I. Introduction
a. The other day I was in a parking lot. It was a normal calm day, the weather great a breeze kept it cool and from getting to hot, just the right amount of clouds were out and the sun was weaving in and out of the clouds as guided shadows graced along the cars and blacktop. Over several dozen people were in the parking lot that day, caring bags as they were doing their first several days of shopping. Several had children with them and they were guiding them along to the front door as they were going to go in and get some pre-Christmas shopping finished. The next thing that happened was a car alarm began to go off. People everywhere began to run to that car to see if there was a thief about to break in. Each who had a child picked up the child and began to run hastily to the alarmed car. Several dozen circled it as they began to peek inside to see if they can become a hero and help this victimized vehicle. The security guard pulled up behind the crowd and began to circle around it to see if anything was going on inside. Everyone stepped back in amazement as they saw that it was a little child who had just merely touched the outside of the vehicle and this was the cause of the alarm. Now if anyone has been sitting here and listening they know that the events after the car alarm going off did not occur. The people did not stop in their tracks and come over the car to see what was going; they all ignored the sounding alarm and just went about business as usual. The security guard didn’t get out of his car near the alarmed car, he just pulled up next to it got the plates and then proceeded to go inside and have the number broadcast over a loud speaker so that everyone in the store could hear it and come outside and turn off the alarm. The alarm which was installed to protect, now only seems to annoy, I feel like that car alarm. People just want to turn off those annoying Christians, or they just ignore what we are saying. I believe that we Christians have been turned off. But we as Christians have made God that car alarm; we don’t want to listen to what God has placed on our hearts.
b. Big Idea: I have a challenge for you all today, when we listen to what God has placed on our hearts, magnificent things will occur, because God’s vision develops unity, and when unity occurs, victory can be declared.
c. Explanation of the whole text: A similar thing happened to Nehemiah in this way. Our text that we will be reading today will come from Nehemiah 2:11-20. The history before this passage sees the Israelites returning to the Promised Land after 70 years of exile in Babylon. Zerubbabel came with the first group of exiles and began to rebuild the temple out of the rubble. Ezra came with the second group of exiles and began to implement temple worship again. Nehemiah is returning with the third. Before coming with the third Nehemiah’s brother comes to him and tells him that the exiles have arrived but the city of Jerusalem lies in ruin because the walls are destroyed by fire. Nehemiah goes to the king and asks to go and rebuild them. He gets permission and then he leaves. Now we have come to our passage.
II. We then as Christians need to recognize when God has placed a vision on our heart.
a. He does this by wanting us to be patient. Read Nehemiah 2:11-12
i. Explanation: Nehemiah waited three days to see if this vision that God had placed onto his heart was one that would come about. Nehemiah waited in Jerusalem for three days waiting and being patient for the right time to go out and survey the land.
ii. Illustration: Shortly after starting her perfume business, Estee Lauder realized she had to persuade a cosmetics buyer to place her products in many stores throughout the country. At 9 AM, Lauder was in the offices of the American Merchandising Corporation, waiting to see Marie Westin, the cosmetics buyer. Since Lauder had no appointment, she was advised to come back another day. “I don’t mind waiting,” said Lauder. “I’ll wait until she has a few free moments.” Salespeople came and went. At lunchtime, the receptionist said Weston’s schedule was so full that getting in to see her was impossible. Again Lauder was told to come back later. “I’ll wait a little longer,” she persisted. Hours passed. At 5:15 PM Marie Weston came out of her office. She looked at Estee Lauder in disbelief, then admiration, and said, “Well, do come in. Such Patience must be rewarded.” Weston was impressed with Lauder’s cosmetics, but there was no room in any of the stores. Come back later, she was encouraged. Of course, Estee did. Eventually, Weston found room in several stores. Business began to boom. The Estee Lauder name became famous in the world of cosmetics.
iii. Application: Estee Lauder waited all of that time for just her perfume, can you imagine if we to wait on God, the possibilities are endless. We must be patient and wait on God’s time. Nehemiah waited on God. We must be patient and wait for the perfect time for the vision to come out.
iv. Transition: Is just waiting enough for us to see the vision placed on our hearts?
b. God also has us recognize His vision by making an appraisal of the situation. Read Nehemiah 2:13-16
i. Explanation: Nehemiah rode around on his animal all around the wall to just get an idea of what the damage was. He wanted to get an idea of what he exactly was up against. He had not told anyone as we have read about what God had placed upon his heart to do yet. He didn’t want to jump to conclusions about all that was going on.
ii. Illustration: Problems have plagued NASA in their attempt to reach Mars. In 1997 the Mars Pathfinder Lander riveted the nation’s attention with a live feed from Mars’ surface. We were fascinated by live pictures. The future looked bright for a new and improved NASA. They planned to send at least one mission to Mars every 26 months, but to do this they had to follow a new policy by their head director Dad Goldin: Faster. Better. Cheaper. To design these missions for about one tenth the costs, they cut staff and poorly trained the remaining staff; they overworked their navigation teams, giving them responsibilities for up to three missions at one time. They tried to get a quality product without putting money, effort and time into it. The next two missions were utter failures. One mission failed because one engineer made the rover to work on an English measuring system, while the operators were using metric. The other was because they didn’t have the right equipment needed in order to fix a braking problem that made one rover crash into the surface. Skipping steps ended in disaster.
iii. Application: How many times to do we want to jump into something and not take into account all that is going on around us? We don’t survey the situation, we just into it, saying God will handle it, God will take care of it, and God is in charge what could go wrong. We need to look at the situation that we are in then, and then the vision can be applied to that situation.
c. Transition: Does just being patient and surveying the situation allow the vision of God to take root?
III. Once we have realized the vision that God has placed upon our heart, we must then take that vision to others, so that unity can be achieved.
a. To do this we must tell others about our homework of the situation. Read Nehemiah 2:17
i. Explanation: Nehemiah told the people what he saw. Jerusalem was in ruins and the walls needed to be fixed. This had to be done so that Jerusalem would not be in reproach anymore to the surrounding countries.
ii. Illustration- before a football team goes up against its opponent they will sit and watch for hour upon hour videos so they will be able to know their moves before they make them, so that when they play them they will be able to beat them. One such illustration of this are the Bengals, they spent hours watching all the games of the Kansas city chiefs mapping their every move, from how many steps the quarter back would take before he would pass a ball, to which ways the defensive line would move when trying to go in and blitz the quarterback. They had numerous hours of just spending time in practice mimicking what the chiefs did and they how to stop them from doing what they always did. This hard work and practice paid off, they won against the undefeated K.C. Chiefs, and now they are number one in AFC North. The Bengals who last year were the butt of everyone’s jokes are now after their coaches spent some time reviewing the tapes and coming back to the team were they able to be number 1 once again.
iii. Application: We need to do tell our people about the homework that we have done. If we were to just tell them that this is going to be the case they will ask why. But if we take the time to tell them of what we have done and seen they will accept the vision more gladly than grudgingly.
iv. Transition: Is just telling them what the vision enough for them to get on board with it?
b. We need to challenge others to join in our vision because it is God’s. Read Nehemiah 2:17,18
i. Explanation: Nehemiah told the people that God was behind him and the king was behind him and that they needed to rebuild the walls. The people bought into the vision after he challenged them to join him. Then the vision became not just Nehemiah’s but it became Israel’s.
ii. Illustration: Let’s return to football once again. I don’t know how many of you played pee wee football, but I did. I remember when we were in an instance game. It was raining outside, it was cold, and the ground on the field was a muddy mess. The colors of either team had now become a muddy brown as each play resulted in over half of us falling into the mud. It was half time and we were down by a single touchdown. Our coach had us take a knee and he stood in the middle of us. Coach Strider was his name and being mean was his game. He told us that we able to beat this other team. We were able to destroy them because we were winners. We had not lost a single game yet and neither had the other team. He said we were bigger and meaner and tougher than they were and we could take them. Our team then began to get up and scream and yell and hit each other’s helmets as we bought into his vision that we were going to win. We went out and played the hardest we had ever played. We ended up beating the other team by three touchdowns. That half saw more touchdowns than any other envisioned by pee wee game goers. We won because we bought into his vision because he challenged us to do so.
iii. Application: We must challenge our people to buy into our vision. We must and they will. If we have the passion to do so then they will. They will.
c. Transition: But knowing that God has given us a vision and making others vision is not enough to make God’s vision become reality and bring about the unity of them. What more can we do?
IV. We must commit to making God’s vision a reality, unity has been achieved, now bring on the victory, no matter what may happen.
a. Opposition will occur, so we cannot not let that derail us from making God’s vision a reality. Read Nehemiah 2:19
i. Explanation: Several in the area around Jerusalem were opposed to Nehemiah and were going to try and get rid of him because they were trying to make it seem that what Nehemiah was doing was going against the king. But as we know Nehemiah didn’t let this stop him.
ii. Illustration: Think about sports once again. Do think that when an offensive line goes out that they whimper and wine because there is a defensive line. Certainly not, they know that they will be coming across opposition. Or think with me again about Basketball, when one team goes out, don’t you think it would be easier for them if there wasn’t another team, your favorite team would always win because they would not have to come across another team. But as we can see they know that they will have to come across opposition because this is just the nature of the game.
iii. Application: This is likewise with the Christian life; we know that there will be opposition. There always has been, always will, and always will be opposition. So should we expect that when God places a vision on our hearts that there won’t be anyone who will come up against it? Certainly not, because there always will be opposition. I believe that Nehemiah knew that opposition would be coming his way because of what is said next. Nehemiah answers the following question with his reply to the opposition.
iv. Transition: Opposition will come so what do we do about it?
b. We must make the claim that we are children of God and this earth is ours. Read Nehemiah 2:20
i. Explanation: Nehemiah was letting those who were on the land now that this was the land of the Jews and this was given to them by God. They had no claim to it.
ii. Illustration: Did you know that when you take one tuning fork that you can use for tuning pianos and tune many upon many of thousands of pianos that when you play them they will sound like the same piano because they are all tuned with the same fork.
iii. Application: We are tuned by one as well. By the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus Christ, we too can be tuned to the sound of God. But so many times we are out of tune because we are afraid of what may happen. Jesus states in Matthew 28:18: All authority in heaven and on earth has been give to me.” Jesus is stating that authority of everywhere has been given to him. He says next to go into the world and make disciples of all nations. Just as Nehemiah told the opposition against him that this was his land, we must stake that claim as well. Jesus gives us the authority because He has it. So let’s make God’s vision a reality and go into the entire world proclaiming His vision, because so many times we are afraid to say or do anything, because we are afraid of what others may think. Jesus gives us the authority to declare Him to all the nations, are we going to let someone stop us because they don’t like what we are saying. We should not be afraid because Christ did His part so…
c. Transition: What do we do now?
V. Conclusion:
a. I have a challenge for you all today, when we listen to what God has placed on our hearts, magnificent things will occur, because God’s vision develops unity, and when unity occurs, victory can be declared. We then as Christians need to recognize when God has placed a vision on our heart. He does this by wanting us to be patient. God also has us recognize His vision by making an appraisal of the situation. Once we have realized the vision that God has placed upon our heart, we must then take that vision to others, so that unity can be achieved. To do this we must tell others about our homework of the situation. We need to challenge others to join in our vision because it is God’s. We must commit to making God’s vision a reality, unity has been achieved, now bring on the victory, no matter what may happen. Opposition will occur, so we cannot not let that derail us from making God’s vision a reality. We must make the claim that we are children of God and this earth is ours.
b. Nehemiah left his cushy cupbearer job for a job he had no idea how to do. This passage is not just about the Jews rebuilding the walls, it is about Nehemiah being open to God’s vision, and then him going and unifying those
c. +around him for the purpose of bringing on victory by making God’s vision a reality. Are we willing to leave our cushy cupbearer job and serve Him in what ever capacity?
d. I have a challenge for you all today, when we listen to what God has placed on our hearts, magnificent things will occur, because God’s vision develops unity, and when unity occurs, victory can be declared. We the Army of the Lord are the most powerful military in the entire world. Onward Christian Soldiers and let’s go and declare victory. Let’s Pray.
