Groundwork - Part 2

Amen. I'm gonna invite you if you can't join me. I'm gonna be reading today out of the book of Nehemiah chapter 1 and verse 11.

Nehemiah 1 · chapter mention

Last Sunday we started a short little series called Groundwork when we are laying the foundation for next year's theme which is Arise and Build.

And we're looking at this powerful story of Nehemiah and there are so many things here in this story that we can apply to where we are as a church individually and corporately.

But I want to read this one verse Nehemiah 1.11. Oh Lord I pray please let your ear be attentive to the prayer of your servant and to the prayer of your servants who desire to fear your name.

And let your servant prosper this day. I pray and grant him mercy in the sight of this man for I was the king's cupbearer.

Last week we heard about the importance of having a divine burden and a blueprint for building the church and today I want to share some simple thoughts, some simple thoughts church about the type of person that God uses to build.

The type of person. So this is part 2 of Groundwork but if I have a subtitle something for you to think about I would give you this cupbearers for the king. Why don't we pray.

Father I thank you for your presence that fuels this place today. Thank you God for the way that you have visited us. We don't take your presence for granted.

But every moment with you is a gift and we cherish it God and we thank you Lord for all that you've done already for surely healing grace already been delivered to people's lives.

But now I pray God that you will anoint our ears to hear what the spirit is saying to the church God because these are important times.

These are critical times and the church needs direction. We need direction God. We need to understand how we can be more effective in serving your kingdom.

And I pray today God that you would speak to us anoint my lips of clay. I ask this in Jesus name. Everyone say amen. You may be seated in God's house.

I want to talk specifically about four character traits that we find in Nehemiah. Humility, servanthood, accountability and courage.

All of which are essential for those who are seeking to be instruments in God's hands. And as we think about where God is taking us and what the future holds for us as a church and individually it's essential that we get a clear picture in our minds of the type of person that God wants to use in this hour.

Surely the divine plans and the will of God that he wants to perform in this time is so critical but God has chosen.

There are things that God can do anything he wants to on his own. Somebody saying amen for that. How many of you know God doesn't need our help?

I must say that again. How many of you know God doesn't need our help? I mean God does not need our help. But the beauty of the gospel and the beauty of what God does, what Christ does is that he invites us.

He joins with us to be his co-labors, joint heirs with him to serve in his kingdom. And so it's really a privilege that you and I are given that we might even participate because more often than not we get in God's way than we actually help him.

But how many of you know he puts up with us? I didn't hear too many amen on that one. He puts up with us. But that's his grace. And that's because God wants us to participate in the expansion of his purpose and his kingdom.

Now while Nehemiah was certainly an intelligent and upright man, he's not the type of biblical hero who makes headlines. Aside from his prominent position in the kingdom, he is mostly an unassuming character without any flashy or epic storylines.

He's not a war hero like Joshua, not an action figure like Samson, not a miracle man like Elisha or Elijah, nor is he a golden boy, giant slayer like David.

And compared to these men, Nehemiah was a bit of a low-key guy. He wasn't trying to get noticed. There was nothing super extraordinary or spectacular that happened.

It wasn't like he fell out of the sky and had all the answers or that he had been anointed like David was in front of his brother. He didn't have any kind of standout or momentous occasion in his life like that.

He was just a man who was working behind the scenes, perfectly fine where he was in the background. He liked to get things done. He liked to get things done.

And I think that that's why God chose him because Nehemiah was a go-getter, a man. Nehemiah was a doer.

And I have come to realize not only through my study of Scripture but also throughout my own life and my own experiences that I've seen that God tends to select people who are already working, already action-oriented.

People who are talking about what they want to do but people who are doing something even if it's just a little thing.

But people who are not looking for the limelight, looking for recognition, looking for the praise of men but simply serving whatever capacity, whatever area that they are without any credit, just wanting to get things done.

And I believe that this is what drew God to Nehemiah and why God laid this burden on his heart. And I believe that God, when he wants to build something, he looks for a particular type of person.

And so today, church, I want to be frank with you. I want to be candid with you. I want to be even transparent with you and share some of the things that I believe we need to understand about what it really takes to be used of God.

How many of you want God to use your life today, amen? I want God to use me. And I want him to use me in a greater way.

And so what we have today is a picture of what that type of person looks like. Number one, first of all, God looks for humble people.

He looks for humble people.

The Bible says that this was a man who was, just by the description we see, a humble man. He was praying and fasting before God. The first thing that stands out about Nehemiah was his posture, not only before God but before others.

Nehemiah was a man of prayer. Nehemiah was a man of his word. He was a devout man, an upright man. And he was a humble man.

A man who knew how to spend time with God, who spent time with God. But to be a man who spends time with God, to be a man of prayer, he first had to humble himself.

It's very hard to become a man or a woman of prayer until you humble yourself. Because in humbling yourself, you are in a way acknowledging that God is Lord of all.

And that your life is not your own. And that God is sovereign over the affairs, all of the big and small workings of your life and of your world.

And so to be a man or a woman of prayer, you have to humble yourself to that understanding that God is God and you are not. Amen.

He understood this principle in James 4-6 that God resists the proud but gives grace to the humble. He resists the proud.

And if we were to invert that verse, what it's telling us is that if God resists the proud, that means he's attracted to the humble.

And this is the attitude that we need if we want God to use our... God is looking for humble people.

And I've come to find today that maybe just in the day that we're living in now, a day of self-glory and self-fame where everyone wants to be famous for something or notoriety or everyone wants their 15 minutes of fame.

It seems that even in the church, it's hard to find true humility.

And oftentimes when you find, is you find like fake humility or not humility at all, people are humbled until they get what they want and then you find out it wasn't humility.

You know what that's called? Politics.

Oh man, I better be careful what I say here. Hallelujah.

People can act a certain way for a certain amount of time in order to get a certain thing, but God's looking for genuine humility.

And I want to tell you that the more gifted you are, the more humble you need to be.

Hey, man, somebody. Somebody say, oh, I better be real humble then. I got a lot of gifts.

Not long after I started preaching, I was about 17 years old when I first started preaching, 16 or 17 years old.

And my dad, who was my pastor at the time, started giving me opportunities to preach.

And I was grateful for it, but after a few times, I started preaching and I started realizing, man, I'm pretty good at this.

Kind of good at this. And I don't ever forget there was one midweek service on a Thursday night.

Man, I had polished this. I mean, this message was so polished, I mean, you could see a reflection in it.

It was just like glass. I had polished it and polished it.

And finally, I preached the message and I mean, people were just hoop it and holler in and everything.

And it was like, you know, it was it was great, at least in my mind.

And then people were coming up after me, patting me on the back.

Brother, back then it was just Brother Jacob. And I don't mind being called Brother Jacob to some time.

It's just Brother Jacob, you know, man, you tore it up tonight.

Oh, man, freeze guy, you know, you're on fire.

I was here at all of these comments and, you know, I just, I think I feel like I really hit a home run tonight.

You know, and I was waiting. I was waiting to hear what my dad was going to say, you know,

those kind of waiting around and he didn't say anything.

I said, I'm going to give him a day, you know.

I'll give him some time. Yeah, maybe the message was so powerful he was speechless.

Just he was at a loss of words.

I thought maybe that or, you know, maybe maybe he didn't quite hear me right or something.

So he didn't say anything and, you know, the whole day went by and finally, you know, I walked in, we were at home

and walked into the kitchen and I just had to ask him. I said, Dad, you know, what did you think about about my preaching?

And he kind of paused and he said, well, it wasn't good.

He said, in fact, it was terrible.

Oh, he said, it wasn't preaching at all.

You were showing off.

And I went from being up here to being down here.

And then he took the next 15, 20 minutes picking my message apart.

It was like a bone that had been picked apart, picking it apart.

You were wrong here. You were wrong there.

Everyone was saying hallelujah, but you were off base on that one.

Here, here, here. I was so deflated and I thought, man, I thought you supported me.

And you know what he did.

And I learned a very valuable lesson that day.

You know the lesson I learned? It's not about me.

It's about Jesus.

I learned a very valuable lesson.

And I made a promise to God that day.

I made a promise to God that never again would I preach for the applause or do anything for the Lord, for the praise and the applause of men.

That whether I get a man's or not or whether people don't, it wouldn't matter as long as what I did, please God.

That's all that matters.

And so he humbled me that day.

And the next time I preached, oh my God, I was trembling.

Because I wanted to make him proud.

And as time went on, I know that I did, but there's something that we need to learn.

And I took the words of John the Baptist's heart when he said, these words in John 3.3, he said, he must increase,

but I, but how many of you want God to increase in your life?

I'm talking about his power. I'm talking about his glory. I'm talking about miracles.

I'm talking about science and wonder. I'm talking about the anointing.

I'm talking about his faith. If we want more of God, then we have to reduce ourselves and be less of us and the less that we are, the more that he is.

And I want the glory of God to be seen.

Now, I'm not telling you don't ever tell me, Pastor, that was a good message.

Every once in a while, that's okay to hear.

But trust me, I've already gone through those stages. God has already worked with me.

And some of you are in those places right now where you're gifted and God's begin to use you and you're starting to see the flourishing of that gift.

You start to feel good. Hey, I'm not here to chop you down and make you feel bad about yourself.

But we've got to get into prayer. We've got to humble ourselves before God and understand that it's not us. It's the anointing.

It's not us. It's the glory. It's not us. It's the power of God.

And without the power of God, there's nothing that can happen.

Clap your hands. Come on. Let's give God some praise right now. Amen.

God is looking for humble people.

And church, that's what we need in this hour. We need humble people.

Not only that, we need serving people. Number two, we need serving people.

The concept of servanthood is deeply embedded in Nehemiah's story.

He understood that both he and his people, talking about the Israelites, were called to be servants of the Lord.

And when you read his opening prayer in chapter one, you read the whole prayer, at least eight times the word servant is mentioned.

At least eight times. Servant, servant, servant. And he used the word servant to speak of himself, to speak of Moses when he talks about Moses, and to speak of all of Israel.

And this word servant was attached to himself and all these other people of God.

And it seems that he was not only was he telling God where his heart was, but it's almost like he was reminding himself what this was all about.

When God wants to build, he looks for someone with a heart to serve.

Someone who is willing to work in whatever capacity that God gives him. He's looking for servants. Someone say servant.

That's what God wants. That's what God's looking for. He's looking for servants.

Sadly, some have it all backwards. They either don't serve, or they serve with the wrong attitude.

And that's not going to build the church. That's not what it takes to build the church.

I'm reminded of when this woman we read about in the Gospel of Matthew named Solomon lobbied for her two sons, James and John, and she comes to Jesus and tells him this in Matthew 20 and verse 21.

Grant that these two sons of mine may sit, one on your right hand and one on your left hand, in your kingdom.

And you know, that's what some people think ministry is. They think it's having a title.

It's having power, position, influence. Can I tell you what ministry is? Ministry is serving. And serving is ministry.

It's not about the title. It's not about the position. It's not about the recognition. It's not about whatever label you want to put.

Can I tell you that titles can come and they can go. So don't fall in love with whatever title you may have today or tomorrow.

Because the effectiveness is not in the title. Because I've known some people that have great titles. And that's pretty much all it is.

Amen, somebody. They got so many titles, it's like my goodness, all the letters in the alphabet are there.

And then they want you to know what their title is. Did you forget who I am?

If you have to remind people who you are, it means you're not.

You know what I've learned? I've learned about bosses. If you have to tell people you're the boss, it means you're not the boss.

You know what I'm saying? It means you're not. It means there's a lack of respect there. They don't even see you in that light. You haven't earned that.

And so titles, that's not going to get anywhere. We don't need titles. I'm not saying that titles don't serve a purpose. They can.

But that's not what we should be depending on. That's not what we should be looking for. We ought to look for wherever God places us and bloom where we are planted and serve in whatever capacity that God gives us to serve and just be useful to God wherever we are.

And if God sees fit to give you a title or a position someday, one time, one day, then let it be God that does it and not yourself.

Let God promote you and not yourself. Or don't be like James and John and send your mom to go promote for you.

I used to have, you know, I used to have, and there used to be some sisters like that, you know, they had a little paper that had the names of them, you know, they were slipping in your Bible like that.

Like, oh, okay, you know, God bless them. But that's not the way. This is what Jesus responded. When he heard that, he responded to his disciples.

And I think the mother of these guys was there when he says this in verse 26, whoever desires to become great among you, let him be your servant.

Let him be your servant. If you want to be great, if you want to, if you want God to use your life, if you want to grow, if you want to achieve, then the way up is down.

Oh, hallelujah. And Jesus demonstrated this to his disciples when he got on his knees and he began to serve them.

In the same chapter, he says that the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve and to give his life as a ransom for many.

This is what the Lord of lords, the King of kings came and he humbled himself to that of a servant.

And what a model, what a picture, what an example to each and every one of us today that it's the avenue of service that God's kingdom is going to expand in our lives.

Somebody believe us, amen today.

And this is also something else that I learned early on. I'm here to share some things about even my personal life. You understand that the stripes I have, I earned them for many years under my father, going back to those days under the tutelage, under the mentorship of my father and pastor and the school that he brought me up in.

Just because I was a PK, he did not cut me to the front of the line. He made me go through the same process that every other young man in Deacon went through.

He said, if you want this, you're not going to cut any corners. And so I went through the same school and there was a handful of us that for many years we would arrive one to two hours early before service.

We rented a hall. We had a dining hall that we rented and this hall was used for a variety of purposes all throughout the week and especially on Fridays and Saturday night.

This place was turned into a dance hall. There was drinking. There was all kind of partying going on in there. Just everything you can imagine.

And when we would show up before service on Sunday, the place was a mess. People would just leave bottles and things laying around.

We would come in extra early and we would sweep and we would mop and the smell of alcohol was there and so we would sanitize the place and we would get everything as nice as we could.

And then we had to set out all the chairs. I would set out all the chairs, me and a couple of brothers, Brother Hugo Lujan.

He was another Deacon with me and some other brothers and we would line up all the chairs row by row.

I was very proud of the rows that I set up. We were like in competition. Who could have the straightest row?

And we would line them up and to top it off, it was that dance floor. It was a hardwood floor.

So any little movement of the chair, you know, and it would slide that way. It would drive me crazy.

And then we would set them all up and row by row and then we would have church and everyone would shout and dance and hoop and holler and swing from the chandelier.

And we would just have church and then after service was over, everyone was talking about where we're going to go and what's going to happen.

And I knew that I had to stay back because after the service was over, we had to tear down and I know this sounds familiar, right?

City Light, we had to tear down and put everything back, put the equipment away, put the sound.

I know that some of you have not seen me in this element, but I tell you, I've earned my stripes. These arms have rolled up many, many, many, many, many, many, many cords.

Many cords. And I would set these things up and then I would get my dad's pulpit and I would move the pulpit and when other people tried to...

No, I got it. I want to put the pulpit there. I would set it up, I would dust it off so that when my dad came in, he looked sharp.

I said, I want you to preach the word with all your heart. Just lay it all out there and we set it up with a water bottle there.

Everything was ready for at least 10 years I did. My wife's a witness of that because after I got married, I said, sorry, honey, we ain't going anywhere after.

They would call me from the rest. Hey, bro, are you still coming? I mean, like, no, I'm here. They would order food for me so that by the time I get there,

hopefully I'd be there in time so that I can eat with the rest because it took us a long time to put everything away and get everything back.

You walk in and it looked like a dance hall again.

And we did that for at least 10 years and during that 10 years, say, oh, wow, that must have been hard.

During that 10 years of serving, of breaking my back, of mopping and putting everything away and all of during those 10 years of serving,

at least 10 years, there was probably more than that. But during that period of time, you know what also was happening?

My ministry was flourishing during those 10 years. God was starting to speak to me. God was calling me. God was dealing with me.

God was speaking to me. God was molding me. God was shaping me. God was preparing me for what to be the minister and the pastor that I thank God that he has me to be today.

I don't say this for my own glory. I'm just helping to help some of you figure out because I can't play or record it for you to see that your pastor has gone through those kinds of things

and has dealt with that and has earned my stripes so that I can be where I am today. And I give God all the glory and I give God all the praise.

But it was through service and it was through hard work and it was through breaking our backs and doing all of these things so that we can prepare the thing that God wanted to do.

And during that time, God began to use me in the miraculous. I began to see the hand of God move. I began to see God use me through the gifts of healing.

I began to see Him use me in different capacities both inside the church and outside the church. And I didn't have a pulpit yet. And I didn't have a microphone yet.

And I didn't have a band yet. And I didn't have a platform yet. And nobody knew my name. But you know what? That's alright.

Because I was in the backside of the desert and God was molding me and God was preparing me. Hey, I come to tell somebody today.

Don't you ever neglect and don't you ever forsake wherever it is that you are because God is molding you. Keep on serving. Keep on working.

Because if you will serve, you will set the stage for the miraculous.

Set the stage. This is what serving does. I'm going to say serving. Serving sets the stage for the supernatural.

Serving sets the stage for the supernatural. Because while I wasn't the one preaching up there on that Sunday afternoon, I knew that the chairs that I had laid out and the pulpit that I had put in place and the cords and the mics that I had set up and wound up and all that.

I may not be preaching the message, but there was a part of me that felt like I'm in the game too, man. Oh, man. I'm in the game too. Because we're all working together. How many of you believe it's important that we work together?

We work together, amen. We serve with each other and we're serving in different capacities and we're serving in different ways. But everyone needs to serve.

Everyone, but my question today to you is, are you available? I don't care how gifted you are. I don't care how anointed you are.

If you're not available, your gifts and your anointing is not going to help expand the kingdom of God.

Someone say ability. Someone say availability. Your availability is more useful than your ability.

God needs your availability. He doesn't need your ability. Because God can take anything and make something out of nothing.

Come on now. It's your availability that God's looking for. Am I available? So find your place of service church, whether it's on Sundays, during the weeks.

Many opportunities are going to open up and it's coming here for you to get involved, for you to serve here on Sunday or in a city group.

Another ministry in the church that God is using, that God wants to expand the kingdom with, get involved, roll up your sleeves. Jesus said the harvest is right, but the laborers are few.

And so we need laborers in the house of God. The third thing we need, and the third thing that God looks for is accountable people.

Brother David's going to get quiet here now. I'm about to lose my amen corner. That's alright. I already learned that lesson a long time ago.

Even with a burden and a blueprint, Nehemiah never acted on his own authority. He didn't go around. His leaders, he didn't try to sidestep the system.

From start to finish, this man honored the structure that governed the affairs of Judah. And he was subject to them.

In basic terms, he was accountable and submitted to both God and his leaders.

Now, accountability is something that doesn't come natural to most people. And I'll tell you why, because the world is telling you, you're your own boss.

The world is telling you you don't need to answer to anyone. The world tells us answer to yourselves. Does it not? Does not the world tell you, do what you want to do?

Come on now. I said, doesn't the world tell you, do what you want to do? The world tells you, reject authority. The world tells you, follow your passions, chase your own dreams.

Isn't that what the world says? And can I tell you, that's not of God. That idea is not of God. Where in the Bible do we read that? Just follow your passions. Do what you want to do?

I'll tell you, when we read that, it usually spells trouble. In those days, there was no king in Israel and every man did what was right in his own eyes. And it's not a pretty picture.

That mindset is not of God. And nowhere, nowhere in Scripture do you see this idea is endorsed.

And Nehemiah knew the importance of being accountable, not only to God, first of all to God, because he was a man of prayer. He was humble. He was submitted to God, but also to the governing authorities over him, those that had rule over him.

And you know that someone has rule over you when there are rules. And there were rules that had to be followed. He couldn't just, even with all the passion, even with all the inspiration and the burden that he had, Nehemiah knew that he could not just go out on his own and do his own thing.

They say, well, I've got the plan, I've got a passion, and I'm ready to work, so I'm just going to go for it and do it. God gave me the green light, and that's all I need.

That's not what he did. He submitted everything to God, and then he submitted it to the ruler that was over him, and they asked for his blessing. They said, what can I do for you?

And this is what God is looking for. He's looking for humble people, amen, somebody. He's looking for serving people, and he's looking for accountable people.

People who will be accountable to spiritual authority, people who will be accountable to one another, people who will follow the rules.

Oh, man, I just burst into someone's bubble right there. Someone say, follow the rules. You know there are rules in this church? You know there are rules of being a Christian?

You know there are rules of belonging to a body? There are God's rules that are outlined in the Bible, amen?

And then there are rules that we have within our church that help us interpret and follow these guidelines. There are rules.

And you know what I'm looking for? You know what God is looking for more than ever? It's just people that will follow the rules.

Amen. Follow the rules. Can you? This is like such a simple question, but can you follow the rules?

I heard someone say once that, well, rules are meant to be broken. Not these ones.

We put rules in place. You know why? Number one, for order. Because God's a God of order. And without rules there would be chaos and disorder.

We put rules in order because it protects us. There's clear boundaries. We put rules in order because we care about the work that's ultimately being done.

There's rules. There's all kinds of rules. And so any ministry you get involved in, any area of service you get involved in, you got to prepare yourself.

There's rules to that. And if you don't know what they are, I'd be happy to tell you what they are.

We'd be happy to tell. Whoever's the leader would be happy to tell. We have handbooks. We have a church manual. Praise God.

We have rules. There are guidelines. There are things. Here's how we are going to work together. Let's follow the rules.

The rules of God. The rules of the church. Someone say rules. Rules are so boring. Rules are so old school. Rules are this and rules are that.

Well, if we're going to be effective, if we're going to rebuild the walls and see the glory of God, and if we're going to see revival, then we need to be a people that follow the rules.

We are all, can I tell you something today? Even I, there's nobody here that's not subject. I mean, even I, we are all subject to the rules.

There are rules that govern me. There are rules that govern us. And so let's all get in alignment and say, all right, let's be a rule follower.

Accountability doesn't just flow vertically. It also flows horizontally. Just give me a few more moments of your time today. It flows also horizontally.

Everyone say unity. You know, people love talking about unity. Unity. It gets people excited. We get excited when we talk about unity.

But I got to tell you today, unity is not unity without accountability. I mean, we can say unity. We can shout unity. We can all hold hands and sing, hum by ah.

Hum by ah, my Lord. We're all united. Isn't that wonderful? We can take pictures. We can all wear the same t-shirts. We can do all that. But without accountability, there's no unity.

You may have team spirit. Team spirit is not unity. Because you can have team spirit today and not have team spirit tomorrow.

We need accountability. Without accountability, members of the same body will be disconnected. We need accountability.

Paul taught these words in 1 Corinthians. I want to show you that there is no unity without accountability.

Without members of the same body being connected and dependent on each other. 1 Corinthians 12-12. For as the body is one and has many members.

But all the members of that one body being many are one body. Someone say one body. So also is Christ. Christ is not divided. Christ is one. Amen.

Then he goes on to say in verse 21, follow me here. The eye cannot say to the hand, I have no need of you. Nor can the head say to the feet, I have no need of you.

So away with this mentality that says, well, as long as I'm doing my part and doing my thing, it doesn't matter to me what you do your thing, I'll do my thing.

I don't need to be accountable to you. You do what you need to do. I'll focus on me. That's not accountability. That's not what Paul is teaching the church.

We ought not to say, well, I'm the eye so I don't need the hand. We need each other in order to grow as the body. We need to be accountable to one another.

In order to build the walls, Nehemiah had to lay the groundwork of accountability and this accountability was 360 degrees.

This accountability touched every level of leadership. He had accountability with those above him. He had accountability with those beside him.

And he had accountability with those working under him. And accountability is what kept this unit together to get the job done.

We can never have enough of it. Can't have enough accountability. It's important that we, a church, as we move forward into this next season, as we look ahead at what God wants to do, we're not going to need less.

We're going to need more accountability to each other.

Somebody say, amen today. We're going to need more of it. It's important. It's essential. It's come to that point now, church.

Without accountability, we may have team spirit. We may have some, you know, some togetherness every once in a while.

But there needs to be an accountability where we're looking after one another. Accountability is looking after your brother.

It's keeping us one another in check. It's iron sharpening iron. It does not stick in our nose in each other's business. That's not what we're saying.

But what we are saying is there ought to be enough accountability to help each other out and at times call each other out when it's necessary.

And saying, I'm going to speak the truth in love. I'm going to tell you, you may not want to hear this. This may not be the most savory thing you hear, but I need to say it because I love you.

I need to say it because we're working together. And so I got to call this out in you.

And when someone calls, especially if it's somebody who is supervising, someone who is in charge of that team or the ministry,

brothers, don't take offense. Don't take offense to it. Don't take it wrong and run the other way.

I don't like anybody telling me how to what to do. No, we're doing it if it's done in the spirit of love. And if it's done in alignment with what this good book says,

then it's done as an act that's going to bring us together and help this work move forward in the name of Jesus.

The last thing I came to say today as I get ready to close is that God is looking for courageous people.

When the king asked Nehemiah, why is your faith sad? Because Nehemiah was so broken over the condition of Jerusalem,

he couldn't hide it. And the king who knew him well said something's wrong. Something's wrong.

And he asked them, why is your faith so sad? Why are you so despondent?

And when Nehemiah heard this, the Bible says he became dreadfully afraid. He stiffened up. He got nervous.

He was terribly frightened by this question. What was he so afraid of?

Well, since it doesn't say we can only speculate what might, but there are some possible reasons for his fear in that moment.

Number one, I think that Nehemiah was probably afraid of how the king might respond.

He didn't want to disappoint him. He didn't want to let the king down. He had been so consistent.

He had been so level. He had been so dependable. He'd been a rock for him.

The last thing he wants his boss to do is be worrying about him because he felt like my job is to worry about you,

to help you. I don't want you worrying about me. And so when the king asked him, what's wrong?

He got afraid. He said, oh man, now I got to talk about it.

But sometimes it's that fear of having those conversations. It's that fear of having, because those conversations usually lead to the next season that God's trying to take you to.

My God. And sometimes we're afraid to go there with God. We're afraid to go there to that level.

We're afraid to go there in our hearts, go there in our past, go there in our minds because maybe it's an area that makes us uncomfortable.

It's an area that we ourselves have been wrestling with. It's an area that God has been dealing with us about.

And so we got to get over that fear and allow God to speak to us and allow this thing to come out into the surface so that we can take the next step that God had.

Well, maybe he was also afraid to speak what was in his heart. Maybe he was afraid to tell him. He said, man, this thing is so big.

This thing is so great. You can go ahead and begin to play, brother. This thing was so, you know, rebuild the walls.

I mean, who's got time to hear a story like that? Me and my, I hadn't shared this with anybody.

Has God ever spoke to you about something that you were afraid to tell somebody about?

Ooh, come on now, somebody. Has God ever dealt with you about something you were afraid of?

I'll never forget the first time that I wrote before I wrote my first book.

This is almost, this is 20 years ago. I wrote my first book, The Woman's Touch.

And I was so afraid to tell people about it. You know what I was afraid of? More than anything else.

I was afraid of being rejected. I was afraid of that. You know that look people get you?

They don't know how to hide. They're like, you're crazy. So they look at you like, yeah.

Huh? Yeah, that's nice. But you're like, oh man, I know.

They think I'm, what crazy thing has God been telling you to do? Come on now, somebody.

What, what big thing? What thing is God calling you to do that you've never done before?

What thing is God calling you to do that you've never, what is he asking you to say that you've never spoken before?

Where is he calling you to go you've never gone before? What is he asking you to do that you've never done before?

This is where Nehemiah was. He was about to open up his mouth about something that was so unknown and so uncertain and so unfamiliar.

And that's exactly what we're afraid to do sometimes. We're afraid to step out into the unknown and step out into something that we've never done before.

And this year that's coming our way of 2024 is going to be a year of unknowns.

It's going to be a year of some of us stepping out and doing things that we've never done before.

Ministries we've never done before. Oh, hallelujah. I'm prophesying to somebody today.

He's calling us out of our comfort zones, out of what we're familiar with, out of what we're used to, out of the way that all, the way it's always been done.

And so anytime that's about to happen, fear has a way of showing up. Fear has a way of meeting us at that point, meeting us at the threshold of that next season,

meeting us at the threshold of the purposes of God.

But I have come to tell you today that God has not given us a spirit of fear, but a spirit of... Come on now, somebody.

I said, come on now, somebody. A power of love and a shout mind.

God has given us a courageous spirit. God has given us a powerful spirit.

Greater is he that is in you than he that is in the world. Would you stand with me up this hour?

Would you give God some praise here this afternoon? Come on now.