Stand Firm - Nehemiah 4 (Oct 6) Myles Holmes

Hello and welcome to the Redemption Church Podcast.

We're a church in Newmarket, Ontario, Canada that exists to glorify God through the fulfillment of the Great Commission.

The spirit of the Great Commandment.

Thanks for joining us today.

So good to worship with you this morning.

If you have your Bibles, and I hope you do, you can open them up to Nehemiah chapter 4.

Nehemiah 4 · chapter mention

If you don't have a copy of God's Word with you this morning, our ushers are making their way down the aisle, and you can just flag one of them down and they will get a copy of God's Word into your hand.

And if you don't own a Bible, we would love for you to take this home.

The less we have of them, the better.

We'd be overjoyed that you would take it home and read it and trust that you will be blessed as you do that.

A few weeks ago, in the summer, it feels like a much longer time ago now.

I got to introduce my kids to one of my favorite swimming activities that I can remember as a kid.

It's called the Whirlpool.

You guys know the Whirlpool?

You got an above-ground pool, and you get as many people in there as you can, and the bigger you are, the better it is.

And you run around in a circle as fast as you can, and then what do you do?

You stop.

And it's a lot of fun, especially for small children.

Small children, they don't stand a chance against the current that's created when two grown men get in there and play little child's games.

And so it's fun to see these little children, you know, going around the current.

But even as an adult, you know, you can really make that current so powerful that if you don't stand your ground, if you don't plant both your feet, it will even take you away.

One thing's certain for us this morning that as a Christian living in today's culture, life is very much like that.

We stand against a strong current of opposition.

And if you and I, as followers of Christ, don't have our legs planted firmly on a firm foundation, then we too will get swept up in an even more dangerous current, a soul-destroying current.

Well, you wonder what's the opposition that we face, and I don't know that I even really need to say this, but sometimes it's helpful to catalog it.

Consider for a moment the opposition that as a Christian you face from the world.

Consider the relativism of our time.

That the world says that truth is relative, that it's subjective to you, and that the very foundation of the Christian worldview is that there is truth, and that the truth is found in Jesus, who said that he is the way, the life, and the truth.

Consider what our culture says about fulfillment.

That as you scroll through Instagram and you see the many pages about motivation and path to happiness, that what our culture really says is that in order to find happiness, you need to promote yourself.

Everything needs to revolve around you.

But then we come to Scripture and Jesus actually says it's the exact opposite.

Consider what our culture says about morality.

Or our culture blurs lines between right and wrong.

We hold up the Bible as a clear standard, as a path that if we walk on, we can live the right life.

Suffice to say that as we look at the world, you and I understand as how Christians, it seems increasingly we are standing against currents of opposition.

Now that's the world.

And I want you to know that that's not even that's not really the opposition that I'm worried about as a Christian.

In fact, I believe that as long as we keep God's word open, it doesn't matter how loud the voices of opposition are in the world, we will stand on a firm foundation.

You know what enemy I'm actually concerned about?

It's the enemy of my own sinful flesh.

And this is a sobering reality to think about as I consider over these past few weeks, another pastor who's created a great platform has fallen to moral failure.

And this pastor has been used over even his career to speak to me.

I've benefited so greatly from his ministry, and he almost made it to the end.

But the reality is that he had a target on his back.

We were reminded last week that we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, we wrestle against spiritual powers.

And these spiritual powers, if you're following Christ, every step you take in obedience towards Christ will be resisted.

Satan is out for your downfall.

And I'm even aware that as a church right now, that as a member of this church, I believe that you have in this specific time a great target on your back.

I believe, even as I look around this room this morning, that God is doing a significant thing in so many of your lives.

It truly is, you know, in the in the two and a half years that I've been here, it truly is a remarkable season where people are turning to Christ and people, maybe for the first time ever are experiencing the one another's in small group.

In two weeks, there's gonna be seven people who are gonna be baptized.

That's like 10% of our church.

And so I'm so aware that at a time where the Lord is moving so powerfully in so many of your lives, there's every reason to be encouraged, but there's also every reason to plant your legs firmly because every step of obedience you take towards Christ and the plan that he has for your life will be resisted.

There's a great need to stand firm.

And so, my question, and even this morning, Satan is in the technology as these lights have been strobing all morning, and I came in and the worship team said, I don't know what's going on, there's no reason, but everything's going wrong, and I said, It's because I'm speaking about spiritual opposition this morning.

There's a great need for us to stand firm.

How does the Christian do that?

How do we battle?

What is the battle plan as we stand against this current of opposition?

Well, what we're gonna discover this morning in Nehemiah 4 is that opposition is actually nothing new to the people of God.

And if nowhere else in scripture would show us that, Nehemiah 4 certainly does.

Nehemiah 4 is reminding us that whenever the people of God take a step of obedience towards Christ, whenever they seek to build his kingdom his way, they will have opposition standing in their way.

And so in Nehemiah 4, if you've been with us, you you know that the people of Israel have committed to taking up the work of God.

They are back in Jerusalem, they're building the walls around the temple, the the critical walls if the kingdom of God will be established again there in Jerusalem.

And yet, as is the case for us today, they faced opposition.

Now, thankfully for them, and I think very relevantly for us this morning, they had a leader who showed them how to stand firm in the face of opposition.

And Nehemiah this morning, as we study Nehemiah 4, is going to show us the exact same thing.

How we stand firm in the face of opposition.

Well, before we get to the practical points of how to do that, I want you to understand what the opposition was that they were facing.

Look at chapter 4, verse 1 with me.

Or Nehemiah writes this.

He says, Now when Sanbalat heard that we were building the wall, he was angry and greatly enraged, and he jeered at the Jews.

The opposition towards Israel would come in the flesh of Sanbalat and his side man Tobiah.

We've met these men before.

We've even called them things so cruel as negative Nancies.

As Israel established itself in Jerusalem, every step of the way, Sanbalat and Tobiah were there complaining that Israel was there.

They were provincial rulers, they were under the authority of Artaxerxes, the most powerful man in the world at that time.

And yet, even though Artaxerxes was the one who commissioned Nehemiah and Israel to go to Jerusalem and to build the walls, San Balad and Tobiah had a different agenda.

They wanted control, they wanted power.

And so the very thought of Israel being in Jerusalem and building the walls and establishing strength and a home base in Jerusalem was against the desires of Sanbalad and Tobiah, but I want you to understand something: that there is a much larger battle going on here than the battle between Israel and Sanballad and Tobiah.

You see, what ultimately is happening here is that what's happening in Jerusalem is against the kingdom of Satan.

This is the heart of why you, as a follower, will face opposition.

It is because the commitment that you have made to Christ immediately consumes you in a cosmic warfare that has been happening since the beginning of time.

The commitment to follow Christ is so much bigger than your tiny and my tiny little life.

It commits ourselves to a battle that has been raging on since the foundation of our world, the battle that is between Satan and God.

That's why every step of obedience we take towards Christ is a step of resistance against Satan, whom Scripture calls the Prince of the Power of the air.

This is why Jesus in John chapter 15, verses 18 to 20, warned his disciples.

John 15:18–20

He said, If the world hates you, know that it has hated me before it hated you.

If you were of the world, the world would love you as its own.

But because you are not of this world, but I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hates you.

What is Jesus saying?

Because I have chosen you, you will face resistance.

It has nothing to do with you, it has everything to do with me.

This is why we face opposition.

Have you ever wondered why it is so hard to establish spiritual routines and habits in your life that you know will be to your benefit?

Why we must ask ourselves, is it so easy to binge watch Netflix?

Why is it so easy to scroll mindlessly on Instagram, but so hard to pick up God's word and to read it?

It's because there are there is spiritual resistance fighting you every step of the way.

Why is the step towards obedience so difficult and the step away so hard?

Because there is spiritual resistance.

You are on your bike and the gear is cranked to the lowest gear.

You're biking uphill, it is going to be hard.

So that as the Israelites were in Jerusalem pursuing God's will, we find in verse 2 that Sanbalat and then Tobiah are asking these questions that are really questions of mockery and insulting.

Look what they say in verse 2.

He said, In the presence of his brothers and 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 heaps of rubbish and burned ones at that?

Tobiah the Ammonite was beside him and he said, Yes, what they are building, if a fox goes on it, he will break down their stone wall.

I love what's happening here.

Sanbalin and Tobiah are asking these questions, but you understand these aren't really questions at all.

These are statements.

You know, in the marital warfare that you often have with your spouse, you've probably become pretty expert at these kind of question statements, right?

Really?

Are you gonna eat that again?

Really?

Are you gonna go there again?

You learn how to kind of phrase these questions that they don't really require an answer because they are a statement themselves.

That's exactly what Sanbal and Tobiah are doing.

They're essentially saying this that the Israelites are too weak.

Wall building is beyond their ability.

Worship would lead them nowhere.

Building this wall is gonna take way too much effort.

And then even if you do it, it's gonna be so weak that if even a fox jumps on it, it's gonna fall over.

What is it?

It's psychological warfare, isn't it?

What the enemies of Israel are trying to do is to get in the heads of God's people and to stop them from committing to God's work because they think it's so foolish, just like they did 15 years ago.

This tactic had been extremely successful against Israel.

And here it is again.

Now, as you as you hear these words, I can't help but to think that these statements, that Israel's too weak, that what they're doing is useless, that they don't have the ability to do it, that worship won't benefit them very much.

Doesn't that sound kind of familiar to you?

I mean, I don't know about you, but that kind of sounds like the dialogue that is in my head all the time.

Like, really, you think you can preach the word of God?

Satan whispers.

You think that you can preach God's word in a way that it will move people?

And I wonder what the temptation is for you.

I wonder how Satan whispers these questions in to your ears.

Really, you you think that small group is gonna benefit you?

You think that's really worth your time?

I mean, God's using that other person, but uh is God gonna use you?

You're not like them.

Psychological warfare that tells us we're too weak, we're unable, we're wasting our time, we can't follow God, and even if we try, we will not amount to anything.

And so listen, you and I need to understand that we are part of a cosmic warfare, but the greatest battle is actually happening internally.

This is this is why Paul says in Romans 12, but you know, after this huge exposition of the gospel and who God is in Jesus Christ, he says this that we need to be renewing our minds, being transformed by the renewal of our mind.

This is why when Jesus prays for the church, he prays this prayer in John 17.

Sanctify them in your truth, your word is truth.

Because what is necessary for us, if we are gonna endure in this world that hates us, is that our minds are continually being renewed according to God's word.

This is the wonderful truth about what God speaks about in his word.

It is all gospel, and for every one of Sandbalat's and Tobiah's mockeries and insults against God, every time Satan whispers in your ear, the gospel answers that whisper.

And so Satan says this, you're too weak.

What do you respond?

I am too weak.

I am, I can't do it.

But God has done it in Christ for me.

And then Satan whispers, you're unable.

And what do you respond?

Yeah, I am unable.

But not with the strength of Christ working in me.

The gospel responds to our greatest questions.

Well, what Nehemiah here is doing is teaching us how to stand against this opposition and practically showing us what we must do.

And here's the first thing I want you to see that Nehemiah does.

He turns.

First thing we do to stand firm is turn.

Because the Lord is listening.

This is exactly what Nehemiah does.

I love what verse what happens in verse 4.

There's no introduction.

You get this sense of urgency.

When I first read this, I had no idea who was praying this.

I thought, are Sandbalad and Tobiah Christians now?

Are they praying this prayer?

But no, it's Nehemiah, and he immediately launches into this because you get this sense of desperation and urgency.

He prays to God, hear, O our God, for we are despised.

Turn back their taunt on their own heads and give them up to be plundered in a land where they are captives.

Do not be c 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.

In these verses, what Nehemiah does is he acknowledges before the Lord the opposition that he faces, but he immediately turns to God because he's relying on God's power and relying on God's justice to confront the opposition that he faces.

I think that if Nehemiah were with us this morning, he would be in the front row where the most spiritual people sit, right?

Right?

All the people in the front are like, Amen, yes, amen.

All the people in the back are like, I'm never coming back here again.

But that was a side point.

But Nehemiah would be here, and he would love to sing the song we just sang, found in you.

Everything we need is found in God.

Every victory that you will ever win on a spiritual, eternal level is found in Jesus Christ.

And Nehemiah knows that.

So when opposition meets him, when he stands against the current of culture, what does he do?

He turns to God.

He knows where victory is.

And listen, you and I are here and we're fretting about the way the culture is going and the LGBTQ movement and politics and all these things, and and what is God saying?

He's laughing.

Like, you think that has the power to stand against me?

Why wouldn't you just turn to me?

Nehemiah turns to God because he knows of God's character, he knows of God's greatness.

And I want you to understand that when you turn to God, this sorry, that this is the very thing that causes you to turn to God.

That you understand his greatness.

You know what causes us to not turn to God is that we have too small a view of God.

We don't think that God can really win.

We don't think that victory is really found in him.

We sing those words, but when the rubber meets the road, we think that we're better off on our own.

It's not until you are convinced of the greatness of God, it's not until you have such a high view of God that when you face opposition, you realize you have nowhere else to turn that you will then turn to God.

I love what we sing.

The third song.

I mean, it's it's phenomenal what the Spirit does because Joel plans these sets before he knows what I'm preaching on, and yet so many times doesn't it seem like it's perfectly planned.

Let me tell you, it's not.

I'm not taking any credit.

But what did we sing in that in that third song?

He tells sickness to leave and it's gone.

So then what do we do when we're sick?

We turn to the Lord.

He's saying, You stand alone.

You stand alone.

You're the God over all I know.

So I stand in awe.

This is exactly what Nehemiah is practically doing.

It's one thing to sing it, it's another thing to do it.

It's the apostles who say to Jesus, to whom else can we go?

You have the words of life.

And so if you're gonna stand firm against the opposition, the first thing that needs to happen is that you have a higher and higher view of who God is.

Let me suggest that I mean, this is the heart of it.

This is why we will not turn to God because we have such a low view of him.

I mean, think about it for a moment.

You remember when Jesus is in the boat and the disciples are out on the deck, and the storm is so bad they are literally fearing for their life.

They're terrified.

And they do account and they say, Where's Jesus?

He was with us.

And they find him and he's sleeping on the boat.

And you're just as shocked as the disciples.

Jesus, what are you doing?

And what does he wake up?

And he doesn't wake up like this, wow, that was a deep sleep.

I can't believe what's going on.

He wakes up and he says, Oh, you of little faith, what is the problem?

The problem is that Jesus knows the power of God, and he knows that a few short, small waves are not going to disrupt the plans that God has for Jesus and the disciples.

He's got such a high view of God that he looks down from that view, and those waves are really nothing at all.

And the same will be true of you.

If you are filled with faith, the opposition that you face, you will come to realize if you have a high view of God.

It's really nothing at all.

I wonder if Nehemiah had fresh in his mind the words of Isaiah, who said, Behold, the nations, the nations, the most powerful thing that you could imagine, a nation with its army and its political rulers and its resources, he says, the nations are a drop from a bucket.

They are accounted as dust on the scales.

How small are the nations.

You want to know how small the most powerful thing in our world is compared to God?

When you go home this afternoon, go to your sink and turn put your hand on the tap and play a little game for me, okay?

Try to put out as little amount of water as you possibly can.

Just the smallest little drop.

It'll still be bigger than what God says the nations are compared to Him.

Go to your scale and take some dust and sprinkle it over the scale and see if it registers.

It won't.

It is nothing compared on a scale.

So are the nations to God.

The greatest powers that you will ever stand against are a drop in the bucket to God.

This is why you and I, we need to make every effort that we can personally muster up to have a higher view of God.

This is why the main objective that we have in this worship service is for you to leave with a greater view of God.

That is what it's all about.

It's about worship.

Like, who cares about what practical thing you've received if you haven't during this time increased your view of God?

It will do nothing for you.

We're here for worship.

Here's what Nehemiah believed about God that caused him to turn to God in prayer.

He believed that God was just so that his enemies would be paid back.

He believed in God's glory so that God would vindicate his name.

Now I wonder if even as we read this prayer, some of you, you know, maybe gritted your teeth.

Like that's kind of a weird prayer, isn't it?

Nehemiah's praying for vindication.

Some of us, this might seem archaic, it might seem harsh.

Might even seem contrary to Jesus' command, like, oh, this is an Old Testament thing, but Jesus tells us to love our neighbors.

But I want you to see that Nehemiah's prayer is grounded in this understanding that it ultimately isn't about him, it is about God.

And that by opposing what the Israelites were doing in Jerusalem, these nations were opposing God's kingdom.

But I want you to notice here that just because the Israelites turn to God doesn't mean that the opposition stops.

In fact, as Nehemiah prays in verse 4 and 5 to be delivered from the opposition, what we find then in verse 6 and continuing is that that prayer is really not answered.

God does not immediately deliver them from the opposition, so that in verse 6, they get back to building the wall, they build it up to half its height, it's halfway done, but then we're told in verse 7, Sanbalat and Tobiah.

Now there's more, the Arabs, the Ammonites, and the Ashdodites, which if you put on the map, it would be everybody.

Like Jerusalem can't go anywhere.

There are enemies on every side.

The opposition is only increasing.

Now, Sam Balad and Tobiah are kind of walking a tightrope here.

They are under the authority of Artaxerxes, who has actually commissioned this work to take place.

So there's a bit of tension here where they can't just outrightly go in and wipe Jerusalem out.

But the more that they, with all the wisdom and power that they're able, the more they press against God's people, the more God's people turn to the Lord in dependence of him.

And so after turning to the Lord in verse 4 and 5, look what then happens in verse 9 after the opposition becomes even more intense.

In verse 9 it says, And we prayed to our God and set a guard as a protection against them day and night.

Again, they turn back to the Lord.

Now here's what's happening this morning.

God is really defining for us what it means to be a Christian.

A Christian is a person who, time and time again, turns to the Lord.

You're constantly turning to Him.

This is why I've mentioned this before, but I find it so incredibly helpful on my calendar.

When I put in time for reading God's word in prayer, I call it personal worship because I want to remind myself, I'm not just there to like read some scripture and check a box and to say a few prayers.

I am there because I need to get my heart before the Lord.

Who knows what today will bring.

I need to turn to Him.

This is what reading scripture and prayer and personal devotion is all about.

It's about taking a moment to turn away from a day that, apart from God's intervention, will likely be filled with selfishness, or a day that apart from God's speaking will likely be filled with anxiety.

It's about turning away from that and focusing your attention on the Lord, turning to the one who has power to deliver you from whatever may come that day.

And so it comes down to this.

I mean, it really comes down to this.

Are you plugged in continually to the presence of the Lord?

Are you continually turning to Him?

I'm reminded that there are really two types of people in this world, aren't there?

There are people whose phone is always fully 100% charged, and even now, as we get about an hour into the service, you're like freaking out because you're at 95%.

Right?

Anyone can self-confess, that's them.

And then there are others like myself who you love to just ride in the red zone.

You love to live dangerously.

I do that all the time.

I have friends who love, you know, fully charged battery.

I'll even take screenshots of my battery at 2%, and I will text them and say, my last action on my phone was texting you this.

And they just can't believe it.

And yet I understand that it's great, you know, I've had myself in a lot of situations where my phone is dead, and I could have just plugged it in the night before and I would have been fine, but all of a sudden I'm not.

And it's a great illustration then of what it means to be a Christian.

It means we're continually turning to the Lord because we find that power comes from him and him alone.

Now, I'm not saying that turning to the Lord will make your life instantly easy, that you won't face opposition, but I am saying that that's where the strength to face it is found.

In fact, as they turn to the Lord a second time, what we find then is it continues to be even harder.

So that in verses 10 to 13, Israel is fearing for its survival.

Look what they say in verse 10.

In Judah it was said, the strength of those who bear the burdens is failing.

There's too much rubble.

By ourselves, we won't be able to rebuild.

And the enemies of Israel look at this and they say, now's the time to strike.

They are weak.

And so what do the people of Israel do?

They've already turned to God twice, it doesn't seem to be working.

What do they do?

You know, I was part of a conference this past week, and it was a conference of high-level leaders in our movement called the Great Commission Collective.

During the conference, a question was asked in the QA.

It was it was this How should the church respond in light of the increasing opposition that it's facing?

Culture is changing, times are changing, how does the church survive?

That's a great question.

In fact, our men will regularly meet together.

Mark your calendars, men, October 20th, we're doing it again for men's ministry.

But we regularly meet together and we will spend time doing a question and answer where we we ask questions and then we open up God's word together to try to find answers.

And you know what's interesting is that so many of our questions as men really revolve around culture and the opposition that we're facing as a culture and the question of what do we do in response to it?

How do we raise children in this culture?

How do we maintain the integrity of marriage in this culture?

It's an incredibly important question.

I but I loved what the answer of the person on the panel was that the thing the church needs to do when it faces opposition is this to keep preaching God's word.

To keep worshiping Him.

You see, what you need is not some new strategy.

What the church needs is not some new way to overcome the opposition.

What it needs to do is come back to the only thing that has ever caused a church to survive, the word of God and prayer.

From the very beginning, this has been it.

This is what the early church depended on.

When they faced opposition, they turned to the word and prayer.

And apart from that, we will not survive.

So then in verse 14, he speaks to them.

He looks in verse 14, and he arises and he says to the nobles, to the officials, and to the rest of the people, do not be afraid of them.

Remember the Lord who is great and awesome.

What do you need to do?

In many ways, it's not very practical, is it?

Remember the Lord?

They're coming at us with swords, Nehemiah.

Remember the Lord, and yet it is the most practical thing you can do.

Remember who is in control here.

Turn to the Lord.

This is so practical for you and I.

What does your family need from you?

What does your church need from you?

What does this world need from you?

It needs you to cling tightly to Jesus no matter how hard the opposition gets.

We turn to the Lord.

In verse 13, he says, Remember the Lord, but notice that right after that he says, and fight.

Remember the Lord and fight.

Which leads us to our next point.

If you want to stand firm, you need to toil.

Toil, the Lord is with you.

Now, what Nehemiah is doing is he's standing in this in the midst of this biblical tension.

Can I show you this tension?

In fact, if you have a pen, I think you should circle your Bible here.

Circle verse 14 where it says, fight, and fight for your brothers and your sons and your daughters and your wives and your homes.

And then go down to verse 20 and look what Nehemiah then says, only a few short verses later, in the place where you hear the sound of the trumpet, rally to us there, our God will fight for us.

Nehemiah is standing in the middle of this tension that is all over the Bible.

And the tension is this while our work is absolutely necessary to accomplish God's plan, at the end of the day, it's God who does the work.

We see this so clearly.

Nehemiah says, fight.

And so in verse 15, and uh look at the second half there, you see, we all returned to the wall, each of us to his work.

From that day on, half my servants worked on the construction, and half held spears, shields, bows, and coats of mail, and the leaders 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 the work with one hand and held his weapon with the other.

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

People of God respond to Nehemiah's call to fight, but at the very beginning there, Nehemiah reminds him again if God gives us the victory, who will it be from?

Look what he says in the beginning of the verse 15 when our enemies heard that it was known to us and that God had frustrated their plan, the glory, the victory, it goes to God.

This is why, as they continue to tackle problems in eight in verse 18 and 19, we find it said again by Nehemiah in verse 20, our God will fight for us.

And so we ask this question: Who is fighting?

Is God fighting?

Or are we fighting?

And the biblical answer is yes.

The biblical answer is both.

And if you're not okay with standing in the middle of tension, you're gonna have a lot of trouble with a lot of things in the Bible because the Bible calls us to stand in this tension that we just sang about that ultimately the victory is the Lord's, but we have work to do.

Who does the work?

It's God, and yet you and I have work to do.

Now, the ultimate example of this tension between God's work and our work, I think, is in our salvation.

You know, on the one hand, many of us grew up with sort of this idea of salvation that was that was really the only thing that was important was what you did.

It was sort of this altar call mentality of you if you just walk down the aisle, you say a prayer, you ask Jesus into your heart, you're gonna be fine, it doesn't matter what you do.

And then on the other hand, many of us are still grappling with this sort of legalism that tells us that God doesn't really do anything for us, we've got to do it all.

But the truth lies in this tension that when it comes to our salvation, it is fully God.

And it is his work in us that allows us to do the necessary work.

Think about this for a moment.

Salvation, it comes when we repent and believe and turn to Jesus.

But is it possible to repent apart from God first working in our lives?

The answer is no.

So that the apostle John says that Jesus came into the world, but the people were in darkness, and the problem was that they loved the darkness.

And the only reason that that we would turn to Christ is because Jesus first loved us so that we could then love him.

This is what the Bible says, not that Jesus is calling to people who are alive and need to respond to him.

The Bible says that we are dead in our sins and trespasses, and so Jesus can call the the make the call of salvation to us.

But I wonder, have you ever gone to a graveyard and called people to raise to life?

Try it.

Send a video to me, please, when you do try it.

Go there and try to get dead people to do anything.

You can't.

So it was with you and I.

See, if if we were going to repent, God had to do a work of regeneration first.

He needed to spiritually resurrect us so that what Paul says in 2 Corinthians 4 is that God turns on the light in our darkness so that now we can see, we see the glory of God, we turn to him in repentance.

God in his sovereignty fights for us, enabling us to fight the good fight.

Christ won the ultimate victory.

He secured our redemption, and now you and I are called to work out a salvation that has been won for us by Jesus Christ with fear and trembling.

We need to respond to the gospel.

You can't be saved apart from responding to the gospel.

Repentance is a work that is necessary for you to accomplish, but unless God fights that fight, you cannot do it.

It's a work you must do.

John Ortberg illustrates the tension we face, I think, as well as I've heard it.

He says it's the difference between piloting a motorboat or a sailboat.

We can run a motorboat all by ourselves.

We can fill the tank and start the engine.

We're in control.

But a sailboat's a different story.

We can hoist the sails and steer the rudder, but we are utterly dependent on the wind.

The wind does the work.

If the wind doesn't blow, sometimes it doesn't, we sit still in the water, no matter how frantic we act.

Our task is to do whatever enables us to catch the wind.

And listen, this is what's required of you, knowing that it is God who fights the battle, but that we must also fight.

You and I must do the work of hoisting sails in the direction that God's wind blows.

Let me illustrate maybe what that means for you.

I think this is an incredibly important question if you're here and you haven't turned to Christ.

God's call is urgent.

He calls today.

He says, Today is the day of salvation, that if you turn to Him, you will find life.

And so maybe you're here, you feel the weight of your own sin.

Or you feel the burden of trying to fix your life, of trying to make things right before God.

Or you just want your life to be fixed, but you don't you don't even know where to start.

The gospel is God's hand reaching to you in the midst of a burden you can't bear, in the midst of an uncertainty you can't deal with, and saying this, you can't do it.

You can't deal with your sin.

You can't fix your life alone.

You stand against a possible an impossible enemy.

But what God speaks to you this morning is that it's not about what you can do.

The fight is not yours, the fight is his.

What it is ultimately about is what he can do.

So he sent his only son so that the victory is done.

Your salvation, it's already accomplished.

You don't even need to like trust in the future and think, like, oh, is God gonna save me?

You just look back to the cross and you see that God has already died in order that you might be redeemed.

Jesus said, It is finished.

He fought the ultimate battle on the cross, he dealt with the weight of our sin, and in his resurrection, he has offered us the new life that we need.

So the question this morning is this Will you turn?

Will you turn to Christ?

He's calling you.

But you must respond in faith.

If you're in Christ, there's great motivation that comes from this reality that God calls us to fight with a knowledge that he fights our battles.

And it's this God has laid out a very clear path for you and I that he will bless.

God in his word has told us the way that he blows wind into our sails, the things that we need to do if we want to be blessed.

God's not secret about it.

God is very clear about the way to live if you want to experience his blessing.

Think about it for a moment.

Think about Psalm 1.

Psalm 1 is really the foundational Psalm that the rest of the Psalter is built upon.

And the very beginning of Psalm 1 is this Blessed is the one, is the man who walks not in the counsel of wicked, nor stands in the way of sinners, nor sits in the seat of scoffers, but his delight is in the law of the Lord, and on his law he meditates day and night.

God is clear.

There is a way to live in which he will bless you.

So that when Jesus comes, he preaches, and the first thing he says on the Sermon Amount, and the very first sermon is this Blessed are the poor in spirit.

Blessed are the poor in spirit.

And he goes on, blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.

Blessed are the hungry and thirsty, for they shall be filled.

And so what do you and I do?

We listen to God's clear word about the life that we find blessing in, and we do it.

Isn't it so simple in so many ways?

I mean, I don't have an app a practical application here about what you need to do.

And if you need to look for that, I would think Psalm 1 and Matthew 5 are an incredible place to begin.

Because God's word is so clear on this that there is a path that we can walk on that God will bless.

My point is this: are you hoisting the sail?

Are you pursuing the type of life that God blesses?

Do you walk in this morning with the sweat still on your brow of having toiled after the pursuit of the Lord?

Because God has fought for us, this is what we must do.

We must toil.

Having turned to the Lord and toiling in light of his presence with us, what what do we do next?

Well, here's what Nehemiah teaches us.

Finally, is that we trust.

We trust the Lord fights for you.

That's the last thing we do.

You know, the great need then is to continue to fight the battle all along, every day, believing that it is the Lord who owns the victory.

This is exactly what they do.

Nehemiah says, our God will fight for us.

So what do they do?

In 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.

They labored.

They got to work.

They were doing it on this foundation that God would give them the victory.

They labor to fight a battle that they are now fully convinced by Nehemiah that God has already promised to win.

You know what I love about the gospel?

And particularly about preaching the gospel, is that I get to stand up here week after week and remind you, what I remind myself every day, that what you are pursuing in the world has already been offered to you in Christ.

The treasure that you are looking for outside of Christ is found in abundance already in him.

And you sit, you you hear that and you say, There's no way it can be true.

It sounds too good to be true.

And I tell you, this is why the gospel is good news.

Because the stuff that you're laboring for, you will never find.

Don't you find that?

You ever been caught up in materialism?

Like you just are caught up in this idea that, oh, if I get the next thing, then I'll just be happy.

We all are.

You get a new phone, don't you like feel different?

You feel like you walk with some swagger.

You put on some new clothes, don't you feel like you're kind of on the top of the world because your materialism is preaching something to you that you can actually find joy in it, but it fades away so quickly.

It's like trying to hold on to sand.

You can never hold it.

And you know what the gospel is?

Here is Jesus.

I have everything you need.

I fought, I won all the bounty, and I'm sharing it all with you.

Will you just come?

Will you just turn to me?

And we say, No, Jesus, listen, uh, if I just work a little bit harder at my job, then my boss is gonna be satisfied, me, then my wife is gonna love me, and then I'll truly be happy, and it's a carrot that's dangling in front of us.

We never get it.

And I mean, I just I know you've experienced this.

Because you're human.

And here, Jesus steps in our way, and he says that the very thing you are looking for is found in him.

Everything you want, you can't get it.

But God can.

And every spiritual blessing is found in Jesus Christ.

And he has already won the battle that you and I have been working so hard to win.

We've been working so hard to find joy, and Jesus says it's mine.

We've been working so hard to find peace, and Jesus says it's mine.

We've been working so hard to find worth and fulfillment and satisfaction, and Jesus says it is mine, and it is yours for the taking if you will turn to me in faith.

And so the work is to trust.

We turn, we toil, and we trust, believing that the battle has already been won.

Could you pray with me?

Father, we need so desperately to do each of those things, knowing the opposition that stands against us.

And yet, Lord, we confess it's hard.

And so, God, what we do now is we sing this final song is we want to do exactly that.

God, we want to turn to you in this time of corporate worship as a way to say, Lord, that we trust in you, that this week we are gonna live for you and work for you and labor for you and toil for you because we trust that the battle is yours and that the battle has already been won.

Lord, we believe it.

We believe it.

And so we sing in faith, God.

We sing this to you in the name of your son.

Amen.