Godly vision and goal setting part two
“Meeting the challenge of opposition
Nehemiah chapter 4:1-4:11
Introduction-
Last week we looked at goal setting and vision casting.
We saw that most people have goals and visions as young people.
They aspire to be great protectors of the world as firefighters, policemen, or Doctors or nurses.
They may want to famous people like actors or sports figures.
Usually life realities set in and many do not pursue their dreams anymore and either give up or settle for 2nd best.
Nehemiah had a vision to rebuild the walls of Jerusalem that had been in rubble for more than 100 years.
Nehemiah was a cupbearer for the king and took the opportunity to make a difference
I laid out several building blocks needed to reach your goals and move from dreamer to a visionary.
You remember, there are a lot of dreamers, but few visionaries.
Dreamers just dream and never do anything with that. Visionaries take their dream and make it reality.
Here are the building blocks to write down again.
#1- Vision starts with a concern
If you are to do anything for God, you must be passionate for the things that God is passionate about.
If God puts it on your heart, He will provide the resources to bring it to pass.
Nehemiah 2:4
“The king said to me, what is it that you want?” Before he answered the king of Israel, he prayed to the king of the universe and shared the concern that he had.”
#2- Vision does not necessarily requires immediate response
He sought God before he answered the king.
He wanted God’s blessings in place before he tried to take on this major thing with Him.
He understood he could not do the supernatural in the natural.
#3- Plan expecting God to respond
We feel like God is in it and we act like we are doing it all by ourselves.
If God gave it to you, why would you not expect Him to help you accomplish it?
So that is where we left off last week. Nehemiah was in fact taking his dream to reality. He was rebuilding the wall of Jerusalem. He was putting feet to his concerns and making it happen.
Then a funny thing happened, and it happens a lot of times with us.
You begin doing something for God, you begin to put feet to your dream.
You are working hard and you start to get opposition.
People start coming out of the woodwork to fight you, ridicule you, oppose you, and you have a choice- what are you going to do about it? Take it and eventually stop or push through it by whatever means it takes to accomplish what you have started.
Let’s see Nehemiah’s response
Text- Nehemiah 4:1-4:11
Opposition as you can see starts in many different ways.
Gossip starts opposition as we negatively talk about someone doing things for God or bettering themselves.
Good people with wrong motives can cause opposition.
Just plain evil people. Whenever someone does something good or better themselves, there are people who want to sabotage you or your cause.
Jealousy can destroy a dream. Unless you use Godly wisdom to handle the opposition.
Dispute between rival Persian governments was normal and happened frequent.
Rivals would often taunt and discourage the Jews and keep them from accomplishing greater things.
I. Know if you are doing great things for God, there will be opposition.
(1) “When Sanballat heard that they were rebuilding the wall, he became angry and was greatly incensed.”
He was ticked, let’s call it for what it is. He was upset that someone took initiative to rebuild the wall of Jerusalem that had been down for over 100 years.
What do these silly Jews think they are doing?
Negative sayings like- “It’s been tried before” “they won’t be able to do that” ridiculing instead of uplifting.
Opposition is defines as “resistance expressed in action or argument. With that usually comes hostility, objections, disapprovals, criticism.”
Albert Einstein
‘Great spirits have always encountered violent opposition from mediocre minds.”
Not only will you have opposition for doing great things for God, but also for bettering yourself as well. The very rut you are trying to get out of takes strength, determination, being focused, but it also takes you getting past others in the rut that once they see you doing something begin pulling you down because they are angered “ticked” that you might get out.
(6) “So we rebuilt the wall till all of it reached half its height, for the people worked with all their heart.”
Nehemiah began putting feet to his vision. He began using people and resources and they built the wall half way to the height of completion.
Scripture says those that did not share the vision, those who ridiculed and tear down, those that wanted Nehemiah to fail plotted together to “stir up trouble.”
Some people are good at stirring up trouble. In fact, some feel called to cause trouble and tear down.
II. You defeat opposition by prayer and determination
From start to finish Nehemiah trusted God to help him do what God had placed on his heart.
2:4- “Then I prayed to the God of heaven, and I answered the king.”
Short prayer for wisdom to answer King Artaxerxes, and to get the help needed to accomplish the task he was given.
It seems like every time we begin to make headway, trouble finds us.
Nehemiah 4:9-
“But we prayed to our God and posted a guard day and night to meet the threat.”
He put feet to the vision, and prayed for wisdom and strength from the Lord.
Prayer and watchfulness blend faith and action (repeat)
It also emphasizes the divine side and the human side.
You cannot stop ridicule and evil, but God certainly can.
You cannot stop evil from plotting against you or against what God is doing, but God certainly can.
I want you to see something here
When God gives you something to do – it will not be easy. It will be impossible without His help.
Opposition will come, and people will be upset that you are accomplishing something and will try to pull you down to their level.
III. It always looks darkest before God completes the task.
Nehemiah 4:13
“Therefore I stationed some of the people behind the lowest points of the wall and the exposed places, posting them by families, with their swords, spears and bows.”
Nehemiah had to move them to action and reminded them “Don’t be afraid” “Remember the Lord is in this”
Fatigue had set in. it didn’t look good, but it does not mean that God doesn’t have things under control.
Illustration-
July 4th, 1952 Florence Chadwick a 34 year old women set out to swim 21 miles from Catalina Island to the coast of California. It was foggy and the water was numbing cold. Boats surrounded her to protect her from sharks. 15 hours later, numbed from the cold, the swimmer asked to be taken out of the water. She could go no longer. Her mother and her trainer, in a boat alongside of her wanted Florence to go on, as they were getting close to the shore, yet all she could see was the fog. She was taken out and realized that she was within ½ mile of the shore. She blurted out, “if I could have seen the shore, I might have made it.” It was not only the cold, it was not only fatigue, she had lost focus of her goal because of the fog.
“Don’t be afraid of them” “remember the Lord, who is great and awesome, and fight for your brothers, your sons, and your daughters, your wives and your homes.”
Keep going even if you cannot see it right now. The Lord is in it.
Closing,
We cannot lose focus because of the fog.
We cannot lose focus because there is opposition.
We cannot lose focus because it is hard or cannot see the result we were looking for.
“Remember the Lord is in it”
Nehemiah had a God given concern and put feet to it because he knew God was in it.
Nehemiah had opposition- as do all people that want to do something for God or want to better them-selves and get out of one of life’s ruts.
There was progress and then trials. There was opposition but God kept the vision alive. There were bumps in the road that Nehemiah had to endure and overcome but God did complete the task just like he said He would.
They schemed against him, but God was in it.
They tried to frighten them, but God was in it.
They were weak and almost gave up, but God was in it.
We see in chapter 6:15 the completion of the wall.
“So the wall was completed in the twenty fifth of Elul, in fifty two days. When all the enemies heard about this, all surrounding nations were afraid and lost self confidence, because they realized that this work had been done with the help of our God.”
In 52 days, a short time to accomplish a great task for God. God changed circumstances and situations.
They built the wall, they were afraid and lost confidence.
We serve a big God and don’t you forget it. Even in the midst of opposition!
Amen.
