I could change the gas prices, taxes, homelessness. You know what's on my list right now? Plastic bags. Like I don't know who the California plastic bag czar is, but can we just go all the way back? Like you remember plastic bags, like the thin ones?
We promise you know like we'll do better this time, just give us back our plastic bags. And then I think about all the things I wanna change, and sometimes you know, I laugh about it so that I don't cry, but I laugh about it because honestly that's sometimes the only thing I feel like I have the power to do. I feel very powerless when it comes to a lot of things I wanna change. And I think God has been convicting me of where that's taken my heart recently. And if I were honest, man, there's been this slow surrender in my heart to cynicism.
And even worse, I feel like there's this slow surrender in my heart to this lie that big things can't change. And I don't like that. I was talking to my 15 year old and when he got into high school, we gave him an iPhone, we kinda waited, and even then, man, we wanted to keep him safe, so it was locked up. I mean, was like a calculator that called mom in an emergency, basically. But the one app we let him have was Spotify because he loves music and we love music.
I'm like, what could possibly be wrong with Spotify? Well, of course, you know, they have this thing where they have video previews and, you know, there's weird people out there, so it got weird. And he comes to me, he's like, dad, there's these video previews, some of them are inappropriate, some of are just strange, and I can't toggle them off and I can't report it, man. We gotta report this. You know, he's used to like the Nintendo world where you can report everybody for everything.
And I sat him down, but this is what came out. Like I realized when I heard these words come out of my mouth, I said, son, the world's evil, some things are too big to change, and you need to learn to look the other way. And he goes, no dad. Like there's kids on here, like we gotta report this. He found some email and you know, sent some email to somebody.
I was like, you're better off just putting a message in a bottle and throwing it in the ocean, is what I thought until April 9 when I saw a headline that read Spotify changes their app. And I went to him, I'm like, buddy, I was more surprised than anybody. Was like, dude, you did it. Like you got people spoke up. And he's like, dad, there's still stuff on there.
I'm like, no, no, that's that's not even the point buddy. The point is man, I had surrendered to the world when God is calling us to stand up to the world and stand up to culture. You know, all of us, you have really two circles. One is the circle of concern. It's the things that you're concerned with, they may be global, they may be in your workplace, in your family, but we all have a circle of concern of things we would love to change.
Then we have a circle of influence. What do I actually have control over? And the problem in our life is those two things don't match. A lot of times they don't even overlap at all. And I realized also, you know what that iPhone in my pocket has been doing?
It's given me an endless stream of things, man. I can't change that. I can't stop that. I can't fix that. And in my heart, I feel like it's led my heart to a wrong place where I either become a victim or I just get angry.
And once my heart goes to a bad place, behavior follows, and that's why I think people have gotten destructive, and people have even got violent because they don't know how to change things in the world. Listen, if you don't know how to bring about Godly change in the world, you'll eventually lose your influence, you'll lose your temper at home, you will lose relationships, you might lose your job, you might lose your freedom when you get thrown in jail, and some people are gonna lose their life. I think that thing, that fire in my son is a fire that's in all of us. The reason we have a circle of concern is God has wired you to be his change agent in the world. He's wired you to desire good and not evil in the world.
The problem is Christians are too busy dreaming about their comfort instead of change. And I think we've surrendered. We've said I can't make a difference, my vote doesn't matter, my voice isn't heard. This is why I love the story of Nehemiah. Nehemiah is a story of hope and he's a story of someone just like you and me.
He has no power, no influence, he has no resources and he has God. But did you know Nehemiah is one of the few books of the Bible where there are no miracles? There's no miracles in this story, which means for you and me everything Nehemiah does, you and I can do to open the door for God to bring change. It's a message of hope. Last week we saw that Nehemiah gets this burden to rebuild the walls of Jerusalem and that's not just a safety thing for God's people, it is a spiritual renewal for God's people.
That they could come back and worship. And he starts chapter two, he really starts with his circle, the only circle of influence he has. And it's the very last verse in chapter one. He says, at that time, I was cup bearer to the king. He has some influence, but to use this opportunity, it might cost him everything.
Might cost him his life. So let's start chapter two. Now the first sentence in chapter two, it tells us something that you might miss if you don't know what Nisan is, but there has been four months past. That's what I want you to remember that there have been four months have passed when he heard about this vision and this burden that he's been sitting on this praying. So in the month of Nisan, the twelfth twentieth year of King Arty, I'm not even gonna try to pronounce that name, Artaxerxes, I think.
King Arty, and when wine was before him, look, he's the cup bearer. So it says, I took up the wine and I gave it to the king. That's what he does. Now I had not been sad in the king's presence, and so the king looks at him and says to him, why is your face sad seeing that you're not sick? This king knows him really well.
He goes, this is nothing but sadness of heart. It's pretty you know, in deep insight, emotional awareness of the king. And then I was afraid. You know why he was afraid? Because this could cost him his life.
We know from the story of Joseph in Genesis that he was in prison with a cup bearer who just offended the king. He was in prison indefinitely. So this could cost him, this was risky. So then he says to the king, first of all, let the king live forever, right? And you say that to your boss, hey, let the boss, let the company live forever.
Why should not my face be sad though when the city, the place of my father's graves, it lies in ruins, its gates have been destroyed by fire? And then the king says to him, what are you asking? Good leaders know when you want something from them. He's like, what are you asking? What are you requesting?
And so it says he pauses, he prays to the God of heaven. Listen y'all, anybody married in here? You need to learn how to pause, choose your words carefully. Like when your wife asks you your opinion about anything, okay, you need to pause, pray to the God of heaven and then run because that's the only way out of that, alright? But he doesn't run.
He says to the king, if it pleases the king and if your servants found favor in your sight, send me to Judah, to the city of my father's graves that I may rebuild it. He shares this vision with it. And the king said to him with the queen sitting, look, she's right next to him. How long will you be gone? When will you return?
And it pleased the king to send me when I'd given them a time. This is good news. And if I were Nehemiah, I probably would have stopped right there. But look, he keeps going. Now this is where it gets crazy.
He keeps asking. Then I said to the king, if it pleases the king, can you write me a letter? Can you write me a letter and it can be given to me for the governors of all these providences beyond the river that they may let me pass through and come to Judah. What's he asking for? Safety, I need your protection in this letter.
That's a pretty big ask. He doesn't stop there. Then he asked for another letter. And while I'm at it, you write another letter to Asaph, the keeper of your forest, the king's forest that he may give me timber. It's like when your kids come to you and they got these great ideas and you're like, hey, who's paying for all this?
Oh, that's right, I'm paying for all this. Can you give me timber to make the beams for those gates and the fortress of the temple and for the wall of the city and for the house I shall occupy? Where did all this come from? You know, this is a very thought through plan. This is a very detailed plan.
And what I wanna do, I love this story of Nehemiah. I've spent twenty years living my life by the principles in Nehemiah. What I wanna do is I wanna give you four, four things that everyone can do to create change. And the first one is this, remember four months, what do you think he's been doing? He's been planning.
So point number one is this, don't waste your waiting time. Don't waste your waiting time. You know what doesn't change things? Doom scrolling. Right?
I mean, Nehemiah is incredibly patient, but that doesn't mean he's passive. He's been thinking about this. Proverbs twenty one five says this, the plans of the diligent lead to profit. Do you wanna gain influence? You wanna gain something?
Man, the plans of the diligent lead to profit as surely as haste leads to poverty. God wants you to use your life while you have it. He doesn't want you to waste this time he's given you no matter what position you're in. You know, earlier this year, I met this sweet, woman at our church, Rochelle, and she serves at Sandals, godly woman, but she came to me and I could tell she needed prayer. And she said, pastor Claude, will you pray for me?
I'm stuck in the healthcare system. Anybody been stuck and felt powerless in the healthcare system? And she said, something's going wrong, I'm in pain, I can't get an appointment to get a biopsy and I feel like I'm getting worse. I mean, it was scary and I could tell she was afraid. And before I prayed for her, I've been doing something with people where I say, man, I will pray for you, but first I want you to talk to God and I want you to ask him what he wants to say to you.
And then as soon as you hear from him say amen and I'll pray for you. Well, prayed for Rochelle and and then a few months later I saw her in the lobby and she came up to me and she's like, pastor Claude, good news. I got in, I got a biopsy, I'm fine, God healed me, I'm good. But she said, I wanna tell you what God said to me. God spoke to me.
Now buckle up. She said, God spoke to me and said, Rochelle, why should I heal you when you're living like you're dead already? And the person I saw that day in the lobby, she was a different person. She had fire. She's like, man, I heard God say you need to get back into discipling young people.
You need to get back into living your life not living in fear. Listen to me, I don't know what you want to change and maybe it's cancer. I don't know what you need to change, but the enemy doesn't win if you die. The enemy wins if you surrender your mission. That's when the enemy wins.
I think all of us, the good news is all of us can grow our influence. Look at Proverbs twenty two twenty nine, do you see a man skillful in his work? You can prepare, you can learn, you can develop. Do you see a person skillful in his work? Look what it says, he will stand before kings.
He won't stand before obscure men. There are times in my life, seasons in my life where I said, man, I need to prepare to be the kind of person somebody wants to marry someday. Amen. I need to prepare to be the kind of worker that someone wants to employ that's a good steward, that takes ownership, that's faithful, keeps my promises. I need to prepare to be a parent.
How many of guys are parents in the room? Raise your hand if you're a parent. How many of felt prepared for that? Right? No, man.
Look around, all the hands went down immediately. No, none of us were prepared for Just try I remember just trying to help my kids learn how to tie their shoes. Okay, think with me for a minute just how ridiculous this sounds. Okay, you're doing like a a crisscross, there's some bunny ears and a roller coaster that goes up and over except it's backwards. So you know, it's like, no no no, it's your right, not my right.
It's your right, son. And it's like a figure eight, but you know, reverse. And it's like, you know what, we're just gonna buy you slip ons. That's what it was. That's how Crocs were invented, okay?
Parents just gave up. But you know what? I remember when my kids came to me and said, dad, why is there evil in the world? What do I do when I'm afraid? What do I do about this kid at school?
How do I know God is moving and in control? You know what I found out? That scripture that I had memorized in my twenties, I was prepared. I was like, it was there. Things that I'd, you know, hidden in my heart, truths from God's word, theology about God, it was there when I needed it.
And I felt prepared. Was like, I know how to handle this. Some of that came from discipleship. You know, I've discipled some of the kids of pastors at our church, some of them are in the room right now and their kids turned out great. But can I just be honest with you?
I was practicing on their kids, okay? That's the great thing about serving in Sandals kids or with youth, you can practice on somebody else's kids. So when your kids get to be teenagers, you're like, oh, I've been here before. I remember. I remember this stupid moment.
And praise God, man, my boys today, love God, they're serving in their Vans slip ons, they're serving God. We need to prepare, that's our work. We have our work and God has his work. Proverbs 16 says this, the plans of the heart belong to who? Belong to you.
The plans of the heart belong to man, but the answer of the tongue is ultimately from the Lord. This is why Nehemiah stops to pray. When the king asks, what are you requesting? You notice there's this pause, so I pray to the God of heaven. I know we laughed about it earlier, but man, he pauses and prays.
You're like, man, he spent all of chapter one praying. He spent four months praying, but you need to recognize moments. Anytime I speak to somebody in authority, I I take a breath. The saints called this a breath prayer, where I just pause and go, Lord, be with my words. Lord Jesus, be with me.
Lord, move this person's heart right now. I I can't do those things. And if I had to guess, I would guess Nehemiah is thinking about Proverbs twenty one one because that's what I think of. Proverbs twenty one one says this, the king's heart is like water in your hands God, you turn it wherever you wish. Did Nehemiah plan?
Yes. But he opened the door, he raised the sails for God to do what only God can do. And you need to recognize when you need to pause. So that's point number two. We need to learn how to pause and be real with ourselves, real with God, real with others.
I think we do this, we need this all the time. Like we need to pause and recognize, God, is this the right moment? Is this the right timing for this? I definitely need to ask, give me the right words. Here's a good one.
Do I have the right motives? Do I have the right motives for this change? It's a good question to ask. And then I trust in the right power. Am I asking God to do what only God can do?
Proverbs 13 says this, wise people think before they act, fools don't. They even brag about it. James one nineteen, everyone should be quick to listen, slow to speak, slow to become angry. All of us have probably at some time lost influence because we spoke too quickly, we acted too rashly, we sent that text, we sent that email, and we didn't pause and have the wisdom to slow down. So he pauses, he prays, and then he asks the king, if your servant has found favor, look what he says, send me.
Not send you, not send your timber, send me. So point number three is this, if you want change, I've seen this over and over, you need to be the person that's willing to go first. You need to choose to go first instead of blaming others. You know, we stand in the work of God right now because somebody went first. The reason I love and follow our lead pastor Matt Brown is because when God gave him a burden to start a church where people like us could be real about our lives, God told him you gotta go first back to the desert.
And he said, send me then, send me to the desert. Did you know that pastor Matt knocked on I think 2,000 doors at one time span to start this church, but he said, man, I'll go first, I'll go first. Sometimes in your career, you need to find the jobs that nobody wants to do. And that's how you gain influence. I remember one of my first jobs out of college, I hated it.
Everybody had a job they've hated and I needed I wanted to get a promotion because I needed to make more money to do what I was needing to do and and I didn't know how. And I was thinking about just switching careers and the guy that discipled me said, listen Claude, why don't you do this and said, Pick the guy that's the floor manager or whatever and ask him if you can come in and shadow his job. And I'm like, you want me to work for free? You know, like you want me to come in extra? And and I talked to the floor, I was like, okay, whatever.
I talked to the floor manager, he comes in at six in the morning, know, like I'm like twenty three, I'm like that's murder, you know. I'm like this is stupid, this is the stupidest idea. So for the next week I shadow Tony, he's this big dude, He teaches me how to boot up all the servers and all this stuff for the whole like building. And you know, at the end, listen, at the end of that week, coming in every morning 05:54 five, at the end of that week, nothing had changed. So I was like, I'm gonna switch my job.
And I had this like five week break, and I I was fully planning on switching jobs. And then I got a phone call from the general manager and said, we need you to come back. And I was like, why? Need somebody answer your phone? You know, like, why?
She goes, no. Tony had a heart attack. And he's fine, but he he literally, like, next week he had, open heart surgery. He's gonna be out for six months. And he said, you're the only person who knows how to boot up the servers and start up the building in the morning.
So guess who became the new floor manager for the rest of the year, amen? Now don't pray for your boss to have a heart attack, that's not what I'm saying. But listen, if you're God, who do you think God is gonna call up? Like who do you think God is gonna promote? Passive people or prepared people?
And we spend too much time, I spend too much time wishing for some other position instead of asking God, how can I leverage the position that you put me in right now today? Nehemiah plans, he prays, he asks, but then there's sort of this hold your breath moment. And I saved the rest of verse eight because I wanted you to see what's what's gonna happen. It's either gonna be changed or he's gonna die. And the rest of verse eight says this, and the king granted me everything he asked for the good hand of my God was upon me.
Why in the world would this king say yes? You know, one of the men in my life I asked to mentor me is our executive pastor here, Dan Zombardi. He's one of the most brilliant leaders I know, one of the godliest pastors I know. And he asked me, we we talked about this and he said, Claude, I want you to tell me why does the king say yes? I'm like, that's a great question.
So for the next week, I'm just thinking, why in the world does this king say yes to this? And we came back together and he's like, Claude, have you been thinking about that? I was like, I think I know why. And he goes, tell me, you know, was it it was it something about Nehemiah? Was he just a leader?
You know, did he have woo or was he just kind of a a galvanizer? Is this something we can maybe learn as leaders? And I smiled, I was like, no. And I said, as soon as I say what it is, because it's right in front of us. And as soon as I say it, it's gonna click for you.
I said, pastor Dan, he's the cup bearer. He's the cup bearer. He lays his life down every day for this guy. And I watched pastor Dan write a whole book in his brain like as we were talking like. But listen, the cup bearer in that culture was not a temporary disposable minion.
This was like the chief bodyguard to the royal family. He's one of the most trusted people in the king's circle. A lot of times he's a part of meetings that nobody else is a part of, so he's even an advisor sometimes to the pharaoh or the king. And not only does he watch the food and watch over the cup, many times the cup bearer drinks the cup first before handing it to the king so that the king isn't assassinated. You hear what I'm saying?
Man, the Christ like path to change is not demanding others, it's dying to our self. Every day he does that, he grows in influence with this king. So our last point might be our most challenging, but it's number four. If you want change, you may have to lay down your life. Lay down your preferences.
Lay down your comfort. But I can tell you in my life, men every time I've drank the cup, I said, men I will die to my hobbies in my twenties so that I can prepare to lead my family. God's blessed it. He's brought about change. At every job I've had, when I've said, man, I will die to to my pride and I'll serve.
I'll do the job nobody wants to do. God's blessed it and he's given me influence. When I've had to go first and apologize or go first and forgive, God's changed relationships, he's blessed it. When I've had to humble myself and not worry about my image, but worry about modeling Christ for my family, sharing Christ with my friends, he's blessed it. But listen to me, influence will always cost you.
There's always death before resurrection. Last week, I met one of our high school students here at Sandals, Caden. And God, when he was a sophomore, God gave Caden a burden. He changed his life and Caden wanted to see all his friends know Jesus the way he did. And he had a burden to see a movement start at North High School of Christians.
The problem is the advisors at one point had handed over some students and then it was just two seniors and then I think it was just him. Like at one point it was just him as a sophomore going into his junior year. And and I want you to imagine, I was like, were you scared about that? Like, he goes, oh, he goes, I knew, listen to me, it was gonna cost me friends. When you're a sophomore in high school, you don't wanna lose friends, right?
And I want you to just imagine, what would it look like for you to go into North High School and start a Christian movement right now? Alright, like have you seen a high school in 2026? Dude, it's not like spit wads and somebody stole my gym shorts, know, it's grand theft auto with hormones, you know, and some algebra homework. That's what it's like. So but this student, man, he went in and he said, I'm gonna go.
I'm gonna plan. I'm gonna pray. And his first meeting, you know what? 15 students at North High School showed up to study God's word, to pray and to worship him. Isn't that amazing?
And then there were 30. And then there were 50. And then he goes, pastor Claude, then we had we had 77 come without food. I guess that's exactly what he said. We had 77 without food.
And now I gotta ask, right? I'm like, how many did you have with food? He goes, one of our last meetings we had a 130 students show up and we gave them an opportunity to receive Christ and 30 students at North High School accepted Jesus into their life. Listen to me, I needed that. I said I need to meet this student because it reminded me of what that fire looks like.
It reminded me that big things still change and that God still uses people like you and me. But sometimes God doesn't change things in history until there's a man or a woman or a high schooler that's willing to lay their life down to see change. And we follow a king. We follow a savior who he had a burden. His burden was you.
And he came to rebuild your life from the ashes so that you could build his church, build his kingdom. This is what first John three sixteen says. Now we know what love is. Jesus Christ laid down his life for us, and we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers and sisters. Jesus let go of his comfort.
Jesus went alone and went first and listen to me, Jesus drank the cup. The cup that was meant to bring death to you and me, he drank it on our behalf. But he rose again to give you life and he died for us that those who live should no longer live for ourselves, no longer live in surrender, but to live for him and live on mission with him. So I wanna end our time in just a quick time. I feel like we need to have a time of reflection.
And I want us to have a chance to hear from God. So if you don't mind, I think if you would bow your head, that would help us focus. And if you wanna close your eyes, but I wanna lead us through a quick time where we get to hear from God. God, the world needs change. And you always start with the position that we're in now.
So first God, would you reveal to us, maybe a burden that's been on our heart for a change around us. And then God, maybe even more challenging, would you ask and reveal in our hearts, is there one thing that's stopping us from going first? To open the door for your hand to work? And Lord, whatever you just spoke to the men and women who are listening to this, God, would you now remind us of your power. A follower of Jesus is never powerless.
God rebuild that faith in us that you can still do extraordinary things in this world through ordinary people like us. And God help us to go first. God rebuild us in our hope, our faith so that we can build your kingdom where it's never been. And we pray that together as a church for your glory. Amen.