Good morning to you, experiencing weird and bizarre flashbacks. I shared with a group recently that, of course, the very first sermon opportunity I was ever given was here. And I was going to speak at the evening service. I remember it because it was actually Halloween.
And I had prepared and prepared and prepared and was all ready and I stood up and the message took seven minutes. And I was done. I was definitely done. And I remember Hilton Mackie said to me before I went up to speak, he said, you'll know how well you spoke by how much time passes before they ask you to speak again.
And I was 17 and I'm 44. Let's begin by going to the Lord and prayer. Let's pray together. Lord and our God, awesome and glorious.
Doing wonders, supreme and the universe. Lord, there is none like you in the heavens above or on the earth or on the earth. You alone rule. You alone make plans and they are not thwarted.
You alone never change. Lord, we praise you for this. We praise you for your greatness, for your holiness, for your righteousness. We praise you for your love, for your compassion, and for your mercy.
Lord, we praise you for your plan of salvation laid out before the foundations of the world. That took the price of the blood of your one and only son. So whoever believes on him can have redemption and life everlasting. Lord, we praise you for this.
We praise you for your Holy Spirit that indwells every believer. That is the seal of our inheritance. That is our comforter and our guide and culture. Lord, we praise you for your body, the church, headed by your son, empowered by your spirit.
Given the awesome and precious task of representing you to creation and to make the cycles. Lord, we praise you for your word this morning as we look into it. This word that you, using men over many, many centuries, your spirit directed them so that these words are yours. Lord, we praise you this morning that we can look into it and through the power of your spirit that you can use it to change us.
So Lord, we ask that we would be changed. For your glory and yours alone in Jesus Christ. Amen. I should warn you, I am a wanderer.
So I may start here, but I will move around and may come down. One Sunday I was preaching in Fall River and they had to set up some way to this. While I was talking, walked out and came to the side of the platform. I noticed some people got uncomfortable.
Then another Sunday I stepped off the platform and started to walk down the aisle in one of the elderly Saint she grabbed her chest and she said afterwards, I think he escaped. Because they were not supposed to get that close. If you have your Bibles with you, I would encourage you, we are going to look at a couple of places but we are going to start in the Old Testament in the book of 2 Kings, 2 Kings 25, 2 Kings 25, Commencing the read at verse 8. I have discovered a strange phenomena that if I put my glasses on I can see you but I can see my page and if I take my glasses off I can see my page but I can't see you.
So you are going to be a blur this morning. 2 Kings 25 starting to read at verse 8. On the seventh day of the fifth month, in the 19th year of Nebuchadnezzar, King of Babylon, Nebid-Zurandim, commander of the Imperial Guard and official of the King of Babylon came to Jerusalem. He set fire to the Temple of the Lord, the royal palace and all the houses of Jerusalem.
Every important building he burned down. The whole Babylonian army under the commander of the Imperial Guard broke down the walls around Jerusalem. Of course, this account taking place in 586 BC refers to the fulfillment of a prophecy of God that he had given to Israel. He had told them that if the children of Israel were to walk in the ways of God and obedience to him, they would have success.
He would bless them and they would be a blessing. But if they chose not to walk in his ways and chose to walk in their own path, that he would bring judgment upon them. He told King Hezekiah that a day would come when the Babylonians, at that point were simply a small kingdom off to the east, subjugated by the Assyrians. That someday the Babylonians would come and they would lay waste in the city of Jerusalem.
What we have read in 2 Kings 25 is that event taking place. Nebuchadnezzar had actually captured Judah already and had subjugated them. But the king sought to rebel and this time Nebuchadnezzar came and he was going to make sure that they didn't rebel again. So he brought his army and siege the city for a year and a half finally when famine overwhelmed the city and they tried to escape his army broke down the walls, came in and destroyed the temple, enslaved the last of the people leaving only the poorest.
And then Nebuchadnezzar gave a command to his armies. He said, you take the entire army and you are to flatten the walls of the city so that nothing remains are the walls. Now you may say, well, that's nice historical tribute. But I want you to remember this about the walls because in the ancient world walls weren't simply a protection.
They also were a status. You didn't put walls around the little by-water town. You didn't put walls around something of no consequence. A walled city said this is a city of importance.
This is a city of stature that needs protection because of what it is. In the case of Jerusalem, this was the city where God had said, on this city I will place my name. My house will be built here and you will gather to worship in this place. This will be my place.
The walls were knocked down and the people headed into captivity. When I started doing the study that will begin this morning, it was precipitated by an event that was actually beginning of July. We were having our vacation Bible school program and one of the young people that we had worked in our youth ministry came in and our closing evening and she said, I need to tell you something. She said one of the teens that is connected with a lot of the other teens that you have worked with, she hanged herself today in a garage.
Because she was a friend of a lot of the teens that I worked with that are my friends on Facebook, I went and I looked at her Facebook site and saw the story of someone whose life had fallen apart. A 17-year-old whose only thing she could comment on was how many times she would go and get herself so stoned or inebriated that she had no recollection of the previous events. You know what the comments that her friends were writing in memory of her were recounting all the times they had gathered with her and they had actively been destroying themselves. I looked around the community and said, things are falling apart.
I drove home to our neighborhood and driving down Alberlake Road that evening and I counted four young ladies who were prostituting themselves who were destroying themselves and things are falling apart. I heard from a friend, a believer who was informing me that his marriage had effectively just ended. He and his spouse had had a chat and there was no feature in it. It was done.
It was falling apart. I was talking with some church leaders and they were talking about their churches and we were talking about our effectiveness or the lack thereof in our communities and things were falling apart. Then I was doing my reading and the Lord brought me to a passage and the more I read it and reread it and reread it, the more it spoke to me and we're going to Lord willing if he should tear it and let me come back. We're going to speak about this together.
You can open up to the book of Nehemiah. It's a book that has often been used talking about qualities of leadership and organization but over the next few weeks as the Lord permits we're going to look at it about restoration. As you see the things that I just alluded to, they're not the way God intended them to be. God did not intend that human beings should reach a point of such confusion and desperation and hopelessness that they destroy themselves.
God did not intend. God did not intend for marriages to break apart. God did not intend. God did not intend for our communities to lack a presence of the gospel.
The book of Nehemiah, chapter 1 verse 1, the words of Nehemiah, son of Hacaliah. In the month of Kisleph in the 20th year, while I was in the citadel of Susa, Han and I, one of my brothers came from Judah with some other men and I questioned them about the Jewish remnant that survived the exile and also about Jerusalem. They said to me, those who survived the exile in our back in the province are in great trouble and disgrace. The wall of Jerusalem is broken down and its gates have been burned to fire.
Forgive me, I've got to get a little closer. I'll just fall off the stage. I find out where technology will stop me. To give you the background, some of you are probably well acquainted with the history.
Some of you may not be, so let's do this really quick. When King Nebuchadnezzar did his final conquest of Judah and of Jerusalem, he gathered a large portion of the people, the most educated, the most trained, the most gifted, the noble, and he took them off into captivity in the Babylon where they would spend an extended period of time. Eventually, of course, the Babylonians are overthrown by the Medes and the Persians, and so those in captivity become part of the Persian Empire. Then a new king in Persia begins to let these captives go to return back to Judah and a remnant returns.
They eventually rebuild the temple in Jerusalem. Then we have this man named Nehemiah. It's been 142 years since Jerusalem was sacked, 142 years since the walls were knocked down. We have this man named Nehemiah.
He is a Jew who lives and works as a civil servant for the Persian Empire. For those of you involved in the civil service, it's amazing how God seems to love to grand hold the civil servants for his purposes. So if you think you just go to work to serve the government of Canada or Nova Scotia or H.R.M., don't kid yourself. If you're a believer in Jesus Christ, you go to work because of the purpose God has for you.
Well, Nehemiah, he's a civil servant. He lives in Susa. He serves the king. An important thing for you to realize is Nehemiah has never been outside of the Persian Empire, at least from what scripture tells us.
He's never seen Jerusalem. He's never been in Judah. He was born in captivity. The Persian Empire is all he knows.
But his brother, who has been to Judah, then returns to Persia, he meets up with him one day and he just asks him, tell me what it's like. What's it like back in Jerusalem? And they give this account. Those who survived the exile in our back in the province are in great trouble and disgrace.
The wall of Jerusalem is broken down and its gates have been burned with fire. That's the condition. That's the state. There are 142 years.
I want you to notice his reaction. This man who's never seen Jerusalem, he doesn't know what it looked like. He never saw it in its glory days. He's never seen it at all.
He's got no Google Earth. He didn't go and look it up. He's never seen a picture, digital or otherwise. But in that moment, as these men give this account, something happens.
When I heard these things, I sat down and wept for some days. I mourned and fasted and prayed before the God of heaven. He's heard the condition of Jerusalem. He's never been there.
He's never seen it. He doesn't know what it looked like before. He doesn't know what it looks like now. But we do know something about me, Amaya.
We know that he's a follower of God. That he's obviously been taught the truths of God and his covenant with Israel. He knows the promises that God has made to his people. And when he hears the conditions of the city, it grabs hold of his heart.
It doesn't just grab hold of his heart for a moment. It grabs hold of his heart and it gives him a burden that he can't let go of. I sat down and I wept for some days. I mourned and fasted and prayed before the God of heaven.
As sisters and sisters, you need to understand something. As we look at our community around us, as we look at the things that are broken, no program will ever restore anything. No institution will ever restore anything. Not the best resources will restore anything.
Every work of God that restores, that builds up, that renews, begins first with the broken heart of a believer. You want to look at missions and our great history of missions around the world? You know what they always start with? They start with a believer with a soft heart before God.
And one day God gives that person a burden and breaks his heart. And he doesn't let go. Read the story of George Mueller when George Mueller went and saw the orphanages in Bristol. And he saw a little girl and a little boy and they were talking together.
And God, Grant, told of his heart and he wouldn't let go. And next thing you know, George is going to his wife and saying, look, there's kids in the street. Let's feed them breakfast. And his wife is saying, and how many do you plan to feed?
Oh, I don't know. 60. And so they have 60 kids packed in their house giving them breakfast. Like, well, breakfast isn't enough.
And then it's an orphanage house. And then it's another. And it's another. And it's 15,000 children coming through.
But God started grabbing his heart. Didn't start with an institution. Didn't start with, here's a great program plan. He grabbed the heart of a believer.
Hudson Taylor, missionary to China. God started by grabbing his heart. But in order for God to grab your heart and my heart, our hearts have to be soft toward God. So your first question to pray about that I'm giving you this morning is, if you know Christ, what's the condition of your heart?
Do the things of God impact your heart? And I tell you that people in the neighborhood of this work that God established here are destroying themselves. Does it break your heart? Or does it just pass right through?
Because I can tell you what the concern of God is, who created each person knew them as they were forming in their mother's womb. God doesn't create people to be wasted. His God's desire that people would come to him and repent. Nehemiah has a soft heart toward God.
And in that moment, God has a purpose and a plan for Nehemiah. Nehemiah has been a civil servant working his way up through the ranks in Sousa. He may have thought it was all to get a good retirement plan. But it's for a moment.
And the moment's just happening. God grabs hold of his heart and starts to squeeze his heart. He said, Nehemiah, you just heard what's happening in Jerusalem? This is going to be for you.
This is going to be for you, Nehemiah. I'm going to be awesome and glorious through you. But until I can't do that, until this aches so much for you that nothing else will matter than this, then Nehemiah starts to pray. Then I said, oh Lord God of heaven, the great and awesome God who keeps his covenant of love with those who love him and obey his commandments.
I think we could just camp out on his introduction of his prayer because of what, through the spirit in this prayer, he gives us a reminder of who God is. Because I think one of the things that stop us besides the condition of our hearts, another thing that stops us is our impression of who God is. How many of us believe that God is the same person in reality as we read about this? Oh, that could be two.
I have that bad habit. I once had one of these and I was talking all about the heart and I kept slapping it until the poor fellow in the sound booth was ready to throw something at me. We have this image oftentimes of God that gets smaller and smaller and smaller. I've been challenging people to read the word.
I had the opportunity over a year ago to speak to a group of adults and I asked them of how many different books they'd read. We were talking about different types and genres and then I asked them how many of them had actually read this particular book from cover to cover at the time one person in the room had read it. And so I said to them, I said, this is what God has given us so that we will know him, so that we will know ourselves, so that we will know what he's done for us, what he's calling us to do, what he desires to do in and through us. And unless you know it, you're not going to know.
But it was interesting because I got to speak to the same group of people again this past summer. I guess it still is summer. And I asked them again how many of you read it and a couple had read it. If you admitted that they started but it was hard.
Well, when I spoke a year ago, my son Andrew was in the back of the room. And he came up to me after I finished speaking and he went, Dad, I haven't read the Bible from cover to cover. And I said, Andrew, you're seven. I don't think too many seven-year-olds have.
But he grabbed Andrew. And so when we got back from camp, he made himself up his own reading plan. And he would get up at 6.30. And he started to read his way through scripture.
And at first he was reading silently, but then he found that he wasn't really sure he was taking it all in, so he would read it aloud. So every morning I'd be upstairs, I'd hear Andrew in the living room reading aloud. You know what, I can really go to grab you when someone's reading the minor prophets at 6.30 in the morning, aloud, woe to you. And he did it.
And he did it. At the end of July, Andrew at eight years old, his read through the entire Bible once. And the day he finished, he put up a sign on the wall. Amen.
And I said, so Andrew, what are you going to do now? And he said, well, tomorrow I start at Genesis chapter 1 again. And he's now working his way through again. I don't say that to you to praise Andrew, but just that I can tell you in the past year the conversations that have come up between my son and I about who God really is.
It kept it awesome. And the conversations I've had with my second son, that I discovered that my first son is teaching my second son theology. Just recently my second son got up when he wasn't supposed to. And he was up late.
And we were in the kitchen and I was tidying something up. And we started talking about what happens when people die in such a... And I said, well, Jonathan, you know that we need to accept Christ. That is the only thing that gives us eternal life with God.
And he goes, I know. And I said, you know what happens if we don't accept Christ? And he said, yes, we go to the place where the Word never dies and the fire is never quenched. And I'm all for being straight with scripture.
I don't think I quoted that one to him before. And I said, how did you hear that? And I said, Andrew and I were talking about it. He showed it to me.
Because see, as you get into the Word, you have to begin to wrestle with. Who is this God? Awesome and glorious. Who is this God?
And is he all that he says he is? Can he do all that he says he can do? Is he holy and righteous and pure and just? Is he merciful, loving and compassionate?
Does he spin the universe into existence and hold it there by the Word of his power? I have to share this. I love when we as human beings try to push God over the picture and God's fingerprints are just all over everything. I was watching of all things, the nature of things, one evening.
And they were doing an expose on the Himalayas, Mount Everest. And they had all these scientists talking about how they're formed and how they're shaped. And at one point, they're standing in this valley that is way, way up in the Himalayan mountains. And they've got these two scientists and one scientist who's an expert on the Himalayas.
Another guy's an expert on shaping a continental plate. And said, if you look at these mountains, it almost would appear that there was this huge cataclysmic force pushing across the plates, a great weight that caused here these plates to suddenly push up, but it was happening very quickly. Well, at the same time, if you look at the erosion patterns, it looked like it was a huge deluge of water pouring across them at the same time. Said, if you didn't know better, it looked like it all happened in a rapid cataclysmic event.
And I'm sitting watching TV people. Yeah, we call it a flood. FLOD. And then if that isn't just enough, the very next sequence in the video, they're way up high at this little temple.
And decorating the temple are all these fossilized shells, which the people of the Himalayas find high up in the mountains and collect them and use them as decorations. Fossilized fish and fossilized aquatic shells up on the sides of Mount Everest. And they all seem to be about the same time period, like it was all just sort of like, whoosh, whoosh, whoosh. See, I believe my God does what he says.
I believe he created a universe and did it like he said. I believe he judged the earth and he did it like he said. Because you see, when you and I get into the word and are challenged by the Spirit, then God can start to say, no, I'm going to do something incredible. It's going to be impossible.
And I'm going to do it. And I'm going to use you. Oh, please not me. Yes, you.
And you won't be able to do it, but I'm going to do it anyway. Because you see what Nehemiah is about to be called into is going to be impossible. But God loves impossible. Hudson Taylor made the statement that every work of God has three phases.
Phase one is, it's impossible. Phase two is, it's difficult. And phase three is, it's done. That's how God works.
God doesn't give us the simple. I look at this work here that God has raised up. That God raised up more than 40 years ago. When this work started, this was a small blue collar community that needed the gospel.
Well, now it's a huge community that needs the gospel. When our brothers and sisters were starting this work, they had no idea that the north end would go on and on and on and High Field Park would appear and all these things have now to say, well, to share the gospel. All these people is impossible, exactly. So it's just perfect timing for God.
So Nehemiah begins speaking to God, recognizing who He is, the Lord God, Lord of Heaven, the great and awesome God, who keeps His covenant of love with those who love Him and obey His commands. You know, if you look through the writings of the ancient world, I have yet found one instance wherein the gods that people would revere, that one of them refers to His covenant of love with His people. Covenants of power, covenant of strength, covenant of obedience, yes, but only the true God has a covenant of love with His people. Let your ear be attentive and your eyes open to hear the prayer your servant is praying before you day and night for your servants, the people of Israel.
I confess the sins we Israelites, including myself and my Father's house, have committed against you. We have acted very wickedly toward you. We have not obeyed the commands, decrees and laws you gave your servant Moses. Once he recognizes in his prayer who God is, who the Lord Almighty is, he then begins to look at what is the root of the problem.
See, the problem at its root is not the conditions that the walls of Jerusalem are in rubble. The problem is that the people sin. You see, in every situation we look at in our present world, there is only one root, and it's all the same. That there is economic upheaval in the world, what's the root of that?
It's sin. That there is violence in the world, what's the root of that? That sin. That there is marriage breakdown, what's the root of that?
That sin. That there is starvation, what's the root of that? That sin. I heard recently in a United Nations report dealing with world hunger made the statement that the world presently is capable to produce sufficient food in every major geographic region to feed every single human being on the planet and projected to be on the planet to be all their nutritional requirements.
That the statement that came out in the 1970s in a book called the Population Bomb that we were producing too many people for the planet to sustain is in fact a lie. That even in the planet we live in today, right now, with all the corruption we've done to it physically, the planet still produces more than enough food so that every one of the 7 billion plus people on the planet would have everything they need. Why? Because God created this planet.
He created it to sustain the people he created on it. So why is it that 30,000 people die every day of starvation and related problems? Why? Because of sin.
Because of sin. So Nehemiah identifies and repents other root of the problem. The problem with Israel was sin. And he doesn't separate himself from it.
Nehemiah was never in Jerusalem. Nehemiah was never part of those group of people, but he's part of the people. He knows the condition of his own heart. The sins that we Israelites, including myself and my father's house, have committed against you.
We have acted very wickedly toward you. We have not obeyed the commands, decrees and laws you gave your servant Moses. That's the problem. Everything else is a consequence.
Remember the instruction you gave your servant Moses saying, if you are unfaithful, I will scatter you among nations. But if you return to me and obey my commands, then even if your exiled people are at the farthest horizon, I will gather them from there. And bring them to the place I have chosen as a dwelling for my name. They are your servants and your people, whom you redeemed by your great strength and your mighty hand.
O Lord, let your ear be attentive to the prayer of this your servant and to the prayer of your servants who delight in revealing your name. Give your servant success today by granting him favor in the presence of this man. Nehemiah has been grabbed by this burden and it won't let him go. And it's driven him to his knees and he's beseeching God about it.
He knows the root of the problem and he's confessed it. Now he's asking God to fulfill his promise. Because you see, the promises of God are sure. They're here.
Again, if we believe that God does not change, then his promises do not change. His promises tell me that everyone who calls upon the name of the Lord shall be saved. That's a promise of God. The Lord tells us that he was begun a good work in us.
It's faithful to see it through to completion. That's a promise of God. I am an introvert. I'm also shy and I'm also a coward.
But God has told me in his word that I'm not to worry about what to say. That when the opportunity comes, he will give me the words to say, that's a promise of God. Now I know in the past there used to be a number of introverts that called Northbrook home. But see, God has given us a promise.
So introverting doesn't save us or excuse us because God has given us a promise. He says, when the time comes, you open your mouth. I'll give you the words to say. So open your mouth.
That's a promise of God. He's given us a promise too often. We wrestle with sin over and over again. Sometimes we even use the excuse while I am only human.
And yet he has given us a promise saying that no temptation shall face us such that which is common to man. And God is faithful to every temptation that will provide us a way of escape. Nehemiah calls on the promises of God. God had promised that if the people turned to him, he would restore them.
That's his promise. So God do something. And then he makes it personal. Because see we like to pray globally.
We like to pray, Lord save our city. Lord bring people to Christ in our community. Lord build up the saints. And to become the point in that prayer where you have to get personal.
Or you have to say, Lord, and use me. Lord, here I am. Use me. Because see God doesn't do it through a program.
He does it through his people. When we look at the whole ministry of the spreading of the gospel and the building up of the saints. God does it through us. And I in my humanness have often questioned God's wisdom in that.
It's like Lord, if you wrote it across the clouds, it probably would be more effective than saying people. You go out and share Christ with people. Because sometimes we don't. Sometimes we're scared.
Sometimes we're full of ourselves. Sometimes we're too busy. Sometimes we're an even number of things. But God said no.
This is how the gospel will be spread to the world. I will redeem you and make you a new creation. And then you will testify to that to somebody else. They will call on me, my spirit, convicting them, and they will become a new creation.
And they'll testify to somebody else. And people are changed. But it's got to become personal. So Nehemiah makes it personal.
Give your servant success today by granting him favor in the presence of this man. And this is where we discover a little bit more about Nehemiah. Nehemiah was the cup bearer to the king of Persia. Nehemiah, the Jewish civil servant who's worked his way up through the ranks is now daily in the presence of the most powerful human being on the planet at the time.
That's kind of cool. You'd almost say God had his hand in that. Most definitely. This man daily goes and brings the cup to the king.
And just to make sure we all understand he's not a glorified butler. The purpose of this man, the cup bearer was to oversee that the wine stores of the king were not tampered with. Because when you're the most powerful man on the planet, other people want to take your place. So it was his job to make sure that the king's drink was never poisoned.
And in order to have that role, he has built such a level of trust with the king that the king of Persia trusts Nehemiah with his life. So I trust you with my life. So if you bring something to me and you say it's okay, I take it and I drink it because I trust you. In the ancient world oftentimes the cup bearer would have been an advisor or someone who worked in a civil service job who had so proven himself faithful over many years that as a reward he was given this role.
So here's Nehemiah with a broken heart before God. His day job is to go and be in the presence of the most powerful man on the planet every day. And he's beginning to see that God has put him here for a purpose. We'll talk about next time.
I want you to realize though just some key points as we wrap up. As I said before, God begins the work that he wants to do in restoring and God wants to restore. God wants to build up. God wants to proclaim his message and God wants his glory to be known in the earth.
Sometimes we live in an age where we say well we know everything's going to go to pieces anyway. That's life. And it's true. Scripture tells us that as we are in these end days the things will continue to get worse.
But nowhere does Scripture say so give up. It doesn't say that. It doesn't say stop preaching. As a matter of fact it says stand firm.
Be sober. Be vigilant. I read once a description and I thought it seemed to capture things very well. Substance abuse has now reached down not only from adults but through teens and is now impacting children as low as nine or ten.
Economic upheaval has led to widespread unemployment which has led to greater stress on the family. Which has led to family breakdown and increase in sexual promiscuity is leading to all kinds of problems and increase of disease. Suicide has reached unprecedented levels as is violent crime. But what caught me is I read this description.
The description was in 2012. It was the early 1700s. It was England. And there were those who said look this is it.
It's the end. The Lord's coming back. What can you do? Then the Lord started grabbing a few hearts.
So a man like John Wesley and it was a wrestle on that one. God grabbed his heart and said you have a message to give. And he started grabbing other individuals hearts and said you have a message to give. And is the world continuing to go down?
Yes. You know how many people heard the Gospel of Jesus Christ and repented? How many people changed and God took hold of their hearts and caused a huge revival? When Jesus comes back then it's done.
If he calls you home then it's done. Then it's done. Until those two things happen. There's work to be done.
And the awesome thing about that is it's his work to be done. Someone once said we are like divine spectators. Yes we're there and it's hard and we're going to talk about that in the weeks to come. But who is actually doing the work?
God starts with our hearts. So bring your heart before the Lord. And say Lord what's the condition of my heart? Lord am I being moved by the things that move you maybe you already have a burden.
Maybe there's something that aches in you that you know needs restoring. Maybe it's in your relationship. Maybe it's in your family. Maybe it's with your children.
Maybe it's in your work. Maybe it's just your ache for the community that goes to hell without the Gospel. Oh God's giving you an ache. It's not going to go away.
Doing other good things won't make it go away. When God grabs hold of your heart God holds it. God starts with our hearts. Then you can look at programs and you can look at resources.
But see who's got the heart burden. So I encourage you this week to reread the first part of the Amal. You can read ahead. You can ask God what is the burden he's giving you.
What restoring work does he want you to be a part of for his glory. And then when he gives you that burden there's only one way to start dealing with it and that's to go to prayer. Because you notice when he got the burden he prayed. And it wasn't that oh Lord I got a burden.
I'm going to pray about this. And okay it's done. He had to keep praying. He had to keep praying.
He had to keep praying. I read a story of a lady in China her husband was a pastor and he was taken and he was arrested and he was put in prison. And she prayed two things. She prayed that her husband would be restored to her.
And she prayed that her husband would have a testimony in the prison. She prayed that every day for 22 and a half years. And then her husband was released from prison. It was her first time communicating with her husband after 22 and a half years.
And you know what the first thing she wanted to hear? She said tell me what God used you for in prison. Because it's been a burden on my heart to pray for you how God would use you in that prison. And he started to recount all the people that came to Christ.
That was 22 and a half years. And I have a friend. He knows the Lord. When I first met him he didn't want anything to do with it.
He was an ardent atheist scientist person. But he had a wife who had come to Christ and she prayed for him. She prayed for him for 30 years. Morning, noon and night.
In the middle of the night she'd wake up and she'd cry and she'd pray for her husband. One day he said I was there and I was here in the gospel presented. I heard all of a sudden something just read out of my mind. And I thought are you stupid?
It makes sense. It's real. You've seen it change lives. You know that it's true.
You know your excuses don't work if he came to Christ. You know what the exciting thing about that fellow is? Oh does he have a burden to pray? People said how is it you can pray so often?
He never misses. You say hey if he was getting a pray back he's there. He said why? Because I'd wake up in the morning and I'd see my wife praying for me.
And I'd say what a foolish woman. When I didn't know the Lord. I'd hear her at night praying for me. I'd hear her with this burden praying for me.
And I realized that God answers her prayers. So I'm going to start praying too. And maybe he'll answer mine. So we pray.
God begins always with the heart when he's going to use us in a restoring work and then it always leads to prayer. And that prayer will always be focused on knowing who God is, recognizing our own sin and then standing on God's promises for what he wants us to do. I hope I haven't discouraged you because we've got lots of fun coming. Seeing what God is doing as he takes us through this journey.
Let's pray. Father, thank you for the Book of Me Mine. We thank you for this real person who you placed in this situation. And for this moment that we read when you just grabbed hold of his heart because something needed to be restored.
And he was going to be the person who would want to glorify yourself through to begin the work. Lord we know there are things that need restoring. Things in our relationships that don't honor, glorify or testify of you. Things in our community, Lord, where the gospel is silent.
Lord we know that you desire it to be proclaimed in the rooftops. So Lord I pray first for myself and for my brothers and sisters here. Lord you always begin with our hearts. So Lord I pray for our hearts this morning.
Lord I pray first if there's someone here who doesn't know Jesus Christ, who's not experienced his saving work, and hasn't been changed. And their sins forgiven and given a new life. Lord that before anything else that that needs to be dealt with first. Lord that they would ask the questions and seek answers.
Lord I pray for my brothers and sisters here. Many of whom who have walked longer and have been more faithful than I. But Lord you tell us that while we're still here there's still work for us to do. So Lord I pray regarding our hearts.
Lord first to soften our hearts so that we see the things that you see. So that we see sin for what it is. That we see people for who they are. That's your beautiful creation.
Who are either our brothers and sisters in Christ or else their loss in the need of a Savior. Lord and then you would give us a burden. A burden so great that we can't either sluff it off or just deal with ourselves so that it brings us to prayer. Lord give us an ache that drives us to our needs.
So that we cry out to you knowing that only through your work will that ache be relieved. Lord you need to do all of this because it's all beyond us. But it's not beyond you if you Jesus Christ. Lord I pray that you start that work today.
In the name of your precious Son our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen.