Nehemiah: A Holy Discontent: Pastor Daniel Reese

Well, good morning again.

If you have your Bibles, we'll be in EMI chapter four this morning.

If you haven't been with us the last few weeks, I want to catch you up just a little bit about

where we've been and what we've covered and kind of what's going on here in Nehemiah.

Nehemiah is in the Old Testament and he's a guy, he's a reformer who God raises up to help go restore

and help fix what's been broken for God's people.

And we see in that moment of brokenness, God bursts out of Nehemiah this holy discontent.

And you have a holy discontent when you recognize that there is something that's not right.

There's something that's broken. This should not be.

And it's in those moments in time where this holy discontent just bursts out of us and God does with that with Nehemiah.

He breaks his heart for the city and for his people.

And the first thing we see just to summarize real quick in Nehemiah chapter one is the prayer of Nehemiah.

And the proper response of someone who is having a holy discontent birth within them.

The natural response to do when something is bigger than yourself so you can go after that you yourself could never accomplish on your own.

And that's to fall on your knees before a holy God who can help intercede for us and help us do the work.

In his prayer we see Nehemiah. He owns the sins of his nation.

He includes himself in that confession recognizing the reason that the city is in the state that it's in is because of the of the sin of the people and God's judgment.

He repents openly in this prayer.

He confesses these things before God asking God to honor his faithfulness to restore what has been broken and to do what only God can do.

That's what we saw first.

Then we get to chapter two Nehemiah and we look at the plan of Nehemiah.

We see what it is that God burdens Nehemiah to do.

You know this as well as I do.

Those moments where you're in the midst of prayer and you're praying God would you raise up somebody to fix this problem?

Would you fix the situation?

And what does God do?

Well what about you?

Right?

How about how about we use you to fix this thing?

Sure enough God burdens Nehemiah's heart and he gives Nehemiah a vision.

Nehemiah moves on and at the end of chapter two when we see Nehemiah arrive on the scene we begin to get a snapshot of the preparation that Nehemiah has.

How he goes around and inspects the wall.

He himself sees where it's broken and what it's actually going to take to get this thing back together.

Then he rallies together the people and convinces them that this thing is worth dying for.

The rebuilding of this city is worth every ounce of their energy and effort.

So you see the preparation of Nehemiah.

Then in chapter three we didn't look at this last week because we didn't have time and we don't have time this week.

But you'll see in chapter three the list of the names of the people.

Now if you've ever gone through a Bible reading plan and you get to this in your devotional.

When we get to Nehemiah in this part of our devotional we kind of skip right over that chapter.

I mean these are the people of Nehemiah.

This is a list of 50 names of Jews who came from all over various backgrounds, various trades, various skills.

And they come together as one to unite in the building of this wall.

50 names that to you and I are faceless.

But to God are the faithful.

They're not insignificant.

Enough that God would etch their names forever in Nehemiah chapter three in our Bibles forever.

So far in these three chapters we've looked at the passion and the prayer and the preparation and the people of Nehemiah.

We've been talking all along how this equates and how this parallels to what we see and experience as the church today.

At least it should parallel and relate to us as the church today.

So just track with me a little bit on this.

Those moments, those moments in your life when you see something that's broken.

You see something that's not right.

You see something that needs fixed and you're seized by it.

And God crushes your heart and gives you a holy discontent.

Maybe it's in the community and the culture around you.

Maybe it's with injustices that are all over our planet right now.

Like poverty or human trafficking or abortion or racial reconciliation or abuse.

You name it.

Whatever injustices there are out there, it seizes you.

It grips your heart in such a way that you go, that's not right.

It's not right.

That people can so easily, as Liz said earlier, just request something through the mail to end a life.

That shouldn't be those things that cause us to lose sleep at night.

That is holy discontent.

Now, if Nehemiah ended right there in chapter three or if your holy discontent story ended right there in chapter three,

we'd be filled with excitement.

Now, I mean, this is awesome, right?

Like look at this.

Look at what God did.

He broke his heart and put him on his face in prayer and then God answered his prayers with this king and sent him back.

And all the people riled it around him and they're ready to build.

If it ended right there, how awesome would that be?

But unfortunately, you'd be misled and thought that everything is perfect.

God gives you a burden.

You go and he'll take care of it perfectly from there.

You'll go out there and it'll be smooth sailing and there's not going to be any issues.

You'll be hitting on all cylinders and really nothing could possibly go wrong.

You know as well as I do that in that moment when we think everything's smooth sailing,

we run into Nehemiah chapter four or Nehemiah chapter four finds us.

And so that's where we're going to be today.

I'm going to invite Noah up here.

He's going to read our passage this morning from Nehemiah chapter four.

He's going to read the first six verses.

I encourage you to stand as we honor the Lord's word together.

If you're able.

Oh, you're a little taller.

Hold on.

I'm just going to hold it.

I can't get that up.

Then Balot heard that we were building the wall.

He was angry and greatly enraged and he jeered us at the Jews and he said in the presence

of his brothers and of the army of Samaria, what are these people Jews doing?

Will they restore it for themselves?

Will they sacrifice?

Will they finish it up in a day?

Will they receive the stones out of the heaps of rubbish and burns when the burned ones

at that to buy the Ammonite was beside him and he said, yes, what they're building.

If a fox goes up on it, you'll break down their stone wall here.

Oh God, for we are despised, turn back their taunt on their own heads and give them up

to plunder to no end or the air captives.

Do not cover their guilt and let not their sin be blotted out from her site.

They're provoked to you to anger in the presence of the builders.

So we saw the wall and as the in all the wall was joined together to have its height for

the people at a mine to work.

Amen.

Let's pray.

Father, we're grateful for your word and I pray that as we study how people come against

your will, I pray, Father, you give us the heart to respond the way Nehemiah does.

I thank you for Noah.

Pray you give him a continue to give him a desire to study your word and continue to

lead in that way.

We ask all these things in your name.

Amen.

Thanks buddy.

Now I want you to take note so far in our study of Nehemiah and what the Bible study

methods call the law of proportion.

And to tell you how serious the this issue of persecution is when it comes to Nehemiah's

passion, we get one verse on it.

When it comes to Nehemiah's prayer, we get six verses on it.

When it comes to Nehemiah's plan, we get eight verses on it.

When it comes to his preparation, we get 11 verses on it.

But when it comes to the persecution, we get three whole chapters of it.

The reality is starting in chapter four all the way through chapter six.

What we're going to learn is no matter how great your passion for something is, no matter

how great the burden that the Lord puts on your heart, no matter how deep your prayers

are that God's going to intercede, no matter how much attention to planning and preparation

you put into the to make sure that these things go well, no matter how many people you can

try to rally around you for this holy discontent.

The reality is one thing you're going to have to prepare your heart for more than anything

else is that persecution will come.

Not if it will come, it will come.

We're going to realize that persecution and suffering are part of the Christian life and

Christian ministry.

It will come and we must learn to persevere under it.

Jesus said in John chapter 16, says, I've told you these things so that that in me you

John 16 · chapter mention

may have peace.

You will have suffering in this world.

Be courageous.

I have conquered the world.

And so there is an enemy lurking around the corner who wants nothing else than to break

your holy discontent, break your dreams and your passions, crush them, pour cold water

over them and put out the flame.

As an individual, what will you do when that happens?

As a church, what will we do when that happens?

Let's look at the name I chapter 4 and see if we can learn a thing or two here.

The first thing that will come that you will almost always face when your holy discontent

goes public is that of criticism, ridicule and open mockery.

You'll be made fun of.

Look at this verse in verse 1.

And Sambalot heard that they were building the wall.

He was angry and greatly enraged and he jeered at the Jews.

So Sambalot is this Persian politician.

He didn't like that the Jews were coming in and setting up shop back in Jerusalem.

After they had been ransacked by the Babylonians and then the Persians came in, Sambalot kind

of took over this territory and started to kind of create this little micro empire under

there in that region.

And now he doesn't like the idea that the Jews are coming back and taking what is rightfully

there.

So he starts making fun of them.

And throughout this whole thing, they just keep showing up with this bucket of cold water

to try and dump on their passions.

We need to realize that.

Those people, they never go away.

They're always going to be there.

So the first thing we have to learn is when we go public with a holy discontent, the

Lord has put on your heart.

They're going to get mocked for it.

It's coming.

As we'll notice in verse two, very seldom do these haters operate solo.

They always have a little crowd around them and they kind of love to gather with them

and throw their own mock parties at you.

Let's look at verse two.

And 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?

Will they sacrifice?

Will they finish up in a day?

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

I want you, when you read this verse, I want you to think of the most God-awful place

of persecution on earth.

The places on earth were literally hundreds of thousands of folks are being ridiculed

and persecuted every single day.

If you're thinking rightly, you'll think of a junior high school.

One of the most God-awful places on the face of the earth, I think.

Because that's where it always, always goes.

That's the most God-awful place I can think of.

God bless you students and teachers that work there and show up there every single day.

I mean you just show up one time wearing the wrong piece of clothing and you will hear

about it the rest of your life.

Am I right?

They will haze you.

That's what middle schoolers are meant to do.

Their whole life existence is to make fun of each other.

I'll never forget when I was in junior high.

What was hot back then when I was growing up was, maybe still today I don't know, but

was Ralph Lauren polo shirts.

Remember those?

If you were going to fit in, you had to be wearing a Ralph Lauren polo shirt.

I went to a school that had some spoiled people in it.

I just wasn't one of them.

I tried, but my parents weren't having it.

I so deeply wanted to fit in.

I'll never forget.

Instead, what my mom did for me to try to ease the pain was she bought me a Knights of the

Round Table shirt.

Do you remember these?

It looks like the polo logo, but instead of a mallet, the guy was carrying a flag and

I never heard the end of it.

I mean junior high man, they're horrible.

They will just haze you.

They will not let that go the rest of your life.

It's just crazy.

That's what I think about when I think of this scene here in Nehemiah.

This is your classic junior high school right here.

And the school bully shows up and just starts making fun of Nehemiah.

Look at verse two again.

It says, all of these things, he says these feeble Jews, meaning they're weak.

You don't have the ability to do this.

You are over the hill.

There's no way that you're going to be able to do this.

You're a bunch of old men, right?

You can't do this.

If we go back to chapter three, we saw the list of names, those 50 names.

And you have to recognize of all these people who were helping, most of them aren't professional

wall builders.

Some of them were, but for the mass majority of them were not.

That list tells you the trades that they had.

Do you know what one of the most popular trades of this group is?

Perfumers.

You have a target on your head for being made fun of because the day before, what were you

doing?

You were crushing rose petals and putting them in alabaster jars.

Then somebody comes along and gives you a trowel and says, okay, hey, let's get after

this.

So here come Sambalot and Tobiah just making fun of them.

You really think you're going to get this done?

This work is so shoddy that it's going to fall down when a little five pound fox jumps

on this thing.

This is ridicule at its finest.

And here's the deal.

It's not just empty ridicule.

This isn't just making fun of them to make fun of them.

If you notice it says it's fueled with anger.

This is ridicule that was meant to discourage the people, that they would stop working,

that they would cease their work, that they would quit and walk away.

When that happens, you need to know in the same way when you step forward in obedience

to God for a burden that he has laid on your heart or laid on the church's heart for his

namesake, for the sake of the gospel.

And you stand up in that moment.

They are going to come after you.

The Sambalots and the Tobias of the world are waiting to mock you.

They're waiting to discourage you so that you'll quit, so that you won't follow through

with what God has laid on your heart.

You know it too.

Whatever it is, whether it's folks on the outside or folks in your own family, when God burdens

you for something and then you decide to act on it, the mockery starts coming.

It can discourage you.

So what do you do?

What do you do when you have people like Sambalot and Tobias in your life who just want to jeer

at you, who want to discourage you?

First, notice what Nehemiah doesn't do here.

He doesn't volley back at them.

He doesn't throw ridicule back in their faces as they probably would deserve.

He's silent before them.

He doesn't give them what they gave him.

Imagine this, by the way.

If I could write the Bible, this is how I'd write it.

What if verse 4, right after the mocking, just simply, what if verse 4 just simply said this,

Nehemiah giving them the finger began to yell back at them with some terrible jokes about

their mom.

That's what I would want in there.

You and I would want that there.

We would want that verse in there.

We go, yeah, get them.

Get them.

They deserve it.

But that's not what a man of God does.

You don't entertain the mocking of others by mocking back.

It was said of Jesus on the cross that while he was suffering, he uttered no threats.

But he entrusted himself to the one who judges righteously.

Nehemiah does the same thing here.

He drops to his knees and he runs to his God.

He prays and he asks God for God's divine spanking on these enemies.

Watch this in verses 4 and 5.

This is his prayer.

God, hero God, for we are despised.

Turn back their taunts on their own heads and give them 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.

I mean, that seems harsh, right?

That seems hard, but this is the essence of his prayer.

God, this attack isn't on us.

This attack is on you.

They are coming after you.

We don't want you to overlook this.

We want you to step in because your name is on the line with the rebuilding of this wall.

So will you step in?

Will you take care of this?

You defend your honor.

You defend your name on these people's threats towards us.

Notice one thing you do here.

Notice in verse 6 that people simply chose not to believe the enemy's threats, but instead

they chose to believe God and they continued on the work to work on the wall and get to

verse 6.

So we built the wall.

He prayed and then it says, so we built the wall and all the wall was joined together to

half its height for the people had a mind to work.

I mean, that's amazing.

Despite these threats and these insults and this ridicule, it actually didn't fragment

or fracture the people, but it united them.

It united them with one face.

It says, no, no, no, no, no.

God called us to this.

God called us to this.

So they got to work and they knocked out 50% of the wall just like that in unity.

It's amazing what God's people can accomplish when they're unified for God's call together.

What did they do in response here?

They persevered.

They kept going.

They prayed.

They gave their insults to God and they kept moving forward.

Has God given you a holy discontent?

And I see God burdened you with something that is so great and so ambitious that you

would defend His name's sake.

Maybe that's you.

Maybe that's your home group.

Maybe it's us as a church.

Can I just tell you something?

Don't stop.

Don't stop.

Why?

Because you have to be obedient to what God has called you to do.

We have to be obedient to God, not to the sambalots, not to the Tobias of our life.

You don't answer to them.

You answer to God.

Don't stop.

When God calls something to be, the only response is obedience despite the persecution

that may come.

What God calls you to, He will resource.

What God requires He will provide.

So you just keep trusting.

You just keep persevering.

Question them.

When you do, when you keep persevering, what do the enemies think of it?

How do they respond?

We'll see in verse 7.

But when Sambalot and Tobias and the Arabs and the Ammonites and the Ashtadites heard

that the repairing of the walls of Jerusalem was going forward and that the breaches were

beginning to be closed, they were very angry.

Uh-oh, right?

Now we've taken some people off for sure.

They've taken somebody off.

Incidentally though, notice where these folks are from.

Sambalot is from Persia, so that's up north.

Tobias is an Ammonite.

He's from the east.

The Arabs were from down south.

The Ashtadites were Philistines.

They were from the west.

So where is this persecution coming from?

It's coming from all around them.

There is nowhere that they can't go that persecution isn't there.

It's all around them.

They're surrounded by mocking enemies.

These enemies decide, okay, words weren't good enough.

Words didn't stop them.

The mockery didn't stop them.

So now we're going to have to resort to physical intimidation in verse 8.

And they all plotted together to come and fight against Jerusalem and to cause confusion

in it.

Again, we move simply from ridicule to physical attacks that are pending.

So what do you do now?

How do you respond now?

The next verse is going to speak both to the super-righteous pacifist and the lazy conformist.

It's going to speak to both of these worlds.

Verse 9, And we prayed to our God and set a guard as protection against them day and

night.

So in fear of attack, Nehemiah does two things together simultaneously.

He prays and he defends.

He prays and he defends.

He does both.

In one sense, he's not leaning on a shovel and praying for a hole.

In another sense, he's not digging a hole in his own strength without leaning on God.

He does both.

He prays and he defends.

He's both spiritually dependent upon God and practically engaged with the people.

This is a great model for us as believers to stand in the gap against persecution.

Pray and defend.

I'd love to tell you at this point that all these Israelites were coming together to help

rebuild the wall and they were just some spiritually bowed up people like they were standing strong

and no matter what attack comes away, they're not going to compromise, they're not going

to bend at all.

But unfortunately, honestly, thankfully, they're just like us.

They're just like you and me.

These Jews who are working on the wall, they get afraid.

They get discouraged.

They get tired.

They doubt.

They lose their strength.

And look at verses 10 through 11.

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

There's too much trouble.

By ourselves, we will not be able to rebuild the wall.

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

stop the work.

So doubt sets in.

Discouragement sets in.

They begin saying to themselves, can we really finish this thing?

Truthfully, I'm thankful that this is here because this passage reminds me of me.

It reminds me of me.

It reminds me of my weakest moments of despair.

My temptation to doubt, my temptation to not trust God and to ultimately just want to fold

when persecution sets in.

That's where these people are at.

That's where they are.

They were discouraged by two things.

They were discouraged by the amount of work that was in front of them.

But they were also discouraged by the rumors that were circulating about pending attacks

coming their way.

And it got them scared.

It got them scared that they were going to fail.

It got them scared that they were going to be in harm's way.

And in verse 12, we see some of these rumors and attacks where they were coming from.

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

to us, 10 times, you must return to us.

So here are some Jews from surrounding suburbs, the surrounding areas.

And these Jews are interesting here.

They're interesting.

Evidently, they weren't taking part in the building of the wall.

They were just sitting back in the suburb communities and they weren't engaged with

what was going on in the city.

And all of a sudden, these folks, these Jews in the suburbs, they become scared because

they hear about these attacking enemies coming.

They hear all these rumors.

So these folks who would not align themselves with the Reformation Project, who would not

grab a trowel and some mortar and get after it and start building, all of a sudden they

come and they don't just come once.

It says they come 10 times and they say to the builders, hey, you need to quit.

You need to stop.

They're getting heated out here.

There's persecution coming.

They have weapons and they're coming against us.

You may just need to come back.

Take a step back.

You need to retreat.

You need to come back and take refuge with us.

And maybe if you do, the enemy will stop and maybe they won't attack us.

Have you ever known folks like that?

Do we have folks like this in our own church?

Maybe you have folks like this in your own family or in your community?

The Lord burst in you this holy discontent.

He lights a fire in you for what He wants you to go after.

And in that moment, the persecution starts.

And it's not just folks from the outside.

It's not just folks from the outside you get the most.

It's the folks from your own camp.

It's your own family.

It's your own friends.

In light of persecution, you need to prepare your heart from attacks from the inside.

It's other believers who will not align themselves with what God has called you to do.

But they're great, right?

They're great at sitting back and vocalizing and verbalizing how displeased they are with

what you are doing.

They just love to play Monday morning quarterback.

They just love to tell you and take shots at you and tell you how everything you're doing

is wrong and how you're wasting your time.

This is foolish.

I can't believe we're spending resources on this.

I can't believe you're spending time on this.

Their ultimate goal is to get you to quit.

I can assure you there are times, honestly, where there are more people from within our

own camp who cause more problems than what God wants to do here than people from the

outside.

That's a discouraging place to be.

Believers who would rather just play it safe than align themselves with the radical call

of Jesus Christ in the world around us.

In addition to our enemies, we have persecution from within.

In verse 13, what does Nehemiah do?

What does Nehemiah do?

What does he do at this point when he has all these people who are trying to tempt him

to quit?

They're trying to tempt them to fold.

What does a Reformation leader do?

Look at verse 13.

So in the lowest parts of the space behind the wall and open places, I station the people

by their clans with their swords, their spears, and their bows.

Nehemiah does not retreat.

He stays put and he diverts some of the builders of the wall to stand in the gaps of the wall

and prepare for battle if need be.

It's a great picture of a persevering leader who does not fold under the pressure of opposition.

Proverbs 24.10 says, if you do nothing in a difficult time, your strength is limited.

Meaning if you do all this training and you have all this passion and you spend all this

time in prayer and you're all prayed up and you've prepared and you've planned and you're

ready to go and then you hit the battlefield and in that moment persecution comes to you

if you fold.

All that preparation and you fold, it's as if it was all worthless.

It's as if you never had the strength to begin with.

It's as if you never trained or prepared to begin with.

I can't ever read this passage without thinking about that scene in Saving Private Ryan where

there's this dude in the tower and he's about to get killed by the enemy.

You know the scene?

It's been a while since I've seen it.

Then one little scrawny guy, there's one little scrawny guy in the stairwell and he has this

big old gun.

I mean, it's huge.

He has tons of ammo just coming out of it.

He has everything he needs to just run right out there and stop the enemy from killing

his buddy but he just folds.

He just starts weeping.

It's like all the training, all the resources, all the equipment that he's been giving,

the skill sets and he has this massive gun and all these weapons and all he has to do

is walk up and pull the trigger but he folds.

I mean, it's Proverbs 24-10.

If you're faint in the day of distress, your strength is small.

It doesn't matter.

It doesn't matter.

For Nehemiah though, God's glory is too great to stop.

His work is too precious to him.

Nehemiah is like, no, we're not stopping.

You want to come fight?

You want to come after me?

We're going to continue to get after this wall but we are going to be ready for the battle.

Verse 14, I love this.

This is like his brave heart speech.

If I had an Irish Scottish accent, I'd do it.

Verse 14.

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

rest of the people, do not be afraid of them.

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

daughters, your wives and your homes.

It's Nehemiah saying, this thing is too big to be centered around you.

You're fighting for more than just yourself.

Just holy discontent the Lord has given you to go and repair what is broken is bigger

than any one of us.

It represents your families.

It represents your communities, your city, your homes.

It represents generations that are going to come after you.

John Piper, he was doing a Q and A panel one time and he was asked, John Piper, why do

you always preach so much about suffering in America?

Why do you talk so much about missions when dying is gain?

Why do you preach that way from Minneapolis, Minnesota?

His response, if you know John Piper, if you've read his books, if you've was so classic,

he just said, I'm not preaching on suffering for you.

I'm preaching on it for your kids and your grandkids because you may feel that that'll

never happen here in America, but the day is coming where Christianity will have to

be defended and you will be a minority.

I mean, is that not true?

Turn on your TV.

Is that not true?

No.

It represents something far more than just yourself.

This represents the generations that are yet to come.

This is worth fighting for.

In verse 15, we find out that when God becomes big, the enemies really do become small.

Verse 15, when our enemies heard that we knew their scheme and that God had frustrated

it, every one of us returned to his own work on the wall.

So God gets all the glory here, right?

Not thinking throughout the work of God.

In verse 16, you'll notice how they continue from this point forward.

From that day on, half of my servants worked on construction and half held the spears,

shields, bows, and coats of mail.

And the leader 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 in the other.

You catch that?

In one hand, they're carrying a sword and then the other, they're building the wall.

That's what's going on here.

They're always like, they're working on the wall, but they're ready for the battle.

They're trailing the mortar.

They're placing the stones, but they're ready for battle.

That's what they're doing here.

And in verse 20, Nehemiah gives these people one last charge of encouragement for the work

ahead.

In the place where you hear the sound of the trumpet rally to us there, our God will fight

for us.

If you hear that trumpet sound, that means the battle's coming.

That means you rally together and we're going to go after the enemy together, but know this.

This is your encouragement.

This is what he's telling them.

This is your encouragement.

Our God will go for us.

He will fight for us.

Now essentially that's how chapter 3 ends.

But the question we ask is, why is this here?

Why is this here?

What is about this chapter that we need to know?

Church, I would simply tell you this.

Opposition, persecution is part of the Christian life and Christian ministry.

Has God burdened you for something?

Has He given you a holy discontent?

Have you opened up the Scriptures and read what God says that should be?

Then have you looked around our culture and realized that's not what it is?

Has He pressed your heart on something?

Has He brought you to your face in prayer?

Has He given you a plan and a dream for how this thing could be fixed?

Has He rallied people around you?

Rest assured the mockers are coming.

Rest assured discursion is going to come.

Rest assured there's going to be people from outside and within the camp that's going to

try to stop the plans that the Lord has given you.

We have to persevere.

We have to persevere.

Those people are out there.

Let's prepare our hearts for it.

They're going to come after you.

The enemy will use whatever schemes he can to discourage what God has placed on your

heart.

He will distract you as best he can so that you take your mind off of that.

What has He burdened you for?

I don't know the answer for you.

But here's what I do know.

It's amazing what God can accomplish when the people of God are united together.

It's amazing how quickly this wall gets built when the people of God are united together.

And we're praying through this thing together.

We're fighting for this thing together.

We're defending this thing together.

It's amazing what God will do.

That's why NMI chapter 4 is here.

It's not all good times.

Persecution is going to come.

That's a fact.

But our hope and our trust is that if God has given you the burden, He's going to fight

with you and for you.

He's going to accomplish more through you than you ever think you can do on your own.

We have to remain united together.

Let's get after it.

Let's pray.

Father, I pray right now that as we sing one more song, as we worship together one more

time this morning, God, give us all a holy discontent.

Our world is broken all around us.

Give us a passion like you gave Niamhaya.

Draw us to our knees.

Help us seek after you.

So Father, I pray that you will give us this holy discontent, but you will also protect

us.

You will protect our minds from the discouragement that is going to come our way.

You'll protect our hearts from bitter feelings and angry feelings towards those that come

against us.

Give us this holy discontent.

Help us all be reformers in trying to fix something around us that's broken.

Our hope is in you.

Not in what we can accomplish.

Our hope is in what you can accomplish when you unite us together.

Help us not be distracted by the sambalots and the Tobias that are in our lives.

Help us keep our eyes focused on you in the midst of everything else around us.

We give you this time.

In the name of your name and your prayer.

Amen.

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Amen.