How do we approach our goals?

New Series: GOALS

We are going to be talking about God-sized and God-inspired goals goals. We are going to accomplish this by looking at the story of Nehemiah

What are your Goals?

Any New Year’s resolutions?

I want you to write them down and keep them… we’ll come back to them at the end of the message

While you all are writing: I want to share a goal that I never completed...

What you accomplish in this life is strongly correlated with the goals that you have and how you go about accomplishing them

Context

Jews = God’s people

God’s faithfulness granted abundant provision

Jews idolatry brought upon God’s discipline

Jews were exiled upon Babylonian Conquest

Now we are in a society 140 years after the this Babylonian exile, where the Jews are still displaced from their homeland because of their rebellion.

Nehemiah 1:1-5

(v1-3) This is very troubling to Nehemiah because the Jewish people have already been through so much. the Exile caused...

Loss of family and friends

if you survived you had to assimilate

For generations Jewish people were heartbroken with the loss of city, temple, culture, and community.

With that in mind, one can assume that a strong-willed individual would take immediate action upon the hearing of this news

He did but not in the way that you would think

Theres TWO problems here:

Practical vs Spiritual

Practical: Walls are leaving city vulnerable to attack

Spiritual: God’s people are a group that constantly FORGETS God, causing the exile in the first place.

When we make God-sized goals in our lives, we have to consider God first!

So what did Nehemiah do???

(v4) HIS GOAL BEGAN WITH PRAYER

He new his wisdom and experience were not enough to guarantee success

(v5) Faced with enormous difficulties, Nehemiah REMEMBERED who God was

GOD OF THE HEAVENS

GREAT

AWE-INSPIRING

GRACIOUS