Built Different (Nehemiah 1) We Love God

In a book of the Bible called Nehemiah, but I want to get there first as we are talking about this, and that is kind of to get us started.

Several years ago, I did something that was really silly, and I didn't know how silly it was, and that is I had a friend of mine who came to me and he said, I want to build a house.

I'm like, Well, praise the Lord.

And he said, No, you don't understand.

I want to build it myself.

Like I'm gonna get an idea, I'm gonna drop some plans, I'm gonna get my tools, I'm gonna build a house.

Praise the Lord.

That is not my dream.

Okay, that is that is your dream.

I do a good job just to put a picture on the wall, right?

Well, I went to see him in about a month, and I was expecting to see a house.

That's how little I knew.

And I went and I just saw still a piece of land.

And I was like, dude, where's your house?

And he was like, Well, bless his heart, which in the south means all manner of evil things, all right.

But the bottom line was he doesn't know what he's talking about.

Because here's the thing I thought you have an idea, there's the house.

And he's like, No, that's not how it works.

You got to have a plan, an idea of what you want, then you got to have a plan for how you're gonna make it happen, then you got to get out your tools.

A lot of sweat equity, you know, a lot of elbow grease.

You gotta get out there and you gotta do it.

And he did eventually build this beautiful home.

And I think that's really kind of how it works in everything we do in life.

And that is you really gotta have three things.

You have to have a mission, you have to have a vision, but then you also have to have rules of the road, you have to have tools for the trade, you have to have values.

And one of the things we like to do here at RLC is twice a year we like to slow down the series train for just a little while and to talk about why we do this thing called church, why it's important for you to be part of a local church and what God wants to do in your life.

And so, like you have to have a mission, which means that's the goal.

That's the big idea of where we're headed together.

Then you've also got to have a vision, which is the plan.

You know, a dream without a plan is just a wish.

But if you've got a dream or a big idea, then you get a plan together.

Well, now you're getting there, but then you gotta have tools.

It doesn't matter how good your blueprint is, if you don't have a hammer, you know, and a screwdriver and there's other tools, I don't know their names, you know, the all of that, that's that's how the deficient I am in that area.

If you don't have that, you're not gonna be able to make it happen.

And so this is what we do, you know, twice a year is we talk about what that looks like because we want to make sure that we're headed in the right direction as a church, but then also to give you some tools because God's got a plan for your life.

God's got things He wants to do in you.

And so, as you kind of see how we organize ourselves as a church, the question I would ask you is what is God organizing in your life?

And so we're gonna kind of refresh the vision a little bit and talk about an aspect of it we don't normally talk about.

But first, let's talk about the mission.

Now, you're gonna make this old pastor's heart happy if you can say this with me.

I'm gonna say we exist too.

And when I count to three, I want you to give me your best guess as to what that is.

Okay, here we go.

One, two, three.

Thank you so much.

You just made my day.

Yes, at real life church, we exist.

That's your first blank, to make disciples.

That is why we exist.

We unapologetically say God loves you and we have a plan for your life.

And that is we want you to absolutely be a follower of Jesus Christ.

That's what a disciple is, all of Christ and all of life.

That's the mission.

That's where, that's the big idea of where we're headed is we exist to make disciples.

But that's not all.

Because here's the thing.

How?

How do you become a disciple?

Well, we think primarily that you do that through knowing God, growing in freedom, and sharing Christ with everyone.

Like that's the plan.

And it's a lifelong journey.

You don't check that off.

Okay, well, now I know God.

Now I am fully free.

Now I have shared with the entire world.

No, it doesn't work like that.

It is a just like when you get married.

Can you can I tell you one of the reasons why premarital counseling is so so much fun?

I love doing premarital counseling because invariably somebody will say at premarital counseling, okay, Pastor, we're gonna get married in a couple months.

How long before we get this thing figured out?

And I just do what you did.

It's just laugh and go, well, come on, have a seat with us.

Have a seat with us.

Okay, you don't figure out marriage, you just get better at it.

Okay, you you just grow in it.

It's the same thing in your relationship with God.

You don't figure it out.

He's not an algorithm, he's God.

And so we are growing in knowing him more and in growing in freedom and then growing in sharing Christ with everyone.

And so the mission of RLC is to make disciples for you to become a fully devoted follower of Jesus Christ.

How do we want to get there?

By as a church, a lifelong journey of knowing God, a lifelong journey of growing in freedom, and a lifelong journey of sharing Christ, doing ministry together.

But if that's the mission and that's the vision, then what are the tools?

How it's the vehicle, how are we gonna get there?

And that is what this series is all about is we're gonna talk about what it looks like to be able to get from this mission to this vision and then the tools of the trade.

And here's the reason why is what we want to do this year is that we want to be the one to live differently so that we can build differently.

We want to live differently.

We don't want to live like the world lives, we don't want to live like those who have no hope, but rather we live because God's word is full of hope and it gives us direction and purpose and joy.

And the more we study God's word, the more we know Him and grow in freedom and share Christ with others.

And but it takes living differently so that you can build something differently.

I heard someone say it like this: everybody ends up somewhere.

Some people end up somewhere on purpose.

It's like we're all growing in a particular direction, but some people actually go where they're trying to go because of a mission and vision and values.

And I gotta tell you, real quickly, that might be the last time you hear me say that properly.

I've been working on it all week long because I'm from Alabama.

And we don't have time for extra syllables in Alabama, and so normally I say live different and build different.

And I make a couple of our English teachers in here twitch a little bit when I do it, but they don't know how I really feel, and that is that I actually don't even put an extra E in there.

I say live different and build different.

So when I can when I count to three, I want you to all be with me.

I want you to say as country as you can different, okay?

One, two, three.

That's how you're supposed to say it, okay?

Don't listen to your English teachers, right?

That's how you're supposed to do it.

But we want to live different so we can build different.

So, what are our values?

Here, if you're taking those values are core principles that guide how we live out our life's mission.

Because here's the big idea for you: God wants you to be a fully devoted follower of Jesus Christ, He wants you to be a disciple.

And three of the main ways he wants to do that is through knowing him, growing in freedom, and sharing Christ.

But the question becomes what are the core principles on how we're gonna get there?

Because we got to have core principles on getting there.

And what I want to do in this series, and what we're going to do, is we're gonna study the life of somebody in God's word that teach us some core principles on how to fulfill God's vision for our life.

And the one we're gonna use, we're gonna use a guy named Nehemiah.

That is one of my favorite people in the entire Bible, especially in the Old Testament.

And Nehemiah in his life, and we're gonna look at it over the next five weeks, there are five core principles, five core characteristics of his life that God used to move the ball forward.

And I think that God wants to do the same thing in us.

And so I would just kind of ask you that is what are your core principles in life?

And I hope maybe they can be these five, and maybe you've got other ones, but at least these five that we're gonna talk about, we're gonna learn about them from Nehemiah.

So let me kind of set the tone for you, and we're gonna jump into God's word, and that is that Nehemiah actually had an amazing moment in the nation of Israel's history.

So if you don't know, I've been waiting to do this for 10 years.

Boom.

It's the timeline to fill up the entire screen.

Can I tell you, as a teacher, this makes my heart happy, okay?

This is this is what happened.

That actually God's word, God told the people over and over and over again if you don't follow me, I'm gonna lift my protection and you're gonna be destroyed by the Assyrians and the Babylonians.

And eventually, because they would not honor God, that's what happened.

But even as they were being destroyed, the prophet Jeremiah and some different prophets said, In 70 years, I'm gonna bring you back again.

I'm not giving up on you.

And so what actually happened is the Persians took over the Babylonians, and under King Cyrus, God actually moved on a pagan king to send the people of God back again to the nation of Israel.

And it was under a guy by the name of Zerubbabel, which is one of the coolest names you're gonna hear today.

So if you're if you're pregnant and you're expecting a boy, he's not on your list, okay?

But just you just call him Z for short.

All right.

So this, so what happened was is he is Cyrus gave Zerubbabel the mission, which is go back to Jerusalem, build the city walls, build the temple, start over again.

And so they did.

That was the first wave of people that came by.

But 80 years later, most likely under the leadership of Queen Esther, it wasn't done yet.

They had done some of it, they had the big idea, but it had stalled because of so many different things.

And so then they sent a guy named Ezra to go back.

And he had the vision, which was it's great to have a mission, but the way we're gonna make it happen, is we got to fall back in love with God again.

And so he reinstituted worship and he reinstituted reading God's word to them, and they started getting back to where they needed to be with God.

But the problem was, is 13 years later, Nehemiah serves in the very throne room of the king, and he hears what's going on, and he realizes that they're not there yet.

They've got a great mission, they've got a great vision, but there's still something missing, and God wants to use him to do it.

So, so this is where we pick up the story of Nehemiah.

He's looking to hear that everything has been completed, but this is what happens.

One of his relatives goes to Jerusalem, comes back, and says, This, they said to me, Nehemiah, things are not going well for those who returned to the province of Judah.

They are in great trouble and disgrace.

The wall of Jerusalem has been torn down, and the gates have been destroyed by fire.

When I heard this, I sat down and I wept.

In fact, for days I mourned, fasted, and prayed to the God of heaven.

Then I said, Oh Lord, God of heaven, the great and awesome God who keeps his covenant of unfailing love with those who love him and obey his commands.

Listen to my prayer.

Look down and see me praying night and day for your people Israel.

I confess that we have sinned against you.

Yes, even my own family and I have sinned.

We have sinned terribly by not obeying the commands, decrees, and regulations that you gave us through your servant Moses.

Please remember what you told your servant Moses.

If you are unfaithful to me, I will scatter you among the nations.

But if you return to me and obey my commands and live by them, then even if you are exiled to the ends of the earth, I will bring you back to the place I have chosen for my name to be honored.

The people you rescue by your great power and strong hand are your servants.

Now, Lord, please hear my prayer.

Listen to the prayers of those of us who delight in honoring you.

Grant me success today by making the king favorable to me and put it into his heart to be kind to me.

So what happened was is he heard that the mission was amazing, that the the vision was was wonderful, but yet there was still something missing.

And he knew that God had put it in his heart to do something about it.

And what I want to share with you guys is that we can want to make disciples all day long, and I hope that you do.

I hope you want to become a disciple.

And we can be pretty convinced that it's through knowing God, growing in freedom, and sharing Christ.

But there's one more thing that if we will do these things, put these values into place, this is the fuel that will move us forward.

And here's here's the first one of the five that we just unapologetically say this is how we get to that place.

And that is this.

Number one is that we love God.

Somebody say amen.

Somebody else say, Praise the Lord.

Now, this is old school.

Someone say, Preach on, preacher.

Yeah, it's not gonna work.

All right, it's fine, it's fine, it's fine.

All right, preach.

We we love God.

Here, here's the thing, and that is that we are unashamed that we are desperately in love with God.

We had this song we used to sing, it was Jesus at the center of it all.

That nothing else matters, that He is our foundation, and everything we do is from the overflow of our relationship with God.

Here's the thing is it's all about Jesus.

It really is all about Jesus.

You pull back the curtain and look at what's going on behind the scenes, it's all about Jesus.

The most amazing thing is that we have the opportunity to love God.

It's not about me, it's not about Timothy the LED, it's not about Hope Cafe, even though it's awesome.

It's not about coffee.

Can I say this with all respect?

It's not about you.

It's about Jesus.

It's about knowing him and loving him.

And if we will fall in love with Jesus, with everything that we have, the byproduct of that is we begin to know him, we begin to grow, we want to share what we have found, and by that we will become disciples.

And so I want to ask you this question today: where is your love for Jesus?

Are you doing great?

Or is this a time to take a step?

Because here's the question: what does that look like?

What is the value of loving God look like practically in the life of a disciple?

And the answer is there's many different ways.

There's so many different ways to show the love of God in your life for God.

So many.

But we're going to talk about three that Nehemiah showed was in his life, and God used him and the values that God put in him in order to make a difference.

And so I want you to kind of take a personal inventory, and that is where are these characteristics in your life?

Because God wants you to know him, he wants you to grow in freedom, he wants you to be able to serve others with joy, but it begins with loving God.

Here's the first one that Nehemiah showed us, and that is that when loving God is the core value of your life, then we as a church will make prayer a priority.

We will make prayer a priority.

Whisper at somebody and say, We love God around here.

We love God, and we want to live differently so that we can build something differently.

Everybody gets somewhere, few people do it on purpose.

And we want to become fully mature followers of Christ, which means we are going to love God more than anything else.

And that shows itself in the fact that we make prayer a priority.

Look at what he said.

He said, When I heard this, I sat down and wept.

In fact, for days I mourned and fasted and prayed to the God of heaven.

And the scholars say that he probably prayed and fasted for about four months before he went and talked to the king.

So, in other words, he said, I'm gonna make a priority.

I'm gonna spend some time with God.

And the the prayer that he wrote down was the overflow of the continual prayer.

And he said, This, Oh Lord, God of heaven, the great and awesome God who keeps his covenant of unfailing love with those who love him and obey his commands, listen to my prayer.

And this is a guy who worked in the throne room of the king.

He was the king's cupbearer, which was someone who is a trusted advisor of the king.

So he knows what royalty looks like.

And he's saying that above that is my God.

And it is an honor to pray and to talk to the Lord.

And so, what prayer simply is, is prayer is simply talking to God.

And I know that's important we say that because we have so many people in our church who come from various different backgrounds and different things, and so we have these different ideas about what prayer is, but it as most basic, simple form is prayer is communicating with God, it's having a conversation with God.

And the truth of it is that when we love God, prayer should not or should be our first response, not our last resort.

Do you know what I used to have the horrible habit of?

And I'm trying to get so much better, I'm not gonna put this on you, but me.

I used to say things like this we've done everything else we know to do.

Let's pray.

Think about how horrible that sounds to God.

God, we couldn't figure it out, so you want to turn?

That's what it sounds like.

But rather, it should be hey, before we do anything else, let's pray.

You know why that's so important, how that helps us build our lives?

It's because there's some things you just can't tell some people.

Let me say it a different way.

There's some things you shouldn't tell some people.

Like, think about it.

You don't tell your kids everything, you don't tell your coworkers everything, you don't tell certain people the deepest, darkest things in your life, but you can tell God that you can talk to him.

As a matter of fact, there's one place in the Bible that says, Cast all your anxieties on him because he cares for you.

Toward the end of the letter to the church at uh Philippi, when Paul is kind of summarizing everything that he has said, say, Hey, here's here's the main points.

He says this he says, Don't worry about anything.

In other words, he's not saying that they're not worrying, he's telling them to stop it.

He's like, I'm aware that you are worrying.

Don't worry anymore, instead, do something about it, and that is to pray about everything.

Well, what is that?

It's telling God what you need, thanking him for all he has done, and then experiencing God's peace, which exceeds anything we can understand.

And that peace will guard your hearts and your minds as you live in Christ.

In other words, God knows that in this life there's gonna be moments when worry is going to come.

There's gonna be moments when you're gonna need to tell somebody about something.

There's gonna be moments when you need to be thankful, you're gonna need peace, and you're gonna need a guard over your heart and your mind.

And he said, Come to me, come tell me.

The currency of relationship is communication.

And so, one of the questions I would ask for you is What is your prayer life like?

How much are you talking to God?

It turns out the communication is so very important.

Let me give you an example.

There is a horrible, nasty rumor going on around the church, and I just need to just fix it right now.

That is this there is a rumor that says that when my wife and I were dating, that she broke up with me.

That is not true.

I broke up with her.

No, that's a lie.

That's a lie.

I she broke up with me.

Do you want to know why she broke up with me?

She broke up with me because I didn't talk to her at all.

Okay, listen, I was the most introverted human being you have ever met.

And I thought, I've done my job.

I got way out of my comfort zone.

I invited her out on a couple of dates.

We're now boyfriend and girlfriend.

I'm done.

Turns out that's not how relationship works.

And if you don't talk to her that girl at some point, y'all aren't dating anymore.

And that's what happened to me is I barely talked to her until one day she was like, I actually want a boyfriend.

So no thank you anymore.

And here's the thing: she broke up with me for nine months.

Guess what I did for nine months?

I learned how to talk to people because I wanted to go back out with her.

But it turns out if you don't talk to somebody, your relationship will die.

Do you know what happens so many times to Christians?

Man, they get so excited about God that give their life for Jesus and they think they have done their job and they don't ever talk to him anymore and wonder why they don't have a relationship with him.

And the whole time he is reaching out to us and he's saying, Talk to me.

Yo, a great next step to take the next step with God is to start talking to him.

And if that's you, and if you would say that your prayer life is not where you want it to be, I've got a couple of action steps for you.

Here's the first one for all that is good and holy, start slow and let it grow.

Here's the reason why.

I've talked to people who have said, I want to start praying, and they will start a timer for two hours.

Exactly.

And they make it about five minutes and then they quit.

And you know what the enemy does?

As soon as they quit, the enemy says, Well, you know, a good Christian would have prayed for two hours.

And so now they've got guilt and condemnation, neither of which are from the Lord.

And so, can I can I give you like a first step?

If you're not praying at all, I want to encourage you.

On everybody's phone, there's a timer.

I would encourage you to put 10 minutes on your timer.

And for 10 minutes, talk to God about anything.

Thank him, celebrate what's going on, tell him what you need, everything, and that'll cover the first 30 seconds.

And then for the nine, for the other nine and a half minutes, just start talking to God and let it grow.

Let it grow over time.

That's what you do in relationship.

When you start talking to somebody, it grows over time.

Here's a second one, and that is pray without technology.

I'm so glad you love me.

The give me a chance to give you a suggestion.

I did just tell you to set a timer for 10 minutes, but then you set it and you put it over somewhere else.

And then you go without it.

Here's the reason why.

This is an encouragement.

If you've already got a next step, you don't need this one.

But you know what happens is I've heard so many people say, Pastor, on my phone is my prayer list.

And that's wonderful.

But you know what else is on that phone?

Everything else.

All the notifications, the emails, the text messages, the TikTok, the YouTube.

And you know what happens so many times is you're gonna be in time of prayer and you're reading that, and all of a sudden your bestie texts you.

And you know what the enemy will tell you?

I wonder if he has a prayer request.

Let me just check real quick.

He never has a prayer request.

He's want to know if you want to watch the game later.

But then, because you want to be a faithful friend, you text him, Yeah, let's watch the game later.

What do you want to eat?

I want this.

Before you know it, your whole 10 minutes has been talking about hot wings, okay?

Haven't been praying at all.

So just something to try is start slow.

Pray without technology and Tuesday night prayer.

Can I tell you something?

At six o'clock every Tuesday night, we have prayer here, and we go to battle for the kingdom of God here.

There are prayer warriors who meet here every Tuesday night.

And you know what would make their weak is if you came to prayer on Tuesday night and you just said, I don't know how to pray.

You ain't leaving after that, okay?

They're gonna pull you over and they're gonna teach you how to pray.

It's one of the most amazing things we do here at RLC.

And you know what happens sometimes is we get out of the rhythm of prayer because it's spiritual warfare when we pray.

The enemy doesn't want you to know God, grow in freedom, and share Christ.

So he doesn't want you to fall in love with him fresh and new by talking to him every day.

So he'll give you every excuse not to.

But if you make an appointment with God, such as every Tuesday night at 6 p.m., God will show up if you make time for him.

And as we do that, as we fall in love with God all over again, the mission and the vision will move forward, not just in our church, but in your life as well.

Look at somebody and say, we love God, y'all.

We love him, we love him.

And there's so many ways to love him.

But the first way is that we make prayer priority.

Here's the second one, and that is this that we will know God's word to know his promises.

That we will know God's word to know his promises.

If prayer is talking to God, God's word is talking back to us, it's telling us what's going on in our life.

So we love God unashamedly.

He is the star of the show, he is everything that we live for, and we know him more by making prayer a priority and by knowing his word so that we can know what his word says to us.

Look at what Nehemiah said.

I love this because he was talking about hearing the prayer, and then he says, I confess that we have sinned terribly by not obeying the commands, decrees, and regulations that you gave us through your servant Moses.

And he said, This is what you said.

Please remember what you told your servant Moses.

Other words, that was in the Torah.

Please remember this.

If you return to me and obey my commands and live by them, then even if you are exiled to the ends of the earth, I will bring you back to the place I have chosen for my name to be honored.

Those people that you rescued by your great power and strong hand are your servants.

In other words, he was saying, I have read your word, so I know what your word says.

And your word says that if we don't follow you, judgment will come.

But that's not all it says.

That it says, I'll always bring you back again.

And so he was aware of what God's word said, so that he could say that, God, you told us that it didn't matter how far we fail, it didn't know, it didn't matter how much we had been scattered, if we would obey you, you would bring us back.

That's what your word says.

So it doesn't matter what anybody else says, it doesn't matter what the king says, it doesn't matter what our government says, I know what your word says, and I can stand on your word.

One of the ways we fall in love with God more every day is when we learn his character by learning who he is in his word.

And God has so many great things to say to me and you.

Did you know that there's over 8,000 promises in God's word?

Over 8,000, 365 of them, 365 times.

God says, do not be afraid.

That's one for every day of the of the of the year.

That every day when the enemy wants to bring fear in, you can say, God says, do not be afraid.

But he says so many more things than that.

That's why we read his word.

And how does that help us live differently so that we can build something different?

It's because when we know God's word, we can know the difference between the voice of God and the voice of the enemy.

Because the voice of God will never contradict his word.

The voice of the enemy will always slightly change it.

That's why we have to know what it actually says.

So then we watch that TikTok video and it wants to shake our faith, we can go, wait a minute, that's not what the Bible says.

Wait a minute.

There is no second Ecclesiastes.

What's up with that?

You know, but we know what God's Word says.

So we know how to fight.

We know how to wage war and cause victory to reign because we know God's word.

Look at how God's word says it.

It says, These such things were written in the scripture.

Why?

To teach us.

And the scriptures give us hope and encouragement as we wait patiently for God's promises to be fulfilled.

May God, who gives this patience and um, he gives us patience and encouragement, help you to live in complete harmony with each other as is fitting for followers of Christ Jesus.

He said, as you learn God's word, you're gonna be encouraged, you're gonna have hope, he's gonna teach you patience, and he's even gonna teach you to like your neighbor just a little bit more.

Look at your neighbor and say, you better be listening, okay?

Better be listening.

The more you read God's word, the more you're gonna have a little bit more patience with your neighbor because God's word helps us to take on the mind of Christ.

And because we have the mind of Christ, we are able to then see others.

You're able to see someone not as a villain, but as a broken person.

That hurting people hurt people, but healed people bring healing to other people.

And it's because when you look in God's word, you know one of the things that's amazing about God's word?

There's so many things that are true, but there's two things that I love especially, and that is that other than Jesus, there is not one perfect person in this entire book.

Noah got drunk and did all kinds of crazy stuff.

David did all the bad things, Solomon turned his heart away from God.

Peter and Paul got into an argument, and Judas is a jerk.

Okay, there's all kinds of bad things that happen in here, but you know what's amazing?

Is God never stopped working on all of them?

And if God didn't stop working on all these people, do you think he's ever gonna stop with you?

That there's precious promises in God's word for all of us, and so here's the first thing, and that is how's your prayer life?

Want to love God more, and as we love God more, we want to talk to him.

Here's the second one, and that is what is your Bible time with God like?

Because God's got a big idea for you.

And if you need to take a next step, here's some possible next step.

Here's the first one, and that is for heaven's sake, start slow and let it grow.

Can I tell you, every January, I always tried to read through the Bible in one year, and it was reading four chapters a day, and by January 3rd, I was 12 chapters behind.

You know what I mean?

I ought to have the first 12 chapters of Genesis memorized by now for how many times I would read it.

And you know what happened in my life is it was too fast.

I was too busy trying to conquer it rather than letting the Bible conquer me.

And so I had to slow down and let it grow.

Even if you don't understand it, keep reading because it begins, because the Holy Spirit wants to speak to you and to teach you through his word.

And so the more you read, the more he'll reveal to you through it.

The second one is to read consistently.

Everybody misses a day, just don't miss two.

Just pick back up where you left off.

And here's can I can I just give you like a like a pro tip from someone who's failed at this so many times?

If you have a Bible reading plan and you miss a day, don't go back and read the rest of it.

You'll catch it next time around.

Instead of now having two chapters or 10 chapters, just pick back up where you are.

You'll get there again.

Don't let the enemy say that we might as well give up.

Here's one more.

Read slowly.

I love audiobooks.

But maybe your next step is if you listen to God's word and you've got it on like times two, maybe you need to bring it back to like 1.5.

You know, if you really want to feel like you're you're listening to a snail, bring it back to one, okay?

But but slow it down because there's words in there that we don't even hear because it's so fast.

Read curiously, ask questions of the Bible.

I wonder why Jesus said it that way.

It's all on purpose.

And so listen, and then memorize scriptures that bring freedom to your life.

Every time you have fear, you can remember God's word says God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind, memorizing God's word.

I don't know what your next step needs to be.

There's so many different resources.

You got the one-year Bible, you got the Bible recap, which is so good.

And then there's a little podcast called the Bible Breakdown in Jesus' name.

All right.

If you don't have another one, read God's Word with me, which by the way, just this past week, we went over, it's like 650,000 downloads and views.

Is that not amazing, man?

Come on, we got people all over the world reading God's word.

Such a blessing.

They're reading it, you're not.

That's praise the Lord.

Anyway, no, I'm just playing.

I'm just playing.

But here's the thing, and that is God's got a big idea for us as a church.

Just like He saw, Nehemiah saw it.

He saw, man, the mission is so good.

The vision is so true.

But why are we not there?

Why does it seem like we're not there, Zerubbabel back in the day, he had such a great mission.

And then Ezra is doing the best he can.

He's got a great plan.

What are we missing?

And I think sometimes in our lives we can get frustrated like that.

God, I want to become a disciple.

I want to know you more.

I want to be a fully devoted follower.

And I want to grow in freedom.

I want to know you.

I want to share.

What am I missing?

And I think for some of us, it's the values, the rules for the road.

This is how we're going to get there.

And that's what we're going to look at over the next few years because we want to live differently, or the next few weeks, is we want to live differently so that we can build differently.

And the first one is we love God.

And the first way of many ways is that we make prayer a priority.

Number two is we want to know God's word so that we can know his promises.

And here's a third one we're going to pray, and that is that we will invite God into every area of life.

That we want to invite God into every area of life.

Whisper to your neighbor and say, We love God around here.

And we don't want to just say that and not know how to do it.

And so we're going to make a priority of spending time talking to Jesus.

And then we're going to spend time and letting him speak to us through knowing his word.

And then we are going to take down our walls and let God move in our life.

Because look what happened.

He said, He said, I prayed, I fasted, I confessed to the Lord, I quoted God's word to back back to him.

And then he said, Oh Lord, please hear my prayer.

Listen to the prayers of those of us who delight in honoring you.

Please grant me success today by making the king favorable to me.

Put it into his heart to be the to be kind to me.

Because what was happening is as Nehemiah knew, he felt a stirring in his spirit that God was calling him to take the vision and the mission and to move it forward.

That God had put something inside of him.

He was going to go back to Jerusalem himself and be part of the solution.

But the problem was he served the king.

And you can't just leave when you want to when you serve the king.

And what Nehemiah didn't do is he didn't say, okay, God, we're going to do this.

It's going to be awesome.

You stay right here, and I'm going to go do it, and I'm going to tell you how it went.

Instead, he said, God, I've got a big task in front of me.

I don't know how I'm going to do this.

Therefore, I need you to come with me into every area of my life because if you don't do this, it's not going to get done.

And I don't know about you, but it is so easy sometimes for me to really work on my prayer time.

God, I want to know you in this secret place, in this prayer closet.

I want to get to know you in prayer.

And then, God, I want to read your word.

But then when I finish reading his word, I close up my Bible.

Thank you, Jesus.

And then I leave him there and go do my life.

And then I come back again and kind of tell God how it was going.

And the reality is, he doesn't want us to leave him there.

God doesn't want a Sunday romance with you.

He wants a relationship with you.

That's not just inviting, not just invited into a moment, but invited into every area.

And that's what Nehemiah was saying.

He said, the only way that this is going to work is I've got to let you into every area of my life.

Paul said it like this: He said, I plead with you to give your bodies to God because of all he has done for you.

Let them be a living and holy sacrifice, the kind that he will find acceptable.

This is truly the way to worship him.

And don't copy the behaviors and customs of this world, but let God transform you into a new person by changing the way you think.

Then you will learn to know God's will for you, which is good and pleasing and perfect.

He's saying as we let God into every area of our life, God will begin to change how you see the world.

You'll begin to see the world by its opportunities rather than its limitations.

And then you will begin to know God and realize that He is good and pleasing and perfect.

But the problem is so many times is that instead of letting God into every area of our life, we let God into some parts of our life.

And we don't mean to, but think about what we literally say.

God, I want you to save my eternity, but don't touch my finances.

God, I want you to be the king of all my life.

But I'm gonna take care of my family, myself.

And I'm gonna do this and I'm gonna do that.

And we don't mean to, but we compartmentalize God into a certain place.

It reminds me of my sister when we were kids, she had to have those little uh dishes that had the compartments, you know, where food couldn't touch, you know.

And she was so OCD about it that if any of her food touched, she couldn't just move it, you know?

She had to throw the whole plate away, throw the plate away, okay?

You couldn't wash the sin off of it, you know.

She had to throw that away and get another one.

That did not go well for her in our house, okay?

You're gonna throw plates away.

But that's what she had to do.

And without meaning to, that's what we do with God.

But you know what he's saying is he's saying, Can you trust me to take the walls down and to let me into every area?

Because the God who loves you the most is the one who wants to be part of not just your great days, but your brokenness, your brokenheartedness, the things that nobody else knows about.

You are never intended to walk through the valleys of life alone.

There are some valleys that are so dark that no other person can walk with you.

I read something one time that said that nobody knows the brokenness of another except the Lord, and He was He never intended for you to walk through any broken place by yourself.

Many times we do, but that's not His plan for us, and so here's my action step for you, and that is this surrender.

Surrender, hold nothing back from the Lord, and here's why everything that matters to you matters to God too.

Everything that matters to you matters to God too.

Surrender doesn't mean giving up, it means giving over.

How's it working out for us anyway?

The things that we already can't control, the things we already can't do anything about, we already can't do anything about it, we might as well give it to the Lord.

And here's the amazing thing is that as we do that, as we let him into every area of our life and we begin to see what he's doing, it causes us to know him more.

It causes us to grow in freedom, and it causes us to want to share his goodness with others.

And then the more we read his word, the more we see his goodness and we watch him part the Red Sea and feed the 5,000, and we see all these things and we realize he can still do that today.

It causes us to know him more and to grow in freedom and to want to share his goodness with others.

And the more that we pray and we get the heart of God, we experience his presence, the more it causes us to know God, to grow in freedom, and to share what we have found.

And in the process, we become disciples.

And through that, it's because we love God.

And here's the number one reason why we love God, and we're gonna pray, and that is this we love God because God showed how much he loved us by sending his one and only Son into the world so that we might have eternal life through him.

This is real love.

Not that we love God, but that he loved us.

Do that, why don't I understand?

Do that, why don't I understand?

And the the simple answer is is first of all, there are no simple answers, except there are true answers, and that is God is good all the time, even when we're hurting.

Where do you think he is right there with you when you are broken?

He's right there with you.

And the Bible said that God demonstrated his great love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.

What did Jesus do?

Everything, everything, and so we love him as a response to his great love for us, and you know what's amazing about God is that he owes us absolutely nothing.

He died on the cross for our sins, he rose again.

That's that's enough, and then to even give us the opportunity for salvation is amazing, but you know what's awesome is he saves us, and then he turns around and he says, I want you to know me.

I love you just the way you are, but I love you too much to let you stay that way.

I want to grow you, and then I want you to be part of my team, sharing what I've done in your life with everybody else.

How great a God we serve.

That we love him because he first loved us.

Can I tell you?

You are more loved than you can imagine.

You've never been more loved than you are right now.

So our only response is to love him back with everything that we have and allow him to have his way in our life.

In just a moment, the band's gonna come up and give us an opportunity to pray and respond.

And I I've been thinking about this all week because I don't know where you're at in this.

I don't know where your love for God is at.

I really feel like that no matter who you are, you probably fall within one of three categories.

And I and I think that maybe your response needs to reflect that.

Number one is there's some people in here that, man, you've never been more in love with God than you are right now.

You maybe you're a new Christian or you just experienced fresh life in God and you're just like, just like buzzing, just ah, you know, if we if we even gave you half a chance, you start doing a Jericho march right now.

Don't do that, okay?

Because you know, in Jericho, the walls came tumbling down.

We don't want any of that right now, okay?

But that's how excited you are about God.

In just a moment, the band's gonna give us an opportunity to worship, and that just needs to be your prayer.

God, I just want more.

Because can I tell you, no matter how much you've experienced of God, there's more, there's more goodness, there's more grace, there's more glory, there's more of his presence.

You've not even begun to scratch the surface of what he can do, and so your prayer needs to be, God, I want more of you and me.

Maybe you're the second category, and that is that you love God, but your love has grown cold.

There's a thousand reasons why, but that doesn't matter as much as what we're gonna do about it.

I love this quote that says this it says, the best time to plant a tree is 30 years ago.

The second best time is today.

You know what the enemy will do?

Is he will give you every reason to back away and to back off in the presence of God, and then after you back away and back off and isolate yourself, self, then he will look at you and say, How dare you?

How could you?

He's the one who who helped you do that, and then he gets on to you for it.

And I talked to so many people who they want to know God again, they love him, but their love has grown cold, but they say, But I've I've I've waited so long, I've I've wasted so much time.

Can I tell you you're right?

Best time to plant a tree is 30 years ago.

Second best time is right now.

It's time to stop running from God, it's time to stop putting off that conversation from the Lord, and instead say, God, today I want to begin to move forward with you.

And if that's you, can I tell you?

God's not mad at you, He's not vengeful toward you.

That was satisfied at the cross.

Who do you think is reaching out to you right now?

You've never been more loved than you are right now, and maybe you're in here that's number three, and that is it, you don't love God yet, but today's your day.

You don't have a relationship with him, but you feel the Holy Spirit drawing you back to himself, drawing you back to himself.

Can I tell you, today's the day of salvation?

On the back of your connect card is the plan of salvation, and it talks about what it is to be loved by God, that Jesus loved you so much that he died on the cross for your sins, and he rose again, and his hand is stretched out toward you.

He said that you, if you will repent of your sins and turn to me, I will wash you white and clean, and you can know me.

If that's you, today's your day.

It's one thing to know about God's love, it's another thing to have him wash over you and experience his love today.

And if that's you, in just a moment, as we begin to worship the Lord, your next best act of worship is to get up out of your seat, join us at the prayer table, and say, I want to know God and watch what he will do.

I don't know which one you are.

Maybe you just need to celebrate God's goodness.

Maybe you love God, but it's time to return back to him.

Or maybe it's time to give your life to Jesus.

But whatever it is, we're about to make some decisions together.

Let's pray together right now.