What to Do With the Burden God Has Given You // Nehemiah 1:1-11

- All right, good morning to city church across all of our campuses. I hope you guys are ready. If you came, and this is your first time ever at two city church, you came on a very special and significant Sunday. It's not every weekend that we give away a hundred page journal. Grab your journal. This is your journal for the journey. You can put your Romans guide down if you brought that with you. We're gonna pick that right back up after Thanksgiving, but we are gonna be in the Built to Last series and Built to Last initiative for the next five weeks. The initiative's till the end of the year, but the series is gonna be specifically over the next five weeks. So we have two goals. Let me just say them again. They were in the video, okay, but let me just say them in person to you. The first goal is 100% participation, okay? That everybody who calls two city church home would have an experience with God that would transform their hearts and make them a more generous person. I want everyone in here to have a sense of FOMO. You know what FOMO is, right? Fear of missing out.

Like you don't want, in two years, when everything that we just showed you there, hopefully in less than two years, but when it's all built and it's all done and people are being baptized and students are being reached and campuses are being launched and churches are being planted, I don't want you to say to your wife, why were we so stingy? A couple of years ago, we had an opera, there was an open door before us and we missed out, okay? So the first goal is just 100% participation. The second goal is to raise at least $10 million in one-time gifts above and beyond normal ties and offerings before the end of the year. And there's a really important phrase in that, at least. In fact, say it back to me, ready, one, two, three. At least, okay, we're hoping, you know, if you wanna give $10 million and let us start there, we'll be excited about that, okay? Guys, here's the thing, I want you to do a couple things. I want you to take this commitment carb, okay? This is really special, we're gonna give you one of these again in five weeks on November 22nd, but I want you to take this and put this somewhere, you'll see it all the time. Hopefully that's your Bible, hopefully you're reading your Bible all the time, you're like, oh, if I put this in my Bible,

since I read my Bible every day, I'll see it every day. For some of you, if you brush your teeth, and I hope you, okay, put this on the mirror when you brush your teeth, if there's a place in your car, on your dashboards, wherever, you wanna remind yourself, this is your opportunity to go, okay, what kind of gifts could I give? Now, what's interesting is this is what's called a stored asset initiative. Most times when we talk about being generous, here's what you're thinking, right? This is how people think, well, this is what I make, and this is what God, this is my salary or whatever, and based on what I make, and based on what's gonna happen in the future, this is what I'm gonna give. That's not what I'm asking you. I'm asking, what has God given you in the past? There are three types of gifts. Which one will you be? Some in the church will give what's called the widow's might. God bless you. The widow's might is when somebody has a little, and therefore they give a little, but it really was a lot. First time we did this initiative, we had a small church, and a lot of people starting in their lives,

and lots of people trying to figure out everything, and I got an email from a couple in the church, a young couple, and they said, hey, we don't have a lot of money, but we've decided to not give each other Christmas gifts this year. And instead, we'd like to give $250 this initiative. And I thought I would never ask anyone to not celebrate Christmas to give this initiative, but that was a widow's might for them. That was what they could do, and that's what they wanted to joyfully and generously do. The second type of gift isn't the widow's might. Some of you have the widow's might. Others of you, it's the alabaster jar. You know that story? Jesus shows up at Mary's house, and Mary remembers I have a very expensive stored asset. I don't even know that she ever thought it was for Jesus, until Jesus showed up in power in her life. And some of you may look as you think about your finances over the next few months, you may think, man, you know what? Maybe there's an alabaster jar that I could give to Jesus to help reach the next generation. And then for some of you, there's the King David legacy gift. King David in First Chronicles 29 is old, and he's not, he's a part of that we call him today, the boomer and builder generation. And he's, he wanted to build a temple,

but it didn't work out for very long. before it's built, never see it built, never know anyone who will be blessed because of it. Yet King David gives a generational legacy gift. And we're going to need all three. This is the third time I've done this. It's the third time we've done a financial initiative. And I've said the same thing every time. I said it when I was I said it years ago. I said it last time we did it five years ago. And I'll say it again. Margie and I are excited genuinely to give the biggest gift we've ever given to anything. And I'd be excited for you to join us. By the way, bring your family along on this journey. The biggest when we did this nine years ago, our first initiative was called the deep and wide initiative. And the person who gave the largest percent of their net worth to this initiative, the first one, lived in my house, my son. At the time he was three and he had two dollars. And we said, if you have two dollars, it's not a lot of money. What do you want to give? And he says, I want to give one. And we said, so you're going to give half of all that you have to the deep and wide initiative. He said, I am. It's a great lesson on generosity. Now, the truth is three days later, he came downstairs, cried and asked for it back. Okay. Which is a reminder that generosity is joyful, but can also sometimes be painful. Let's pray. Lord, it is good to laugh. It is good to you. The Bible actually says you love a hilarious driver, a generous giver, a someone who gives with just joy and laughter. And as we talk about building, we're going to talk about building today. We have to build with a song in our heart. We have to build with joy in our hearts, not as willing victims, not reluctantly, but generously and joyfully, would you help us to do that in Christ's name? Amen. What I know about Americans is one thing at least. The American dream, it may have changed. I don't know if the American dream, when my parents, when I was growing up, the American dream was move out to the suburbs, have 2.1 kids, have the nice house, the white picket fence. I don't even know for sure what the American dream is today. But it's definitely this. It's some version of being unburdened. I know we're in church, no place to be honest, right? But if you can be honest with yourself for just a second, isn't that kind of what at least it's what you think you want? You know, you want a spouse that's going to meet all your needs or she or he won't be a bird. You want kids that are going to, you know, basically do the right thing and not cause you too much trouble and find their own way

and become financially independent. And you want a body that doesn't have too much illness and too much injury and, you know, you want to just be healthy and you want a job that provides enough for you to have financial margin, but doesn't require too much of your extra time. And guys, we want to be unburdened. If having a burden means burden in the Bible is a weight you carry. We like to pay other people to carry weight. That's why we have insurance. That's why we door dash and Uber eats. We don't even want to go to the store and pick up our own food anymore. This is why Americans are declining, getting into commitments, right? Why wouldn't someone want to get married? Or why wouldn't someone want to have kids? Or why wouldn't someone want to get a career? Why wouldn't someone want to buy a house because all of those things are burdensome? You know, here's the truth. Everybody wants kids, but some people don't want little kids. Everybody wants kids. If you don't know that you want kids, you want kids, trust me. There's nothing better than having kids and there's no one you could have a better relationship in the entire world than your own kids. That's all they would like to have. They'd like to have the best possible relationship with you ever. Why aren't people having kids if they could have kids? Because they don't want little kids. Because they don't want diapers and they don't want toddlers and they don't want burdens. And men tend to view children as a burden on the budget and women tend to view children as a burden on the body. And then what happens when you get old? Do you know they say the number one phrase they hear in hospice? I just feel bad. I'm being a burden. We've turned the elderly into burdens in our life. If you'll turn to Nehemiah chapter one or page 46 in your book, okay, here's the whole big idea. You for today, you were built to have a burden. I mean, do you want to be like an astronaut? You know an astronaut does. An astronaut goes into space is all by themselves and lives gravity free. And then if they don't get back in gravity. You were built to have a burden. Here's what we're gonna talk about today. We're gonna talk about something different each week, but this kind of starts it. What breaks your heart, that's what a burden is, what breaks your heart reveals

what God wants to build with your hands. And what I want us to do is, I'll tell you, you kind of saw it in the video. I mean, I can take some time and I can tell you the burdens on my heart and the burdens on our staff and the burdens that our church has and the burdens that we're trying to see and that's great and I'll do some of that. But I want you, I want every person in here to go, you know what, I'm burdens. And by the way, you'll be burdened about different things we're all gonna have, it takes all types of Christians to reach all types of people and we're all gonna be burdened about different things. Let me introduce you to a man today, his name's Nehemiah, he was burdened. Nehemiah chapter one, verse one, we're gonna cover the whole first chapter today. The words of Nehemiah, the son of Hekaliah. Okay, here's your Nehemiah. It's Nehemiah is a guy who writes the Bible who wasn't in full-time ministry. That's unique. Most people who write the Bible, you know, they were the Apostle Paul. He's in full-time ministry, Peter. He's in full-time ministry. In the Old Testament, it's prophets and priests and Moses and all these guys.

And then what's interesting is, I think particularly the businessmen and women in here will find this interesting. This book is written by a guy who's in the marketplace. He's actually kind of politically involved. His role is he's the cup bearer, which is simultaneously, when I say cup bearer, it was simultaneously like the best job and the worst job at the same time. It was the worst job because your job was every night at dinner to drink wine. You're like, that doesn't sound too bad, right? To drink the king's wine to see if it was poisoned, right? So you're the cup bearer. So you're very trusted. But basically, as long as the wine's not poisoned, you have an incredible job. You're well paid. You live in the palace. You're protected by the king. You've got all the connections that you would need, which leads to the second thing about him that I think's interesting. And this is where a lot of people in our church are. Nehemiah was successful and safe. We'll see in a moment that he's gonna get some bad news, but he could say, who cares? This is happening a thousand miles away. It's not gonna affect me. I mean, Nehemiah could do nothing,

could not try to solve the problem he's about to hear, and he would be fine. And probably for another generation, his family would be fine. But here's the third thing. And Nehemiah, and this is what I want each of us to be. Nehemiah was a spiritual leader. Let me tell you, here's how everything changes. If you wanna know how everything changes in a home, or in a business, or in a community group, or in a neighborhood, it doesn't take a lot of people. We have a lot of people here. It doesn't take a lot of people. It takes one person stepping up saying, I'm gonna be a spiritual leader. See, Nehemiah is both, the book of Nehemiah is both a personal journal. Like if you read it, you're like, this is basically his journal entries. And it's a leadership playbook. And here's what happens. Here's what a spiritual leader is. A spiritual leader is somebody who loves people, prays and has a plan. Would that be so hard for you to do? And particularly, if I could talk to the dads, I'm preaching with my coin right now. There we go, it's in my pocket, okay? If you're out of men's life. If I could talk to the dads, listen, your wife,

and your kids, they will put up with so much of your unbrokenness and all the demons you're fighting yourself and everything. They will put up with so much if they know he loves us. He's praying for us and he's putting together a plan. Well, Nehemiah, he's comfortable, okay? Let me show you where he's living. I kind of mentioned this already, but if you continue in verse one, it says this. Now, it happened in the month of Chislav, in the 20th year, Chislav is like November, December. In the 20th year, as I was in Susso, 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. So he's in Persia, this all takes place in Persia. Let me give you, you'll find this interesting, I think. So let me give you a little biblical history. Israel had a lot of enemies. We know, you know, you read the story of Moses, it was the Egyptians. You read the book of Daniel, it's the Babylonians. The Babylonians came in and they crushed people, okay? That was the whole bow or burn that you saw, bow to the statue or burn in the fire. That was the book of Daniel. The Persians then come in and the Persians, they ruled differently, they ruled, but they wanted you to have,

they went like to rule a bunch of different peoples who had their own culture and who had their own language and who had their own religion. Think of it this way, the Persians had the co-exist bumper sticker on the back of their candle. That's what they did. And so they're like, fine, we're gonna rule you guys and we're gonna certainly tax you guys and all this kind of stuff, but basically you're gonna be. So during that time, this guy named Zerubbabel, okay? And I learned in seminary, Zerubbabel cleaned up all the rubable. I know it's terrible, you won't forget it now. So when you read Zerubbabel, you're like, I know what he did, he cleaned up all the rubable, okay. Zerubbabel, he goes, and he goes to Jerusalem under the Persian leadership, and he builds the Second Temple with Ezra, and worship is reestablished, but the rest of the city and the walls are all broken down. So here's what happens. Let's go back to verse two, I want you to see this. It says that Han and I, that's literally one of Nehemiah's brothers, 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. So how do you get a burden? First, you've got to want one. And I hope you do want a burden. Want to be broken-hearted and be burdened for things just like Jesus was, Jesus was called a man of sorrows.

But the first thing that you do is you have to start asking questions, you have to start being, have we lost all sense of being curious, caring, being concerned? The first, the way he's going to get a burden is by talking to other believers. He talks to his brother. He asks how he's doing. Now, if we're honest, we don't really want to know how people are doing. In psychology, they call it information avoidance. So over the next two months, you know how this is, we're getting toward the end of the year, you're going to be getting a bunch of things in the mail. You'll get something from the pregnancy care center, and you'll see it. Compassion will let you know that there's another kid that could be sponsored. And I'm not saying that we have to respond to everything that comes in the mail, but how easy is it to go? I don't think I even want to open this. I don't know that I want to know about this because it might make me responsible. It's the same reason you don't really want to ask your friend the day they're moving, because you don't want to be holding the other end of the couch. It's called information avoidance. Let me tell you something that I learned in seminary from my biblical counseling professor, he gave us this, he was such a practitioner, so he gave us a really practical way to build Christian community and bear one another's burdens.

He said that when, and you know this, that whenever you and try this today, don't try it in the lobby because everyone know that you're trying it on them, because they've tried somewhere else. But he said, you have to ask the question, how are you three times? He said, because the first time you say, how are you? You're just saying hello. We all know that, like how are you, I recognize you as another human in my proximity, that's what that basically means. And we say good and we leave. But he said, if you ask it, like if you're actually talking to the person and you ask it a second time, because they'll say, I'm doing well. And I get that, I get that. I really mean they're like, how are you doing? And I've watched this, this happens every time. What people do then is they tell you what's going on around them, almost every time. So they'll say, well it's crazy. We've got two different kids and they're playing in all these sports, and my wife's working a lot, or my husband's working a lot, or whatever. The holidays are coming up, it feels, you know, whatever. And then if you ask the question one more time, wow, that sounds like a lot. How are you doing? And it normally takes about three, how are you? And then they all of a sudden, they say, well, actually, I'm a little bit overwhelmed personally.

And I feel like I'm failing at multiple things that I'm doing, and I'm overwhelmed at their responsibilities at home and their responsibilities at work. And all of a sudden, you've gotten to the real burden, but you have asked the questions. And all starts with the question. Here's what his brother says. Look at verse three, here's the problem in a sentence. And they said to me, look at what he says, the remnant, we tied them with that in Romans. That's a small group of believers. The remnant there in the province who had survived the exile is in great trouble in shame. So do you notice he talks first about people? He says, here's what's going on. And then he says, the wall of Jerusalem is broken down and its gates are destroyed by fire. And then he talks about place. So the vision for the Builds Last Initiative is that we are building places to better build people. Or a longer way that I've said it is we are designing this church to partner with you to reach all of the people that you love. Now, when I say Christians are supposed to care about people and Christians are supposed to care about places, I think We're like, yeah, that sounds like we should care about people. Like we shouldn't be like social media that views people as audiences. Or materialistic, atheistic people who view people as accidents. And we shouldn't be like businesses who view people as consumers. And we shouldn't be like the state who views people as taxpayers.

It's like, no, we actually think we know that people are made in God's image. God created them and Christ died for them. And so because of creation and cross, we know that every person is unbelievably valuable. I mean, you think there's no one that you've ever met that isn't going to live forever. People are very, very about, but I want to talk about why we care about places. The reason that we care about places is because places shape people, right? Students need schools, sick people need hospitals. Christians need church buildings, humans need homes. Now, watch this, we're going to do an imaginative exercise together. You know, don't say this out loud, just think to yourself. I want you to go back to 10 year old you. Just try to remember roughly when you were about 10 years old, okay? You're about in fourth grade. I don't care if you're in third grade, fifth grade, that time period. I want you to think who were your five closest friends? So that would be people. Now, as I did this exercise with some of our staff, a lot of the staff at 10 years old couldn't think of five. That's okay. Now, here's what I want you to do. You're 10 years old. Go back to 10 year old you, third, fourth, fifth grade you, and I want you to think about the house you lived in. And almost everybody I talked to could describe the house in great detail. From the color of the carpet to what chair dad sat in, to what dining room table looked like to the bedroom that they grew up in. And that's because places shape people. And to be fair, in that home, it was the place, the house, but the people, mom, dad, brother, sister, that really ends up shaping you. So he's burdened.

Now, what's interesting about this is if you don't need to do all this research, if you do all this research, you realize that the walls of Jerusalem have been broken down for a long time. This was not new information to Nehemiah. Sometimes what happens is you get the same information or you see the same thing that you've been seeing all the time, but now all of a sudden you see it from God's heart or God's perspective. See, part of it, one of the questions I want to ask us is just honestly, man, where have we become calloused or numb or indifferent to the brokenness in our world? Sometimes you learn this when you're a parent, you know, and you're driving your kid around when they're young and your kid goes, what's that? And you go, that's a strip club. Or it's called a gentleman's club, which is like definitely what it's not. You know what I'm saying though? And then your kids ask you what that is and you're like, my heart should be completely broken over everything that happens in there. And I drive by there all the time. And I don't think about how it's such a broken picture where we are. Or you're driving by and your kid says, what happens over there, dad? And you're like, that's an abortion clinic. Try explaining that to your five-year-old. And you realize, man, maybe our heart should be more broken when we go out to eat dinner and every kid is on his screen. It's like, there's so much, there's so much brokenness. And here's what happens. Here's how burdens work. You don't pick your burden, your burden picks you. And so this is what's, this is what I hope happens over these, as we have these discussions in community group. And here is all of a sudden you're going to realize,

we're not all going to be burdened over the exact same thing. In fact, whatever problems you see, they're your problems. If you're like, this, this for some reason, it's not bothering a lot of other people, but it really bothers me. That's because it's your problem. It's your problem to solve. I want us to have what they've called in the past a holy discontentment. It's when you look at the world and you go, according to God's word, things could be different. And then here's the transition and things should be different. When EMI is so broken hearted, look what he does. In verse four, Nehemiah is going to be a worker. He's going to be a man of action. are here. He says, as soon... Look at this. Verse four. As soon as I heard these words, I posted about it on social media. Just kidding. As soon as I heard these words, I sat down and wept and mourned for days and continued fasting and praying before the God of heaven. Okay, a lot of times we don't have time to have a burden. We're too busy to have a burden. To really go, God, would you burden my heart? Would you break my heart for what breaks yours? Can I just tell you it's not going to happen in a five-minute devotion? If you think like this is great, you know, what I'm going to do this afternoon is I'm going to spend about five minutes thinking about what I'm brokenhearted about. It's like, I'm sorry. I mean, I'm probably not supposed to say that because what we're supposed to do is put the cookies on the bottom shelf and give everybody the least action step possible. But I'm like, what it's going to take is probably you being very serious about these, especially maybe these five weeks. Notice what he does is he fast. So here's what we're asking you to do. Okay, we're asking you to fast on Wednesdays. Now, if Wednesdays doesn't work, we're not legalistic about it and do it a different day. And for some of you, you're going to fast one meal. And for some of you, you're going to fast two meals. And for some of you, you're going to fast for the whole day. But we're asking you to fast from food. Every once in a while, people are like, I'm not going to fast from food. I'm going to fast from social media. It's like, that's because you're afraid to fast from food.

If you don't want to fast from food, you 100% need to fast from food. Here's what happens whenever you fast. Okay, I'm not acting like I'm some expert in fasting, but I've done it enough to know about this. Whenever you fast, everything inside of you gets louder. Everything. And this is why when something terrible happens in your life, or you have a bad day, you always think, well, at least I'm going to go home and have pizza. Or chips and salsa or ice cream, or I'm going to stop by Chick-fil-A on the way home and it'll make a diet Coke and a number one will make everything better. And what happens, though, is here's the weird thing. It kind of does. And what's happened is we've just used food to cover everything that's going on inside of us. When you fast, you basically say, you know what, for a short season, I'm going to starve my flesh to feed my soul. And then here's what happens. If you fast, then you realize, wait a second, you start realizing how much time you spend thinking about food, preparing to eat food, driving to get food, ordering food, cleaning up food. And if you skip one day of eating food, you get three or four hours of your day back. And it could be a very, I'm telling you, there's some of you that that is going to be, that's what's going to move the needle for you over these five weeks is what we're doing on Wednesdays or whatever day of the week works for you. But then it gets sad. Now nobody wants to be sad today because we think the goal in life is to be happy because that's what our boomer parents told us. We just want you to be healthy and happy. And then we think the goal of life is hedonism. And so anytime we're sad or suffering or upset, we think that's a bad thing. But what does Jesus say? Do you remember in his most famous sermon, The Sermon on the Mount, in the second beatitude, which is the blessed statements, he said, "Blessed are those who mourn." And sometimes you just need to sit down and go, when was the last time I cried about it? When was the last time you cried and it wasn't while you're watching a movie? And you just thought about the brokenness in your world or the prodigal son. So now he takes his problems into the presence of God. In verse five, he begins to pray. And I said, oh Lord God of heaven, the great and awesome God. So he takes his problems into the presence of God. He takes his worries into worship. He says, who keeps covenant, he reminds himself of who God is, instead fast love with those who love him and keep his commands. So I want to talk about this. It's not enough to have a burden. You need to have a belief in God that is the answer to your burden. This is what makes Christian leadership unique. Think about it this way. I almost put this on the screen, but I didn't. So try to follow this. If you have a burden, minus belief, you burn out.

And we see this. People are like, they become nihilistic. They become pessimistic. They think that world's going to hell in a hand basket. There are way too many problems that are way too I think in the American church we have more belief minus burden. What is so if burden minus belief is burnout, belief minus a burden is boredom. And I think some of us are just bored because we we know all the Bible answers. We know God's sovereign and he wants to reach the nations and he can heal people and he can restore marriages and he can save prodigals. We know all the Bible verses. We've heard all the sermons. We listen to all the podcasts. The problem is we don't have a burden. There's no place. There's no problems where we want to see God show up and show off. And so he sits and he prays and here's what he does. First he starts with who God is and then look at he says let your ear be attentive and your eyes open to hear the prayer of your servant that I now pray before you day and night for the people of Israel your servants. So he's praying for people. I don't know who you've stopped praying for but he's praying for people. He says this confessing the sins of Israel which we have sinned against you even I and my father's house have sinned. We so by the way he doesn't have a they mentality. He has a we mentality. We have acted very corruptly against you and have not kept the commandments the statues and the rules that you have commanded your servant Moses. How do you stir a burden in your heart through the confession of your unsend? If you are like man I just feel spiritually dry. There's two ways that I know to like if you're just like if you want to jolt of spiritual energy I don't know how let's talk about it. You just go to some public place and and start up a spiritual conversation and share the gospel with someone and your life will get so unbelievably exciting so quickly you won't be able to handle it. But the second way is you start confessing your sin. I don't know if you've ever heard of Alexander. He has a hard last name to say Solzhenitski. Some say Solzhenitski. He was he wrote the Gulag archipelago which they don't talk about in school anymore but they should and his whole story is he finds himself in the Gulags in the Soviet Union and which is like their version of the concentration camps and while he's there he's you know under Stalin in the Gulags and he gets cancer while in prison. I mean it probably can't get much worse than this and communism is taking over the Soviet Union and Alexander sits in his jail cell. This is well documented. He sits in his jail cell one night and he thinks what have I done

to add to this. How did I make possible the Gulags? It's like do why? Nothing. You're in it. You're you're your f cancer. You were trying to say and then he goes in middle school. I didn't speak up against communism when my teachers taught it. And I'm like did you you went all the way back to things? You know it's like what you know you're you know you before you go you know what I'm against the strip clubs it's like are you looking at pornography? Because it's the same business cycle that feeds everything. Are your heart broken over sex trafficking? Are you looking at things you shouldn't be looking at? And when the church starts to have not the they mentality not oh I hope out there I hope through this initiative we can help them whoever they and them are and you say instead no you know what God would you break my heart for what breaks yours would you show me where I need to repent? But he doesn't just end there look after he's had his confession he says this remember the word you commanded your servant Moses so how do you have a burden you have a burden but you also need to have a Bible because if you're going to have beliefs you need a burden with the Bible here's what he says 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 and keep my commandments and do them though your outcasts are in the uttermost parts of heaven from there I will gather them and bring them to the place that I have chosen to make my name dwell there they are your servants and your people whom him you've redeemed by your great Moses if they were rebellious you were going to scatter them and we see that you've done that because the people have been rebellious and I've been rebellious he's saying and he's like will you keep the second part of your promise now that if we return to you that you will bless us and then this is where it gets really good verse 11 oh lord let your ear be attentive to the prayer of your servant and to the prayer of your servants who delight to fear your name look at this this what he's praying for this is what we're going to end by praying for would you give success to your servant today and grant him mercy in the sight of this man he wants to be blessed to build you know we build in order to bless other people and God blesses us in order to build so that we can bless other people Nehemiah wants God's blessing on his life and let me tell you this if you want God's blessing on your life I don't know a lot of things but I do know how to get God's blessing on your life the way if there's any area of your life where you would just say right now

if you just out of one area in your life right now where you go I want God's blessing on this area of my life I know what you need to do you just need to put him first in that area of your life that's it some of you are asking God to bless something and he's looking down from heaven going I am blessed in that you know you won't God to bless your dating relationship are you putting him first in it parents spend about 18 to 23 years of their life just asking that God would bless their family especially their kids while they're in the home it's like well I know how I know how this works if you would like God to bless your home you put him first in it if you'd like God to bless your business you put him first in it if you'd like God to bless your finances you should put him first in it now here's what I love Nehemiah basically says let me read it one more time I want you to see what he says at the end of verse 11 and give success to your servant today and grant him mercy in the sight of this man we'll see that next week that's king art is irksy but here's what Nehemiah says God I'd like to be the solution to the problem I love that Nehemiah doesn't say God would you please send somebody else he says God would you use me in the life of other people to build and to bless them when I was in college ministry one of the leaders in our college ministry he used to ask this question to people he used to say whose responsibility is the great commission and he would ask that to individuals and you know when I don't know what you'd say if someone said whose responsibility is the great commission well the most common answer he got was our responsibility and he used to say do you have a frog in your pocket you should be saying it's my responsibility Nehemiah is going you know what God I want to know if maybe the adventure of my life might not be being part of the solution to all of the problems that I see around me that's why he ends with this phrase let me show this phrase he ends with I brought it up to you early but he says in verse 11 at the very end now I was cupbearer to the king I told you this at the beginning that he was the cupbearer you know because I wanted to introduce who he was and that he was in the marketplace not in full-time ministry but yeah I understand if you're reading this story for the first time and you're like okay this guy named Nehemiah he lives in Persia his brother visits him there's stuff going on far away Nehemiah is broken about it and then finally he realizes I'm the cupbearer

in other words he realizes maybe not just I want to do something about this maybe I could do something about this since I have dinner with the most powerful person on the face of the earth every evening and here's what I want you to figure out I want you to figure out what has God called you to build and I'm not going to do your homework assignment for you but in the journal that we gave you okay to have a discussion with your community group and by the way I I hope you're going to get in a community group if you're not I hope that you're going to go to community group every week during this series we give you a three-fold way to think about what you're supposed to build I think it'll be on the screen but it's desire design door and again this is not something that in 15 minutes that you'll be able to figure out but let me just kind of whet our appetite when you think about desire here's where your desire comes from it comes out of your story And so some of you may go, you know what, I have a huge desire for prodigal sons and daughters because I had one or I was one. And some of you go, you know what, I have a desire to see marriages flourish, because we were in a season where our marriage was a five out of ten and we didn't know if we were going to make it and God did a great work and nothing excites me more. So that's desire. The second is design. Okay. And when these come together, it's exciting. You know, what do they say? The greatest day of your life wasn't the day you were born, but the day you discovered why you were born. There's desire design is a mixture of your skills, right, and your stuff. It's like, man, what has God some of you have prayed to receive Excel into your heart. Okay. You are just really good. You're really good with numbers. You know, some of you have great relational skills. Some of you have good hard skills. Some of you have good soft skills. So it's like, man, what has God. So it's desire. It's design. And I think this is really important. It's the door. And here's the thing. The door is the opportunity. And what I have found, I'm at midlife now, what I have found is there are doors that are only open for certain seasons in your life. I remember when I realized that when your child is in third grade, they're halfway done being in your home. And then you realize, wait a second, so the door of having a big influence in my child's life day in and day out is closing. What you realize, some of the younger people, it's like you realize that medical school is a four year door and then you go somewhere else and college is a four year door and high school is a four year door. And the door is closing. And what would it look like for your design and your desire and your door to match up? That's where you build. Now, where do we get the motivation to build? I mean, yes, I can motivate you and point you to the story of Nehemiah. But I think what happens when you really want to build for other people is when you realize actually we right now are the beneficiaries of someone else building for us. His name is Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ was the great, true or better Nehemiah, who was up in heaven. I would say he was successful and I would say he was safe.

And he left heaven and came all the way to earth. Why? Because he heard that there was a people far away, just like Nehemiah did, who were burdened and broken. And he thought, you know what? Maybe I could do something about that. And he was the only one who could. He lived a sinless life in our place for our sins. And he went to the cross to carry the heaviest burden that none of us could carry, the burden of sin. And sitting under the wrath of God and taking the punishment for our sin, Jesus did that. He rose from the dead. And then what Jesus said he's been doing for 2000 years is building the church. And you know, it's interesting. I mean, first and foremost, you think about the gospel and how we're beneficiaries of somebody else building. But all you have to do is like look at a little bit of church history and just a little bit of church history. You realize, oh my goodness, people gave enormously. We're sitting in the seats of someone else's sacrifice. There was other generations who gave and there were other generations who risked and there were other generations who moved. And there were other generations who shared and there were other generations who sent. And the only reason that we're here today is because of them. I want to show you a verse I want to end with. This is Isaiah 58, if you put it on the screen. Isaiah 58 is prophecy. And I wonder, and I read this, I just, I wonder if this is who you want to be. This is who we want to be as a church. I want to read this to you. And your ancient runes shall be rebuilt. You shall raise up the foundations of many generations. And you shall, wouldn't this be a great name? You shall be called the repairer of the breach, the restorer of streets to dwell in. Guys, I want you to know that Satan always comes after the next generation, always. And when we see what Satan's trying to do, we're saying not in our watch, this is demonic. I mean, we live in the loneliest generation. The coming generation is the loneliest generation. And guess what? The church has a place to believe and belong. The next generation coming up, they are the most anxious generation. It's not an accident that the villain inside out to was anxiety. There's, there's anxiety, there's mental illness, everyone's being medicated. They're aimless. And sadly, they're leaving the faith they were raised in on great numbers. And I know some of you have experienced that yourself and as Pastor Jobe has said, there's no pain like kid pain. And so here's what I want you to do in a minute. We're going to sing. And Nehemiah is a great example to us because if you wanted to summarize the book of Nehemiah in a sentence, he sits to weep, he kneels to pray, he stands to work.

And that's what we're going to do throughout this whole series. But in a minute, I'm going to pray. And then here's what I want you to do. I just want to invite you down to pray at all of our campuses to pray about God, how do you want to build through me? You know, here's, here's maybe a scary prayer for some dads to pray. Lord, get my family ready for my next big decision. Lord, get my wife ready. We're going to do something risky. We're going to give generously. We're going to take, we're going to take some risks. We're going to invite some people. We're going to pray some prayers. Lord, get me ready in a moment. I want to pray for us. And I want to ask you to come, whether you're sitting to weep, whether you're kneeling to pray so we can all stand and get to work together. Let's build. Lord, across our campuses, that's what we pray, Lord. Would you break our heart for what breaks yours? Lord, I pray right now, across this room, across our campuses, that you would just give people burdens. The burden is blessing. Jesus, you were a man of sorrows and you built us in a broken world to carry burdens. Lord, we are to be burden lifters, burden bearers. The Bible says that we are to bear one another's burdens. Lord, would it start? Would you build a church or we genuinely say, how are you? How are you? How are you? So we know the things that are going on in the hearts of the people that we know and love here. And then Lord, would you put together that unique combination that only you can do of burden and belief? And when there's burden and belief and they come together, we're ready to build. We ask this in Jesus' name. Please stand and please come forward. [BLANK_AUDIO] You