Embracing The Risk Series

Embracing the Risk

Series: When It’s Time to Move FORWARD

Brad Bailey – May 2, 2021

Text: Nehemiah 2:1-10 / Theme: Moving Forward will involve risk

Note: This message in it’s scripted form was too long and required passing over various parts.

Intro....

A warm welcome to each of you. I’m excited to continue in our new series entitled When It’s Time to Move FORWARD. As we look at this season in our lives... we can see that the process of emerging from this pandemic season will come in a stretch of subtle changes over time. We sense it’s beginning in some ways in this Spring season... we expect it to further over the summer... and there’s anticipation of the Fall providing even more broad potential for restoring life related to school, work, and travel and so much more. So as we sought to discern our focus as a community... we sensed that a series about moving forward... actually made more sense now.... NOT because everything has been restored...but because the time to BEGIN to SHIFT the gears of our thinking is NOW. The time to begin to allow God to turn us forward is now. The time to allow God to guide our hearts and minds is now. And as we’ve noted...in any season of life... we need to realize that the most important life is the one that is still ahead of us.

So I want help us begin to face forward...and identify with what may be involved with moving forward in life. And I want to ask each of us to take a moment to just consider...

What do I see that’s not what it should be... that’s unfinished or in disrepair?

(What may God want to restore or realize in my life, family, work, or ministry?)

Some of us may realize that we have suffered some real loss specifically during this pandemic season... and when we look at what lies ahead... we may see some aspects of life that we should rebuild... or some changes that we need to begin preparing for.

For some of us... there may be some unfinished work in life that we have ignored well before the pandemic. There may be some things we sensed God gave us a heart for helping to change... that we hit the pause button on... perhaps something unfinished....that we’ve become passive to.

For some of us... we may just realize that we have stopped moving forward because there is some challenge we have been avoiding... maybe things we have accepted for so long that we’ve lost sight of.

As we begin to look ahead... and see what may need to be rebuilt or restored in our personal lives and in our communal calling... we are allowing God to speak to us through the Book of Nehemiah.

The Book of Nehemiah is the account of how the very people God had called out to Himself... and set apart in the promised land of Israel.... had turned away... and were then conquered by the Babylonian Empire. The city of Jerusalem was destroyed...most of the people killed...and the others were taken into exile. They were now a lost people... with no real place in this world... no identity....and enslaved. In many respects this can reflect what God sees in all of our lives. We have all gone our own way...and apart from God we have no home...no identity...and are lost...and enslaved.

And Nehemiah is the living testimony of how restoration came to Israel. After several decades...the Persian Empire conquered that Babylonians... and many of the Jewish people were allowed to return to Jerusalem. Meanwhile ... far away in the Persian capital... a Jewish man named Nehemiah had become the cupbearer to the Persian King. As the cup bearer ...he tasted any wine before it was served to the king....to be sure it wasn’t poisoned. One day... Nehemiah gets news from some who had just returned from visiting Jerusalem...some 800 miles away...and the tragic truth is that Jerusalem is still in ruins...the walls are still in a state of destruction and the gates remain burned down. It had never been restored as a true city... and it’s people were deeply troubled and living in disgrace.

The essence of what is at hand is this... God’s purposes are not finished... those who bear the only hope for the world are in ruins.

> That is the reality of Nehemiah. There’s a huge problem. And it’s important to recognize that this isn’t the story of a superhero... or a great religious leader. This is the true story of an ordinary man ...and how he responded to the unfinished purposes of God. [1]

And that is each of our stories. God’s purposes are not finished...and we each have a part.

When the Bible speaks of those who succeeded in this life... it says of David... the second King of Israel...