Catching the Vision

Thanks for listening to the podcast from Gary Combs and the preaching team at Wilson Community church in Wilson, North Carolina. Check us out on the web@wccnc.org for more. And now, here’s the sermon. Have you ever really looked at the city that we live in? I mean, really looked at it?

And I guess, I guess I’m thinking about Nehemiah right now, who he’d never been to the city of Jerusalem. He asked those who had really seen it to say, what’s going on there? And he was disappointed to hear that. They said that the people are in trouble and they’re ashamed. The walls are broken down and the gates are ruined.

It seems like Nehemiah really saw his city of Jerusalem through God’s eyes. What would it look like if we asked God to look at our city? What would it look like if we said go? What do you see when you look at our city? What do you see, Lord?

You know, we see beautiful neighborhoods. We see, you know, we see a downtown that’s, that’s really improving. But when you think about the combined populations between our two campuses, when you, when you think about the fact that between the two of them, we have 176,000 people living in Nash and Wilson county and less than half, more like 30 some percent, 40%, even go to church. So that’s like, that’s like a hundred thousand plus people that don’t go to church at all. And even those who might go to church possibly don’t even go to a life giving church, you know, come as you are kind of church where you come and you admit what’s going on in your life.

So when you look at the houses, when you look at the businesses, when you see the cars driving by, it looks okay. But when you look at it through God’s eyes, there’s a lot of broken people around. I mean, the walls are broken down and the gates are ruined so that everything’s getting in. Broken marriages, broken people, broken teens, broken lives.

There’s so many people that are hurting today. Where’s the church? Where’s the church that would really look at its city and ask themselves this question? What would it look like to be the kind of church that we’re going to rise up? Because we’re not okay with that.

All right. Good morning, church. Look at you out there, man. It’s raining. Don’t y’ all know it’s raining?

Y’ all came to church anyway. That’s awesome. I’m excited about that. So what’s the big deal? With this rise up thing.

Can y’ all explain it to me? People with the T shirts or the wristbands, the journey guides, speaking of the journey. Yeah. Well, we’re going to try to reach Wilson for Jesus. Got somebody down here who wants us to take over.

I don’t know if we can take over, but we’re going to try to reach Wilson. That’s awesome. Glad you’re excited. You got one of these. Everybody lift it up.

Let me see it. Got your journey guide. First timers, whoever, you get one. Okay, if you didn’t get one. Ushers, lift your hand real quick.

If you didn’t get one. Ushers, get one to them, get a pen and a journey guide. Because we’re taking notes in our journey guide during this season. So if you look at your bulletin, you’ll see there’s no room for you to take notes in the bulletin this time. And so we want you to take notes in your journey guide.

Now, what’s this about?

Let me get the right order of my pages here. It comes from the Book of Nehemiah, chapter two, where we see the theme for this book of Nehemiah, where Nehemiah goes to the people of Jerusalem and he says, you see the trouble we’re in. You see how Jerusalem lies in ruins with its gates burned. Come, let us build the wall of Jerusalem that we may no longer suffer derision. And I told them of the hand of my God that had been upon me for good, and also of the words that the king had spoken to me.

And they said, let us rise up and build. So they strengthened their hands for the good work. And so that’s what we’re talking about this morning and we’re going to be talking about over the next few weeks as we go through the Book of Nehemiah and we ask ourselves the same question that. That the people there asked. What does our city look like?

And how might we rise up for what God’s calling us to do now? What does our city look like? What does the city. And really, we’re a church of two cities because we have a campus in Rocky Mountain, a campus in Wilson. And I think I’m having trouble with this again, this service.

So can somebody run up here and get me a handheld ready to go? Or is there one that I can use? Blue one? Blue, yeah, yeah, listen at that. That’s green.

Okay, where’s blue? Y’ all talk among yourselves.

Is this blue? It’s black right now. Let’s see. Is that. Yeah, that’s the blue one.

Okay, we’ll cut this one off. Going to this one blue mic tech team. You got me? Y’ all hear me? Okay.

I’m a one armed preacher. Y’ all pray for me. But I want this to get out. And first service, we had trouble with the mic, so we’re just going to try a new mic. If this mic goes bad, you know what it is, right?

Okay. So you’re going to dial in and listen close. So what does our city look like? Just a few stats. Let me just throw a few stats at you.

What’s the condition? We have a church campus in Rocky Mountain. We have this campus in Wilson. So really, we’re really aimed at Nash county and Wilson county, certainly all of eastern North Carolina, but we’re really aimed at at those two very specifically. If you look at those two counties combined, it’s 176,000 people.

94,000 in Nash County, 82,000 in Wilson County. Probably around 35% say they go to church. Okay, now say you’re going to church and going to church, two different things, right? But if somebody’s taking a survey, they said that means over 100,000 people don’t go to church. And of the people who do go to church, maybe they don’t go to a life giving church.

You know what a life giving church is? Life giving church is the kind of church that says, come as you are. And they don’t check you at the door to make sure that we say, come and belong. And along the way, believe. We want you to come and belong first.

Come and be part of us and then we’re going to introduce you to Jesus and your life’s going to be changed. So that’s the kind of church we want to be. And so we’re looking to address that. Our city needs to hear more about Jesus. The crime rate in Wilson is 31% higher than the national average.

The. The crime rate in Nash county is 56% higher than the national average. In fact, in the city of Rocky Mount, the crime rate, the violent crime rate, is 90% higher than the average of North Carolina. So there’s a lot of crime. The opioid crisis.

Nearly five North Carolinians die every day from unintentional overdose of either prescription drugs or illegal drugs. Four out of five of those deaths are caused from opioids, abortions. I work with the Wilson Pregnancy center to help women who have an unplanned pregnancy to make a choice for life. But my heart’s still broken because 500 babies lost their lives in the last year between those two counties, 273 babies from Nash County, 216 from Wilson County. Now, those are just the ones that drove to Wake to the county of Wake in Raleigh, where the nearest abortion clinic is and reported Wilson county or Nash county as where they were from.

We don’t know who went out of state and other places. Food insecurity. 22% of the population of Wilson is food insecure. 30% of our children, children under sixth grade are living in homes. That’s one out of three homes in Wilson County.

Their children are hungry. Food insecurity. Nash county is 20%. 1 out of 5. Food insecurity.

There are people here this morning. Maybe it’s you. These are statistics, but you’re the statistics. You’re part of the numbers. I said that so well earlier.

Statistic. So you’re part of that. It’s not a distant number for you. It’s not a statistic. It’s you.

You’re hungry today. I hope all of you are spiritually hungry today. Amen. I hope you’re hungry to hear the word of God. But some of you are here because you’re not doing that well.

It’s not this distant thing for you. In fact, as I think about who’s here this morning, there’s at least three types of people here this morning. The first type, you’ve been following Jesus for a little while. It’s kind of new to you still, but you’ve been following him and you’re still growing. And this rise up idea might be scaring you a little bit because it’s probably going to take you out.

Well, it’s definitely going to take you out of your comfort zone, but you are learning to trust Jesus and you’re willing to dip your toes in the water. Then there’s a group of people. There’s a type of person in the room. You’ve been on the journey with Jesus for a while and you’re used to him taking you and saying stuff like he said to Peter, push out into deep water. You’re used to him saying that.

And you know that there’s a great catch of fish out there and it’s kind of scary going in deep water, but you’re not dipping your toe in anymore. You’re ready to dive in the deep end with Jesus. So there’s a type of people like that here. This series is going to cause you to go even deeper with God. Then there’s that person.

Somebody invited you and you showed up at the Rise Up Series launch. And you’re like, what in the world happened? Why am I here? And maybe you’re still seeking. Maybe you’re just in that place in your life and you’re not sure about God.

You just know you need something. I’m glad you’re here. Especially I’m glad everybody’s here, but I’m especially glad you’re here. And I don’t want you to get all nervous about what we’re talking about, except for one part. One part.

And that is what if today you were to rise up and make a decision, make a commitment to follow Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior. So. So let’s go on this journey together, starting today. And that’s really what we want to do. What is this rise up thing?

It’s more than a sermon series through the book of Nehemiah. It certainly is a sermon series through Nehemiah. But it’s a three year generosity initiative where we want to make room for more people to come as they are and be forever changed by the love of Jesus. That’s what it is. Over the next three years, we’re going to rise up.

We’re starting today. And we believe that God is calling us to partner with him by investing ourselves and our resources more fully and in greater levels that will impact our cities. Rocky Mount Wilson and then the nearby cities as God calls people out so that we reach our city, we reach our county, we reach our region, we reach our world with the love of Jesus. Now you got your journey guide. You probably noticed a few things about it.

Now this gets complicated because I’m a one armed preacher, so I just kind of, kind of do this now. But you got these tabs down the side. Vision. We’ll talk about what the vision is. Sermon notes.

Hopefully you’ve already found that tab and you’re taking notes there today. You’re writing down three questions that you have as the sermon goes along that you’d like to unpack in your community group. You’re not in a community group. Get in a community group. Community groups meet during the week.

They unpack the sermon so that the sermon moves from head to heart. It moves from head knowledge to heart knowledge, which is application knowledge. You start applying it to your life. So do that. So look through that.

If you open it up to the front page, like the first photo, you’ll see a photo of a guy in the water with his clothes on, wearing some old fashioned aviators. That’s me. That’s June 1992. I still need glasses, but I wear contacts now, at the time when we planted the church, I went without income for 14 months and I couldn’t afford to go to the doctor, so I couldn’t buy contacts. It’s what it looks like when you plant a church sometimes.

Sometimes you have to rise up and go without. That’s why I’m wearing them aviators that you’re laughing at. They’ll come back. Come on. They’ll come back in style.

Don’t laugh too long. And that little boy, that six year old boy is the first person I baptized. Our church was six months old. That’s Jonathan Combs. He’s our pastor at the Rocky Mount campus and he’s preaching the same sermon right now.

That’s what God will do in your family if you’ll put him first. That’s the kind of church we are. We start off with seven people in my living room. That’s kind of me and Robin, because if they’re breathing, you count them, there’s seven of us in the living room. And a group of people decided to rise up and say, we want a church that will accept people to just come in the door as they are.

And we can talk about Jesus and ask him to change lives, but we’re not going to play. So that’s what that’s about. I want you to look through there. So you look through there and there’s these tabs and I want you to get yourself familiar with them and I want you to get yourself a wristband. They’re free.

They’re out at the Rise up kiosk. Make sure you have a journey guide. Bring it back every week. Get yourself a T shirt. Get you some Rise up swag.

People, come on.

I’m going to wear mine every day. My wristband. And when the waitress or the checkout cashier says, what’s that? We’ll talk to him about Jesus. It’d be a good reminder to do that.

Also, it’s going to remind me every day to pray for what God’s calling us to do together. Now, what would it look like? Don’t you put this wristband on unless you’re ready to rise up. But here’s my goal. That 100% of you, here’s my goal.

If we achieve this goal, I’m going to be happy and I want you to be happy, too. If 100% of you commit to go on this journey together and we just say, God, you do it, I’ll be happy. Whatever offerings are brought, whatever commitments are made, that’s up to God anyway. That’s between you and God, whether or not you’re going to hear from God. So I can’t control success.

Success is up to God. My prayers and my yes is up to me and it’s up to you. So I’m praying that you’ll say yes. You’ll slap on a wristband and say, I’m going to keep the Rise Up Commitment. Now what’s the Rise Up Commitment?

We’ve put it in your bulletin. We’re going to put it on the screen. What does it look like? Commit to come every Sunday. Bring your journey guide with you and take sermon notes and reflect on God’s word number two.

Do the daily devotion. It starts in the morning. We’re going to give you weekends off. You can catch up on weekends. So it’s a 30 day devotion.

And you can take your notes in the journey guide. Attend a weekly community group and discuss it. Unpack your cares and concerns and encourage each other. Pray the Rise Up Prayer. Lord, what do you want to do in me and through me?

And then commit to pray and to answer whatever God leads you to do. February 24th. When we commit, we make a commitment. Now, as we’re taking this series together, as we’re going through this series together, I got to get training from these preachers that preach with handheld mics. I don’t know how they do it.

I need like another hand. What does this mean? So back in 2010, we found out that this building really was within our prayer reach, like our spiritual reach. And so we started praying as a church. Now the building closed.

It was a Regal Cinema 6. That’s six theaters. This is one of them. And in 2006, they closed. Labor Day weekend.

They closed. In fact, how many of you ever went to a movie here when it used to be a movie theater? Man, a whole bunch of you. One of the last movies I went to was in this room, in this very room. And our church rented it because the Passion was about to come out.

With Mel Gibson. Well, not with him, but he directed it and wrote it, right? The movie the Passion. I don’t know if you ever saw the movie, but my wife and I had the privilege of being invited to go to Chicago and meet with Mel Gibson and see the preview three months before it launched. And so we went to see it, cried my eyes out and came home and called Regal Cinema corporate and rented this very room and packed it out three days before it opened to the public so our church members could watch it and then know what it was so we can Invite friends and family to come see it with us so we could tell them about what Jesus did for us.

Right? So this is this theater. Who knew years later, God would give us this building and we would have church in this room. We started practicing before it was ours.

So Regal closed. They wanted $2 million for this, right? At six acres, 26,000 square foot building. They wanted $2 million every year. The realtor.

I was best friends with a lot of realtors in town because we were portable. For 19 years, I’d seen every property. We’d probably leased and rented every. I used to tell pastors in town, how many weddings have you had at your church? And they’d say, well, I’ve had three since I’ve been here.

I said, I’ve done seven weddings at your church.

We didn’t have a building. We didn’t have a building. But, you know, the church is not the steeple. The church is the people. And this used to be an old movie theater.

And we’re just passing through. We need a place. Aren’t you glad you got a seat to sit in? Somebody paid for it. Somebody before you.

I don’t know how many of you have ever eaten an apple from an apple tree you planted? Probably not many. Probably no one. Someone goes before us, prepares the way for us to hear the gospel. But it’s time for another generation to rise up.

And so some people went before us, and that’s why we’re here today. And we have this place. They wanted $2 million for it. We offered them 250. You know how much we had in our building fund at the time?

We didn’t have a building fund at the.

And I went before the church and we offered them 250, and they didn’t blink because it had been on the market for five years and someone had broken in and stolen all the copper out of it. So you couldn’t even turn the lights on. And the whole place was moldy and stinky and nasty. We offered 250 and they countered 300, and we countered 285, and they countered 30 days. Cash on the barrel head.

And we countered 40 days because God likes 40 better.

And they said, okay.

And God gave us this place. Do y’ all believe that? 19 years. Portable. What are we going to do with what God has given us?

Do you know? We haven’t even moved into the whole building yet. We’ve been here almost, you know, eight years. We haven’t even moved into the whole building yet. We just moved into that room the one, the theater next door this past year.

We used to call it the multi purpose room. What it was is the accumulated junk of a church family that had been portable for 19 years. Plus with this stuff you didn’t want in your garage that you thought maybe the church would like it. That’s what that room used to be. We called it multi purpose.

It should have been called multi junk. But now it’s a beautiful children’s wing. And ever since we opened the doors, our attendance of children between 0 to 5th grade has just gone up, up, up, up, up. They’re not driving themselves here. We’re going to need more room for adults, new playground.

I said let’s build something because our kids have waited 26 years to have a playground and let’s build something. My kids grew up without any frills, you know, but what if we built something and not just for the kids, not our kids, but the city’s kids so that when families are sitting in the Taco Bell drive thru. By the way, look at your connection cards. If that’s about how you heard about the church, check the box. I heard about it in the Taco Bell drive thru.

It’s on the back of your bulletin. Check. It’s one of our number one outreaches. People go through the Taco Bell drive thru. They see what’s a wcc.

We want people with their kids go, mommy, look at that playground. And then drive over here and eat their tacos at a picnic table while their kids play. Because we want it to be a gift to our city. So we just did that. We asked as we were thinking about what God has given us and we’ve been here for a little while.

We asked a professional to come in and do a consultant with us to consult us and ask the question, what if we utilize, fully utilized everything God has given us? Because you don’t want to waste what God has given you, right? What if we fully utilized it? How many people could we reach on this campus? And they said 1600-2000 people.

And so we had them draw it up and it’s on the wall out in the, out in the lobby. You can see it’s been there for about a year now. How many people could we reach? So we did that. Now we’ve got a room next door that we haven’t touched yet.

Guess what? It’s becoming the junk room. Isn’t that how it works at your house? Any room you’re not fully using becomes junk that you go, I don’t know if we’re ready to throw that away. Let’s put it in the theater room.

We call it the theater room. It I don’t know why we call it. Because it still looks like it did when we first got it. That’s what it looks like. And so how many people can we be?

And so I believe if there are over 100,000 people who don’t go to church, we can make room for some more.

Why would you do that? Why would you want to be that kind of church? Because people are far from God and they’re broken and they’re hurting and they’re living life on their own. And somebody, some church is supposed to ask them what are they going to do with Jesus. I want to be that church.

Don’t you want to be that church?

And so we’ve done these things and we. I forgot to. Yeah, there’s where we’re supposed to be. Good. Thanks.

Tech team’s helping the one armed preacher. There’s the theater room. It’s right there. It’s over there. You can go look at it.

It’s nothing to look at. What we want to do is want to level the floor and get a three for out of it. Make it a place that we can use three different ways. One is it would be the biggest level floor area in the whole building because currently the biggest level floor by the way, this is not a level floor gel notice that on the way in. Plus it has fixed seats that we can’t.

So it’s kind of inflexible. It’s pretty cool. But it’s not meant for multi use. But we want to make that a multi use room so that we could do worship in there. We can have fellowships in there and the youth can use it.

So we get a three, four out of it. And so we’re going to level the floor and make it a new kind of space. That’s our desire. We want to bring up the common areas to a sharper look. Which would be the lobby in the hallway.

Right. So we’re thinking about lifting the ceiling, putting in some new flooring, different things, new bathrooms to get ready for phase three, which we’re not talking about yet. This is the phase. Phase two. Phase one was the children.

Phase two, we put the children first but we’re going to do this, this the common areas and we’re going to enlarge the current nursery. That’s phase two. That’s what we’re talking about in this season to rise up and for the Lord to accomplish. Now there’s one Other part, so many people are sitting at the Taco Bell drive thru and they look out here and they go, what is a wcc? What is that?

Yeah, that’s right. Well, here’s what happened. The pastor, y’ all know him, was when we first got the building, we were meeting with the sign company and I said, how much or how tall should a letter be? So they could see it on Tarboro street. He goes, 3ft tall, needs to be 36 inches tall.

And I said, how much is one letter? And he goes, $2,000. I went, w, I, L, S, O, C, O. I said, how much for three letters?

That’s how that happened. Then Wilson Community College, which didn’t used to be Wilson Community College, it was Wilson Technical Community College. WTCC said, you know what would be a good idea? Just take the tea out. And now people go, wow.

It’s at the extension campus of Wilson Community College. So we got to do something about our signage. We got to do something about our parking lot. We got to do something about our first impression. Why you’re sitting there going, I don’t care about any of that.

This is my house. I’m used to it. I love it. I’m not trying to reach you anymore. I love you.

Hope you love me back, especially after today.

But my heart’s broken for people far from God. And we have to. We have to do things. We have to exert ourselves. We have to stretch ourselves and come out of our comfort zone in order to reach them.

And so we want it to be a place they can find and a place that’s attractive so they’ll come. Okay? Whenever God wants to do something, whenever he wants to reach a city, he usually he starts with a handful of people and he stirs their hearts up and he gives them a vision. And you can’t teach a vision. I can’t teach you the vision I have in my heart because you can’t learn it.

You can only catch it. Because vision is caught, not taught.

The only way you can catch it, you can’t really catch it for me, you just have to get in touch with the God that fills me, the Lord Jesus Christ, his spirit in me. And if you get filled with that, you’ll see the city the way he sees it, and you’ll catch fire, too. And that’s what I’m praying for today. In the book of Nehemiah, God gave Nehemiah a vision for the city of Jerusalem. He called him to rise up and do something about that condition of that city.

And I believe that that same God lives today. And he’s calling us to do something about the city that we live in.

As we look at the text today, we’re going to read the text. Now, that was the longest introduction. I’ve given in forever. But it was important you were here this day as we launch our Rise up series. But let’s look at the Scripture now.

This is God’s word. The words of Nehemiah the son of Hakalyah. Now, it happened in the month of Kislev, in the 20th year, as I was in Susa, the citadel, that Hanani, one of my brothers, came with certain men from Judah. And I asked them concerning the Jews who escaped, who had survived the exile, and concerning Jerusalem. And they said to me, the remnant there in the province who had survived the exile is in great trouble and shame.

The wall of Jerusalem is broken down and its gates are destroyed by fire. As soon as I heard these words, I sat down and wept and mourned for days. And I continued fasting and praying before the God of heaven. And I said, o Lord, God of Heaven, the great and awesome God, who keeps covenant and steadfast love with those who love him and keep his commandments. Let your ear be attentive and your eyes open to hear the prayer of your servant that I now pray before you day and night for the people of Israel, your servants, confessing the sins of the people of Israel, which we have sinned against you even I and my father’s house have sinned.

We’ve acted very corruptly against you and have not kept the commandments, the statutes and the rules that you commanded your servant Moses. Remember the word that you commanded, your servant Moses, saying, if you are unfaithful, I will scatter you among the peoples. But if you return to me and keep my commandments to do them, though your outcasts are in the uttermost parts of heaven, from there I will gather them and bring them to the place that I have chosen to make my name dwell there. They are your servants and your people, whom you have redeemed by your great power and by your strong hand. O Lord, let your ear be attentive to the prayer of your servant and to the prayer of your servants who delight to fear your name and give success to your servant today and grant him mercy in the sight of this man.

Now I was cupbearer to the king. This is God’s word we’re looking for. 3. Three steps on how we can catch God’s vision for our city. Here’s the first.

Ask God to reveal what he sees in our city. God, I want to see this city through your eyes. Ask God that. God, show me what you see. Notice the first few verses.

Nehemiah. His name means Jehovah comforts. If you were to say it in the Hebrew, it’d be Nekamaya. Nekamayah. That’s how you say Nehemiah in Hebrew.

Nekhemiah, emphasizing the last syllable, which is Yahweh. His name means Yahweh comforts. He’s son of Hakalayah. His father had that same emphasis. The Yah is a strange shortened version of Yahweh.

Jehovah. God. This is who he is. He’s got a cushy job. He’s the cupbearer to King Artaxerxes, son of Xerxes.

Now, cupbearer. It’s not a small job. Some people think, well, he just had a job. He had to stand next to the king and taste of the wine to make sure it wasn’t poisoned before the king drank it. Well, yeah, that’s part of it.

But he was one of the most trusted courtiers that would be in the king’s court because he was like the secret service guy, checking to make sure his food and his drink was safe. So he was also the guy that would hire the kitchen help. And I would imagine he’d be pretty careful about that because he had to eat and drink the stuff first. So he’s kind of over that. Plus he hears everything that’s going on in the king’s court.

So he’s a trusted advisor. In fact, Artaxerxes father, Xerxes had been murdered by one of his the people on the court. And so Artaxerxes has that in his mind. So I guarantee you Nehemiah is especially cared for by the king. He’s an important person.

He has a cushy job, he’s well educated, he’s Jewish, but he’s never suffered. He wasn’t part of. He’s never seen Jerusalem. He’s like the second generation exile. The exiles were carried off to Babylon by King Nebuchadnezzar when he destroyed.

140 years before this. 140 years before this, king Nebuchadnezzar had destroyed Jerusalem and he carried off Jewish exiles to Babylon. But then his kingdom was overthrown by the Persians and they took the Jewish exiles, Daniel among them. And now there’s a second and even a third generation being born that never knew Jerusalem. Nehemiah is among them.

After 70 years of captivity, King Cyrus of Persia allowed some Jews to go back and rebuild Jerusalem. Ezra, Zerubbabel, Yeshua, some of these names, you read the Book of Ezra, you read some of the other books, you’ll see them going back and they rebuild the temple. And the temple’s been rebuilt, but about 50 more years have gone by. Now here’s Nehemiah and he’s saying, so, news from the city. Never seen it.

He’s got in his mind what he thinks he looks what it looks like. He’s working for the king. Everything he’s seen, he’s in the city of Susa. So pop the map up real quick. I like maps.

I want to show you where this is at. So when you read the Bible, the Bible’s a true book. It’s about real places. These are not made up stories. They really happened, their history.

Here’s Susa. It’s in modern day, it’s in modern day Iraq. It’s right on the border. But this was the kingdom of Persia at the time. Today if you go there, it’s all desert.

It’s in Iraq. This is Iran, Saudi Arabia. But anyway, he’s in this kingdom of Susa. He’s in the winter palace where Artaxerxes would go when it was too hot. He was going down here.

That’s where he’s at when he says, how are things in Jerusalem? And they say, the people are in trouble. They’re filled with shame. The walls are broken down and the gates are ruined. They’ve been burned down.

You know what? Nehemiah was really getting there. The way I know he got it from God is because in verse four, he sat down and wept. You don’t get a response like that just because you checked the news out. He felt something, man.

He saw it through God’s eyes. He had an image of what he thought it looked like. He’d heard the temple was rebuilt. He didn’t realize things were so bad.

He really looked. He really saw Jerusalem through Hanani and his friend’s eyes. When he asked, have you ever really looked?

Last week I made announcements at this campus, both services. Brother Adam Purvis was preaching in my place last Sunday. He did awesome job, by the way. We have a great teaching team here. Made announcements at both services and then I got in my car and went as fast as I could to make an announcement at the Rocky Mount campus and to commission one of our very own who’s leaving this coming Wednesday, our sister Mary, who’s going to Sumatra, North Sumatra for a year to work there.

As I was coming back from that service in Rocky Mount, coming off the 301, going down to catch 97 stop sign right there. And I often see this. There was a man standing there with a piece of cardboard that said, homeless and hungry. Now, you know what you don’t do? You come to a stop sign and there’s a guy standing there with a piece of cardboard.

This is homeless and hungry on it. Don’t look at him. Do not look at him, right? Because if you look at him, he’s going to come over to your window, knock on it. If you look at him, he’s going to come over, he’s going to expect you to help him.

So don’t look at him, right? That’s how we think, right? That’s not how God thinks. That’s not how God thinks. That’s not how God thinks.

If you look at the world through God’s eyes, he says, look at him. See? Look what we see in the book of Luke. Here’s Jesus. He’s coming near the city of Jerusalem, that same city that Nehemiah cried for.

And it says, he cried as he saw it. He said, if you had only known on this great day the good things, the great things that make peace, but now they’re hidden from your eyes. If you only knew who I am. He looked at it and he cried. After Jesus was crucified and he was risen and he ascended back to the Father.

Peter and John, as was their habit, were going up for the time of prayer in the temple of Jerusalem. And as they went, they went up the steps toward the gate called Beautiful. And there said a man whose parents probably, or his friends every day, helped him get up to the spot just outside the gate. And he sat there with a cup, going, alms for the poor. He’s a crippled man.

That was his whole life. He was born crippled. The whole city knew about him because he was always there at the gate called Beautiful. That’s his spot. As Peter and John walked up.

We read this in the scriptures in the book of Acts, chapter three. And Peter directed his gaze at him. That’s an intensification in the Greek language. It says he looked right in his eyes. He looked at him and really kind of an uncomfortably long look to the point where he had to say to the man, look at us.

What? That’s what God calls us to do. To look at people and to tell them to look at me. I have something for you. Silver and gold.

Have I none but what I Have I give to thee. Rise up and walk. And the man leapt to his feet. He goes leaping through the temple. And people said, how did this happen to you?

He says, those guys. And those guys, Peter and John said, don’t look at these guys. It was that guy. It was Jesus. He’s the one.

The one who you crucified is risen. And it was in his name that we said, rise up. But they looked.

Christ gives us the courage to really look at people. We’re afraid to look at them because we know they’re hurting and we can barely keep it together ourselves. So we can’t stand to look at them because we’re afraid they’ll ask us for something that’ll so stretch us out of our comfort zones and our ability to live our own lives, and it’ll just mess up everything. And so we don’t look at them. But I’m saying, lord, let us pray.

Show us this city. Let us see it in your eyes. Vision is caught, not taught. Lord, show us. And then here’s number two.

That’s the first step. Ask the Lord to show you what your city really looks like. Here’s number two. Get alone with God to hear his heart for our city. Get alone with God.

That’s what nehemiah does. Verses 4 through 11. After he has a good cry, he fasts and prays, gets alone with God. He prays and he calls out to God. Get along with God.

Ask God to show you what he sees. Then ask God to let you feel what he feels. God, what’s your heart for this? How do you feel about this? I want to put away my feelings.

I want to feel about things the way you feel about things.

Nehemiah wept and mourned, and he fasted and prayed. How long did he do it? Well, we have to kind of look at the chronology between chapter one and chapter two. Chapter one says he tells us what year it was. It’s the 20th year.

What month was it? It was Kislev. Kislev is in the Jewish calendar. November, December, ish, kind of end of the year. And then we get to chapter two, we find out that the day he finally talks to Artaxerxes, King Artaxerxes is in the month of Nisan.

That’s not the car you drove in on. That’s a Jewish month. And it’s around March, April, during the time of Passover. So it’s about four months. He’s been praying and fasting and asking God about this.

Not four minutes, not four days, not four weeks. Four months.

God’s given him a clear vision. Now. He knows how God feels about it. He knows God’s heart. He knows what God sees when he looks at Jerusalem and he is stirred up, baby.

He’s tore up about it. But there’s a problem. He works for the king. He’s already at the point where he’s ready to give up his comfort. He’s ready to do it, but he works for the king.

And he has to have the king’s permission. Not only that, he doesn’t have what it needs to fix the problem. He needs the king’s authority. Not only that, he doesn’t have the resources to answer the problem. He needs the king’s resources.

He needs the king’s money. He needs his authority. He needs his money. He’s called. But the king has everything he needs to do it.

And so he prays. How does he pray? Well, let’s look. Let’s see how he prays. Verse 5.

O Lord God of heaven, he worships. He prays like Jesus taught his disciples. Our Father, which art in heaven, hallowed be your name. That’s how he starts. He starts off going, you, God, I’m not your plans.

Not my plans, your plans. You’re God, I’m not. You’re the God of glory he worships. Then notice in verse six, he confesses. He confesses.

It’s easy to confess other people’s sins. Lord, look at those poor sinners. Lord, I’m so sorry for their sin. That’s so easy. Some of you are doing that right now as you’re taking notes.

Well, I wish such and such was here so they could hear this. I hope that person next to me right now is listening. But he didn’t stop there. Look at verse six. Look at verse six.

He says, I even I, in my father’s house have sinned, man. He’s sitting there thinking, I live in luxury and I only know the stories about Jerusalem. I didn’t get carried off as an exile. I’m an exile. But really, I pretty much got it made over here.

He’s calling me and he’s stirring me. And I feel it. I feel it in my heart. And so he confess. He’s probably confessing.

If he’s like me, he’s probably confessing how scared he is. He’s probably confessing. I don’t have what it takes. He’s probably confessing, Lord. Pick somebody else.

He’s going through it. He’s confessing. Then he prays. In verse 8, he prays for God to remember like, can God forget? I don’t think that’s what he means.

I don’t think he means God can forget. But you look at verse 8, remember the word that you commanded. In other words, he’s praying God’s Word back to him. You know, God loves it when you pray His Word back to him. Don’t you love it when one of your kids.

Parents, listen to me. Don’t you love it when one of your kids says back to you something that you taught them? Don’t you feel like you actually got something right once in a while when they do that? Like what? Where’d you come from?

Yeah, you’re just so proud of them that they actually listened. When you pray back to God and say, God, remember your Word, he’s like, I wrote it.

But, yeah, the Father loves it when we pray His Word back to him. That’s what Nehemiah is not only a prayer warrior, he’s a man of the book. Look, he’s a student of the Word and he’s praying God’s promises back to him. He goes, God, I know we deserved what we got. We got kicked out of Jerusalem and scattered all over the planet because you said that’s what would happen if we didn’t put you first.

But look at me. Look at me, God. I’m putting you first. Can it start with me? I’m putting you first.

Start it with me. Let this spiritual awakening for my people start with me. For my city. Let it start with me. I can’t control y’, all, but I can say yes.

And that’s what he’s doing. He’s saying, look, Lord, I confess my sin. I confess their sin for them because they hadn’t done it yet, but I’ll start it for them. And he prays the promises of God. He says, you promised you’d scatter us.

But you know what else you said if we repent and follow you, that you would gather us back. I’m calling you out on that, God. So, God, I’m calling you to reach our city. Start with me. I can’t speak for you, man.

If I could, you guys would already be on it. All I can do is teach it, preach it. But you have to catch it. I don’t know if you will. I don’t know if you’re going to keep being okay with what you see because you don’t really see.

I don’t know if you’re going to be okay with what you feel because you don’t really feel, but if you’ll Start seeing and start feeling. You won’t be okay. You won’t be okay.

Remember, you know, about 50, 60, 70 years before this moment in time, a guy named Ezra went over there.

Zerubbabel, from the House of David. Guy named Yeshua, that was a priest. These guys went over there and they finally, after a lot of fighting and battle and believing, God built the temple, but there’s too much resistance. They can’t get the city fixed, they can’t get the walls fixed. They’ve got a church building, but they can’t reach their city.

God tagged them and he said, look at Ezra. 1. Then God stirred the hearts of the priests and Levites and the leaders of the tribes of Judah and Benjamin to return to Jerusalem to rebuild the temple of the Lord. That was a generation earlier than Nehemiah. He stirred their hearts.

What’s that look like? For God to stick something in your heart and stir it around. What’s that feel like? That messes up your old hard heart. Breaks it all up.

Makes it all soft and tender and broken. Makes the most macho man among us cry, tear and weep. Shortest verse of the Bible. Jesus wept. He’s the most manly man who ever walked the planet.

When’s your heart going to break? When are you going to feel what God feels? When’s your heart going to get stirred up? I can’t stir your heart. I can just say, he stirred mine.

I pray he stirs yours.

I’m just fresh off of my annual study retreat. Thank God for a church that lets me take a break. So I go read God’s word and study. Spent most of my time probably on Nehemiah, but praying every day for you and us together and for unity and for our city. So I’m fresh, I’m on fire.

And you’re the recipient of it. You let me do it every year. You guys let me get away. And study and pray. I love you for it.

Thank you. I want you to have that, too, in your life. That’s why I spent myself and my team, my lead team. This is three months of my life. This stuff doesn’t.

We didn’t buy this. This is us. We designed it, we built it, we wrote it. You understand? This is blood, sweat and tears right here.

Don’t just toss it in the corner when you get home with it. Break my heart if you don’t care about my heart. I think it’ll break the heart of God because it’s really from him. I felt like I really prayed and asked him to do it, so take this 30 day devotional. Start in the morning.

Get along with God. I know it’s hard. Everything comes against you when you try to get along with God. And I’m taking you on a journey through the Book of Nehemiah, Monday through Friday, giving you weekends off.

And start asking God, I want your heart for this. Number three. Y’ all still with me? You still in the room? Decide to join God in his work for our city.

Decide to join God in his work for our city. God, show me what you see. Let me feel what you feel. Let me do what you do.

Here’s what we tend to do. Lord, today looks like it’s going to be a hard day. I need you to help me with this problem at work, with this problem at school. I need some extra money because the bills are coming due. And Lord, I really wish you’d follow me.

I got a great plan for the day. If you just follow my plan and pitch in right here, I believe we’ll make it. Here’s the problem with that. That’s your plan. You’re asking God to join your work.

When’s the last time you said God? Look at verse 11. Look at verse 11. Was Nehemiah. What’s his last part?

Look at. Oh, Lord, let your ear be attentive. Give success to your servant. Today, after four months of prayers, he’s ready to go in there. He’s like, lord, make Artaxerxes look at me and ask me something, so I get to tell him what’s on my heart.

Now remember, if you’ve ever read the Book of Esther, you can’t just go and start talking to the king of Persia because he’ll kill you. And so, like Esther had already told Mordecai, and the Book of Esther said, hey, look, go tell everybody. Go tell all the Jews to pray for three days. Because if I go in without invitation, start talking to him, and she’s the queen of Persia, he’ll kill me. Because you can’t just go talk to the king of Persia without an appointment, even if you’re the queen.

Never mind the cupbearer. He’s like, lord, I know what you’ve come in to do. I know exactly what the plan is. I want to do it, but I need Artaxerxes to give me the authority and the resources because I work for him. So get a hold of him.

That’s how he’s praying. Do you see it? He wants to do it, but he needs God’s help. Because success is up to God.

But our yes, or our no is on us. We can’t build the church. Jesus never told us to build the church. He says, upon this rock, I will build my church. So Jesus is the church builder.

Our job is to be the church. If we will be the church, he will build the church. So we have to be the church. Which means we have to say, let me see what you see. Let me feel what you feel, and let me join you in what you’re already doing.

We’re to be the church. He’ll build the church. Jesus said this in John, chapter five. My Father is always at work. And to this very day, I too, am working.

I tell you the truth, the Son could do nothing by himself. He can only do what he sees his father doing. Because whatever the Father does, the Son does. For the Father loves the Son and shows him all he does. Yes, to your amazement, he will show him even greater things than these.

My oldest son, Stephen, who leads our worship, was a little fellow, and I was out mowing the yard. Robin yells out, watch out. Stephen’s out there following you. She didn’t want him to get hurt. He had his little plastic lawnmower following me.

Little kids. I don’t know what happens to us when we turn into teenagers, but when we’re still little, we want to do what mom and dad do, don’t we? We love them. They love us. They want us to.

Well, when parents are on their best behavior, we want them to help. The Father always wants us to help. He always wants us to join him. The Son says, the Father loves me, and I only do what he’s doing. And then he says to us, come, follow me.

Come follow me. So success is in your hands.

But whether or not I follow you is up to me. Where do you need success in your life? Where’s their brokenness? Where’s their hurt? You can’t fix it, but you can follow Jesus.

You can say, let me see, Let me hear, Let me follow. Let me do what you are doing. Let me be with you as you do your work in this city. Henry Blackaby, in his book Experiencing God, says, God’s invitation always leads to a crisis of belief. Anytime God calls us and we see it, we feel it, we want to join him.

We have a crisis of belief. We start going, I don’t know how to do it. Or, you’re like Nehemiah, I could die if I bring this up. Or if I live. What if he says no?

And so there’s a crisis of belief. I’m going to ask you on this journey together to put away your preconceived notions and to put away where you’re already thinking of how you can do it in your own power. And I want you to think, I want to see this, I want to pray, Lord, what do you want to do in me and through me? That’s all I’m asking, that you’ll answer that question between you and the Lord. Because I believe he’s calling us to rise up together and to do something about our city.

The times come for us to act. Are you willing to put aside your fears and your doubts? Pastor Rick Warren says if you want to be a person of great faith with a great dream and a great life work, you must defeat the giants of delay, discouragement, disapproval and doubt. All of those Ds are out there right now floating in our minds.

You have to decide, Lord, give me success because my yes is on the table and I’m joining you in your work. And when we do, when we rise up with extravagant generosity and we do all that God’s called us to do, look what he says in Isaiah. I want you to share your food with the hungry and to welcome poor wanderers into your homes. Give clothes to those who need them and don’t hide from relatives. Who needs your help.

If you do these things, your salvation will come like the dawn. Yes, your healing will come quickly. Your godliness will lead you forward and the glory of the Lord will protect you from behind. The Lord will guide you continually watering your life when you are dry and keeping you healthy too. You’ll be like a well watered garden, like an ever flowing spring.

Your children will rebuild the deserted ruins of your cities. Then you will be known as the people who rebuild their walls and cities. What? Come on. Really?

Yes. God will do that if we’ll say yes to him. If we’ll rise up. Will you join us in this rise up spiritual journey together? Will you say, lord, I want to see the city through your eyes.

I want to feel your heart beat. I want to join you in your work. Generation before you sacrificed so you would have a seat today so you’d have a journey guide in your hand so there would be lights on and heat in the room. All these things don’t happen by magic. People before you lay down their lives to make it happen.

What about this next generation of millennials? What about this next generation that didn’t get to be a part of the 19 years affordable church? It’s not too late to rise up and to be part of the story that God’s writing as he desires to reach this city with Jesus. Let’s pray. Lord, I pray that we as a people would be united.

I pray we would overcome barriers and hang ups and fears and doubts. I pray that every person would say yes to the prayer. Lord, show us. Show me what you want to do in and through me.

And Lord, I’m remembering now that there’s three types of people in the room.

There are the people that are new on the journey. I pray for them especially, Lord, that you would protect their minds and help them to lean into you right now. Lord, I’m praying for those that have been on the journey with you for a while that they wouldn’t check out and say, I’ve already done it. I was there earlier and I’ve done my load lifting. I pray that they would be like Caleb and say, I may be 80 years old, but my right arm is as strong.

God’s made it as strong as it ever was. Give me the mountains, give me the giants. And then I especially pray for that person that came here today on a thread. And you, you want to know Jesus. You want to be.

You want to be a child of God. I especially pray for you right now, right where you are, right in your seat. Would you pray with me? Dear Lord Jesus, this is just a prayer of faith believing. Dear Lord Jesus, I’m a sinner.

My life’s out of control. I’m not able to fix it. I admit it. And I need Jesus. I believe you died on the cross, that you rose from the grave, that you live today.

Come and live in me. I invite you to be my Lord and Savior. Come on, come into my life and make me the kind of person you want me to be. I want to be a child of God and friend. If you’re praying that prayer right now, believing the Bible says if you confess that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.

And so have confidence. Give him thanks right now. Lord, we love you. Thank you that you’ve called us to this city, not just for ourselves, but to be the church that you would call to rise up and see and feel and do what you’ve called us to do in Christ’s name. All of God’s people said amen.