Solidify Your Spiritual Gains Series

One of the things I like about GraceWay is that there's real openness to single people. I don't

know, we maybe take that for granted here. But in some churches single people have a hard time

breaking in. You know, finding places to serve or participate or grow or connect. GraceWay has

a lot of different opportunities for that. These Summer Family Nights are a great opportunity for

single parents to interact with other single parents, certainly, but single people to interact. If you

are a single parent, there's an opportunity for children to be involved as well as an opportunity

for you to grow and develop your own spiritual strength. So I invite you to be a part of that. The

reason we asked you to sign up for the Summer Family Nights that start this week is so that we

can plan accordingly. In fact, that's why all the signup sheets are out there. If you're coming to

the Seniors’ Luncheon this week, we asked you to sign up so that we know how many people are

coming. So I encourage you to stop by the information table. It's a great hub of activity. Good

things are happening there. Thank you.

Now one other thought. My grandson is in the nursery today. I'm really grateful for the people

who serve there. But there aren't enough people in the nursery. I volunteered to work in there

today. But I think that would conflict with some of the other duties that I have. So if you'd be

willing to help with children's ministry or in the nursery occasionally, would you stop by the

information table and just let them know? Or let me know. I'll be happy to put you in touch with

the right people in order to make that happen. Alright?

Let's pray together.

[PRAYER] Father, when we see the struggles that are happening in our world, we're drawn to a

great sense of humility and crying out for your mercy. When we see war, when we see violence,

when we see famine, our hearts just go out and we see the persecution of Christians around the

world. Lord, we're just drawn in humility to your mercies and ask for your grace to pour down

on this place. Even in our own hearts, Father, we recognize our own weaknesses and our ability

to be easily tempted to speak wrongly or to do something wrongly. Our humility just is

accentuated and we just need you. We need your power, we need your strength. We are so

grateful that we don't live this life alone. That we have you. We can trust in you, we can

appreciate you, and we do. So we worship you this morning. Thank you for who you are and

what you've done in our lives, and what you continue to do. In Jesus’ name, amen.

When I'm studying a narrative passage like Nehemiah, I like to put myself into the story. In order

to do that, I have to understand the culture and the history, even the geography and where the sun

is shining, all those things are going on in the passage. When I put myself into the passage, then

I'm able to see what's going on in Nehemiah’s life and take some of the applications then and

turn them over to my own life and understand what God might be doing inside of my own heart.

Today we're going to do that. We’re going to get into the story of Nehemiah. Understand a little

bit more about Nehemiah’s experience. And as we do, we'll catch a little bit more about

applications for our lives. That's why we're here. We want to study God's word, not just as a

wisdom book, but as a book about God. A book that God has shared with us so we know how to

live our lives, so we know our position before God and how we can function this week. So I

expect you're going to see some of that today as, again, we open up God's word.

Now you know that Nehemiah is known for building the walls. That's what he's known for. But

he finishes in Nehemiah 6. We finished it last week. You ought to be asking the question in your

mind, “Well, if he finished the walls, what's he going to do for the rest of the seven chapters?”

And so today is one of those chapters that’s very important in our Christian life because we have

done some things in our lives, we’ve finished some things, or God has done some things in our

own hearts. We need to solidify those things before we move to the next thing. That's what's

happening with Nehemiah. He's going to solidify the things that are happening already before he