Strength in the Struggle | Jason Gore

But what's going on? Hope family. How we feeling? All right. All right.

All right. Uh,

we are in week four of a series that we have been calling a fresh start. Uh,

I was at a place in my life where I needed a fresh start. Um,

there's been many of them. Uh, it was 1997.

I was a freshman on the North Carolina State University wrestling team.

And I'm telling you,

like I was gonna hit the ground running and take the world by storm, uh,

coming outta North Carolina. And, uh, it was all systems go.

I won my first wrestle off. I was gonna start beat a returning a CC champion.

And uh, then I got hurt, uh,

did some nerve damage on my neck through a series of testing and MRI had a

doctor look at me and say, this pains me to tell you this,

but you're not gonna be able to wrestle this year. And most likely,

you're never gonna be able to wrestle again. Uh, so what you had was a,

a college freshman that had all these big dreams and I I,

my identity completely wrapped up in wrestling.

And I quickly turned to what many turned to their freshman year in

college, uh, as a young man searching for his identity and I mean, you name it.

And, and I was into it, went through that year, got to the end of the year,

realized how much I missed wrestling, and I thought, who knows?

Like maybe a miracle could have happened. Maybe I've gotten better.

And so I went and talked to our training staff, uh,

went and talked to a couple doctors, ran some other tests,

ended up getting cleared to be able to wrestle again. And so I was like, okay,

this is it. This is my fresh start now, this is when it starts.

But what I found out was a recipe to being a successful division one wrestler is

not taking an entire year drinking too much, staying out too late,

maybe lifting some weights to get as big as you can,

but carrying zero about your cardiovascular system.

And so I hit the ground as a sophomore, a red sharp freshman, and man,

it just wasn't the same anymore. Like,

I was not in the place that I thought that I was gonna be.

Now the story kind of turns, but I had a couple years,

I'm talking like sub 500 seasons not what I was used to.

I had to learn a new head game. Like how do you compete when matches are close?

It did make a turn. I ended up, uh, wrestling my senior year,

ended up winning A-C-A-C-C championships. So go pack, that's a big deal, uh,

for me.

But what I learned was just because you get a fresh start doesn't

mean it's always gonna be easy. Uh, here's what I know. Uh,

every single one of us are either in a place right now in our lives or we're

going to be in a place where we're gonna need a fresh start in our lives. Um,

life comes at us fast. Like sometimes we get a bit lost. Uh,

figure out marriage is a little bit more difficult than we thought it was gonna

be. Find out parenting is way harder than we thought it was gonna be. Uh,

maybe if you're a student in college, you end up getting, hanging out with the,

with the wrong crowd.

Or maybe you're just in a place where the bottom hadn't fallen out.

But you know,

you're just not living a life surrender to Christ in the ways that he's called

you to live your life. We need a fresh start. And so if that's you,

I've got some good news and some bad news. Uh,

the good news is our God is a God of new beginnings and fresh starts.

The bad news is, is that following God comes with opposition and challenges,

period, end of story. Like Jesus tells us in this life, you will face trials.

And if, if we're supposed to follow Jesus with our lives,

Jesus' life ultimately culminated with him.

Giving his life on a cross for the sake of other people is gonna cost us

something. And so the question really is, when opposition comes,

what are we gonna do about it? How are we gonna respond? Do we fold

or do we stand strong? Uh, do we look at the opposition and stare at it and say,

man, I don't know all this brokenness.

Or do we turn our attention and do we look to God? Do,

do we point fingers at what others have done? Do we own what we can own?

Do we sit in fear or do we remember what it is that we're fighting for?

Uh, to get some answers? What we're gonna do in just a moment,

we're gonna unpack Nehemiah chapter four. Uh,

what we've seen though in the first few weeks,

and I'm gonna do my best to review quickly. Uh, you see God's people,

the Israelites, they're who really aren't all that different than you and I,

but they're getting a fresh start, uh, back in Jerusalem,

back in their promised land that God promised to them after being exiled out of

Jerusalem for about 70 years, held captives in Babylon.

So they're getting a fresh start back over in Jerusalem. Uh, we see Nehemiah,

who is, um, he's a cup bearer to the king. He's an Israelite,

but a cup bearer to the king of Persia.

And his brother comes back to him from Jerusalem to give a report on how the,

what the state of affairs are back in Jerusalem. And his bad news,

like we see in chapter one, he says, listen, the, the city's still destroyed.

The walls are broken down, burned stones all over the place.

And the the people are in a place of shame.

And they're fearful because there's these other leaders and um,

other people groups in the region that they're worried about being overthrown.

Maybe they're not gonna become the people of God that God promised that they

would become. And so we saw four things out in Nehemiah.

He takes inventory of the situation. Um, he listens, he asks some questions, uh,

that when he finds out what's going on, he actually sits in the brokenness.

That brokenness moves him to humble prayer before God confessing sins on behalf

of the people, which really led them.

It was their own sin that led them into the, uh,

into the exile in the first place. But then through that humble prayer,

it moved him to act. That's chapter one. You get to chapter two.

And what we see is what we're gonna see a little bit when we look at chapter

four. But we see that when we align with God for a fresh start, man,

there is gonna be some opposition. And so it's gonna require some trust.

So we saw Nehemiah that he, he trusted in God's timing,

that God calls us into something and we think that we want it right now.

But God does something in the waiting. There's a purpose in the waiting. Uh,

we see that God's calling is greater than man's rumblings.

There's always gonna be naysayers. We're gonna see that again in chapter four.

And then we see that God is bigger than the brokenness.

Like Nehemiah looked around, he saw all the broken stones,

he saw the brokenness around him, but he thought, no, no, no,

God is bigger than this. And then you get to chapter three,

and the Israelites have like rallied around Nehemiah. They said,

let's arise together and let's build this wall.

And we see God bringing a fresh start through his people.

But the principles that we saw last week is when we're trusting God for a fresh

start, oftentimes it starts at home. Like it starts in our own lives.

It starts at what's right outside of our front door.

And so we gotta pay attention where's God placed us, where we live, learn, work,

and play. If God, Jesus is gonna build his church through us in our lives,

it starts at home. We saw that everybody has a role to play,

like it's all hands on deck within the family of God.

We've all been uniquely gifted.

We've all been uniquely called to serve God in a certain way.

And then we saw that it requires a we over me attitude.

Like it's not just about my personal preferences,

it's about God's plans and purposes. And so we wrapped up chapter three,

man and the Israelites, they're just humming. Like they're building the wall,

everything's going good. But just like we said earlier,

our God is a God of new beginnings and fresh starts.

But just like we know in our own lives following God comes with

opposition. And it comes to challenges.

And so we're gonna pick up in chapter four here.

And what I want you to do is we walk through this. I i want you to stay with me.

We're literally gonna work almost verse by verse through Nehemiah chapter four.

So stay with me.

But I want you to put a lens on of thinking through like what does this look

like for me in my personal life to get a fresh start?

But I also want you to think about it in terms of your church family.

Like God's word is for us,

but God's heart has always been for his people and his people in today's

age, or is his church. And so I want you to think through it,

through your personal life, through the life of the church. Uh,

it's no secret as a church, we've been through a ton over the last three years.

So I'm certain we're gonna see some things that'll apply to us as well.

So Nehemiah chapter four, verse one. It says, now,

when sand ballot heard that we were building the wall,

he was angry and greatly enraged, and he jeered the Jews. Uh,

we covered this a couple weeks ago. Sand ballot was, uh, a leader in the region.

Uh, he had had, he has influence in the area, uh, and him,

his sand ballot and Tobias, uh, are seen together throughout the,

the book of Nehemiah. And the entire time,

like they do not want God's people to rebuild this city because they know if

they do, if they establish it and it becomes a city that prospers,

they're gonna lose power and influence. And so in this story,

the opposition is sand ballot and Tobias,

but I want you to know, like I've done this the last couple weeks,

I want us to see it in the context of Nehemiah,

but I want us to see it in the context of our own lives.

And so when we flip to the New Testament, we see the new covenant.

We understand that like God's people are no longer just the Israelites,

but now the family of God has been opened up to all of us, every man, woman,

and student who would believe in the gospel and call in the name of Jesus.

And when we, when, when we believe that we are a part of the family of God,

but now our opposition is no longer flesh and blood. Uh,

I talked about this last week and uh, I think I've got a marker here for I do.

Ephesians chapter six. Uh, it says,

for we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against rulers,

against authorities,

against the cosmic powers over this present darkness against spiritual forces of

evil and the heavenly places.

And so I tell you that because I don't want you just to focus on Samalot and

Tobias is the bad guy. Uh, I want you to see the enemy for who he is.

'cause what's gonna happen in our lives is other people in our lives are gonna

do things to us that we don't like.

And we're gonna be tempted to blame them when the reality is they're not our

enemy. We don't wrestle against flesh and blood.

So let's make sure we have the right perspective as we work through this.

But I do want you to see that it says he was greatly enraged.

He was angry and that he mocked the Jews because our enemy, the devil,

the Bible tells us, he,

he roars around like a line and he wants to devour our lives. He wants to steal,

kill, destroy, and he wants to rob you of the kingdom life that God has for us.

You go to verse two, and he said, Samalot said,

in the presence of his brothers and of the army of Samaria,

what are these feeble Jews doing? Will they restore it for themselves?

Will they sacrifice? Will they finish up in a day?

Will they revive the stones out of the heaps of rubbish and burn ones at that

to buy? The ammonite was beside 'em. And he said, yes. What are they building?

Even if a fox goes up on it, he'll break down their stonewall.

You ever heard some naysayers?

You ever hear this voice like in the back of your head saying, yeah,

maybe you think God's called you into that,

but you don't really have what it takes. Like maybe it's not a person.

'cause I'm telling you, our enemy does that.

Like he finds a way to get these voices in our head.

And I'm not saying like an audible voice, but like we get this sense like,

maybe I don't have what it takes. And we start doubting.

And you find yourself in a place of like, you, you hear this voice,

you call yourself a Christian, and you live your life that way.

Do you really believe that God could use you in the way that you think

interacting? Like God can use you in the lives of other people?

I mean, you've had an abortion.

Do you really think that you deserve to be able to show up at a church service?

And the answer to that is in unashamedly, yes,

absolutely you do because the son of God died for you and died for me. But man,

we get these voices in our head, in our head, whether it's from the inside,

whether it's from the outside, whether it's from our enemy.

And you gotta, you gotta see it for what it is.

You gotta recognize this is opposition against the things of God.

Verse four, I want you to think through what your response would be. All right?

You're chasing after the thing that God's put in your life,

the thing that God has called you to.

And then you got some people coming after you, some people mocking you.

I know what I would be tempted to do. Uh,

it would be use some of the skills that I developed as a division one college

wrestler. Uh, look at what Nehemiah does here. Verse four, hear,

oh our God. Of course, he goes to God in prayer for we are despised.

Turn back their taunt on their heads and give them up to be plundered in a land

where they are captives, he's saying,

put them through the same thing that you put us through.

Do not cover their guilt. And let not their sin be blotted out from your sight.

For they have provoked you to anger in the presence of the builders.

A lot of us know the Bible tells us to pray for our enemies.

This probably isn't the type of prayer that we think about. Um,

and it's not the one that I normally recommend. This is, uh, what this is.

It it, it's called an imprecatory prayer. You see these throughout the Psalms.

This is like, um, this is a,

a prayer that aligns with God's heart for justice and beckons God's justice

in the midst of the situation. Alright? Um,

I'm not encouraging you to pray that God would smite other people.

I just want you to know what it is that's going on here.

We should pray for our enemies. We should pray that they come, uh,

to know Jesus. Uh, verse six. Um,

so we built the wall and all the wall was joined together to half its height for

the people had a mind to work. What you,

what that means is like their mind was now set to work like all this jeering,

all this mockery, all this. You can't do this. You can't do that.

They weren't phased by it.

And we have this temptation to like get caught up in all the drama and to

concern ourselves of whether or not somebody else believes that we can do what

it is that God's called us to do, when at the end of the day, it's God's that,

that it's called ust into it. And so I want you to see, we're gonna,

I'm gonna say this probably a few times, uh, throughout our time together.

But when we're seeking God for a fresh start,

when we're following him into what it is that he's calling us towards,

sometimes, uh,

there's two things that we need to make sure to keep our attention.

One is a prayerful dependence on God.

And the second is a humble dependence on one another.

And you see that right here, like he goes to God. He says,

this is not my battle to fight God. This is your battle to fight.

He's got this prayerful dependence on God.

But then there's this humble interdependence on one another.

Like they go back and they build a wall. Everybody's got a job.

So we trust that God does his part.

We recognize that we've gotta do our part verse four.

But when Samba and Tobiah and the Arabs and the Ammonites and the

Asite Asite, thank you, uh,

and the asite heard that the repairing of the walls of Jerusalem was going

forward and that the breaches were beginning to be closed.

They were very angry and they plotted together to come and fight against

Jerusalem and cause confusion in it. Um, if you have your Bibles,

I just want you to circle that word, confusion. Um,

confusion has been a tactic of our enemy for thousands of years.

It doesn't change. Uh, you go all the way back to Genesis chapter three,

and you've got Adam and Eve in the garden, and God's commanded Adam and Eve,

Hey, like you can eat from everything here except for this one tree,

the tree of the knowledge of good and evil,

where the serpent shows up and goes to Eve and says, did God really say?

And just by the way he asks his question, it leads eve to this confusion.

She answers them.

You can tell she's kind of dancing around the answer a little bit.

And then confusion leads to dis disillusionment.

Disillusionment leads to thinking like,

maybe there is something else that's being withheld from me. Um,

maybe I would be better off if I'm making my own decisions.

And so we gotta recognize,

like when we find ourselves in situations of confusion,

that is not necessarily of God, that is a tactic of our enemy.

It's been true for thousands of years. It's gonna be true. Now,

when God's called us into the things that he has for us in our lives,

you get to verse nine. So what do they, what do we do right? What do we do?

There's confusion, there's more opposition, there's more challenges.

What do we do? And we prayed.

We prayed to our God,

and we set a guard of protection against them day and night.

The same thing like this. There's this recognition,

I've gotta go to God in prayer, but at the same time,

we have this humble interdependence on one another. We've gotta work.

We've gotta trust God's gonna do his part. We've gotta do our part.

Verse 10, in Judah, it was said,

the strength of those who bear the burdens is failing.

You ever been in a place where you feel like you're praying as much as you can?

You're doing everything you can,

but you still feel like you're running outta gas? Um,

I'm not trying to play a martyr card here, but I I'm just telling you,

some of our,

our elders are in the room like they know kind of my journey over the last four

or five years. I've had like days, weeks, months where I'm like, I,

I just don't know how much longer I can keep going the way things are looking.

The Jews were there,

the strength of those who bear the burden is failing. There's too much rubble.

Listen to what they say by ourselves. We will not be able to rebuild the wall.

And that kind of sounds depressing, like by ourselves.

We won't be able to do this. There's no way we can do it.

But you know what the truth is?

The truth is they were right by their selves.

They couldn't rebuild a wall and by myself.

I couldn't rebuild a wall by yourself. You couldn't rebuild a wall

throughout the pages of scripture. For thousands of years,

God's heart has been to get his people,

allow his people to get to a place where they recognize they can't do it on

their own. I mean, to a degree, that's the gospel.

Like if you think for a moment that you can earn your way back to God,

man, nothing can be further from the truth. But the good news, we don't have to,

we don't have to do it by ourselves. The gospel says in our brokenness,

in our sinfulness,

in our inability to ever earn our way back to the standard that God has for us

to earn our way back to our relationship with God,

to live out his plans and purposes that he has for us in our lives to receive

that fresh start. We cannot do it. But Jesus willingly,

left heaven came to earth, walked among us,

went to a cross to pay the penalty that you and I deserve to pay.

He went into a tomb, rose again three days later, overcoming sin and death.

And the power that rose Jesus from the dead is the power that is available to

us. And so when we say by ourselves, we can't build the wall, that's true,

but through the power of God,

we can see the church of Jesus Christ built through the power of God.

We can live into what it is that God has for us.

And we get in these places sometimes in our lives when we think if we could just

plan better, if we can just strategize better,

if somebody would've made a better decision.

And man, there's some, there might be some truth to that.

Like we should always be growing. We should always be looking to ourselves.

I'm a big believer in extreme ownership. But at the same time,

like if we don't recognize that really without a prayerful dependence on God,

man, none of this stuff stands a chance

by ourselves, we won't be able to rebuild the wall. Verse 11.

And our enemy said, listen to this.

They're turning up the temperature now so that,

so it sounds like the Israelites are getting weaker,

the opposition's turning up the heat.

And our enemy said they will not know or see till we come among them and kill

them and stop the work.

So they're legitimately talking about killing them, right? Like this is a,

this is pretty significant. Um, I want to do like a group exercise.

So we're gonna, we're gonna talk to each other.

So I'm gonna ask you a question across all of our campuses,

and then you're gonna actually respond. So here's the first question.

Do you actually believe that God had called the Israelites to

rebuild the wall?

Yes.

Great job. That was fantastic. Okay.

Also, see, you have people trying to kill them for building it.

Do you believe in fact that there are opposition and challenges facing the

Israelites doing what God's called them to do? Yes. Okay,

here's the temptation in life.

I really thought God had called me into this, but now it's really, really hard.

Maybe he's not in it.

That's not what we see in scripture. Family. I like the truth is,

if you're fighting for something worth fighting for, it's going to be a fight.

We have an enemy that does not want to see God's plans and purposes go forward

in our life. In fact, I would say if you're not facing opposition,

you might want to ask where you are and what you're doing.

And when the opposition really turns up the temperature,

it might be because something really big is about to happen. And so, man,

my my hope and my prayer is your pastor,

it would just be that you would understand. No, when things get hard, ,

that's when God's getting us to that place saying, okay,

I cannot do this on my own. It requires a prayerful dependence on God.

And we get down on our knees and we say, God, if you don't move, and God's like,

yep, that's what we needed. You gotta know, man,

we like, just because we have opposition does not mean that God's not in it.

Verse 12, at that time, the Jews who lived near them came from all directions.

See, all these Jews that heard, they're gonna come and kill you.

They're gonna come and kill you. And these Jews,

they care about their other Jewish and Israelite family.

So all these Jews who live near them from all directions,

and they said to us 10 times, you must return to us.

You know what they're saying? They're saying, if you don't stop,

they're going to come and they're going to kill you. You need to let it go.

The dream's too big. The dream's over. It can't be done retreat.

It's not worth it. And I don't know what God's placed on your heart.

I don't know what your fresh start is for you and your personal life.

I know a little bit about what it is for us at Hope Community Church.

But I'm telling you, when God calls you into something big,

it's gonna come from all over the place.

It's gonna come from opposition from the outside.

It's gonna come from opposition from the inside.

It's gonna come from opposition in our voice. We're gonna hear this thing.

You're not good enough. You can't do it. It's gonna happen.

I asked the question at the beginning, what do we do? Do we fold?

I mean, it is always an option.

Verse 13. So in the lowest parts of the space behind the wall,

in open places, I stationed the people by their clans with their swords,

their spears and their bows. Doesn't sound like Nehemiah's backing down.

Sounds like he's doubling down. So this is just a military tactic,

like he's taking the soldiers and he's placing them in the most vulnerable

places. Um, this is just a little side note,

has very little due with this message,

but God's soldiers often run to the most vulnerable places

as a part of the family of God who loves God and follows Jesus and, and,

and longs to share hope. The hope that we have in Jesus, man,

we run to the broken places, we run to the vulnerable.

So he assigns them there, verse 14. And it says,

I looked and I arose and I said to the nobles and to the officials,

and to the rest, rest of the people. Listen. Do not be afraid of them.

Remember the Lord who is great and awesome and fight for your brothers,

your sons, your daughters, your wives, and your homes.

And I don't know what your personal wall is,

but I know that if it's worth fighting for,

you're facing opposition in a challenge.

And what I wanna call you to is to get your eyes off your opposition and turn

your eyes as he says. He says, remember the Lord who is great and awesome.

And I I say this regularly, but man, when we,

when we can get our eyes off this junk in our lives so we can get it to the

creator of the universe, all this stuff pales in comparison.

He says, remember the Lord. And then he says, remember what you're fighting for.

And again, I don't know what you're fighting for, but at the end of the day,

you're fighting for your family. You are fighting for God's family,

your brothers, your sons, your daughters, your wives.

You're fighting for my family. You're fighting for my two sons.

You're fighting for my daughter

and your homes and your community.

Verse 15, You know what? I'm gonna do this.

I didn't know if I was gonna do it or not. Uh, I'm gonna do it. Uh,

another exercise. This is what I want you to do. We're a church family.

We're a family who loves God, follows Jesus and shares hope.

And and the word of God calls us to remember the Lord who is great and mighty.

And remember what you're fighting for. So here's what I want you to do.

I want you to turn to somebody next to you.

It'll only be as awkward as you let it. Uh, and I want you to tell 'em,

I want you to look at them in the face. And I want you to say, my name is,

tell them your name, not my name. My name is,

and I'm fighting for you across all of our campuses right now. My name is,

and I'm fighting for you.

Okay? Now, since we're there, let's turn up the awkward. Uh,

I want you to look at 'em again. And I want you to say,

and I need you to fight for me.

Like seriously this stuff. Like, if it's just a story and it's just a fairytale,

it's cool. And if I can keep your attention for 30 minutes, all the better.

But at the end of the day, that's not what this is.

We are the family of God and we are fighting for one another and our families,

and we're fighting for kids back in Kid City. And we're, uh, we're,

we're fighting for vulnerable women through ship of Zion to,

to help rescue them out of trafficking situations. Um,

we're fighting for kids across Wake County who are part of the foster care

system. We're fighting for kids and families in Haiti.

Like this is a battle that we find ourselves in.

And we've gotta remember how great and awesome our God is,

despite how big the brokenness around us looks.

And we've gotta remember who it is and what we're fighting for. How much time?

Okay, this is great.

I've gone through half the chapter and I've got four minutes left. Well,

we're in trouble, . All right. The rest of this, we're gonna pick it up.

We're gonna go fast here. Uh, verse 15,

when our enemies heard that it was known to us that God had frustrated their

plan, we all return to the wall, each to his own work.

You ever know notice like how a bully is a bully until you stand up to him a

little bit? And that's what happened.

They tried and they tried and they tried and they tried and they tried and they

wouldn't back down. And they wouldn't back down. And like Tom Petty,

I won't back down. Uh, it reminds me of Jesus in the desert.

And, um, he's fasting. He's seeking God's heart for his ministry.

And the devil shows up and timsum. And really the short of the story is, um,

Jesus resists him really by reciting scripture to him. Um,

and it says that the devil flees until an opportune time.

When we stand on truth, when we stand on the word of God,

when we stand on what it is that God says is true, the devil flees. Now,

it doesn't mean that he won't come back.

It doesn't mean that we're not gonna face more opposition.

The man resistance starts by standing strong on the word of God and what it is

that God calls us to. Verse 16,

from that day on half my servants worked on construction and half held spears,

shields, bows, and codes of mail. That's like saying, Hey,

half of 'em worked and half of 'em stood on the defense in case anything

happened.

And then the leader stood behind the whole house of Judah who were building the

wall.

Those who carried burdens were loaded in such a way that each labored on

their work with one hand and held his weapon in the other.

And each of the builders had his sword strapped to his side. While he built,

the man who sounded the trumpet was beside me. He saying,

some people are building, uh, some people are protecting.

I got this guy with a horn standing here, verse 19. Uh, it says,

and then I said to the nobles and to the officials and to the rest of the

people, listen to this. The work is great and widely spread,

and we are separated on the wall far from one another.

And the place where you hear the trumpet rally to us there, look,

our God will fight for us. And so he's saying,

look, look, look, when opposition comes, be careful.

'cause if you're spread out, if you're by yourself,

you're setting yourself up as a, as as his target. You're a sitting duck.

But man, when opposition comes, I'm gonna blow this trumpet.

We're gonna come together and we're going to, we're gonna,

we're gonna seek God and prayer, and we're gonna understand that it,

it's our humble interdependence. It all has a job to do,

but it's God that fights our battles.

And then we gotta have that perspective when we realize we can't do it.

We can't build the wall, we can't force the fresh start.

And we're we're led into this prayerful dependence on God.

We realize it's God who fights our battles. Verse 21.

So we labored at the work,

and half of them held the spears from the break of dawn until the stars came

out, worked all day 22. I also said to the people at that time,

let every man and his servant pass the night within Jerusalem,

that they may be a guard for us by night and may labor by day,

working day and night for what it is that God's called them. Two verse 22.

So neither I nor my brothers, nor my servants,

nor the men of the guard who followed me,

none of us took off our clothes and laid onto rest.

Each kept his weapon at his right hand.

They were sold out man to what it is that God called into. Um,

as we wrap up, I, I want you to see this.

So what you saw there is this picture of people building this wall.

And I envision they've got like a trow in one hand,

like a trow is what they use, you know, to build walls and to push the mortar.

And then they've got their sword in their other hand. And I thought,

man, we don't use a lot of trows, but like as the family of God,

we have been called into building the church of Jesus. And yes,

it starts at home. Yes, it starts in your own life,

but we're also called to share this hope with the world around us.

And I just think, man, I just have this vision.

Like what if we at Hope Community Church where these people that had a shovel in

one hand and had a sword in the other,

and we just knew God's called us to do this job.

But I also know there's gonna be opposition. You're thinking, do you,

I don't want you to carry a real sword to work, okay? Um,

but I've talked in and around Ephesians chapter six, um,

And it says this,

finally be strong in the Lord and the strength of his might put on the whole

armor of God that you may be able to stand against the schemes of the devil.

And I've read this where we don't wrestle against flesh and blood,

but against the rulers, against authorities,

against cosmic powers over this present darkness against spiritual forces of

evil in the heavenly places. But then you jump down to verse 17,

and he's talking about the different aspects of the armor of God. And he says,

take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the spirit,

which is the word of God. And so I just envision,

what if we were this people?

What if we were this family that like had our shovels,

like whatever the unique work is that God has called us to do.

But in our other hand, like we're so bought in, we've got our sword.

Like we're so building our lives on the word of God,

that when that oppression comes, it's so easy to remember the might,

the mightiness, the, the greatness of our God.

We remember what we're fighting for. I mean, could you imagine

2000, 3000, 4,000, 5,000,

10,000 men and women and students all around the communities where our campuses

are located? Where, where you all live, learn,

work and play and understand we've got a job to do. So I'm carrying my,

I'm carrying my shovel,

but I've also got my sword because I know opposition and challenges are gonna,

are gonna come. And when they come, I'm gonna stand strong on the word of God.

So convicted throughout this series. Um,

you just see it over and over and over again.

Nehemiah's first step is always to prayer, doesn't know what to do.

Pray, confusion, pray, opposition, pray,

mockery, pray. Um,

so much so that I,

I told our programming team this past week we're,

we're gonna completely change directions with the series that we're gonna be,

that we were gonna be starting in two weeks once we wrap this series up and

we're just gonna have a three week series just on prayer and dependency on God.

It just seems like such a natural transition.

Like we've got to get our hearts and minds around without the spirit of God

moving. We don't have a chance.

And so here's my hope, here's my encouragement, here's my challenge,

here's my exhortation, my prayer for us, uh, as we wrap up a fe uh,

a Nehemiah chapter four,

is that we would be a people with a prayerful dependence on God

and a humble interdependency on one another.

We would recognize we gotta go to God in prayer. It all starts with him.

He's the beginning, he's the end. He's the one that moves things forward.

But at the same time, we would recognize, yes, God's got a job to do ,

but we've got a role to play as well. And so we've got our shovel.

And I know there's a lot of folks that hope that maybe we've pulled back a

little bit of what engagement within this unique family of God looks like.

Maybe it's time to take a step back in. Maybe you're new here around hope.

Maybe you've been here for a few weeks. I'm telling you,

you can be a part of a movement. That is what you were created for.

Look,

I know we're talking about stuff fresh start and some of this stuff is if you're

a part of the family of God,

if you've never made a decision to become a part of the family of God,

to begin a relationship with God through what Jesus has done, we would love to,

uh, come alongside of you, answer any questions that you might have. Um,

you can go to next steps, um, at the campus where you are. Uh,

if you're watching online, you can drop us an email at [email protected].

We would love to follow up with you.

May we be a people that go through our lives where we live, learn, work,

and play shovel in one hand,

soar in the other, and live out God's plans and purposes for our lives. Father,

thank you so much for your word. Um, thank you for Nehemiah chapter four.

Thank you for four chapters that we can go through and we can see your

faithfulness to your people.

And we can see a clear picture of what it means to follow you and to trust in

you in the midst of the brokenness that we find all around us.

I pray that every man and woman and student, they could hear my voice,

Lord would, would learn to trust you, that you would move,

your Holy Spirit would move in their hearts and in their lives to be able to

take the steps forward that you have for them.

Whether that's to pick up a shovel, , whether that's to pick up a sword.

Lord, I pray that they would find strength through whatever challenge,

through whatever opposition that they may face. Lord,

we pray against our enemy in Jesus' name. Lord,

we pray against any scheme that the enemy would have against any man or woman or

student against this family of God called Hope Community Church.

And we pray that we would trust you and that we would follow you in what it is

that you have for us. We love you and we pray these things in Jesus' name.

And everyone said, amen.

Love you God.