(CLASSIC SERMON) The Mission of Jesus (Nehemiah 2)

Joshua Kehler: Looking at Nehemiah and the mission of Jesus,

Nehemiah and the mission of Jesus.

And so Nehemiah chapter two, if you guys ever need a Bible, please grab one.

We have Bibles down here.

We'd love to give you one.

we go through scripture important that we grow in our knowledge of

the word of God, as his people.

And, and make sure you guys have a Bible that you can, follow along with.

chapter two, it says, and it came to pass in the month of Nisan in

the 20th year of King Artaxerxes 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 are not sick?

This is nothing but sorrow of heart.

So I became dreadfully afraid.

And I 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 in waste and its gates are burned with fire.

Then the king said to me, what do you request?

So I prayed to the God of heaven 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 Judah, to the city of my father's tombs, that I may rebuild it.

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

how long will your journey be?

And when will you return?

So it pleased the king to send me and I set him a time.

Furthermore, I said to the king, if I, 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.

And 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 his horsemen with me.

When Sambalat the Horonite 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.

Jesus, we thank you for your word this morning.

We thank you for salvation.

We thank you, Lord, that we could come together as a family and that

we can worship and exalt your name.

God, we praise you that you, as, Mark prayed, you don't make

us pay for salvation, Lord.

you don't make us work for it.

It is purely by your grace.

We love you for that, God.

Lord, we bask in that grace this morning.

That God, religion, often says do, do, do, and you say this morning to us, it's

been done, it's been done, it's been done.

I pray, Lord, that we would stand in that finished work this morning.

I pray, Lord, that as we see your beauty, we would As we see your perfection, as

we see your great love manifested in you giving your life for us on the cross,

that Lord, we would just be drawn to you.

And in being drawn to you, we would be brought alongside your mission.

For Lord, you came to seek and save not only those in this room, but those outside

of this room, those in the cafe, those driving down the street, those with homes

across the street, those out into, the uttermost parts of the city and then out

into the uttermost parts of the world.

So we thank you.

We ask for your heart.

We ask then for your action in Jesus name.

Amen.

Amen.

Often as we think of.

Giants, and in reference to spiritual things, there are giants that are more

apparently giant like in our minds.

We think of the reaper with his, dark hood, his bony fingers and his

sickle, the representative of death, that great enemy of the human race.

And we think in that form as even the shadow, of that death

can cause fear to well up.

And that giant made obvious that enemy making himself known

to the hearts, of humanity.

Yeah.

We think about the giant of despair and doubt who often comes with

his club of philosophy and human reasoning and understanding.

He takes you to his dungeon and he puts out your eyes that you would not

focus on eternity but on the here and now and he keeps you captive every

time you go to get up on your feet.

And he bashes you down again into discouragement and despair and the

giant in that castle that laughs and rules that castle is well known

as an enemy to the Saint of God.

There is the other one that is beautiful in appearance from a distance.

Perfection of skin, perfection of form, perfection in every single way.

And they draws you by its beauty, but as you gather close to this giant,

you find it is but mere paper mache.

It is only, an illusion and that beneath is the rotting corpse of addiction.

And so it seeks to draw you in by its beauty to bait you in only to find the

hooks that it sets into your flesh as it holds you captive and in bondage

and to the saint of God, that giant, that enemy is very well visible.

But there's a giant I want to speak to you on this morning that is

perhaps one of the greatest enemies and is the great enemy of mission.

When it comes to God's people, and that is one who comes not with weapon

or spear or sword, not with, fear and intimidation, not with that

unadulterated, heart shaking, deal, but comes with gentle songs and gentle words.

It comes on and reaches its hand out as to offer friendship, it

offers counsel, it offers to rest.

It looks back on the past on how much has been done, how much work has gone on

for Christ and says, you must be tired, you must be weary from your long journey.

The trials must have been taking its toll, it's time to rest, it's time to sleep.

And on the hill difficulty, that hill which the Christian is to

journey and is to climb, there's that arbor that offers peace and rest.

And so this one sings his sweet song and puts the Christian to sleep,

until soon that Christian can get to the place where it's impossible

to wake him from his slumber.

Amen.

And this giant, the great enemy, an enemy undiscovered by many a Christian and by

many a saint is the giant of comfort, is the giant of comfort to just rest, to just

sit back, to just wait for someone else.

To do it, to look into Pat ourselves and to say, I have done a lot.

I have been a part.

I have put my time in.

It's time for somebody else to do it.

This giant would lead you into, to do just enough.

To go to the prayer meeting, to offer the prayers and the requests

to God, but then it would lull you to sleep with the words that now as you

have prayed, somebody else will do.

And so the great enemy of mission for us as Christians is that giant,

that danger, that enemy of comfort.

We find Nehemiah in chapter 1, the cupbearer of the king.

Nehemiah was a slave taken captive, by the Babylonians as the

Babylonians overthrew Jerusalem.

The story of Nehemiah happens about 450 years before the birth of Christ.

And it's all about going back to Jerusalem.

Jerusalem had been torn down in that day and age when an

enemy would go into a city.

they knew that the defenses of that city were its walls.

And so that even if they pulled the people out or they had beaten and

subdued the people, what would happen is if there were the walls remain

intact, another group would rise up and they would have the same problem.

And so they took stone upon stone off of that wall.

They destroyed the houses, they destroyed the temple, that central location where

God's people would gather to worship.

And, the enemy had left it in ruins.

He'd taken, the, best of the people back to captivity to indoctrinate

them in the culture so that they would become Babylonians.

Babylonian, soon after was overthrown by Persia.

Persia now on the scene as the world power.

God giving favor with those, who were slaves in Persia.

Esther being part of the story, Ezra being part of the story,

Daniel being part of the story.

And, in that land, as they looked to Jerusalem, as they longed to

be back to the place where God had told them to gather for worship.

So here, we find Nehemiah is in a place.

He hears about, what is, Jerusalem's condition.

many projects had started to get the walls going, but they had stopped.

The enemy would come in and stop them.

In fact, it was, Artaxerxes very own decree to stop the

walls in Ezra's chapter four.

He's the one, this king in whom Nehemiah is serving.

He's the one who said, stop it.

What you're doing is wrong.

And so he put forth this foreign policy in place that they could not rebuild.

And so here Nehemiah finds himself in the palace of the king as his cupbearer, a

cupbearer was somebody the king trusted.

It was somebody, who was constantly around the king.

He would pour wine again from his vessel into the cup, he would taste that wine

to make sure it wasn't poisoned, and then he would present it to the king.

And so, Nehemiah found himself as one of the captive, captives of Israel in

a position that wasn't very captive And Nehemiah found himself as one of

the captive, captives of Israel in a position that wasn't very captive

He had the best from the table.

He had the best to drink.

He had, no problem worrying about where he was going to sleep.

He had no problem about power and people coming to him for requests

because he had the ear of the King.

He was in a place of authority, but as he heard about the walls, as he heard about

the rubble, as he heard about Jerusalem and it's horrible state, he began to weep.

And in verse one of chapter two and it came to pass in the month

of Nisan, four months have gone on and here is the Persian new year.

But to Nehemiah, there's nothing new.

There's nothing, new because he's focused on what has happened.

It's not old information, but he gets a new heart and he gets the heart of God

as he begins to cry out to God that God would raise up somebody, that God would

deliver his people, that God would deliver them so that they could worship him once

again, that his name would be great, that he's zealous for the name of God.

For far too long has the enemy blasphemed.

Has he had to be in the courts of this king to hear, and to hear

this worship go on over this king.

Because he was the king, he was the emperor, he was the power, he

was the god like man in Persia.

And so the Persians would worship him as such, and for him to sit by day after

day to hear this worship to this man who was but a man, to know in his heart that

there is a God who saves, that there is a God who loves, that there is a God of

all power, glory, and grace, it broke his heart, it broke his heart, but the

story today that we find ourselves in is that he did not just acquire the

heart of God through prayer, But because acquiring the heart of God, he acquired

the legs, and the hands, and the feet, and the mind, and the eyes of him as well.

God longs to put his heart in people who will be him, who will

move out in mission for him.

Jesus declared, As the Father sent me to his disciples and to

all disciples, so I send you.

I'm sending you.

As the Father sent me to be on mission.

Because Jesus came on mission.

Amen.

What was Jesus's mission?

It was not to come and just to see what it's like from our perspective.

It wasn't just to check out his creation, zoomed in.

But Jesus came for a purpose.

He came, and even at the manger, Where he was born and laid, there was a

shadow of the cross that loomed over even that fantastic, glorious scene.

Jesus knew that he would end up at the cross.

He declared, No man takes my life, but I give my life freely.

On the cross, when he was there, when it says that he declared as he

became sin for us in that place, He declared, Father, it is finished.

It is finished.

He came on mission.

He came to complete.

And so, as he completed his work on the cross, he then sent us into the world

to carry that message, that good news.

That God has come to man.

That God has provided a way.

That God has made a way where we can be right with Him.

A way that we can have our guilt removed and washed.

That we can be put back into the relationship we

were originally created for.

And long have we sought after things to get us back to that original, intention.

Because we all have this angst in us, we all have this heart in us

that desires something greater.

And so we often try to fill it with something and we say, this

is the thing that will do it.

This is the thing that will get me back.

This is, and we put and we invest everything into that only to

find that it's dry, that it's not fulfilling, that it's empty.

And so we move on to something else and we say, this will be right.

If I just have this person in my life, if I just have this relationship, if

I just have this success, if I just do this and we put everything into that and

only to find that it comes far short.

Because there's only one who can restore us back to that which we were created for.

Often the lie is put forth that God wants from you, that he wants

to take your joy and steal it.

Nothing could be further from the truth.

He created you in complete pleasure.

He created you in complete joy.

He created you to experience complete and utter satisfaction when we walk in the

cool of the day in the garden by his side.

And so his process is not to give us the law that we follow so that

he could show people this is what it looks like to follow me, but is to

get us to see that law as a reflection so that we see we can't do it.

We need something greater.

And he says, I am the greater one.

I am the greater sacrifice.

I am the one to which everything pointed to.

I am the fulfillment, everything else was shadows, and that when we take Him,

what happens is He restores us and we find that as we love Him, as we draw

near to Him, we are doing exactly and are in the place for what we were created.

Complete joy, complete peace, complete and utter satisfaction.

Such is the case that we cannot completely enjoy God's creation

until that relationship is right.

Nehemiah finds himself in the palace.

He finds himself in the palace, but notice that he doesn't just pray and

say, God, raise up somebody to do it.

God raise up somebody to do it, but that he is ready to go.

He says, therefore, the King said to me, why is your face sad?

Verse two, since you are not sick, this is nothing but sorrow of heart.

So I became dreadfully afraid.

The reason that Nehemiah became dreadfully afraid is because when you're in the

presence of someone who's to be a God.

You are supposed to be happy in that God like presence.

And so often, as was the case with these, Eastern despots, these,

emperors, what would happen is that if someone was sad or somebody made them

upset, they would put them to death.

You even have the story of Esther, who was his own wife, the queen.

And yet she feared to go before him, for if he did not raise his

scepter to allow her to approach, then she would be put to death.

So very fickle are these godlike kings.

And, and so what happened is you were always jubilant.

You were always joyful.

You were always excited.

You were always, ready to go and nothing, no matter how bad the circumstance

was, no matter how bad the news was, you just, you did your job and, you

were, you smiled, the whole time.

And so he was afraid because the King caught on.

He could not contain it any longer.

He could not hide his burden inside.

Under a plastic countenance, he looked and he heard of the rubble into him.

You look and you say, why is he freaking out about stones that are broken apart?

Why is he freaking out about rubble, about trash that has been gathered?

Why is he freaking out about such a physical thing?

Because to him, it was not a physical thing.

It was the rubble that represented the people's condition.

They were in a place where there was, the enemy had complete access to

them, who could do what they wanted.

They could come in any time, rob, and take because there was no security.

There was too much rubble in chapter 4, in fact, the workers crowd, there's

too much rubble we can't build.

They were discouraged.

There was so much, because they had not one who would say, this is a worthy

project, let's begin, let's do it.

They were discouraged.

So Nehemiah hears about the rebel and a beautiful picture in the

book of Nehemiah, as we look at its historical context, this is an actual

event historically that happened.

Not only is the Bible true and accurate in everything that it says, but there's extra

biblical, archaeology that attests to the fact of Nehemiah and this whole process.

of the rebuilding of Jerusalem.

So we look at its historical context first and foremost, but we must not miss the

spiritual picture that is painted for us.

For Nehemiah did not do simply a physical work, but as he rebuilt the

walls, he was rebuilding a people.

He was rebuilding a people.

Nehemiah's name means comforter, which is the name given for the Holy Spirit.

Given for the Holy Spirit in Ephesians 2 19 to 22.

It says now therefore you are no longer strangers and foreigners

He's talking to a church.

So I know some of us we feel like strangers maybe a little bit We wonder

what our bond is, but he declares, but we are fellow citizens with the saints

and members of the household of God.

Having been built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus

Christ himself being the chief cornerstone in whom the whole building

being fitted together grows into a holy temple in the Lord in whom you

also are being built together for a dwelling place of God in the spirit.

That's an amazing passage.

That passage says that God takes the church, and the church is like a stone.

We make our foundation upon Christ.

Christ being the chief cornerstone.

And what happens in a church is God brings his power.

people together so that as his people come together, as he fits these bricks of all

different walks of life, all different shapes and sizes, all different cultures

and backgrounds, what begins to happen is God fashions for himself a house that

he can dwell in, that he can dwell in.

Because God loves to be where his people are.

And so, he brings us together.

And so, there is constantly throughout scripture, in Jude 120, but you beloved,

building yourselves up on your most holy faith, praying in the Holy Spirit,

keep yourselves in the love of God.

There's constantly, in scripture, building going on, building that's happening as

God the Holy Spirit builds into our lives.

As God the Holy Spirit looks out at this city and he sees rubble, he sees

a people broken down and is there, are they not a people broken down?

Does rubble not properly represent this city?

But God looks and he can look at the rubble and he can see the completed work.

He can look at it and he can go, this will be a fortified wall one day.

Amen.

This will be a new person.

This will be a new city.

And so, he works at that building process and he works at building lives.

That's what God is into.

That's what God does is he takes that which the world says is worthless.

And he uses that as a jewels, for his glorious grace.

It's like taking coal.

The world would say, what is coal?

But as he squeezes it in his palm, in his nail scarred palms, as he

presses it lovingly, he brings forth jewels to be a testimony of his grace.

To what he can do in a life.

And so there's rubble in the city and there's rubble in the church

and God longs to build us up.

God does not want us to have the enemy to have access any longer.

God doesn't want us to remain in bondage because he's already set us free.

And so the Lord longs to build.

We get a picture in Jeremiah of that building, unique, because I

love the picture in Jeremiah because it's not simply of a man with a

hammer pounding out, getting things into shape, but it's that of a

potter with his hands on a vessel.

And so God is so intimately wanting to build into our lives, like that

potter, and you've seen potters perhaps, and what they do is they

take that clay, and what is that clay?

The clay is something that is, is unshaped, it's a form of dirt, it's earth.

And what does the potter do is he sees something in that, and

yet the clay cannot make itself.

The clay can't rise up and turn itself into its own vessel.

How foolish would that be for the clay to say, let me at it, let me do it.

But what happens is the clay submits and surrenders to the palms

and the pressure of the potter.

And as that potter shapes it and molds it and makes it and builds it

up, he digs his hand inside of it.

It takes out that which isn't useful to him to make that

which can be useful to him.

And such are some of us that earthen vessel, we have that

treasure in earthen vessels.

And he longs to shape our lives.

He longs to rebuild that rubble.

And often what is that rubble in our lives?

Sometimes we look and we go, the rubble is obviously the sin we fall into.

For honest in here, we fall into sin.

I do.

And some of us, we struggle so deeply in it.

Have you ever had the thought, if I can just get over this, I would

be almost a perfect Christian.

Only to find as you get over it, there's ten more things revealed.

But here we are, we struggle, and there's rubble.

But there's more rubble, there's more gates that have been burned down than

simply the things that are apparent to us.

And those are the things of self religion, that idea that we can, because

God has saved us, that idea that now we can keep ourselves or that we can

earn more from God by how we behave.

So often we look to a church to give us some moral checklist, to

give us some behavioral checklist and say, don't do this, don't do

this, don't do this, don't do this.

And where the word of God speaks clearly to issues regarding sin.

So many times the church feels that need in people and in these areas

which the Bible does not speak.

They speak loudly on, and they say, you can't do this if you're

a Christian, you can't do this if you're a Christian, you can't do.

And it becomes this thing that we take and we say, okay, this is what I'll take

as a means to earn more love from God, to earn respect from God, to pay God back.

And we fall into the rubble of self salvation to think that we can

keep ourselves, that we can make ourselves any better, instead of

simply standing into what God has done for us and loving Him for it.

And then God the potter puts His hand to us and begins to change us and shape us.

But the clay to be shaped and changed must be near to the

hand of the one who forms them.

And the danger about falling into the rubble of religion

is that we run away from him.

And we look for things to shape us, and they only destroy us.

And finally we run back as a marred vessel, but he does not

cast us away as Jeremiah says.

But he begins that work anew in us, restoring.

And so Jeremiah, or Nehemiah the rebel, his, is bad and he tells

him, as he's of dreadfully afraid.

He says to the king in verse three, may the king live forever.

Why should my face not be sad?

You say you're sad and he says, but why should I not be sad?

Don't you know what's happening?

He says, why should my face not be sad when the city, the place of my

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

And so he tells them all that's in his heart.

He says, I, the burden is so great for me, the burden for this city, the

burden for Jerusalem is so great that I can't not, I don't fear death as much

as I not fear seeing something happen.

I don't care so much about what you can do to me, what I care about more is that

city and the people who dwell there.

And what begins to happen in Nehemiah through that process of months of

praying and fasting before God, of getting God's heart, it doesn't

become about Nehemiah anymore.

It comes about other people.

All that we could have a vision for other people.

How much of our despair, how much of our depression, how much of our,

that which keeps us back is because we look so much at ourselves.

We look at our flaws.

There's gonna be flaws.

We look at our failings.

You're gonna fail, but we sit there.

We camp there.

We root there.

We build a house there and slowly we die there.

As we look at ourselves, we're consumed with ourselves and we're consumed.

Oh, I can't, I, how could God use me?

How could God do anything with me?

God's already done it.

He's done it through Jesus.

He agrees with you.

You can't.

So he sent his son to do it.

And so as you accept him, he says, don't focus so much on that.

Stand in my grace and move forward.

Lay the old things behind, become that new creation in Christ.

So important.

And so Nehemiah begins to get that heart for other people,

even at the risk to himself.

In verse four, the king said to me, what do you request?

So I prayed to the God of heaven.

It wasn't a long prayer, it wasn't, the, Dear Lord in heaven, as I've seen

somebody do in a restaurant, have you ever been with somebody and you're like,

Hey, who wants to pray for the food?

And they're like, I will, Oh great.

I can tell something's going to happen.

and it's like their one opportunity to really witness or to show you that

they're not ashamed of the gospel.

They're like, Lord, these sinners over here and over here.

And it's crazy, you're like, oh, I think I'm going to go

join the sinners over here.

But it wasn't this, this long kind of prayer, he had to answer the king.

The king asked him a question.

But what we see here is a beautiful picture of a continual prayer life.

Ephesians says, pray without ceasing.

That does not mean while you're driving your eyes are closed.

I've been with those people too.

but it means that you are in such constant communion in nearness in your

heart to the King of Kings as that it would be as if you're conversing.

I learned this from my dad.

It was one of the great lessons in my life.

my dad prays about everything.

And when I say everything, I mean everything.

but it's not these, he prays long when it's the right time.

He prays often just.

I remember getting up in the morning, and the thing I would find is my

dad with his Bible, just, he always crossed his legs like this, and, and

just praying and seeking the Lord.

And, but man, we'd get into the car, and we'd pray.

God, be with us.

Protect us.

We'd pull up at, Target, and we'd pray.

God, help us be mindful that we're Christians first.

Bind the strong man, don't lead us into temptation in this place, let us

be about your business, and we'd go.

Everything.

My friends, going over to my friend's house growing up, my friends were like,

hey, come over to our house today.

My dad would be like, let's pray about it.

And my friends used to make such fun of me, they'd, man,

he prays about everything.

Yeah, he's a Christian.

What do you think about that?

Pretty crazy that a Christian would pray!

Oh!

What a bunch of wackos!

Oh man.

but there's this sense of this, it's like, inhaling and exhaling prayer.

And I think one of the most important things it's funny, when you go on a

missions trip, I dunno, how many of you have been on a missions trip?

Short term, long term.

When you go on a missions trip, you gear up to go on a missions trip.

You're praying beforehand, you're studying the culture, you're

trying to learn the language.

You're going over the Romans road backwards and forwards

until you know it by heart.

you've got, you're building 50 million of those colored bracelets, and, and

you're prepared and you go in and.

And when you go in, what happens?

The car breaks down, right after the border.

What happens?

What, you're on the train, people are like, We gotta pray!

And so prayer is made to God.

What happens?

Somebody comes and talks and says, What are you here for?

A group gets together and goes, We need to pray!

And so prayer is made to God.

And this happens over here, We need to pray, and all of a sudden you find, Why?

Because in your mind you are on mission!

You are on mission.

And so all my dad was doing is carrying that same mentality we

would take in a short term missions trip and applying it to daily life.

That everywhere we walk, God, I'm going into work today, but I know

that you've allowed me to work here.

I know you've given me skills and gifts so that I can glorify your

name working here, but ultimately I'm about your business in this place.

Give me opportunity if you want me to speak.

I do not mean we just go in and we, track bomb the place.

Please don't.

I don't mean that we go in and that's one thing that's apparent with Nehemiah

and why the king grants his request.

One of the reasons it's the good hand of God upon him.

But the reason that he even listens to Nehemiah is because

Nehemiah was a hard worker.

It's not going in and just being brazen and just being like, I'm taking

an extra 15 minutes today on break because I'm going to pray, the boss is

like, what do you're fired, a thing.

Oh, the persecution.

Maybe you should work

and wait for those opportunities.

Opportunities come when you're missionally minded.

I'm Irving at Home Depot.

We're doing a remodel.

I used to be an electrician and I remember this guy.

He comes in and he's I love good news.

He's I love good news.

Any good news.

It could be any good news on the face of this earth.

I just love it.

He's do you have good news to this guy?

and the guy's and everything he's and he turned.

He's do you have good news?

that's what typically people call an opportunity can drive a truck through.

But one of the things we need to do is we need to be a people

of prayer, but not just at the prayer meetings, but all the time.

Hey, how about like when we go to use the restroom?

Lord, I'm going into the cafe.

Let me, to these cafe workers, just have your countenance.

And so then we're mindful that there's unbelievers working out there.

And then we're mindful of, of our attitude and we're mindful of how, how we appear.

And so Nehemiah, he throws, up the prayer and he just asked the Lord.

He just like breathing.

He just prays to the Lord.

It doesn't record.

It was short.

And he said, okay, Lord, here we go.

Now the thing about Nehemiah is that Nehemiah hadn't simply prayed, but that

through prayer was revealed a plan.

And often I think we, we pray and just hope that something happens, but Nehemiah

prayed and he began to knock and he began to seek on, the Lord's heart for things.

Luke one, Luke 11, nine, the whole context of this chapter is prayer.

He says, so I say to you, ask and it will be given to you, seek and you will find.

Knock, and it will be open to you.

Notice that there's one passive thing and two active things in that passage.

There's asking, which is passive, but then there's seeking, which is active, and

then there's knocking, which is active.

And so the Lord would have us be so emboldened by our prayers

that He is great and awesome.

Because one of the great things about prayer is that it takes our eyes

off the smallness of ourselves and our abilities and our circumstances.

It puts them on the greatness of God and who He is.

How wonderful His love is.

It puts us right back on mission because He came to seek

and save that which was lost.

That He is willing that none should perish.

And so we gain a boldness from that.

And so then we begin to try things for him.

We begin to go and we begin to say, Lord, is this where you're leading?

Is this where you're moving?

Then we begin to do it.

What's amazing is that Nehemiah had so in prayer had a plan put together

that he even knows the name of the guy who he's gonna get the lumber from.

Asaph, he's yeah, so I need a letter here, I need a letter here, I need a house here.

and what's amazing about this in his boldness that came from being near

to God, as he gets God's heart, he's not considering himself anymore.

Comfort has died to him as he's looking to give that up.

He is bold and he's going to go after, in essence, he is a slave

who rolls up to the emperor, the world ruling power at that time.

And he rolls up to him and he goes, Hey.

King, I don't really like your foreign policy.

You know that foreign policy where you said we couldn't build, Jerusalem?

Yeah, can you reverse that?

That was a bad call.

And not only that, but can you appoint me as the governor?

I know I'm, I know I'm a cup bearer right here, but why don't

you put me as the governor?

Not only that, why don't you build me a house because there's gonna be a

lot of people gathering at my table.

I'm gonna need that.

I'm gonna need letters that let's everybody know I'm the guy.

not only that, I'm gonna need your own resources, King, to build a place

for worship for the people of Israel.

To rebuild the walls, the very thing you said, you, to stop, I

need your very resources to do it.

Not only that, when the King asks him, how long will you be gone, we find out

in chapter 5, I'll be gone for 12 years.

He's bold.

Why?

Because he was zealous for the name of God.

It was not to put him in a place where he could rule, but he was zealous to

see God's people restored in worship.

He was zealous that something that was broken down, messed up, that something

that was used by the enemy to be that platform, that spectacle that the

enemy would shout from every direction.

Look at the God of Israel.

Look at the God of Israel.

Look at the people fallen and failed.

Look at our gods are stronger.

He was zealous that not one.

More breath from the enemy would come that once again God would rule and reign

in that place that his people would come together once again And they would

begin to sing boldly the praises of the king of kings that salvation would be

brought to the land Once again, He was bold because he loved and adored his God.

And so you notice in, in verse 4, or verse 5, he says, And I said to the king, if

it pleases the king, and if your servant has found favor in your sight, that I ask

you to send me to Judah, to the city of my father's tombs, that I may rebuild it.

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

How long will your journey be?

And again, we find out in, in chapter five, how long that is.

I think verse 14 of chapter five.

So it pleased the King to send me and I sent 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 may permit

me to pass through till I come to Judah.

And 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, for the house that I will occupy, and

the king granted them to me according to the good hand of my God upon me.

Ultimately, God is sovereign.

Proverbs says that the king's heart is like rivers of water in the hand of God.

But Nehemiah stepped out.

Nehemiah stepped into God's mission.

Nehemiah counted his life not dear to himself, but that the lives of a

ruined people were much more important.

He put himself at risk, and he took the sling in his hand.

He spun it, and with God's strength, he slayed the giant of

comfort, the giant of comfort.

He says in verse nine, Then I went to the governors in the region beyond the

river and gave them the king's letters.

Now the king had set captains of the army and the horsemen with me.

So not only had God given him favor, but the king wanted to make sure

that this mission was accomplished.

His name was on it.

So in Sambalite, the Horonite and Tobiah, the Ammonite official heard of it.

They were deeply disturbed that a man had come to seek the wellbeing

of the children of Israel.

Now, these are the characters in the story of Nehemiah Sambalot, he was a governor.

You remember Persia, the way they ruled was they had many satraps

or governors, regional governors.

So here was the governor of this region.

He was a governor of Samaria.

And what happened is now this Nehemiah is coming in.

It's going to overthrow his authority.

It's going to overthrow his rule.

It's going to overthrow his dominion.

And what happens?

He says at the end of verse 10, they were deeply disturbed that

a man had come to seek the well being of the children of Israel.

When I think about the city of Stockton, and I think as we have

labored in prayer for years before this church was even planted, God, what

is our expression in this city to be?

What is it to look like?

And it is not, I promise you, when he said that we're to plant churches

all over the city that is not a fad.

That is not a new thing going around that is not just, a

common fancy or a good idea.

Hey, we should do this.

That is something that God has revealed to our hearts that.

This church reality is supposed to be that we are supposed to

be a church planting church.

Why?

The reason that we are to plant churches in the city of Stockton is for many

reasons, but one of them being that often we expect people to come to us

and the city's big, 350, 000 people.

And in the great commission, Jesus said, go.

What did he say to do?

He said, make disciples.

The way that we make disciples is in a healthy church where there's community.

Where people know each other, where people can actually have

accountability with one another.

Where we do life together.

To think that we are made healthy disciples just by the preaching

of the word of God is air.

For in Acts chapter 2, the healthy church was not simply the preaching

Acts 2 · chapter mention

of God's word, it was doing life together, it was worship, it was

breaking bread, and from house to house it was prayers and songs and hymns.

And so God has called us to go forward, God has called us to

move and to take the gospel out.

I find, for one reason or another, I'm going to be careful, but what

can happen over time is that we can begin to develop, extremes or we

can begin to develop pet doctrines.

And so there's some who would focus on health and wealth.

In the city, perhaps, I don't know, to balance out the bad

economy and how bad things are.

There's some who focus on the extreme legalism, perhaps because

they see Stockton broken down.

And so they want to put into place barriers.

Perhaps it started is the right heart where they said we need to say no to this.

We need to stop seeing people be lost to sin.

But they went about it the wrong way as they put these barriers in place that

only make barriers, in between Christ.

Some have come into the city and they have said, what we really need to do is

just share the love of God with people.

And so we'll accept anything, we'll accept everything, we'll accept every lifestyle.

And where that's genuine in the heart because God is a loving

God and because God will accept everybody, God only accepts us on

the basis of Christ's sacrifice because we are still full of sin.

Amen.

But as you play down sin and the danger of it, and you say, it's okay,

then you find people get to heaven's door and they knock on it and their

name's not found written in the scroll.

And you've got churches who give encouragement to like that.

And so we need to be as the Bible teaches a gospel centered church where

we preach the gospel, where we preach that man has fallen, that God pre created

us in perfect relationship with him.

But we want it.

That God is a giving God, that he was giving to us, but that we

wanted to take instead of giving.

And so we became in our own minds, God, we said, we know what's best for us.

We know what we'll do until we found the complete emptiness of it.

And so God set out this, the way to approach him throughout the Old

Testament that the law was given because he is so holy, because he

is so just that we had to approach them on the basis of a substitute.

You think how gnarly that is to take a lamb after having argued

with your wife over something.

And all of a sudden you take this lamb, and you take this innocent thing, and you

have to watch as it's throat slit, as you confess your sins on this animal, so that

you can approach the presence of God.

Something had to die, because it says, the life is in the blood,

and without the shedding of blood, there is no remission of sins.

The life is in the blood, so it had to be a life for a life.

There had to be substitution, and so the law was given, not to, as a way to get

people to God, but to reveal to people.

That we can't do it.

But not only did we have this mirror, but then we had people come and add to it.

Until they added more commandments, and more laws, and more weights.

That they themselves didn't even keep until Christ came and he was the one

to which all the sacrifices appointed.

And he substituted himself as John.

The baptizer cried out when he saw him, Behold the Lamb of God that

takes away the sin of the world.

And he shed his blood.

That's why we talk about blood in the church.

Because the life is in the blood.

And without the shedding of blood there is no remission of the sins.

It is a bloody cross because it proves that a life was exchanged on

that cross for the life of humanity.

But as 1 Corinthians chapter 15 says, we are most pitiful if Christ did not raise.

1 Corinthians 15 · chapter mention

And so we rejoice in the resurrection.

Why?

Why the resurrection?

Why is that great?

Because it is God's exception of the sacrifice.

He says, yes, that was satisfying.

Yes, my wrath was poured out.

Yes, you can come to me now.

And so we come to Jesus.

And we come and we approach him now on the basis and that gospel

message needs to go out and go forth.

But not only did he forgive us the sins, but he makes us completely his.

He makes us new, he adopts us, he makes us his children.

You guys,

in Hebrews 11, it says, Without faith, it's impossible to please me.

And to some, maybe in this room, that becomes a heavy thing.

Okay, I need more faith to please God, but that is not

what is intended by that verse.

In Romans 1, it says the just shall live by faith.

That means our state, our standing before God, his approval of us.

We have to trust that he really has done it.

And so what that passage declares in Hebrews is he says, guys, What

pleases me is not all your effort to be more moral, is not all your

behavior, is not your works and your own righteousness that doesn't please me.

What pleases me is that you believe that I have already given you

righteousness, that I have already given you my love and completion.

That's what pleases me when we just believe that he's done it all

and that we worship him for that.

And so the enemy, as we move into the city of Stockton has taken note of this church

and it would be well said his reaction to the preaching of the gospel would be.

I want you to know that He is deeply disturbed.

The enemy would long to

keep you captive.

The enemy would long to hold this city as an example to the rest of the

country, to the state and to all those around of hopelessness, of despair, of

a people who lack the worship of God.

But God won't have it.

And so God is inviting you to His mission.

He's inviting you to be a people of prayer, to gain His heart, but

then He's inviting you to act on it.

To act on it.

I don't mean that you all become preachers and I'm going to close

if we get the band up here.

I'm not saying that we all, get in full time ministry.

No, you are in full time ministry.

What I'm saying is that you begin to see with eternal eyes with his

eyes, the people around you, the circumstances that you find yourselves in.

What I'm asking you to do is that you might think about where

God has put you in this city.

Where you, where he's put you wherever you live today, where you

would look and you would go, God, here I am in this neighborhood.

And there's a neighbor across the street, she's a single mom.

And she's raising three kids.

And for far too long, I've only worried about making sure, That my

lawn was mowed, that my stuff was dialed, and I haven't even glanced

once across the street to wonder at her state, to wonder at the condition.

And I don't mean that we run, and then we just go, yeah, here's the, and we

throw a Bible at them, but what I mean is that by God's grace and kindness,

we build a bridge that we might be able to preach a gospel that they'll hear.

So it's as simple, church, as rolling up and going, hey, can I mow your lawn?

I know you're busy.

Hey, we'd like to bring you dinner this week sometime.

We know you're busy trying to provide for your kids.

What's your story?

What happened?

What's your situation?

The kids who constantly walk back and forth, aimless, wondering,

is this all life has to offer?

That we would be interested because these are people who

God has formed in his image.

Who God says are beautiful, who he longs to shape and mold in his hands.

I'm talking about real practically seeing that we're missionaries that

real practically as we walk out of this church today, it would be like we're in

Mexico or in Ecuador or that we're in another side of the world, but we're not

because we're in Stockton, California.

And that we would step out, that we would see these beautiful people serving

coffee as people that God longs to have relationship with, that the people

sitting out reading that God longs to have relationship with, that people

down the street and driving, that people who give us dirty looks, God longs to

have relationship with, that the boss who is always honest and never gets

a break and takes advantage of us, God longs to have relationship with.

That the people who have hurt us in the past, God longs to have relationship

with that we see that we are on his mission, that we have been entrusted as

earthen vessels with his good gospel, and that we take that out, that we don't

hold that back, that we're not ashamed of it, but that we begin to genuinely

love people because we see them for who they really are in a ruined state.

And what can rubble do?

can rubble save itself?

Can rubble do anything?

And so we go and we begin to seek to rebuild lives.

We begin to rebuild as we take one stone on top of the other.

And it's a long process.

It's not an overnight thing.

And sometimes there's reaction.

Sometimes you pull up a stone and bats and owls and every kind of thing

flies out of that and you deal with it and it seems more disastrous.

But you keep at it.

You be not weary in well doing for a due season.

You shall reap if you faint not.

And so we need labors.

You are the labors.

Often, we pray, God, send laborers into the harvest.

You are the laborers into the harvest.

It's all around you.

Take up your sickle and begin to reap.

Take Jesus close to your heart and begin to be transformed by that

potter's hand and he will change you and make you like himself.

Have constant communion with him.

Have devotion with him.

See yourself for who you are and yet he knew who you were

and yet he saved you anyway.

He desires you as a bride.

That's nuts!

It's time to do.

For if someone told me that they went and they threw a match in

gasoline and they were not burned by it, they were not scarred, there

was no singe of fire upon them.

If they were to tell me that they stood in the middle of the freeway and had a

semi truck and packed them, but there was not one broken bone in their body, there

was not one scar upon them, we would all declare them to be a liar and not true.

And if one comes and says, I have drunken from the well of living water, I have

tasted from the fire of God, I have this beautiful passion and love, and there

is not action from it, it is not true.

It isn't true.

It's just stinking not true.

And so let him close.

I know why we hold back.

I know we're scared.

Nehemiah was scared.

He's scared through the whole thing.

We're scared of failure.

We're scared of rejection.

We're scared that when we really open and we really deal with things the

way God wants to deal with things, that he's going to reject us like

everybody else has rejected us.

It's not true.

It's a life from the pit of hell.

Open yourself up and all he'll do is make you more beautiful for those things.

We're going to have a time of worship.

We're going to take communion.

We're going to remember his body broken for you.

Remember his first Corinthian six says, your lives aren't your own.

You were bought with a price so costly, so wonderful, so beautiful that you are

the temple, the very building, the very house that God almighty creator of the

heavens of the universe wants to indwell.

He longs to come in.

What does he long to do?

Does he long to domineer and destroy your life?

No, what does it say in the book of Revelation?

It says that he longs to come in and eat with you.

You have no idea how much God loves you.

You have no idea.

He knocks at the door and you're scared right now because you're like, if

I open it, he's going to take over.

You And he longs to bring you to his feast.

He longs to share with you his bounty and his joy.

He just wants to be with you.

He made you, he loves you.

It's the reason he went to the cross.

Don't you know it?

So we're gonna remember him in communion.

Sometimes people think that, the carpets are a place where, it's people who

are repenting, but the carpet is that.

And sometimes that's where I get and just get down as the Lord reveals things in

my heart and we deal with them there.

But sometimes, God said, draw near to me and I'll draw near to you.

It's a very practical way of just drawing near to Him.

I'm just saying, I want more.

I need more.

I'm hungry.

I'm thirsty.

I need angst.

I want to be your hands and feet in this place.

We're going to remember them by our tithes and offerings too,

just as an expression of worship.

Pray with me.

God, I thank you for this body.

I thank you for this body.