God, I pray that you would open our ears, open our hearts to hear your word, to learn from your scripture God as we speak through John this evening. Let us take away something that we can apply to our lives this week and for the rest of our lives in your name and prayer. Amen. Alright guys, I'm going to have a seat open up to Jeremiah, sorry, Jeremiah, Nehemiah, open up to Nehemiah chapter 2.
We are in a series in Nehemiah where he is going to the people of Jerusalem and he is trying to restore their identity in who they are in God. He's trying to restore their security. They feel like God is not there even though the reason why they are in the predicament that they are in with their gates burning down and their walls destroyed is because they disobeyed God. And so what happened was in their disobedience, they were worshiping idols, they turned their back on God and so God allowed the Assyrians and the Babylonians as the military types of stuff.
They allowed them to come and conquer the Jews and now their gates are burning, their walls are destroyed and Nehemiah hears about this 800 miles away from some of his friends that this town is destroyed. Everyone's lost hope and who God is, everyone's lost hope in their identity and who they are in God. They've lost hope in security and they lost a passion for him and Nehemiah is at a moment where he starts to ball his eyes out. He is crying like a baby because they have lost their identity in who Jesus is.
First week we talked about that, last week we talked about how he positioned himself so that he would respond in an appropriate manner and he is just praying to God. He's saying, God, I want to do something about this. I don't know what's going to happen. I don't have a vision for the future.
I don't have all the details worked out. I'm in the dark here, but I feel a vision and a call and he committed to fix it. For four months he prays over and over and over again for God to open up a door. Remember from last time he says at the very end of chapter one he says, God grant me success with the king.
For four months he prays that prayer waiting for a moment for an opportunity to open itself so that he can find favor with the king to come to a solution. Then if you remember it says that he is the cup bearer. He has access to the king. He's got an important job.
Remember last week I talked about how this was not a job that they just gave to anybody. This was a job for people that had the highest integrity, that people who were trustworthy, that people who were in the king's presence almost 24-7. This was a very important job. Now what I want us to do, and where we're going with this today is just simply this.
Today is about courage. We're going to see in a moment the type of people that God uses, but it's all going to come back to courage. Nia Maya was a man who had courage to take an opportunity that he prayed for. He prayed for four long months and now that an door has opened even though there was a lot of fear, a lot of anxiety, even the details weren't set out yet.
He steps out in faith and we see him take an opportunity and God gives him favor when he takes that opportunity because of his trust and who God is. We're going to see just four categories today when you have courage, the type of people God can use. When you have the courage to step out, we're going to see that God can use people who seem like they're disposable. He can use people who feel like the world is in chaos and in great distress.
He uses people who humble themselves and he uses people who value the team and value the people around them. If you have your bottles, open up. Nia Maya, chapter two. You don't have your bottles.
It's okay. We'll go there. You don't have to go there first one. Nia Maya, we're just going to...
that was out of order for me. Here we go. Let's go to verse one. In the month of Nissan, that's not the car.
This is a place. Well, it's a month at the time. In the 12th year, King Art Exorcis, which by the way means highest ruler. This was not his name.
It just means the highest ruler. When wine was before him, Nia Maya took up the wine and gave it to the king. Now look at this last section here. It says, now I had not been sad in his presence.
The king said to me, why is your face sad? Seeing you are not sick. This is nothing but sadness of the heart. Let's just stop there for a moment.
King notices that Nia Maya is in great distress. You put a point up there, and I got to use people who are in distress. Even though Nia Maya is greatly sad, sad enough for everyone to see, God still uses him because he has a courage to follow through. Now, I love this here because there's actually a lot going on.
One, we don't have kings and queens and the kind of stuff in the United States. Even with the royal wedding this past weekend. Things are a little bit different now in today's century. For example, back in this time, you could be killed and be headed for being sad in the presence of the king.
Why? Well, because the king is the most powerful person. And you're supposed to be giving him what? Bubbly, right?
You're supposed to give him wine. Imagine you're out. This is a matter for a moment. You're out.
Maybe you're at your favorite chicken and waffle place or something like that. Ours is in Lexington, Virginia. Best chicken and waffles of all time. Say we're at the Southern Comfort Inn.
We go there and my waiter, I'm like, I would love. I'm like, the best chicken and waffles. And she's like, okay, I'll bring him to you. And then the waiter comes in and she just like throws it, right?
Here, here's your stuff. Or she's sad and crying while she's giving me. You think that's going to ruin the vibe on date night? Right?
If you have a bad, waiter or a bad server or somebody who's just crying all the time? Right? It was a crime to be sad because what? The king is with the queen.
They're supposed to be popping some bubbly. They're supposed to be having a good time. And yet, Nehemiah walks in. And this is the first time in four months that he's sad in front of the presence of the king.
This tells me something. He hit it for four months. He is with the king every day and says, this is the first time I had been sad. He is so distressed at this point after four months.
Four months of praying, God, when's the opportunity? When are you going to open up the door? When am I going to find the courage to actually ask the king for a favor here? When is it?
And for four months, it doesn't happen. And finally, the grief and the distress is so much that he cannot help. But have it on his face. And the king says, dude, why are you so sad?
Now, four months doesn't seem like a long time. But in biblical terms, that's not if you think about the story of Abraham, he had to wait 25 years for the sun that got promised him. And when he gave him the promise, he was already like 90 something. So he was like 125 by the time, you know, or something like that by the time he actually had a kid.
So in all purposes, four months is pretty short. But I think you and I identified with Nehemiah the four months seems long. Why? Because we don't like to wait.
We are not a waiting culture. But what we have to remember is that it's better to trust God's timing when he's going to handle it and open up the door than to create our own. See, it's better to wait four months. It's better to wait 25 years for God to open up a door and to answer our prayers than to try and force something on our own.
When we try to force something on our own, we're just going to be left in disappointment. Why? Because we're trusting in ourselves and we're not trusting in God's timing. And so Nehemiah four months are in, he's greatly distressed.
And then look at what he says next. He says, then I was very much afraid. I was very much afraid. It's not that he was just sad.
He was afraid. Again, that could be he was afraid because he didn't want to die. Right? It could be that he was afraid because this was a major ask.
Right? This was a major moment of courage and he's afraid to step into it. But I think predominantly I think he's afraid because if this goes badly, he'll probably lose his position. He'll probably lose his job making a request like this from the king.
See, God can even use people who seem like they're disposable. That's point number two. He feels like in this moment his career, even his life is disposable. He feels like his job could be lost.
That there is nothing that he can do. It's out of his hands and he is disposable. And yet God still is going to use him and he has the courage to step into it. Now, I'm just going to say this as a blanket statement, but I think it qualifies as true.
God often asks us to do something that we don't want to do. There's oftentimes something in our life that God is that we have the Holy Spirit convicts us of that we don't actually want to do. That could be stepping on in faith and extending kindness to a relative or someone that has broken our trust. And we're afraid to make that step.
It could be someone who needs to forgive that eternal. It could be that you're new to church and scared to step out and get involved because that's maybe a fear that you've never been in before. You've never been in, for example, a small church like this where, listen, everyone knows everybody, right? Have you ever seen cars?
You guys seen other movie cars. You guys remember that movie? Remember the moment when you have visitors like that come down the well rate to go see the springs area? And they're like, oh, there's people that freak out.
Remember that moment? No? You guys need to watch it again. It's a great moment.
That's what it's like when you have a small church and visitors come. It's like, oh my gosh, this is a very memorable person. Here's the reality. A lot of people like big churches because the fear factor is not there because they can kind of blend in for a little while.
In a small church like this, guess what? You're here so that we can know you and you can know us. But it can be scary coming to a church and not really knowing the church or not knowing the vibe of the church or not having that as your normal backdrop of life. And you might be afraid.
But God might be saying, you know, you need to step out and get involved. There may be someone in your life that the Lord has just said, you need to share the message of Jesus that he came and died for your sin and my sin without person. You've been putting it off because you're afraid. You're afraid maybe.
A relationship would end. Maybe you're afraid of some other things, but God will often ask you to do something. And to be honest with you, the fact that you may be afraid is probably a good indication that God is actually calling you to do it because that means it's outside of your hands. I really believe that God calls us to do things that we can't accomplish on our own.
Do you think that Amber and I just decided, hey, we're going to start a church in Washington, DC by ourselves? No. God gave us a vision. And through his provision, he gave us staff members and he gave us support to be able to start doing this type of stuff.
And he started pulling things together. It's nothing because of what Amber and I did. It's because we just prayed and said, you know, God, we are going to have courage. Even though we're afraid of what's ahead of us.
Even though we don't know how to support our family. Even though we don't know what's going to look like. Even if it's slow process, we are going to trust you. We're going to have courage to go.
And to be honest with you, DC was last place on our list. We didn't want to move here. But God, and it's, we want to go to Salt Lake City. Why?
Because it's beautiful there. Okay? Beautiful weather, beautiful mountains. It's just great.
But God called us to DC. Why? Because you knew this is where we needed to be. And when we had courage and we caught the vision of what God was doing, it was undeniable.
And when you step into that, God does great things. Amber and I were watching Psych the other day. He got us in a psych. He quoted a movie on there.
I went to go look it up just to figure out the movie. The movie was called, was, we bought a zoo. You guys ever heard of that? We bought a zoo, Matt Damon.
Okay. So, in we bought a zoo. Matt Damon basically takes his two kids. They buy a rundown, rusted out zoo.
And he tries in an effort to build up family relationship, tied better into his family. He's like, let's do the impossible thing and rebuild a zoo. And in it, there's a moment, and I can totally relate to this. There's a moment where his son is like, so dad, I like this girl, but I'm nervous and I'm embarrassed.
And I don't know how to ask her out on the date. I haven't even been there before. Just me. I guess I'm the only one who got nervous like that back in the day.
But listen, he tells his son, all you need is 20 seconds of insane courage. And something amazing could happen. It made me think about Amber and I's first, kind of the moment I ask Amber out. So, traditionally, I'd only ever dated girls that I met.
I met that new, like me and friends of mine. Amber was a first girl. I ever asked out on a whim. Okay?
Did it know her? Okay? I knew her name. And we went to a Super Bowl party once and talked for like 20 minutes and that was about it.
And one day, we were watching a beard growing contest. It was called Whisper Wars. It was about the world championships of beard growing, which was really cool. They have a lot of cool designs for beards.
She came over, my friend Virginia, my neighbor was over. We were watching this beard growing contest. Amber comes on over. And then at night as a gentleman that I was, it was dark outside.
So I'll just walk you to your car. You know, whatever. So I walk into her car. In my head, I'm thinking to myself, don't do it.
Don't ask her out. Okay? It's too nerve-racking. I don't know her.
Why would she say yes to me? She doesn't know who I am. And I'm walking her to her car in a dark parking lot, which is super creepy. That's all going on in my mind.
So I walk her up to the car. She gets in. I'm probably about awkwardly 15, 20 feet away. I didn't get the door for her.
I'm like 20 feet away just so I can see her. And she's halfway in the car. Okay? She's like this.
And I just, in a moment of blind courage, I go, do you want to get some coffee sometime? It was that fast. Like, just want to get some coffee? Right?
My voice cracked. It was awful. It was super embarrassing. And she looked at me like, you know, deer and headlights.
And she goes, okay. And then she got there and I was like, okay, this is great. 20 seconds of courage with a girl that I never knew ended up with a great marriage. Two kids.
And if you hadn't seen it, a new sweet minivan out in that parking lot of people. Now I'm a minivan driver. But here's the deal. Neomiah is in a place where everything is fearful.
He needs the courage to step forward with the opportunity that God's giving him. And he's afraid. He's sad. He's distressed.
He's afraid. He feels like he can lose his job. The problem is if he doesn't go through with it, one of the greatest stories will be lost. How God rebuilds his people.
You'd be surprised how many people God calls to do great things. And yet it never happens because they just stopped short because they're too afraid. I guarantee you at some point in your life that it's not now, it'll be in the future that God's going to call you to do something. He's going to give you a vision to do something.
It might be just right now sin. You know, there's a sin in your life that you know is keeping you back from your relationship with God. And you need the courage to step forward. Or it could be something like something like the first week starting a nonprofit or something like that.
Like something big. But whatever it is, God is going to give you this vision. And I don't want you to miss out on what God wants you to do all because you're afraid. If God wants it to happen, he will make it happen, which we'll see in a moment.
So let's look at verse 3. It says, I said to the king, let the king live forever. This is actually a good thing because let's just be honest that the king goes down. So does he, right?
When the king gets removed from his throne, his whole entire trustworthy staff gets killed too. So they poison not only the king, but he's the cup bearer. He's trying the wine before the king and queen. So he dies too.
So I hope the king lives long. And then he says, verse 3. It says, why should my face not be sad when the city, the place my fathers, graves, lies and ruins, its gates have been destroyed by fire. Then the king said to me, why are you requesting?
So I prayed to the God of heaven. So the king says, why are you so sad? Nehemiah says, not the king live forever. And then he says, why shouldn't I be so sad?
He takes the step of courage and says, this is why I'm sad because my place where I was born, but my family resides, where everyone is, it's in shambles, it is burning as we speak. And so the king just says, okay, what do you want? How can I help you? And before Nehemiah answers, he does something that is, I think truly remarkable.
He remembers God one more time. See, Nehemiah had been praying for four months. This opportunity opened. I don't think any of us would make him feel guilty for then just going straight into asking, right?
For four months of prayer and finally getting opportunity. But no, he stops and he says one more prayer. Now we don't know what that is, but I bet it was short. So there wasn't an awkward silence and I bet it was something like this.
God help me. Simple as that. God, see me through this. And then he takes the courage and he says this in verse 5.
It says to the king, if it pleases the king, if your servant has found favor in your sight, then send me to Judah to the city of my fathers, graves, then I may rebuild it. This is a very important part for those of us who are employed. Talked about this a little bit last week. The character integrity that you have in your job now will likely help you in the future.
See, he just says, king, if you're happy with me, if you trust me with all that I've done, being a part of your staff, being your cupbearer, if you trust me and you've found favor, if I found favor in your sight, it's a really smart thing to do by the way. Maybe next time you ask for something, maybe you lead out with, hey, you know that I'm responsible, right? You might actually get what you want. What's the same?
And then it says here, verse 6, and the king said to me, the queen sitting beside him, how long will you be gone and when will you return? So please the king to send me when I had given him a time. The third person that God uses is a person who makes a plan. Okay?
It's a person who makes a plan. We say here that it says it's a king, but please the king, we'll get to that in a second. So he makes a plan. With this question, the amaya comes forward with a plan.
Listen, you're not more spiritual than somebody else because you just say I trust in the spirit. One time I was working at a conference and there was another speaker that was there and I was like, hey bro, so what are you speaking on tonight? I don't know. What do you mean you don't know?
Man, I just get up there and pray and whatever comes out of my mouth. That's what the spirit's telling me to say. And I was like, okay, I said, do you think the spirit uses other people to maybe help you? You know, just died?
Like what you might be doing? He said, yeah, I believe that the spirit is telling me. I said, well, the spirit's telling you to study, right, bro. Like that's not okay for you to just walk up there.
Why? Because I believe that the Lord really does benefit and love those who make a plan. Now we hold on to it loosely because God's in control and we're not. But if you look at the Bible, is it a plan?
Absolutely. God is not a God who just goes by the seat of his pants. You see in Genesis, him creating the world and having a plan. When mankind fell, guess what?
God had. He had a plan, right? When Israel walked away from him, what did he do? He had a plan to redeem them, right?
When something tragic happens in our life, guess what? God is not surprised. He has a plan. He tells us that there is a plan for all of those who love him.
So even when things happen in our lives that are crazy, that are when we're distressed, when we're sad, when we're fearful, guess what? We believe in a God who has a plan. God is not somebody who just says, well, we'll see how this turns out. If that was a case, he would be like mankind.
Because all of us at the end of the day, we can't know the future, but God does, and so he can have a plan. He can orchestrate things in our life. That's what it means when he says he's sovereign. He's in control and he can put things in our path and he can also take things away for us to grow in our relationship with him according to his plan.
And so the king is favor over Nehemiah because Nehemiah says, listen, I've got a plan here. This is how long I'm going to be gone. And I said to the king, if it pleases the king, that letters be given to the governors of the province beyond the river, that I might pass through it. And a letter to Asath, the keeper of the kings for us, that he may give me timber to make beams.
Look at this, this is just crazy. Nehemiah is going for it, people. Not only did he say, can I just go back? All he's got in clearance for right now is to go back to Jerusalem and try and rebuild.
He only got a vacation. He got like a six month year long vacation. That's all he's been cleared for right now by the king. And then he says, can I also get safe passations?
It's 800 miles away. Oh yeah, and can you supply the whole entire venture? Can you give me all the materials that I need, all the timber that I need to get it accomplished? Just think about how crazy this is.
I mean, he is having some serious courage here. And look what he says at the end of this. He says, I'm the king granted me what I asked for. Why?
Well, the king liked me. No. My plan was that good. No.
He says he gave it to me. Why? For the good hand of God was upon me. See, if God has given you a vision to do something, if God has given you a goal, if God has said this is what I want you to do, there's something you can rely on.
And then you can say this, then when you pray and take courage and trust in him, guess what happens? Not only do you get the time to be able to do it. But when you ask in faith, sometimes you get everything supplied for. Now, this is not a prosperity thing, right?
Like where you just say, if I pray for this, well, Lamborghini, I'm going to get her. That's not what this is about. It's about having faith when God gives you a vision. And I only know what's from my story and from Abraham and I saw it.
When we set out to do the church plant, we needed to raise like $80,000 just for the first year, just for us to be able to move and get things set up and travel to fundraise. That's a lot of money, people. And guess what? We prayed.
We asked God to provide. And before I lifted a finger, just send any letters out for support. The Lord already brought that $80,000. Now, I'm not saying that this is how we're saying every case.
All I'm saying is when God gives you a vision and you take the courage, and God wants you there, He'll get you there. And sometimes He'll even provide people to come alongside of you to get you there. When we had to support Bunray for this church over that year, we just prayed, God, God, God, please give us the finances so that we can move into DC and just start a great, amazing movement of God. Guess what?
In a year, the Lord brought 17 churches that helped support Mercy Hill and a host of individuals. And in one week, we're going to start a summer. We're going to have 250 volunteers from those churches coming into DC to serve our community here. See, that's what God does when you take courage.
If so many years ago, probably four or five years ago when Abraham first got the vision, we said, man, this is too difficult. We're too afraid. There's too many unknowns. None of us would be sitting here right now.
We wouldn't have seen a lot of light changing people's lives. We wouldn't have seen people come to know Jesus as their Savior. We wouldn't have seen a community that told us a couple of weeks ago that if we were gone, they would notice, which is a huge deal because there's a lot of churches that if they got up and moved, no one would care. But this neighborhood says, man, we care about you guys being here.
Just think about what God can do when you take courage to step forward. It's a beautiful, beautiful thing. So God uses people when they make a plan and trust Him. Now we're going to pick up and go to the very end, okay?
Or the very end of the chapter. He has gone, he's traveled, he's gotten to Jerusalem, he's checked it out by himself, he's looked. Verse 17, then I said to them, you see the trouble we are in, how Jerusalem lies and ruins with its gates burned? Come, let us build, circle us if you like to circle your Bible.
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 has been upon me for good and also of the words that the king had spoken to me, and they said to me, look at this, let us rise and build, so they strengthened their hands for the good work. Let's stop right there. Point number four is that God uses people who value teamwork, value the team.
Nehemiah knew he could not do this by himself. And so he goes to Jerusalem, he travels there and with a certain amount of Israelites and Jewish people, those who have come back to the city, those who are living in the shambles right now, he casts this vision. Look how beautiful this can be. If you and I can work together, if you and I can join arms and strengthen our arms for God, and what God is doing, look what he can build here.
He can build up Jerusalem back again where we get to worship God and serve people and love people. Look how amazing this could be. If you and I would just partner together, if we would work together to accomplish this goal and unanimously, outside of two people, outside of two people, the rest of them say, yes, let us go and let us build. If God has given you a vision for something, I guarantee you, he wants it to be in cooperation with somebody else.
I really believe God gives us dreams and visions and goals in our lives that one are too big for us because we need God, but they're also too big for us because we need other people. We cannot do this by ourselves. It's the value of community. When we go through difficult situations that were confused and distressed, guess what?
We need other people. We need Godly people. When God gives us a vision to start a nonprofit, when God gives us a vision to talk with somebody about Jesus, when God gives us a vision for whatever it is in our lives, even to fight sin in our lives, and to grow in our relationship with God, God says you need to do it with people. If you want God to build in your life and build into other people's lives, you need the other people there to do it with.
But you're always going to have haters. It's like I was 19. But when San Ballot, the Huron Knight, and to Bia, the Ammonite servant, and Gesheem the Arab heard of it, they jeered at us and despised us and said, what is this thing that you're doing? And then they're like, are you rebelling against the king?
Why? Well, because Jerusalem was known to be this powerhouse nation at one point. And now Nehemiah leaves the king to rebuild this once great city. It's kind of looks like a revolt happening.
This is a lot of trust that the king is giving Nehemiah here. But I love this. Look at verse Nehemiah. He said this a few times already.
He says, the God of heaven will make us prosper. And we are His servants will arise and build. I love this. But you will have no portion or right or claim in Jerusalem.
I love this. He says, listen, you don't want to miss out. If you're not on board with us one day, God's going to do something amazing here. If you're against us now, you're not going to have any portion of this.
You're not going to be able to partner with us now to do this ministry. Guess what? You're not going to partner with us now? You won't be able to sense the joy of it coming to fruition.
At the end of it, you can't say, look what we did. Why? Because you were a hater from the beginning. You were a negative Nancy.
You can't really have joy in what we're doing if you're on the outside, always talking bad about it. It says, you either come with us now and what God is doing, what we've seen him provide and push for and orchestrate. Or when this thing finally happens and you can move on. Because God is going to build something with His people who trust in Him.
Today is all about courage. Nehemiah had the courage to not only include a team, not only to make a plan, but he had courage when he felt like his job was in jeopardy. He had courage when his life was in jeopardy. He had courage to step out and ask the king.
He had courage when he was an ultimate distress. The God could still use him. God could still make a way. God still can open up opportunity for his good to accomplish here on this earth.
So I'm praying as we continue in this study in Nehemiah, the God would give us courage. Not only for this church. I think there's a lot of symbolism and a lot of metaphors that we can probably take from Nehemiah and attribute it to us. We're a small family here who wants to create something beautiful.
I can't tell you for many years I was trying to cast vision for people and say, look what God can do in DC if we just loved one another, serve one another, teach God's word and it was just there for one another and build something beautiful. And I can't tell you how many people I had like the Amorites who said, what are you really doing? No, you can't do that. But guys, I have seen God move.
I have seen God build. This time last year it was me, Amber, Alicia and Will, that was it. God is growing and God is moving. God is getting us favor.
And so I like this, ask you, will you come and build or rise and build? Let's move and do something great with our lives and take courage. And when we see God move, guess what? It gives us confidence so that when something comes in your life that you say, I think God's calling me to do this.
Then guess what? You ready to look back on our church that everyone said, that probably won't succeed? And you can say, look what God can do. I know he can do this.
And that gives you more courage and more faith to move over when he opens up opportunities. Again, he doesn't do this just for our sake just so that we can be successful or we can grow or we can do any of this. He does it because he wants his name made famous. Nehemiah, again, remember, he is only doing this to restore people's faith and love and hope in Jesus.
That is our goal. And that should be your goal. It's that when you live your life and you take opportunities and you trust and have courage and God as a God, may you get the glory and not me. That's how God works in this world.
And I cannot wait to see what God does with you. And I can't wait to see what God does with this church. And I can't wait to see what God is going to do with Nehemiahiah in this series. And we've got about 10 weeks left, what Nehemiah is going to do and accomplish is going to be great.
Let's pray. Lord, we love you. We're grateful. God, give us courage.
Give us courage to take the steps.