Shoot Your Shot

Nehemiah 2:5–8 ESV

And I said to the king, “If it pleases the king, and if your servant has found favor in your sight, that you send me to Judah, to the city of my fathers’ graves, that I may rebuild it.” And the king said to me (the queen sitting beside him), “How long will you be gone, and when will you return?” So it pleased the king to send me when I had given him a time. And I said to the king, “If it pleases the king, let letters be given me to the governors of the province Beyond the River, that they may let me pass through until I come to Judah, and a letter to Asaph, the keeper of the king’s forest, that he may give me timber to make beams for the gates of the fortress of the temple, and for the wall of the city, and for the house that I shall occupy.” And the king granted me what I asked, for the good hand of my God was upon me.

Introduction:

My journey to becoming the Pastor of this church did not go the way that I thought that it would go. When I finished studying Theology, I thought that I would slide into a full time job in the ministry, climb the Church Staff ladder and by the time I got to my later twenties I would Pastor a church somewhere close to home.

God’s journey for me looked much different that what I thought.

I knew that God had a plan for my life, but I didn’t anticipate any “downs” on my journey.

It’s like hiking. How many hikers are here? My wife and I recently hiked Mt. Woodsen, aka Potato Chip Rock, and I was reminded about this.

When we look up to the mountain we think that it’s going to be a continual uphill until we reach the top. But everyone who has hiked before knows that the way up also includes heading down, heading sideways, switch backs, lots of exposure to the sun, and never enough shade.

So my journey was not up and to the right. It was not a linear experience, but it had ups and it had downs. I had highs and I had lows.

When I was 38, that’s when God finally said, “now.”

At the time I thought God was late. But having lived through the last two years I realized that God was right on time.

There was a certain maturity needed to Pastor and lead through a pandemic.

There was exposure that I didn’t have at 28 that I had at 38 that has better shaped me to lead this church.

There were better relationships that I needed to make in order to be surrounded by the right people to lead this church.

Everything that brought me to this point prepared me to take my shot. And so I did. And here we are. By God’s grace we are 2 years and 6 months old as a church.

This all began because God put a burden inside my heart, and inside of Joanna’s heart, to start a church in the North County of San Diego.

It Begins with a Burden

Nehemiah had been burdened with the news that he heard about the condition of the walls in Jerusalem. Months had passed since he first heard about the walls being torn down in Jerusalem, and yet he had not yet worked up the courage to do something about it.

There’s some wisdom to be learned by how Nehemiah processed this information:

He didn’t run without thinking.

How many of you have ‘felt’ a burden only for it to pass some time later? Our emotions will get us to care about something, but that doesn’t necessarily mean that it is something that is going to require everything of you.

He waited and prayer.

After some time had passed, approximately four months, an opportunity arose. The King knew that something was burdening him. So we read: Nehemiah 2:4

Nehemiah 2:4 ESV

Then the king said to me, “What are you requesting?” So I prayed to the God of heaven.

Your Purpose is Often Connected to a Burden

What I love about our time together in Growth Track is we teach that part of your personality, leadership capacity and spiritual gifts are directly tied to your burdens. A burden is the thing that makes you restless becuase it is undone. A burden is a need that you see that you can do something about.

There are many things that I can do nothing about. There are things that are beyond my capacity. There are things that are beyond my skill set and my gifting.

But there are other things that I do better than most people. There are things that I can absolutely do something about, and that’s a burden that God has given me.

Nehemiah was a cupbearer in Babylon, but he felt a burden to go back to Jerusalem and do something about the condition of the walls.

What is the burden that you carry? What is the thing that keeps you up at night? What is the thing that you can do easier than most, that if you did it would create a lasting impact on someone?

That pain may be the burden that God is asking you to carry.

[Transition]

I think about the story of David in the Book of Samuel. David was anointed to be King, but would have to wait until it was his turn. He needed to wait until the sitting King’s reign ended. One day as Israel was in a battle with their enemy, the Philistines, he was delivering lunch to his brothers. When he arrived they were being taunted by a giant of a man named Goliath. David was burdened by the taunts of this man. David was so sick of hearing this man taunt the children of Israel that he decided to fight this man himself.

Now, as a reminder - David is next in line to be King. All he has to do is stay alive, and he’s next.

But because he had a burden, because the taunts of Goliath was a pain point for him, he risked everything and stepped onto the battle field with Goliath.

God will take your pain and transform it for his purpose.

Many would have counseled David to sit still and not risk everything that he was about to inherit, but David knew that the pain that was burning inside of him was causing him to shoot his shot. It was now or it was never.

[Transition]

I think about the prophet Elijah and his show down with hundreds of Prophets of Baal. Elijah was a Prophet of Israel and he was witnessing how the children of Israel were sinking into idolatry. They were serving God, but they had also created altars to the false god Baal. This so burdened Elijah that he put out a decree that there wold be a showdown on the top of Mount Carmel. He challenged these prophets of Baal to create an altar of wood and to pray to their god to consume the altar with fire. After hours had passed, nothing. When it was Elijah’s turn he saturated the altar with water, and then prayed for God to consume the altar by fire. Sure enough, God consumed the altar by fire, proving once again to the children of Israel that there was no other God beside him.

Elijah risked everything by challenging hundreds of prophets to a showdown on the mountain. But Eliah had a burden. He was tired of seeing God’s children serve false Gods. He was tired of the spiritual depravity of the nation of Israel. He was tired of seeing God’s children being deceived by the enemy.

When you have had enough, it’s time to shoot your shot.

[Transition]

In both of these stories, and in the life of Nehemiah, these men knew that they needed to do something that would benefit the children of God.

These stories are not connected to personal success or personal breakthrough. These are stories of men who had a burden to do something for a cause that was bigger than themselves!

A burden is for a cause that is bigger than you.

It is counter cultural for you to give yourself to something bigger than you. It is counter cultural for you to live a selfless life and to rise above group think. It is counter cultural to love people you’ve never even met enough for you to step out and do God’s will for your life.

This is why many don’t do it…

Your calling will not come dressed up with a mic, lights and a platform. Your calling will come dressed up in overalls and work boots.

Often times the burden that God deposits in you will require you to work harder than you’ve worked, to believe greater than you’ve ever believed and it will stretch you more than you’ve ever been stretched.

And sadly, this is why many walk away from the call.

The Enemy Within

As Nehemiah is getting the blessing from the King to return to Jerusalem, we read that his enemies were also getting ready for his arrival.

Nehemiah 2:10 ESV

But when Sanballat the Horonite and Tobiah the Ammonite servant heard this, it displeased them greatly that someone had come to seek the welfare of the people of Israel.

I want you to get a visual of what is going on. Hundreds of miles away Nehemiah is receiving his marching orders, funding and approvals. But closer to his assignment, the enemy is gearing up to receive him and give him a not so welcoming home coming.

I read this and often ask myself, “Where did the people of God buy into this lie that if it was of God it would be easy?”

We have a generation of Christians who don’t know how to deal with opposition, be it in the physical or the spiritual. We have a generation of Christians who have become soft. We have a generation of Christians that think that if it’s hard, it can’t be God’s will. But that’s not what I find in the Bible.

God gave a burden to Nehemiah KNOWING that there was an enemy on the other side of that calling.

Someone tell their neighbor in spite of.

God wasn’t surprised by the haters waiting for Nehemiah. As a matter of fact, he anticipated them being there.

When God anoints you and calls you to something, he does it knowing the amount of spiritual warfare that you are going to have to overcome. He does it knowing the amount of fighting that you will have to do once you get there. Nothing surprises God. He knows that there will be conflict on the other side.

But do you want to know what God knows about you that you better start learning about yourself?

“Greater is he that is in you, than he that is in the world.”

“Whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven.”

“But in all these things we are more than conquerors through him that loved us.”

Many of you need to internalize these verses and start to walk in them throughout your day. These aren’t verses to get excited about on Sunday, and forget about during the week.

When all hell breaks lose in your family, declare “I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.”

[Transition]

I wonder how many times we go to God and ask him to remove a difficult situation he sent you to? I wonder how many times we ask God to remove a situation that he allowed to happen in our life?

Paul understood this when he talked about a thorn in his flesh that he three times asked God to remove. Finally God said my grace is sufficient for you.

God was telling Paul that the problem couldn’t be prayed away because it was a problem that he was going to have to endure.

Why would God allow your enemies to colocate with your promise?

I don’t know. I can’t stand here and declare all situations to be equal, because they are not. That’s for you to figure out. Not every thing bad that has happened to you was a designed by God.

But there are some situations that you walk in to that are designed to pull God’s anointing out of your life.

If God is going to pull a giant slayer out of David, he needed to position a giant in front of him.

If God is going to pull a preacher out of Peter, he needed to position an audience of unbelievers in front of him.

If God was going to pull a Pastor out of me, there was a people that God had to put in front of me.

Some of the things you are facing are designed to pull God’s assignment out of you.

So here is what we are going to do… when you pray for the difficult task that is in front of you, start telling God this, “if this enemy in front of me is in the way of my destiny, God would you please remove it. But if this enemy in front of me is to prepare me for my destiny, then God would you give me the strength to endure it.”

What would happen if we started to pray this way. Imagine if we started submitting to the process of God in our lives. We could become the type of person that we read about in the Bible.

David was a man who loved the heart of God.

Elijah was a man who loved the voice of God.

Peter was a man who loved the people of God.

Paul was a man who loved the church of God.

I don’t want to just read about these men and women who changed the world, I want to become a man who changes the world. There is an assignment on my life and I will not go to the grave until I do everything that God has called me to do.

[Transition]

Not only did Paul know this first hand, but he passed it on to his disciple, Timothy. Timothy was leading several of the early churches as a young man. He wrote him this letter when Timothy was questioning if he could endure the hardships that came with Pastoring in the first century church:

2 Timothy 2:3–4 ESV

Share in suffering as a good soldier of Christ Jesus. No soldier gets entangled in civilian pursuits, since his aim is to please the one who enlisted him.

Remember God

What I love about Nehemiah, and this is something we must do, is he was rooted in God. His roots ran deep into the person of God.

Nehemiah 2:8 (ESV)

And the king granted me what I asked, for the good hand of my God was upon me.

Nehemiah 2:12 ESV

Then I arose in the night, I and a few men with me. And I told no one what my God had put into my heart to do for Jerusalem. There was no animal with me but the one on which I rode.

Nehemiah 2:20 ESV

Then I replied to them, “The God of heaven will make us prosper, and we his servants will arise and build, but you have no portion or right or claim in Jerusalem.”

At every twist and turn in his story, Nehemiah remembered God. It was this type of devotion to God that gave Nehemiah the confidence to press forward with rebuilding the walls. It took confidence in God to ask the King to return to Jerusalem. It took confidence in God to make the trip back to Jerusalem. It took confidence in God to survey the walls knowing that there was an enemy lurking in the shadows. It took confidence in God to galvanize the exiles in Jerusalem to begin rebuilding again.

Too many people forget about God as they start to do the thing he called them to do.

Just as read about stories of men and women who ran with purpose, we read about men and women who forgot about their purpose.

There’s a story here in the Bible when Paul confronted Peter because he was being inconsistent in the way that he treated people.

It happens.

The key to longevity in your assignment is your complete dependance on God.

If you forget about the one who led you to it, and the one who led you through it, you will find yourself somewhere that God didn’t intend for you. It may be a physical place, or a spiritual place.

Today, I want to lead us back to this place of calling. Some of you have a bow in one hand and an arrow in the other, but you haven’t shot your shot. You have your running shoes on, but you aren’t running in a race. You are dressed for a battle, but you aren’t in enemy territory.