Sermon Tone Analysis

INTRO

GEORGE STEPHENSON spent fifteen years to perfect the locomotive.

WATTS worked for thirty years on the condensing engine.

Hard rubber cost GOODYEAR ten years of study, poverty and public ridicule.

FIELD crossed the ocean fifty times to lay a cable so men could talk across the oceans.

BURBANK the plant wizard at one time personally conducted over 6,000 experiments before finding the solution.

WESTINGHOUSE was treated as a mild lunatic by most railroad executives.

“Stopping a train by wind!

The man’s crazy!”

Yet he persevered and finally sold the air-brake idea.

Have you ever accomplished something hard by persevering?

When I was about ten I got it in my head that I wanted to build and underground fort.

I had a little wooden play set in our back yard but I wanted to build a basement to it.

So off I went with a shovel in my hands and I worked all day.

and I mean all day and at the end of the day I had dug a pit that was about 5x5x4 I remember being so proud to show my parents what I had accomplished.

To bring it to completion I still had a few more steps.

My dad bought me some treated 2x4s and plywood to make a roof and I was able to finish it off in the next week or so.

Fast forward a little and the next big accomplishment in my life was going into the USAF basic training and tech school.

Basic training was 8 weeks long and it was physically and emotionally hard as you might imagine but I remember how proud I was when my parents came down to see me graduate and I was able to hold the flag for our flight so that I was front and center and easy for them to pick out in the sea of dress blues marching down the pitch.

After basic training I had a few more steps however.

I had another 8 weeks of tech school and then of course the 6 year term I had signed up for.

Fast forward again for the last time this morning to another big accomplishment in my life.

Graduating from Seminary.

This took 4 long years of intense study, at one time while we were down in KY I was working 3 jobs going to school full time, running the college and career ministry at the church we were members of as well as trying to maintain a healthy family life with my wife and two toddler boys.

Graduation day was a great joy.

I felt very proud of all that I had learned and did during my time at Southern.

I knew that in the next several years God was going to call me into the next phase of my life and I hoped it was full time ministry.

So the next step for me then was prayerfully seeking the leading of God to eventually being called to pastor here at ABC.

As you know we have been going through the book of Nehemiah as we walk through this text we are taking it one step at a time but that is how all things in life are just one step at a time.

Just like our walk in faith with Jesus is made up of a lot of little steps.

Sometimes it is hard to see our progress as we take steps.

It is only when we stop and look back or have someone outside ourselves comment that we can see how far we have come or what we have accomplished.

What God has accomplished though us as He walks along side us.

Nehemiah shows us something that you may have already learned but is good to be reminded of and that is that as we take these steps that over time bring us to our accomplishments in life that we still have more to go, and that is ok.

we need to recognize that we will not arrive.

We will not reach a day, this side of glory, when we have done all there is to do.

Today as we look at this text in Neh 6-7 we are going to I hope, be reminded of the joy of taking a moment to recognize God’s Past provision and current accomplishments in us while still keeping our eyes fixed upon a work yet to be done.

Taking our faith, and our walk one step at a time.

PRAYER

Faith is one step at a time…

MESSAGE

We Must Be...

Steadfast Despite Public Hostility

Nehemiah 6:1–9 (ESV)

1 Now when Sanballat and Tobiah and Geshem the Arab and the rest of our enemies heard that I had built the wall and that there was no breach left in it (although up to that time I had not set up the doors in the gates), 2 Sanballat and Geshem sent to me, saying, “Come and let us meet together ... in the plain of Ono.”

But they intended to do me harm.

3 And I sent messengers to them, saying, “I am doing a great work and I cannot come down.

Why should the work stop while I leave it and come down to you?” 4 And they sent to me four times in this way, and I answered them in the same manner.

5 In the same way Sanballat for the fifth time sent his servant to me with an open letter in his hand.

6 In it was written, “It is reported among the nations, and Geshem also says it, that you and the Jews intend to rebel; that is why you are building the wall.

And according to these reports you wish to become their king.

7 And you have also set up prophets to proclaim concerning you in Jerusalem, ‘There is a king in Judah.’

And now the ARTEXERXIES will hear of these reports.

So now come and let us take counsel together.”

8 Then I sent to him, saying, “No such things as you say have been done, for you are inventing them out of your own mind.”

9 For they all wanted to frighten us, thinking, “Their hands will drop from the work, and it will not be done.”

But now, O God, strengthen my hands.

Resolution

Politically Unpopular

The tide of humanity

against those in positions of influence

Know your enemy… be realistic

Politics… Satan

Understand the depth of your work

what work are you doing… is it great?

what is distracting you from a great work?… good is the enemy of great !

why was the wall great?

How should we respond?

keep going… be steadfast despite public hostility !!

John 8:1–6 (ESV)

1 but Jesus went to the Mount of Olives. 2 Early in the morning he came again to the temple.

All the people came to him, and he sat down and taught them.

3 The scribes and the Pharisees brought a woman who had been caught in adultery, and placing her in the midst 4 they said to him, “Teacher, this woman has been caught in the act of adultery.

5 Now in the Law, Moses commanded us to stone such women.

So what do you say?” 6 This they said to test him, that they might have some charge to bring against him.

...

Steadfast despite public hostility

We Must Be…

Steadfast Despite Private Hostility

Nehemiah 6:10–14 (ESV)

10 Now when I went into the house of She-mai-ah ..., who was confined to his home, he said, “Let us meet together in the house of God, within the temple.

Let us close the doors of the temple, for they are coming to kill you.

They are coming to kill you by night.”

11 But I said, “Should such a man as I run away?

And what man such as I could go into the temple and live?

I will not go in.” 12 And I understood and saw that God had not sent him, but he had pronounced the prophecy against me because THEY had hired him.

13 For this purpose he was hired, that I should be AFRAID and act in this way and SIN, and so they could give me a bad name in order to taunt me.

14 Remember THEM, O my God, according to these things that they did, and also the prophetess Noadiah and the rest of the prophets who wanted to make me afraid.

Who are you behind closed doors?…

Does your public talk match your private walk?

When the personal attacks start are you ready to stand?

It does not matter who is saying it, if it goes against Gods word its wrong

know the will of God?… know the Bible!

What keeps you doing great work?

private hostility requires private strength

This is how Jesus fought privately

Matthew 26:3–5 (ESV)

3 Then the chief priests and the elders of the people gathered in the palace of the high priest, whose name was Caiaphas, 4 and plotted together in order to arrest Jesus by stealth and kill him.

5 But they said, “Not during the feast, lest there be an uproar among the people.”

Luke 22:3–6 (ESV)

3 Then Satan entered into Judas called Iscariot, who was of the number of the twelve.