Introduction: Weather Balloons
Read/Pray
Background: Not walls – spiritual condition, Recognizing (1), Reacting
Proposition Statement: In order to counteract a problem we must...
I. Be Prepared for service (vs. 11-3)
A. God is no respector of persons
1. He was a butler
2. He was the man of God’s choosing
B. Develop patience
1. Four months of seeking God’s face (Nisan)
2. There’s a time to act and a time to be still
a. Know how to determine the difference
b. He’d rather holler illustration
C. Face your fears
1. The moment of truth had arrived
2. Beware of imaging how it will play out
a. Lug Wrench Illustration
II. Be Connected (v. 4)
A. Why this day?
1. Most likely not a gloom and doomer
2. Sad cupbearer bad (v.1)
B. Make prayer a habit
1. Striking characteristic of Nehemiah was his prayer life
2. Beautiful illustration of praying without ceasing (1Thes5:17)
C. Being connected gives you the faith to push on
1. Fear prevention (LAPTOP Illustration)
2. This was a prayer for faith
III. Be Bold (v. 5-8)
A. If you’re on God’s side...
1. Look at just how bold Nehemiah’s request was
2. He KNEW God was for him
B. He knew he’d served Art well
1. He couldn’t have stood here with shabby character
a. Rats in the Cellar illustration
2. Art wouldn’t have honored his request save for God and Nehe character
C. He was prepared (v. 6)
1. Those months of planning paid off
a. Churchill Illustration
2. The King honored his plans
IV. Be Sure (v. 8)
A. Know that you are doing God’s will
1. Look for the Hand of God
B. God will bless you
1. God chooses to use us to achieve His purposes
2. He still moves stones
Conclusion: Thomas Edison illustration
Weather Balloons
Several years ago, I heard the story of Larry Walters, a 33-year-old man who decided he wanted to see his neighborhood from a new perspective. He went down to the local army surplus store one morning and bought forty-five used weather balloons. That afternoon he strapped himself into a lawn chair, to which several of his friends tied the now helium-filled balloons. He took along a six-pack of beer, a peanut-butter-and-jelly sandwich, and a BB gun, figuring he could shoot the balloons one at a time when he was ready to land.
Walters, who assumed the balloons would lift him about 100 feet in the air, was caught off guard when the chair soared more than 11,000 feet into the sky -- smack into the middle of the air traffic pattern at Los Angeles International Airport. Too frightened to shoot any of the balloons, he stayed airborne for more than two hours, forcing the airport to shut down its runways for much of the afternoon, causing long delays in flights from across the country.
Soon after he was safely grounded and cited by the police, reporters asked him three questions:
“Where you scared?”
“Yes.”
“Would you do it again?”
“No.”
“Why did you do it?”
“Because,” he said, “you can’t just sit there.”
(1) What’s the Problem
For more than 20 years Professor Edwin R. Keedy of the of Pennsylvania Law School used to start his first class by putting two figures on the blackboard 4 2.Then would ask, “What’s the solution?”
One student would call out, “Six.” Another would say “Two.” Then several would shout out “Eight!” But the teacher would shake his head in the negative. Then Keedy would point out their collective error. “All of you failed to ask the key question: What is the problem? Gentlemen, unless you know what the problem is, you cannot possibly find the answer.”
This teacher knew that in law as in everyday life, too much time is spent trying to solve the wrong problem—like polishing brass on a sinking ship.
He’d Rather Holler
There’s an Ozark story about a hound sitting in a country store and howling as hounds do. In comes a stranger who says to the storekeeper, “What’s the matter with the dog?” “He’s sitting on a cocklebur.” “Why doesn’t he get off?” “He’d rather holler.”
The Lug Wrench
When you fear that the worst will happen, your own thoughts may help to bring it about. “Fear,” a writer once said, “Is the wrong use of imagination. It is anticipating the worst, not the best that can happen.”
A salesman, driving on a lonely country road one dark and rainy night had a flat. He opened the trunk—no lug wrench. The light from a farmhouse could be seen dimly up the road. He set out on foot through the driving rain. Surely the farmer would have a lug wrench he could borrow, he thought. Of course, it was late at night—the farmer would be asleep in his warm, dry bed. Maybe he wouldn’t answer the door. And even if he did, he’d be angry at being awakened in the middle of the night. The salesman, picking his way blindly in the dark, stumbled on. By now his shoes and clothing were soaked. Even if the farmer did answer his knock, he would probably shout something like, “What’s the big idea waking me up at this hour!”
This thought make the salesman angry. What right did that farmer have to refuse him the loan of a lug wrench? After all, here he was stranded in the middle of nowhere, soaked to the skin. The farmer was a selfish clod—no doubt about that! The salesman finally reached the house, and banged loudly on the door. A light went on inside, and a window opened above. “Who is it?” a voice called out. “You know darn will who it is,” yelled the salesman, his face white with anger. “It’s me! You can keep your blasted lug wrench. I wouldn’t borrow it now if you had the last one on earth!”
Rats in the Cellar
Surely what a man does when he is taken off his guard is the best evidence for what sort of man he is. If there are rats in a cellar, you are most likely to see them if you go in very suddenly. But the suddenness does not create the rats; it only prevents them from hiding. In the same way, the suddenness of the provocation does not make me ill-tempered; it only shows me what an ill-tempered man I am.
Churchill Illustration
“President Nixon once told me that while talking to Winston Churchill’s son, he told him how much he admired the prime minister’s great ability at giving “extemporaneous” speeches. Churchill’s son replied, “Oh, yes. I’ve watched my father work for hours preparing those extemporaneous speeches.”
The problem is SIN—
The solution is JESUS!
Thomas Edison
Thomas Edison had a unique way of hiring engineers. He’d give the applicant a light bulb and ask, “How much water will it hold?”
There were two ways to find the answer. The first choice was to use gauges to measure all the angles of the bulb. Then with the measurements in hand, the engineer would calculate the surface area. This approach could take as long as twenty minutes.
The second choice was to fill the bulb with water and then pour the contents into a measuring cup. Total elapsed time: about a minute.
Engineers who took the first route, and performed their measurements by book, were thanked politely for their time and sent on their way. If you took the second route, you heard Edison say, “You’re hired.”
Maslof quote
If the only tool you have is a hammer, you tend to see every problem as a nail.
Creative Thinking
When St. Petersburg, one of the most splendid and harmonious cities in Europe, was being laid out early in the eighteenth century, many large boulders brought by a glacier from Finland had to be removed.
One particularly large rock was in the path of one of the principal avenues that had been planned, and bids were solicited for its removal. The bids submitted were very high. This was understandable, because at that time modern equipment did not exist and there were no high-powered explosives. As officials pondered what to do, a peasant presented himself and offered to get rid of the boulder for a much lower price than those submitted by other bidders. Since they had nothing to lose, officials gave the job to the peasant.
The next morning he showed up with a crowd of other peasants carrying shovels. They began digging a huge hole next to the rock. The rock was propped up with timbers to prevent it from rolling into the hole. When the hole was deep enough, the timber props were removed and the rock dropped into the hole below the street level. It was then covered with dirt, and the excess dirt was carted away.
It’s an early example of what creative thinking can do to solve a problem. The unsuccessful bidders only thought about moving the rock from one place to another on the city’s surface.
The peasant looked at the problem from another angle. He considered another dimension—up and down. He couldn’t lift it up, so he put it underground.
