From All Sides | Pastor Chris Kouba

Well, good morning, 1130.

How are we doing?

Hey, it is so good to see you.

Hey, before we get going, we got to recognize some very special guests that are here today.

We've got the Umble Football team here with us.

If you guys are on the Umble Football team, would you guys stand up?

Stand up for us.

Man, we're so pumped to have you guys here today.

They got a big game this Friday night against Tom Ball Memorial.

I think you guys are away this week, right?

I'm not sure playing away this week.

Tom Ball, Coach Murphy, man, good to see you.

So grateful for you and your leadership and your whole coaching staff, man.

We believe in you and we're so thankful for you.

You guys know I have a massive, massive heart for educators, for teachers, for coaches.

I believe they are the true heroes.

I believe they've got more influence than anybody else.

And so, Coach, I just want you to know we believe in you.

Uh, we're we're excited for your team, excited for a good season.

Uh, you guys are gonna be, I know you're young, but you're gonna perform and it's gonna be good.

And I just want to say a prayer for you guys.

Can we do that, church?

Let's just pray for this team here.

Let me just say a prayer.

God, thank you so much.

Uh, Lord, for these guys that are here, I just pray, God, that you would just do a work in their life this season.

God, that you would move in them.

I pray, God, that you would use them.

I pray, God, they would have massive influence, not only on the field, but God, also in the halls of their school.

God, I pray that you would bless them, bless their families.

I pray, God, that you would go before them and that you give them favor in everything that they do, Lord.

I pray that they would just experience your presence.

I pray, God, that if they don't know you, that, Lord, they would know who you are.

They would know you've got a purpose and a plan for their life, and that God, you would in every way help them to see, God, that you have unbelievable thoughts and dreams and plans for what you want to do in and through them.

It's in Jesus' name that I pray.

Amen.

Amen.

We are having lunch with these guys after the service today with their families, and we're just honored to have you here today.

Really excited.

Grab your Bibles, open them up with me to Nehemiah chapter four.

Nehemiah chapter four.

Let me add my word of greeting to Julius earlier.

My name is Chris Cuba.

I get the privilege of being the lead pastor here.

If you are one of our kindergartners, it is page 671 in the Bible that we gave you a couple of weeks ago.

It's page 400 in mine.

I don't know what it is in yours.

Just get up to Nehemiah chapter four if you would.

And I would ask if you uh have your journals.

Let me see your journals.

Let me see your journals.

Wave them at me, okay?

If you don't have a journal, that's totally fine.

Raise your hand and we want to get a journal in your hand.

Raise your hand.

If you don't have a journal, we will make sure to get these to you.

We want to make sure that everybody has one as we are walking through this.

So just keep your hands up.

We promised we would get them to you here very, very shortly.

Uh, but I do want to make sure that you can take notes because you're more likely to remember things if you write it down.

And in addition to that, all of our groups, literally from preschool all the way up through senior adults, are walking through this material.

So we would love for you to be able to take this to a group and let this be something that you can walk through.

But at a minimum, it can be something that you can use in your own time with the Lord as you're kind of walking through and implementing some of these principles that are here.

So again, keep your hands up.

I promise you, we will get to you.

Uh, we've got, I think, one right here, and we've got some all over.

So we will get you a journal here very, very shortly.

Hey, this is pretty cool.

Uh, I got a text message on Tuesday night, David Humphrey.

Pray for him and his team.

They're actually in Southeast Asia.

He already preached this morning uh in Southeast Asia on our mission trip that our team is leading, which is pretty cool.

But he texted me Tuesday night because there's a group of guys that go lead a Bible study at Lynchner Prison and they watch our services through our Pando app, and they were disappointed they didn't have a journal.

So we took 25 journals to the prison so they could have a Bible study on the book of Nehemiah walking through with us, which is pretty dang, it's pretty cool.

It's pretty amazing what God is doing in every way.

Again, just keep your hands up.

We will get these to you.

I'm gonna be on page 17 today, is where we're gonna be in this series uh through the book of Nehemiah.

Uh I 12 years ago, I had a weak moment.

Uh I didn't necessarily think about it being a weak moment at the time, but uh my first mistake was that Hillary and I decided that we would sign our son up to play soccer, and he was four years old.

Uh if you've ever done that before, you know that's kind of dumb, basically.

It's a dumb idea, all right?

But but they offered it and we thought it'd be a good idea.

Uh his two older sisters that played soccer, so we decided to sign him up to play soccer.

And then as we were waiting for the team to form, uh, I got the email.

I don't know if you know what I'm talking about.

If you're a parent uh of anybody that is played rec sports, then you've gotten the email.

The email is that, hey, we've got so many kids signed up, but we can't put anybody on teams because we don't have enough coaches.

And so if you don't step up and coach, then you're gonna have so many people on the team that your kids are not gonna get a bunch of playing time.

And it's that guilt email that basically says, you're a horrible person if you don't sign up and coach.

Okay?

So I got the email.

And I have a vision and a goal of being a good dad.

Like I really want to crush that, I really want to do well at that.

I really want to be engaged in the life of my kids.

I really want to try to be there and be present.

I I had this idea of thinking, okay, I don't really know anything about soccer.

Like I played when I was growing up, but I don't I don't pay attention to it.

I don't I don't watch it, I'm not a big soccer player, but you know, I want to be a good dad and I want to be involved.

Maybe I can meet some of my son's new friends that he's gonna make on the team.

Maybe I could, you know, kind of from the learn, meet people in the community.

And so therefore I thought, you know what, I got the email.

I'll I'll I'll do it.

I'll sign up to be uh his coach.

And so I signed up to be a a four-year-old soccer coach.

This is what it this is what it looked like.

Um this is this is us here.

I'm trying to gather the team, and and I don't know what I'm doing, so of course I do what anybody does.

I got on YouTube and I just looked up.

How do you run a four-year-old soccer practice?

And I started watching some videos, I went on some forums and I read a few things about that as to how to run a practice, and I'm not gonna lie, I caught a vision.

I caught a vision for what it could look like to have organized practice.

I had a dream and a vision of what it would mean for the four-year-olds to all be space out at the right positions and all where they're supposed to be, all over the field.

And I had a vision for not just four-year-old soccer winning, but four-year-old domination in soccer, where they would be talking about us long after we left.

And so I was really excited about that.

And then I went to the first practice and reality set in.

I don't know if you have any idea if you've ever done this before, but four-year-olds they don't really like to play soccer.

The only reason the parents sign their kids up to play soccer is so that the coach who didn't ignore the email can babysit their kids while they go out to dinner for that hour and 15 minutes while their kids are at practice.

I didn't get the memo, right?

So I'm babysitting their kids who have no desire to play soccer and no interest or passion in hearing anything that I was putting out in terms of a dream or a vision as to what we could do.

And so we go into the very first game, and here is the problem.

I'm not even sure my team knows the rules, all right?

I mean, there's just chaos.

It's been chaos the entire time.

But I know I've got one person on my team who I want to ensure does know the rules and is in the right mindset.

So I'm jamming cold play in the car as we're heading into the game, trying to get him mentally prepared and ready to go, just kind of getting all jazzed up and all this kind of stuff.

And I'm telling him about where he needs to be, and I'm telling him about his spacing, and I'm trying to make sure he is as excited about this experience as I knew I was, because regardless if the team knew what they were doing, my son was gonna know what he was doing, and we were gonna dominate.

And then he tells me in his four-year-old self that I'm not gonna play.

First of all, what do you mean you're not gonna play?

He's like, I want to play today.

I'm like, okay, you didn't understand, I'm the coach, you're gonna play today, alright?

We're gonna dominate, and we can't dominate if you don't play, because nobody else knows what they're doing, alright?

And so therefore, I need you to play.

And sure enough, he dug his heels in and said he's not gonna play.

And so I get there and I dig my heels in and tell him he is gonna play.

And so I put him out there on the field, and this is what he did.

Take a look.

You can't tell, he's facing the sidelines, and all of the action is behind him.

He wanted to make it clear, I'll be in the game, but I'm not listening to you, alright?

I'm not gonna do what it is that you tell me.

And I'm telling you from the very get-go, I hated soccer, he hated soccer, and we didn't like each other a whole lot the majority of that whole season, right?

Because all I wanted to do was finish the season.

I just wanted to get it over with, all right?

I had a dream, I had a vision of what it was all gonna look like, and then all of a sudden, reality hit, opposition came, and I just wanted to get out.

I think it's appropriate then at the end of the season, whenever you we lost our last game, and then we go and we have to take pictures.

This is what the team picture looked like.

Take a look.

That's my son not looking at the camera, okay?

He basically was like, I ain't doing this, alright?

And that's exactly how we all felt the entire time.

Folks, you have a dream, you have a vision, you have an idea of what you want things to be.

You get excited and you rally the troops and you get everybody all on board, and you're all headed in that direction.

And then all of a sudden the shine wears off.

All of a sudden the practices start to feel a little bit long, all of a sudden the grind of the season begins to be in place, and you have to make a choice.

How am I gonna respond when it's hard?

What am I gonna do when it's tough?

When a series in the book of Nehemiah, a leadership series, trying to help learn how do we build or rebuild something?

And we're trying to kind of guide you.

If you're gonna step up and be a leader, which we talked about a few weeks ago, every single one of you are a leader.

You're a leader of a minimum yourself.

Many of you have great leadership opportunities because of your influence that you have with others, and as a result of that, you have to determine what kind of leader am I going to be.

We talked about the very first week, the most important thing is that leaders start on their knees.

You don't just figure out what you want to do and decide you want to do it.

Instead, you got to hear from God.

You got to ask him, like, well, what do you want me to do?

Where do you want me to go?

How do you want me to live?

And then, whenever you begin on your knees, it leads you to a place where you have to ultimately begin to wait on God's timing because what we've discovered is that God is often slow, He's never in a hurry, but He's never late.

So, in light of that, we can trust Him, even if things aren't moving as quickly as we would want.

Last week we talked about the importance of having that stand at the corner moment where you look out and you see what has not yet been seen.

You have a convicting vision.

You set out and you say, We're standing right here, but I want to be over there, and this is how we're gonna get there.

You lay out the game plan.

What we see is happening that takes place in Nehemiah chapter 3.

Nehemiah 3 · chapter mention

It talks about the delegation that Nehemiah had, where he got everybody in position and everybody in place, and they began to start building the wall.

Then what we're gonna see today and next week is that every single time you begin with excitement and momentum, and you're going forward, eventually you will be faced with this reality.

This is what I want you to write down on page 17 at the top there in the big bubble.

It's this leaders deal with conflict.

Leaders deal with conflict.

What I want to talk to you about today is three principles from chapter four that help us deal with conflict.

And next week we're gonna look at some more in chapters five and chapter six, all dealing with this whole idea of how to deal with conflict.

First thing I want you to see today in chapter four is here's how you deal with conflict.

Number one, expect it.

Expect it.

You can guarantee conflict is coming.

What was true for Nehemiah is just as true for us today.

We have an enemy who wants to mess with people who try to lead.

Pastor D.

Al Moody from Chicago said this the devil never kicks a dead horse.

If you're apathetic about leading, if you aren't serious about leading your family, or if you're just an attender and a taker from the church, and you're not a leader in your church, don't worry.

Then you're gonna have plenty of opportunities to basically go and do whatever it is that you want to do without any opposition.

But if you want to step up, if you want to do what God's called you to do, if you want to embrace the calling that God has on your life, you better get ready.

It's gonna be tough.

I would love to tell you that Nehemiah got a God-centered vision that he went and he began to execute it, and it was all favorable and all blessings, but that's not reality.

Nor will it be reality in your life.

It will show itself up in a bunch of different ways, maybe through opposition, or maybe through discouragement, or maybe through pain, or maybe through comments, or maybe through disruption.

But make no mistake about it.

What looks like it is on the surface is not what's really going on.

Ephesians chapter 6 says there is a spiritual battle taking place in the background.

Ephesians 6 · chapter mention

And what that means is that while I may be facing opposition, presenting itself right here, there's actually something spiritual going on back here.

And I need to know when I step into the position of leadership, I'm stepping up for battle.

I'm gonna have things coming up against me that I need to be prepared for, and I need to be ready for.

I want to look at five different types of conflict that we see in this passage, that the exact same type of conflict that you're gonna face in your life if you're a leader.

First of all, let's begin reading in verse 1.

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

And he said in the presence of his brothers and the of the army of Samaria, What are these feeble Jews doing?

Will they restore it for themselves?

Will they sacrifice?

Will they finish up in a day?

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

So Biah the Ammonite was beside him, and he said, Yes, what are they building?

If a fox goes up on it, will he break down their stone wall?

Let me give you the context again.

Remember, what we're seeing here is that Nehemiah was the cupbearer to the king, and he felt bad because his homeland, the people of Jerusalem, were had the all of the place was in ruin, the temple had been destroyed, the sacrifices were not being kept, and no one was following after God.

And so as a result of that, Nehemiah used his position of influence after he prayed and asked God for advice, and he ultimately asked the king to not only send him back to the land, but to fund the building project of rebuilding the wall.

He lays everybody out in chapter three, and now he begins to experience conflict because people are not excited about the vision that God has given to him.

Let me mention to you five different types of conflict that you're gonna experience when you try and lead that we see in this passage.

First one is this outside critics.

I want you to write this down.

I'm gonna ask you to do something with it in a minute.

Outside critics.

It's true of every church, every business, every athletic team, every family.

You're gonna have people who don't want to change, who don't want to see things outside the box, and they're always gonna be critical.

To change means the status quo has to be disrupted, and that's what they know, it's what they're comfortable with, what they've grown to accept.

This is what's amazing to me.

Even people who know that what they're experiencing is bad would rather have that than experience change.

Folks, just because people are opposed to it doesn't mean you're wrong.

Instead, you should know you're going to have people that are gonna be like, no, no, no, no.

I know this is bad, but I would rather have the bad, because I know the bad, as opposed to the unknown of what may come in the future.

You need to know that people are gonna be inflexible, they're gonna be suspicious of change, they're gonna be critical of others.

Just expect it.

You decide to pursue holiness in your relationship.

I want you to know this your boyfriend or girlfriend may not be on board.

You're gonna experience some opposition.

If you decide that you want to allow your group to be one that's gonna live out the Great Commission and reach new people, you need to know as new people come in, you're gonna have folks that are gonna be upset because their little group that they've always been a part of, they don't like new people.

That's not what we want to do here.

They're gonna be critical.

But you just gotta be aware, outside critics will come.

Not everybody's gonna like what you do.

Let me give you another example of conflict that takes place in this passage, is mocking sarcasm.

Mocking sarcasm.

Did you hear how much these words are laced with sarcasm and mocking and ridicule?

Verse one says that they were jeered at the Jews.

Verse three, it says, Um, yes, what they are building, if a fox goes up on it, he will break down their stone wall, saying this.

These guys are building this wall, that's fine.

But a little bitty fox is gonna walk on it, and that wall's gonna come tumbling down.

Meaning they're not building anything good, they're not building anything strong.

He's talking trash to them.

He's just saying those comments that are laced with sarcasm, but that cut.

This is the people who say things below their breath.

Or these are people who say things to you and they're like, I was just I was just joking, I was just kidding.

But what they're saying is has a lot of truth on the other side of that criticism.

Maybe you try and you step up to be the spiritual leader of your home, and maybe you're met with, oh, so now you decided to all of a sudden do something.

Okay.

And man, it just cuts.

Or maybe you decide to live out your faith at the office.

Maybe you decide to say something and you want to pray at a meeting and you want to ask that God would come, and they're like, oh, okay, holy roller, alright, I see how this is gonna be.

And all of a sudden you get this comment, and it's like basically they're saying, Don't do that again, but I don't want to necessarily tell you officially not to do it.

So I'm just gonna lace it with sarcasm and lace it with ridicule, just basically mocking you.

And just discourages your soul.

Look at verse 2 again.

It says, And he said in the presence of his brothers and of the army of Samaria, what are these feeble Jews doing?

Another type of conflict, number three, that we see is personal attacks.

Personal attacks.

This is particularly painful.

Sam Balak here was going for the morale of the Jews.

He was trying to attack them personally.

You know, maybe you would say, I can I can roll with the jokes, I can roll with the insults, like I'm fine, I'll just kind of let that stuff bounce off to me, but all of a sudden they start going personal, that's a whole different ballgame.

People start bringing up things in your past.

People start bringing up weak spots in your life.

This is when your heart is questioning.

And your one mistake becomes a thing that every now defines you.

All of a sudden you try to step up and lead.

Hey, what about that past of yours?

Hey, what about that divorce?

Hey, what about that relationship?

What about that screw up?

And it's just ripping you at the core.

You are not doing what God has called you to do because you are so gifted and worthy and such a great leader.

You are doing what God has called you to do because you are forgiven and restored, and God uses broken leaders.

And so you've got to live in such a way where I know.

Look, you can go all personal that you want to.

God knows way more than you do, and He still chose me.

He's still for me.

And so, in light of that, I'm not gonna let you take me out.

I'm instead gonna be true because I know I don't deserve to be here.

I know that better than anybody, but I do know this.

God chose me to do it, and so therefore, I'm gonna walk in his confidence, not in mine.

Read verse 2 again.

He said, in the presence of his brothers and of the army of Samaria, what are these feeble Jews doing?

Will they restore it for themselves?

Fourth area of conflict is false accusations.

False accusations.

When you attempt to do great things, you're gonna have no shortage of people who are gonna be willing to take shots at your motives saying you're doing it for yourself.

Oh, this is why they're doing it, they're doing it because of this.

And they don't have any idea.

But the world lives in such a way where everybody's in it for themselves, so they can't imagine a world where you would do something not for yourself.

The world has no concept of living for the Glory of God.

Nehemiah wasn't here to try to make a name for himself.

Nehemiah just wanted to restore the people and restore the land back so that God's sacrifices and God's worship could be taking place in the rightful place that it was supposed to go.

Expect people not to be able to understand, to even question and falsely accuse you of doing things for ulterior motives.

What I found is that people start making stuff up.

They start saying all kinds of crazy stuff.

And again, you're wondering, I don't even know how you, I don't even know how you got there.

I don't even know what in the world you took that comment to go in this.

It's why it's because you all along had this idea for yourself, and so therefore you disconnected the dots, and you were wrong the whole time.

Let me give you the last area of conflict.

Skip down to 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 will not be able to rebuild the wall.

And our enemies said they will not know or see till we come among them and kill them and stop the work.

At that time, the Jews who lived near them came from all directions and said to us ten times, You must return to us.

Final area of conflict that we see is internal negativity.

Man, it's tough when you start getting opposition from the outside.

It's real bad when it starts to creep inside your own doors.

It says here that the people of Judah started listening to the negativity, and like a Texas cockroach, it's spread everywhere.

They're tired, they're overwhelmed, they're become afraid, they want to give up, they want to stop the job.

Leaders, it's so important that you don't allow negativity or you don't foster negativity if you're the leader of an organization, of a family, or of the church.

Because whatever you allow will multiply.

What I've discovered is this is that if I lead out with energy, with enthusiasm, with optimism, with hope, with the let's go get this, it multiplies down to those that I lead.

Instead, if I lead with negativity, doomsday, opposition, discouragement, we're not gonna be able to do this, the opposition's too much, that also multiplies down to those that I lead.

So what does it mean for me as a leader?

Does that mean I can't have a bad day?

No, it's not what it means.

It means that whenever I have those bad days, I gotta figure out what to do with it.

I gotta deal with my discouragement, I gotta deal with my frustrations, I gotta deal with my pain, I gotta deal with my hurts.

I gotta deal with them so that I don't lead with them.

Is that leaders lead out of hurt.

And what God is, we're gonna talk in just a moment about what you do when you have those things, but you just need to know opposition is coming your way.

It's not if, it's when you will experience.

And so it's important that we live in such a way that we know when we're down in the second quarter and they're up big and it looks like the game's over, we still fight till the very end.

Because ultimately we know God's got the final say in all this whole deal.

And so, therefore, I cannot allow the internal negativity to start becoming so much that I begin to see the rubble instead of the opportunity.

I'm either gonna focus on the problems or I'm gonna remind myself of the God-given vision.

I want you to take your journals out, and I want you, if you haven't already read it down, I want you to write down all five of those forms of conflict.

And then what I want you to do, and I'm gonna give you some time to do this, I want you to circle which one you're dealing with right now.

And I want you to write specifically how that is expressing itself.

Somebody asked me after first service, is it okay if I circled two or three of them?

Sure, if that's what you're dealing with.

What I want you to do is identify which one of these am I dealing with?

I'm gonna show you one in a second.

Unless you have a motivation that is deeper and stronger, that is grabbing you, the rubble around you is gonna be too much.

But when you do, and you see past the rubble, you lead with confidence, knowing where you are going, expecting the conflict, but not allowing that conflict to overtake you.

Let me tell you why that is the case.

Go back down to verse 4, and I want to show you the second key in dealing with conflict.

Look at verse 4.

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 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.

First thing you do when you deal with conflict is you need to expect it.

Second thing you do when you deal with conflict is you need to pray through it.

Pray through it.

I love this.

You might not have noticed it being a prayer because it's so honest and it's so real.

This is basically Nehemiah praying, saying, God, would you go get them?

Would you take them out?

Can I tell you as a leader?

There's no question, there's times when I'm like, God, would you just fix them?

Like just fix that.

Like right there, just go go get them.

Like, like go go go go take care of that, would you?

It doesn't mean he's entitled to do that, but what it does mean is it's honest.

What I want you to see though is that what Nehemiah does is he battles the same way that he starts praying.

There's so much wisdom in this.

One, because we know that whenever you pray, it either changes the situation, it changes the circumstances, it changes the variable, or prayer changes the one who prays.

Either way, what you need to know is God is doing something behind the scenes.

God is working in the background.

There's a spiritual battle that is taking place, but that battle is not just the enemy coming up against me, it's God fighting against the enemy.

And so, because of that, I know I can pray and I can ask, God, would you do something here?

When criticism and discouragement come, it's easy to get defensive instead of getting dependent.

Man, I just want to defend myself.

Defend my honor, defend my position, defend my stance, and generally fight for where it feels like I have been wronged.

But when I expect it, then I know that God is doing something that is bigger than just me being understood or me being validated or me being vindicated.

Do not miss what I'm about to say.

Nehemiah shows us that we should take our frustrations to the Lord instead of taking our frustrations to Facebook.

Nehemiah shows us that we should take our pain and our struggles to God instead of taking our pain and our struggles to social media.

Nehemiah shows us that the first and most important conversation we should have about our difficulty is with the Lord and not with our gossip group.

I think some of us, the reason why we're struggling so bad is because we're fighting the wrong way.

You're fighting, getting everybody else's opinion, including people's comments that you don't even know on social media.

Instead of asking God, what do you think?

What do you want me to do?

How do you want me to respond?

The mark of discipleship is not retaliation, it is forgiveness.

Romans chapter 12, verse 19.

Romans 12:19

Beloved, never avenge yourselves, but leave it to the wrath of God.

For it is written, Vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord.

To the contrary, if your enemy is hungry, feed him.

If he is thirsty, give him something to drink.

For by so doing you will heap burning coals on his head.

Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.

I'm not trying to say that you can't defend yourself.

But I am saying that defending yourself should not be your primary goal.

Instead, we know that to work for the Lord guarantees that we will be misunderstood.

It guarantees that we will be misrepresented.

So we seek the Lord for his strength to accomplish his plan and his purpose.

Criticism should drive us to prayer.

Asking the Lord for strength, asking the Lord for clarity, asking the Lord for conviction and confirmation of what he has called you to do.

What I have found is that when I'm getting it from all different sides, I got to go spend time with God and I got to make sure I'm lined up with him, and I'm gonna ask for the Holy Spirit to lead me, and then I'm gonna walk out and I don't care whatsoever about all the criticism because ultimately your problem is not with me, your problem is with God.

And we got to lead with a conviction that says this, as for me and my house, this is what we're gonna do.

I don't care what everybody else does, this is what we're gonna do.

Because ultimately I know this is what God has called me and my family to be about.

And so, therefore, because this is the priority, I'm not wavering on it.

I don't care what some coach tells me the schedule is, I'm not wavering on it.

I don't care what all of his friends are doing, I don't care about that.

I care about what happens in my house.

And ultimately, I'm gonna stand before the Lord of how I lead my house.

Folks, we need more men.

We need more people in their jobs, in their homes, in their relationships, in every area of their life who lead with a conviction that says, Look, I'm gonna be with the Lord, and I promise you, if I'm going down, I'm going down with him because I'm gonna pray this through.

And when I experience and expect that conflict, I'm gonna go straight to him.

Which ultimately it leads to the next thing.

Look at verse 9.

And we prayed to our God and set a guard as a protection against them day and night.

Skip down to verse 15, see what they did.

When our enemies heard that it was known to us and that God had frustrated their plan, we all returned to the wall, each to his work.

From that day on, half of my servants worked on construction, and half held the spears, shields, bows, and coats of mail.

And the leaders stood behind the whole house of Judah, who were building on 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.

Final step.

Expect it, pray through it.

Number three, work through it.

Work through it.

God says to work and pray.

Working is the practical part, praying is the spiritual part.

They go hand in hand.

In this case, Nehemiah prayed, and then he devised a plan to protect the people and to protect the wall.

He had them have a sword in their hand and he had them a trowel in their hand, one to her working and one to protect.

You've seen repeatedly in leadership, you pray and you work.

You seek the Lord and you execute a plan.

You ask God for wisdom and you try things to see if it works.

And the whole time that you're working, you're praying.

And the whole time that you're praying, you're working.

Nehemiah put his plan together, half would work, and half would serve as security.

Look at verse 19.

And I said to the nobles and to the officials and to the rest of the people: the work is great and widely spread.

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

In the place where you hear the sound of the trumpet, rally to us there.

God will fight for us.

The rally cry for Nehemiah is the same rally cry for you.

You will face opposition.

The task and the calling will be hard.

You will have critics, you will have complainers, you will face discouragement at times, and it will feel like you are on the verge of defeat.

But when we seek the Lord and pray, when you work your plan while you pray, your rally clock cry will continue to be my God will fight for me.

I want you to take your journals out and I want you to write it as big as you can.

My God will fight for me.

That's not some locker room motivational speech.

That is God in heaven giving you a promise.

My God will fight for me.

And there's no question about it, the opposition may be big, but my God will fight for me.

I want you just to think about what you circled.

I want you to think about what you wrote.

Are you discouraged today?

Are you defeated today?

Sarcasm stinging.

These personal attacks.

John 16, 33 says, I have said these things to you that in me you may have peace.

In the world you will have tribulations.

Take heart.

I have overcome the world.

Whatever you are facing must not defeat you.

It's an opportunity for you to deal with conflict and to see the Lord move.

Your obstacle is the Lord's opportunity.

Today you need to pray, you need to work.

Turn that problem over to the Lord.

Ask him to remove it, change it, help you work through it.

So that he would change you.

God desires to work all things for good.

Those who love him are called according to his purpose.

We don't get to tell them what it has to look like.

We instead tell them, God, whatever you want.

That's what I want.

I want you just to pray.

Give that thing over to the Lord.

Ask him to move.

Our God, fight for us.

Some of you, your conflict isn't because of your circumstances, it's because of your heart.

Reason why you can't say my God will fight for me is because He's not your God.

Bible says that there is a gap in between you and God, the one who created you, and the reason is because of your sin.

It's because you have done things against God that have caused there to be a separation.

But God didn't look at you and say, do better, try harder, do more.

He knew there was nothing you could do to bridge that gap.

So he sent his one and only son, Jesus, to die on a cross for your sins.

He rose from the dead and he invites you to make him your Lord and Savior.

He invites you to receive him so that he can fight for you.

He will lead you.

He will allow you to experience the forgiveness of your sins and ultimate joy.

Let me just tell you something right now.

That's the most important decision you'll ever make in your life.

And I want to invite you to do it right now.

Pray this simple prayer with me.

Dear God, I want to know you.

I want you to be my God and my king.

Fight for me.

I believe that you died on a cross.

I believe that you rose from the dead, and right now I receive you as my Lord, as my Savior.

I invite you to come in and forgive me of all of my sins, to change me, to make me new.

It's in Jesus' name that I pray.

Amen.

I want you to look up here.

Our team is gonna be up front, they're gonna be on the sides.

If you just prayed and gave your life to Jesus in just a moment, we're gonna have what we call as an invitation.

We believe in next steps here.

We don't believe that you should have good intentions, we believe that you should have next steps.

Everyone has one.

And so if today you gave your life to Jesus, what I'm gonna ask you to do is to make that public by you coming forward and telling one of our team members up front or on the sides.

Some of you are here, you need to join United City Church.

This is the place you need to believe and belong.

I'm gonna invite you today, you come and lead the way today.

While you're coming, you're gonna help encourage others.

Some of you need to be baptized like this with three that we saw today, you just saw.

We'll baptize you whenever you're ready.

God's eating you today to follow through believers' baptism.

I want you to come.

And we want to schedule your baptism.

Others of you need prayer today.

Maybe you're in a situation where, man, you're feeling it from all sides.

You feel overwhelmed, we don't want you to do it alone.

We want to pray with you, we're gonna pray for you.

Father, I pray you move in this moment we have left together.

Give courage and boldness to those that need to respond to you in the name of Jesus.

I pray.

Amen.

Would you stand and as you stand, you come right now with Scott to speak you to make the next step.

Come on.

Who else?

Come on.

Hey, break up for me.

Come right now, come on.

Hope that you're gonna build your life.

You're not just gonna sing that song, but instead you're gonna build your life on Jesus.

You need to know your opposition may happen as you walk out the door today.

But I do need you to know this.

He who is in you is greater than he who is in the world.

And so if you live for Jesus and you follow after him, it may not always be easy, but I promise you he will always be with you.

Julian, would you come?

Would you close our service today?

Absolutely.

Man, can we give it up for the word that we just heard?

Man, that we have a God that fights for us.

Gosh, that's so encouraging.

That is so, so, so encouraging.

And y'all, man, thank you for joining us this morning at United City.

One last reminder, Serve Rally is in fact tonight.

We got a QR code up on the screen.

If you haven't registered yet, there is still time to do that.

We would ask, please come early to drop your kids off in childcare.

Please make sure to be here if you're on a serve team.

We have dinner for you.

And we are so excited to see y'all tonight.

And if not tonight, we will see y'all next Sunday.

Have a great week.

Wow, what an amazing message we got to hear this morning.

I hope the Lord showed himself to you in a fresh, new way.

Hey, if you made a decision today to follow Jesus or a decision for Christ, we would love to process that with you.

And so text the word next to 55498, and someone from our team will be more than happy to reach out and process that with you.

If you missed the message or you missed a note or two and you want to go back, don't worry.

We've got the option for that as well.

It's going to be available on Spotify as well as Apple Music.

This has been an amazing morning.

We love you guys so much, and we hope to see you next week.

Bye-bye.