Less of me! Part 2

Nehemiah 2:17 But now I said to them, “You know very well what trouble we are in. Jerusalem lies in ruins, and its gates have been destroyed by fire. Let us rebuild the wall of Jerusalem and end this disgrace!”

INTRODUCTION

Good Morning! Southpointe

We are still in this series “Less of Me”.

I want to continue today, Our text this morning comes from Nehemiah’s time.

Some 1,000 years after the time of Moses, some 400 years before the birth of Jesus, the nation of Israel and the Jewish people were in a desperate state.

Their nation had been destroyed.

The city of Jerusalem had been completely conquered by the Babylonians, and the once-glorious temple of Solomon had been destroyed.

The Jews were deported to Babylon and they had began to make their home in Babylon, with no desire to return to the land God had promised to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.

Some of the faithful Jews were put in important places in the government like Daniel, Shadrach, Meshach, Abed-Nego, and Esther who was made queen.

After 70 years of captivity in Babylon, The Jews were given the opportunity to return to their homeland, the Promised land.

I want you to understand this, listen closely, out of two or three million Jews only 50,000 decided to return to the Promised Land.

That’s only something like 2%.

It was over 150 years after the city of Jerusalem was destroyed, the wall of the city of Jerusalem were still down, laying there in destruction.

We are living in times where the church has been put down.

George Barna who is a Christian researcher did a research on the state of the Church.

One in Three Practicing Christians Is Still and Only Attending Their Pre-COVID Church.

So only a third of the church is attending now.

Recent data show that, among practicing Christians—those who identify as Christian, agree strongly that faith is very important in their lives and attend church at least monthly (prior to COVID-19)—over half (53%) say they have streamed their regular church online within the past four weeks.

Another 34 percent admits to streaming a different church service online other than their own, essentially “church hopping” digitally.

Finally, about one-third of practicing Christians (32%) says they have done neither of these things.

The church has been hit hard!

The church is laying in ruin, It reminds me of Jerusalem.

The walls had been torn down and they needed to be rebuilded.

The citizens of Jerusalem had tried to rebuild the walls but had failed.

Ezra 4:21 Therefore, issue orders to have these men stop their work. That city must not be rebuilt except at my express command.

Ezra 4:22 Be diligent, and don’t neglect this matter, for we must not permit the situation to harm the king’s interests.”

What was going on here was the enemies of Judah wrote a letter of accustaion against the people of Judah and Jerusalem to the King.

And they said that the Judah and Jerusalem was a hot bed for rebellion against the king and that have already laid the foundation and walls were going up and they would get so strong that they would not paid taxes and all the fee due to the government .

Which was all a lie.

This was the outcome.

So the people got comfortable with their life.

Many of them begin to adapted the ways of the Babylonians. And that started their lives and started build their homes and having children. And the walls of the cities never was builded up.

But there was a man over 800 miles away his body may be in Babylon but his heart is in Jerusalem.

Psalms 137:4 But how can we sing the songs of the LORD while in a pagan land?

Psalms 137:5 If I forget you, O Jerusalem, let my right hand forget how to play the harp.

Psalms 137:6 May my tongue stick to the roof of my mouth if I fail to remember you, if I don’t make Jerusalem my greatest joy.

If Jerusalem was special to God,it was also special to Nehemiah.

If the Church is special to God, than it should be speical to Christians.

Ephesian 5:25 For husbands, this means love your wives, just as Christ loved the church. He gave up His life for her

Ephesian 5:27 He did this to present her to Himself as a glorious church without a spot or wrinkle or any other blemish. Instead, she will be holy and without fault.

Christ love the church and gave himself for the church. Oh how we need less of me and more of Him.

Christ came from Heaven to earth and He did a walk thru the temple.

Matthew 21:12 Jesus entered the Temple and began to drive out all the people buying and selling animals for sacrifice. He knocked over the tables of the money changers and the chairs of those selling doves.

Matthew 21:13 He said to them, "The Scriptures declare, 'My Temple will be called a house of prayer,' but you have turned it into a den of thieves!"

Jesus inspected the temple and it was a mess, Basically, in a spiritual sense the foundation and walls had been torn down.

This was the beginning of the end, the religious leaders and the priests want to arrest Him, but they were afraid.

But the plotting begin.

Jesus knew that there was lives at stake and the foundation and walls were being destroyed.

You see, in Biblical times, an unwalled city was alway a town with nothing valuable in it.

Because if there were anything of value, it could be stolen away easily, because there was no defense to stop it.

The people living in an unwalled city lived in constant stress and tension; they never knew when they might be attacked and beat up.

So every man lived in constant fear for his wife and children.

Understand this statement, In Nehemiah’s times the temple could be rebuilt, but never made beautiful, because anything valuable would be taken easily.

No wonder the people lived in constant distress, in constant disgrace, that were living only as survivors.

What is a survivor?

Survivor- one who lives through affliction.

They were just living, making one day at a time, just escaping through.

God has more for us than to be mere survivors! God not only wants us to be conquerores but more than.

Romans 8:37 Nay, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him that loved us.

When Nehemiah got the news about Jerusalem and the people, He could not handle it:

Nehemiah 1:4 When I heard this, I sat down and wept. In fact, for days I mourned, fasted, and prayed to the God of heaven.

Nehemiah lost his strength in his legs, and sat down and begins to wept and mourn.

God is getting ready to use Nehemiah to do something about this situation, but first, God must do somehting in Nehemiah.

Any great work of God begins with God doing a great work in somebody.

God saw the need but little would be done until the right man felt the need.

So now God is going to do something great to meet that need through Nehemiah.

Nehemiah did not stand back and say it will be ok in the sweet by and sweet by.

Think about this Nehemiah had it made, he lived in the king’s palace and he was a very important man in the kingdom.

And he had to come to a place of saying Less of me.

He could have lost in all.

Nehemiah knew that it was too big of a task for him alone. So He must be a leader.

Leader-one who influences other people to get the job done.

You see, leadership is influence, and leadership applies to everyone.

Everyone has an area of leadership.

You are a leader, it is just are you a good leader or a bad leader.

We need people today were the foundation, and walls have been torn down, and the gates are on fire, the Christian way of life is under attack. We need leaders!!

Leaders must prepared themselves for difficult work. It won’t be easy. There is no winning without warfare, There is no opportunity without opposition.

There is no victory without vigilance. Because when ever the people of God say, “Let us arise and build, Satan says, “let me arise and oppose.

Leaders must get to point of less of them and more of God. They must dream God’s dreams and see God’s size vision.

Nehemiah beleive that through him, God was going to correct a problem that had been around for 150 years/

Nehemiah believe that through him God was going to do somthing that was completely shot down before.

My question is do you see the need, do you understand the walls and the foundation are crumbling before us. The gates are on fire.

We must quit complaining and starting moving. We need to be Nehemiah, we need a vision, a goal! Is your vision big enough?

Nehemiah comes to God looking to God’s promises.

Nehemiah 1:8 “Please remember what you told your servant Moses: ‘If you are unfaithful to me, I will scatter you among the nations.

Nehemiah 1:9 But if you return to me and obey my commands and live by them, then even if you are exiled to the ends of the earth, I will bring you back to the place I have chosen for my name to be honored.’

Nehemiah 1:10 “The people you rescued by your great power and strong hand are your servants.

Nehemiah 1:11 O Lord, please hear my prayer! Listen to the prayers of those of us who delight in honoring you. Please grant me success today by making the king favorable to me. Put it into his heart to be kind to me.”

What a powerful way to come to God! To ask Him to remember His promises!

Nehemiah is saying, “Lord, You made a promise to Moses and this nation, I am asking you now to make good on it.

This,no doubt, is the secret to great power in prayer: to plead the promises of God.

We may get upset at our children they keep comes to us saying: “Daddy, you promised” but our Father in heaven delights in it.

Many times He demands it before prayer become effective.

God will not open His storehouse until we open our mouths and ask Him to perform His promises!

Praying to God, reminding Him of the promises is also a way of telling God, I can’t handle this but you said you could and I am standing on your promises.

That is less of me and More of Him!

Nehemiah prays with a heart ready to do something.

This is a prayer of a man of action, not a sideline critic. Nehemiah does not pray “ God, make it all better” or “God, get someone else moving on this problem.”

Instead, His prayer is “ God, use me to make it better.”

Recognition of need must be followed by earnest, persistent waiting upon God until the overwhelming sense of the need becomes a burden in our soul that we know God want us to do it.

Nehemiah had laid the matter to heart, he did not begin to speak with other people about what they would do, not did he draw up a wonderful scheme about what might be done if so many thousand people joined up together but it occurred to him that he would do somthing himself.

Nehemiah step out of his comfort zone to rebuild the walls and foundation of Jerusalem.

What about you? The church and our way of life is under attack. Will it be less of you and more of Him?