If it's not one thing ...

1 John 3:16 CSB

16 This is how we have come to know love: He laid down his life for us. We should also lay down our lives for our brothers and sisters.

I got to tell you friends, it is great when we take on the mind of Christ and truly love others. It is also very hard.

Did you know that when you love others, other people have crises come up in their life?

Did you realize that?

1 John 3:17–18 M:BCL

17 If you see some brother or sister in need and have the means to do something about it but turn a cold shoulder and do nothing, what happens to God’s love? It disappears. And you made it disappear. 18 My dear children, let’s not just talk about love; let’s practice real love.

It’s awesome to be part of a church family and now that others are committed to showing real love to you. It’s awesome to be able to show real love.

Are you committed to showing real love?

Awesome, because there is a lot of opportunity. People are going through a lot these days.

Isn’t that a funny saying, “these days” as if people were not going through a lot in days prior, before indoor plumbing or before the internet?

Back then people didn’t have a lot going on?

They did.

I encountered a number of people this week who said something to the effect of if it’s not one thing, it is another.

If it not one problem, it is another.

Isn’t that the definition of life this side of heaven?

The most magnificent opportunities come into our lives disguised as problems.

John Powell

You could say one success follows another, but what comes in between successes? Hardship.

Where then is the roll of faith? What purpose is then there for a relationship with God.

WE can look to Nehemiah ...

After the success continued, there was more struggle, more stress. The enemies were more motivated.

If enemies keep coming the battle isn’t over and God wants to teach you something as He taught Nehemiah and as He taught the Jews of Nehemiah’s time.

… because we are the handiwork of God, it follows that all our problems and their solutions are theological. (God stuff) Some knowledge of what kind of God it is that operates the universe is indispensable to a sound philosophy of life and a sane outlook on the world scene.6

A. W. Tozer

You see knowing what God did for Nehemiah begins to focus on what we can expect of God and what we should be doing in this world.

If you expect that following God is going to give you a rose garden, nothing in the Bible shows that.

If you expect that your roll in following God is to pray, show up to church once a week and be nice to anyone unless they mess with you than you are going to be very disappointed with your relationship with God and think following God is useless.

But if you open yourself up to God, as He revealed himself through the Bible, and open yourself up to relationship with Him and His people, you will see what doing this life really should be.

So let’s look to Nehemiah.

To find out what is the roll of faith in our lives.

Nehemiah 4:7–14 (CSB)

7 When Sanballat, Tobiah, and the Arabs, Ammonites, and Ashdodites heard that the repair to the walls of Jerusalem was progressing and that the gaps were being closed, they became furious.

8 They all plotted together to come and fight against Jerusalem and throw it into confusion.

9 So we prayed to our God and stationed a guard because of them day and night.

Enemies existed then. Very real enemies. You might have enemies but I hope not this intense that they want to kill you, but you might.

- Nehemiah met there attempt at Confusion was met with Faith

Faith is obedience, wisdom, and prayer.

There was wisdom in stationing the guard.

Faith is not stupidity.

Nehemiah 4:9 CSB

9 So we prayed to our God and stationed a guard because of them day and night.

It might be appear that Nehemiah was not trusting God.

Talking with a man who was looking forward to getting of his heart medicine and trusting Jesus.

That is stupid.

Jesus wasn’t stupid. Jesus recognized that we have a brain, we have creation, and we have a natural order created by God.

When Jesus was tempted by Satan himself, Jesus was told to throw himself off of the temple.

Luke 4:9–13 CSB

9 So he took him to Jerusalem, had him stand on the pinnacle of the temple, and said to him, “If you are the Son of God, throw yourself down from here. 10 For it is written: He will give his angels orders concerning you, to protect you, 11 and they will support you with their hands, so that you will not strike your foot against a stone.” 12 And Jesus answered him, “It is said: Do not test the Lord your God.” 13 After the devil had finished every temptation, he departed from him for a time.

You know what happens when you jump off a building asking God to catch you.

That’s not faith, that’s being an idiot. You are doing stupid things expecting God to stop you.

The Devil knows the Bible! The Devil wanted to force God’s hand.

My friend not taking medication is showing his unwillingess to go with a process of God’s created order and instead wants to force God’s hand.

When you are praying ask yourself are you trying to get out of responsibility? Are you trying to bring glory to God or glory to yourself? Are you trying to use God to get back to your own goals because you have no idea how to get back to what you want to do?

God was calling Nehemiah and his people into a deeper trusting relationship with Him.

Jesus, God himself, rejected Satan who was trying to short circuit the process of God emptying himself to become the perfect sacrifice for our sins.

Nehemiah needed to post a guard because that is what a person with a brain does.

There is not a church world for faith and a real world for getting things done.

There is NOT a nice thoughts - but not reality. That thinking is politics.

Our faith is VERY, VERY REAL. Making our attitude that of Christ Jesus should be true for us on Tuesdays at 2 as much as it is right now!

Nehemiah was building a wall and people were willing to kill him to stop it. They were willing to intimidate him and the people building it. They were willing to threaten them. This wasn’t imagined.

Your real problem. Whatever it is, a horrible debt, a medical problem, and the hardest of all a relationship problem really finds an answer in God as he has revealed in the Bible which shows us how to deal with this real world.

Even your tummy problems are important to God and so God allowed for healing in his natural world

1 Timothy 5:23 CSB

23 Don’t continue drinking only water, but use a little wine because of your stomach and your frequent illnesses.

Water could have all kinds of bacteria in it harmful to our bodies, today we get rid of most of it with charcoal and chlorine. In the ancient world, our ancestors would ferment things to make them safer to drink, the bacteria would kill the stuff that could make us sick.

Faith is not the rejection of science but the rejection that what is known through the senses is all that there is.

Had a friend who believed her brother was “demon possessed.” He would become violent, call himself a son of satan, and start talking in weird noises. Ooga - Booga

I asked her when did it occur and what happened after.

To be simple about a long conversation it happened whenever he was trying to get his way and they would yell at him, and then get concerned and stop yelling at him but praying for him and become scared of him.

So basically he got left alone and people became afraid of making him mad, “so the devil doesn’t come back”. That’s simple obnoxious behavior.

Taking data reveals that

Science can reveal a cause-effect relationship.

But Science delights itself in being wrong.

Can we just take a second and remember 2020 Covid and all the science we got?

yes politics was definitely involved and science gave a lot of bad advice but science works when after getting stuff wrong for a long time they see what happens when things go right.

Living your life solely by science might make you the one out of 5 dentists who disagree and now have no teeth or worse.

There is more ...

Systematic Theology (III. Possibility)

We here use the term “reason” to signify the mind’s whole power of knowing. Reason in this sense includes states of the sensibility, so far as they are indispensable to knowledge. We cannot know an orange by the eye alone; to the understanding of it, taste is as necessary as sight. The mathematics of sound cannot give us an understanding of music; we need also a musical ear. Logic alone cannot demonstrate the beauty of a sunset, or of a noble character; love for the beautiful and the right precedes knowledge of the beautiful and the right. … Faith, then, is the highest knowledge, because it is the act of the integral soul, the insight, not of one eye alone, but of the two eyes of the mind, intellect and love to God. With one eye we can see an object as flat, but, if we wish to see around it and get the stereoptic effect, we must use both eyes. It is not the theologian, but the undevout astronomer, whose science is one-eyed and therefore incomplete. The errors of the rationalist are errors of defective vision. Intellect has been divorced from heart, that is, from a right disposition, right affections, right purpose in life. Intellect says: “I cannot know God”; and intellect is right. What intellect says, the Scripture also says:

1 Corinthians 2:14 M:BCL

14 The unspiritual self, just as it is by nature, can’t receive the gifts of God’s Spirit. There’s no capacity for them. They seem like so much silliness. Spirit can be known only by spirit—God’s Spirit and our spirits in open communion.

1 Corinthians 1:21 CSB

21 For since, in God’s wisdom, the world did not know God through wisdom, God was pleased to save those who believe through the foolishness of what is preached.

Hebrews 11:3 CSB

3 By faith we understand that the universe was created by the word of God, so that what is seen was made from things that are not visible.

My friend’s do you want to see clearly?

Reject the faith that says God is for the good feelings, the good ideas, the nice stuff. Science, what I know, what my family taught me, what I learned in school and the streets is for the real world, when things get hard.

To solve your problems Science can only lead to manipulation, guns and a nuclear bomb.

Whole Faith leads to use security, love your neighbor as yourself and to the forgiveness God gives us on the cross.

Therefore in your own life, fall in love with God, follow God, and do the plans God sets before.

Spend less, pay off debts, exercise, visit the doctor, work hard and see money, and your abilities as a way to honor God and love others, not as a way to honor self and protect self. This is the way of faith in Jesus.

In our relationships love God first, obey God first, and treat others with the Love God has for you. Even when that might mean you have to post a guard to protect others and alert people that you are willing to fight for your responsibilities.

See

Nehemiah 4:9 CSB

9 So we prayed to our God and stationed a guard because of them day and night.

Faith is not the rejection of planning

Faith is the acceptance that our wisdom is limited and God determines our path

Faith faces our real struggles and our real doubts.

It didn’t get easier for Nehemiah, victory isn’t easy. Success with God isn’t a pill, a nice thought, it comes in the long day to day faith in the midst of our struggles.

10 In Judah, it was said: The strength of the laborer fails, since there is so much rubble. We will never be able to rebuild the wall.

Discouragement comes from within on the work. It also comes from without.

11 And our enemies said, “They won’t realize it until we’re among them and can kill them and stop the work.”

12 When the Jews who lived nearby arrived, they said to us time and again, “Everywhere you turn, they attack us.”

Interestingly “time and again” would literally be translated 10 times. I think of a junior higher saying the same thing over and over ten times.

This was after they prayed.

Did the prayer work?

Prayer is NOT a potion! Prayer is building a relationship with a living God.

13 So I stationed people behind the lowest sections of the wall, at the vulnerable areas. I stationed them by families with their swords, spears, and bows.

14 After I made an inspection, I stood up and said to the nobles, the officials, and the rest of the people, “Don’t be afraid of them. Remember the great and awe-inspiring Lord, and fight for your countrymen, your sons and daughters, your wives and homes.”

This is FAITH.

Heard the problem

Put in a solution

I made an inspection.

Knew that God was with them and this is motivation.

Faith is taking all of we are before God, allowing God to use all that we are and all that HE is and has made to deliver His glory!