Nehemiah: A Faithful Servant of God (Jake Enns)

I've titled our sermon this morning, Nehemiah, a faithful

servant of God, a commentator that is pastors we agree on to

use to kind of keep things In Sync with the sermons is a

commentary on Nehemiah by writer TJ Betts.

And he begins the part on that. We're going to speak this

morning on out of Isaiah chapter 40, verse 31.

Isaiah 40:31

He says, But those who wait on the Lord shall renew their

strength. They shall mount up with wings

like eagles. They shall run and not be weary.

They shall walk and not faint. To me that's always been a very

special verse and part of the reason is that special is the

waiting part. To wait in faith is often the

hardest thing to do in life. Sometimes a person gets old.

Well, do something already, do something already.

And, and may be true. Sometimes that's the case.

We need to do something already and sometimes it's just we need

to get our act together and start going.

But sometimes the hardest thing is to not do something.

The hardest thing sometimes is to wait, to be patient, to allow

time to run its course, just to wait.

Waiting is not easy, especially us Westerners in North America.

Everything is instant now, today, and we have to have it

all today in our culture especially never fast enough or

soon enough. I, for one, like things fast and

quick. I like to see things happen now,

but it's not always God's way of doing things.

Last Sunday, Pastor Joe began our series that we're going

through now in Nehemiah, the people of Israel had been in

captivity for many, many years. They had gotten taken prisoner

to King Nebuchadnezzar, and this is well way over 100 years

before that. Nebuchadnezzar had taken Judea,

the the land of Palestine, the southern part.

The people of Judah had been taken captive at the 70 year

mark of their captivity at the land of Babylon was under

different rulership. The Persians had taken over.

King Cyrus was king at the time and he made an offer and the the

hand of God guided him and they could now go back to their

homeland. They now didn't have to be

captives anymore if they didn't want to be.

They could now all go home. Some did, many didn't.

But those who came back to Palestine, it's a long journey.

It takes months of travel on foot, actually, if you just walk

the distance. They had walked back home and

they came to a very devastated place.

It was desolate that things were not good.

We've heard some of that last Sunday already.

But just to recap a little bit, the the place where they came to

was basically in ruins and also inhabited partially by other

foreign people who were not there before, before they were

taken captive. And these foreigners who had

settled in Palestine, in the area, in Jerusalem, in the area,

they didn't like the Jews. And so here come these Jews

intent on rebuilding this ancient city.

And they didn't like that. And so if you read book of Ezra,

they sent petitions back to Babylon.

And these Jews that are coming back, they're starting this

rebuild the city. It's going to be trouble.

And it got halted, it got stalled and so on.

And the years, just decades rolled by.

Nothing happened. Nothing took, nothing happened.

And not everybody had gone to do it back home from Babylon

either. There was a lot of people who'd

stayed in Babylon and they had had children.

They had raised families and people lived in Babylon who had

never been to Judea. They were they were grown and

raised in Babylon, but they were still Jews.

In all of this. There's a man who comes on the

scene. His name is Nehemiah, and he was

the leader, the one who would rebuild the walls of this

ancient city. And that's the story of Nehemiah

and how that rebuilding project unfolded is a very interesting

story of how God provided in hard times when things looked so

hopeless. As Pastor Joe mentioned last

Sunday in his sermon, the hopelessness that was there and

how he prayed and through faith he got to work, it was not good.

Outwardly, things looked very hopeless.

And Nehemiah, as a Jew living in Babylon, he was serving the king

Arctic Xerxes in a very high entrusted position.

He didn't, he really wouldn't have had any need to actually

pay any attention to what was going on back home.

Or maybe I don't know if he hadn't been even been there.

He just heard about what was there some, some of his family

or relations come from there and told him, hey, it's, it's bad

over there and he's grieving. He's mourning, He's praying and

he doesn't like it. He's deeply grieved.

He's mourning, but he could have had a different approach.

You know what? I've never been there.

Or maybe he has never been there.

Maybe he was there. I don't know.

But you know what? That's so far away.

It's weeks of travel. I'm not going to touch them.

I'm. I'm secure here.

I got my job with the king. But Nehemiah did what many

Saints before him have done. And Saints do.

They still do today. Still do.

He prayed. And last time we heard how he

prayed, it's actually a time period of about four months.

Four months went by that he didn't do anything.

As far as we know, he just prayed.

We're not told he did anything other than pray in regards to

the problem back in his home country.

You see, let's be real here. To pray is one thing, but to

just pray, that's an entirely different matter.

I'm not saying just praying is all we should do, but that's

where we need to start and our and our time today we face the

temptation to do everything else but pray.

You see, often we learned a lot about a person, but what they do

not do. We learned a lot about a

person's life by observing what's missing in their lives.

Prayer wasn't missing, not Nehemiah's life.

He was grieved at what's going on.

But note what we also do not find.

So here's these guys from Judea. They've come and said, hey, it's

bad back there, it's bad back home and said he's brought walls

broken down, gates burned with fire.

It's not good. You know what he admired did not

do? He didn't start writing letters

to the government. We don't find he wrote any

letters, but he wouldn't have had to.

He's the King's cup bearer. The guy gives the king the cup.

He doesn't start playing politics.

He doesn't start the movement, get support.

We got to have a fundraising program for this ministry.

Want to start? He's consumed with grief.

What's happened, why it happened, And if you read the

prayer again, I'm referring back to that Sunday.

It's such an amazing prayer. I trust you read it last week.

Such an amazing prayer. And he prayed for four months.

As far as we know, he wanted something done, but that's how

he got to work by praying. There's a lesson for us in this.

I'd say to us as a church, it behooves us to learn from

Nehemiah in some way. We all too have to decide how

we're going to face various challenges in our lives.

Do we first spend time in prayer, waiting on God?

Or do we just go rush ahead, take charge, take control, just

go to work and then ask questions later and hope things

work out? And if worst comes to worst, we

can still pray. We must fight the temptation,

just rush ahead without having first waited on the Lord.

It's our duty, our privilege, to pray and seek first God's face

and to see what He has in store for us.

You see, sometimes in life we face circumstances where we feel

as if we can only pray. And I'm not saying that's wrong.

Sometimes all we can do is pray. But we should pray before that's

all we can do. Sometimes the only thing we

should be doing is praying, period, and let God do the rest.

Nehemiah prayed and things began to change, and it's not any

initiative that he was taking. It was God working through the

circumstances and God got things going.

As we will go through the sermon series, you'll find a lot about,

I'll find a lot about about Nehemiah and it's so relevant to

us today. He's a man of integrity.

What you saw on the outside was what actually was on the inside,

because what was the inside was coming onto the outside.

He was a man of courage and strength.

He didn't allow circumstances to dictate to him what he was going

to do. He had trust.

He put his trust in God that God would intervene in the

situations that they were going through.

He was a man of trust in hard times, that God would intervene

in his time. He had confidence in hard times.

He looked to God to see him through.

It was hard. He wept, he prayed, but God used

him powerfully. It was his faith in God and

trusting in God to do the right thing.

That connection, that relationship that kept him close

to God and God used him to actually go to Jerusalem and

work and complete the temple. I mean the the wall around

Jerusalem. Want to read for this morning

chapter 2, verse one to 10 out of Nehemiah.

Nehemiah chapter 2, beginning verse one and through verse 10.

Nehemiah 2 · chapter mention

And it came to pass in the morning of Nissan, in the 20th

year of king Arctic Xerxes, when wine was before him, that I took

the wine and gave it to the king.

Now I had never been sad in his presence before.

Therefore the king said to me, Why is your face sad?

Since you're not sick? This is nothing but sorrow of

heart. So I became dreadfully afraid

and said to the king, May the king live forever.

Why should my face not be sad when the city, the place of my

father's tombs, lies waste, and its gates are burned with fire?

And the king said to me, What do you request?

So I pray to the Lord, to the God of heaven.

And I said to the king, If it pleases the king, and if your

servant has found favour in your sight, I ask that you send me to

Judah, to the city of my father's tombs, that I may

rebuild it. Then said the king.

Then the king said to me, the queen also sitting beside him,

How long will your journey be, and when will you return?

So please the king to send me, and I set him a time.

Furthermore, I said to the king, If it pleases the king, let

letters be given to me for the governors of the region beyond

the river, that they must permit me to pass through till I come

to Judah. In a letter to Asaph, the keeper

of the King's forest, that he must give me timber to make

beams for the gates of the citadel which pertains to the

temple, for the city wall, and for the house that I will

occupy. And the king granted them to me,

according to the good hand of my God upon me.

Then I went to the governors in the region beyond the river and

gave them the King's letters. Now the king had sent captains

of the army and horsemen with me.

When Sanballat the Horror Night and Tobiah the Ammonite official

heard of it, they were deeply disturbed that a man had come to

seek the well-being of the children of Israel.

What a story. This is just a small slice of

the book, but what a story. What a sequence of events.

It starts with courage and hard times.

So the first what we see is Nehemiah showed faith through

courage. You know that courage is a

choice. I say that carefully, but it is

a choice. Courage does not mean the

absence of trouble or fear even, but we decide to do things that

are hard based on what we trust God will do, and that's courage.

He did not take a backseat approach at all.

You know a lot of people, as soon as it gets a bit rough and

bumpy and difficult and challenging, well, I'm out of

here. I'm done, I'm finished.

Walk away. When Nehemiah got the bad news

from Jerusalem. Oh, oh, oh, thank God.

I'm I'm, I'm in a good place right now.

I don't have to worry about that.

No, none of that. He prayed.

There's a phrase in chapter 1, the last verse of chapter 1.

I believe it's verse 11 here. Let me just go back there

quickly. Chapter chapter one, verse 11

and it says here I'll just read the verse.

O Lord, please let your ear be attentive to the prayer of your

servant and to the prayer of your servants.

Who here it is desire to fear your name?

Who desire to fear your name? Is that our desire to fear God's

name because that's what sees him through the rest of it?

Is it my desire to fear God's name?

Is it your desire to fear God's name?

Or whose name do I desire to fear?

I suggest that's the key connection running through the

heart of the book. That's why Nehemiah does what he

does. He wants to fear God regardless

of where he is. And then God worked through his

prayers. The king got motivated, the

King's heart was touched and everything started falling into

place. From a human perspective, what

was going on in back home in the city of his forefathers?

He could have simply said, you know what?

It's no concern of mine. I got my career in Babylon

serving the king as a cupbearer. My job is here.

Why would I give that up? Good retirement plan, good

security, good house, no doubt. That was a very high position,

by the way. You couldn't get better than

that in terms of, you know, think about it, being the King's

cupbearer. He saw the king in the morning

for breakfast, for lunch, for supper.

No doubt he always handed the king the cup, because the

cupbearer was the guy who had to taste the wine, make sure it

wasn't poison, because if somebody died, it would be him,

not the king. Nehemiah is willing to give all

that up. His heart is back home, where

there was so much need, so much pain and desolation.

He realized the problem, he acknowledged the problem, He

prayed about the problem. Then he owned the problem

without having to. That's a huge deal.

But in this case, the the king notices in the early part of the

chapter that he's sad, and he hadn't meant to be sad.

No doubt he didn't go to the king saying, look, I'll wear a

long face. Maybe the king will say why are

you unhappy? And then I will get some

attention. The commentator suggests that

this was a very dangerous position to be in when the king

is saying you're sad. The king had no idea because the

king could interpret this negatively.

The king would say, OK, uh oh, this guy is not stable.

He's mentally unbalanced or whatever's going on with him.

We've got to get rid of him. And of course, they would kill

him because he can't have a guy who's with the king every day

out in the public without supervision.

He has to be controlled. And so just kill him.

Those were some things that did happen in those days.

So it was very nice to be close to the king as long as things

were good. But if they were not good, it

was just as bad to be with the king.

Well, let's go through this verse by verse.

It says, and it came to pass in the month of Nissan, in the 20th

year of Arctic searches, when wine was before, and that I took

the wine and gave it to the king.

Now I had never been sad in his presence before.

Therefore the king said to me, Why is your face sad?

Since you're not sick, there's nothing but sorrow of heart.

So I became what? Dreadfully afraid?

Dreadfully afraid doesn't sound courageous, does it?

But as I said, courage does not mean that there's no sense of

fear. We may be afraid of doing some

things because we know the consequences, what they might

bring, but that should not stop us if it's the right thing to

do. The position Nehemiah held was a

very good position, also very dangerous position.

Both the king notices he's sad and notice to Jeremiah

Nehemiah's responses to the king, he says and said to the

king, may the king live forever. So he's dreadfully afraid.

And he says to the king, may the king live forever.

Why should my face not be sad when the city, the place of my

father's tombs by his waste and its gates are burned with fire?

Here Nehemiah is revealing a lot about himself that maybe Arctic

Circus has known that Nehemiah was a Jew.

He maybe did or didn't know, I don't know.

But he's revealing his heart. That's always a sensitive thing

to do. He told the king what was

hurting him, what was bothering him.

But it's interesting also that he does not mention the name of

Jerusalem. Commentator that I read

mentioned made the point and said that he says the city of my

father's tombs. The word Jerusalem was not a

good name, especially in the Babylonian higher circles of

power. And why?

Because they had been such a rebellious or such an obstinate

city when they first wanted to take over that part of the

world, God had told the kings of Judah, look, you're going to be

captured. You're going to be taken

prisoner, captors of war, because you've disobeyed me.

And the Babylonians will come and take it.

While they fought, they fought hard.

And of course it was a very difficult situation.

And of course the Jews lost, and Nebuchadnezzar came and took

them and they tore down the temple.

They destroyed the city, tore down the walls.

And here's now Nehemiah and said that's what's making me sad.

Of course, many, many years later, but the records were

still there. The history wasn't erased.

Now many years later, says Nehemiah says that's the place

of my father's tombs and it's waste, It's lies waste.

It's gates are burned with fire. And that makes me sad.

It grieved him still over all these years later.

No doubt King Antarctic Circus knew all that history, all the

victorious bads against them. And here's Nehemiah, a Jew,

telling the king, that's the cause of my grief.

That's not exactly something that would go over too well.

And he was dreadfully afraid, but he didn't shrink back from

telling the king what was going on.

And here it's the pivot. The king said, oh, oh, Nehemiah,

you're done. We're not having a cup.

Bear for me with that kind of a person.

We're not doing that, but Nehemiah had prayed, he had

trusted God and verse 4 is such a special verse.

It says, and then the king said to me, what do you request?

Notice the next line right there.

So I pray to the God of heaven. So I prayed, we don't know how

much time elapsed minutes, I don't know, doesn't say.

The king says what do you request?

Nehemiah instantly senses, he instantly sees the Lord is at

work in this circumstance. It's a huge, monumental step.

What do you request? He doesn't say he's going to get

to go. This is what do you request?

You know what Nehemiah doesn't do?

He doesn't. He does not jump in with and

fire off a long grocery list of demands and requests and

complaints and whatnot, all because this is what's going on

and we got conquered and I want this fixed and I want this

remedied. I want no, none of that, none of

that. He responded with courage, and

he showed faith through trust. Nehemiah showed faith.

He stepped out in trust and in faith.

He prayed to God. He had taken the time to ground

himself in God. He'd done his homework in his

heart. He allowed God to condition his

heart, prepare his heart, and pray that God would work the

rest. Here's the moment of truth.

It takes courage to do that. The the trust foundation, the

faith foundation has to be there for this to work.

And he says in chapter, in the chapter 2, verse 5 says, and I

said to the king, if it pleases the king, and if your servant

has found favor in your sight, I ask that you send me to the city

of my father's tombs. Again, Judaism is missing.

He doesn't say the word the city of my father's tombs that I may

rebuild it. I'm asking you to lay me off,

give me a leave of absence. Give me whatever he doesn't

demand, doesn't tell him, doesn't come with.

Hey, Mr. King, you need me to to tell me or to give me none of

that. I ask you to send me to Judah,

the city of my father's tombs, that I may rebuild it,

rebuilding that, rebuild your city.

And we're going to find, by the way, at the end, we mentioned

horror, the the sand ballot, the whatever, and there's a bunch of

guys. They still didn't.

There's going to be a lot of problems down the road as we go

through the series. There's going to be a lot of

problems. Can you imagine how Nehemiah may

have felt? This could have been a suicide

request. Not just any kind.

Nehemiah had the courage to state his cause and to make his

request. What if Arctic Xerxes had been a

power hungry, paranoid king, which he could have been.

We don't know him, I don't know him, I haven't studied him, but

God was at work here. Nehemiah stated his request.

God was in control. Having no idea what the response

would be, but having prayed, Nehemiah now waited for the

response. It says #6 Then the king said to

me, the queen sitting also beside him.

How long will your journey be and when will you return?

OK, it's not a death sentence. I'm not going to get my head

chopped off for asking that. He's not asking how long and

when can you just feel the excitement in the room stirring

in Nehemiah's heart? The pain, the agony, the

desolation back home. It's constant occupying this

life of prayers going on. Here's hope the king is

interested. He's asking how long it will be

when he'll return. He feels respected by the king,

and king doesn't even want to delay.

Good. No, no.

When you weren't going to come back, Nehemiah, when are you

coming back? He wants to keep this faithful,

trusted cupbearer. And again, the courage that

Nehemiah had to to take this stand, this position, he's going

to give up this secure this this, this secure position as a

cupbearer before the king and go and do that job that maybe

nobody would like to do because of the problems it had had

before and would have again. He wants to do that.

He had a passion and a drive and an and a desire to be involved

and something so difficult, so challenging.

That was a huge project to undertake, says so.

It pleased the king and I set a time.

All right, all right. From here, everything smooth

sailing, right? Nope.

This is the starting line. This is only the beginning.

It would take years to complete this.

And you will find as you read Nehemiah, he showed

steadfastness, He saw things through.

He demonstrated character traits, maturity.

He took calculated risk. He demonstrated courage.

We have to remember at all times that this man Nehemiah was at

this, at the complete mercy of this king, but with God's

strength, with God's courage, he did the hard things.

You know how we Christians in the West so often are first and

foremost concerned about, OK, what isn't it for me or what

will it do to me? Before we're even concerned

about what glorifies your name, remember who desire to fear your

name and the world. This, this idea.

Well, I deserve a easy life. I deserve to have comfort.

I deserve the best. I've earned the best.

That would have been embarrassing to Nehemiah.

He was so focused on what God wanted out of him that God will

glorify himself through him. Never mind my position with the

king. He's gotten the blessing to go.

Everything OK now? Not quite yet.

Notice his confidence in moving forward.

He now has the King's attention. He has the King's interest.

He has the King's blessing. Now he goes all in.

He showed faith through confidence.

What had prepared him first was his was his first response when

he heard the bad news It grieved him, it changed him it motivated

him. He prayed he he wrestled in

prayer, he fasted and prayed. That was the state of his heart

caused him sadness and the king noticed the sadness was a huge

deal. We don't know how much it

affected Nehemiah how this all panned out.

Was it ours, was it Daisy? We don't know, but he got the

King's attention and God put it in.

King art exerts his heart to be favorably minded towards

Nehemiah. And so with the king, when the

king asked about it, he, Nehemiah told him God worked it

out. It says here, it says in

Proverbs, I'm going to read this verse in Proverbs, Proverbs 21,

one says the King's heart is in the hand of the Lord like the

rivers of water. He turns it wherever he wishes.

The king was a little tiny pawn in the hands of God.

God knew what he was going to do, but he wanted Nehemiah to be

faithful. He wanted Nehemiah to be

faithful. Now with the King's favor on his

side, it's time for phase two of his plan.

Phase one was getting time to leave and get the king to

approve the project. Now on the next phase, he's

going to get the king to fund the trip.

Verse 7. Furthermore, I said to the king,

if it pleases the king, let letters be given.

He's again asking, let letters be given to me for the governors

of the region beyond the river that they must permit me to pass

through to through till I come to Judah.

And verse 8, and the letter to Asaph, the keeper of the gates

of the king of the King's forest, that he must give me

timber to make beams for the gates of the citadel which

pertains to the temple, for the city wall, and for the house

that I will occupy. And the king granted them to me

according to the good hand of my God upon me.

Wow. Not just had the king been

favorable toward him. Now the king funds the whole

ordeal. You imagine that?

How good can it get? It's like somebody isn't quite

sure it's going to go. And then the the top guy of the

country, the president, the Prime Minister, the king,

whatever you have, the emperor, the dictator, whatever it is,

he's favorable. And he tells all the premiers

and the bosses and the governors, whoever they are, OK,

you better do what he says. Here's the letter to prove it.

Here's a testimony of the careful planning that Nehemiah

had no doubt done ahead of time, even the only the day before.

He had no idea how it would work out, but he had done.

He had prayed for months. He carried this burden.

And finally, as we heard last Sunday, here was hope.

And now things were beginning to move.

The letters were not just ordinary letters.

They were letters, written by scribes, no doubt, and stamped

with a King's signature seal. Nobody could tamper with it.

And the governors of the territories he would travel

through, from Babylon down to Judea, those governors had no

choice. Give him what he says.

Give him. Give him what the letters

demand. So now he's got the trip, but it

gets a little bit better yet. Verse 9, Then I went to the

governor's in the region beyond the river on his way now, and I

gave him the King's letters. There they go and notice next.

And now the king sent captains of the army and horsemen with

me. He gets military escort.

It doesn't get better than that. You know, friends, when God's

behind something, it just works. Nothing can stop it.

Nothing can overturn it, nothing can change it.

I believe often times when something does not work in our

favor, it's not because God doesn't want it.

He wants it all right, He's all for it.

But it's our own sinful, selfish pride and whatever else gets in

the way and slows it down. You remember the story of the

children of Israel? God redeemed them.

He saved them. He rescued out of Egypt into the

desert, and there He gave them the law and He had plans for

them. Give them to the land of Canaan

and inherit the land. Should have been a very short

journey, but guess what? They got to the border.

Fear, anger, frustration set in and they got to wander the

desert for 40 years. For Nehemiah, his only goal was

the secret Glorify God who sought to fear God's name.

From here on in, it would be great joy and adventure, right?

Experience of joy for rebuilding of the temple.

I mean, the wall of Jerusalem, restoring it to its glory,

right? Nope.

There were problems. Nehemiah showed faith to

resolve. How easy it would have been just

to not take it seriously. I mean, again, sometimes you

have second thoughts. I shouldn't have started this.

I shouldn't have gone into this. I should have known better.

I wish I hadn't. And we say those things because

that's how our mind works and we shouldn't.

Nehemiah doesn't do that. Sometimes we see our way through

a little ways and then it gets rough and then we back out.

Nehemiah should resolve at the outset to pray.

He got engaged in the situation. He resolved to do things right,

as we'll see in the coming sermons in the following weeks.

It's easy to be strong when there's no need for strength,

right? I mean, anybody can have a

loudmouth from far away. But once it gets close, then we

our fear breaks us down and the courage leaves and and so we do

those things. Maybe you've really had resolve

one time to do something like maybe ziplining or skydiving and

until the moment of truth and then you backed out.

I don't know. But Nehemiah is not that kind of

guy. It says here in verse 10, when

Sanballat the Horan Knight and Tobiah, the Ammonite official

heard of it, they were deeply disturbed that a man had come to

seek the well-being of the children of Israel.

So here he is. He's back home, old homeland,

and here's these two guys or these, yeah, these two guys.

They're not Israelites, They're not Jews, but they're there.

They've moved in with a bunch of other people, and they're there.

Oh, this is not going to be good for us.

We can't have this. We don't want these people to be

here. And we're going to hear about

that in the following sermons. And as we will find out later,

Nehemiah didn't let a thing stop him.

Hostility and opposition and challenges began at the outset.

And again, Nehemiah hadn't had any need to do this.

It wasn't something that he would have said, Oh, you know

what? I, I always know he was maybe

born in, in Babylon, I don't know.

But he didn't think of himself. He thought of what does God want

me to do? He did the right thing.

He prayed, he showed courage, he trusted, he went ahead

confidently, and he was resolved to do the right thing.

What about you and I? Would we have gone?

Would we have held back? You know what, folks?

We hold back a lot more for a lot less too many times.

I include myself in this as much as anyone, but Nehemiah is a

life is life of a portrait of a man to put God first in all that

he did as a cupbearer to the king.

That secure, steady, comfortable job going out to a high risk

country, do a building project that was going to be fraught

with risk. Maybe we're not called to go fix

a broken city, but maybe we're called to rebuild something,

whatever that may be. Could be relationships, could be

saying yes to something, surrender to something or

surrendering to do not do something.

But let me just say this. If we hang on to the things that

don't have eternal value at the cost of things that do, we may

well lose both. Are we people like Nehemiah,

people of prayer, we trust God no matter how daunting, how

impasse possible things may look to us.

You see here in North America, it's easy to make a confession

of faith. Jesus, Lord, follow you wherever

you want me to go. And then we start telling him,

not here, not there. It's a little bit like this, a

cartoon clip I saw some some time ago, a social media clip

where a person wanted to know if can I ask them questions?

Well, yeah. Here's a list of approved

questions you can ask the person wanted to know further about can

I do some research? Oh yeah.

Here's the approved sources you can search.

And finally, the person, we're not trying to stifle thought.

We just want to learn everything.

You want you to learn all you can from these approved and

reach these approved conclusions.

That's where we put God sometimes.

OK God, you can tell me everywhere except not here.

You can. These are the list.

These are the places you can send me, Lord.

These are the things you can ask me to do, Lord.

And here's what I want the outcome to be.

Lord, how foolish is that? Oh, we may not admit, we may not

say it, but that's how we live. Imagine Nehemiah having tried

that. His name would not be in the

Bible today. We must ask ourselves, where are

you and I in our relationship with God?

Do we seek to fear His name? Who calls the shots?

Again, We may not be called to build a city.

Whatever it is we're called to do, it is we're called to do to

serve God. We're called to wait upon the

Lord. What for?

We're called to wait in prayer. We're called to be confident,

trustworthy, and true and honest.

Sacrifice ourselves for His cause.

Whatever is the Lord is calling us to do, I won't encourage us

this morning. Set our eyes on God.

If we wait upon Him as Nehemiah did, we too will mount up with

wings as eagles. We'll run and not be weary.

We'll walk and not faint. And in doing that, God will

bless us as His people. Let's pray Lord, the story of

Nehemiah is in your word for a reason.

You've placed your people in this world to be salt and light

in this world in our community. Nehemiah was a powerful

testimony in the King's palace where he served as his cup

bearer. He was a powerful influence in

the field of work you called him to.

Lord, we ask help us to have the character like Nehemiah had that

we Orient our lives around what you want from us.

Lord, we ask that you guide us as we seek to serve in your

community. Here in Leamington.

We pray in Jesus name, Amen.