Investigate and Communicate

Sermon Transcript

“INVESTIGATE AND COMMUNICATE”

Pastor Phil Winfield

Nehemiah 2:11-20

September 30, 2007

Grace Church of Des Moines, IA

4200 E. 25th StreetDes Moines, IA 50317

Website:  http://www.gracehome.com

Online Sermons:  http://gracehome.sermonaudio.com

And so if you have your Bibles there, open to Nehemiah chapter two.  We have been going through this series and we found that just as Nehemiah was going to rebuild the walls in Jerusalem, we need to do a little rebuilding in our own lives.  And the very first thing that we found out is that in order to get started at rebuilding our lives we have to do two words, number one, read it with me, what we do we have to do?  We have to face reality.Then, over here, after we face reality we don’t just go fix everything.  We don’t just go get busy trying to straighten everything out.  No, before we talk to men, before we talk to others we need to talk to God.  And so the second thing we do...I don’t know if you can see it.  The two things that God has given us concerning prayer is that we are in the right position to pray. And so it is, number one, face reality and, number two, say it with me...prayer and position.  And the position part of that is God has you exactly where he wants you to be able to make the changes you and I need to make.Well, as we do that, as we face reality and we start making changes, the next thing we are going to find out is that it is a fearful thing.  It is always fearful to confront the situations and the people of your life and especially when we have caused them trouble.  And so fear has got to be confronted with one word.  And what is that one word?  Faith.  And so faith carries us through the fear.Today what we have to do is we just can’t make an assumption that we know all the details that are involved.  As we read this passage in just a moment you are going to find out that Nehemiah had a general idea of what he would need and what it would be like to build the wall, but when he got to Jerusalem he had to do something else.  He had to take time and he had to rest and then he had to do an investigation to find out exactly what was going on.  Before he said a word to any other man or shared it all, what was in his heart, he investigated.  He got down to the details.  He knew that there were some particular issues that he was going to have to face.We have to do the same thing.  We have to investigate and we have to communicate what we have investigated. So, once you face the reality of your situation in life don’t despair. Take it to God in prayer.  Once you have begun to pray and share it with the Lord in faith, then proceed with faith in spite of your fair.  And then, today, don’t hesitate, but initiate the change.One Bible story that illustrates this so very well is Joshua when he stood on the plains of Moab and he looked across the Jordan River at the land of Canaan. It was the land of promise.  It is the land to which the children of Israel had been directed and heading for quite some time. And so as they were getting ready, looking across to the land of Canaan, they had been from Egypt through the wilderness, learned many lessons and when they looked across that Jordan they had one thing left to do and that was they needed to wade in, they needed to step in the water and follow God’s leading. They had to fight off their fears by faith.  They had to walk right into the water following the ark of God and guess what happened? When they took those first few steps of faith they found out that the waters and the rivers of difficulty moved back.  Circumstances changed when the took steps forward.Well, what do we find Nehemiah doing?  Well, we find him doing exactly the same thing. He had arrived to Jerusalem.  He took a good lingering first hand look at the situation before him and then knowing what needed to be done, he shared the vision.Listen to the reading of this passage of Scripture and I believe you will be encouraged.I went to Jerusalem, and after staying there three days  I set out during the night with a few men. I had not told anyone what my God had put in my heart to do for Jerusalem. There were no mounts with me except the one I was riding on.  By night I went out through the Valley Gate towards the Jackal Well and the Dung Gate, examining the walls of Jerusalem, which had been broken down, and its gates, which had been destroyed by fire.   Then I moved on towards the Fountain Gate and the King’s Pool, but there was not enough room for my mount to get through; so I went up the valley by night, examining the wall. Finally, I turned back and re-entered through the Valley Gate.  The officials did not know where I had gone or what I was doing, because as yet I had said nothing to the Jews or the priests or nobles or officials or any others who would be doing the work.  Then I said to them, "You see the trouble we are in: Jerusalem lies in ruins, and its gates have been burned with fire. Come, let us rebuild the wall of Jerusalem, and we will no longer be in disgrace."  I also told them about the gracious hand of my God upon me and what the king had said to me. They replied, "Let us start rebuilding." So they began this good work.  But when Sanballat the Horonite, Tobiah the Ammonite official and Geshem the Arab heard about it, they mocked and ridiculed us. "What is this you are doing?" they asked. "Are you rebelling against the king?"  I answered them by saying, "The God of heaven will give us success. We his servants will start rebuilding, but as for you, you have no share in Jerusalem or any claim or historic right to it."I can imagine what it as like when he did—Nehemiah, that is—began to communicate with the people and as he communicated found out that in his audience that there were those that were going to stand up against him.  And that is probably one of the most amazing things of the Christian life is to find out when you decide to repent, you decide to start changing, you decide to start doing things that are right.  There are always people that seem to stand up and oppose you.  It seems nonsensical.  It seems unreasonable, but there is always that group that will stand up and ridicule and mock and they will always stand up and oppose.Well, we are going to end up with that thought.  But I want to start off by looking back, now, at the passage and I want to talk to you about how to communicate a vision for change.I love this part at the very first here, it says in verse 11, “So I came to Jerusalem and was there three days. Then I arose in the night.”  I love this because when he got there the very first thing he did was not after taking such a long trip just jump right into the work and start trying to fix everything. That is not what he did.  Do you know what the very first order of business was for Nehemiah when he got to Jerusalem?  Take a nap.  Basically, he needed to rest.  He took three days to do it.You say, “Wow, that was...he must not have been very urgent.”Oh, he was very urgent about doing the thing. His predecessor, Ezra, had done exactly the same thing.You say, “Well, why is that?”Well, because that trip, that 800 miles or so from Susa all the way to Jerusalem was across very dangerous territory.  Remember they were riding camels and, perhaps, on the backs of donkeys and walking. They might have made eight, 10, 12 miles a day.  So it may have been weeks and months even before they actually got there. And so when they got there they were tired.  They were dirty.  They were dusty. They were hungry for something a little better than what they were getting in their camp.  And so when he got there the first thing he did was he took...and he took some time and he rested.And I just wonder this morning how many of you would love to have a three rest.  Anybody out here just to have three days to do nothing but just rest?Well, I would, too.  I think I might be one of those in here that needs it as much as the next guy, but you know what?  God made us that way.  And I want to say to everybody here, in the Old Testament when we were studying the Ten Commandments, one of those Commandments was, “You will remember the sabbath day and keep it holy.”  And what were their assignments on the sabbath day?  What was it that they had to do?Well, there were a few things they had to remember and they had to think about God.  But primarily the number one thing they were to do on the sabbath was nothing.  They were supposed to just stop.  And we are made that way.So here is what I want you to do. Go to your boss, or, if you are the boss, I want everybody to just tell him, “Look.  The preacher said that I need a three day rest.” So just tell him that tomorrow and see how far you get with that.  I doubt you are going to get very far, but, you know, just go ahead and tell him.Well, here is the deal. He got to Jerusalem. He was tired.  He took a rest.  He needed his wits about him.  He needed to be able to really find out and investigate what was going on there. I told you a moment ago, before he ever went to Jerusalem while he was still in Susa he made...he did some meditating, he did a lot of thinking. He thought, “Now, if these walls are burned down...if the timbers are burned and the walls are destroyed then I am going to need...well, I’m going to need...I’m going to need all those stones and more and I am going to need new timber and I need something from the king’s forest and I am going to need.…”  He started talking about all the things he needed. But do you know what?  He was speaking in general terms.But now then he is there and he takes a rest.  Then he rises up in the middle of the night and he takes a walk.  I call it the midnight ride of governor Nehemiah.  He got a very up close and personal inspection going where he looked personally at the condition of the city and now, then, he is going to be able to lay out his strategy a whole lot better. He is going to be able to communicate what he needs to do, but he gets up and he takes a midnight ride. He didn’t tell anybody what was going on until he knew the depth and he knew the details of what was going to have to be done.  And so that is exactly what he started to do.And on your sheet there, your Scripture sheet, write a few things down. And the first thing we have to do is we have to recognize, firstly, the ruins of our life.Somebody might say, “Pastor, I am amazed that you would go to Nehemiah and that you would teach these kinds of things.”And I have a real simple for and that is the Bible says that, “All Scripture is given by inspiration of God and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for correction, for instruction in righteousness: that the man of God may be perfect [that is mature and completely] furnished unto all good works.”“And so why would you...what are you saying?”I’m saying that God has put these things in the Bible to teach us something and to apply to our lives.  This is application preaching.You probably wonder, “Pastor, what is your whole way of thinking?”Well, if I haven’t led you through a thought process that requires a decision or a commitment I have not preached a sermon.  And so from week to week that is exactly what I do.  I look at God’s Word. I see what it says.  I try to explain what it mans and then I try to ask the big so what question.  So what do I do with this?  There I something to do with this passage of Scripture, not just read it.  It is not just about knowledge.  It is about applying God’s Word in our life. And the first thing we need to do, like Nehemiah, he made a good investigation and that was point number one under number four there.  Investigation. He looked to see exactly what was going on, what were the needs going to be and then he began to communicate that need.  So step one, recognize the ruins of your life.And how do you do that?  Well, acknowledge, first of all, to yourself, that the ruins of your life are real.  They are real ruins.  Now, we talked a lot about this and in the first one, in facing reality.  Until a person admits and understands that their life is in shambles, that this alcohol problem is more than just a little problem, it is something that is consuming your life.  This addiction, this anger, this envy or these attitudes of aggression towards everyone and everybody or this self defense mechanism that kicks in every time anybody says hello to you, those kind of things are problems and our lives, because of the choices we make, because of the direction we take, our lives are in a mess and we have all kinds of problems that we have to deal with, that we have to look at them.  We cannot minimize them.  We can’t go around them.  We cannot just ignore them.  We cannot be negligent.  And so we have to acknowledge to ourselves that the ruins of our lives are real.A wonderful example is what Alcoholics Anonymous does.  They have been doing it for years.  And, by the way, originally, that was a Christian organization.  It is kind of interesting how it has evolved. But the very first thing that a person had to do is they have to be able to say, just three little words, “I am...” four little words, “I am an alcoholic.”  They have to be able to say that.  They have got to come to that place, come to the grips that they are an alcoholic.  We have got to come to the place where we say, “I am an addict.”  “I am angry.” “I am selfish.”  “I am lazy.”  “I am self centered.”  “I am an egotist.” “I am mad all the time.”  And we have to come to the place where we actually investigate...don’t just hear what people are saying and brush it off, but stop and look at our lives, investigate and find out just exactly what kind of person we are.So we do an exam.  We realize and acknowledge that the ruins of our life are real and then the second thing is, under this, acknowledge to yourself this.  You have to acknowledge to your family that you are responsible.We live in the greatest blames shifting age of all history.  Psychology and psychiatry are designed, they are in business to help people shift their responsibility for their actions to somebody else.  They like to say, “Well, you know, if it hadn’t been for your great, great, great, great grand pa so and so who did such and such then you wouldn’t be in this kind of situation.  It wouldn’t be your fault.”  And so we love to shift the blame. We don’t like to take the responsibility.I love what David did.  Somebody said, “Well, you know, David in the Bible must have been perfect because he was a man after God’s own heart.”Well, King David was far from perfect, but when somebody put the finger on the problem David didn’t blame anybody.  When Nathan said, “David, you are the man that has done this deed of killing this other person and of robbing his wife,” David said, “You are right.  Against God I have sinned.  I have sinned.”You need, we need, I need to take responsibility for what is going on in my life.  I need to be responsible.You know, we say, “Well, that’s right.  You know, out in the old cruel world that’s the way it is and, you know, people like to shift responsibility and we don’t have presidents and vice presidents and we don’t have congressmen and senators that say, ‘the buck stops here.’ We just don’t have that anymore.”Well, let me let you in on a little secret.  It is creeping in and has crept in, Jude says, “unawares,” right among the Christian community because we have terminology for it and we have decided that the way we are going to handle that is we will say, “You know, it is really not my fault because I am suffering from generational sin.  You know, my great, great, great grandfather was an alcoholic and then my great, great grandfather was an alcoholic and my great grandfather was an alcoholic...”  Just coming on to, “So I’m an alcoholic.  That’s the end of the matter. I don’t have to worry about it.  It’s not my problem.  It is their fault and I am just going to just keep on with it.”Funny that Ezekiel says that nobody is going to be able to use that, but the Bible says that every man is going to die and be punished and corrected and is going to answer for his own sin.You say, “Well, didn’t they have any influence over us?”Yes, but we are under no obligation to past generations to carry on their mistakes. Let me say that to you again.  You are under no obligation to the generations before you to carry on the exact same downfall in your life that they had.And so the first thing we have to do is look at the ruins of our life and admit they are real.  I have got real problems.  I am angry.  I am mad.  I have problems with pornography. I keep doing the same things over and over.  You  know, I chase skirts, you know.  I am after women.  I can’t be faithful to my wife.  I can’t be faithful to my husband.  And this thing is just...What we have to do is face the facts.  I am a lazy person.  Laziness is an infectious thing, contagious in America today.  I am lazy. I am irresponsible.  I can’t be counted on. I am a liar.  We have to come to a...in our own hearts. I didn’t say you had to stand on the street corner out there and tell the whole world. In your own heart the first thing you have got to do is quit blaming others, look at yourself and say, “You know what?  Here is the truth about me. Here is what is ruining me and I am responsible.”  That is the first thing that you have to do.Then we are going to move on to the second one.  Write this down. Look at verse number 14 if you would.  He says, “Then I went on to the Fountain Gate and to the King’s Pool, but there was no room for the animal under me to pass.”You say, “Well, what in the world are you going to get out of that?”Well, listen to this.  You need to realize that you have left no room in your life.You say, “Well, what would have been the problem why that animal couldn’t pass?”Well, the walls were broken down. There’s all burnt timbers laying everywhere, you know, just imagine Nebuchadnezzar and his army the come through and they pull these walls down, pull all the buildings down, there is stuff laying everywhere and he is trying to get around rocky terrain. If you have ever seen any kind of picture of what Jerusalem looks like, it is perched on top of this hill.  There are valleys all around.  And here he is trying to go around the outside of it to get a good look at the walls and the extent of the destruction. And while he is doing it there is so much junk and there is so much rubble and there is so much trash, he just can’t do it.  And so what does he have to do?Well, he has got to dismount, walk slow, tip toe around. It takes him all night long and he makes this very meticulous survey and he has to do much of it by foot because there is just so much junk.All right.  So you investigate your life.  And you take a really good investigation of your life and you are going to find out that because of the issues of your life and the situations of your life and the circumstances of your life and the choices that you make, you leave a lot of rubble, a lot of junk, a lot of baggage, a lot of things that people, other people are having to deal with.It is important to understand that a life of bad habits and decisions makes so much junk and trash that a person doesn’t hardly leave himself any wiggle room personally.And do you know what a prison is?  A prison is a place where you put a person that has taken personal indulgence to the nth degree. They have taken personal freedom and personal rights to the nth degree and they have trampled on everyone else in the process and because they have trampled on everyone else and because they have decried any restraint whatsoever, the only way for those people to be able to get along is to put them in a place where the only person that they are damaging now is themselves.We don’t leave any room in our life and any effort to make a change is like moving a beached barge.  Not only that, but the people around you have been kept at a distance, too, by the bad habits.One of the greatest stories in the Bible is the story of Abigail and Nabal. And Nabal was a very foolish man.  In fact, his name meant fool. He lived in the time of King David.  One day when he had done something that was the most foolish of things, he had threatened King David and his armies and his own wife, while still honoring him by saving his life from David and from his army looked at him and thought about him and she concluded, “Well, you know, this man is just a scoundrel.”  His workers, in fact, and all of his servants looked at him.  And when they were communicating with the wife Abigail they said, “You know, he is just a scoundrel. He is so much of a scoundrel that nobody can even talk to him.”Well, it is like that isn’t it.  We get edgy quick. We are know it alls, self absorbed, defensive, combative, argumentative and the list goes on.  Why? Because whenever we start self destructing and we start influencing the people around us, the very first thing we begin to do is we get to the place where there is no room for anybody to say anything to us because we are just going to lash out at them.  We are going to fight back.  We are going to be defensive.The first thing we do is we don’t leave any room for God in our life.  I have noticed that when people are at the height of their self destruction the last thing they want to do is hear from God.  The last thing they want to do is for somebody to come talk to them and try to use God’s Word to help them and encourage them.  That is, until they come to themselves, until God gets their attention because they get at the bottom of the rope.Not only that, but they leave no room for others.  The person that allows himself or herself to self destruct is always consuming not just their own lives, but the lives of all of those around them.I want to ask you a question. How many of you know that you know people that because of all of the choices they have made and what has happened to them as a result of those choices, they are not just consuming their own life, but they are consuming the lives of their family and people around them?  Just raise your hand.It eats people up.  People who become self destructive, people who make decisions, they become proud or they become angry or they become know it alls or they become addicted to this substance or that, the next thing you know or it could be something, it could be pornography, it could be some sexual sin or adultery, they get involved in those things and then all of the sudden that event and those strings of events begin to consume the very family around them because nobody does anything that doesn’t have influence on other people.I want you to know that everybody in this room this morning is a leader, absolutely unequivocally, without any shadow of a doubt you are in here and you are a leader because leadership is influence and we are all influencing somebody toward God or toward evil.  Every life is an influence and so a person who is not in line with what God wants, but only what they want, are influencing people and you are affecting the lives, I am affecting the lives of other people. There is no room for others.Let me go on, number three.  Write it down on your sheet very quickly. Renew the relationships of your life.  Look at verse number 16.And the officials did not know where I had gone or what I had done; I had not yet told the Jews, the priests, the nobles, the officials, or the others who did the work.  Then I said to them, "You see the distress that we are in, how Jerusalem lies waste, and its gates are burned with fire.”He began to communicate, he began to tell other people. He began to build relationship with those people.  Why?  Because he was not going to be able to build this wall alone.Now, you remember, this man is a cup bearer.You say, “What is that?”Well, it is a governmental attaché who had the responsibility of tasting the food and wine that was put before the king at Susa so that he would not be killed. That was his area of expertise.You say, “How old was Nehemiah?”I don’t have any idea.  I suspect a man of 30 or more because most of the time in any of those positions you never got into those positions until you were 30 years of age. A priest, for instance...he couldn’t become a priest until he was 30 and he had to be done by the time he was 50.  He couldn’t say anything. He couldn’t be a priest after he was 50.  Kind of interesting, isn’t it?But so I don’t know how old he was.  I don’t know how much experience he had.  I don’t know whether he had a tinker toy set or legos when he was a kid and he learned how to build.  But when he was going to Jerusalem, I have a sneaking suspicion this was all new to him.  In his heart he wanted to rebuild a wall.  But did he know how to build a wall?And, number two, could he build the wall alone?  No.  He had to build a relationship with those people. He was very wise.  He said, “Listen.”  He said, “Look at the walls of our city.  Look at the destruction that has been wrought. Look at how desperate your situation is, but more important than anything else, look at the name and reputation of our God which lies in disrepute. God is suffering because of the destruction of this city.”Can I let you in on a little secret?  When your life is self destructive do you know whose purpose is thwarted?  Do you know whose glory is robbed?  Do you know whose plans are put on the sideline?  Do you know who it is that we are stopping?  Not that you could permanently stop him, not that God can’t do your think another way, but whenever we begin to choose our own way and our own self indulgence instead of the will of God do you know what we do?  We rob God of his glory in our life.Do you know what the ultimate goal of God is for every single person in this world?  It is that they would be born into his family.  It is not God’s will that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance.  God wants everybody to be saved.Number two, Romans chapter eight and verse 29.  “For whom he did foreknow, he also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of his Son.”  That is the plan of God for every one of us.  And if you are not becoming more and more like Christ in your daily life as a Christian, then who is it that is being robbed?Well, first of all, you miss out on the joy of knowing you are doing God’s will. Number two, God does not receive the glory for your life.Can I let you in on a little something this morning? I pray that every sermon I preach and every lesson I teach and every prayer I pray encourages you and builds you up and helps you in your life and brings you great joy.  But the great purpose of every sermon I preach is the glory of God.  And the purpose of every song we sing in this church is to lift up the name of Jesus. And the very reason that I would teach to you so that your life could be turned around, I know it will help you. It will bring happiness and peace, but that is not the primary reason.  The primary reason and I see Kevin sitting on the front row.  Kevin, you exist for the glory of God.  God wants to do something in your life that will bring him glory.Do you understand that?  Do you understand that every single person in this world was created in the image of God for the glory of God and that when we don’t yield and submit to his will we rob him of his glory?  Can anybody say amen?It is the truth.  It is the Word of God.  He made us for himself and for his glory.  And so how do I do this?  Well, you renew these relationships.  We are not recruiting people to build a physical wall.  We need people to help us with our situations and our problems.Number one, under that, you alone, you alone, I alone, we alone, personally, individually, have to face our problems. We have established that.  We face our problems.  They are yours.Number two, you alone cannot fix your problems.  You alone must face your problems.  But then you are going to have to have help.  Nehemiah alone got the vision from God, but Nehemiah had to have some help. He had to share his vision. Every man in this room needs an accountability group.  I’m not going to talk about the women, the children, the teens.  I think everything rises and falls on leadership and I believe that when the men in this church and the men in any church get their own hearts right with God and in tune with him and when you will submit yourself to a group of men that will ask you hard questions and will pray with you...I have the benefit every Friday morning, been doing this for years since I have been here.  I have got a few friends together to say, “Hey, let’s have breakfast.”  And we started it way back when Mugs first started.  We said, “Let’s get together once a week and have breakfast. I tell you what we’ll do. We’ll just talk and chat and talk about the ball game and what we’ll do is we’ll also ask each other hard questions and see if we are living for God.”  And so Bernie Lyle is in my group.  Bernie Lyle has given...I have given Bernie full permission to ask me, “Pastor Phil, are you being honest in all of your dealings? Pastor Phil, are you preaching one thing and living another?  Pastor Phil...”And do you know what?  We get together and we cry and we pray and we prayed over all kinds of situations together.  But I have just got a little...you know what?  You don’t need 100 men, 200 men.  You need a little group of men that you can get together with and you can sit down and you can be accountable and you can enlist their help in holding you accountable. You need your wife on board.  You need your children on board.  You need all kinds of people to be on board to help you.  You alone must face your problem. You alone cannot fix your problem.  Admit it.  You need other peoples’ help.Assure the other people that you are seeking God’s help.  I love this.  In verse 18 says, I have talked about the hand of God being on him.  He talked about it earlier.  Later in verse number 20 he says that the God of heaven is going to prosper us.  Here is one of those situations where a person wants to renew the relationships and start fixing their life and start seeing God move in their life.  And so what do they do?  Well they start going to the people that matter most. They go to a wife, a husband, a father, a mother, a brother or sister and they tell them. They say, “Listen.  I have come to the place where I know that I have really messed up my life and I am ready to turn it around.”The very first thing that that wife, mother, brother, sister, friend says is, “Oh, yeah. Here we go again.”Now, listen to me.  Please don’t be discouraged if you make...if you decide in your heart you are going to change, you decide in your heart that God is moving, you  are tired of blaming others, you are going to take responsibility, you are going to face the issues of your life, you are going to enlist some help for your life. Don’t be surprised if people have given up because they are tired. They have seen this before.I talk to people and deal with people on a daily basis and sometimes a wife will call in and say, “I have been over this and over this and over this with him and, pastor, he just will not turn off that computer and all of that pornography and I am at my wit’s end.  I guess I am just going to have to live with this or divorce him.”They may have given up because they have heard it all before. They may have given up because they have just become accustomed to it.You know, that was what was going on there in Jerusalem, wasn’t it?  You know, these people had been in that city for all of these years.  I mean those walls have been down for over 100 years and you know what?  I mean, they had kind of gotten used to it. They were walking around it and going by it and ignoring it and stepping through the stones and, you know, I can just imagine after 100 years all of the little secret passages and pathways that the people had worked in and out of that city as they finally figured out and located all the problems and they knew how to just go around the problems.Do you know what people do in their homes when you have got a family member or you have got a bigger or larger family scenario? Do you know what people do?  Well, we begin to make accommodations.  We begin to make excuses for that person.  We begin to make reasons and we begin to prop up all kinds of things to sort of help just get around the situation because, you know, that’s the way they are.  Their parents were that way, their parents were that way. Yes, they are drunks or yeah he is lazy. No, he really won’t work.  No, he can’t keep a job.  He can’t keep a job because he is just mad all the time.  Nobody can be his boss.  He gets...and so they just...ok, you know, it’s job after job after job or it is anger after anger or it is trip to the clinic after trip to clinic because they just can’t put the pills away. They can’t get off the meth.  They can’t get...They just can’t.And so what do family members do?  Family members learn to accommodate and what happens?  When this individual says, “It is time for change God is working in my heart,” the rest of the family says, “Look.  You know, I  know you have got good intentions and you want to do this, but you have done this so many times before.  Look, we have gotten used to it.  Look, let’s just keep it under the blanket.  Let’s keep it quiet.  Let’s just, you know, let’s just carry on.”  That’s what happens.And let me go just a little further.  They may have given up because God doesn’t seem to be listening to their prayers.I have dealt with people and I have talked to people recently that have been praying for a mate for a son, for a mother, for a sister, for some family member that has just had a melt down and it is consuming all of the family.  And they have prayed for them for a week, a month, a year, for two years, 10 years.  They have been praying and praying and praying.  And, quite frankly, they are wondering if God is listening and if he is ever going to listen to anything that they pray about.Do you know when the child of God will not respond to the warnings of God and the corrections of God and they just harden their hearts, do you know what happens in the process?  You harm the spirituality of everybody else that is around you.I can’t tell you how many women would say, “I would be at church a whole lot more and serve the Lord and be involved, but, you know, my husband just throws a fit when I go out the door.”  Or, “My wife, you know, she is just not with me on this.  She is just, you know, she just thinks I have become some kind of a holy Joe and she just doesn’t want to have anything to do with it.”  And so you got one that is pulling one way and one that is pulling the other.And because of not listening to the correction of the Lord and the Spirit of God, it damages the spiritual lives of other people.Well, when we start actually taking steps, people will be encouraged to help us.  Look at verse number 17.Then I said to them, "You see the distress that we are in, how Jerusalem lies waste, and its gates are burned with fire. Come and let us build the wall of Jerusalem, that we may no longer be a reproach."  And I told them of the hand of my God which had been good upon me, and also of the king’s words that he had spoken to me. So they said, "Let us rise up and build." Then they set their hands to this good work.Boy, when he told them, “Here is how God has worked it out and here is what God has done in my life and here is the vision that I have before us and let’s just, come on, let’s just work on this and rebuild this city.  Boy, they were encouraged.  They could see God moving.  And here is what I am here to tell you.  Whenever you start making some real concrete progress and you start making some steps and you face your situation and you confess your sin and involve the help of other people, even though reluctant at first, whenever you begin to get serious with God and with other people do you know what?  Other people will get serious with you.  And they will be encouraged to help.Let me say it again. You alone can face your problems.  But you alone will not solve all of your problems. You are going to need the help of almighty God and you are going to need the support of other people.  God never intended for us to be individuals. We are so individualistic, we are so much to ourselves in these United States of America. We have got it in our mind that I will lift myself up by the bootstraps and I will do this and I will do that.  God never intended for Christians to be that kind of independent, but rather interdependent.  And there is no more important place of interdependence than in the home.And, by the way, men, the Bible says that your wife is your comleter, not your competer.  She is not your competition. Listen to your wife.  Listen to your husband. Listen to those that love you.  Listen to those that try to help and listen to God almighty in heaven.Finally and probably the most important of anything is refuse to listen to the riff raff of your life.  Verse number 19.But when Sanballat the Horonite, Tobiah the Ammonite official, and Geshem the Arab heard of it, they laughed at us and despised us, and said, "What is this thing that you are doing? Will you rebel against the king?"The first thing they did was to come along with mocking and ridicule. And then they did it by slander and threats.  Here is the most absurd of all truth.  As soon as you come to your senses and assess your life and begin to make changes, people stand up to oppose you. I just cannot understand it.  You would think that the people of our lives, the people that know us, they would be clapping for us, encouraging us, trying to help us.  And, by the way, you be an encourager to other people. When people start trying to change, don’t belittle them.  Don’t mock them.  Don’t laugh at them. Don’t make fun of them. Don’t say you have seen it before.  Don’t say, “I’ll believe it when I see it.”  Encourage people. Encourage people to take the right steps.  But here is what happens.  People stand up.One of the little thoughts that I would like you to writ eon the margin of your page or on the margin of your Bible are these two little words.  And the words are: building and battling.  And let me let you in on a little secret that for the rest of your Christian life all of your life in this world you are going to be in a process of building and then you are also going to be in a process of battling those people and those influences and forces that would fight against you.  You are going to build with all of your heart and while you are building, there is going to be a battle ensue.  It happens every time.  You make up your mind you are going to serve the Lord and somebody is going to step up to try to keep you from it.  It is funny. Before people come to know the Lord Jesus as their personal Savior, people leave them alone. Nobody seems to bother them.I can’t tell you how many people say, “Pastor, you know, when I came to know the Lord Jesus it seemed like that I had more opposition and more problems and more difficulties.  I thought when I got saved things were going to get easier.”Well, you have an indwelling Holy Spirit in your life empowering you, but here is what I want you to understand.  Before you came to know Jesus as your Lord and Savior, you were no threat to Satan.  But when you come to know the Lord Jesus as your personal Savior all of the sudden you are in the enemy camp.  You are in opposition to his kingdom and our adversary, the accuser of the brethren is going to stand up and oppose us.  You are going to build and battle.  You can work on building your home. Satan is going to battle your home. You can work on building your spiritual life.  Satan is going to battle your spiritual life.  You work on building a relationship with your children.  He is going to make sure that they have influences at school that fight against your relationship with your children.  It is a building and battling process.  It is going to go on the rest of your life.But here is what I want you to know. I want you to know that in Jesus we can have the victory.You say, “Who were these people that did this, this Sanballat the Horonite, Tobiah the Ammonite, Geshem the Arab?”Well, Sanballat was a pagan politician.  He was just a pagan.  He was a materialist.  It was all about the taxes.  It was all about who was going to be in charge in Jerusalem.  He was just a pagan.  Well, you expect it from the pagans.  You expect the pagans of our life, those that don’t know our God and could care nothing about him, you could expect them to oppose us, but it is that next group, Tobiah the Ammonite.You say, “Well, who was Tobiah the Ammonite?”Well, Ammon, the great, great, great, great, great grandfather of the Ammonites was the son of a man named Lot.  Lot was the nephew of a man named Abraham. One day Lot living in Sodom was warned of God to get out. He didn’t want to.God said, “Lot, get out of Sodom.  I am going to destroy it.”He grabbed him.  His two daughters went with him. He ended up getting drunk and having an incestuous relationship with the daughter.  That daughter gave birth to a son by the name of Ammon and Ammon is a distant relative of the children of Israel.Isn’t it amazing?  Paul, I...this is amazing to me.  It is amazing that not only the pagans of our life might stand up against us.  But somewhere in our parentela, somewhere in all that group of people out there that are in our family, somebody is going to stand up and opposed us even in our family.Do you know that Jesus says sometimes the greatest enemies are going to be those of our own household?Would you listen to me for a moment?  Not that we give up and we quit praying for our family and our friends and stop loving them. Do not be surprised when family does not understand what you are trying to do when you begin to give your heart and life for Jesus for change.  How many of you know it is a fact that sometimes family stands opposed to change in our life?  Would you just raise your hand?  They have gotten used to use the way that we are.You say, “Why is that? Why does...why would people be opposed to us bettering ourselves and getting right with God?  And why would we be...why would they be opposed to that?”Because many time we have been involved with those people in activities and lifestyles that are not right with God and if God starts changing us what does it make them feel about themselves?  It is easier to ridicule you and stop your change than it is to get right with God themselves.Well, who was the third one?  Well, it was the man by the name of Geshem.  He was an Arab.  He was the son of Ishmael.  He was just an out and out enemy opposition.  So there is always the materialist and the family members and then the outright enemies that are going to stand up against us.And let’s finish with verse 20. Do you know how Nehemiah handled this?  I love it.  It says in verse number 20 of chapter two. It says this.So I answered them, and said to them, "The God of heaven Himself will prosper us; therefore we His servants will arise and build, but you have no heritage or right or memorial in Jerusalem."God is on our side.  God wants me to grow.  Listen.  I want to tell you there is no one in the world that wants you to do well in the life more than your heavenly Father.  There is nobody in this world that wants you to stand up in the face of difficulty like your Father in heaven.  There is no one on this planet that wants you to be able to say no to the devil and no to Satan and no to self and no to sin like your heavenly Father.  And so what did Nehemiah do?  He looked at this bunch of people that were ridiculing, laughing, mocking.  He looked at the riff raff of the situation and he said, “Our God is going to prosper us.”I want to announce something to you this morning.  That with God on your side, you and God make a majority in every situation.  And I want you to know that you do not have to yield.  You do not have to give in.  You do not have to go backwards.  You are under no obligation to go back and live the life that God does not want you to live.  You are not obligated.Let me just give you just a couple of thoughts here.  When we looked at this situation and we see who these people are, these individuals, a pagan and a distant family member and an outright enemy. They standup to fight.  And do you know how he answers them?  Here is what he says to them at the end.He said, “God is going to prosper us and, by the way, we are going to rise and build this thing because you have no heritage, you have no memorial and you have no rights, you have no authority.  You have got no authority in this place. We are not rebelling against the king. He knows exactly what we are doing.”Here is what I want you to understand. The one that stands to oppose every good step you will ever take in your life, the one who stands to oppose every right choice you will ever make in your life, the one who stands to accuse you day and night before your heavenly Father in heaven is Satan himself.  And here is what we need to understand.  I want you to get this if you get nothing else.  Satan is trying to build a paper prison around you. He is trying to tell you that you are obligated.  You have always been a drunk. You are always going to be a drunk.  He wants you think that if you have ever been a pornographer, you are always going to be a pornographer.  He wants you to think that because grandpa was this and grandma was that and because this is your habit, he has got you in a paper prison.  He wants you to think he has authority in your life.  Well, here is what Nehemiah told that bunch.He said, “Listen.  I’ve got something to tell you. You don’t have any authority in Jerusalem.”Here is what I am telling you this morning. Satan has no authority in your life, none.  Listen to me this morning.You say, “Well, what do I do about it?”I want you to open your Bible to James chapter four and listen to the Word of God.  Here is what it says.  Listen to the Word of God.  Here is what it says. “Make sure you understand that you are not...” It is a paper prison. Break out of it.  You don’t have to...you don’t have to give in. You don’t have to go backwards. You don’t have to obey every impulse that your body or your spirit might give you.  You do not have to do that. James chapter four, verse seven. Listen to God’s Word.Therefore submit to God. Resist the devil and he will flee from you.   Draw near to God and He will draw near to you.Folks, the devil wants you to think he has authority over what you do.  He has you in a paper prison of doubt and fear.  He says you can’t change, you can’t be saved, you can’t repent of your evil.  And I want you to know that the devil is a liar. He is a usurper of God’s authority and God will put his hand on you.  God will help you.  God will give you the favor of people in your life. God will be there.And here is what I want to say to you.  How do you handle it when these people stand up against you and when Satan opposes every good step and when he tempts you?You say, “Pastor, isn’t it a sin to be tempted?”If it is then Jesus was a sinner because he was tempted.You say, “Pastor Phil, are you ever tempted to do wrong?”Jesus was tempted.You say, “Is temptation a sin?”If temptation was a sin we are without hope.Listen to me this morning.  We do not have to yield to temptation.“What am I supposed to do?”Resist.  Resist temptation. Fight against it.  Say no to the devil and yes to Jesus.You say, “What am I supposed to do?”You are to...when the temptation comes, the immediate reflex action through the power of the Holy Spirit needs to be, “No.”  And then go another direction.  Just, “No.”Do you know what Satan can’t get in anywhere he is not invited? Did you know that? He has no authority, not in the life of a lost person, especially not in the life of a saved person.  Demons can’t even come into lost people until they are invited and they open the door to them.  Did you know that?Listen to me.  Resist Satan and he will flee from you.You say, “Well, what exactly are you talking about?”Here is what I want you to understand this morning.  I hear it all the time.“Well, pastor, you know, George struggles and struggles and struggles with pornography.”No he doesn’t.  He enjoys it.“Well, you know, I got a sister and she’s been tipping the bottle ever since she was such and such...she’s just...she’s just been struggling with that all of her life.”No, she doesn’t. She doesn’t struggle with it.  She enjoys it.And the reason I say that is because the Bible says that...listen. I didn’t write the Bible.  The Bible says right there, it says in James chapter four verse seven, it says this, it says, “Resist the devil and he will flee from you.”  It is either true or it is not true.  Do you choose to believe the Bible is true or it is not true? Let me hear you.It is true.All right.  If we resist the devil in the power of the Holy Spirit then he is going to have to flee from you.   You are not in a prison of Satan. You do not, I do not, none of us have to yield to temptation.You say, “Pastor, are you trying to tell me that I can be sinless?”I’m not trying to create a new doctrine of sinless perfection, but I am certainly telling you this morning that we can sin less.“Resist the devil and he will flee from you.”  I love this part. “Draw nigh to God, and he will draw nigh to you.”Isn’t that wonderful?  You take a step towards God, God is going to take a step towards you.The story of the prodigal son.  The prodigal son is way off.  He is way off in the distance. He has wasted all of his father’s blessing upon him in riotous living with wicked friends. Remember that pagan bunch?  He has wasted all of it.  He is eating nothing but the husks of what the pigs are eating as he is feeding the pigs.What happens to him?  He comes to himself.  He says, “In my father’s house the hired servants are eating far better than I am.  I will arise and I will go to my father.”  And he took a step toward his father and every step he came toward the father, guess what?  The father on the other end is watching and waiting and looking for him to come.  If you are the child of God and you take a step toward the Father, the Father is taking a step towards you.  “Draw nigh to God, and he will draw nigh to you. Cleanse your hands, ye sinners; and purify your hearts.”And, by the way, those were imperative verbs. That is for you to do. That is for you to do. That is for you to do.You say, “What do you mean?  I thought the Holy Spirit was going to have to everything?”Oh, yeah.  He is going to.  He is going to give you the power to do it, but you in your own heart, you had better decide, “I am going to drawn night to God.  I am going to get closer to God. I am going to get closer to him and then I am going to be able to say no to Satan.”Do you know what we need to learn to do this morning?  We just need to learn to say no.  Resist Satan and he will flee from you. Draw nigh to God and he will draw nigh to you.  Cleanse your hands you sinners.  Purify your hearts. It is amazing what it will do.Would you bow your heads and close your eyes?  We’re building. Nehemiah 2:11-20 (New International Version.  All Scripture references are from the New King James Version unless indicated otherwise).Nehemiah 2:112 Timothy 3:16 (King James Version)Nehemiah 2:14 Romans 8:29 (King James Version)Nehemiah 2:17-18Nehemiah 2:19Nehemiah 2:20James 4:7-8James 4:7Ibid.James 4:8 (King James Version)Ibid.Page  PAGE 2 of  NUMPAGES 19