Pastor Rick's Daily Hope

Guest (Male): Hey everybody, thanks for spending some time with us at Pastor Rick's Daily Hope. We are so glad you're here. You know, no matter where you are in life or what you're facing today, God has a purpose and plan for your life. Today we continue our series called building a better future. In this series, Rick Warren explores the lives of biblical leaders who rebuilt after seasons of hardship and captivity. You'll discover practical biblical principles to help you move forward with hope and confidence as you trust God's plan for your life. I'm excited to hear today's message called enlisting support for your dream.

Rick Warren: After you have a clear vision or a dream of what you feel God has called you to do with your life, the next step, and that's what we're going to talk about today, is to enlist others who can support your dream. Now, fortunately, chapter two of Nehemiah's story gives us a very practical model of how to do that. But before we look at Nehemiah's example of how to enlist other people to support your dream, you need to understand two facts about dreams. First, no dream is built without support. No dream is ever built without support.

Just like a building needs support, your dream needs support. True success is never a one man show. Anything significant that's done in your life, any great dream will require help from others. You know, Kay, my wife has a message called it takes a team to fulfill a dream. Saddleback Church is able to do amazing things because of about 15,000 people who volunteer every single week to use their talents in some capacity. Now, why will your dream require support from other people? Why can't you just do it by yourself? Well, there's several reasons. First, you don't know everything you need to know.

Number two, you don't have enough time or energy to do everything by yourself. And number three, you don't have every talent that you're going to need to get your dream done. You see, God intentionally wired us to need each other so we'd learn how to work together. Now, Nehemiah could have never fulfilled his dream of rebuilding the wall around Jerusalem by himself alone. It would have never happened. In fact, every phase of the dream that God gave Nehemiah would require assistance. Even just traveling back to Jerusalem. Nehemiah chapter two verses seven to nine says this, I asked the king to help me by giving me permits for safe travel through the territories on my journey to Jerusalem.

And I also asked him to supply timber for building from his royal forest. And the king gave me everything I asked for because God's gracious favor was with me. The king even sent an army, sent army officers and soldiers on horses to escort me. Now, did you notice that last phrase? The king actually added uh an escort service of of officers and soldiers on horses to help Nehemiah get escorted back to uh to Israel. When you pray and when you ask God for help, God will provide even stuff you didn't think of or even imagine that you would ever need, an escort.

Now, no dream is ever built without support. Second fact about dreams is this, no dream is ever built without opposition. No dream is ever built without opposition. Opportunity and opposition go together. The moment you decide to go after the dream that God gives you, there's always going to be somebody there to discourage you. The moment you say, let's do this, somebody's going to jump up and say, let's don't. People are naturally resistant to change. They don't like it even when they're living in ruins. And people resist change for a variety uh of reasons. But dream busters are literally everywhere.

They feel it's their job to bring you down. So opposition, listen, opposition is built into every opportunity in life. Nehemiah is going to show us how to handle opposition in detail in a future message of this series. But in this chapter, it introduces us to a couple of the vocal opponents or critics who oppose Nehemiah at literally every step of rebuilding the wall. Now, their names are Sanballat, what a name, and Tobiah. Sanballat and Tobiah. Now, I'm not going to give you the background of these guys today because we're actually going to study their tactics later in a message on how do you handle opposition.

But let me just say this, these two men were local leaders in Jerusalem who were not Jews. Okay? They had moved in Jerusalem when the Jews had been deported to Babylon and they hated the Jews. Uh they were prejudiced. They took advantage of their suffering and captivity. And while the Jews were hurting, they were ruling. And they had made themselves rich and powerful at the expense of others people's misfortune. So when they heard that Nehemiah was coming back to rebuild the city, guess what? It threatened them. In Nehemiah 2:10 it says, now when Sanballat and Tobiah heard that I was coming to assist the welfare of the Jews in Jerusalem, they became very upset and disturbed.

Friends, there will always be people who don't want things to change because it will end their unfair advantage. They want people to be kept in slavery on There will also be people who don't want you to succeed because it'll change things for them. By the way, how did Nehemiah know even before we got to Jerusalem that these guys were going um uh to oppose him? Well, he must have sent scouts ahead in advance to uncover any opposition. Remember last week we talked about doing your homework, doing your preparation. Now, because of these two reasons, you're going to have opposition to any dream you have in life and you're going to need help from others.

You need this message today. You need to learn how to enlist the support of others for your God given dream. Fortunately, chapter two of Nehemiah's story beautiful beautifully illustrates how to gain support for your dream. Now, give me give a little background for those of you just joining us in this series. Here's the background of the story. During the great Babylonian Empire, thousands of years ago, the nation of Israel was conquered by Babylon, which is today called Iraq. Uh most of the Jews were actually deported from their homeland in Israel and taken as prisoners of war all the way over to Iraq or Babylon where they lived in exile for 70 years.

But then the Persian Empire came in and crushed the Babylonian Empire and under their leadership, the Jews were allowed to return home. But when they got back to Jerusalem, they discovered that their temple, their homes, and the entire city had been destroyed. And the protective wall and gates around the city had all been destroyed too. So they were defenseless to guys like Tobiah and Sanballat. Now, Nehemiah, who was a Jew, had been promoted to working in the royal court for the Persian king, he gets this dream of rebuilding his hometown. So he prays and he prepares and he plans.

We've looked at that in the last messages. And then he asks the king to give him permission to return home and rebuild the wall around Jerusalem. The king goes, okay, let him go because God had worked in his heart. And now Nehemiah heads back to Israel and his next task, what we're going to look at today, is to convince the defeated and discouraged citizens of Jerusalem to help him with the dream. Now, the story of how Nehemiah succeeded in getting others to help him in his dream is found in Nehemiah chapter two verses eight to 20.

It is one of the great success stories in the Bible. Really is. By involving other people, Nehemiah was able to accomplish, listen, in 52 days a project that no one else had succeeded in doing in 90 years. That's a success story. Now, if you're a business person, you really need to pay attention to this series and this message today. So let's look at the steps that you're going to need to follow anytime you need the cooperation of other people in your life, in your family, in your work, in your school, in your business. All right?

Let's get right into the points. Here's the first step. Number one, wait for the right timing. Wait for the right timing. Ecclesiastes 8:6 says this, there's a right time and a right way to do everything. Now, you know that from experience that that 's true. You ever had a seen a good idea killed because it had bad timing? Yeah. Timing can make or break you. You know, in baseball, every pitcher throws the exact same ball, five and a quarter ounces, baseball. Every pitcher stands the same distance from home plate, 60 ft 6 in. The difference between a pro pitcher and an amateur is one thing, timing.

Timing, the difference in timing is worth millions. Now, the best example of understanding timing is actually the ministry of Jesus. If you go and study the life of Christ, you'll find that he often said, it's not time yet. He actually told his mother when she came and asked him to do a miracle to turn water into wine, he goes, it's it's really not my time yet. Nehemiah understood the power of a dream having the right time to share it. In Nehemiah 2:11 he says this, when I arrived in Jerusalem, he's just made this 1,000 mile journey.

When I arrived in Jerusalem, I stayed quiet for three days. Isn't that interesting? This guy has a huge project, rebuild the city of Jerusalem, build the wall, restore the gates. He doesn't make a grand entrance. He doesn't arrive on a white horse with trumpets and flags shouting, I am here to save the day. He didn't even announce why he was there. He shows up and doesn't say anything for three days. What was he doing those first three days? Um resting from the long journey? Yeah, probably. Recovering from the journey across the desert? Praying? Probably. Uh we know he's a man of prayer.

Was he watching and observing and listening and and learning? No doubt. But I I'm guessing that as a smart leader, he was also using this delay to build curiosity. Now, follow me on this. Nehemiah arrives from the Persian Empire with a royal escort. He gets there, but then he says nothing for three days. Imagine the speculation and gossip that would create in the city. By day three, probably everybody had heard of Nehemiah. He's using the silence and delay to his advantage. He's creating a hunger so people will listen when he actually shares the dream. Now, you have to choose the right timing and sharing the dream for you.

You don't just go out and blurt it out the first time you get a dream from God. And while you're waiting for just the right time to announce your dream, you can do these same things that Nehemiah did. You can reenergize your life, Kay. You can get in shape. You can pray. You can look around, observe and learn and get facts. And you can build curiosity. You start with waiting until the right time to announce your dream. Here's the second thing Nehemiah did and you're going to need to do this with your dream. Make sure I've done my homework.

Make sure I've done my homework. Before you could go public and announce your dream to your family, your friends, your neighbors, your boss, whoever, make sure you have all the facts and all your information is correct and current. The Bible says it like this in Proverbs 18:13, it's stupid and shameful to decide before knowing the facts. You see, what you don't want to happen when you're making your pitch or proposal for help and you're sharing your dream is you don't want somebody to ask you a question that you can't answer because you didn't get all the facts.

You see, it's not good if they say, well, what would you do if this happens? And you have to admit, I don't know. I actually haven't thought about that. You have to have all the facts and figures to back up your dream ready. You got to do your homework. Proverbs 23:23 on the screen says this, get the facts at any price. Now, what happens in the next few verses is Nehemiah's fact finding mission. Nehemiah secretly led a research party at night. Kay, he didn't do this when everybody's watching, at night to go out and to personally inspect the walls and gates of Jerusalem.

He didn't depend on secondhand knowledge for his dream. He did he did his own research. Good leaders do their own research. He he learned all he could about what he was getting ready to to to start his dream before he started. He's gathering information. He's assessing the size of the problem uh as an eyewitness before he says anything. You need to do the same thing with any dream that God gives you. Nehemiah chapter two verse 12 and 13 Nehemiah says this, I set out during the night with a few men. I had not told anyone what my God had put in my heart to do for Jerusalem.

There were no mounts with me except the one I was riding on. He evidently had a donkey. And he said, by night I went out through the valley gate toward the Dragon Well and the Dung Gate to inspect all the broken down walls of Jerusalem and the city gates which had been destroyed by fire. Now, during this research step, do your homework. Nehemiah didn't want to attract attention to what he was doing. So he goes out in the middle of the night. This is his midnight ride. You've heard of the midnight ride of Paul Revere if you're an American.

Well, Nehemiah has a midnight ride around Jerusalem. Now, I 'm sure some of you by the way are dying to ask me, Rick, why was one of the gates of Jerusalem called the Dung Gate? Well, why do you think? Okay, Dung happens. All right? Nehemiah versus 14 and 15 goes on. Then I moved on to the Fountain Gate and the king's pool. But there was so much rubble, there wasn't even enough room for my donkey to get through. So so I went up the valley by night. He goes outside the wall examining the wall. Finally, I turned back and reentered at the valley gate.

Now, what's he what's going on here? He is surveying the damage in a war zone. It 's like going out and surveying the field after a battle. Now, this is the unglamorous lonely part of leadership nobody ever hears about. It's when you're studying the situation in the middle of the night when everybody else is asleep. And when Nehemiah studied the situation, it was bad. Did you notice that there was so much rubble and ruin piled up that at one point Nehemiah had to dismount, get off his donkey in order to get through a tight spot just by himself.

That's how bad the rubble was in Jerusalem. Now, every leader can imagine what Nehemiah is feeling right now. He's gone. The size of this project and the severity of the problem is sinking in as he surveys the damage around the city. And he's probably thinking, this far worse than I thought. And it's a lot more complicated than I ever imagined. And I have never built anything in my life. Why in the world am I here? But God had put a dream in his heart. And he'd come this far in faith. And he's not given up.

So he waits for the right time to even start the project and even talk about it. Then he does his research. He does his homework. Here's the third thing he does in advance before he announces the goal. Protect the dream from premature death. When God puts a dream in your heart, you need to not just go share it with everybody willy nilly at any time anyway. Don't be in a hurry. Let me tell you this from experience. Don't be in a hurry to announce your dream so quickly. You want to protect your dream A dreams can be destroyed very quickly.

They're fragile when they first spring up. So don't be in a hurry to announce your dream so quickly. Ecclesiastes 3:7 says this, there's a time to be silent and there's a time to speak. Now, you're not ready to announce your dream until your body is rested, the research is invested, the information is digested, and the idea has been tested. All right? Verse 16 says this, the local officials did not know where I'd gone or what I was doing because I had said nothing yet to the people or the priests or the nobles or the officials or anyone else who would be doing the work.

What's he doing? He's protecting the dream from premature death. Verse 12 he had said, I had not told anyone what God had put in my heart to do. Now, why why is he doing this? Why is Nehemiah being so secretive about his survey and about the dream that God has put in his heart? Because he doesn't want the project to be killed even before it got started. You see, the background is there had been 90 years of negativism in Jerusalem. And two previous times, somebody else had attempted to rebuild the wall and they failed. He didn't want people going, oh, we tried that.

We tried it a couple times and it it'll never happen. We've always done it this way. We've always lived this way. All of the citizens of Jerusalem felt discouraged and defeated and probably even apathetic. They had gotten used to living in rubble. They had gotten used to living in ruins for 90 years. Besides, Nehemiah didn't have all the facts yet that he needed. Let me ask you this question. Is it easier to promote a good idea or kill a good idea? It's kind of obvious. Have you noticed that negative people tend to be more vocal and louder than positive people?

And there were certainly far more negative people living in the rubble than there were positive people living in that rubble of Jerusalem. They had become jaded, apathetic to their situation, feeling that it would never change. Now, some of you may be feeling that right now. And and you're thinking, my situation will never change. You don't know what God knows. And you don't realize what God can do so quickly. So I said, Nehemiah accomplished in 52 days what others had not done in 90 years. Now, after Nehemiah had taken these first three preparation steps in Jerusalem, he is now ready to unveil his dream.

And how he did it and what he said and the way he said it was brilliant. So these next six steps are the same thing that you need to say when you're trying to enlist support for something you want to do for for your dream, for your God given vision in life. And if you'll follow precisely what Nehemiah did in Nehemiah chapter two and say what Nehemiah said, you will find a receptive audience.

Guest (Male): Hey, if you're looking for daily encouragement from God's word, I'd like to invite you to download the Daily Hope app. It's designed to help you grow in your faith every day. It has easy access to devotionals, audio messages you can listen to anywhere, and video teaching right at your fingertips. You can even search for topics that matter to you and set a daily reminder so you never miss time with God. Just search Daily Hope in the Apple App Store or Google Play. And I hope it's a real blessing to you. Be sure to join us next time as we look into God's word for our daily hope.

This program is sponsored by Pastor Rick's Daily Hope and your generous financial support.