How Can We Join God in Restoring a Broken World?

Amen.

You may have a seat.

If you could open up your Bibles to the Book of Nehemiah.

If you don't have a Bible, there'll be some Bibles over in the seat in front of you.

If you don't have a Bible, if you don't know where the book of Nehemiah is, you can go ahead and look and maybe the table of contents in the first couple pages, it will give you the page number.

But the book of Nehemiah.

We're starting a new series called Renew and Rebuild.

Is there anyone in here like me who is born, raised a Floridian?

True, any true Floridians in here?

Okay, so we got about some of us in here.

Okay.

You know, some of us who are Floridians, we know what destruction could look like.

Because every year during the hurricane season, we've seen it in the past, right?

We've seen hurricanes come through and turns turn homes into rubble, take roofs apart, trees through houses, streets flooded.

Maybe even some of us in these past couple years experienced having to leave or move or see destruction in the places that we're in.

We're used to seeing that brokenness and the result of what a hurricane can bring.

But something far worse than a hurricane is sin and the destruction that it brings.

See, because hurricanes can destroy a house, but sin can destroy a home.

Hurricanes can destroy possessions, but sin can destroy our peace.

A hurricane can damage a neighborhood, but sin can corrupt a community.

See, there is brokenness all around us.

That's a result to the sin in the world, the consequences of that sin.

And even a lot of times we can play a role in that brokenness and the decisions that we've made.

You see, I have a brick here.

It's not really a brick, it's I think the pastor just said a paver, but it works as a brick.

You see, the the book of Nehemiah that we're gonna be in, it really starts with broken bricks, rubble.

See, in the city of God where the temple of God was, it was destroyed through the disobedience of the people of Israel, the people of God at that time.

And really the the book of Nehemiah is about one man that God uses and who rises up to the call to take one brick at a time and rebuild these broken walls.

And we'll get more into the story and the history of that, but as I've said, there is brokenness all around us.

We see the brokenness in our communities, our neighborhoods, our families, and our own lives.

And today the call and the point of this message is that some of us would rise up, see that brokenness, and do something about it, and begin to rebuild the broken walls in our lives and around us.

So the book of Nehemiah and the and the question, the big idea question for today is this how can we join God in restoring a broken world?

How can we join God, you and me, in restoring a broken world?

So let's, as is traditions, stand for the reading of the word of God.

We believe here at Adwald that when this book is open, God is speaking, amen.

That we are a church that is grounded in the Bible.

We are about the word of God.

We preach the word of God, we teach the word of God, and we want to live it out.

And so the verses we're going to be walking through is Nehemiah chapter 1, verses 1 through 4.

Nehemiah 1:1–4

Let's listen to this together as I read.

It says, the words of Nehemiah, the son of Hechaliah.

Now it happened in the month of Chiselev in the twelfth, 20th year, as I was in Susa, the citadel, that Hanani, one of my brothers, came with certain men from Judah and asked them concerning the Jews who escaped, who had survived the exile and concerning Jerusalem.

And they said to me, The remnant there in the province who had survived the exile is in great trouble and shame.

The wall of Jerusalem is broken down, and its gates are destroyed by fire.

As soon as I heard these words, I sat down and wept and mourned for days.

And I continued fasting and praying before the God of heaven.

Let's pray, Lord Jesus.

I ask for your help, Lord God, that you would help me to communicate your word rightfully and truthfully, and for every single person here, under the sound of my voice, Lord God, to do something with the brokenness around us, Lord God, and in us.

And so, God, I ask right now for supernatural help to wake us up and to rise up and be used, Lord God, to build the brokenness and restore it.

Lord Jesus, so help us.

It's in your name we pray.

Amen.

So before we jump into the book of Nehemiah, I think it'd be important to see where Nehemiah fits into the meta-narrative or what that means is the big story, the overarching story of the Bible.

The Bible is split into two testaments or two parts.

There's the Old Testament and the New Testament.

The Old Testament tells the story of God's relationship with his people, the Jewish people, the people of Israel, that ultimately points to Jesus, a Messiah who would come.

And the New Testament talks about the life of Jesus, his death, his resurrection, and the start of the church.

Right?

And so, really, Nehemiah, we're jumping in the middle of this grand overarching Old Testament story.

And so I think it'd be helpful to understand what's going on, right?

I think about uh anybody in here, fan of the Avengers uh or the uh what is it called, the Marvel Cinematic Universe, right?

Where all these movies are their own separate movies, but all of them are t telling an overarching story, right?

I think it starts the first one is uh Iron Man, and then I mean how does anybody know how many movies there are?

Randall, you raised your hand.

You know you it's a lot.

I mean, it's oh it's gotta be over 30, over 40.

Um, so imagine if you were watching, you know, one of these Avenger movies where all these heroes are coming together, all these heroes have had their own separate stories, and you're just wondering, like, who are these people?

What's going on?

Like, there's so much confusion, right?

And that's what can happen when we're just jumping into the book of Nehemiah.

Because some of you are like, who is Nehemiah?

Don't know him, don't know what's going on.

And so I want us to just have a quick kind of history lesson that I think would help us.

I'll try to simplify it, not take too much time here, but I think it'd be helpful for us.

Um, so really the Old Testament starts with, you know, Adam.

God creates Adam and Eve, and he created them to have a relationship with him, a right relationship, and they chose sin.

And in choosing sin, this separated them from God.

They were banished from his presence.

But God had a redemption plan.

God had a plan to rescue and bring his people, us, back to himself.

And he started that with the man, Abraham.

Abraham, God made a covenant, a promise with him, that through you, Abraham, you will have a descendant.

You will have a child, your great, great, great, great, great, great grandchild.

Someone will come and save the world.

There'll be this Messiah, is what it's called.

A Christ who would come and save the world.

So he makes this promise to Abraham that you'll have many descendants, and that your descendants will be my people.

Well, Abraham has a son, Isaac, and then Isaac has a son, Jacob.

Jacob would have 12 sons, and Jacob's name would be changed to Israel.

It's where we get the name, the people of Israel, the nation of Israel, is Jacob would have sons.

How many sons would he have?

12 sons.

And those 12 sons would be the 12 tribes of Israel.

Well, eventually, what would happen is they were taken into captivity by Egypt.

That's where Moses came, rescued, God rescued through Moses the people out of Egypt to the promised land.

And in the promised land that they were in, God gave them throughout that process in the Exodus the law, which is a lot of the Old Testament.

But they had no king.

Eventually they asked for a king and wanted a king, even though God warned them of the consequences of that.

And the first king was Saul, and then was David.

And David, similar to Abraham, God made a promise to David too that David, who is a descendant of Abraham, God makes the same promise to David that through your lineage there will be a son who would come and save the world.

So David would have a son, Solomon, and then after Solomon there'd be more kings, and eventually the people of God, as they've done many times, disobeyed the law of God.

And this led to the nation of Israel now, this kingdom that was grand in power to split a civil war between the northern tribes and the southern tribes.

The northern tribes were of the north were ten tribes, and the two of the south were known as Judah.

It was Judah and Israel.

They were split.

Okay?

So it's important to understand that.

Eventually they would continue, even in this division, to sin against God, even though God had warned them.

And this leads us, I want to get to 2 Chronicles here, and these verses will be on the screen because 2 Chronicles here will help set up what's going on in Nehemiah.

Okay?

As his kingdom is split between Israel and Judah now, what happens?

Okay, eventually the northern kingdom would be taken over by the Assyrians.

The Assyrians would take the northern people captive and take them away, and eventually the Babylon would do that for the southern kingdom.

Okay, and we see this in Chronicles.

2 Chronicles chapter 36, verse 13.

2 Chronicles 36:13

Speaking of a king when it says here, it says, He also rebelled against King Nebuchadnezzar, who made him swear by God.

He stiffened his neck and hardened his heart against turning to the Lord, the God of Israel.

All the officers of the priests and the people likewise were exceedingly unfaithful, following all the abominations of the nations, and they polluted the house of the Lord that he had made holy in Jerusalem.

Okay, here's what's going on.

So there are these kings that were not obeying the law of God.

And although God had sent prophets to give them warnings, they would not turn away and turn back to God.

And so what happens is, I mean, it gives us a glimpse of what's going on.

It says, this nation looked like all the other nations in the temple of God.

I want you to imagine this.

Imagine if you were to come to church one Sunday, and you came in on a Sunday, and instead of a cross, there was a symbol of Hinduism.

And there were idols that were being prayed to and given to sacrifices.

There were the books of other religions and other things, and people coming and worshipping.

This is what it looked like.

The house of God, the people of God, and the temple of God looked like the world.

And so there was punishment, consequences of that.

Look at verse 15.

It says, The Lord, the God of their fathers, sent persistently to them by his messengers, because he had compassion on his people and on his dwelling place.

So God is sending messengers because he has compassion.

You need to repent, you need to repent.

Verse 16, but they kept mocking the messengers of God, despising his words and scoffing at his prophets, until the wrath of the Lord rose against his people, until there was no remedy.

Verse 17.

So the house of God, the city of where God's people lived, was ransacked.

Everything was taken.

Babylon had taken all the treasures, but also took the people as well.

And verse 19, this is so central to the story of Nehemiah.

Look at verse 19 here.

And they burned the house of God and broke down the wall of Jerusalem.

We read that.

This is how the story starts, right?

In Nehemiah of Nehemiah hearing of the broken wall.

So that's how long this exile would be.

Till verse 22.

Now in the first year, Cyrus, king of Persia, the word of the Lord by the mouth of Jeremiah might be fulfilled.

The Lord Lord stirred up the spirit of Cyrus, king of Persia, so that he made a proclamation throughout all his kingdom and also put it in writing.

So here's the king of Persia.

He says this declaration.

Whoever is among you of all people, may the Lord his God be with him, let him go.

So even before Nehemiah gets on the scene, God is already working in the heart, even of this foreign king, to restore his temple and eventually the walls.

So the book of Ezra, the book before Nehemiah, is the story of the temple being rebuilt.

So they go back, Ezra and uh I have it written here.

Zerubbabel.

That's it.

There we go.

Zerubbabel.

Try to say that three times fast.

Goes back to restore the temple and restore the law.

But the issue was the walls were still broken down.

And I have actually a map I want us to see that might help us here a little bit understand again what's going on.

I don't know if you can kind of see that.

But Israel, that purple there, represents that northern kingdom, right?

This northern kingdom that was taken captive and taken away and spread out where all that purple is to Assyria by the Assyrians, right?

Eventually the southern kingdom, which was where the city of Jerusalem was, the temple of God, Judah, where the green is, would a couple years later, same thing would happen to them by Babylon.

But Babylon would eventually be taken over by the Persians.

And so all the way out into Persia, right?

Then the right here in the green is where Nehemiah would have been.

And then you see the red pointing back.

That's where Zerubbabel, Ezra, and Nehemiah come back into the city after 70 years of exile to the temple being rebuilt, but the walls still being destroyed.

Alright, you guys followed along with me?

Okay?

Alright.

If you don't understand, turn to your neighbor later and you can ask them what was going on.

Okay, verse 1, the words of Nehemiah.

First, who is Nehemiah?

Who is he?

You know, we don't know much about Nehemiah other than what's written here.

He's not mentioned anywhere else within the Bible.

All we do know is that he is a Jewish man.

He's the son of Hechaliah.

And in verse the last verse 11, that last sentence, it says, Now I was a cupbearer to the king.

And we'll talk more about what it is to be a cupbearer as we go out throughout this series, but we don't know much about him.

Here's the thing Nehemiah was not a prophet.

Okay?

Nehemiah was not a priest.

He was a regular Joe.

He was just an ordinary man who God uses to do something incredible.

I think the Lord can use that and speak to us in our own hearts and minds with that truth.

So verse 2.

As Nehemiah is the cupbearer here in the king with the king of Persia, he hears bad news.

Verse 2, one of his brothers come.

It says, They came with certain men from Judah and asked them concerning the Jews who escaped.

I asked them concerning the Jews who escaped, who had survived the exile and concerning Jerusalem.

So here, Nehemiah is asking, What is going on with the Jewish people who are in exile and who are coming back?

He wants to hear an update from his brother.

And they said to him, The remnant there in the province who had survived the exile is in great trouble and shame.

The wall of Jerusalem is broken down and his gates are destroyed by fire.

I mean, think about this.

So the temple is rebuilt, people are coming back, but the city was defenseless, the walls were destroyed.

I mean, I want you to think about this in your own life.

Okay?

Imagine if in your home your doors never locked.

Or you didn't have a door to begin with.

Or you had no windows, right?

You had no security.

You would feel defenseless like you couldn't do anything.

Now imagine Israel, who in the past had just experienced invasion by other nations.

They've rebuilt this temple, but they're defenseless.

I mean, think of what they're worrying about.

They're troubled, they're concerned.

We're the people of God, and the temple of God is here, but we're defenseless.

That's what they're feeling vulnerable and shameful.

So, how does Nehemiah respond to this news?

Look at verse 4.

As soon as I heard these words, I sat down and I wept and mourned for days.

Nehemiah was devastated.

I mean, imagine you, some of you think of that.

If you had a hometown or a place that you grew up in and you heard of a devastation that happened.

Or future devastation that can happen because there wasn't protection or things in place.

See, the walls that were broken reminded Nehemiah of the brokenness of this world.

Why?

Because it was their sin that led them to this.

Okay, Nehemiah, we're going to jump down really briefly.

Nehemiah says this in verse 7.

I don't think it's on the screens, but you can see there in your Bibles, it says, in his prayer to God, he says this, we have acted very corruptly against you and have not kept the commandments.

And he includes himself in that, saying, We've put this on ourselves, we've disobeyed you.

So how does God take this ordinary man to fix the brokenness that's going on?

This is the first point.

How can we join God in restoring a broken world?

Is this open your ears?

I want you to turn to your neighbor and say, open your ears.

Turn to your other neighbor and say, open your ears.

And then if anyone was sleeping, you could say, open your eyes.

Open your ears.

What do I mean by that?

As followers of Jesus, we need to open our ears to the brokenness around us.

Okay?

You and I are not able to restore what we're not aware of.

Okay?

So much like Nehemiah and the situation he was in, there are real pressing problems and brokenness in the world.

And I don't, again, I don't need to convince you of that.

You live it, you breathe it, you see it, you experience it every day.

But what happens is we're oftentimes unwilling to see or hear the brokenness around us because we're too worried about our own problems.

Our own brokenness.

I want you to think about Nehemiah here for a second.

Right?

Again, they've been in exile for more than 70 years.

Nehemiah has never been to Jerusalem.

He's only known captivity in this foreign land.

So he could have just heard this news and said, hey, that's cool.

I'm here.

What's that?

That's like eight.

What how many miles is that away?

800.

900 miles away.

He said, I'm good.

I'm here.

Guess what?

I'm also the king's cupbearer.

You know what that means?

That means my job is to taste the king's food to make sure it's not poison.

Now it's a great job if you go all your life and there ends up being no poison, right?

But I mean, think about it.

That's like living in the you're living in the king's palace, the most, one of the most sovereign powers in the world, the Persians, and you're eating with the king.

Probably living in the palace.

And so it would have been easy for Nehemiah to be like, so why do I care about some broken walls in a city I've never been?

But that's not what Nehemiah does.

Nehemiah, he has his ears open to the brokenness, to the suffering of those around him.

He knows what's at stake here, and we'll see that in his prayer next week.

That this is the temple of God, the people of God.

And we see that it was Nehemiah that what?

Asked them for the update.

He wanted to know.

He was burdened in his heart.

And if we're being honest, oftentimes we drown out the brokenness around us every single day.

We know it's there, but we can drown it out.

You know, I don't know, maybe some of you, I love my, I love my headphones.

Anyone just like I I love my headphones or just headphones in general.

Um I sleep with my headphones.

I know that's maybe weird to y'all.

It helps me sleep.

I just, that's how I I've always been doing that.

But I sleep with them, I'll go on a walk with them, I'll go in a coffee shop and work on stuff.

I have my headphones in.

But some headphones, maybe some of you have this, they have a feature where they can be noise-canceling headphones.

Okay, where there's a setting you can put on, and I don't know how it all works, but it makes it hard to hear.

So you're listening to something, obviously, but then also um the headphones have a feature where it just makes it harder to hear, where someone can be talking right in front of you and you can't even hear them.

You know, Mariah gets so upset at me, and I've gotten better at this.

And she's not here, so she'd be she'd be amening um uh right now.

But uh when she would try to talk to me and I would say what with the headphones still in, and uh I've gotten better, I'll take them out because obviously I'll say what and she's gonna talk again, and I'm not gonna be able to hear her again.

Um yeah, noise canceling headphones.

We were we we we do that, where we can listen to the these things that prevent us from hearing what's going on the outside.

What's the point?

Is that we do the same thing in life with our spiritual years, where we walk the day-to-day of life and we cancel out the hurting around us, the lost around us, where we can shut it out through our own interests, our selfishness, our complacency, our own problems, and avoid even hearing the problems of others.

You know, there's a story I shared uh a bit ago, is a story of a church in there.

It may not be a historical fact, but a story people share uh that may have happened.

It was in Germany during World War II, during the time of the Holocaust, where in Germany, like in many places, there were Christians there at that time.

There were churches.

And there's a story of uh on a Sunday morning when these German believers would come to gather for worship, much like this, in this situation, there would be a train that would come by, much like our situation, right?

But in this train were Jewish people who were being taken to camps to be killed.

And on a Sunday morning, the train was so close, and the cries of the people inside the train were so loud that they could hear it during the service.

See, this made them uncomfortable.

And so what they decided to do and start nationally doing is as they would hear the cries of these people from the train during their time of worship, they would sing louder.

So they wouldn't be bothered by that sound.

See, we can be guilty of the same thing.

For there is brokenness in our everyday life people who are hurting, and we can use the distractions of this world and turn it up a little bit.

Even right now, in this neighborhood.

For those of us who live here or walk these streets, I don't have to convince you of the brokenness that's here.

That in this very moment, there are people who are hungry, there are people who are hurting, there are people in need.

And will we as a church hear them?

Will we open our ears to the brokenness?

So let's talk about the facts of the broken world that we live in.

I mean, let's start here, let's start start here at Sulfur Springs.

Right?

We don't, we again, we don't need to look up statistics.

We could just walk the streets.

We could just hear the stories.

If I was just with someone last week talking about their their neighbor who was walked upon, who was cold dead because of a drug overdose.

I mean, let's talk about broken families, fatherless homes, single mothers.

We see that here.

Or stories that, again, that I've heard personally of young men who've grown up in this neighborhood who are fighting with the struggle, maybe not having a healthy family or a healthy father figure, who are trying to figure out what path they're supposed to live on, and all they have is all the bad advice.

60% of the children in Sulfur Springs live below the poverty line.

And it's not just the springs.

Yes, we all need to know about the springs for those of us who come here, even if we don't live here, that this is a church on mission to reach this neighborhood.

But there's brokenness all over Tampa.

All over Tampa.

There's lostness.

You see it.

And guess what?

In the nice, maybe suburban neighborhood you live in, it's there, but it's just harder to see.

But it's there, brokenness and hurting, marriages falling apart, people contemplating whether they should live tomorrow and whether they should take their life.

It is all around us, people who are hurting.

But do we have an ear to listen to them?

There's brokenness of just lostness.

We we talk about that.

And we've had people come, whether uh uh Zeth and Hannah, missionaries from London or Andrew and Emily were here a couple weeks ago getting ready to go to Japan and even us preparing a team to go to London.

That there's a brokenness.

The greatest brokenness and the greatest need in the world is lostness.

And the greatest need above that of someone who is lost is having no access to the gospel.

They're lost, and for them, there's no way out.

They've never heard of Jesus, they've never heard the gospel, they've never met a Christian, there's no church.

Think of it.

At least here in a broken place, there can be someone who can give them hope.

But there, if no one goes, how will they know if they have not heard?

So, what's the solution?

Is it a self-help book?

Is it government programming?

Some good advice?

No, it is a local church that preaches the gospel of Jesus Christ.

That is the hope.

The gospel of Christ.

Because we know that is what changes lives, changes communities, changes families.

Talk about the brokenness in the springs or Tampa or around the world.

But what about the brokenness in your life?

What about in your family?

Your brothers or sisters, your sons, your daughters, your neighbors, your friends, or even in your own heart.

There is brokenness, and oftentimes, even the brokenness of the people that we are closest to, even our own brokenness and ourselves, whether from our sin or just the hurts of life, we can drown out.

But we need ears to hear, to listen.

You and I are not able to renew and restore what we're not aware of.

You know, I think of Jesus in John chapter 4.

John 4 · chapter mention

Jesus is talking with the Samaritan woman.

And the disciples came and got some food and came back, and Jesus says, Hey, I don't need that.

And they're like, What do you mean?

Like, who gave you food?

And Jesus says, the food I eat is to do the will of the Father.

And he says, Look up.

The fields are ripe, ready for harvest.

They were missing it that Jesus was going out of this way to share the gospel with this broken woman.

And they were missing it and he's saying, look up.

That's the call for us with our ears to open our eyes, open our ears, and to look at the harvest that is ripe and ready.

Second point is this how can we join God in restoring a broken world?

First, open your ears, second is open your heart.

Open your heart.

Look how he responds.

Verse 4.

It says, As soon as I heard these words, I sat down and wept and mourned for days.

See, what happens when you truly take time to open your eyes to the hurting around you?

You begin to open your heart.

And look at it, it just hits him.

And have you ever heard news, maybe bad news, where you just couldn't even stand?

You had to sit down, you had to get your bearings.

Says he heard this and he sat down.

And he wept.

When was the last time you were moved to tears because of the brokenness of others?

Are your ears open?

Does your heart care if you don't have compassion for others, then you have to examine your heart.

Because as followers of Jesus, we have been given the heart of Jesus.

And when we have his heart, when we walk in his steps, we will see and care about the things that he is broken for.

Jesus exemplifies this.

In the Gospel of Matthew, he says this verse 36, he says, When he saw the crowds, he had compassion for them.

Because they were harassed and helpless like sheep without a shepherd.

Then he said to his disciples, The harvest is plentiful, but the labors are few.

Therefore pray earnestly to the Lord of the harvest to send out labors into his harvest.

Jesus saw, he heard, but he was moved to compassion, a heart that cared, that was open.

And he was challenging his disciples to do the same, and he challenges us today.

This is where we need supernatural help from God.

To have his heart, to break our hearts for what breaks the heart of God.

How can we join God in restoring a broken world?

First, open your eyes, second, open your heart.

It moved him.

And third, open your hands.

Open your hands.

Look at that response.

It says, I wept, I mourned for days, and I continued fasting and praying before the God of heaven.

What I mean by open hands is a surrender to the Lord.

Here's the problem.

We can have open ears to hear, open hearts to feel.

But it doesn't mean anything if we don't have open hands to God in prayer.

That the burden and the brokenness that we put upon ourselves isn't supposed to stay upon us.

But to put into the hands of God and say, God, my hands are open.

I can't take this.

I can't handle this.

So 1 Peter 5, 7, it says, cast all your anxieties, cast all your cares upon him, because what?

He cares for you.

The living God, the creator of all, cares for you and the brokenness you feel, and the brokenness you feel by seeing others broken.

He cares for you.

He opened his hands.

Nehemiah knew he could not do anything.

You know, there's so many moments in this past year of pastoring here where I have that thought.

Of people hurting what they're going through, of pastoring here, of the problems that people are walking through and experiencing.

And I have moments where I'm just like, what can I do?

What can we as a church actually do to do something about this?

And we need to be like Nehemiah.

And there's those moments where I feel overwhelmed where I'm like, God, that's it, is I can't.

We cannot.

But but we open our hands to God.

We say, God, you can't.

You could do it.

That's what we were, that's what we were we were singing.

Say, who are you, great mountain?

What does that mean?

Right?

The mountain is the problems of life.

And we're saying, who are you?

Who are you, mountain, that you think that you can stand in the way of God?

And that's what we're doing.

We're seeing the brokenness of those around us.

And we're taking it to God.

And we're opening our hands and saying, God, you take it.

I put it on you.

And there's too many of us that we've been trying to hold it on to ourselves.

Whether it's the brokenness of others or our own.

And we can't.

I love what it says here.

It says, I continued fasting and praying before the God of heaven.

He didn't have to add that there, but it says, God of heaven.

It's a reminder that God is above all.

That there is no problem too small for him.

See, many of us, we cannot restore and renew the brokenness around us.

Because we're not giving it to God.

We are filling ourselves.

I mean, think about this.

If you're your hands are just filled with things or they're closed.

I mean, try to build a wall.

Try to pick up a brick and start.

And that's what we try to do.

We close it and we keep it.

We're now willing to surrender.

But Nehemiah, what does he do?

He opens them to God and says, God, only you can do it.

You and me, we need to surrender our problems to the Lord.

World, the Lord.

Other thing we see Nehemai do is he fasted.

One of the most probably ignored spiritual practices in the Bible is fasting.

Alright, this was the practice within the Old Testament, this was the practice within the New Testament.

Think about Jesus' words when the Pharisees, they were, these religious people were criticizing the disciples and saying, hey, these guys aren't fasting.

And Jesus says, hey, pretty much to summarize it, I'll do the the Sami Rodriguez translation.

He says, they're with me right now.

There's gonna be a time when I'm not here and then they're gonna fast.

Well, guess what?

Jesus isn't here with us anymore.

And he's called us to fast, and this is what Nehemiah is doing.

What is fasting?

Right?

Fasting is choosing to temporarily give up something, usually food, in order to intentionally seek God.

Not to manipulate God, but to say, God, we need you.

I need more of you.

I need guidance.

I need direction.

I just need to focus on you.

It shows dependence.

It's saying, I'm not going to eat this food because God, more than this food, I need you.

I need your help.

I'm pursuing you.

And here's what's important.

When we talk about fasting, you know, there's some of us that's something we can't do in regards to food.

Whether it's medical condition or other issues, and that's okay.

But I would encourage you.

I would even say for some of you who say, Man, you know what?

My ears, they've been closed off.

My heart, it hasn't been open.

I would encourage you to pick a day this week to fast.

Maybe that's skipping a meal, maybe that's skipping a couple.

I'll tell you, I want us as a church, I want to challenge you, for those of you who can, to take a day, maybe a morning and a lunch of not eating anything, and eating at dinner.

I'm planning to do that Thursday.

This Thursday.

And when we come 5 30 to 6 30 for a midweek before groups together to break my fast there.

And I want to encourage you guys to find it, whether it's Thursday or whether it's not, maybe it's a different day.

To seek the Lord.

To open your ears, open your heart, and open your hands.

Again, because of the brokenness around you, but even within you.

We need him.

The open hands, it shows, God, I'm giving this to you, but it shows surrender.

Because I love this.

I love verse 11.

It's just this little statement, that last phrase in verse 11.

It says, Now I was a cupbearer to the king.

What is Nehemiah doing here?

We're going to just see how God takes Nehemiah and places him in this strategic place.

We're going to see that in the next couple weeks.

To be the cupbearer of a king who would eventually be able to help Nehemiah rebuild that wall.

Here's the thing, you need to understand this.

Each of you, every single one of you who are followers of Jesus, God has strategically placed you where you are to rebuild the broken walls around you.

To rebuild the broken walls in your family, in your home, in your community, within this church.

But he needs you to open your hands.

God, use me.

You know, I relate and I close here, ask the band to come up.

You know, I relate to Nehemiah as I was preparing this.

I think the the timing of this book and going through this book of finishing one year here as the pastor and thinking about a future of where we're going as a church, where we're going as a family of God together.

Nehemiah is this man where he sees the brokenness.

He sees that there's a need, and a lot of times I sense that.

Like, man, there's so much need, there's so much brokenness.

We have to do something.

But here's the reality, and here's what I want you to get.

You see, my heart is that I'm not Nehemiah.

You know what my heart is?

That every single one of you would see yourselves as a Nehemiah.

That the only way that we will rebuild the brokenness around us is understanding God wants to use me.

You think God couldn't just, the God who literally spoke the earth and the world to creation, couldn't rebuild a wall?

But he says, no, no, I want to use you, Nehemiah.

Guys, I know there's so much hurting in your life.

There's just so much brokenness that you hold on to and that you see.

And a lot of times we've just become complacent.

And I think today is a day as a family of God, as a church, to say, no, I want to pick up a brick.

You know, my hands they've been closed, but I'm ready to pick up the bricks I need to pick up to rebuild the walls of brokenness in my life.

Is there anyone like that today?

Anyone?

Say that's me.

I see it.

I've seen the consequences of sin.

Maybe not my sin, other sins, or maybe my sin.

But I want to do something about it.

This is our time to respond.

Let's pray, Lord Jesus.

Here we are, God.

I pray for open hands, open hearts, open ears.

Oh God, we so need your help.

Who are we to think we can do anything with the brokenness around us?

That we can have some plan, some method, some strategy.

No, God, it is you.

So we come to you, God, we ask for your help.

And I just ask for this moment right now, God.

For some of us who are carrying that.

That hurt, that brokenness was personal, or that we see around us that we are carrying that.

God, I pray you would help us to open our ears even now, in this moment, our spiritual ears, to the hurt that is going on.

In this very moment.

Yeah, that's dark to think about of what can be happening in a community like this right across the street.

But it's the reality.

And you've placed us here, God, in our families and in this church, in our neighborhoods, Lord God, to not sit around.

But to be moved, God, to be broken, God, and to surrender to you, Lord God.

So that's what we do.

In Jesus' name.

Amen.

Let's stand in this moment as we respond to the word of God.

If you don't know Jesus, you don't have a relationship with him, this is the time where you can respond to receive him.

Here's the good news that although this world is broken and we've sinned and we're broken, Jesus can restore it.

And he did this by coming down and dying on a cross for your sins.

You see, you deserve punishment.

I deserve punishment for the brokenness I caused, but Jesus came and took it upon himself, all the sin, and three days later rose again.

And he is deserving of your worship.

And he's the only thing that will give you the peace that you need.

You will not be able to fix the walls around you until you give your life to Jesus.

Don't think, okay, when I fix up, fix my life and I put the bricks there and there, then I'll give my life to Jesus.

You cannot.

You need him.

And today you can come and give your life to Jesus.

We can talk to you about what that looks like and how to do that.

There'll be pastors and some others down here.

But also, we're gonna close with this song about the altar.

We just sung earlier.

There's no waste at the altar.

That this is a space here, whether in your seat or down here, to lay it all down.

There's so many of you you're caring so much.

And you need to come and just lay it down.

And make a declaration as you lay it down with open hands.

Say, God, I need you.

And God, use me to fix the broken walls.

That's the response and worship.