What Makes You Pound the Table and Weep?

Well, good morning, North Durham campus. It is a joy and delight for me to be here with you live and in person. I have so far enjoyed my time with you. So many great stories of what God is doing in and through this campus. If you have your Bibles, would you meet me in Nehemiah chapter 1 as we are beginning a series across all of our campuses today, making our way through the book of Nehemiah. As you are going there, I do want us to just kind of celebrate one more time. You know, we had this vision going back several years that we wanted to just burst out of a gospel greed, not any sense of a political agenda in any direction. We wanted to reach and see our whole mission field, the greater RDU area, reach for the cause of Jesus Christ and the gospel. And we had this vision of 25 by 2025 and by God's grace, we have accomplished that vision, but that's not a box to be checked. We are praying for more. And so would we just one more time give God honor and glory and praise for His faithfulness. Nehemiah chapter 1, we're going to look at the whole chapter today. I just want to read the first four verses into your hearing. I say this without any hyperbole. What we're going to talk about today I think is just on the short list of three to five very foundational things that no matter where you may be on the spiritual spectrum are just core to what it means to maximize your life here on earth. I want to talk about this whole idea of call or calling, and I'm excited to share this word with you as we're going to just kind of take a tour of this first kind of chapter and learn some vital insights for how to live life the way that God intended for us to live. Pick me up in verse 1, Nehemiah chapter 1. It says the words of Nehemiah, the son of Hacaliah, now it happened in the month of Chislev in the 20th year as I was in Susa, the citadel, that Hanani, one of my brothers, came with certain men from Judah. And I asked them concerning the Jews who escaped, who had survived the exile, and concerning Jerusalem, and they said to me, the remnant there in the province who had survived the

exile is in great trouble and shame. The wall of Jerusalem is broken down, and its gates are destroyed by fire. As soon as I heard these words, I sat down and wept and mourned for days. And I continued fasting and praying before the God of heaven. Will you pray with me? Father, we rejoice in what you're up to in our church, Lord God. What a joy and delight it is to hear from Pastor Roddell and the great work you're doing in Summit in Espanol, Lord God. Even the new campus of Summit in Espanol out in Alamance, the great fruit that's happening there. So many lives are coming to know you as Lord and Savior, Father God. All the nations that are represented, even within the Latino community, Lord God, thank you. Thank you. We rejoice, Lord God, with Pastor Charles and his work at HBCU, North Carolina Central, and other HBCUs, Lord God. So many African-Americans are coming to faith, and not only that, Lord God, but they're being raised up and sent out onto global missions, Lord God. It's an astounding work that's not by might, it's not by power. It is by your Spirit. And God, we pray for more. We pray for a greater harvest. We pray that what's ahead will be even greater than what's in our rearview mirror. Now, Lord God, would you just speak to us, Lord God? Would you burden us as we talk about Nehemiah's burden? Lord God, would you give me great grace as I just want to unfold the beauty, the simplicity of your text and this teaching on calling? I really believe if we could wrap our arms around this core issue of our lives, Lord God, we could go from living life in black and white to living life in HD, 4K. So Spirit of the living God, here's what I'm asking.

Your word says that it's living and active, so I just pray that your word would just be that, that it would come alive. Spirit of living God, that you would walk the rows, walk the aisles, tug on every heart, whisper words of challenge, words of encouragement, words of transformation. Be with me, give me clarity of mind, concision of speech. May we leave bettered in Jesus' name, amen. True story, his name is Clarence Jones. Clarence Jones in 1960 was living the dream. He had just graduated from law school, a very prestigious Ivy League school back east. He had married the girl of his dreams. They were starting a young family. He had gotten offered a prime position at a very prestigious law firm in Southern California, jumped on that opportunity, took the job, packed his things up, his family up. They made the drive all the way from New York to Southern California. They bought the house, beautiful little house in a little town just north of downtown Los Angeles, a little town called Altadena. He bought a house where his favorite thing about the house was a palm tree that was growing right in the middle of it. Didn't know that was a thing, guess that's a thing. And he's just living the life. It's February of 1960.

Clarence Jones, I see him now. Maybe sitting on his sofa, he's relaxing. Maybe it's the end of a long day. Knock on the door. It's weird, he's not expecting company. Gets up, answers the door, again, true story. And lo and behold, who's at the door? A little short man by the name of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Clarence is like, come on in, Dr. King. Conversation ensues, they exchange pleasantries, and then Dr. King gets right into the thick of it. It's 1960, he goes, man, it's crazy, but protests look really good on paper until you have to go to courtrooms and deal with bail issues. And Dr. King's like, man, we're being crushed by the legalities of it all, and man, we don't have the legal infrastructure or sophistication to be able to pull this thing off, and I need someone to spearhead all this. And every time I ask for recommendations on who that person can be, it's crazy, Dr. King says, but your name, Clarence, keeps coming up. And so I wanna just, I know you're enjoying your life with this law firm, but I just wanna invite you into this work, and I want you to spearhead our efforts, man, and it's more than a full-time job, and oh, by the way, I can't pay you anything. Right, right, this is exactly what I would do, right?

So I can imagine Clarence just chuckling in his spirit, he don't wanna disrespect Martin Luther King Jr., but Clarence had to be thinking, no way, this ain't gonna happen, I don't need to pray about this, don't need to discuss it with my wife, it's just not gonna happen. So he turns down Dr. King, undeterred, King comes back with more vision, more called, back and forth they go, but Clarence is pretty resolute, ain't gonna happen. Finally, Dr. King, on his way out, said, hey man, the least you can do, I'm preaching at this church, the Baldwin Hills Baptist Church on Sunday, can you at least come hear me preach? Clarence was like, least I can do, I'm there. Bad decision, Clarence. Clarence slips into one of the pews there on Sunday morning, sits down and hears Dr. King preach, and when Dr. King gets finished preaching, Clarence knew exactly what he had to do. Years later, Clarence would write these words in his memoir of that Sunday when he heard Dr. King preach. And from that point on, I was a Martin Luther King Jr. disciple. From that moment until the assassination on April 4th, 1968, I served as Dr. King's personal lawyer, political advisor, and draft speech writer. It was the most important relationship I have ever had. You're looking now at an image of Clarence Jones,

still living. He is what people call the last of the lions. Clarence Jones would heed the call and would spearhead and build out the legal infrastructure. He'd also be Dr. King's speech writer. I don't know if you've ever heard of a little speech called, I Have a Dream. He wrote the early drafts of that. The letter from a Birmingham jail, he smuggled it out of the jail, got it to the newspapers that got it to the world. And it was Clarence Jones who. built up the legal infrastructure, which became one of the main mechanisms to this galvanizing, transformational movement known as the Civil Rights Movement. Without Clarence Jones, that just doesn't happen. You know why we're talking about him today? Because he got off the sofa. He heeded the call. He gave up comfort. And he gave his life to what really mattered. I wanna talk to you about call today. I wanna talk to you about this whole idea of calling. What happens when God interrupts the status quo of your life and my life? I'm gonna talk to you about calling. It's a thread, this whole idea of calling, of God just showing up in unexpected ways. It's a thread that's woven throughout the scriptures.

I mean, you can hardly read a book of the Bible without seeing this concept of call. It's Abraham and Sarah, Abram and Sarai at the moment, where God shows up and they're given a call to leave Ur of the Chaldeans. It's Moses tending sheep on the backside of Midian. It's Peter, James, and John having a horrible time fishing. And Jesus says, one more time, and their lives are never the same. It's Levi, the tax collector, whose name would later on be changed to Matthew. It's Paul, his name at the time was Saul, going down the Damascus Road on his way to wreak even more havoc among this new thing called Christianity. And God shows up and blinds, over and over and over again. The story of the Bible is the story of a God breaking in, interrupting the status quo of our lives, calling us to something greater. And in our chapter, it's Nehemiah, government official. Cup bearer, who gets a burden. Something's wrong, and that burden turns into a call. I want to talk to you about calling. Someone's here today, and you wouldn't call yourself a follower of Jesus Christ, but I want to talk to you for just a moment because this issue of calling isn't just for people who would name the name of Jesus Christ. It's a universal felt need,

that no matter where you may be on the spiritual spectrum, I think a part of what it means to be made in the image of God is we want our lives to count for something. We want our lives to really matter. I mean, there's some itches in our soul that a great big house just is not gonna be able to satisfy. So I want to talk to you about this whole idea of calling. One of the ways that we know, even if you wouldn't call yourself a follower of Jesus Christ that this idea of calling is a universal felt need is there's a word that has crept into the English lexicon, the English dictionary in recent years. It's this word YOLO, YOLO, Y-O-L-O. YOLO simply means you only live once. The whole idea of YOLO, you only live once, is you get one crack at life. So lose yourself in the music, the moment. Eminem, get out of my mind. But you get the idea that you only get one crack at life. So maximize it. That's why self-help books are huge. If you want a crack at the New York Times bestselling list, write a self-help book because we're trying to find meaning and motivation and passion and purpose. When all of these things, now here's the tragedy. Secular people who don't claim Jesus Christ, they would say, yes, I want my life to count. Yes, I do believe this concept of a call. But secular people would say, turn inward for that call.

You determine the call. You make the choice. You make the decision. The Christian narrative, completely different. Christian narrative would say, yes, calling is a thing. And yes, we should all kind of give ourselves to the call. But the idea of call in the Christian worldview. He supposes a caller, someone who's outside of my life. So yes, there is a hole, but that hole isn't to draw me inward, it's to point me upward. There's someone out there. So there's a book. Two of my young adult sons are here. They don't realize this is on their reading list coming up. But there's a book I think every believer should read, especially, I think every young adult should read this book. It's a book called The Call by Oz Guinness. The Call. I just think every Christian should read this book. Look at what Oz Guinness says when he gets into the Christian concept of call. Look at it with me. We must recognize from the start that we are not simply talking about calling as purely personal, spiritual, and devotional. Your individual purpose and mine. Calling is all those things, but it is far more than just a truth for you and me. God is calling us to play our part

in the righting of wrongs in the world, in the renewal and restoration of the earth, and in carrying his message to the ends of the earth. Calling, therefore, carries a truth that is awesome in its significance, and earth-shaking in its implications. Its imperative covers the whole earth, the entire course of history, and every moment of our lives. Now, here's what he's saying. Calling, ultimately, is not about your fulfillment. It's not about, ultimately, your happiness. Now, the secular world view is, you want to be fulfilled, you want to be happy. See, that's a fine line there. So, what's the starting point? Me. So, I gotta find what brings me joy. Christian calling says that is a secondary byproduct that you'll only experience when you're making him happy, when it's his joy, when it's his purpose. So, there's a universal call. God's calling us. That's why Ephesians 2.10, I pray this verse. I pray, pray over our family every single week. Ephesians 2.10, for we are his workmanship. This is the theological premise of which Oz Guinness' book is based out of. Paul writes, we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works. This is an astounding statement,

which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in him. You know what Paul is saying? Brian, even before you got here, God had good works, i.e., a calling, waiting on you. Wow. And then, I mean, you talk about just spending a mind-blowing afternoon's meditation that there were things waiting on you before you arrived. And what does that presuppose? That presupposes a creator. That presupposes God. That presupposes a caller. So, fulfillment happens when I fulfill his agenda for my life. Secularism says you fulfill your agenda for your life. Don't talk about calling. As we walk through Nehemiah chapter one, I want us to get our historical bearings. Where are we in God's redemptive plan of history? By the time we come to Nehemiah, you have to understand the nation of Israel is split. The nation of Israel consisted of 12 tribes. A split happens with the bulk of those tribes making up what's called the Northern Kingdom, broadly known as Israel. Israel is in the North. One of the major tribes that splits off from Israel, who's in the Northern Kingdom, is Judah. Judah is in the Southern Kingdom. Nehemiah is a part of Judah, who's in the Southern Kingdom.

About a little over 100 years before this text is written, Judah, the Southern Kingdom, is attacked by Babylon. God, by the name of Nebuchadnezzar, comes into the holy city of Jerusalem, ransacks the city, desecrates the temple, and begins to siphon off, to move out all of the Jews, Nehemiah's ancestors at the time. It's now part of what's been called the Babylonian exile. Not long after Babylon, the Persians now rise up. up, they defeat Babylon in 539 BC. The Persians are in charge. So by the time we get to Nehemiah 1, Babylonians are not in charge, the Persians are in charge. Now, we can actually pinpoint the exact year our text is written because in verse 1, we're given a bit of a detail. Nehemiah writes, the words of Nehemiah, the son of Hakaliah, now it happened in the month of Chislev. We'll come back to that. Here it is in the 20th year. If you look at Nehemiah 2, verse 1, Nehemiah writes, in the month of Nisan, in the 20th year of King Artaxerxes. King Artaxerxes, actual historical figure, what is the 20th year of his reign? 445 BC. The events of our text are taking place in 445 BC. Now, you have to understand in verse 11 of our text, Nehemiah says that his role, he says, now I was cupbearer to the king. The role of cupbearer, your insurance premiums were really high. The reason why your insurance premiums were really high was your job was to taste the food before the king ate it and to drink the wine before the king drank it. Why? Because in case it was poisoned, you would die before the king got it. Now, outside of the fact that you could die at any given moment, this was a great job to have. The reason why it was a great job to have is because it gave you access to all of these important people in government, officials, king and queen and so many other people. And not only that, but cupbearers on top of that, they were also kind of occupied the position that we would today call the chief of staff. These are very important and powerful people. And what we're going to learn here is Nehemiah is going to get bad news.

The walls are broken down. This is going to create a burden in him that's going to really propel his sense of call. I've got to write this wrong, but here's what I want you to see. And don't miss this because I'm going to clarify some really bad Christian thinking. Notice that when Nehemiah goes after the call, he doesn't quit his job in the marketplace. I'll give that to you again. For Nehemiah to pursue the call doesn't mean he's got to quit his job as a government official and go into full-time vocational ministry. There's a dividing line we've created in Christian subculture where the varsity side of the kingdom are people like Brian who preach and teach the word of God. Brian is really serious about his faith, and the rest of you, oh, you do good things, but you're not as serious or not as important. That is a theology from the pit of hell. Nehemiah pursuing the call, full-time government official, amazing. So I want to press into this. You know, one of the things we do as parents is we spend a lot of time investing in our kids' activities and athletics as well we should because what we're trying to do is we're trying to help them discern the call. What is the call? What is the specific gifts and skill sets and random story? But I remember my mother and her journey with me in trying to discern what it is God had called for me. She got the bright idea that I needed to sing in the church youth choir. I'm telling my mom that is a bad idea, that is not of the Lord. She wasn't hearing that at all. She made me sing in the children's youth choir. I said, I'll fix her, true story. I made up my mind I was going to sing as loud and as awful as any kid has ever sung within the halls of any church in church history. That's exactly what happened. I was so awful, that was my first and last Sunday doing that. But I want you to understand, that's kind of what we do as parents. We spend all this money when we expose our kids to different things. But here's what I want you to understand. Many of us, when we think of call, we associate it with a person's source of income or stream of revenue. I want you to understand this is not how the Bible presents call to us. Are there times in which, yes,

calling does mean I need to quit my job in the marketplace and, yeah, I need to go to seminary, get some training, or I need to go on staff at some church or some non-profit Christian organization? Yes. Yes, it can be. Or what it can also look like is people like Nehemiah, government official, pursuing the call, people like Paul. Now, I'm called to plant the church, churches among Jews and Gentiles, but I'm also called to be a tent maker. That's going to be my source of revenue that's going to free me up to pursue the call. When my youngest son, Jaden, came to me and said, man, dad, God's called me to be a pastor, I got really concerned for multiple reasons. One of my reasons was, is all that kid knows is megachurch. And Jaden and I went on a walk in our neighborhood. I literally told him, I said, son, my concern for you is you have a very distorted... view of church. All you've known is mega church. Summit Church and the churches that I've led are the 1% of the 1%. The average church in America is 75 people, and a lot of those pastors are bivocational. So that's the image I want you to have. I want you to think about that. So many pastors today are pursuing the call bivocational. So what does this mean for us? One of our goals here at the Summit Church is we want to be one of the most multiplying churches in America. Okay, the most multiplying church in America. That's our vision here. We want to plant churches that plant churches that plant churches. And so to be a part of the Summit Church, we want everybody to have this burden, this vision of church planting. And what that means is from time to time you're going to see us kind of bring out on stage leaders who are going to go out and plant churches in various cities and states and even nations around our world. And some of you will be very much called to uproot your life here in the triangle and to go with them to another state, maybe even to another nation to be a part of that church plant. Yes and amen. And others of us will be at the same time very burdened to facilitate that call by keeping our job in the marketplace, making as much money as we can so we can give as much. Both of those are legitimate faces of the call. Every believer should be burdened for the nations.

Every believer should desire to have their passport filled, short-term missions, trips, long-term, whatever it may be. Why? Because God has a heart, not just for one people group, God has a heart for the nations. Some of you, that call means I need to uproot, sell my house, move to that other nation, give my life to that. Others of us, no, it just means we're going to hold the rope here, I'll come visit you on short-term missions things, I'll help to encourage you or I'll give you money towards that. But those are two faces of the same call. Can I say something very strong? Every, every, every single believer should be burdened for orphans. How can I make such a strong statement? James 1, verse 27, pure and undefiled religion is this, to look after orphans and widows in their distress. It's clear. Now, how do I facilitate that call? For some of you, you are called to foster. Others of you, you are called to adopt. Others of you, like me, Corey and I had this conversation years ago, what are we going to do with adoption? We came to the conclusion that what God was leading us to do wasn't to so much adopt, but God was leading us to when it made sense to give generously to people who were looking to adopt but did not have the financial means to be able to do that. All of those are calls. There's just different points of entry. So I want to talk to you about call. What does calling look like? Let me give you four things and we can call it a day right from this text. This whole idea of YOLO, you only live once. How do I maximize my life? Well, we maximize our life giving our lives to a call. Well, what does call really look like? Beginning verse 1 again, the words of Nehemiah, the son of Heckeliah, now it happened in the month of Chislev in the 20th years, I was in Susa, the citadel, that Hannah and I, one of my brothers, came with certain men from Judah, and I asked them concerning the Jews who escaped, who had survived the exile, and concerning Jerusalem. And they said to me, the remnant there in the province who had survived the exiles in great trouble and shame,

the wall of Jerusalem is broken down and its gates are destroyed by fire. Here it is. As soon as I heard these words, I sat down and wept and mourned for days, and I continued fasting and praying before the God of heaven. Here's Nehemiah, he gets a report that the walls have been destroyed in Jerusalem. Now, I know living in 2026, we don't really understand that concept of walls being torn and why it would lead to devastation. That's why Proverbs 25, 28 is important, as the writer is going to give us an idiom for what a city without walls is like. He says, a man without self-control is like a city broken into and left without walls. You see the picture he's painting is one of vulnerability. Back then, a city's army and its walls were equally important. So here's the holy city of Jerusalem. Why is it holy? Because it's got the temple of God, which is the presence of God, but there's no walls. The defenses are down. Vulnerable destruction and chaos are going to happen. And how does Nehemiah react? He sits down, and he weeps. Over the course of my life, my dad has given me about, I don't know, five statements that have really stuck to my bones. I want to give you one thing my dad said. Dad has always prayed for me and my siblings. I remember, especially my teenage years, dad was really walking close with me, trying to help me discern, why am I here? What are the specific things that God wants me to get after? And as we would just meet together, dad would inevitably ask me this question. I want to ask you this question, you ready? He would say, son, as you're trying to process

what it is that you need to spend your life getting after, I want you to wrestle with this question. What makes you pound the table and weep? What makes you pound the table and weep? What makes you, like Nehemiah, sit down and bring tears to your eyes? You know, I'm often asked how I got into this whole lane of multi-ethnic ministry, and look, it wasn't some master plan in my life. I remember being in Bible college, long story short, I had a classmate of mine who said some racist things to me, put me on an emotional tailspin, took me years to recover, and there was a lot of pain there. A couple years later, God started growing the ministry, and I started getting invitations to speak all over the place, and then I'd show up to these events, man, and like it was either all black or all white, and I just started asking a question like, this is weird to me, this is weird. There's a problem here. Well, things reached a head for me. I'd been invited by this one Christian organization who in this one city was putting on two events at the same time, one for black students, one for white students, and they asked me to speak at both of them. And I remember speaking at both of them, and then get to my hotel room, this was mid to late 90s, and go, that's weird. Like, we named the name of Jesus Christ, that's weird.

Then in my own way, I started to say, there's a hole in the wall. And I kid you not, I sense God saying, what are you gonna do about it? What are you gonna do about it? So we went and started a church in a city I'd never been to before. Everybody thought we were crazy, bro. We said, send us to the hardest place to do, you know, multi-ethnic church, and it was Memphis, Tennessee, and we went, and man, God blessed us and breathed on it, and we ate some good barbecue in the meantime, man. Then we started an organization to see the multi-ethnic church become new normal, and then several years later, J.D. was telling me about this vision they had, and invited me to be in on it, and. I guess I'm trying to say, I'm doing what I'm doing, because it all began with a burden. A burden. What's your burden? What's your burden? Frederick Buechner, one of my favorite quotes, when he talks about call, he says, the place God calls you is the place where your deep gladness and the world's deep hunger meet. I'm just gonna tell you, this is the most un-American message I can ever give to you, because for so many Americans there, I even say American Christians,

their biggest burden is how I'm gonna retire, when am I gonna retire? Home ownership is so many American Christians' biggest burden, private school tuition for their kids, so many American Christians' biggest burden, and I'm not saying any of those things are wrong in and of themselves, but golly, is that what make you pound the table and weep? As you look at life, what's wrong, what pulls on your heart? heartstrings. Living in America, the Disneyland of the world in 2026, I've got to tell you, man, this whole thing is stacked against us feeling a burden. We're living in a culture that's trying to distract us by technology, it's trying to numb us by pleasure. And man, we just got to get to a point where something's broken and I'm burdened about it. Now don't get it twisted, there's universal burdens. We should weep that just today thousands of people will go to their graves and spend an eternity in hell, that should be a burden. Children in poverty, that should be a burden. Orphans should be a burden. But I also believe there's some unique burdens and God is saying, man, what are you going to do about it? Second thing, calling is beyond my capacity, which is why I have to pray. The walls are down, he's burdened, and what's the first thing we see him doing? Verse 4, as I heard these words, I sat down and wept and mourned for days, and I continued fasting and praying before the God of heaven. So if I can just kind of throw myself out there to you, if I can just kind of flick myself off my little pedestal so you guys don't think I'm some spiritual person, here's what I got to admit and it's convicting for me as your brother in Christ to admit this, when problems come my way, when burdens come my way, my first inclination is to problem-solve, it's to whiteboard and strategize, it's not to pray. Why is it important that we pray first?

Here's why, don't forget this, because there will always be a gap between God's call and my capacity. If you can accomplish God's call in your capacity, you don't need God, which means it's not from God. So every burden, you should feel a sense of, I'm overwhelmed by this. This is too big. I mean, I remember being in my hotel room, just going, this is weird, two organizations, you know, one black, one white, there's a problem, sensing God is like, what are you going to do about it? And I'm just thinking to myself, oh, okay, that's real easy, I'll solve 400 years of race, I'll just do that by myself. Nehemiah says, I've got to pray. Well, how long did he pray? Verse 1 tells us, now it happened in the month of Chislev. Would you write down next to Chislev, that's November, December. Look at Chapter 2, Verse 1, in the month of Nisan, it's not the car dealership, in the month of Nisan, would you write down next to Nisan, March, April. Chislev is when he starts praying, November, December, Nisan is when he moves to action. So let's just say four months of praying. Here's my question to you, what has so moved you that I'm praying for four months? What has so gripped you? I'm just going to give myself four months. I got a buddy of mine, he was in London a couple of years ago, and he's by himself, he's waiting at this bus stop, waiting to hop on this bus, bus pulls up, doors open right as he's about to get off, bus driver says, five minutes, just give me five minutes. My friend's like, that's weird. Okay. Bus driver closes the door, rolls out a rug down the aisle, gets on his knees to pray. And my buddy is a Christian, he's taking all this in, the guy's Muslim, and he's thinking to himself, this isn't a one-off for this guy, I bet you he does the same thing every single day. And then he turns it on himself and he goes, he's kind of shaming me right now. My Muslim bus driver is shaming me right now. I don't pray like that. We'll never fulfill God's call without prayer because there's always, again, a gap between

God's call and my capacity. And I'll never move to faith, which is the bridge, unless I'm undergirded first by prayer. Speaking of prayer, will you just look at how Nehemiah opens up his prayer in verse five. He says, and I said, O Lord God of heaven, the great and awesome God, that's all I want to say, the great and awesome God, the great and awesome God. Why do I think that's important? It's a real shame for me to say it. I'm 53 years old and I got buddies of mine who've been articulating the same dreams for 30 years and they've never gotten to it. And I think the reason why they never gotten to it is they focus more on the burden than on their great and awesome God. Burdens are going to overwhelm you, they're going to overwhelm you. And I love how Nehemiah begins it. Nehemiah says, I'm going to focus not on the broken walls, I'm going to focus on the God of the universe. David Platt talks about the importance of prayer. He says, please don't miss this. Prayer was not a priority for Nehemiah, prayer was the non-negotiable. It wasn't first on a list of five. It was if I don't pray and I don't seek God and I don't seek His face, then nothing is going to happen, absolutely nothing. Prayer is not something we do before the work. Prayer is the work. Thirdly, look, I'll shoot you straight. This thing of calling can get a little weird if we're not careful. It's a real rookie mistake when it comes to calling. People root calling in how they're feeling. A true story, my wife is here. When I was single, a woman at our church, not my wife, when I was single, a woman at

our church, I didn't really know, I may have had one or two conversations with her. She called me in my office and her voice was trembling. She was nervous. I'm going, what's wrong? Well, you know, God's called us to be married. I just could hear my mother, be nice, be nice, be nice. Look, was she well-intentioned? I think so. Was she being manipulative? I don't feel that way. Had she prayed? Probably so. But it was rooted in how she felt. Calling's got to be rooted in the Word of God. And the other thing that I love about it is, Nehemiah prayed for four months about this. This isn't feel burdened on Tuesday, start building on Wednesday. Let me call time out here. Let me just try to discern. And then Nehemiah's prayer. Verse 8, excuse me, verse 5, no, I think it's verse 8. Remember, remember, remember, remember the word that you commanded your servant Moses saying, if you are unfaithful, I will scatter you among the peoples. But if you return to me. Scholars say that what Nehemiah is doing here is he's arcing his prayer back to Deuteronomy chapter 30 verses 1 through 10. He's anchoring his prayer in the Word of God, not in his emotions. I'm grounding this in what your word is saying. One of my favorite stories, true story, Kevin Hart, the comedian. His mom was a woman of faith. Kevin Hart tells a story of, he was just getting new in the.

in the comedian game, and he wanted to really just kind of, you know, give it a good run, and he wanted to really try it, and so he moved out of his house, and the day he moved out, his mom, a woman of faith, gave him a Bible and said, Kevin, I want you to read this book. This book is, it's life, true story. Kevin moves out, about a month or two goes by, he calls his mom and says, Mom, I'm not really getting work, and rent's due, I don't have it, can you loan me some money? And his mom goes, well, Kevin, did you read the Bible? Gave you the word, did you read the word? Kevin's like, okay, Mom, I'll get to it, I need money. Kevin, read your Bible. A couple weeks go by, same thing, calls back home, Mom, I need rent money, Kevin, you've read the word, he's getting frustrated, they go back and forth. Well, finally, Kevin's like, let me get the Bible, pulls it off the shelf, opens it up, six months' worth of rent checks fall out. No, the moral of this story is not read the word, money will come out. I don't want to encourage transactional, but there's stuff in this book that's more valuable than money. The ability to discern the call, the faith and confidence you need to pursue the call. Infinite trust in a God who's come through over and over and over again. Finally, God's call will always clash with your comfort. God's call will always clash with your comfort. Do you see how our text ends?

Now, I was cupbearer to the king. He's setting us up. He's pulling us into a tension, he feels. I've got this burden, boy, for me to stand in front of Artaxerxes and to ask for permission to leave my job to pursue the call, it could cost me my life. It could cost me my job. There's going to always be this tension. And in that anecdotal sense, Clarence Jones, you want to stay on the couch in your home in Altadena with the palm tree, do you want to make history? It's Peter, James, and John. You want to fish or do you want to make, do you want to follow me and I can make you fishers of men? It's Moses. You want to be a shepherd of these sheep or you want to be a shepherd of my people? It's Dietrich Bonhoeffer. Dietrich Bonhoeffer, we know that name. He actually came to America twice. First time he came was to do a bit of a fellowship at Union Seminary, a part of Columbia University. He then goes back to Germany, but things start heating up in Germany. Nazi regime is rising. His colleagues are like, Dietrich, you're too valuable. You've got to get out of here. Go back to America in safety. Once things cool down here, you can come back. Dietrich listens, hops on the boat,

leaves the discomfort of Germany. It's World War II. It's starting to happen. Makes it out, heading to America. And immediately on the ship, Bonhoeffer's like, man, I've made a bad choice. I've chosen comfort over the call. So immediately he makes a U-turn after a few days in America. He comes back. Why'd you come back, Bonhoeffer? Here's why he came back. Will you look at it with me? Bonhoeffer says, I've had time to think and pray about my situation and that of my nation and have God's will for me clarified. I have come to the conclusion that I have made a mistake in coming to America. I shall have no right to participate in the reconstruction of Christian life in Germany after the war if I do not share in the trials of this time with my people. Christians in Germany face the terrible alternatives of willing the defeat of their nation in order that civilization may survive or willing the victory of their nation and thereby destroying civilization. I know which of these alternatives I must choose here, but I cannot make the decision in security. I can't. So I ask you again.

What drives you? Early retirement? Country club membership, home ownership, private school tuition, I'm not saying those things are bad. I'm not saying those things are bad at all. Join the country club. Invite me to play with you. I have a 12 handicap. But when those things numb you to the deeper burdens of life, shame on us. We've been sold a bill of goods. It's called American Christianity. It says I can numb myself with comfort and sprinkle in just enough Jesus to be acceptable. There are broken walls all around us. And before you got here, God had a call waiting on you. So I want to pray. Some of you all, maybe you need prayer because God, you just don't feel burdened for anything. So maybe the prayer is God, break my heart for something. Maybe others of you, yeah, you do have a burden, but man, you've put that on the back burner. And then there's others of you, you don't know Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior in your life. And I want you to know the call begins with the call Jesus makes, follow me. In fact, here's what's crazy. For those of us who are saved, we're saved because Jesus had a burden and that burden left him to cause him to leave the comforts and security of heaven. He left the comfortable to come here to walk with us. So let me get this straight. He's burdened for us. He dies on a cross for us. He calls us in relationship with him and all of a sudden, we're going to play it safe? So God, would you deliver us from American Christianity, and by that I mean a kind of

Christianity that just wants to be happy and safe and comfortable? God, would you break our heart for something, for something? Would you burden our heart for something? Something is wrong, something is off. May you overwhelm us, drive us to our knees in prayer, captivate us by the beauty of a great and awesome God, root us in your scriptures, give us wisdom, give us discernment. For some, yes, the call is quit your job, but for others, no, not only don't quit your job, I want you to get more and more promotions because I got to put more and more money in your hands to facilitate the call. Give us wisdom, give us discernment, in Jesus' name I pray, amen.