Fulfilling vision
Nehemiah2:12b
“I had not told anyone what my God had put in my heart to do for Jerusalem.”
Once upon a time…………………..There was a little red hen.
You may not know the story .It is originally thought to be a Russian folk story but the synopsis is The industrious little red hen is always on the move while the other farm animals just lay around and sleep. She finds a grain of wheat, plants it, harvests the wheat crop, prepares the wheat, grinds it, and then bakes a loaf of bread. When the time comes for the bread to be eaten, the farm animals want a share of it, but all they get from the little red hen is a lecture about when there is bread to be baked, don't loaf on the job.
All the animals have a vision of the cooked loaf but they are not interested in helping produce it.
The little red hen motivated by a vision of bread - the visionless observers!!
“There needs not a great soul to make a hero; there needs to be a god-centred soul which will be true to its vision.”
Christians are saved by grace and provided with a vision of heaven but Jesus in his teaching makes it clear that an adherence to the vision of the Kingdom is somehow implicitly connected to grace and destination. For example
.Matthew chapter 4 18As Jesus was walking beside the Sea of Galilee, He saw two brothers, Simon called Peter and his brother Andrew. They were casting a net into the sea, for they were fishermen. 19“Come, follow Me, Jesus said, “and I will make you fishers of men.” 20And at once they left their nets and followed Him. ----------. They exchanged a vision of providing for their daily needs to a Kingdom vision.--That walk continued all of their lives
Nehemiah 2:1-20
Key Verse: 2:12b
“I had not told anyone what my God had put in my heart to do for Jerusalem.”
We love to hear stories about ordinary people who overcame the odds of life and wind up doing something great. We have so many examples of people like this. In 1880, Helen Keller was born blind and deaf, but she overcame the odds and became a leader, inspirer, and the first deafblind person to graduate from college. During the Jewish Holocaust, Oskar Schindler, a German industrialist was able to save 1200 Jews by helping them to work for his company. There have been countless number of men and women who have done great things and have become great leaders and great examples for others. One such person was Nehemiah. Nehemiah was a plain and ordinary Jewish man who lived during the Babylonian exile. But he wound up doing something great and extraordinary for his people. Even though all of us here are ordinary 21st century people, we too can do something great for God and for others. But the question is, “How?”
Nehemiah had a vision and he held it as a core value in his heart:-
: 2:12b
“I had not told anyone what my God had put in my heart to do for Jerusalem.”
The vision embedded in his heart propelled Nehemiah and he could not rest until it was fulfilled.
We see this same phenomenon expressed in Acts 26:20
but kept declaring both to those of Damascus first, and also at Jerusalem and then throughout all the region of Judea, and even to the Gentiles, that they should repent and turn to God, performing deeds appropriate to repentance.
I think that there is a deep connection between what we do and fulfilling vision – quite often what happens is we begin well but commitment and vision weaken. That weakening process is visible in the following process.
Leighton Farrell was the minister of Highland Park Church in Dallas for many years. He tells of a man in the church who once made a covenant with a former pastor to tithe ten percent of their income every year. They were both young and neither of them had much money. But things changed. The layman tithed one thousand dollars the year he earned ten thousand, ten thousand dollars the year he earned one-hundred thousand, and one- hundred thousand dollars the year he earned one million. But the year he earned six million dollars he just could not bring himself to write out that check for six-hundred thousand dollars to the Church.
He telephoned the minister, long since having moved to another church, and asked to see him. Walking into the pastor’s office the man begged to be let out of the covenant, saying, "This tithing business has to stop. It was fine when my tithe was one thousand dollars, but I just cannot afford six-hundred thousand dollars. You’ve got to do something, Reverend!" The pastor knelt on the floor and prayed silently for a long time. Eventually the man said, "What are you doing? Are you praying that God will let me out of the covenant to tithe?" "No," said the minister. "I am praying for God to reduce your income back to the level where one thousand dollars will be your tithe!”
What seems to be happening here is the original passion and vision has been replaced
The problem with fulfilling vision is that as time moves forward we find a competition between what God wants for our lives and what we and the world wants.
Psalm 119:37
Verse Concepts
Turn away my eyes from looking at vanity, And revive me in Your ways.
1.The key to fulfilling vision is guarding it in your heart.
Where did the vision come from – From God – Jerusalem is broken down and defeated and there are enemies in the city – but a vision in the heart will ultimately fulfil vision if it is guarded.
It is one thing to know God’s vision – It isn’t hard to understand what he wants but we need to feel it. Nehemiah feels God’s vision – when he goes before the King his face is downcast – he can not hide his sadness about Jerusalem. For the Christian we need to get God’s vision not just in our minds but we need to press into God and feel his vision.
Luke 16:10 Whoever can be trusted with very little can also be trusted with much, and whoever is dishonest with very little will also be dishonest with much.
It doesn’t even need to be magnificent it will be lifechanging if you feel it and it is from God.
Zechariah Chapter 4 “Do not despise small beginnings.”
The question for the believer is do you feel or have you felt God’s little vision.
• John Bunyan was born in England in 1628, “of a low, inconsiderable generation” (his own words). Some called him “an illiterate tinker.” But while in jail for his Christian faith, Bunyan wrote The Pilgrim’s Progress. Some estimate that only the Bible has reached more people for Jesus than Bunyan’s The Pilgrim’s Progress. He is another example of a person of faith in the Lord emerging from humble circumstances to have a worldwide influence for God.
• George Whitefield was born in England in 1714, the youngest of seven children. His father died in George’s infancy, and his mother raised them in poverty. But George Whitefield went on to preach 18,000 sermons! Some estimate that he preached a sermon to 100,000 listeners in Scotland, with 10,000 saved through that one message. Again, from small beginnings to great things for God!
In 1950 another Alaskan pastor traveled all the way to Coos Bay, Oregon, to console a young man whose marriage had recently failed. The pastor took him under his wing, encouraged him, and helped him begin ministering the Gospel in Anchorage. That young man went on to pioneer a great church in Alaska. And that church in turn planted more than 60 additional churches in the USA and also sent a number of missionaries overseas. One loving, caring, older minister reached out to a devastated young man, helped him grow in the Lord, and lived to see the beginnings of that young pastor’s ministry that eventually impacted the world.
The problem with fulfilling vision is that as time moves forward we find a competition between what God wants for our lives and what we and the world wants.
1. The key to fulfilling vision is guarding it in your heart.
Secondly. To fulfil Vision, be prepared to move from the comfortable to the faith position.
Nehemiah 2:12b “I had not told anyone what my God had put in my heart to do for Jerusalem.”
In Nehemiah’s life vision and faith are partners - - He is the cup bearer to the King this is the premium job for a Jew in Persian under Artaxerxes. He could just stay in his comfortable position and his vision could gradually weaken or he could apply faith to it.
He chooses to step out in faith – He even asks Artaxerxes his boss to underwrite it. What is more, he does. Vision and faith are partners. Hebrews 11:1 Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.
Hebrews 11:1-6,32-40 Jailed To Free Others
The missionary had been in jail for more than 2 weeks. He was stuck behind bars in a Kosovo prison because he had tried to tell others about Jesus Christ.
Other missionaries tried to negotiate for his freedom, but day after day they were turned down. Eventually they received the good news that their friend would soon be released, so they went to the jail to tell him.
The missionaries discovered that their friend had been witnessing to his fellow inmates, and when they told him that he was about to be let out of jail, he said, "No, not yet. Give me another week. I need more time to share the gospel with these people."
What does it take for a person to be so burdened for others that he is willing to stay locked up so he can continue to proclaim the gospel? First, it takes an unwavering faith that Jesus Christ is the only way to heaven (John 14:6; Hebrews 11:1-6)
.2He was commited to the vision of seeing lost people saved for Christ!
When vision is all encompassing the conditions around us become less important than the vision.
Shane Claiborne, wrote
People often ask me what Mother Teresa was like. Sometimes it's like they wonder if she glowed in the dark or had a halo. She was short, wrinkled, and precious, maybe even a little ornery—like a beautiful, wise old granny. But there is one thing I will never forget—her feet. Her feet were deformed. Each morning in Mass, I would stare at them. I wondered if she had contracted leprosy. But I wasn't going to ask, of course. "Hey Mother, what's wrong with your feet?"
One day a sister said to us, "Have you noticed her feet?" We nodded, curious. She said: "Her feet are deformed because we get just enough donated shoes for everyone, and Mother does not want anyone to get stuck with the worst pair, so she digs through and finds them. And years of doing that have deformed her feet." Years of loving her neighbor as herself deformed her feet.
Vision learns to forget self.
Jesus does this – Isaiah chapter 53
He had no beauty or majesty to attract us to him,
nothing in his appearance that we should desire him.
3 He was despised and rejected by mankind,
a man of suffering, and familiar with pain.
Like one from whom people hide their faces
he was despised, and we held him in low esteem.
4 Surely he took up our pain
and bore our suffering,
yet we considered him punished by God,
stricken by him, and afflicted.
5 But he was pierced for our transgressions,
he was crushed for our iniquities;
the punishment that brought us peace was on him,
and by his wounds we are healed.
6 We all, like sheep, have gone astray,
each of us has turned to our own way;
and the Lord has laid on him
the iniquity of us all.
7 He was oppressed and afflicted,
yet he did not open his mouth;
he was led like a lamb to the slaughter,
and as a sheep before its shearers is silent,
so he did not open his mouth.
Then Jesus says – Follow me – It is hard to follow Jesus with Flesh on your back and driven by ego.
Thirdly Fulfilling vision involves overcoming resistance, even extreme resistance.
Nehemiah chapter 4 6 The people worked hard, and we built the walls of Jerusalem halfway up again. 7 But Sanballat, Tobiah, the Arabs, the Ammonites, and the people from the city of Ashdod saw the walls going up and the holes being repaired. So they became angry 8 and decided to stir up trouble, and to fight against the people of Jerusalem.
These were the people in power in those days but they had no ability to stop one man fulfilling his God given vision
Pastor Fuhrer
Ignoring death threats and huge banks of armed police, thousands gathered at St Nicholas Church in the East German city of Leipzig on 9 October to pray for peace.
The congregation then joined an estimated crowd of 70,000 on a protest march against the country's communist regime.
BBC News, 10 October 1989: Thousands gather in Leipzig protest
It was the largest impromptu demonstration ever witnessed in East Germany, but this was no spontaneous flash mob. It was the culmination of years of weekly prayer meetings organised by Christian Führer, the pastor of St Nicholas.
So how did the church end up playing such a prominent political role under an atheist regime?
Disillusioned with the Berlin Wall, the physical fault line of the ongoing Cold War and the repressive East German regime, Pastor Führer began organising Prayers for Peace every Monday evening, beginning in 1982.
On many occasions fewer than a dozen people attended the prayer meetings. the meetings continued each Monday without fail.
'Open to all'
In 1985 Pastor Führer put an 'open to all' sign outside the church. Such a gesture was loaded with symbolism as the church provided the only space in East Germany where people could talk about things that could not be discussed in public.
Firstly. The key to fulfilling vision is guarding it in your heart.
Second. To fulfil Vision, be prepared to move from the comfortable to the faith position.
Thirdly: Fulfilling vision involves overcoming resistance, even extreme resistance.
Sir Frances Drake Quoted in OC Missionary Prayer Letter of Jeanie Curryer, September, 1997
Disturb us, Lord, when we are too well pleased with ourselves, when our dreams have come true because we have dreamed too little, when we arrive safely because we have sailed too close to the shore.
Disturb us, Lord, when with the abundance of things we possess, we have lost our thirst for the waters of life; having fallen in love with life, we have ceased to dream of eternity; and in our efforts to build a new earth, we have allowed our vision of the new Heaven to dim.
Disturb us, Lord, to dare more boldly, to venture on wider seas where storms will show your mastery; where losing sight of land, we shall find the stars. We ask you to push back the horizons of our hopes; and to push into the future in strength, courage, hope, and love.
