Truth That Changes Lives

Greg: Thank you for joining us on Truth That Changes Lives. Pastor JP Jones is the senior pastor of Crossline Community Church in Laguna Hills, California, and a professor in biblical studies at Biola University. Today on Truth That Changes Lives, Pastor JP will be giving us a message from a series entitled Heroes. Let's listen in as JP gives us part two of Nehemiah.

JP Jones: What made Nehemiah such an effective people leader was that he was first and foremost a man of prayer. He lived out of an abiding relationship with his God, as Jesus says in John chapter 15. "If you abide in me, and my words abide in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you. And by this is my Father glorified, that you bear much fruit and prove to be my disciples." When you see a fruitful person, don't think they're fruitful merely because of their skillsets, because John 15 says fruitfulness is a byproduct of abiding in Christ.

Nehemiah had an abiding relationship that was evidenced by his prayer. So in Nehemiah 1, he hears this message that the walls are broken down, the city is in disarray, and the people are discouraged. So he poured his heart out to God in prayer. In fact, this is the prayer that he prays. "When I heard these things, I sat down and I wept. For some days I mourned and fasted and prayed before the God of heaven. I said, 'Oh Lord, God of heaven, you are the great and awesome God. You keep your covenant of love with those who love you and obey your commands.

Let your ear be attentive and your eyes open to hear the prayer that your servant is praying before you day and night for your servants, for the people of Israel. I confess the sins we Israelites have committed, including myself and my father's house. We've committed against you. We've acted very wickedly towards you. We've not obeyed your commands, your decrees, your laws which you gave to your servant Moses. Remember the instruction you gave to your servant Moses saying, "If you are unfaithful, I will scatter you among the nations.

But if you return to me and obey my commands, then even if your exiled people are at the farthest horizon, I will gather them from there and bring them to this place where I've chosen as a dwelling for my name." They're your servants, your people whom you redeemed by your great strength and your mighty hand. Oh Lord, let your ear be attentive to the prayer of this your servant and to the prayer of your servants who delight in revering your name. Give your servant success. Grant me favor in the presence of the king.'"

So it's a protracted, desperate prayer for intervention. There's confession of sin, there's repentance, there's praise, there's thanksgiving, there's claiming scriptural promises, you see. So we need to be people who pray desperate prayers. But also down in chapter two of Nehemiah, he has his audience with the king. The king wants to know what's going on and he asks Nehemiah in Nehemiah 2:4, "What do you want?" And it says, "Then I prayed to the God of heaven and I answered the king, 'If it pleases the king and your servant has found favor in his sight, let him send me to the city in Judah where my fathers are buried so that I can rebuild it.'"

This wasn't those long, protracted, fasting prayers. This is one of those quick arrow prayers. The king is standing there and the king says, "What do you want?" Nehemiah goes, "God help me right now. Well king, this is what I want." It was one of those quick shoot it up right now and ask for something kind of prayers. How many have prayed those kind of prayers? Those are legitimate prayers. You're in the heat of the moment, you're in the heat of the battle, you're facing something right now, but you take even five seconds and ask for wisdom.

You just take a moment and say, "God give me mercy. God calm my heart right now. God show me what you want me to do right here in this situation. God, I need help, help me." That's a great prayer. So Nehemiah had those desperate prayers, he had those long seasons of prayer, but he had those quick little "give me something I need right now" kind of prayers too. The point was he was a person who prayed. And when you read the whole rest of the story, whenever encountered spiritual opposition, he was praying.

Whenever there was an organizational challenge, he was praying. Whenever he had to go back and appeal to the king for resources, he was praying. Whatever your challenge is in your life right now, whatever wall you're trying to build, maybe you're trying to rebuild a wall in your marriage, maybe you're trying to rebuild a wall of your finances, maybe you're trying to rebuild a wall with your kids, maybe you're trying to rebuild a wall in reaching your neighbors for Christ, maybe you're trying to rebuild a wall in serving God with your spiritual gifts.

I don't know what it is, but whatever it is, be a person of prayer. Have seasons of prayer, long times spent in prayer. Yes, maybe that's what you need to do. Maybe you need to take off half a day and just pray. Maybe you need to commit yourself for a season of prayer and fasting. Maybe you need to gather around the people that in your estimation are the best prayers you know and say, "Will you join with me and pray with me at this season through this situation?" But also just fire up those missile type prayers.

Here's a third observation about Nehemiah, and this is what we normally think of. He had a vision and a plan. He had a vision and a plan. So his heart's broken, he prays, and read between the lines, he must have formulated what he wanted to do and he must have heard God clearly about what he wanted to do, because then he has his audience with the king and the king says in Nehemiah 2, "You seem depressed, what's going on?" And this is like the depression of the soul, not just like the daily mood type thing.

And Nehemiah says, "Yeah, I'm depressed because this is what's going on in Jerusalem and they're my brothers and it affects me." And the king says, "Well, what do you want?" This is what you don't read in Nehemiah 2. "Well, what do you want? I don't know, I just want it to be better." No. "What do I want? Well, this is what I want. I want to be able to go and rebuild the wall. Oh, and I probably need letters from you that give me access to the king's forest so I can get all the timber that I need.

And I also need some workers to go along with me. And I also need a military escort. And I need a letter of introduction so when I get there, they know I have your authority to get it done." I mean, it's like he had it all calculated out what he wanted to do at the end, rebuild the wall, and then the strategy that it was going to take to get it done, and he specifically asked for it. He had a vision and a plan. And then as the story unfolds, the king says, "You got it."

So Nehemiah takes all of this, he rides into town, and you know he's got his opposition all set up, and then the people who were just on the receiving end, they didn't know what's going on. And he sets up shop and he doesn't tell anybody what's happening. And in the middle of the night, he wakes up a couple of guys and says, "Let's go, we're going on a reconnaissance mission." And they ride around the edge of the city where the wall's broken down.

Some places they couldn't even ride their horse around it. And if you've been to modern Jerusalem, it's obviously been rebuilt, but you get at least a picture of what it is. The wall isn't like the wall between you and your neighbor's backyard. It's a big wall that you could walk, march an army, ride a horse, have a chariot go through in places. I mean, that was the strength of the city. So it's all broken down. And in some places, he couldn't even take his horse.

The rubble was such that he had to walk and look. And all throughout the night, he went all the way around the city. And all the way he's doing it, he's going, "Okay, I need to put some workers there. I need to work there. Okay, it's a little bit stronger there, we'll do it that way over there. Hey, we need to have a team over here. We need mortar and brick over here. We need to get some timber over there. Okay, got it." Then morning came, he gathered everybody together and said, "Yeah, my name's Nehemiah.

I got orders from the king, I'm the new governor, and what we're going to do is we're going to rebuild the wall and this is the way we're going to do it. You're going to work there, you're going to work there, we're going to do this here, we're going to plan it out like that. Here's all the building permits that I got from the city. Let's go. Boom." And they did it, you see. So Nehemiah had a vision and a plan. Here's the point. We have to be people who spend time with God, spend time in prayer, look at the word, get wise counsel, discern the times, capture the vision that God has for us.

It may be for our marriage. It may be for our family. It may be for our finances. It may be for the ministry God's calling us to. It may be for our participation here in this church. But we get a vision. Where is God taking us? What does God want to do through my life? And then we develop a strategy of how to get it done. You work backwards. This is what I want to see happen. Now, what has to happen to set that in motion?

Well, this has to happen, this has to happen, this has to happen, this has to happen. Here I am right now. Okay, this is my next step. This is the step afterwards. Now, all along you allow God to infuse you with power and wisdom and direction and bring in resources and people and everything else. But you need a vision and a plan. It's like a lot of times people outside the church don't realize this, but you know what most pastors do most of the time? It's not play golf.

It's not work out and sit in the jacuzzi, thank you very much. No, most work stuff for pastors is counseling. It's a great gig. You don't have to have your insurance involved, you don't have to pay, you just come in and meet somebody who will listen to what's going on in your life and hopefully if you find the right person, they'll pray for you and give you scriptural guidance and come alongside and maybe help you. When I, and I'm not necessarily cut out of being a counselor, the son of a counselor, Scott Meekam right here, this is his awesome giftedness and resource and he's a great resource for us in the church.

But you know what you probably do this too sometimes, Scott. I know a lot of times people come in and it's like it's overwhelming, because the fact that they've come to see me, it's pretty oftentimes in crisis as opposed to I'm starting to notice something and I need a little help. So crisis means there's a lot of things involved. And so I pray, I ask God for wisdom, and I try to ask a lot of diagnostic questions. And I don't assume I know what the issue is, and I realize we're holistic, so there might be body, soul, and spirit issues.

So I ask questions about diet and physical exercise and have you seen a doctor and had a physical lately? And are you dealing with any unresolved conflict? And so I explore spiritual, psychological, emotional, whatever. But what I tend to find a lot of times are a lot of things that in some ways are separate from one another, but they all piled up into something. So what I try to do at times is separate those out for people and try to give them some things that I know this one you could work on and at least take that level off.

Here's something, you got ten things, three of them are really critical, seven of them are less, and one of them is the easiest one to take care of. Let's try to take care of that, because see now you got a sense of success and a sense that's nine things now, not ten, and that'll give you hope that you can work on the next one and then the next. You see what I mean? If we don't have a plan, whether it's for the kingdom or Crossline Church or our family or our personal spiritual growth, if we don't have a plan that we're working on, we're just setting ourselves up for failure.

In fact, it's double failure because now we've been exhorted through this message that we should have a plan, and the fact that we don't have a plan, that's one more thing for us to feel guilty about. God gives vision and he gives plans when we seek him and we ask for him. Here's another thing, and it looks like this is going to be the last one as I'm looking at the clock right back behind me. Nehemiah encouraged, empowered, and mobilized others to serve the Lord.

See, that's why it's spiritual leadership is having a sense of where God is taking you and you're able to motivate others to go along with you. There's content, there's a direction, but it's also relational, there's people. Nehemiah didn't just show up and just grab a shovel and a pick and start working on the wall. He rallied troops. He got other people buying into the vision. And he resourced them and supported them and encouraged them and protected them and stayed with them and worked alongside of them.

Nehemiah 2 says this. He gets into town, he makes his little reconnaissance trip, he gathers everybody together. Verse 17, and he says, "You see the trouble we are in. Jerusalem lies in ruins and its gates have been burned with fire." He identified the problem. "Come, let us rebuild the wall of Jerusalem and we will no longer be in disgrace." Let's do something about it and all of this stuff that it's creating inside of us will go away. Are you with me on that?

If I come alongside, I know some of us right now in this room, we are facing a real crisis, maybe it's in our marriage. If I came alongside and said, "You know what? Your marriage sucks." "You're right, I can't argue with that. It is, and you know what? You're killing each other with your words." "Yeah, you're right. It probably feels terrible." "Yeah, it does." "You know what? Let's do something about it. God can do something about it and God can make it better. And God can heal and God can bring forgiveness and God can restore love and God can restore intimacy. You want to do something about it?" "Yeah!"

Now okay, now here's what we need to do. I mean, in a sense, he was just stating the obvious, but he did it in a way that they didn't feel judged, they didn't feel shame, they felt understood. Boy, I think I just gave the price of this sermon just there. We can state the obvious about our lives or about our marriage or about our kids or about our financial situation or about our spiritual situation or about our church situation or about our country's situation and we can say it where we come across self-righteous, hypocritical, and judgmental, and we cause people to feel shame and guilt and deeper in the hole that they're already in.

Or we can say it in a way that people feel understood, feel cared for, feel even valued and given a little hope. And then when we say, "Here's what we can do about it," they'll go, "Yes!" Dads, you can do that with your kids. Men, you can do that with your wives. Couples, you can do that with your families. All of us can do that with our spiritual lives. We can do that with our neighbors because we've all been called to some type of leadership and influence.

So he says here, "We're in trouble, the city's in ruins, the gates are burned with fire, let's rebuild a wall and we'll no longer be in disgrace." And then it says, "I told them about the gracious hand of my God, how it was upon me and what the king had said to me." See, he recounted God's involvement, God's promises, and even some of the track record of what God had already done. We need to go back and review some of the things God's done for our lives.

We need to celebrate the things God's done for this church. We need to look back and say, "Wait, wait, wait a minute. Yeah, it's hard right now, but you know what? God took me through this season in the past and God's blessed the church over here and God's been good to us here." Okay, it's hard, it's bad, but you know what? I can have hope and I can trust the Lord and God will give me a plan to work on to get out of this. They replied, "Let's start rebuilding." And so we began the good work.

Well, here's another one. Nehemiah 4. This is when now they're getting opposition, because whenever, and this is a discussion we've been having among our staff, maybe you can relate to this. I've said, "Have you ever just wanted to be below the radar?" Because spiritually speaking, when you get above the radar because you're wanting to serve God, because you're wanting to be a witness for Christ, because you don't want to live a mediocre life, because you don't want to be worldly, because you want to be a kingdom follower of Christ, because you want to make a difference, because you want to be a good parent, because you want to love your spouse, you get above the radar, guess who's waiting to bop you?

The enemy. So have you ever just wanted to live below the radar? They got above the radar, they started doing something for God. Nehemiah 4, "So we rebuilt the wall until all of it reached half its height, for the people worked with all their heart. But when Sanballat, Tobiah, the Arabs, the Ammonites, and the men of Ashdod heard that the repairs of Jerusalem's walls had gone on ahead and that the gaps were being closed, they became angry. And they plotted together to come and fight against Jerusalem and stir up trouble against us.

But we prayed to our God and we posted a guard day and night to meet their threat. And meanwhile, the people in Judah said, 'The strength of the laborers is giving out and there's so much rubble that we cannot rebuild the wall.'" They had been seeing some good things, but the enemy started sowing fear and confusion and doubt and they just became discouraged. "It's just, it's too much work. Is it worth it? Is it ever going to happen? Are we ever going to get out of this financial hole? Is our marriage ever going to get better? Are our kids ever going to come back to the Lord? Am I ever going to get victory over this sin in my life?"

Their strength went out. "Therefore I stationed some of the people behind the lowest points of the wall at the exposed places. I posted them by families with their swords and spears and bows. And I looked things over and I stood up and I said to everyone, 'Don't be afraid of them. Remember the Lord who's great and awesome. Fight for your brothers and your sons and your daughters and your wives and your homes.' And we rebuilt the wall." I love this guy.

He was a realist and an optimist at the same time. He loved God, loved people, and had a blast. But he understood that having a blast sometimes means you have a broken heart, there's sin, it's messy, it's not always rosy, but you still love God, you love people, and have a blast. And he rallied the troops. Oh, it's just such a great book. You got to read the book of Nehemiah. Here's the thing, landing this message. Wherever we are in our season of life, wherever we are in relationship with our family, wherever we are with work, wherever we are financially, wherever we are in life, there's a wall that needs to be rebuilt.

And what God wants to do is he wants to show us where he's taking us and he wants to use us to motivate and rally other people to go there with us. And then great things happen for God.

Greg: What a great message for all of us today. Pastor JP provides us with great insight. That is why we'd like to make it available to you on CD. Just get in touch and mention today's date. We'll send it your way for just five dollars. Or if you'd like to support this ministry, you can write us at Truth That Changes Lives, 23331 Moulton Parkway, Laguna Hills, California, 92653, or give us a call at 949-916-0250.

That's 949-916-0250. For your gift of twenty-five dollars or more, we will send you a signed copy of JP's new book, Facing Goliath. Please join us every Sunday at 9:00 or 11:00 AM at Crossline Church in Laguna Hills. The address is 23331 Moulton Parkway, Laguna Hills, California, 92653, or check us out on the web at crosslinechurch.com. We're going to get to the address and phone number again in a moment, but before we do that, Pastor JP, do you have any insight from today's message?

JP Jones: Thanks Greg. We're in a series talking about Heroes. We're looking at men and women of the Old Testament who were used by God to accomplish God's purposes in their generation. And these were people who were normal people, real people. They had weaknesses and they had fears and they had struggles, but they had surrendered their lives to God, they'd asked God to do something great in their lives, and because of their available heart and humble attitude, God used them to accomplish his kingdom purposes.

And God can do that today. In fact, God is looking for people today who will be his servants, his witnesses, his ambassadors. We don't have to be perfect, but we have to be people who are surrendered to God and people with a humble heart and people who are available for God to do what only God can do in our lives. In our study, we're looking at Nehemiah. Humanly speaking, Nehemiah was the human instrument to rebuild the wall of Jerusalem.

He heard that the walls were broken down. And when he heard that the walls of Jerusalem were broken down, it broke his heart and he had a compassion for what God wanted to do and what only God could do in rebuilding the wall. You know, there's a lot of broken walls. There are the broken walls of our family, the broken wall of our marriage. There's the broken walls of our community, the broken walls of our society, the broken walls of lost people in desperate need of salvation.

When we see walls broken down, we need to have an identification with what breaks God's heart. We need to have a willingness to allow God to move us emotionally to see that need and to rally us to action to do something about it. Nehemiah, when he saw that the walls were broken down, cried out to God in prayer and asked God to use him to do something to rebuild the wall. That's where leadership begins. It begins with a broken heart.

It begins with a willingness to identify with God and with the heart of God and with a desire to be used by God. If you have a heart to be used by God, God will use you. If you have a broken heart with the things that break God's heart, God will use you. And God wants to use you to be a wall rebuilder, just like Nehemiah. God wants to use you to exercise your gifts and your passion and your strengths to take action and to recruit others to join you.

You see, leaders know where they're going and they're able to persuade others to go along with them. Nehemiah rallied people to the work of rebuilding the wall. God wants to use us to rally others to God's kingdom work. The key issue of being someone who is used by God is seeing where God is working and joining him and motivating others to join with us in joining God. That's the key. We need to see where God is working, we need to join God in what he's doing, and we need to encourage others to join us in the work.

If you want to be a kingdom builder, would you ask God to use you in your generation? God, we want to be used by you. We want to see where walls are broken down and we want to step in with compassionate heart and with an attitude of action and service to do something great for you and for your glory and for the blessing of others. Use us, I pray, in Jesus' name. Amen.

Greg: We want to help you in your relationship with Christ. Please get in touch with us at Truth That Changes Lives, 23331 Moulton Parkway, Laguna Hills, California, 92653, or call us at 949-916-0250. On the internet, you will find us at crosslinechurch.com. We hope to see you at one of our services every Sunday at our new campus in Laguna Hills. For more information and directions, please go to crosslinechurch.com. Please join us next time on Truth That Changes Lives.