There's no place we can hide from you, God, and that you're there always providing and giving us an opportunity to know you or God to share you with others. I pray that as John speaks tonight that we will all take something away to apply to our lives throughout this week and the rest of our lives in your name. I pray. Amen.
Well, thank you. Ben, thanks for playing the cajon. You crushed it way better than what I do. Okay.
So just such as a best cajon play, not mercy hill church has seen ever in its life. So thank you. Yeah, my name is John Lee pastor here. I have so many of you here.
You have your Bibles opened up to Nehemiah. It's in the Old Testament. We're in a series called Nehemiah where we're just going through the book and we're looking at Nehemiah's life and we're looking at his story. Now Nehemiah is a man who had a pretty impossible task.
He had a vision to rebuild the identity and purpose and passion back into the people of God when they were in a broken down state. The walls are breaking down the gates were on fire. It was a very, very bad moment for the people of God and Nehemiah has this burden to go and not just build the walls back and build security back into the people. But he goes to really focus on building up the community.
And so we see him stepping out in faith and trusting God. We see him praying for four months and then the king gives him everything he needs to do to accomplish the project. And then we see when his opposers come, we see him a rooting firm in the vision that God has given him and he is just stepping out and faith over and over and over again. And then we talked about last week that Nehemiah is focused on not again, not just building security but taking care of the people within its walls.
And so we see him concerned about the poor. We see him concerned about injustice that was being done in chapter five. And last week was great. We got to kick off kind of our vision for the summer focusing on international justice mission and our freedom Sunday that we're going to be celebrating in September.
So we got to focus on taking care of the people that are around us. And so we talked about how the church is not really a church unless it's taking care of the poor and the needy. And so we were just excited to see that he is more focused than just building identity. He's really focused on building a community of people who love one another.
Now we're in chapter six. And really this week couldn't have been a better week for this to end up talking about it with what happened this past week. It was a really saddening week. We had two celebrities and this seems when celebrities do something gets more noticed.
But we had Kate Spade and Bourdain, Anthony Bourdain commit suicide. And in some of the news articles that I was reading this week, they talked about how, you know, like it is depression and mental health issues often don't discriminate. And they come in all sorts of different ways. And even when someone has a million people around them, they can still feel alone.
And so it was really interesting because before any of that happened, the Lord had led me to focus on the sermon on mental health issues, particularly. And the main point for tonight is going to be this, that Satan will do whatever he can to separate you from others. In scripture, whenever you see someone about to take a pitfall, it's normally when Satan has taken them away from the security that they haven't got and security and encouragement they have with other people. And so that's what we're going to be focusing on today.
So that's the main point that I want us to address. But before we go in there, I wanted to dig through an illustration in my own life that I can kind of share what this looks like in life when we're separated from other people. I'm sure there's moments in my life as someone who does suffer from depression where emotionally and relationally I felt separated. But a physical separation story came to mind that I thought was pretty funny and I thought would illustrate this well.
When I was in high school, I lived in Florida and we loved wakeboarding. And you guys wakeboarded at all? You guys have a lot of lakes in Arkansas? Yeah.
In Turkey? Yeah. Well, for a lot. Well, listen, I didn't really like wakeboarding.
I like kneeboarding and tubing and all that kind of stuff. But some offensive, hey, let's go wakeboarding this weekend. I said, all right, if I have to, maybe I'll just go on the boat. I'll drive and you guys can wakeboard.
So they kind of convinced me through some threats and some compromise that make me go along within that weekend. And really, it really came down to I don't want to go because of the lake we were going to. It was the largest lake, which means one, it was usually pretty busy. Second of all, it was massive and it was super murky.
So it was dirty. There was algae and seaweed everywhere. And it was pretty disgusting. Okay.
Every time I went in there, I prayed I didn't get bacteria infection or something. It was really, really gross. And also, those homes to snakes, alligators, I kind of stuff. I didn't like this lake.
But I went anyways, even though I shouldn't have, but I went. So here we are. Six guys were on the weather, win this boat. And they convinced me to go first.
They're like, you've never gone before. So you're probably going to take the most time. So let's get out of the boat. So I jump out of the boat and I strap on the lake board and I'm waiting for them to pull the boat around so I can grab the rope.
When all I hear is someone in the boat say, we've got a huge problem. And then I just heard the one word I needed to hurt here. And he said, plug. He forgot to plug the boat.
Now, if you're a birding people, you know that if you don't plug a boat, what's going to happen? It's going to sink. And so they have been driving when they're out there on this boat, and without plugging this boat. And he just says this.
He looks at me and goes, we'll be right back. Right? They didn't be in my back. All right?
You're trying to keep a boat from sinking. Your dad's boat from sinking. Right? That's why the hit boat.
He's only like 17. Right? So he goes. He just leaves me in the middle of this lake.
Right? So I'm there. It's been about 30 minutes. Okay?
It's 30 minutes. I'm in this lake. My hands are starting to get pruning. I'm starting to get cold, right?
Because even though it's Florida, when you're sitting water that long, you get a little chilly. And then paranoia starts to sink in. You know, like when is the moment something's going to attack me in this water? Because I'm just waiting.
Right? You've ever seen blue sea on like Netflix? It's pretty dangerous. Okay?
It's super scary. So it gets worse though. So I'm waiting in this water. The paranoia is building up.
And while we're off in the distance, like a normal summer, sunny day in Florida, if instantly turns into a thunderstorm. And I see this massive crackle of lightning and a boom of thunder. And then I see the well of water just break loose. And it is inching its way towards me.
So I'm sitting in this lake too far to swim to any of the shores. And I was like right in the middle with this water coming at me. I started getting my face. And then it's just awful.
And then it gets worse. Okay? I look over to my right. And guess what I see?
A pair of green eyes. It's an alligator. I look over to my left. Where do I see?
Another pair of green eyes. It's another alligator. And I start freaking out people. But it gets worse.
At that moment, I feel another thing. Only could be described as what feels like a log hitting my back. And there's an alligator right behind me. Rubbing at scales against my back.
And I am freaking out. Now, obviously I'm here standing before you. So I didn't get eaten. But in that moment, here's what was happening.
I was thinking to myself, okay? I've watched too many CSI episodes to know when a gator eats you, they can't identify the body. So I'm going to be missing for the rest of my life. That's what I'm thinking in my head.
And the reason why I tell you the story, by God's grace, they came and they rescued me from the gators. But here's the deal. I ended up in a dangerous situation because I got separated from other people. Now, no one starts out thinking that they're going to end up alone in life.
No one does. But sometimes it just happens. For example, sometimes it happens when someone's stupid in their life. There's something stupid like, forget the plug about.
And we end up alone. Right? I've never felt that way. Maybe one of your friends or someone has done something and you feel like now there's a barrier between you and them.
Because they do things. Sometimes it's not even malicious things. They just make mistakes and it causes barriers and you find yourself alone. Sometimes it's just life.
You can't stop the summer rains and for it. Right? Coming at you. Sometimes there are things in our life that just happen and we end up getting separated from other people.
And then there are sometimes where people do malicious things to us. Like those gators. They're out for an attack. And that can separate us from other people.
And I really believe Satan uses all three of those things to make sure that we are not in fellowship with other people who think and act like us. Mainly people who love God and love his word. See, Satan knows that if he can separate you from other people, you're going to be more prone to sin in your life. You're going to be more prone to forget that God is good in your life and you're going to be more prone to be a danger to yourself.
And so as we look at Nehemiah, he's going to experience an attack on him that is going to try and separate him from the other people of God. And what I want us to do is just look at the tactics that Satan uses to do this. Now Satan's going to use people. He's going to use circumstances.
He's going to use things that are out of our control to do these things. But he is very, very cunning. And he has the same strategies he's used on Nehemiah to take him away from other people. He uses today on us.
And so let's look at this in Nehemiah chapter 6 verse 1. When word came to sin valid and to buy it and get in the Arab and the rest of our enemies that have rebuilt the wall and not a gap was left in it, up to that time I had not set the doors in the gates. So in valid and get him sent me a message. Come let us meet together in one of the villages on the plane of, oh no, now stop right there for a second.
These guys, two chapters earlier, were trying to develop a military attack on Jerusalem. These are not good people. These are people who want to see Nehemiah dead and they send him a message. Hey, why don't you come over here?
All right, why don't you leave Jerusalem and we see here that the wall's been rebuilt, right? The wall, there's no gap in it. Why don't you leave your security and come to me? So then he says, but they were scheming to harm me.
So Nehemiah knew this. So I sent messengers to them with this reply. I'm carrying on a great project and cannot go down. Why should the work stop while I leave it and go down to you?
Four times a day, they sent me the same message and each time I gave them the same answer. What we have here is unrelenting people trying to take Nehemiah from their security and that is Satan's first strategy. It's this. He wants to draw us out from where we feel secure.
He wants to draw us out. The message looks fairly innocent that Nehemiah gets. Hey, why don't we just get together and talk? It's fairly innocent here in the text.
But Nehemiah knows that if he goes to, oh no, that he would end up dead. He knows what they're scheming. He knows what they're doing. And what Satan wants to do is he wants to take us away from his word.
He wants to take us away from our security. Remember what Jerusalem represents here? It represents the worship of God, the fellowship of God. And so what Tabbalah and all these other guys are trying to do is what they're trying to do is they're trying to take Nehemiah and say, why don't you leave the security that you have and who God is and the security that you have in his word?
Why don't you just deviate from that moment and why don't you come over here whether it's less secure? And so they're trying to pull. Satan's trying to pull them away from God's love and God's plan for them. He's trying to take them away so that they feel that he is alone, that he is in isolation.
I assume that him traveling to a place where there was no other Israelites, he would be by himself. See, loneliness and being alone is very strategic for Satan because he knows that you have no one to give you encouragement, no one to give you support and no one to watch your back. This week, just because of all that has happened, you know, suicide and depression has come to a highlight. I was doing some research and found that in 2016, 43,000 Americans committed suicide.
Most of them were teens. It's about 121 people every day. It's about one person every 12 minutes. What's more saddening, and I think this is the really thing that hit me the most, is that within the LGBTQ community, there are seven more times likely to commit suicide.
That statistic should cause our hearts to break and to have compassion and love and care for them, even if you disagree about their lifestyle. The problem is if we allow our disagreement with the lifestyle, cloud, compassion, love and concern and empathy, we're not actually acting like Jesus, we're acting like a Pharisee. And given just, you know, personally where we live in DC and all the events that go on, it's one of those things where I believe as followers of Jesus as the church, we need to start having empathy and care and love and compassion. Jesus shared multiple times in the Bible how you may disagree with somebody on a personal life decision or personal life action, but you at the same time can love them and care for them and try to be in their life to lead them in better ways.
And to love them and to show empathy and compassion. We see Jesus doing this, but this issue of depression and this issue of mental health and this issue of suicide is one of those things where the church shouldn't be silent about the hope of Jesus that we have. I read a few articles this week that suggested that churches do very little for suicide and depression. We harp on all these other issues in life, but when it comes to emotional health, we kind of, mental health, we kind of spread away from it because we don't know what to do.
That's why I'm grateful for churches that are starting counseling ministries and those sorts of things. But we have to really look at this and say, you know, where's the attack from Satan here that 15% of the American nation suffers from depression? What is Satan doing here that he's causing this type of depression, this loneliness that unfortunately and devastatingly ends with people taking their own life? And I think it's because Satan knows how effective being lonely is.
I've been lonely before. It's likely you've felt lonely before. Some of you may have depression on a regular basis like I do, but there's a hope that we have from scripture that we can, you know, we can, you know, be a little bit more. That we can get up and have hope in everlasting love and enjoy that we can have in Jesus, even when we feel like our days are terrible.
What I do toonomy 31, it says that Lord himself goes before you and will be with you. He will never leave you nor forsake you. Do not be afraid. Do not be discouraged.
What he's talking about here is that God himself knows exactly what lies ahead in front of you. There's nothing that surprises him. On the day that you get up and you're so depressed, you don't want to get out of bed. When you get up and you're so depressed, you really believe that it would be better not to live anymore.
God knows what's going on in your heart and he says, do not be discouraged. He knows exactly what's going on. He says, I'm never going to forsake you. I'm never going to leave you.
The confidence that we can have in our relationship with God is that when everyone else has left us, God will never leave us. Look at Psalm 34. The righteous cry out. The Lord hears them.
He delivers them from all their troubles. It's beautiful to know that when we place our faith and trust in who God is, when we're in those moments of discouragement, when we're in those moments where we just need to cry out, guess what? God hears you. There's another moment where you cry out and God doesn't hear you.
That is a beautiful truth that we can take with us, knowing that no matter how bad things get, there's someone who's not only there for us, but there's someone who hears us. That's the hope that we have in God, but we also have a mandate and a hope in the body of Christ. Look at Ephesians 6, 18. It says, praying in all times in the spirit without prayer and supplications.
Look at this. To that end, keep alert with all perseverance. Making supplication for all the saints. This is one of a number of passages about what we call interceding prayer, inter-sessional prayer.
This is the type of prayer that when someone is too weak or too hurt to offer a prayer to God, we come around them and offer it for them. I often see this with people who have lost, particularly parents who have lost the child. It is devastating. And there's so much anguish and so much pain.
Or maybe it might be someone that we know personally and they just died too young. This gets, happens a lot where we are just too physically weak and too angry or too much in anguish, where we can't even pray to God. And that's when God says, that's why you need the people of God. That's why you needed to have them come around you and to pray on your behalf.
What's a shame is that oftentimes see people who, when they need the Christian church the most, they actually leave it. And when they feel like their marriage is about to crumble, they feel like, you know what? We can't show our face at church when the reality is. That's exactly where you need to be learning from God and allowing other Christian couples to encourage you.
When we're in moments where we can't pray, we need other people who can pray for us. We need other people who we can trust who can be there for us. That's why Christian community is so important. If you live long enough, you'll have something happen in your life where you will need someone to come beside you and pray for you.
And to encourage you and to support you. That's why it's extremely important. And so we see Satan, what he's trying to do, he's trying to pull me and my out so that he's alone. And we can pat this strategy by not only finding our strength in God, but we also find it in developing a network of other believers.
That's what we call the Christian church. We hear youth ministries. When something happens, you should be having good relationships in there with other Christians. So when something happens in your life, you can call up to three other people and say, can you pray for me?
I can't do it. We can be honest enough and say, you know what, right now I'm angry at God. Well, right now I'm in too much anguish to pray. Can you pray for me?
We need those types of people in our lives. That's what the church is. That's what the people have got are there for. If you need a good resource, if you're someone who does struggle with mental issues like depression or something else and you need some help, there's a website called recklesslyalive.com, the Christian organization.
That might be good to take down. They do seminars, they do conferences, they do studies, they have books and that kind of stuff that can really help you if this is the battle of yours. But now that you feel a part of Mercy Hill Church, that Amber and I's door is always open and there are always there for you if you struggle with this. We'd be happy to talk with you just as we're open to talking about our struggles as well.
All right, there's five. Then the fifth time, some ballots sent his aid to me with the same message and in the sand was un-upgush. In the sand was unsealed letter in which was written. It is reported among the nations and Geshim says it's true.
Geshim the one who's trying to kill Nehemiah, right? That you and the Jews are prodding to revolt and therefore you are building the wall. Moreover, according to these reports, you're about to become their king and have even appointed prophets to make this proclamation about you. In Jerusalem, there is a king in Judah.
Now this report will get back to the king. So come, let us meet together. You know what's happening here? He's blackmailing Nehemiah.
That's what's happening here people. But look at how Nehemiah responds. I send him this reply. Nothing like what you are saying is happening.
You are just making it up out of your head. Now that we're trying to frighten us thinking that their hands will be too weak for the work and it will not be completed. Look at this. I'll look.
I prayed. Now strengthen my hands. See if the enemy cannot take you away from the city, what he's going to do next? He's going to destroy your character and credibility so that no one wants to be in your corner.
See what's happening here? He goes to me and I says, listen, I've got a letter here that says that you are trying to take over. Right? Nehemiah had just become governor of this area so he's on the rise, right?
He's climbing the totem pole. He says, I've got a letter here that I'm the sense of the king that says you're trying to be your own king. And guess what? The king who is in your corner who allowed you to do this?
Guess what? He's not going to be in your corner anymore. Have you ever had somebody in Mid-Law or make something up that wasn't true just to get some friends to ditch you or to move to another side? That's what's happening here.
Satan doesn't want you to be with anybody. He wants you to be a mom. And so if he can't hurt you, what he's going to do is he's going to attack who you are as a person in your credibility. Did you know that the fastest way to win a court case is to show that the main witness is untrustworthy?
Even if their area of their life has nothing to do with the court case? If you can prove that they're corrupt, if you can prove that they took corners and they took shortcuts in this area in that area, you can ruin the credibility of the witness, thus win the case because you can't trust anything that they say. If you live long enough, people will say stuff about you that isn't true people. It's life.
But as a Christian, we're supposed to live in such a way that when they raise these accusations, it can't be true. Look at Matthew 5, 6, as best as those who hunger and thirst for righteousness for they would be filled. We went through this as a church back on last semester, but the whole point of this passage is to talk about how you are too hunger and thirst for the right things of God. You're supposed to do the right thing at every moment, even when no one's watching, so that the moment someone kickass an accusation against you, you can say it is not so.
And then when they further come at you, you can say what Nehemiah says, Lord, strengthen my hands because I know I have done nothing wrong. The way we're supposed to live is a life of integrity so that it can protect us against strategies of the enemy to discredit us and to ruin our credibility. But he uses that to get us alone, to have people leave us. Now look at verse 10, when I went to the house, I should myah, whatever I pronounced that, son of the lie, the son of Mahatabulah, guys, great names here, the Old Testament.
He was in his house, he said, let us meet in the house of God inside the temple and let us close the temple doors because men are coming to kill you by night, they are coming to kill you. Verse 11, but I said, should a man like me run away or should someone like me go into the temple to save his life? I will not go. Why, Nehemiah, why aren't you going in there where he says?
Because I realize that God had not sent him. But he had prophesied against me because Tumbaya and Sam Ballot, look at this, hired him. He had been hired to intimidate me so that I would commit a sin by doing this and then they would give me a bad name to discredit me. I love this because what did they just accuse Nehemiah for in the blackmail letter?
That he hired a prophet to say that he is the king of Judah and now what did they do? They are hiring a prophet to discredit Nehemiah. They are doing exactly what they blamed Nehemiah for. So they hired this prophet to do one thing in particular and that is to discredit and take people away from Nehemiah.
That is the next strategy is to say in the enemy, try to send people who go to lead us away. So not only did they now ask for messengers and now only did they try to rid his credibility but now they are purposely hiring people to make him come meet him. The whole ball again is still to get him to lead Jerusalem, to leave the security behind and to come where he is not going to be safe. So they hired this prophet and sometimes that is what people, sometimes people in our lives will lead us in a way that is wrong.
Sometimes it is done with good intentions. Have you ever just been given bad advice? Someone who is well meaning but is just getting terrible, terrible advice. And so here is something, when someone comes or you go to somebody with advice, here is how you can help alleviate whether they get you bad advice or not.
If someone comes offering an unsolicited advice, so that is advice you did not ask for, be very cautious. If someone comes up to you and just gives you advice, be very cautious or unless it is your parents. Parents have only like to do that but if it is not a parent, be very cautious about who is speaking into your life. Second, if you go to somebody with advice, this is probably the most important, make sure they are trustworthy and godly people.
I have met a lot of people in my life who have given advice but oftentimes they do not do it from a Biblical standard. And so in turn they end up giving really poor advice. Make sure you are going to, you can trust them that they are a mature follower of Jesus, that they will give you the exact answer that probably Jesus would give you, right? When you go to a mature Christian for advice, you want them to answer like Jesus would answer.
And so you say, okay, how we understand this, how in your wisdom and your maturity as being a Christian, what do you think Jesus would say about this situation? How would he help me do this? That is how you make sure that you do not get bad advice from well meaning people. There is no need you can do, and it is just be aware of biases.
These are some practical tips, if you are married couple in this room and you have problems, don't go to your parents for advice. They want the little boy or the little girl, so no matter what you say they are going to take your sign most likely. They are biased. It is like going to a refrigerator store, like maybe 500 bucks, you can buy a dishwasher or refrigerator and you can get your refrigerator store and say, hey refrigerator salesman, what do you think I should spend my money on?
Dishwasher or fridge? What are you going to say? A fridge? You use it 24-7 to keep your products cool.
You maybe use your dishwasher every other day, at best, if you have a small family. They are going to be biased in their answer. They are just aware of that when you ask advice from people. Just be aware.
But sometimes we are given bad advice by innocent and good intentions, but sometimes there are people who just do it through the seat, which is the case that NMI is going through. They have somebody here they have hired to intimidate him and to change his mind for their own gain. I really believe to be honest with you that these type of people that are hired to do this as Satan uses are what we consider spiritual leaders today who are leading people away from the Word of God. I don't know if I have a separate second Timothy talks about in one moment.
In time there is going to be people who will find spiritual leaders to itch their ears. Just like a dog who has to be scratched and they love it. Basically the idea here is that you have something that you want to hold onto that Jesus says isn't a part of your life or shouldn't it be a part of your life, but you find a spiritual leader who says that a Christian that says it's okay. There is a spiritual leader, a Christian leader who says I can do this and still follow Jesus.
We are itching our ears because we want to do this even though God's Word says otherwise we will find people that make us feel better. I will show you this how I play out when I was younger. This had to do with primarily dating. I know scripture says that I probably shouldn't date nonbelievers because we have different values, but I found this guy over here says it's okay, this Christian leader.
Recently there has been this kind of a uprising going away from Jesus being the God's Word being the true Word of God. It's only the Word of God only in spiritual matters, but in every other area you can kind of immorality, you can just kind of take it and leave it. Listen, if somebody comes up to you and says that you do not have to remember when you follow Jesus that your beliefs and passions don't change, and you can still follow Jesus and hold all your beliefs, hold all your values, all your passions, and they are lying to you. When you follow Jesus he intrinsically changes your passions and now you listen to God's Word.
You don't listen to mankind so mankind says, well it's in God's Word, but you know it's not spiritual, it's not spiritual matters, so you can just take it and leave it. Listen, they're lying to you. Those are people that Satan is using to take you away from the truth of God's Word. Because when you start to devalue God's Word and start saying, well I can take this peace and not that peace.
Guess what you're starting to do? You're making your own God. You're making a fashion in your own idol. You are making your own Word of God set before you.
Now you've become your own God saying this is what's right and this is what's wrong. So we need to be careful of that. Because Satan does use people to spiritually lead us away from the truth of God's Word and we need to be very, very careful. So again if someone says you have a relationship with Jesus but it does not require a change of passion, belief, and duty, they're not preaching the truth.
Let's look what happens with Nehemiah says, when our enemy's heard about this, I love the statement, all the surrounding nations were afraid and lost their self-confidence. The way that Nehemiah presents himself when Satan's attacking causes all the other people who are trying to attack him to lose their confidence. When did that be awesome? That the way that you handle the situation would defuse the situation?
That the people who have it out for you, the way that you handle it now? They're like, well, we don't even want to go there. God has their hand on them. That's what he tells them.
He says, the reason why they did this was because they realized that this Word could have been done with the help of our God. So they recognized that God was moving in their life and they said, you know what? We don't want to touch that. If we go, if we press any further, if we go to attack more, we are going to be the ones that are losing out here.
That's a really cool thing to have us. But look at their 17. Also, in those days, the nobles of Judah were sending many letters to Debye, and replies from Tobias kept coming to them. For many in Judah were under oath to him since he was so sent in law to Shekania, Son of Eira, and the son Jahanana had made the daughter of Mashumulam wherever you pronounce that.
Son of Berakiah, the cat reporting to me is good deeds and telling him what I said into Bias sent letters to intimidate me. Figure this out for a second. First, it is some letters out. Why don't you come out here?
That fails. So what do they do? Then he tried to destroy his credibility. Then the right-of-the-kit lets send a prophet in and try to persuade him to leave.
That doesn't happen. Then the next one happens. He uses those who are closest to us. That's point number four.
If Satan can't do any of that, he's going to use the people who are closest to us. He's using people that Nehemiah is surrounded by. What are they doing? They're going to Nehemiah saying, look at all the good that Tobias is doing.
You really need to listen to Debye and go meet him outside the wall. Debye, I kept on sending letters, trying to intimidate over and over and over again. Here's a principle. We need to be careful who we allow to be close to us.
See, in these moments where we need to have people surrounding us, when we're trying to be taken away from the security of God's love and his purpose for our life and security of God the Council and Fellowship. When we're in those moments, we need friends in our lives who have an influence on us that will allow us to handle the situation rightly and not wrongly. I mentioned this last time a couple of weeks ago in a relationship series, but I thought it was really good to show the effects of friendship. The friend relationship was a most significant relationship when found to gaining weight.
If your spouse gained weight, you have a 30% percent, a 30% percent chance of gaining weight. If you're sibling gains weight, you have a 40% chance. But if your friend gains weight, you have a 60% chance of gaining weight. When your friends are eating is actually more of an indicator of your health habits than your closest family members.
That's how important it is and how often people influence us without us knowing. So when you come to a moment where you're tempted to lead the security of God's Word and security of who you are in Him and the purpose he has for your life, you need God the people who are going to encourage you to stay there. You don't need people to say, oh, what's the harm going out there for a little while? Psychologist, you know, in a Jane Collingwood in the article released about a year or two ago, said the causes of modern social problems from the homelessness obesity are often thought to be found in areas such as poverty, stress, depression, the researchers suggest we are looking, overlooking something crucial and that's friendship.
Further studies share that when we talk about mental health, the key factor is friendship. Who you have the closest to you is going to determine how you handle situations in your life. One time I was speaking to a college ministry and I asked them to write down on a piece of paper, what did you do last night and who did you do it with? And I said it's likely that if you're doing, if you're getting wasted or smoking marijuana or doing something like that, it's likely that those friends do that on a regular basis.
If you're having Bible study, you're going to be God's Word, right? It's likely that they do that on a regular basis because we influence one another. That's how it's supposed to be. That created us, the influence, he created us to help and keep one another accountable.
But when Satan can use those closest to us, that means it's the highest priority to make sure that the people who are closest to us. Or actually God fearing people. Satan is smart. If he can surround you with people that will give you bad advice, will lead you down a bad path, not honoring God with the way that you live.
Why should you be surprised when a moment comes up that they lead you in that direction? Why should we be surprised when we go through a spirit of depression where we just feel alone that they may not even have our backs? So what we need to do as a church is we need to fight Satan in these strategies. We need to say, okay, you're going to try and take us away from God's Word.
We'll guess what? We're going to put our foot down and say that God's Word is the truth and we're going to believe it and we're going to study it and we're going to apply it to our lives. What we have to do when he tries to pull us out by ridicule or trying to destroy our credibility. We have to say, you know what?
I'm living my life. Yeah, I make mistakes. And I'm not perfect. That's why I need Jesus.
But I'm trying to live my life in such a way that when accusations come, I can say it cannot be that way with the way I'm living my life for Jesus. Then when he tries to use those that are closest to us and when he tries to take us away in various means, whether through life circumstance, whether through other people, in the end we can say, God, we know that you're the true and one and only God that is true. And one and only God that we trust and that gives us hope, that gives us joy, that gives us peace. And we know that you're the one who fuels his people to love one another, to support one another and encourage one another.
It's a shame that Sunday morning has to be so lonely for so many people. The church would be the place that anyone can walk into and find someone who cares about them, who has empathy for them, who he wants to encourage them and keep them accountable if they're willing. Listen, you're a maid to be known and you're a maid to know. So here's the idea.
Don't let Satan separate you from others. Don't be like people that when they need Christian community the most that they run. When you feel embarrassed to shame, hurt and lonely, run to God and to his trusted people, invest in those relationships and when these things happen to you like Nehemiah's happened, you'll find yourself in a place where he found himself where he says, Lord, strengthen my hand and guess what, it diffuses the situations and his attackers. Can it move any closer?
It's a beautiful thing that we see from Nehemiah. Let's pray. I pray for God, just this world, staggering anything, how many people struggle with feeling alone. Father, in this time of reflection, would I pray that you will search our hearts?
Without anybody looking, I just want to know if there's people in here struggling with depression and they feel like alone, would you just raise your hand? Nobody's looking, just raise your hand. Just know that the Lord is there for you. Christian community is there for you.
I'm trying to trust the godly people that you can talk to about this. Would I pray for those who raised their hand in this room? It's not surprising that there was many. Father, I just know from my life the greatest thing that you've done for me is giving me people who care about me.
And when I feel alone, I feel discouraged. You're giving me those people who can speak truth into my life. Truth where sometimes I don't want to hear it, but you shared it with me anyways through them. They allowed me to grow my relationship with you and with them and allow me to really come on the other side of things.
Will we pray for anyone who's suicidal? I would've doubt that there's somebody in this room who's struggling with it. Would I pray that you would take that thought away from them right now in the name of Jesus? Would I pray that you would give them the strength that they need to talk with somebody?
The faith that they need to trust in you, that you have not put them on this earth to end it? Would you put them on this earth for a purpose? Would you want to use them in a major and beautiful way? Would I pray that you would allow us to be people who are there for other people?
Or students who are struggling or people who are struggling with sexual identity? They're more prone to commit suicide. Would I pray that the church would be there? That the church would be there to love them and to care for them and to share with them?
The hope and the message of Jesus and to be there with them as they walk through this life? Would I pray that we would be people who would run away from Satan? That when he tries to corner us or try to back us away from other people, that we would fight against it? And when we feel the urge and the urging to leave the body of Christ, we would know that's exactly where we need to be.
Would I pray for marriages in this room? Or have I seen too many marriages come into the church and then leave because they needed help that they were too fake to ask? Would I pray that for the marriages that are here, that you would just strengthen us, that we would be just confident in talking about what's going on, that we can have good marriages that want to glorify you, fulfill that our marriages and how are you using us for your purpose? Would I pray for these young people that are here today, students?
I remember being tough for me when I was in middle school and high school, and I can only imagine now how tough it is for them, especially to be a follower of Jesus. Would I remember names like Itti Tushus? Remember names like Hippocrates? Father, I pray that they would find their soul, identity, and who you are.
They wouldn't care what other people say. They care about their relationship with you. And Father, as Satan tries to use those labels and those things to make them feel like they're alone, make them feel like they're abnormal. Would I pray that you would give them the boldness?
To speak out, in the boldness to find other followers of Jesus, that they can come alongside of it, and know that they're not alone. There are plenty of people who love you, want to worship you, and want to encourage one another on what you have for our lives. Where we just thank you for this week where we're expecting great things from our teams, what you're going to do out in the community, where we give you this time of worship. And just name my pray.
Amen.