shout out to our Northwest Carey family for all you guys are doing out at
Panther Creek High School. Hey, you know, it seems like in life, uh,
just about every time I commit to making a big decision for good,
it turns out a whole lot more difficult than I actually thought it was gonna be.
Not funny. You know,
I don't know if if if you're trying to lose a little bit of weight, you know,
it takes a little bit longer for the pounds to drop off than you think it
should. If you're make a decision, Hey,
now I'm going to be the world's greatest employee.
And then there's that one coworker that just won't stop talking. Uh, you say,
Hey, I'm gonna save a little bit of money, uh,
but now I gotta put new tires on the truck or,
or now I'm gonna be obedient to the specific area that I know that God is
calling me to be more obedient in my life.
And it seems like temptation is around every single corner. Uh,
I had a, my high school wrestling coach, Jerry Winterton,
which by the way was the most winningest coach ever in North Carolina history.
Uh, he said this all the time, he said,
anything in life worth having comes at a cost.
And I think we're gonna see that this week as we move into week two of our
series that we're in right now called a Fresh Start. Uh,
it's a timely series because we're at a time during the year where a lot of us
are doing some evaluation of our lives. We're trying to make some decisions,
some changes that we might wanna make, some resolutions.
And then we're in this season as a church family here at Hope,
where we're actually following God into a new day.
And so what we're doing is we're walking through the book of Nehemiah,
which is really a story of God's people, the Israelites,
when they're getting a fresh start, uh,
moving back into the land that that actually been exiled out of and years prior.
So, uh, to give a little bit of context,
and if you wanna go ahead and start turning to Nehemiah chapter two, uh,
I'll meet you there in a minute, uh, Nehemiah, in case you missed it last week,
or just as a reminder, uh, it's a time in, in history, uh,
where God has made a covenant with his people. And, and he says,
he says to the Jews, he says, I will be your God and you're gonna be my people.
And part of that covenant was he was going to deliv to deliver them to a
promised land, a land where they were gonna thrive. Uh,
this was present day Israel. And then as a part of that covenant,
they were gonna keep his commands.
They were gonna live out his plans and purposes for them,
and then they would be blessed to be a blessing to the world around them.
Everything was working fine and good.
And then what happened was they began to turn their back on the ways of God.
And even though prophets like Jeremiah and they almost told them, they said,
Hey, if you don't turn back to God, what he's gonna do,
he's going to exile you out of Judah and into captivity in
Babylon. This is the Israelites. They didn't listen.
Moral decay continue to then sure enough, God did what he said he was gonna do.
Uh, they're overthrown by the Babylon, by the Babylonians. Uh,
their city was destroyed. The temple's torn apart. The wall around the city, uh,
is burned to the ground, and then they're taken into captivity.
They're forced to live in a foreign land and they, in that foreign land,
they lose their sense of identity, uh, as to who they were as the people of God.
Uh, years later, we read in the Book of Ezra,
which is the book that precedes the book of Nehemiah,
that the Babylonians were then overthrown by the Persian Empire.
And then King Cyrus the Great made a decree during that time that the Israelites
could actually leave and go back to Judah.
And so a small portion of the Israelites actually went back to start rebuilding
the city almost a hundred years after that decree was made.
That's where we pick up in Nehemiah chapter one. Uh, Nehemiah, so you know,
it's written in the first person by Nehemiah. Uh,
he was a cupbearer to the king, we're told that. So while he was an Israelite,
he was a Jew. Uh,
he also had worked his way up into a high ranking official within the Persian
government, what a cup bearer did. Uh,
they were kinda like the first line of security detail for the king.
So anything the king was gonna eat anything the king was gonna drink,
they ate it first to make sure it wasn't poisoned. Uh, overall,
a life of luxury, right? They live in royalty,
they have proximity to and relationship with the king. So it's not a bad gig.
What we saw last week in Nehemiah chapter one was Nehemiah's brother coming back
from Judah to meet them in Suse in the Citadel.
And he gives a report of how things are going back in Israel and understand.
So as Nehemiah hears this, like he knows the context,
he knows the covenant that God had given to him, that,
that he had given to his people. They've been gone for a hundred years,
but this is the report that he gets. The remnant there, the people,
the Israelites there in the province who survived the exile is in great
trouble and shame,
the wall of Jerusalem is broken down and its gates are destroyed by fire.
So Nehemiah's thinking like,
my people have been there for almost a hundred years, like things are gonna be,
we're gonna get a positive report.
And then he gets this news and the guy's just broken over it. He's heartbroken.
It says he mourns, he fast. And you gotta understand for Nehemiah,
like this is not just about a wall, right?
Like he knew God's covenant for his people.
He understood the plans that God has for his people and what that promise meant,
and this wasn't it. And so,
without preaching my entire sermon from last week, , uh,
the bottom line was when we align our hearts with God for a fresh start, uh,
we see that our God is a God of new beginnings and fresh starts for us in our
lives.
And what we saw was four action steps that Nehemiah took to lean into that new
beginning and fresh start that God has for his people. Uh,
we saw him take inventory of the situation. Um, he asked questions.
He slowed down in the midst of his busy life and said, Hey,
what's going on with our people? Uh, it led him to brokenness.
Like he spent time thinking through the implications of what it was that he
heard. He spent time in humble prayer before God, praying for the situation,
for the circumstances.
He even recognized that like his sin and the sins of the Israelites had really
contributed to them being where they were. And then it moved them to act.
Chapter one closed out, as you could see, Nehemiah like realized,
I'm the cup bearer to the king. I have been placed here for such a time as this.
And it actually ends with him praying that God would give him favor as he goes
before the king. So he makes a decision, uh,
as we've talked about already,
when you make a decision for something worth having,
like day one's kind of an easy day, right? Tomorrow's gonna start.
But what happens after day one, I mean day two obviously,
but usually with that comes the challenge of what it is that we're walking into.
So we're gonna pick up Nehemiah chapter two verse one. It says,
in the month of Nassan, in the 20th year of King Art of Xerxes,
when the wine was before him. So he's the cup bearer,
he's bringing wine to the king. I took up the wine and I gave it to the king.
Now, I had not been sad in his presence. So he's saying up until this point,
I hadn't been sad in the presence of the king.
Give you a little background here. The month of Nisan,
it's the first month of the Jewish calendar,
still in the 20th year of King Art of Xerxes.
That's where we were in chapter one.
But that's important because when Nehemiah first heard the news,
it said that it was the month of iff,
which is the ninth month of the Jewish calendar.
So this like he gets at this moment in time,
it's four months after he originally heard the news.
And so what that tells us is that while Nehemiah knew that God had moved in
his heart to actually act,
he also knew it wasn't his place to actually outrun the pace that God was
moving. You know,
so many times in our lives we get this holy discontent or something,
we kind of get a spur, so to speak, and we think, man, it's time to act now.
But what we see here from Nehemiah is that when we align with God for a fresh
start, we, we've gotta trust in God's timing. And for a lot of us, man,
that's the first obstacle. Like, God, I've, God's called me into this.
I've made a decision. I'm gonna pursue something new,
but it's not happening as fast as I want to.
And I want you to know like God is faithful to the ones who are patient
and who trust in his timing. And, uh,
there's stories all throughout God's word of people who have actually waited on
God's timing. And so I'm gonna read through a couple of 'em,
I'm gonna share a couple of 'em with you.
If you're hearing this and you're like, man, I don't know what the Bible says,
I don't know who any of those people are, that's okay, just come back.
'cause we try to teach through 'em and uh, we'll walk through 'em. But if,
you know, these are good reminders, uh, of people who had to wait on the Lord,
Abraham and Sarah,
they waited 25 years from the time that God promised them a child.
Abraham was 75 years old. Uh, Sarah was 65,
so that means that he was a hundred and Sarah was 90 when they were given their,
their son Isaac Joseph. He was sold into slavery by his brothers,
then falsely accused by Potiphar's wife of making a move on her.
And so it was 13 years before he saw vindication and a blessing from God.
Moses, one of the, the greatest leaders, uh,
of the Israelites ever in the desert for 40 years before God called him into
leading them out of Egypt. Then he waited another 40 years in the wilderness,
in the desert, uh, before they actually went into the Promised Land.
And then on top of that,
Moses didn't even get to go into the Promised Land with God's people,
king David. He was anointed king as a shepherd boy.
But he spent years fleeing for his life from King Saul.
He actually had a chance to kill Saul himself, and he didn't because he said,
listen, I'm not gonna outrun God. I'm not gonna touch the Lord's anointed.
He trusted in God's timing. Hannah waited for a child.
Jacob waited seven years and a week to marry Rachel. That's a crazy story.
Should read it sometime. Uh, the Israelites, they spent 70 years in Babylon.
We're talking about that right now. The disciples waited on the Holy Spirit.
But what I wanna see here is family doing things the right way
before God following his plans and purposes. It, it,
it always means trusting in God's timing.
And this isn't even like the point of this whole sermon, but,
but I think some of us, we need to hear this
like God does something in the waiting in our lives.
He positions us in the waiting. He, he prepares us in the waiting.
Like when God gives you a,
a vision of the preferred future of where you're supposed to be and you think
you're supposed to be all there, be there already.
Like you start seeing things that you would do,
things that you would do differently. He prepares us. Uh,
we learn that our ambitions aren't important as God's plans.
We learned faith and God's sovereignty. We learned how to pray, how to fast,
which by the way,
Nehemiah said that he had been praying and fasting day and night. Okay?
Remember, it's been four months.
Like sometimes we can't wait four minutes right before we need to say the thing
that we know that we need to say. And spoiler alert here, uh,
when we get to chapter six,
we're gonna see that the wall does actually get rebuilt. Uh,
it takes 52 days for them to rebuild the wall. That's it.
So the Israelites have been back there for a hundred years. Uh,
the wall has not been rebuilt yet, and it gets done in 52 days.
Nehemiah spent more time waiting and praying and fasting than
it actually took for God to get the wall built.
And I just wonder how many times in our lives, man, do we say, you know what?
We gotta get after it. We gotta get after it. When's it gonna get done?
What would our lives look like if we just took a step back and just realized
maybe, maybe I need to spend a bit more time praying and fasting before God?
Oftentimes with God, it,
it's more about what he wants to do in us through the waiting than what it is
that he wants to provide for us. After the waiting,
like there's just something to realizing that the process is greater than the
destination. So when we align our hearts with God for a fresh start,
we've gotta trust God in his timing.
So we waited four months for God to provide just the right moment, okay? Uh,
verse two, it says, and the king said to me,
remember he said he hadn't been sad in the presence of the king. He says,
why is your face sad seeing that you're not sick?
This is nothing but sadness of the heart. So the king recognizes like,
there's something going on, like you're sad what's going on?
And if you're Nehemiah, you've gotta be thinking,
I have prayed about this for four months. I've fasted,
I've waited for the moment. There's an opportunity coming. What does he do?
Then I was very much afraid.
You ever been at that moment where, you know, like, I've gotta do something,
I've gotta say something. You probably have the conversation with yourself in,
in your head, and then you get there.
Here's the moment he says, I said to the king, let the king live forever,
just giving glory and honor to, to the king respecting the king.
Why should my face not be sad when the city,
the place of my father's graves lies and ruins and its gates have been destroyed
by fire. So lets him know what's going on. He's honest with them.
Verse four, then the king said to me,
I love the king doesn't have a lot of time, right? Really direct.
What are you requesting? So I look at this,
the king asked him, what are you requesting? He doesn't answer him.
Could you say that again? I'm, no, I can't say that again. Hold on.
Let's do what I thought I already did.
Make sure this thing's turned off for those listening on a podcast, uh,
my watch decided to talk right in the middle of a message, clearly very curious,
Linda. And that's great. He doesn't answer him right away. Look what it says.
He says, the king asked, what are you requesting? He said,
so I prayed to the God of heaven.
We can't miss like Nehemiah praying without ceasing.
He clearly understands that this is a God thing, not a Nehemiah thing.
And how many times in our life, again,
do we see this thing that we gotta chase after when we make it a little bit more
about us and a little bit less about God,
but he prays to the God of heaven. And then after he prays, verse five, he says,
and I said to the king, if it pleases the king,
and if your servant has found favor in your sight that you send me to Judah,
the city of my father's graves, that I may rebuild it.
This is a man that knows what he needs to do.
He knows what God's called him to do.
But you gotta listen to his humility. He didn't say, Hey, yeah,
thanks for asking. I'm gonna do this. No matter what he says, I'm,
I'm trusting the authority that God's placed over me. Ne Nehemiah says,
if it pleases the king, Nehemiah knew that,
that God could work in the king's heart. You know, the Psalms tell us that,
that God can guide the hearts of kings like rivers.
So the king responds, he says to me,
with the queen sitting beside him asks him a question,
how long will you be gone and when will you return?
So it please the king to send me when I gave him the time? So the kink says yes,
right? He says, Nehemiah ask. He says, yes, go build the city.
And you would think like, okay, that was it.
Nehemiah wanted to go build the city,
but this is a man that's like sat in prayer. He is a man that is convicted.
And so we saw a guy a moment ago that was kind of afraid even to ask the
question, he's sensing the favor of God. He doesn't stop. Verse seven, he says,
so then I said to the king, if it pleases the king, let the letters be give,
let letters be given to me,
to the governors of the province beyond the river that they may let me pass
through until I come to Judah. And a letter to asap,
the keeper of the king's forest,
that he may give me timber to make beams for the gates of the fortress,
of the temple, for the wall of the city, and for the house that I shall occupy.
It's like he just stuck that one in. Like,
I wanna go rebuild the temple and I wanna rebuild the wall and I'm maybe gonna
build myself a house there.
And the king granted me what I asked for.
The good hand of my God was upon me. Notice he doesn't say,
'cause I gave a great speech. He didn't say 'cause I compelled him. He said,
the king gave me what I asked because God's hand was on me
plenty to talk about here. Uh, if we had more time. But I,
we gotta see like how the favor of God keeps coming.
I also wanna take a minute and just recognize like this is about the plans and
the purposes of God for his people and what he wants to do in the world.
What you see here is sometimes the plans and the purposes of God require
resources. Um,
there's been some times quite regularly recently in our worship services where,
um, we've actually, uh, taken time during our worship time, uh,
to to explain, um, generosity and giving as a part of our worship.
And we've done that for, in part because of this,
like to do and to live out the plans and purposes of God.
Sometimes it requires resources. That's really like a small part of it. Uh,
a large part of it is because the Bible tells us we're created in the image of a
generous God and part of our discipleship and becoming more like Jesus has
recognized, we have been blessed to be a blessing.
Everything that we have in our lives has been given to us by God.
And we are called by God in generosity, uh, to give that back. And you,
you see this lived out here.
But I I tell you that not because I'm trying to really tell you that.
What I want to tell you is at our Christmas services,
at our Christmas Eve services, at our Christmas walkout offerings,
we told all of you, we said,
this year everything that comes in is gonna go to our Benevolence
Ministries here at Hope.
It's gonna go serve right back into the local community.
And so it's gonna go to pay for things like rent for people that don't have it,
to, to pay for light bills, to put food, uh, in the pantry,
to put food on the table. It's gonna go to, to,
to provide resources for and to support women who've been rescued out of human
trafficking situations locally.
I just wanna celebrate across all of our campuses right now,
the generosity of those who showed up.
$65,000 came in across all of our campuses on Christmas Eve.
I mean that to a degree, like that's God's favor,
but that's also people recognizing man, for,
for God's plans and purposes to move forward. Like we,
it's gonna require resources.
But what I don't want us to miss here is the faithfulness of God and the favor
of God. But I want to ask you a question.
Don't you think that Nehemiah's faithfulness to what God had in front of him for
years as the cup bearer,
and don't you think that time that he spent praying and fasting had quite a bit
to do with the favor that he saw in that moment? And again,
I'm telling you, I I was so convicted in this message,
but how much time do I really spend in prayer and in fasting for the things that
I believe that God is calling myself into as a husband, as a dad, as a man,
and then even as a church? So the king says go,
so he sets all for Jerusalem.
That was day two was really like day one of month four. But like,
that's a hard day, right? You gotta have a hard conversation.
Clearly day three things are gonna get easy. Verse nine,
then I came to the governor. So he's leaving. He's got the letters,
he's got everything he needs.
Then I came to the governors of the province beyond the river,
and I gave them the king's letters. Now,
the king had also sent me with officers of the army and horsemen,
but when Samba, the Horror Night and Tobiah, the Ammonite servant heard this,
it displeased them greatly that someone had come to seek the welfare of the
people of Israel. So these are like political leaders, some other folks,
they're in the region.
You ever tried to do something for good and then for some reason,
like everybody around you didn't love it. Um,
you got Nehemiah here willing to risk everything that he has to go before the
king, you know, to risk everything that he, he has for God's people,
for this covenant that he believes in, that he knows God has given to them.
And now there's some people who are greatly displeased. This is the, um,
the old theological concept that, um,
hater's gonna hate. Like that's what this is right here.
You see it plain and simply. And I'm telling you,
when you step out in life to pursue something good,
whether it's for yourself or if it's for the greater good for the world around
you, especially if it's something different, you are gonna face naysayers.
Like it's gonna be hard. It's, and it makes sense, right?
A lot of times when we're doing that, they probably haven't heard from God.
Like you have,
like you might be calling them into something that's not the status quo for
them, what you're doing.
It might impact them in a way that that might concern them a bit about their
security. And that's really what's going on here in this situation.
These two guys, samba Tobias,
like this is going to impact their political influence in the region.
If this city gets built back up and is safe and secure,
they're not gonna have all the power and the influence that they have.
But sometimes it's not even for selfish reasons, right? I mean, just as humans,
we don't like change.
And so you just gotta know when you're trying to get a fresh start,
when you're stepping out into this new beginning.
When we align with God's heart for a fresh start,
we have to trust in God's calling over man's rumblings.
We have to, 'cause it's gonna happen. His journey continues. Verse 11.
So I went to Jerusalem, so he gets there, I was there three days,
then I arose in the night, I and a few men with me,
and I told no one what my God had put into my heart to do
for Jerusalem. Quick lesson here. Uh,
sometimes there's wisdom in holding onto what it is that God's told you and just
keeping it between you and him. Uh, you'll know when it's time.
This is something that, um, just, just being honest with you as a leader, like,
uh, this is something I need to work on. . Like, you,
you hear something before God sometimes and you just wanna start running and you
haven't really talked about a plan yet.
You haven't really gotten people there and not to mention you. Again,
you can start to outrun God. Like if,
if you're married and you believe that God reveals something to you and his
grace and mercy that needs to change about your spouse,
I would encourage you to pray about that for them more that you talk to them
about it .
Like if you've got a coworker or a boss or somebody that works for you and
there's some things you need, like I would encourage you,
pray for them more than you talk to them. I heard someone say one time,
it's hard to hear the whisper of the Holy Spirit if you've got someone yelling
in your ear. So we just,
just recognize that like the, the guy's wise, he's using wisdom.
You see the patience of Nehemiah. So he's investigating again,
he's taking inventory of the situation. It goes on. He says,
there was no animal with me, but the one on which I wrote on, um,
I think it would've been easier there just to say I was riding on a horse,
but that's fine. Uh, verse 13, it says,
I went out by night by the valley gate to the dragon spring.
You can guess what that is. Uh, and to the dung gate,
I'm pretty certain you know what that is.
And I inspected the walls of Jerusalem, listen,
that were broken down and it's gates that have been destroyed by fire.
So to this point,
Nehemiah had really only heard about the walls being torn down in the rubble
that was now Judah, right? He heard about it and he broke down.
He mourned, but now he's seeing it face to face. He's,
and I just want you to kind of imagine the scene he's going through on a
horseback and this once prosperous,
but now ruined city with these broken down and burned and
busted stones all over the place.
And you're there because you know that God has a plan for this city to thrive.
Like your forefathers lived there and,
and everyone who lived here lived in prosperity.
And you're here to rebuild the wall,
but you're most likely tempted to be overwhelmed by the work that needs to be
done.
And I'm certain that there's a lot of us to find ourselves in places
where we think, man, I know there's a lot of work to be done.
Maybe it's in our own personal lives, but we look around and we think, man, I,
there's just too much broken around me.
Like I don't even really know if I can get this put back together.
You're probably tempted to think,
is there any way that we can see this thing be rebuilt?
But what Nehemiah understood was when we align with God for a fresh start,
we have to trust that God is bigger than the brokenness.
We're gonna see brokenness around us in our lives.
We've gotta trust that God's bigger because he believes that Nehemiah stays the
course. You get to verse 14, then I went onto the fountain gate,
into the king's pool,
but there was no room for the animal that was under me to pass.
Then I went up and the night by the valley and I inspected the wall and I turned
back and I entered by the valley gate and so returned verse 16.
And the officials did not know where I had gone or what I was doing.
And I had not listened to this. I had not yet told the Jews, the priests,
the nobles, the officials, and the rest who were to do the work.
So we hadn't told anyone.
You gotta understand, Nehemiah is now aware of the work that's ahead of him.
Like he's seen it. He,
he knows that he's been called to be a part of the solution.
He's trusted in God's timing.
He's recognized that God's calling is greater than the rumblings. Uh, he,
he's believing that God is bigger than the brokenness,
but right now is the time for him to call God's people into what it is that
he has for them. This is a big moment. Now listen,
I don't know what Nehemiah looks like.
I don't know what the intensity of which he speaks,
but like this is a big moment. And so when I'm thinking through it,
we already know he is on a horse. Uh,
I'm kind of thinking like Mel Gibson and Braveheart kind of thing.
And yeah, this is communications team got a picture. That's great.
You don't have to think about that if you want to, but it works for me.
So that's what I'm gonna go with. You get to verse 17.
Nehemiah is here at this moment. It says, then I said to them,
you see the trouble that we're in how Jerusalem lies and ruins with its gates
burned, come let us build the wall of Jerusalem that we may no longer suffer.
Derision. Full transparency.
I had to do a word study on derision in English and in Hebrew, um,
I can't remember the last time that I used it in a sentence,
but it means ridicule or mockery.
And it speaks to the shame that we talked about in chapter one,
that God's people felt because they knew they were not where they were supposed
to be in light of God's plan and purpose. For them,
they were supposed to be the light of the world.
The the world was supposed to look to them and to see the glory of God.
But all you see is their world around them broken and in ruins.
What are he saying? He's like, he's saying, we were made for more than this.
You get to verse 18, and he says,
I told them of the hand of my God that had been upon me for good and also the
words that the king had spoken to me. And they said,
let us rise up and build.
So they strengthened their hands for the good work. Nehemiah says, listen,
you guys don't understand. God's been working.
He's made it clear to me like God is in this thing.
The king is behind this thing. We have found favor with God and with man.
And the people look at one another and they say, let's do this thing.
And you're gonna see next week what can happen when God's people actually come
together and everybody plays their part. And I told you last week,
when we assign, when we align ourselves with God's heart for a fresh start,
there's nothing that can stand against it. So you're gonna start building.
This is where it gets easy, right? Verse 19,
here come the haters again. But when samba, the hor knight and Toba,
the Ammonites, the servant and gem, the Arab heard of it,
they jeered at us and despised us. And this is what they said.
What is this thing that you're doing? Are you rebelling against the king?
They're really doing is like they're gospel. I mean, they're not,
they're not rebelling against the king.
They actually have documents given to them by the king. But if you notice,
the temptation in that moment would be like to get defensive. He say, no, no,
no. I I actually have papers from the king. I'm not doing that.
He doesn't even worry about that. Look what he does. He goes right above that.
He says, I reply to him. This isn't about papers, this isn't about anything.
The God of heaven will make us prosper and we,
his servants will arise and build.
But you have no portion or right or claim in Jerusalem.
You know what Nehemiah knew? Nehemiah understood. If my God is for me,
nothing can stand against me.
Nothing can stand against what it was that God has for them.
Now the story continues next week and uh,
that's when they're gonna start building the wall.
But I wanna talk this week about how this applies to us.
You know, you can read a story like this, like there's so many stories,
especially in the Old Testament,
and you can read through them and you can find practical application.
We can say, here's what Nehemiah did. And so we apply that to our lives and,
and we do what he did. Um,
so the principle is the application for this is when we align with God for a
fresh start, we have to trust in God's timing. How are you doing?
How are you doing in the waiting? Are you trusting in God's timing?
Are you trying to outpace God?
We see things like when we align with God for a fresh start,
we have to trust in God's calling over man's rumblings.
How are you doing with that? When you hear the naysayers,
does it make you doubt? 'cause if you do,
what I would encourage with you,
you probably haven't spent enough time in prayer before God.
'cause I'm telling you, when you hear from the creator of the universe,
the things other people say, man, they pale in comparison. See,
when we align with God for a fresh start,
we have to trust that God is bigger than the brokenness around us in our lives.
Do you believe that? And all of those apply,
all of those are real. But the truth is,
this isn't really a story about us.
This is a story about God. And we need to understand,
like for us to be a biblically sound church family that can,
that understands what God's word says so that we can appropriately love God and
appropriately follow Jesus and appropriately share hope.
We have to understand that,
that the Bible is for us like it was given to us. The Bible is for us,
but it's not about us. The Bible is a story about God.
What this means is like Nehemiah isn't even about Nehemiah.
Nehemiah is about God's faithfulness to his promises and his covenant with
his people.
Nehemiah just so happens to be a man that God worked in and worked through.
And as the story of God continues to unfold in the New Testament,
we see this new covenant come to life. God, through Jesus,
he makes a way for every man and woman and student to become a part of the
family of God.
And the reality is just like the wall around the city was left with broken
stones and rubble.
0: Uh.
9: There's a lot of brokenness around us in our lives and our personal life
and our church and our community. But through Jesus,
this new covenant with this plan and purpose that involves all of us,
like God's heart is for the earth to experience God's kingdom and blessing.
And what that means is to experience a people that actually know what God's word
says and lives it out in the world around us. And one day,
and we talked about this during the advent season,
Jesus is gonna come back to earth and he's gonna reestablish a new heaven and a
new earth. And you wanna talk about rebuilding a city,
he's gonna build a new city.
And what we see in Nehemiah is really a symbol of what God wants to do in
our lives, what he wants to do in our church, what he wants to do in our world.
But what it takes is men and women and students who are willing to align with
God's heart for a fresh start.
And I know that some of you, you're in a place of waiting on God's timing.
I know a lot of us are looking around at the brokenness and saying,
That's too far gone. Some of you're saying the the opposition's too strong.
And what I want you to know is 2000 years ago,
Jesus went to a cross and he died for our sins.
And he rose from the grave overcoming sin and death.
And just like Nehemiah said,
the God of heaven will make us prosper and we as his servants will arise and
build. Jesus said something very similar in the New Testament.
He said to Peter in Matthew chapter 16, he said,
upon this rock and that rock that he's talking about is the declaration of the
gospel, that Jesus is the Messiah.
He said he would build his church and the gates of hell wouldn't stand against
it.
And you still might think you're too broken.
You might think your life is too much in shambles,
But I don't think that it's a coincidence. And I was blown away by this,
this week that in Nehemiah,
he rebuilds this wall with broken down burn stones.
And Jesus says in the New Testament, first Peter chapter two, verse four,
Peter says, as you come to him, as you come to Jesus, as we come to Jesus,
a living stone rejected by men. So we're a living stone that's rejected.
What that means is like, uh,
a stone that's rejected by a builder is a stone that's too imperfect to use.
It's too broken,
it's too beat up as you come to him as a living stone rejected by men.
But in the sight of God chosen and precious,
you yourselves, like living stones are being built into a spiritual house.
Like that's the story that we're called into as the family of God.
You're not too broken.
Jesus is the only one who takes broken,
beat up lives and brings healing and restoration and strength to the ones who
call in there on his name. And if you've never do, if you've never done that,
if you've never called on the name of Jesus,
I beg you to call on the name of Jesus and to believe in the gospel.
And then what he wants to do is he wants to take those lives and he works,
wants to work in those lives,
and he wants to work through those lives just like he did Nehemiah to see his
plans and his purposes and his kingdom, uh,
coming to life for the world around us
church family.
My hope and my prayer is that we would align with God's heart for a fresh start
and our lives that we would align with God's heart, uh, for,
for a fresh start in our community and in our church.
And just like the Israelites did that we would stand together and we would say,
let us rise together and build.
You Pray with me. Father, I want to thank you for,
I wanna thank you for your words. I wanna thank you for that.
We can go to Nehemiah chapter two
and that we can see a very clear picture of our need to put trust in your
timing, that we can see a very clear picture that that,
that we can expect there to be opposition from other people when you call us
into something, Lord, that we can expect to know that, that in this life, Lord,
we are going to be broken. There is going to be brokenness around us. But Lord,
just like Nehemiah used broken stones to rebuild a wall around a
city, you have promised that you will use us,
that you will take us broken just as we are,
and you will build us into the men and the women and the students that, that,
that you have called us to be.
And that this world desperately needs to experience the kingdom of God.
Lord, I pray that we would be a church that would,
that would willingly accept the goodness and the grace and the mercy and the
calling that you have placed on our lives. Lord,
we love you and we pray all these things in the mighty name of Jesus.
And everyone said, amen.
0: Amen.