Taking the Risk

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.

Well, good morning, church. I’m Pastor Gary Combs and we welcome you to Wilson Community Church. And I have with me Tim and Tia Stewart and wanted to talk to them about trusting the Lord with all that you are and all that you have. I was recently reading your testimony, Tim, on our Life on Life discipleship database. We have a process at our church where one person disciples another person as Jesus taught us to do.

And Tim has been active in that. Tim and Tia both. But Tim’s testimony was about trust. And so I want to talk to you about that and have you answer this question. There was a season when you hadn’t fully trusted the Lord and then something moved you to start trusting Him.

So why don’t you talk to us about that for a second? Well, the season Pastor Gary is talking about was I didn’t tithe correctly. I used to give God what I had left in my wallet after I paid my bills and did whatever else I wanted to do. And then one morning, the night previous, it was Saturday night, me and Shantia went out, went to the movies, went to restaurant, spent I don’t know how much money. And then Sunday morning, I remember sitting over here on the left side and I was looking through my wallet, seeing what I had left, and that’s what I was going to put in the offering bucket.

And then God just. It was like that light bulb just went off. It was like, then I give you everything that you had that you spent last night. Didn’t I provide for you? And I was like, yes.

And now it just, I guess that feeling came upon me that I felt like I was cheaper than God. He gave me everything that I had, but I was only giving him the little bit that I felt that I had left to give him after I paid everything else. Yeah. So giving him your leftovers. And you moved from giving him your leftovers to what?

At that moment when I was over there, it moved me to start tithing properly. Now, when you say the word tithe, a lot of people might not know what that word means, but that means to give God the first portion of your income. And the word tithe just really just means 10%. So he’s been using that churchy kind of word. But that’s a word we use to describe giving God the first portion.

Correct? Correct. That was instead of giving God my first, I was giving him my last. Wow. And from that moment, I decided to start tithing properly at that time.

And it was a struggle at first. It wasn’t like I just said, here you go, God. And, you know, as the weeks came, you know, I thought about, you know, what else I could do with that money, probably like everybody else thinks. But from that day on, God has blessed my family, took care of us, and he has given us more. Wow.

So, Shantia, whenever we make a decision like that, sometimes we find ourselves so in debt, so much more month than there is money that we want to trust God, but we actually can barely pay our bills. So we kind of have to get our house in order before it seems like before we can even get started. Was that kind of your story? Did you have some stuff to get in order? It was more like we had to get our hearts in order.

Wow. And so Tim and I, as husband and wife, had to come together and decide that we were going to give God our all. And it was hard, but when we realized that it’s all God’s anyway, it became easy. We went through a period where we struggled. You know, finances were really tight, but we always had plenty, and that was nothing but the Lord.

Wow. And so that was God proving that he can be trusted. And so, you know, we figured, well, he’s going to provide for us anyway. The money is his. We need to use it the way he wants us to use it.

And so then was the heart change. Wow. And so now we find joy in giving all the time. And the fear is no longer so heavy because we’re like, well, God’s going to handle it. Awesome.

Awesome. So, Tim, if I recall right, didn’t you guys go through a financial mentoring at our church? Some people in the church, you went to a class, Is that right? And so mention that briefly, but then tell the congregation why you think they should go on this journey that you and Shanti have gone on this journey of trusting God with all that you are and all that you have. So answer that.

Yeah, we went through the financial journey. It was the first iteration. Mike and Cindy Laramie helped us out. Actually, they came to our house as well. We asked them to come help us, so we had a mentor with that.

So you asked for help? You asked for someone to come and help you. You were willing to open up your finances and have a coach come in? Yes, we were. You’re kidding.

Like, really? Can y’ all believe that? See, that might be the first step. Really? You say I trust God.

And then you say, I’m willing to have someone who’s an older Christian, someone who’s walked the journey a little longer, to disciple me, to mentor me. That is correct, because I was a selfish person with my money as well. So to invite somebod into my business is not something that I usually do. But you call it my business. Yeah, it was my business.

I got. And you said, now it’s the Lord’s business. It’s the Lord’s business. I don’t know. That’s.

That’s pretty radical. Would you recommend that to people? I would recommend it. If you’re looking for ways to get out of debt or just become more financially stable, always try to find somebody who was probably previously there or somebody in a better situation as you. Through the journey.

Like I said, I was selfish with my money. I was only child. I always thought of me with my time, talent and treasure. But through this journey and through taking the risk, I found that one of my biggest spiritual gifts is being a giver now. Wow.

It’s an anxiety killer. What’s that? It’s an anxiety killer. It’s an anxiety killer. It is because we used to be so uptight about money and worried and constantly, like, stressed.

But giving it all to God, I mean, it takes away the fear. Oh, that’s such a good word. So from being in control, thinking we’re in control because we’re never really in control, to a life of generosity, it takes away anxiety. Hey, give him a hand. Thank you.

Thank you, Tim and Shantia. All right, good morning. As we get started, I just want to remind you we’re in week two of our Nehemiah series entitled Rise Up. We get the. The theme of this series from the book of Nehemiah 2, 17, 18, where we read, you see the trouble we are in, 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. So this is our theme.

And as we dig in today, I would ask you a couple of detail questions to make sure. First of all, do you have one of these? Lift it up if you’ve got one of these in your hands. Ushers, would you look and see if anybody needs one? Lift your hand if you don’t have one of our Journey guides, we’re still giving these out.

Lift your hand quickly. Need a pen and a journey guide. I see a lady over here, I think. Lift your hand high so the ushers can see you. Thank you.

And so what we’re doing during this series is we’re taking notes in the journey guide rather than in the bulletin. And so we want to make sure you have one of those in your hands because the journey guide, you’ll see it has several tabs. And we’re going on a journey together, a spiritual journey during this series. So that it’s not just Sunday mornings. Sunday mornings is kind of the kickoff each week to get you started on the week, but the idea to do the 30 day devotional.

It’s a Monday through Friday devotional that’ll end the Friday before our commitment Sunday. Just getting us spiritually prepared. You’ll see that there are explanations about the vision that we’re talking about, a place to take sermon notes, a place to record prayers and to pray together. So there’s other items that you might notice. We have a bookmark for your Bible.

Things like this just helps to help you dig in deeper during this Rise up series. So I guess I’m saying rise up and dig in. I don’t know. That’s what I came up with just now. The other thing you’ll notice as you’re looking, as you’re coming in this morning, you’ll notice there’s a blue card, a Rise up blue card in your seat as you came in.

There’s a couple of them. But we’re going to try to make these available. They won’t be in the seats every week, but in the following weeks they’ll be at the Rise up kiosk that you saw in the lobby. And they’ll also be at the tables. Because lost people matter to God.

And since they matter to God, they matter to us. And so the reason we’re going through this series is we see ourselves city as a place full of brokenness. And in fact, if we’ll admit it, we’re broken people without Jesus. And so we want to rise up and let Jesus build in us. And we want to rise up and make room for Jesus to build in others.

And so be contemplating during the service. Because at the end of the service, we’ll give you an opportunity. You’ll see a place where we’re going to be dropping cards every week. And these cards will all represent people that need a God story. If you look on the back of your bulletin, you’ll see we Shared two or three life changing God stories that people have shared with us in the previous weeks.

Who do you know that needs a God story? I want you to be during the service and then we’ll give you time at the end of the service to write those names down. And at the end of the service as you come forward to take the Lord’s supper and to bring your tithes and offerings, to bring forward this list of people and drop them in. I’m going to give you time. You’ll be thinking about that at the end of the service.

This is a powerful Sunday. I’m glad you’re here. So we’re in chapter one last week and we talked about how God gave Nehemiah a vision. And now this week we’re in chapter two and we’re seeing that Nehemiah’s ready, he’s ready to take action, he’s ready to take the risk. Always feels a little bit risky whenever we trust God with everything.

It always feels like I’m a little bit dying, like I’m letting go of some stuff I’ve always owned. And it, it’s like I just almost have to pry my fingers open on, on my plans and my possessions and because coming to Jesus and saying he’s Savior and Lord is really admission that I don’t have control of my life. And what I have done with my life is I’ve made a mess of my life and so things are broken in my life. And so are you willing to take a risk today? And really it’s kind of a trick question if I say, are you willing to take a risk for God?

It’s kind of a trick question because it’ll feel risky, but it’s not really a risk because you can never, you never lose with God. Everything you trust to him, you never lose. So it feels risky because, well, you’ve never really been able to trust God. But when you finally trust him, you grow to realize that nothing is lost, no good thing is lost that you entrust to the Lord. And so it kind of feels like you’re going out on a limb, a real shaky limb.

But the truth is, when you say yes to God, he always moves in your life. Now today’s the last day that we’re accepting applications to our short term mission trips. This year we have a trip planned to Baltimore, a trip planned to Guatemala, a trip planned to Uganda. Why are we doing that? Because we believe that God’s called us to take the gospel to the nations.

And so we extended it so that you would have time to take the risk so that you would have time to contemplate it. And so we’re closing that today. But we wanted, if you are interested, put that on your connection card today because we want to make sure that you’ve been willing to take a risk and trust God. Now, whenever God wants to get work done, he always calls someone and gives them a vision. And as we look here, in the book of Nehemiah, Nehemiah was that man.

He had a problem in Jerusalem. God wanted to do something about the brokenness in Jerusalem. He wanted to do something about the shame and the trouble and the broken down city and the broken down people. And he got a hold of Nehemiah. And it seems like it always starts with one person, then it kind of catches fire and goes out to others.

But what if it started with you today? God always gets a hold of somebody and when he wants to get some work done, he uses people. I mean, God could do it himself. Remember what Jesus said whenever the Pharisees said, you tell those people to stop saying son of David. And hosanna.

And hosanna. When he was going into the city of Jerusalem, he says, if I tell them to stop, the rocks will cry out. See, God could get the work done. He doesn’t need me. It needs you.

He just wants you. And he would. He has chosen the church. And the church is not the steeple. The church is the people.

So the church is us. And he’s chosen us as his vehicle of blessing. He wants to bless the world first of all by giving you blessing and then making you a blessing to others. So he uses people. So in the book of Nehemiah, the Lord moved Nehemiah to take a faith risk.

Remember what I told you about that word risk? It feels like a risk, but it really isn’t. And his risk was he was going to ask the king of Persia for permission to go to Jerusalem. He worked for the king and he wanted to go rebuild the walls. So that was the big risk.

He’s going to go in and ask him. And the Lord always calls people to take a risk of faith in order to answer his call and accomplish his purpose. It always starts with that. And I believe today, as we look at the text, we can recognize the kind of faith steps, the kind of risky faith steps that God, well, he always causes people to take when he has a calling on their life. So you ready to dig in?

Let’s look at Nehemiah. Chapter 2. We’re going to take on the first 10 verses. We’re going on a journey through the book of Nehemiah, and we’re applying it to our lives. In the month of Nisan, in the 20th year of King Artaxerxes, when wine was before him, I took up the wine and gave it to the king.

Now, I had not been sad in his presence. And the king said to me, why is your face sad? Seeing you are not sick? This is nothing but sadness of the heart. Then I was very much afraid.

I said to the king, let the king live forever. Why should not my face be sad when the city, the place of my father’s graves, lies in ruins and its gates have been destroyed by fire? Then the king said to me, what are you requesting? So I prayed to the God of heaven and I said to the king, if it pleases the king, and if your servant has found favor in your sight, that you send me to Judah, to the city of my father’s graves, that I may rebuild it. And the king said to me, with the queen sitting beside him, how long will you be gone and when will you return?

So it pleased the king to send me when I had given him a time. And I said to the king, if it pleases the king, let letters be given to me to the governors of the province beyond the river that they may let me pass through until I come to Judah. And a letter to Asaph, the keeper of the king’s forest, that he may give me timber to make beams for the gates of the fortress of the temple and for the wall of the city and for the house that I shall occupy. And the king granted me what I asked for. The good hand of my God was upon me.

Then I came to the governors of the province beyond the river and gave them the king’s letters. Now, the king had sent with me officers of the army and horsemen. But when Sanballat the Horonite and Tobiah, the Ammonite’s servant, heard this, it displeased them greatly that someone had come to seek the welfare of the people of Israel. This is God’s word. We’re digging in, people.

We’re taking the risk today. And I want to talk about three risk taking steps that God always stirs us up to take when he gives us a call on our life. Here’s the first. Surrender completely to God’s plan. Surrender your plan to God’s plan.

Notice as we look at these first few verses. The first few verses, he tells us the time. He says it’s the month of Nissan. Now, that’s not the car you drove up in here in. That’s a Jewish month.

The month of Nisan is probably around March, April. It’s the month of the year when the Jews celebrate Passover. And so if you’ll remember in chapter one, back there in verse one of chapter one, he said it happened in the month of Kislev, which is around November, December. So about four months have gone by since Nehemiah first heard about the brokenness of Jerusalem. What’s he been doing for four months?

Well, he’s been praying. We read in chapter one, he’s been praying, he’s been fasting, he’s been mourning, weeping over the city, he’s been praying a lot. And he’s been studying God’s word and looking for God’s promises. We talked about this last week, but now we know that it lasted four months. And then the day has come.

It’s still the 20th year of king Artaxerxes. They didn’t keep a calendar like we do today. Well, kind of they did. They kept it based on their king. We base it on our king.

It’s the year 20, 19. 20. 19 years since King Jesus was here. But they say the 20th year, it was the 20th year of the reign of Artaxerxes. And they continue to be in the palace there, in the winter palace, and a place called Susa.

And so pop the map up quickly there, if you would. And so I like to pop up maps. Some of you have told me you like it when I pop up maps, but it gives me context. I would always remind you that when the Bible is giving us stories like this, they’re not mythology, they’re history. So this is Susa.

Susa in modern day, on a map you’d see that. And right here would be the border between Iraq and Iran. And so Susa, which I think they call Shusha today, it’s in Iran, but it’s right on the border of Iraq, Iran, right there. It’s where it’s at. And the ruins are still there from that Persian city.

So Nehemiah, after four months of prayer and preparation, how do we know he prepared? Because he gave the king the list. When the king asked, he had the list ready to go. He didn’t have to sit and think and go, well, let me see, maybe I could use this or that. No, he had thought the whole thing through and he went in there ready.

He had planned, he had gotten his house in order. He had thought through and he had already counted the cost of what it would take to go in there. Now we need the last verse of chapter one in order to understand this. So let’s read it again. Verse 11 of chapter one gives us the timing of him going in here.

He says, 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. Which man? King Artaxerxes. Now, I was cupbearer to the king.

We’ve covered this. That the cupbearer to the king was an immortal, important job. He tasted the drink and the food before the king received it. He probably ran the kitchen and hired the help. I know I’d want to hire the help if I had to be the first taster.

I’d want to make sure I didn’t die in the job. So he was like the king’s secret service guy, you know, and he was sitting present when the king was consulting people. And so he has this important job, but he’s got a problem. He doesn’t have an appointment with the king to talk about stuff. He’s there to serve the king.

He doesn’t have an appointment, hey, can I bring up Jerusalem? No, that’s not the relationship he has with the king. And so he’s like, lord, I’ve prayed for four months. I sense that today’s the day. So give me favor with this man.

I surrender everything to you. And I realize that if he. I’m going to talk to him no matter what now. But it could get me killed. Because you have to understand the king of Persia and the power he has.

He’s going in today, he’s praying to God for success. And by the way, check this out. Success always belongs to the Lord. You can’t control whether or not you succeed. You can only control whether or not you will act, whether or not you’ll take the risk.

That’s your part. The yes or no I will begin is your part. The success is always up to God. We celebrate people when they success. We should celebrate God when people succeed.

And he says, give me mercy with this man another way. Give me favor with this man. Now why does he need it? Well, let’s just check out another book called the Book of, of Esther. Now, in the book of Esther, we get the reason he needs favor and mercy with this man.

So look at this verse from Esther. She was the queen of Persia. And this is at a time several years before this event in Nehemiah. And it says this. This is what it says in Esther 4:11, all the king’s servants and the people of the king’s province know that if any man or woman goes to the king inside the inner court without being called, there is but one law to be put to death.

Okay? So if Nehemiah just ups and starts, hey, can I talk about something here? King, he’s dead, right? So here’s what he has to pray. God calls him the king, to ask me what’s up so I can tell him, so God, who is over all kingdoms, you tell the king that’s over me that you’re over, to ask me and then give me mercy and favor so he doesn’t kill me when I answer him.

Now he’s taking a risk. Has God ever told you, take a risk like that? He’s never asked me. He’s asked me to take a lot of risks. And it felt really risky to me.

But I look back on it. He didn’t ask me to go anywhere and risk getting killed. He’s not finished with me. I don’t know what he’s going to do with me tomorrow because I belong to him. I’m blood bought.

I’m a slave of Jesus Christ. I’m not my own. I was bought with a price. How about you? Nehemiah’s there and he goes in and he says in verse two, it’s the first time I ever let the king see me with a sad face.

Now, some of y’ all could never pull this off. Some of you, like, if you’re sad, everybody knows it. But Nehemiah had the kind of job that when he got up in the morning, he had to look at himself in the mirror and go and try to get straight. Because you don’t want to go into the king’s court looking all gloomy. He’d be like, kill him.

Get a happy guy. I don’t need a gloomy guy in here. And so this is the first time he allowed. I mean, he’d been fasting and praying, and the king had never noticed any change. He was shaving like he was supposed to.

He was, you know, taking a shower and putting on a little something that smelled good, you know, he wasn’t. But this particular day, he went in, the king looked at him and he. He says some stuff to the king here or to the king, says to him that. Because the king starts the conversation in verse two. He says, now, I had never been sad in his presence in verse two, see?

And the king said to why is your face sad? Seeing you are not sick at that very moment. You better believe that. His knees started knocking together. He’s like, oh, boy, this could go either way right now.

And so first thing he says is, then I was very much afraid. That was his response. Now. He had prayed for this. He prayed for this to happen, but that didn’t take away the fear.

When God calls you and you begin to take the first step to do something that God’s called you to do, does God take away the fear?

Sometimes? Sometimes he doesn’t. Sometimes he lets the fear be part of the story so that that’s what’s teaching you something. He didn’t take it away from Nehemiah. Nehemiah got to feel that full blown.

In fact, I looked it up in the King James and I always like to look it up in the King James sometimes and see what they say. I love this. It says he was very sore afraid. I mean, like, he was sore afraid. He was really, really, really scared.

He was terrified. And so then he responds to the king boldly. He says, let the king live forever. What he meant was, let Nehemiah live forever. I mean, he’s like, I want you to live forever, King.

I’m hoping you feel the same about me.

But why should not my face be sad? Seeing as how the land, the city where my forefathers are buried is all broken down. The city. And so I think he appealed to something that made sense to King Artaxerxes. Something about, this is the land of my.

Of the generation, generations that went before me. And this is how he appealed to it. Proverbs 16:9 says, the heart of man plans his way, but the Lord establishes his steps. You got your plans, God’s got his plans. He’s the one in charge of your plans.

Jeremiah 29:11 says, For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, plans for welfare and not for evil. To give you a future and a hope. He tells us that, but we still have to surrender our plans, our possessions, our control, and say, God, I want to trust you. Don’t you hurt me. Don’t you.

Because we’re afraid. And Nehemiah was afraid, but the king was in the Lord’s hands. You remember over there in Genesis chapter 12 where God called Abraham? Remember that call? Here’s how it goes in Genesis 12:1.

Now the Lord said to Abram, go from your country and your kindred and your father’s house to the land. I will show you.

God still does that. And that’s the most aggravating kind of call now, some of you don’t mind that Randy Tuttle over here, he doesn’t mind that kind of call. Like, head that way. Randy. Randy’s probably good with that.

You know, that’s probably right. Kind of like that. But a guy like me. Where are you going? Where do you want me to go?

How will I know that I got there? Which way should I go? I want a few details. I don’t know how you are. I’d like to know some details.

Lord, go to the land that I will show you when you go. Show me. Just head that way. Come on now. Lord, I’m the little kid in the back of my dad’s Buick on vacation going, daddy, when are we going to get there?

He’d be like, son, I’ll tell you. I’ll tell you. We’re almost there. You said that a minute ago. You know, that’s me.

How about you? Are you the little kid in the back seat going, daddy, when are we going to get there? How will we know when we get there? What’s it going to look like when we get there? But God says, surrender your plan.

Surrender the map to me. I’m the navigator, I’m in charge church. Surrender completely to God’s plan. Now it’s going to feel like sacrifice. This surrender is going to feel like something died.

And really that’s what Jesus always calls us to do. He says, deny yourself and take up your cross daily. Well, the cross is an implement of execution. It’s not the little gold thing hanging around your neck.

You need to die. Jesus invites us to join him to come and die to the old nature and be risen to new life in the new nature. And so it feels like sacrifice. And so it demonstrates when we rise up for God and we say, everything I have is yours, Lord. Do in me and through me whatever you want to do.

When we pray that kind of prayer, it feels like I’m giving up something of that makes me feel secure rather than finding my security in God.

It’s the kind of thing when we make up when we do. Like Tim and T.S. stewart were talking earlier about when we finally start trusting God. And money is just kind of a symbol for our trust. I mean, even our forefathers put on the front of the bill in God we trust to keep us from.

I don’t know if you ever look at that, like, don’t trust this. We trust God. This is just a symbol. And so it requires life change to trust God with your plans and your possessions. It will require putting his agenda above Your agenda and to make the kind of decision that we’re calling ourselves to make over the next three years will mean that it will go against the old nature, because the old nature will say, no, don’t do it.

You need everything you have. You can’t even make it with what you have. Plus, you have plans to get more. And so it will take a spiritual awakening in each of us, a supernatural birth of generosity for us to continue to reach out and make room for more people. So it’s not going to be a quick conversation.

Someone came up to me right before the service and said, if we want to start giving. Because, I mean, like, after one sermon last week, this person’s like, if we want to start giving to this new phase, like, how do we make it out? And I said, I hadn’t told you yet. And he goes, well, how do I do it? And I said, don’t do it yet.

And he looked at me like, what kind of preacher are you? We’re going to do that on February 24th. I want you to take the spiritual journey. That’s my goal. Just take the spiritual journey.

Whatever God tells you to do, that’s between you and God. But I believe that success is in God’s hands, and he chooses to use his people. That’s what he always does. His way of blessing people is always through his people. So I’ll be satisfied that God’s got it if we’ll just go on the journey together.

So don’t worry about stroking a check today for the building fund or for the Rise up campaign, just your normal tithes and offerings over these coming weeks until I say do it now. Now’s the day we’re going to do it. That’s February 24th. I have to tell the guy, hold on just a little longer. Because it’s not a quick conversation you’re having with God.

It’s not a quick conversation you’re having with your spouse either, because you’ve already worked out in your head what you can afford. You’ve already figured out what you can do in your own power. You have. As soon as we started this thing and we started showing pictures, you said, here’s how much I think I can let go of. Dump that.

Because your final gift will be more of a miraculous, supernatural decision. It’s going to feel like a wrestling match like Jacob had. So don’t count yourself out. Especially if you’re triggered today like, that preacher wants my money. No, I don’t.

I want you to give your whole life to God and That includes your stuff, your possessions. Because you’ll never know. You’ll never know what God can do with a couple of fish and five loaves of bread. You just never know how many people he can take care of and how he can multiply that blessing he’s given you. You know, he trusts people who will be a funnel of blessing.

He trusts people who will open up their arms. I can’t help it. I got to do it. I’ve done this so many times through the years. I got to do.

It wasn’t in the notes. But if you’ll open your hand to God so that he can bless you, so that hand’s not shaking a fist at God anymore and say, God, I have needs. Help me. It always starts there, but you’ll dam it up. You know, you can dam it up right there and say, I can’t receive blessings because I’m mad at God.

But if you open that hand hand and let it flow to you, it’ll dam up downstream if you don’t give it away. So to be a river of blessing, you’ve got to have both hands open. One hand open to God and one hand open to others. And then you’ll be. Your needs will be met, and then others needs will be met.

And more of a river of blessing flows to you and through you as you keep that open. But you close one of those and what happens? God will have to bless people through another means because he can’t trust you.

Y’ all the quietest. Thank you, Tia. The rest of you are scared to death right now. I’m scared. I’m like Nehemiah.

My knees are knocking together. What’s he asking me to do? Take a risk. It’s not really a risk.

God created you to be a blessing. Experience the joy of generosity. Here’s number two. So surrender. Open your hands to God and to others.

Number two, take action according to God’s power. I got to go quicker. I got stuck for a minute.

Take action according to God’s power. Verse 4. What are you requesting? The king asked. I didn’t hear him request anything.

The king is completely under the Lord’s control at this point. It’s like he has no control. First of all, he’s sitting there and this detail that Nehemiah includes. We wrestled over this thing earlier with my study group this week. Why did he mention that the queen was there?

What was the point? Like, I sat and looked at that. Like, okay, queen’s there. Like, did you see that over there in verse 6? And the king said to me, the queen sitting beside him, like, in parentheses, like, so it’s kind of an unusual sort of setting here.

Maybe it’s kind of like at the end of the day, I don’t know. Like, maybe he’s already seen all the people who were waiting to see the king and they’re just such good friends with Nehemiah because they trust him and perhaps the queen somehow. These are all suppositional thoughts I’m having as I try to visualize the setting. But Nehemiah, inspired by the Holy Spirit, felt it was important to tell us that the queen was there. She was there.

She doesn’t say anything. Maybe she was a supporter of Nehemiah. I don’t know. I don’t know why it’s there. I’ll ask the Lord when I get to heaven, maybe I can meet up with Nehemiah and say, what was that detail about the queen there for?

It seems to be kind of a relational.

It’s kind of an unusual relationship Nehemiah has. Like, God has given him such favor. He’s prayed for four months. God, give me mercy and favor. Today I’m going in, and this king’s like, why are you sad?

Like, why do you care? Why are you sad? I’m sad because the walls of the city where my forebears, where they’re buried, the cemetery, that’s really what it’s become. And.

And he goes, what are you requesting?

I like this king. He’s action oriented. Let’s not spend a lot of time wringing our hands about what’s wrong. Let’s figure out how to fix it. And so Nehemiah is like.

Whips his list out.

Nehemiah’s kind of like me. I’d have had a list too. Like, well, I need this. And then I need timber for the. For the walls and for the gates and for the house I’ll need to live in from the king’s forest.

Did you ever watch Robin Hood or read the book Robin Hood? You know, if you go in Sherwood Forest, that stuff belongs to the king. You can’t have that stuff. Well, he got permission. He says some cool things here.

He says, what are you requesting? The king says. And he says, as soon as the king says that. Look at verse four. As soon as the king says that, what are you requesting?

So I prayed to the God of heaven, okay, did you know you could do this? You can have a conversation with somebody, but in your head, you know, please, Lord, make this go. Well. He’s just now asked me the thing I’ve been praying for four months. He just asked me.

I mean, the king owns everything he can give. Dear Lord God of heaven. I mean, can you see his mouth’s moving talking to the king, but in his head, he’s actually talking to the real king? I mean, do you see it? And he says, I said I was praying.

And then I said, or I was praying and saying at the same time as what I’m visualizing. He goes, send me. Verse 5. Didn’t we preach that a couple weeks ago? From Isaiah, chapter six, Whom will I send and who will go for us?

The Lord asked, and Isaiah said, here am I. Send me, O Nehemiah. What are you asking?

Send me now. If I was Nehemiah, I might have thought through some other scenarios. I got a cush job. Send some of your guys over there, king, and fix that city up. Like, let’s commission some people right now.

You’ve got the power to do it. But no, he said, send me. And the king wouldn’t know how long. Like, the king doesn’t want him to be out of his sight very long. This is a trusted member of the court and he has a number he answers with.

It’s not recorded here, so we’re uncertain. Some suggest it might have been about six months. The wall was miraculously repaired in 52 days.

So it wasn’t long. It was the length of the journey, the time of the rebuild, and the length of the journey back. And he even thought of getting letters to the governors of the province beyond the river, beyond the river being capitalized. We would say this is the trans Euphrates region. And because he was passing through different regions, he needed a passport and some visas.

He asked the king for all that, and the king did it. And so the trans Euphrates area. I think I have a map. Let’s see. Do I have a map?

Did I put a map up? No, it’s next page. Never mind. Sorry, sorry. Tech team freaking them out back there.

I’ll get it next page. And so he says, I need some letters to pass through these areas. And I need a letter to the guy named Asaph, who’s over top of your. You know, he runs the lumber yard there. Because I’m going to need a lot of wood, right?

He’s thought this thing through and the good hand of my God was upon me. Verse 8 says. So he gave God credit. He didn’t give Nehemiah credit, or he didn’t give King Artaxerxes credit.

He made the big ask have you ever heard of that? Making the big ask.

He made the big ask. Google that sometime. And there’s all these articles written on how to make the big ask. How to go to your boss and ask for a raise, how to go. And ask for a job, how to go.

All these make you the big ask. Really, we only need one article. The Book of Nehemiah. How do you do it? Pray your guts out for four months, then go in, make the big ask.

Make a commitment to act. Be ready to make the big ask. But not yet. Right now. Just pray your guts out right now.

Ask the Lord, what do you want to do in me and through me? Will you decide? And when you do it, leave success to the Lord, and then give credit to the Lord. Now here’s number three. Overcome adversity with God’s protection.

Overcome adversity with God’s protection. So now we’re down to those last couple of verses, verses 9 and 10. And he’s moved from the palace in Susa, the Winter palace. And he’s on the road now. And can you imagine?

He’s on the road and he’s got the letters, he’s got everything he needs. And can you imagine the sink, you know, like, he’s like, wow, God is great. He has no idea what he’s up against. Because when we hit a spot like that, we’ve been praying for four months to get a breakthrough. We think it’s done now, but it’s just getting started.

Because now the test is, will you stay the course?

Because adversity always comes. I didn’t say usually. It always comes when you answer God’s call. It always does. And it tests our steadfastness.

Will you stay the course? So verse nine says, I came to the governors of the province called beyond the river, which today historians call it the Trans Euphrates region. And so now I can pop up my map that I’ve been wanting to pop up. So pop up the map. So here he is.

He’s left Susa, right? He’s left Susa, and he’s traveling up the Euphrates. This is called the Trans Euphrates area. This is the Medo Persian Empire. So he’s headed up there.

You can’t just go. You look at a map and you say, why couldn’t he do this? Because this is all desert, and all of his camels and donkeys would die, and all of his. He wouldn’t make it. So you got to go up with the river.

And so this is how he would travel and he had letters in order to make this journey. So along the way, he’s going this way, and he stops off and gets his lumber. And this took a while. And in addition, by the way, the king threw in. I forgot to mention this earlier.

The king threw in soldiers. Did you notice that? Like, he didn’t even ask for soldiers. The king threw that in. Because protection’s up to the Lord.

And so God told him, hey, throw in some soldiers. Your protection, your defender is the Lord.

Whether or not you go, whether or not you make the ask, whether or not you take the journey, that’s up to you to say yes or no to that. But your protection and your ability to overcome adversity is the Lord’s. So I came to the governor’s, and I love these names. Sanballat the Horonite, in this corner, Sanballat the Horonite. And over here, Tobiah.

But this is like, the most. I mean, like, I don’t know if the Holy Spirit has a sense of humor here or if it’s something wrong with me, but Nehemiah is Nehemiah and King Artaxerxes. Artaxerxes. But you get to these two cats, you know, like, Sanballat the Horonite, over in this corner, and over in this corner is Tobiah. The Ammonites over here, like, the bad guys have a title.

That’s how you know they’re the bad guys. These are the bad guys. They are governors of the Trans Euphrates region. And they’re ticked because they found out that the king has authorized Nehemiah to rebuild the city and this will potentially weaken their power. And they don’t like it.

It displeased them greatly. It said in verse 10. Now you have to recognize, you go back and read the book of Ezra, which is just before Nehemiah. Historically, as well as in order in the scriptures and in Ezra, some other guys. And these guys also had titles like, very similar, like Sanballat the Horonite and Tobiah the Ammonite.

And go back and read it. Ezra, chapter four. They had worked up letters to the king Artaxerxes, and he had stopped the work. So Ezra had been trying to rebuild the gates and the walls, and King Artaxerxes had stopped the work based on that previous group. So what Nehemiah got done here was he got the king to change his mind, which we miss.

If we’re not aware of Ezra, we’re involved. By the way, if we say that we want to rise up and make Room for more people to come to Jesus to come just as they are. We have awakened the one that would be against us. The minute we get that, we say we’re doing it. It awakens adversity in our city to stand against us and stop us.

And it awakens adversity even in our midst for those that aren’t trusting God to begin to be naysayers, to stop us. It always does. But we have to overcome it with the Lord’s protection. How do we do it? Ephesians says, put on the whole armor of God that you may be able to stand, not run, but to stand against the schemes of the devil.

For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood. That means the person that you think is against you, that’s not the real enemy. The real enemy is spiritual. So we don’t really wrestle. That person is not your enemy.

The evil one is the enemy. We do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places. Therefore, take up the whole army of God that you may be able to withstand in the evil day. And having done all, to stand firm. So we’re called to stand firm against adversity, to keep the course, stay the course.

And besides, Proverbs warns us that if you faint in the day of adversity, your strength is small. It’s kind of a test of your faith.

First time I went on a mission trip, I thought I had overcome the hardest part. When I’d gotten the shots, gotten my passport, raised the money from believers who supported us, and I thought, finally, I’m getting on the plane. Then we got off the plane. Well, I didn’t have to wait that long. I had to find out that just the plane trip was demanding enough, and then getting there was demanding enough.

And the first time that the team I was on went to Uganda, we hired somebody that we landed in Rwanda, and we hired a bus driver. He took us to the wrong place. So we’re there in the middle of the night at the wrong place. Border guys with AK47s. My wife is saying to me, I need to go to the bathroom.

And I’m sitting there going, I don’t want to get out of the bus now. I got to be a man and find a bathroom. Like, I looked her right in the eyes, and with all my heart, I looked her right in the eyes and I said, can you hold it?

Didn’t I? And she said, I don’t think think so. Oh man. So I go outside, it’s pitch dark. Everybody’s got AK47s.

They don’t have like signs that say men’s and women’s. I mean it’s. We’re out in the middle of nowhere on the wrong spot that we weren’t supposed to be. And I see a car parked up against the building and there’s a guy there with AK47. I said, is there a bathroom in there?

And he goes like so many shillings. I don’t have any shillings. So I go to the guy on the bus that had been there before, he gives me some shillings and the guy backs the car out. I open the door and look in there to see what I’m offering my beautiful bride that I’ve taken care of the best I can. I look in there and the stench.

There’s no light. But there’s a candle sitting on the floor and there’s a hole. And that was the bathroom. And I said, honey, found you a bathroom.

I can’t believe the pastor talked about that. Can you?

If you’re going the journey, you’re going to encounter adversity. You have to decide if you’re going to keep going. It always means surrendering and letting go of your safety and security and really, let’s be honest, your idols. Because you’re trusting your money, your possessions, your stuff more than your bank account, your job, Bob, you’re trusting that more than you do God, all of that God gave you. So you have to surrender your plans and your stuff and then you have to say, I’m going to do it.

I’m going to take the first step. But God, you need to give me favor. And then you have to be ready for adversity because adversity always comes. And you have to say, I’m going to stand firm with God’s protection. This is what it costs to rise up and make room for more people who need stories like we saw this morning on the back of the bulletin.

So I want you to be thinking about first of all your story right now. What’s your story? Do you have a God story? If I were to ask you to write down a life changing moment in your life where God moved, would you be able to boom, think of it immediately because you’ve taken a journey like Nehemiah, or would you be sitting there going, I don’t. My whole life looks like me struggling and trying to do things myself.

Wouldn’t you like to change? You don’t even have to change yourself. All you have to do Is let go and give your whole life to God. To give your whole life to Christ. I say all you have to do.

Well, that sounds like a risk. Well, it only feels like a risk. The minute he saves you, you realize, I really didn’t let go of anything. Because you never lose with God. Would you give your life to Jesus?

That’s the first step today. And then I want you to think about your willingness to rise up and see more people, have stories, God’s stories. Because people matter to God. Lost people matter to God. I think the church of Jesus is Christ’s body and it’s God’s plan for reaching planet Earth.

Touching planet Earth. I can’t think of a better investment for your life and for my life.

Let’s pray. Lord, thank youk for your word. Thank youk for Nehemiah and the leadership principles he teaches us. Lord, I pray right now for your people. First of all, I pray, Lord, that we would surrender our control and our plans and our programs.

Say, God, I want yout plan. God, I want yout power. I want to take the first step today. God, I want yout protection. Knowing that there’s already adversity.

The minute, right now, even in your mind, the minute you start thinking that you’re going to trust your life to God, you start feeling adversity, voices coming against trusting God. Friend, if you’re here this morning and you are ready to trust the Lord for your salvation, pray with me right now. That’s the first person I you want. Want to talk to. Will you pray with me, dear Lord Jesus?

Pray like that. Dear Lord Jesus, I’m a sinner. I need a Savior. I believe you died on the cross for me and that you were raised from the grave that you live today. I believe it.

Come into my life. Forgive me of my sin. Make me the person you want me to be. I want you to be my Lord and Savior. Make me a child of God.

You pray that prayer, believing the Lord will save you. Others are here today and you know him as Savior. But you’ve yet to surrender to him as Lord. You’ve yet to put him in charge. You trust him with your eternity, but you won’t trust him with your today and your tomorrow.

Right now. Open up. Surrender. Lord, all I am and all that I have is yours. Do what you would do in me and through me today.

And then I want to pray. Lord, put someone on my heart. Let me see their faces right now. People that you want me to write on this card. People that need a story, a God story.

And Lord, I pray you would save them. And I pray you’d use me to share your gospel with them. We pray in Jesus name, amen.