People didn't come to hear me, and now
that I'm down the road a bit, I'm
amazed that people do come to hear me.
So I appreciate you.
I learn when I'm in circumstances like this.
Always learn.
I learn so much.
I don't want to become one of these
dinosaurs that walks around griping because things are
not like they were in the good old
days.
The good old days are a combination of
a bad memory and a good imagination.
Now it doesn't mean we can't learn from
the past.
We can.
In fact, some of the younger people need
to catch up with the past, just as
some of the older ones need to catch
up with the present.
And so my ministry has been primarily that
of a bridge builder.
I'm bridging the gap between some of the
older folks, my peers, and some of the
younger folks who think that nothing really happened
before 1975.
What kept Nehemiah going?
Well, turn to the book of Nehemiah and
we'll find out.
Years ago, there was a great and godly
president of Wheaton College in Wheaton, Illinois, whose
name was V.
Raymond Edmund.
He'd been a missionary to South America, an
educator, a godly man.
If you ever see in a used bookstore
a book by V.
Raymond Edmund, E-D-M-E-N, buy
it.
He was a great and godly man.
And he used to preach often in the
chapel at Wheaton College.
In fact, he died doing that.
When he was in the pulpit at chapel,
he just went to glory.
Great way to go.
And he used to say to the students
frequently, It's always too soon to quit.
It's always too soon to quit.
Sometimes when I get a little nervous about
things and I say, well, let's just forget
about it, my wife will quietly say, it's
always too soon to quit.
Now, you've all been through building programs in
one way or another.
I've been through two building programs and two
remodeling programs, and I'll take a building program
to a remodeling program any day.
Nehemiah had to go through a remodeling program,
a rebuilding program.
Many of the churches today, I don't mean
the structure, I mean the ministry, they've got
to be rebuilt.
They laid a foundation for a skyscraper and
put a chicken coop on it.
And they need to be rebuilt.
God called Jeremiah and He said, Jeremiah, I've
got a job for you to do.
What is that, Lord?
I want you to root out and then
plant.
And I want you to tear down and
build.
Now, the planting part I like.
I enjoy just planting the seed of the
Word of God.
I don't like the rooting out part.
People do not like to have things rooted
out that have been a part of the
church and a part of their lives for
so long.
I like the building part.
It's exciting to watch something go up.
I don't like the tearing down part.
And blessed is that spiritual leader who knows
when to take down and how much to
take down and when to build and how
much to build.
Nehemiah was that kind of a person.
Now, the thing that kept Nehemiah going was
not his training.
Nehemiah was what we'd call a layman.
He was not ordained.
I'm not against ordination.
It's amazing how many of God's choice of
servants were not ordained.
D.L. Moody was never ordained.
They introduced him as Dr. Moody.
He got up and said, I am Mr.
Moody.
Never ordained.
I'm not against that.
Neither was he.
He never went to a seminary.
No, I'm not against that.
I teach for five different schools.
Nothing wrong with seminary.
Handle it the way you would poison.
Let me explain what I mean by that.
Handle it the way you would poison.
Know what it is.
Don't let it get in your system.
Campbell Morgan never went to a Bible institute
or a Bible college.
My predecessor, several years removed at Moody Church,
Harry Ironside, was never ordained.
Never went to a special school.
He taught at several schools.
I'm not against education.
Otherwise, I wouldn't write books or teach.
But you depend on that, you're in trouble.
God called Nehemiah to do a very difficult
job.
Rebuild the walls.
Rehang the gates in Jerusalem.
And he did it with the help of
God in 52 days.
We can't even get a committee together in
52 days.
Spurgeon said the ideal committee is three people,
one of whom is sick and one doesn't
come.
You know what kept Nehemiah going?
It wasn't his training.
He was a layman.
He had a soft job in the palace.
The king's cup bearer made sure they weren't
going to poison the king.
Could have used his office for making a
lot of money.
Because people wanted to get their message to
the king.
They could come to Nehemiah and say, Hey,
Nehemiah, the king needs to know this.
Here's a few bucks.
God said, Nehemiah, I've got a job for
you to do.
And the thing that kept Nehemiah going was
the greatness of God.
Not the greatness of his ability.
Not the greatness of his training.
The greatness of God.
Chapter 1 of Nehemiah verse 5.
And I said, I pray, Lord God of
heaven, oh great and awesome God.
That's quite a way to pray.
Chapter 4 verse 14.
And I looked and arose and said to
the nobles, to the leaders, and to the
rest of the people, Do not be afraid
of them.
Remember the Lord, great and awesome.
Chapter 8.
Ezra's on the scene now.
They're having a Bible conference.
Nehemiah chapter 8 verse 6.
And Ezra blessed the Lord, the great God.
And then all the people answered, Amen, Amen,
while lifting up their hands.
Many people today would have no problem with
the theology of the great God.
Or even saying Amen.
Although it's hard to get Amens out of
some people.
Some folks wouldn't like the lifting up of
the hands.
I don't know where we ever got this
practice of folding our hands to pray.
It's not anywhere in the Bible.
Actually it's oriental.
It comes from the east.
They pray like this.
Now when the Jewish people prayed, they prayed
like this.
They expected to get something.
We don't expect to get anything, so we
go like this.
The Lord couldn't squeeze a blessing in there.
The great God.
Now you can go through this book and
start counting the number of times you find
the word great.
And it's over 30 times.
It starts off with chapter 1 verse 3.
Great distress.
That's a great place to start a book.
Great distress.
Great reproach.
But I want you to know by the
time you get to chapter 12, there's great
joy.
Great joy.
If you want to see the rainbow, you've
got to go through the storm.
If you want to have the joy of
completing ministry for God, you have to go
through the battle.
It's not easy.
Anybody ever told you that ministry was easy
was never in ministry.
They may have been in religious work, but
they weren't in ministry.
It's a battle.
It wasn't easy for Moses.
It wasn't easy for Joshua.
It wasn't easy for Jesus or for Paul.
It's not going to be easy for you
and me.
We have a short time in which to
work and suffer and sacrifice and serve and
then all eternity to rejoice.
And Nehemiah kept going because he believed in
the greatness of God.
How can you tell whether or not you
or your associate or the chairman of your
board, the minister of worship, how can people
tell whether or not we believe in the
greatness of God?
Many of us have to confess our theology
is better than our practice.
When I was in seminary, we had systematic
theology.
That's good.
We had biblical theology.
I like that better.
Then they had a section called practical theology.
And that was how to have funerals and
weddings and conduct the Lord's Supper and baptize
and this sort of thing.
But everything we do is practical theology.
How can anybody tell whether or not I
really believe that God is great?
Well, Nehemiah shows us.
Chapter 1, verse 1.
The words of Nehemiah, the son of Hekeliah.
It came to pass in the month of
Chisleh, that's November, December, in the 20th year,
that would be 446, as I was in
Shushan the citadel, that Hanani, one of my
brethren, came with men from Judah, and I
asked them concerning the Jews who had escaped,
who had survived the captivity, and concerning Jerusalem.
Nehemiah's brother had won a trip to the
Holy Land.
And when he came back, Nehemiah did the
normal thing.
He said, how are things going down there?
By the way, I don't know if he
realized it or not, but when he did
that, he was fulfilling prophecy.
Don't look it up.
You can remember the reference, Jeremiah 15.5.
Let me read it to you.
Jeremiah the prophet says in 15.5, For
who will have pity on you, O Jerusalem?
Or who will bemoan you?
Or who will turn aside to ask how
you're doing?
And they said to me, The survivors who
are left from the captivity in the province
are there in great distress and reproach.
The wall of Jerusalem is also broken down.
And its gates are burned with fire.
And so it was when I heard these
words that I sat down and wept and
mourned for many days.
I was fasting and praying before the God
of heaven.
And it was during that fasting and praying
time that Nehemiah conceived of the vision to
go down and do something about it.
When you have a great God, you see
great opportunities.
Nehemiah didn't have to ask about Jerusalem.
That was miles and miles away.
Was he to blame for the fall of
Jerusalem?
No.
Was he trained as an engineer?
No.
So often God calls the weak things of
this world to confound the mighty.
God calls the zeros to become heroes.
He loves to do that.
Did you ever notice in the Bible that
the people who stumbled and fell, they failed
because of their strength?
Not their weakness.
What was Abraham's great strength?
His faith.
Where did he fail?
His faith.
Ran down to Egypt.
Lied about his wife.
What was Moses' great strength?
His meekness.
Where did he fail?
He lost his temper and lost the trip
to the Holy Land.
He finally got there though during the Transfiguration,
didn't he?
People fail in their strengths, not their weaknesses.
What was David's great strength?
His integrity.
He had two opportunities to kill Saul.
No way.
That's where he failed.
His integrity.
What was Peter's greatest strength?
His courage.
Where did he fail?
His courage.
You and I have a tendency to look
at our strengths and say, well, I can
do this.
I've done this for three years now.
I can do this.
No, no, no.
Strength that knows itself to be strength is
weakness.
But weakness that knows itself to be weakness
is strength.
Paul said, when I'm weak, I'm strong.
Now, if I were going to rebuild the
walls of Jerusalem and reset the gate, I'd
look down from heaven and I'd say, was
there somebody down there who was a graduate
of MIT?
Anybody down there that...
No, God didn't do that.
God said, there's a fellow down there who's
had a soft job taking care of the
king's wine.
He's a politician and he's a servant, but
I think I can use him.
And he called him.
And when Nehemiah heard that the walls of
Jerusalem were down and the gates were burned,
he was distressed by it.
Because when you have a great God, you
want to do something about it.
He cared enough about God's city to ask,
how are things going?
I don't know about your home, but in
our home we get stacks of mail.
We get phone calls too, trying to sell
us all sorts of things.
We get stacks of mail.
And much of it is missionary mail.
And Betty's kind enough to go through and
she'll read many of these things and she'll
point things out to me.
It would be so easy for us to
get a letter from a missionary friend and
let it sit there and let it sit
there.
We're not concerned.
Nehemiah was concerned enough to inquire, how are
things going?
And they said, terrible.
Now, Nehemiah didn't have to get involved.
He didn't need money.
He didn't need anything.
He had a good job.
Things were going well.
He could have said, it's not my fault.
But instead, he got so burdened about this
thing that he fasted and prayed.
And he saw a great opportunity.
For what?
To glorify God.
I confess I don't always do this.
I confess there are times when situations come
along and I get irritable.
I get nervous.
I get critical.
And I've got to calm down.
Because every difficult situation is an opportunity to
show how great God is.
The ultimate of that is Calvary.
When Jesus died on the cross, not only
did he complete the work of redemption, but
he gave to us an example that when
everything looks like it is absolutely at its
worst, God is going to do His greatest.
And God's going to be glorified.
So when you believe in a great God,
you don't see great problems.
Or you don't deny that there are problems
there.
You don't minimize the problems.
But when you have a great God, you
see great opportunities.
One of the great problems in the church
today is we're letting the opportunities just slip
right through our fingers.
You folks aren't, but some other people are.
Secondly, if I really believe in the greatness
of God, I will pray with great faith.
Have you ever preached a series of messages
on the prayers of the Bible?
Not just the New Testament prayers.
Paul has five or six, and there's a
few others.
But these great Old Testament prayers.
Listen to this prayer from Nehemiah.
Here's a man who sees the possibilities.
Here's a man, though he is a month
and a half journey away from the problem,
is praying like this.
And I said, verse 5, I pray, Lord
God of Heaven, O great and awesome God,
You who keep Your covenant and mercy with
those who love You and observe Your commandments,
please let Your ear be attentive and Your
eyes open that You may hear the prayer
of Your servant.
Do I pray as a servant or as
a master?
Many people when they pray, now God, I'm
here to tell You what to do.
I've got it all worked out.
Here it is.
Now, Nehemiah came and said, listen to the
prayer of Your servant which I pray before
You now, day and night, for the children
of Israel, Your servants, and confess the sins
of the children of Israel which we, not
they, we have sinned against You.
Both my father's house and I have sinned.
You see, he not only cared enough to
inquire and cared enough to intercede, but he
cared enough to identify with them and say,
I am a part of the problem and
by the grace of God, I'm going to
be a part of the answer.
You pray with great faith.
This is a book of prayer.
Ten times, ten times in this book you
find Nehemiah praying.
Sometimes little quick telegraph prayers.
Lord, remember me.
Lord, take care of that.
When you spend much time in secret talking
to God, then you can send up those
quick telegram prayers.
But if He hasn't heard you much in
secret, that's not going to work.
To make prayer an emergency system, to change
prayer into 911, that doesn't work.
It can work if you've prayed privately and
if you've prayed enough.
Peter's about to go down.
Lord, save me!
He didn't have time for the Athanasian Creed
and the Lord's Prayer.
Lord, save me!
And Jesus saved him.
There are times when that happens.
Where I live, we sometimes find ourselves skidding
on the ice.
And you haven't even got time for words.
All you can say is, ahhh!
When you have a great God, you pray
with great faith.
You notice how biblical this prayer is.
It's a prayer of confession.
It's a prayer that lays hold of the
attributes of God.
The better you know God, the better you
can talk to Him.
He is the great God.
He is the awesome God.
He's the God who forgives sins.
He's the God, in verse 8, who makes
promises.
Remember, I pray the word, you commanded your
servant Moses.
Here is a man who comes to God
and says, Now God, I'm going to hold
you to your word.
And God loves that.
God loves it when we come with some
promises.
Some people, I don't understand some people, but
then, that's alright.
There's some folks, first thing in the morning
when they wake up, they've got to turn
on the television and get the news.
The last thing I want to know is
the news.
The first thing I want is God's promise.
And so the first thing I do in
the morning is get my Bible.
Pick up my Bible and say, Lord, I
don't know what this day is going to
bring forth, but here are promises that are
never going to change.
And so I open my Bible and read
my Bible and let God talk to me.
Then I can face the news if I
have to.
Here we have a doctrinal prayer.
I'll not read every word, but he quotes
the promise from Moses.
If you return to Me, I'll gather you.
I've chosen you.
Now, we're your servants.
Oh, look at verse 10.
And your people whom you have redeemed by
your great power, the great God, and by
your strong hand.
Oh, when you've got a great God, you
can pray with great faith.
The purpose of prayer, said Robert Law, the
purpose of prayer is not to get man's
will done in heaven.
It's to get God's will done on earth.
And here is Nehemiah fulfilling what Jeremiah said.
Is anybody going to ask about Jerusalem?
Yes.
Nehemiah is.
And Nehemiah, do you realize what a mess
that place is in?
The Gentiles laugh.
The bus tours of the Gentiles that go
around Jerusalem.
The tour guides have a great time.
This is the city of the great king.
This is the beauty of all the earth.
This is the city of Jerusalem.
And they laugh.
It's a reproach.
In recent years, we Christians have had to
suffer reproach because of the way some people
have acted.
He prayed with great faith.
Now, he hasn't called a committee meeting.
He hasn't built a plan.
He hasn't consulted an architect.
He hasn't done anything other than pray.
Because if you haven't prayed, you can't do
anything.
Jesus said, without me you can do what?
Nothing.
He didn't say without me you're handicapped.
Without me you're going to have a rough
time.
He said, without me you're going to do
nothing.
George MacDonald said, in whatever man does without
God, he must fail miserably or succeed more
miserably.
And I've seen some ministries succeed very miserably
because they left God out.
When you believe in a great God, you
pray with great faith.
Nehemiah gets permission from the king to go
to Jerusalem.
There's a period here of four months in
between his prayer and chapter 2 where he
approaches the king.
Now, he was afraid when he approached the
king.
You don't tell the king that you're going
to go down and help the Jews.
And so for four months now, he's been
waiting and praying.
We get impetuous.
Psalm 32, David heard God say, David, be
not as the horse or as the mule.
Now, some of the saints are like the
horse.
They're impetuous.
They want to rush ahead.
Some of the saints are like the mule.
They want to dig in their heels and
not move.
They call it conviction.
Nehemiah, because of his faith, could wait.
My Bible says, He who believes shall not
make haste.
One of the evidences of unbelief is we
run ahead of God.
I can have a good desire and a
good prayer life and a good burden to
get God's work done.
But the will of God involves not only
what, but it involves when.
And Nehemiah was able to wait on the
Lord.
Now, it wasn't the waiting of doing nothing.
It was the waiting of preparation.
Just waiting for God's time.
When we believe in a great God, we
will see great opportunities.
They're all around us.
We will pray with great faith and we'll
overcome great obstacles.
I'm sure you've noticed that the people in
your church are divided into two parts.
You say, Oh yeah, some are for me
and some are against me.
Don't worry about that.
If God be for us, who can be
against us?
I think the only time I ever had
a unanimous vote was when I resigned.
No, there are two kinds of people on
every board.
Two kinds of people in every congregation.
There are those who see the opportunities and
there are those who see the obstacles.
I suppose you could say the pessimists and
the optimists.
That may be too broad.
When Dr. Redpath was pastor at the Moody
Church, almost every Sunday, one of the elders
would come back to the room where the
choir and the pastor were going to meet
before they went in.
He'd say, Oh, we're going to have a
hard time today.
This place is half empty.
Ten minutes later, another elder would come in
and say, Pastor, we're in for a wonderful
day today.
Place is half full.
All depends on your outlook.
When you believe in a great God, you
overcome great obstacles.
Obstacle number one, the king, the king.
I think that some of God's people have
gone about trying to influence government the wrong
way.
If you want to influence the government, pray.
We're commanded in Scripture.
We're commanded in Scripture to pray for those
in authority.
Whenever I've ministered in Canada, I've noticed in
the public meetings they always pray for those
in authority, for the premier, for the queen.
When I've ministered in Great Britain, every church,
large and small, in the pulpit prayer, the
pastor would pray for the queen and the
royal family and for the prime minister.
We don't do it in America.
When was the last time somebody publicly prayed
for those in authority in your church?
By the way, while I'm on the subject,
do you ever pray publicly in your services
for any other church in town?
I recommend you do it.
We're commanded to do that, to pray for
all the saints.
Every day is All Saints Day.
Say what it'll do.
If you pray for some other pastor in
a church in town, it'll get the signal
out that you folks aren't out competing with
the servants of God.
You know, and every town has its nomads
who go from church to church.
The nomads.
They get mad, they say no, and off
they go.
And so, some of them show up in
your service next Sunday, and they hear you
praying for the church they just left.
And then immediately they say, we're not going
to get very far here.
Nehemiah wasn't afraid of the king although he
was in fear.
His fear was the fear of God.
Pray.
There's no king or president or prime minister.
There's no judge or policeman.
There's no lawyer.
There's no one in authority who has higher
authority than Jesus.
He has been exalted above every name.
And that's the name in which we pray.
Obstacle number one.
God overcame it.
The king said, alright, how long are you
going to be gone?
He told him.
What are you going to do?
What do you need?
In fact, while he was talking to the
king, Nehemiah prayed.
Verse 4, So I prayed to the God
of heaven.
Verse 6, So it pleased the king to
send me.
That's obstacle number one.
Now he gets down there.
Obstacle number two.
Will the people follow me?
Unless people are following you, you aren't a
leader.
That's the test of a leader.
Is anybody following?
And are they following willingly?
Leadership is getting people to do enthusiastically what
they know they ought to do and doing
it because they want to.
Leaders are not dictators.
They lead the way.
And these people have been demoralized for centuries.
And I'm sure every once in a while
some young man would get up and say,
why don't we do something about these walls?
Why don't we do something about these gates?
Somebody would say, look, we've heard that before.
There's always somebody on the board or in
the congregation.
We tried that once.
Or we never did it that way before.
So he goes and surveys the situation.
That's a good thing to do.
And then he calls together the elders and
tells them what God has laid in his
heart.
And they said, let's rise up and build.
Isn't that great?
I recall the first church we pastored, we
were meeting in a tin building that seated
maybe, I guess if they were friendly, 200
people.
And it was nothing to brag about and
it was uncomfortable both in winter and summer.
It didn't even have a baptistry for us
to baptize people.
We had to go to another church.
We had to build.
I'm the last guy in the world that
should build a church.
I've been through two building programs.
I can't even read a blueprint.
I couldn't build a birdhouse from a kit.
And that's how God got the glory.
Everybody said, how'd this happen?
But you know what?
If you can explain what's going on, God
didn't do it.
God didn't do it.
They said, let's rise up and build.
And I remember a board meeting we had
and I said, you've got to do something
about this building.
But where we were in northern Indiana, every
six months there was a strike.
Either the steel mills were on strike or
the refineries were on strike.
And, oh, you can't build a pasture.
And one man spoke up.
One young man spoke up.
He said, I think we can do it.
I think God wants us to do it.
And we began to pray.
And God began to remove obstacles and by
the grace of God it was done to
His glory.
Well, obstacle number three.
Can we get people to help us?
Well, you know, chapter 2, verse 18 is
a secret.
And I told them of the hand of
my God which had been good upon me.
God uses leadership.
Everything in a local ministry rises and falls
with leadership.
A congregation does nothing collectively except get together.
From then on it is individual.
Somebody takes care of the nursery.
Somebody takes care of recruiting people from the
junior department.
Somebody takes care of the sound system.
Somebody cleans the building.
God uses people.
I don't know how many times I've heard
Dr. Lee Roberson say everything, everything rises and
falls with leadership.
God wanted to start the plan of salvation.
You've got to hold Abraham.
Sarah.
God wanted to rescue the nation from bondage.
He got a hold of Samuel and David.
God wanted to take the gospel to the
whole world.
He got a hold of twelve apostles.
Everything rises and falls with leadership.
And a leader is somebody who has God's
good hand upon him or her.
Chapter three.
They overcame the third obstacle.
Recruiting the people.
We could spend a week just on chapter
three.
We won't.
All kinds of people.
Men and women.
Professional people and non-professional people.
Some are named.
Some are not named.
All kinds of people work together to get
the wall built and to get the gates
put up.
It takes all kinds.
And the thing that amazes me about the
work of the Lord is somebody you think
who really can't do it, God's going to
call and let them do it.
Nobody can do the work of God alone.
Nobody.
I've been studying the book of Romans.
I'll be teaching it, Lord willing, down at
the Cove in October.
And it amazes me.
I get to chapter sixteen and Paul starts
rattling off.
And I'll greet this one, greet that one.
I'm so thankful for this.
I think he names 26 different people.
There's a bunch he doesn't name, but he
alludes to, who are all a part of
his ministry.
We said the great apostle Paul.
Hey, what about Priscilla and Aquila?
Hmm?
What about Crispus?
He can't do it alone.
So God overcame the next to third obstacle
by giving him the people that he needed.
God does that.
As you pray, you say, Lord, we've got
to have somebody for this.
How do you get laborers into the harvest?
You advertise.
Sometimes you get up and say we need
volunteers.
You get some odd volunteers.
Sometimes when the light shines the brightest, the
bugs come flying in.
How do you get laborers for the harvest?
Our Lord tells us.
Pray!
Pray the Lord of the harvest that He'll
get a hold of the laborers.
And He does.
Well, then they started to have opposition from
the outside.
You know the story.
They were ridiculed.
They were threatened.
Thank God for ministries that stir up the
enemy.
Thank God for ministries that people oppose.
We have the idea that you are the
most successful if you're getting all kinds of
praise from the world.
My Bible says just the opposite.
In the world, you're going to have what?
Tribulation.
Persecution.
Not vacation.
Tribulation.
But they overcame that.
They prayed.
They watched.
That's where the phrase watch and pray comes
from in the Bible.
They prayed.
They watched.
Chapter 6, the enemy said, well, we can't
frighten them.
We can't stop them.
Let's make them compromise.
That's the biggest and most subtle temptation of
all.
They said, oh, Nehemiah, would you come and
meet with us?
Come and meet with us.
Let's meet together among the villages in the
plain of Ono.
And Nehemiah said, oh no.
He wouldn't go.
I like that statement he makes there.
I like that statement.
Verse 3, I hope you believe this about
your ministry.
I am doing a great work so that
I cannot come down.
Do you believe your work is a great
work?
Pastors phone me and they say, I'm pastor
of a small church.
And I stop them.
I say, hold it.
There are no small churches.
And there are no big preachers.
But there is a great God.
When I came into this world, I started
small.
I was so ugly the doctors slapped my
father.
I wasn't supposed to live beyond the age
of two.
That's right.
But everything that I ever needed for the
rest of my life was in me.
Everything I ever needed.
All I had to do was have food
and clothing and exercise and cleansing.
And I got a little bigger.
And I've got two sons who are bigger
than I am.
I've got a grandson who is getting much
bigger than his parents.
Don't talk about small church.
Everything is there for the growth.
So Nehemiah overcame that.
I'm doing a great work because I have
a great God.
They slandered him.
Don't spend your time putting out brush fires.
Your job is to put down your fire
extinguisher, pick up your Bible, and do the
work of God.
Charles Spurgeon collected and bound six volumes of
pamphlets written against him.
I defy anybody here to name me one
person who wrote one of those pamphlets.
Nobody remembers them.
And Spurgeon's name, everybody knows.
Don't worry about it.
You've got a great God.
And they overcame every obstacle.
When you have a great God, you see
great opportunities, you pray with great faith, you
overcome great obstacles, and you make great sacrifices.
The mark of a leader is sacrifice.
A leader is someone who takes a little
more blame and a little less credit and
pays a lot more price.
But it's worth it.
It's worth it.
When you read chapter 5 of Nehemiah, you
find out that Nehemiah fed a bunch of
people, paid the bill.
I'm not suggesting you have to do that.
All I'm saying is, we wouldn't know this
except the Holy Spirit wrote it down.
And all the sacrifices you've made and the
pain you've felt and the prices you've paid
and the things you've done for which nobody's
ever thanked you or else they took credit
for it, what difference does it make?
When you have a great God, you make
great sacrifices.
He fed 150 people at his table.
You think when four or five show up
at the last minute, you're in trouble.
This man fed 150 people, paid the price
himself.
You make great sacrifices.
And finally, when you have a great God,
you bring him great glory.
In 52 days, the walls were finished, the
gates were hung, and the Gentiles were standing,
looking shame-faced.
No longer could the tour guides say, this
is the run down, fallen down, it's been
this way for centuries, city of Jerusalem.
No, no.
The great God had brought great glory to
himself through a group of dedicated people in
52 days.
Chapter 6, verse 15.
So the wall was finished.
Do you finish things?
I'll confess to you that in my file
I have some manuscripts I've never finished.
It's a good thing.
Those books weren't needed.
I have some sermons I've started.
I've never finished them.
But God is glorified by what we finish.
Jesus said, I've glorified you on the earth.
I have finished the work you gave me
to do.
I don't know what your work is, and
I can't finish it for you.
I can maybe help you.
You can help me.
When you have a great God, you bring
Him great glory by finishing the work.
Chapter 12 of Nehemiah, and verse 43.
They've dedicated the wall when gladness says, verse
27, I like the way they did it.
I like the way they did it.
Suppose that this is the wall right here.
They had a choir over here and a
choir over here.
Two choirs.
Vernon McGee said to me one day, he
said, I tell you, Warren, when Satan fell,
he landed in the choir loft.
I don't think that's true, but he thought
it was.
They had two choirs, and the choirs began
to sing and to march around the wall.
Then they met and had a great service
to praise God.
And you could hear it a long distance
away.
Now, there are times when God says, be
still.
Be still.
There are times when in quietness and confidence
shall be your strength.
There are times when the holiest thing we
can do is to do nothing.
Wait before God.
Be silent.
The Lord is in His holy temple.
Let all the earth keep silence before Him.
But don't stay like that.
God's frozen people.
Here was a worship service and the music
was heard afar off.
And they didn't have amplification.
They couldn't plug anything in.
They did it from their heart.
And everybody out there said, what's that noise
we hear?
Well, they're singing back at Jerusalem.
They're praising God.
I think one of the greatest witnesses we
have to the unsaved world is just praising
God and reminding them that there's a heaven
as well as an earth.
And there's a God and we're serving Him.
When you believe in a great God, you
bring great glory to His name.
These are some of the greatest days of
opportunity and obstacle I've ever seen or read
about.
And I meet with some folks who say,
well, it's over with.
It's over with.
Nehemiah wasn't that kind of a person.
Nehemiah said, I'm not very great.
And my people aren't very great, but our
God is great.
Our God is a great God.
And I believe in a great God.
And so I'm not going to see obstacles.
I'm going to see opportunities.
And I'm going to pray with great faith.
Not in myself and not in my prayers,
but in my great God.
We're going to overcome those obstacles.
We're going to finish the work.
And I'm going to make the sacrifices.
That's all right.
I'll make sacrifices.
Because I want to bring great glory to
God.
You came discouraged.
Look at yourself, and you'll be depressed.
But don't waste your time on autopsies.
Look at other Christians.
You'll be distressed.
Look at your great God, and you'll be
blessed.
And so, Father, we give ourselves to You
in our weakness to lay hold of Your
greatness, in our nothingness to lay hold of
Your abundance.
And our prayer is, be glorified in all
the earth through Your people, through Jesus Christ
our Lord.
Amen.