Sermon Brief
Date Written: April 22, 2009
Date Preached: April 26, 2009
Where Preached: OPBC (AM)
Sermon Details:
Sermon Series: Life is Hard
Sermon Title: Clear Vision in a Cloudy World
Sermon Text: Nehemiah 2
Introduction:
In our world today life is filled with severe challenges for any and ALL people. Today we are challenged on the economic front, the political front… but as believers we are challenged in a great way today on the spiritual front.
The church in today’s society has all but been deemed irrelevant and out of touch with a modern society. The scandals that have rocked the church over the past 20 yrs have moved the church from a place of prominence in society to a place of ridicule and mockery.
In past years ministers and the church have been looked up to and held up in the eyes of society as stalwarts of society and spiritual rocks of the community… but that has changed!
The Bible tells us that Satan is like a roaring lion… roaming around… to and fro… looking for whomever he can find to chew up and spit out… He is an enemy that is strong AND has a great desire to destroy all of God’s family.
If you listen to the naysayers of the world today you will hear that Christianity is a dead and dying ‘religion’ and in fact that all religion is dying out and that secular humanism and the achievements of man are where its all at now…
For the believer, today is a dark and shadowy day… today is a dim and cloudy day that seems to darken everything we try to see. Today the enemy seeks to cloud our vision with news that we are irrelevant… that we are not worthy… that we are evil for holding others to such standards!
TO this I say… YES today is a dark and cloudy world… but for those of us who have Christ in our life… the clouds of this world do not bring darkness or dim vision on our part… but because of who we serve our vision in this world should be clear!
In 2 Kings 6 we see the story of the prophet Elisha who had been informing to the King of Israel on the movements of the Syrian Army… the Syrians got mad and went after Elisha and one night surrounded the town where Elisha was staying.
The next morning Elisha’s servant went out and saw the Syrian army and panicked because of the size of the Syrian army. But we see that Elisha was NOT panicked because he could SEE clearly what was cloudy to his servant… in v.16-17 we see how confident he was…
16"Don’t be afraid," Elisha answered. "There are more troops on our side than on theirs." 17 Then he prayed, "LORD, please help him to see." And the LORD let the servant see that the hill was covered with fiery horses and flaming chariots all around Elisha.
We see that regardless of what it seemed like to those around him… this prophet had a clear vision of what God could and would do in the face of such great adversity.
It seemed to the world around them that things were hopeless and it was useless for them to try… but what they could not see was what Elisha DID see… and it was that presence of God that delivered them.
Today there are people who are dealing with difficulty in their lives… things like health issues and disease… things like financial trouble, or relationship trouble… and for the believers of this world, the challenge to our faith is to see clearly what the world believes to be CLOUDY!
In our passage today, Nehemiah is in the same situation as many of you are today… He is faced with what seems to be an impossible task. Today, many believers think that sharing their faith and leading people to become disciples of Jesus Christ is a near impossible task!
But this morning I want us to look at the example of Nehemiah and how he faced the challenge that seemed impossible through not only having faith that God could do it… but he chose to live out that faith to see the task through.
The challenge to your faith today is really simple. When the Hard times of life come knocking at your door, you had better have a good foundation to build upon… that foundation has to be Jesus Christ.
This is because when we know Christ and lean on Him, we don’t just survive lean times...but we are able to THRIVE and grow through these difficult times and lean times in our lives! We are able to see great and wonderful things done in the name of the Lord because we are faithful to live out our faith!
Even, in a world like we live in today where ALL seems lost, where it seems as if the church is being attacked by everyone and everything… WE (thru Christ Jesus) can succeed.
In Chapter 2 from the book of Nehemiah I want us to look at this Scripture today and I want us to take a SEE the 2 main characters that faced the uncertainties and difficulties that SEEMED insurmountable… Ezra and Nehemiah!
In the book of Nehemiah we find the biblical background for these 2 men. They were leading people facing a great deal of difficulty and bad circumstances… but ultimately their struggle was rewarded in a great success – it was revealed in their work, their national identity, and their new understanding of faith.
So often we need a boost when it comes to letting go of our fears and allowing God to lead and guide us through the difficult times of our lives. Let me give you an illustration of what I mean…
When the jet fighters were first introduced, they flew much faster than their propeller predecessors. And because of the extra speed of the plane, the process of a pilot ejecting out of the cockpit became a more sophisticated process.
Now in theory all a pilot needed to do was push a button, clear the plane, then roll forward out of the seat so the parachute would open. But there was a problem, some of the test pilots would NOT let go of the seat and the parachute would remain trapped between the seat and the pilot’s back and it would not deploy.
The engineers had to go back to the drawing board and they came up with a solution. The new design called for a two-inch webbed strap. One end attached to the front edge of the seat, under the pilot.
The other end attached to an electronic take-up reel behind the headrest. 2 seconds after ejection, the electronic take-up reel would immediately take up the slack, and force the pilot forward out of his seat, thus freeing the parachute.
So what was the bottom line? These new JET fighter pilots needed that device to actually ‘launch’ them out of their chairs. But from a spiritual perspective what it is going to take to launch us out of ours?
(Source: Jim Davis, pastor, Silverdale, Washington; source: Danny Cox, Seize the Day: Seven Steps to Achieving the Extraordinary in an Ordinary World, Career Press, 1994.)
What does it take for believers to THRIVE in the midst of the hard times of life? What is it going to take for the believers here at Oak Park Baptist church to thrive? Is it simply a matter of having enough FAITH? Well it is not that simple but faith plays a major role in thriving in a hard and tough world!
Like I said earlier, faith is important and we need a solid foundation of faith… we need that place we can go and “lean on” when the rocky times of life hit home!
But it takes MORE than just a pie in the sky faith… it take a faith that you are willing to work out… it takes a willingness on your part to work as hard as God gives you the opportunity.
Let me give you a little bit of background on our passage for this morning. Chapter 1 of Nehemiah sets up the story of the nation of Israel that was still in captivity in Babylon.
Some years earlier the King had allowed several Jews to go back to their homeland, but it was in a shambles and the great city of Jerusalem had been devastated and totally demolished by King Nebuchadnezzar.
Nehemiah had received word from Jerusalem about the devastation and he was severely distressed… Here he was the chief food taster for the King, living far away from his homeland and he has just found out how bad things really were…
In Chapter 2:4-5 we find Nehemiah laying it all out to the King, but he does not do it alone, look at how he does it…
4 Then the king said to me, “What do you request?” So I prayed to the God of heaven. 5 And I said to the king, “If it pleases the king, and if your servant has found favor in your sight, I ask that you send me to Judah, to the city of my fathers’ tombs, that I may rebuild it.”
He took a great chance in his request BUT look where he went BEFORE his request was made… he took it to the Lord! Troubling times were in his life and he was seeking help… but sought help FIRST from God above… and God revealed to him that thru the King, his work could be done!
Miraculously Nehemiah finds favor with the King and Nehemiah tells him he needs to go home, to restore his home city, and that the king could help by giving him safe passage and the resources to do it… the King grants Nehemiah’s request!
In chapter 2 we find some steps Nehemiah takes to deal with this very HARD situation of life that he had found himself in the midst of… we know that God had led him here… but let’s look at what ‘feet’ Nehemiah put to his faith in God to deliver him and complete his mission?
The first step I see Nehemiah taking to ‘prove’ his faith is the step of…
Accurately Assess Your Situation...Neh 2:11-17
11 So I came to Jerusalem and was there three days. 12 Then I arose in the night, I and a few men with me; I told no one what my God had put in my heart to do at Jerusalem; nor was there any animal with me, except the one on which I rode. 13 And I went out by night through the Valley Gate to the Serpent Well and the Refuse Gate, and viewed the walls of Jerusalem which were broken down and its gates which were burned with fire. 14 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. 15 So I went up in the night by the valley, and viewed the wall; then I turned back and entered by the Valley Gate, and so returned. 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. 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.”
Now it is just common sense that if you don’t have all the facts that you look into the problem BEFORE rushing to try to fix anything. If we don’t have good information we are not going to be able to make good decisions.
Nehemiah probably could have jumped right in and made his own plans and manipulated things his own way, but we find that he did NOT do this but he took a step back and in a prayerful attitude and submission he assessed the situation that had been presented to him.
So often when we are faced with difficulty… when life become hard for us… we don’t want to WAIT… we just want to try to fix it! We jump into what we think are solutions… but almost 100% of the time these solutions that we try…usually cause more problems than we had in the 1st place.
You may be sitting here today and you are going thru a very difficult time in your life! It may seem to you that the world is crashing down around you… well I want to share this with you, as a believer, if you are going to thrive IN your faith thru this difficult time, you must FIRST take an honest look at just what your situation is…
This is because until we can fully see what it is we are dealing with… or just what these ‘hard times are… we are not going to be able to THRIVE in them. We need an HONEST assessment of where we are… before we can begin to move forward and thrive during hard times!
There was once a company softball game between the Sales division of a company and the Marketing division. One year the Sales team just wiped the floor with the marketing team… they beat them so badly that for a few days at work the marketing department was ruthlessly humiliated.
The Marketing dept did not have any true athletes to speak of and their future looked dismal, but someone in marketing made his own assessment of their situation and he published a “news report” that was circulated by company interoffice email and it was also posted on all the company’s bulletin boards …
The announcement said this,
“The marketing department is pleased to announce that we came in second place in the recent softball season, after losing but one game all year. The sale dept on the other hand had a rather dismal season as they won only one game."
Now although that was a creative ‘view’ of things, it was NOT an accurate assessment of things. And this is true in anything we do as believers, whether it’s about softball, or about something a little more important, you need an accurate assessment of things.
In our passage today we can see that right away Nehemiah knew what was needed and he went straight to work and got it done and then he gave his report quickly, and accurately.
He said to the people in Jerusalem, "You see the trouble we are in, Jerusalem lies in ruins, and its gates have been burned with fire.” (v.17) Assess your situation.
Here at OPBC we need to assess our situation. Our church has been thru a traumatic upheaval and fracture over the past 4 years. Going from over 300 in worship, down to about 40-50, and now back up to what we have today.
Some may say that this is a good sign as we have grown over the past 2 years. But the assessment I can see is that while we have grown… it has mostly been people coming BACK and not new growth. I have also seen the type of people that are part of our congregation.
Look around you today and the theme you may see is that we are an aging congregation with many of us in the winter of our lives. And the assessment I can make here today is that if we are not about the business of getting more families with children and youth in our congregation, this church is going to die of OLD AGE in less than 10 yrs.
We need an infusion of youth and young adults to guarantee the future generations of Oak Park Baptist church. To do that we must see and understand the TRUTHFUL and HONEST assessment that we need to get out into our community and get involved with families and invite them to be a part of our fellowship.
Assess our situation is the 1st step but we also need to…
II. Cast the vision for success – v.17-18
Nehemiah said,
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.” 18 Then I told them how kind God had been and what the king had said. Immediately, they replied," Let’s start building now!" So they got everything ready.
If we are going to live out our faith and thrive in the hard times of life, then casting a vision is critically important. Nehemiah cast the vision of a new wall to restore and protect the city.
I have cast the vision that God has given me. I believe that we are called to Bond together in Christ and with each other, we are called to Build up our walk in Christ and then we are called to Blossom out into our community with the love, mercy and grace of Jesus Christ.
Now I know that as your pastor I need to remind you of that vision every now and again just to keep it fresh in your memories. But have you ever thought about the fact that YOU need to cast that vision for yourself?
Casting the vision cannot be done by one person… it must be done by all of us here at OPBC. We are in this together, you have called me to lead you… God has given me a vision for this church and you are called to follow me in that vision. So you TOO must cast that vision to yourself… to your small group… to your Sunday School class… to your friends… to fellow church members… and even to those you talk to and invite to come and worship with you…
Casting the vision allows us to make plans that place focus on that vision… 1st we have to make an accurate assessment of where we are, and then we have to come up with a plan…
Now if we look at Nehemiah’s plan, you will see he did not RUSH into anything, but you will find that he waited… he prayed… and he started WHERE he was… He did not wait til he was pardoned and released from the King’s service… but took it to God and allowed God to work thru Him and thru His circumstances… thus giving God even MORE glory! The Bible is very clear on those who do NOT cast a vision… Prov 29:18 tells us, “Without a vision, the people will perish.”
Without any vision, we wander aimlessly eventually giving up, but when we HAVE a vision… anything is possible!
Do you remember Walt Disney? He was one of the most visionary people in American history, making ground-breaking movies, taking animation to never-imagined levels of use, and … of course … creating Disneyland, DisneyWorld in Orlando, FL and EuroDisney and many many other things…
In 1972 when Disney World in Florida opened, Mrs. Disney was asked to speak, since Walt had died and she was introduced by a man who said, "Mrs. Disney, I just wish Walt could have seen this."
When she got to the microphone she said, “HE DID!” and then she sat down. And to this day the world is still feeling the affects of Walt Disney’s incredible ability to dream the dream … to cast the vision … Walt Disney had already enjoyed Disney World, though he wasn’t even alive when the gates opened for the first time.
People, let’s get on board with God’s vision for Oak Park Baptist Church. Let’s look with spiritual eyes and see what God wants to make out of our fellowship… and how we are to reach our community for Christ!
First we cannot do it going in separate directions… we must BOND together ‘in Christ’
Second, we cannot do it remaining stagnant in our faith… we must build up and continue to build up our walk and faith in Christ thru solid biblical study and teaching…
Finally, we cannot do it remaining closed up in the walls of our beautiful church, but we must blossom out into our community with the love of Christ…for ALL people.
We have to assess our situation, we need to reach a younger generation for Christ…
We have to cast and believe in the Vision God had for our fellowship… a vision of Bonding together in Him, Building up our faith in Him and Blossoming out to our community… but that is only the beginning. The 3rd example I can see Nehemiah gives us here in this passage is that we must…
III. Be an encourager – v.19-20
If we are going to become the church God wants us to be…. if we are going to blossom out into our community and make a difference… we have to realize that we are going to have to be selfless in our approach and be willing to help of many, many people.
There is an old saying… that says, if you see that turtle on top of a fence post, you know he didn’t get there by himself! Well this community is NOT going to win ITSELF to Christ… This community is not going to TURN itself over to Christ without someone willing to live out their faith IN the community!
We need each other… and we need God. We are going to need a lot of help to get to the top of our fence post… to reach our community, and in order to get people to be a part of this outreach we are going to have to become a fellowship of encouragers.
We can see that Nehemiah ran into the same problem Ezra had. They were up against powerful enemies! Sanballat the Horonite, and Tobiah the Ammonite official, and Geshem the Arab heard what Nehemiah wanted to do, and they began mocking and ridiculing the earliest workers. 19“What is this you are doing?” they asked. “Are you rebelling against the king?”
FEAR began to reign in the hearts of those in the project, and these enemies of Nehemiah threw the king’s title into the conversation, implying that the work of Nehemiah’s people could get them into serious, serious trouble.
But here we see Nehemiah stepping up to the plate, right away...he tells them, “The God of heaven will give us success,” Nehemiah said (2:20). “We his servants will start rebuilding, but as for you, you have no share in Jerusalem or any claim or historic right to it.”
It might have been a long time since the folks in Jerusalem had seen someone stand up to the mockers. It might have been a long time since they’d been identified as those who belonged to God, or those who had a right to Jerusalem. But they heard Nehemiah make the claim, and they were encouraged literally, by his courage.
Every church needs encouragers. Every marriage needs encouragement. Every student, every teacher, every worker needs to hear a constant message of encouragement.
I am here to tell you that we CAN make a difference in our community for Christ… God is NOT going to abandon us… God has us here for a purpose and that purpose is clear…
We are to Bond together in Him… We are to Build up our Faith in Him… finally we are to Blossom out into this community and SHARE Him to the world around us! Our community can be reached and ANYONE who says it cannot be done is selling God short!
The last thing we need as a fellowship is discouragement. So if you are one who believes that we can’t do it… I ask you to STOP being part of the problem and hindering God’s process… I encourage you to submit to God’s plan…submit to God’s ability to change hearts and lives and use us to reach this community for HIM!
If we are going to succeed we NEED to follow God’s plan and we need to continue to ENCOURAGE our leaders and each other to remain faithful to the plan we KNOW is from God. If we are going to thrive in the hard times of life… if we are going to thrive when times are tough… we need encouragement , but encouragement is not where it ends …
IV. Stay the course and be willing to work hard...
Nehemiah’s people were soon off and running on a 52-day stretch that proved to be harder than any of them had ever anticipated. These were the leanest of the lean times, when the weeks started rolling back and they weren’t raising food for their families, they weren’t taking care of the bills, when they weren’t getting all the things done that were on their “things-to-do” list at work, or at home. They really, really got discouraged.
But Nehemiah was there, and he kept them on course. One by one, each gate was up and finished. Block by block, each stone was back in place on the wall. They stayed the course because Nehemiah stayed the course. And that got the job done.
Times like these feel like a dry and arid desert where there is little to NO life at all. In the desert it is hot and the days seem SOOO long. And in the desert it IS dangerous.
When you are in the desert you can’t help but wonder if you are going to make it thru the desert. During the lean and tough times of this life our faith sustains us as we work and live OUT our faith… even when it seems there is NO END IN SIGHT to the desert we feel trapped in.
You see when times get tough and when it seems as if there is NO HOPE, that is exactly the time to stay the course… that is exactly the time to dig in and do the hard and difficult work that is needed. To just keep going in the direction God called you.
When Nehemiah challenged the people to rebuild the walls, the people replied, “Let us start rebuilding.” And the Bible says, so they began this good work.” (2:18) They began this good work. … They began the work.
Work? They lifted huge timbers, and massive stones. They used chisels and saws and hammers and pulleys. They worked as a team to lift stone weighing several tons. They worked from dawn to dusk, and they carried their weapons with them everywhere they went. Prepared for war, they sweated and strained and got dirty and stayed determined.
If God calls you to a heroic task, expect to work like a hero. Noah had to build an ark that took grit, determination and muscle…and 120 years to complete. Talk about ‘staying the course…’
Jesus was a man’s man, trained physically in Joseph’s carpentry shop, and trained so thoroughly in spiritual matters that he was amazing the scholars by the time he was a young teen-ager. He had memorized much of the Old Testament. He had worked extremely hard.
Nehemiah is a book drenched in the sweat of hard work. And if you dare ask God to answer your prayer, you might as well expect the same thing. You’re going to go to work, and work extremely hard.
Reaching our community is NOT going to happen by us attending church, giving our tithes and offering up prayer… those things are good and we SHOULD be doing those things… but it is also going to take us LIVING and WORKING hard to reveal our faith to the people of our community… we are going to have to work HARD.. and I truly believe the HARDER we work the more God is going to honor our labor!
We have 3 very huge events coming up this summer that will include some HARD HARD work, but all 3 will enable us to reach out to our community and begin the work of reaching them for Christ.
May 27th is our 2nd annual “Day in the Park Block Party”
Jun 15-19 is our annual Vacation Bible School, and
July 11th is our 1st annual Community Family Fair
We are going to need ALL your help… we are going to need you to give of your time… give of your talent and give of our resources to help us to accomplish these event successfully! Are you willing to DO the work?
When the children of Israel crossed the Jordan river, Caleb was 80 yrs old. It was a time in his life when he could have said, I am too old to do this, let someone younger take the lead… but he told Joshua…GIVE ME THAT MOUNTAIN! Caleb was willing to work… are you?
In Neh 3, there were some reports that some of the Jewish “nobles” refused to “put their shoulders to the work.” And they are chastised… the term noble in and of itself is a term that denotes the giving on oneself to something greater… so a ‘noble’ that will not WORK is … well there is just NOTHING noble about it.
Conclusion
This story about Nehemiah is encouraging and a warm and fuzzy story about success… but if we here at Oak Park are going to be successful in reaching our community we cannot rely on anyone else but US to get to work… if we want the community reached for Christ we have to be willing to DO the work Christ has called us to do…
I once heard a story about a man was driving down a country road, he lost control of his car and wound up in a ditch. He walked to the closest farm house and asked for help pulling the car out.
The farmer said, “Sure. Let me hitch up Dusty and you’ll be out in no time.” A few minutes later the farmer appeared with Dusty, an old, swaybacked, almost blind mule.
After Dusty was hitched to the car, the old farmer cracked the whip and said, “Pull, Buck, pull!”
Nothing happened and the stranger looked around for a mule named Buck. There weren’t any other mules. There was only Dusty, who wasn’t moving. The farmer cracked the whip again and said, “Pull, Clyde, pull!”
The stranger took another look, but there was still only one mule hitched to his car, and that mule’s name wasn’t “Clyde.” Nothing had happened, so the farmer cracked the whip again and said, “Pull, Dusty, pull!”
Dusty began to pull until finally the car was out of the ditch. The man thanked the farmer, then said, “But I’m really curious. If your mule’s name is Dusty, why did you say ‘Pull, Buck’ and ‘Pull, Clyde’? That didn’t make sense!”
The farmer said, “Well, you know Dusty’s old and he doesn’t see too good, and he doesn’t have much confidence. Why, if he thought he had to do all the work himself, he’d never even try.”
You don’t have to do it by yourself, either. The same God who helped Nehemiah and Ezra stands ready to help you!
Today are you ready… We can see our vision… we can see clearly what God has laid out before us… are we ready to take up the mantle He has put before us? Are we ready to do the work needed?
