You Can't be a Winner if you Never Went to War
Tom Shrader examines Nehemiah 4, showing how opposition inevitably comes when doing God's work. He outlines three types of battles believers face: verbal (ridicule and criticism), emotional (weariness and fear), and spiritual (Satan's attacks). Shrader emphasizes that the solution to fear is not just to 'stop being afraid' but to replace fear with remembrance of God's greatness and faithfulness.
“Do not be afraid of them, but remember the Lord who is great and awesome - it's not enough to not be afraid, it has to be replaced with something.”
— Tom Shrader
Series: Just Do It (2010)
Recorded: 2010
Duration: 44 min
Themes: opposition, leadership, fear, courage, perseverance, faithfulness, service, remembrance, facing criticism, new to leadership, church leader, struggling with fear, parent, mentor, feeling overwhelmed, navigating conflict
Scripture: Nehemiah 1, Nehemiah 4:1-23, 2 Corinthians 4:16-18, Romans 5:1-5, 1 Peter 5:8, Ephesians 6
Theological Themes: servant leadership, spiritual warfare, providence, biblical leadership, sanctification, divine sovereignty, faith development, christian character
Full Transcript
Open your Bibles to the book of Nehemiah, 4th chapter. Again, a summary every week is important because we do need to keep certain things in front of us. Nehemiah, we see in chapter 1, is a cupbearer to the king and he has heard that the wall around Jerusalem is in rubble and that the people are distressed. Nehemiah feels that God is going to somehow use him in the process of rebuilding this.
It's always, again, it's like anything else. It's really easy to sit on this end and look back, but if you could climb into his position at the moment, he did not know exactly what he was going to do. He sensed God was rebuilding this wall. He sensed that he would play some sort of role in it, but he had to be looking at obstacles. He's going, I'm a slave. This is a distance away. I don't understand at all how possibly this could be me, but he understands ultimately that this is God's job, that it needs to be done in God's timing, it needs to be done God's way, and he's going to come to the realization that somehow he is part of that solution.
Nehemiah as a Model of Leadership
Nehemiah is essentially, every time we look at him as a character, taught in the context of leadership. A wonderful picture, by the way, of whatever servant leadership is. I've been in several meetings in the last five or six months with some business guys, and everybody wants to talk about servant leadership. They are hesitant to define it, and none of them really want to do it, but it's a great conversation. It's a great icebreaker, but they all talk about it.
When we talk about leadership, again, the clarion call, and it will be every week, is that you are a leader, and it's important to understand that. If there's anybody following you, so I use the illustration, it's really simple. A week ago yesterday, Sarah had the baby, and she immediately became the leader. You may be leading a toddler. You may be leading a small organization. You may be leading your family. You may be leading a giant corporation. You may be a public servant who's, in a sense, leading and serving at the same time.
And that brings up another point that I want you to see is almost all of you are also followers. So when I go to our church, East Valley Bible Church, when I'm there, I tend to be kind of in that leadership role, but I'm in a lot of other situations where I'm a follower. So part of what I try to do in this series is to give you a sense of what it's like to be a leader, challenge you there, but also what it's like to be a follower, and to just drive home the idea of leadership. So if you are dead average, let's say you are absolutely average, that means in a group of 100, there's 49 people looking up to you. And it's really important to understand that.
God's Project, God's Way
Nehemiah gets that he's God's guy, God's project, God's timing, wants to do it God's way. He begins with the spiritual side of it. He begins by saying, it's my sin. We use the phrase all the time. We live in a culture where we're always a victim, never a villain. There's always some reason.
By the way, the reason, I'm going to give you the explanation for why that's in place. If you think, and it's the dominant idea in the culture, that man is essentially good, and the aberration is man's evil, then when something evil happens, you're looking for an explanation for it. So it has to be, we need to correct this, or we need a new curriculum for this, rather than the biblical view that says, no, man is evil, and if somehow he returns something that he found, that's the aberration. And so it changes a whole different worldview. We see things differently.
The founding fathers of this country had the latter view. They saw man as essentially evil. That's why you have terms like checks and balances and balance of power and all the other things. They saw the sinfulness of man.
The Fear Factor in Leadership
Well, when you're leading, it's really important to understand that one of the driving forces in leadership is fear of failure. So I haven't played golf since August. I'm not complaining at all. I've had a ton of opportunities, and it sounds like a lot of work, but I'm contemplating playing Monday. The closer it gets, the more I'm not sure. But if I have a 10-foot putt, let's say, here's the stroke, and it's smooth. This is silk. It's like this. And that's just rhythm, rhythmic. If I have a 3-foot putt, it tends to go like this. It has a lot of movement in it. It has a lot of pull in it. Why is that? There's only one reason. Because everybody expects you to make a 3-foot putt, and no one expects me to make a 10-foot putt. And all of a sudden, that's why it's a total head game.
A friend of mine is playing with a mutual friend of ours. This guy misses a little putt, maybe 2½ feet. The guy said, I could make that 10 times out of 10. He said, I got 20 bucks says you can't. And the mutual friend goes, bam, bam. It just drills 9 of them to the back of the cup. Takes a little breath. And my guy said, I knew I had him right then. Takes a little breath, regroups. It's the 10th putt. Doesn't even hit the hole. It's the fear of the failure.
So years ago, I used to do a Priority Living newsletter, and it was a ton of work, and I got nothing back from anybody that said it was any good, so I quit. I'm not going to work on something if it's that hard and not any good. I did an interview with Paul Westfall, and we were talking about his time at Boston. We were talking about John Havlicek. And I said, I'm telling Paul, I said what made Havlicek a great player was he wanted the ball at the end of the game because he knew he could make the shot. And Paul said, that's not true. He wanted the ball at the end of the game because he wasn't afraid to miss the shot. He knew there would be times he'd drive the lane and get shut down. He knew there would be times he'd square up and just miss it.
So there is in our life, in this whole idea of leadership and of life in general, this idea of fear. And often that fear comes when the opposition comes.
The Verbal Battle: When Opposition Gets Organized
What happens here in Nehemiah 4? If you have your Bible open, you'll see different headings. In my Bible, the heading for chapter 4 is "work is ridiculed." A lot of your headings will have something along the idea of opposition builds, adversity comes. Well, here's what happens.
You'll have your outline. I want to help you with those outlines. We have a verbal battle. We have an emotional battle. We have a spiritual battle. In the outline, point 1, 2, and 3 is the same in all of them. So the first point is we'll look at the situation. Then we'll look at the response. Then we'll look at the result.
The Situation: Organized Opposition
In this verbal battle, there is a situation that we see. The opponents are organized, verses 1 and 2 of chapter 4. "So it came about when Sanballat heard that we were building a wall, he became furious and very angry, and he mocked the Jews. And he spoke in the presence of his brothers and the wealthy men of Samaria, and he said, 'What are these feeble Jews doing? Are they going to restore it for themselves? Can they offer sacrifice? Can they finish it in a day? Can they revive the stones from the dusty rubble, even the burnt ones?'"
The opposition here is organized. There's a guy by the name of Sanballat we meet here and Tobiah. They are the two kind of chief antagonists here.
God's Work Doesn't Mean Smooth and Easy
Now, don't be surprised. This is really key, third time already today. God's guy, God's timing, God's way, God's job. That does not mean smooth and easy.
I say it all the time, and yet I absolutely know it's true because I understand my own nature. I understand human nature pretty well, especially a lot of you. So a lot of you got screwed up lives. I mean, just screwed up, messed around, whatever it is, it doesn't matter what it is, all screwed up. Now God gets a hold of you, and He begins to work in your life.
When a problem comes, the flinch is to go, "I don't understand you, God. Why didn't you zap me back then? But now I'm your guy, your gal, your timing, your way, your job. What are you doing?" Well, here's what Jesus said. Jesus said, "In this world you will have tribulation." So we have all the wear and tear of life. We're not, as followers of Christ, exempt from that in any way, shape, or form, plus the persecution that comes with it. You will have people that will ridicule you, mock you for your faith.
That's not to be worn as a badge of courage, by the way. I think some people deliberately either take stances that aggravate people, or they're so narrow, so hard, so harsh, that when opposition comes, they go, "See, I must be telling the truth, because look at the fact that everybody's against me." So you have to be very careful here.
The Ridicule Increases
The opposition to them is organized, and the ridicule increases. There's a war of words, and they begin to not just criticize him, but they begin to gang up on him. You see in verse 3, "Tobiah the Ammonite was near, and he said to everyone, 'Even what they're building, if a fox should jump on it, it would break the stone wall down.'" He said, "Look, they're building this wall, it's so flimsy, it might look like a wall, but if something as small as a fox were to jump on it, it would crumble right away," and they begin to mock them.
That can be very contagious. Years ago on the PGA Tour, you had 60 exempt players, and then you had to qualify, you had Monday qualifiers. So guys would go, if they made the cut the week before, they were in the next week, if they didn't, they would go and they'd qualify. They were called Rabbits. I had a friend who played on the Tour, and he said all the Rabbits thought the Tour was screwed up. They thought the system was screwed up, the Tour was screwed up, the PGA officials were screwed up, and he said it was interesting. You would get with these guys, and you would think this was the worst thing or place on the planet to be.
The Danger of Negative Voices
So you get guys like Sanballat and Tobiah, you get them in your organization, you get them in your church, you have to get them out of there. You can't let a person who's belittling stuff over and over, you can't let them hang around. They'll destroy the church. They'll destroy your marketplace. They'll destroy your office.
You know what it's like, I don't even really need to illustrate, you know what it's like, you just get somebody that's unhappy, and then another decision comes along, and then pretty soon, the climate is, "Boy, that home office back in Dayton, they're really screwed up, we're really smart, they're really stupid," and that may in fact even be true. Probably is, or they wouldn't be in Dayton. Nonetheless, when that gets in the water, your organization's done.
No organization, let me personalize it, no relationship can withstand a constant barrage of criticism. You can't do it. If Susan and I, if it's just her criticizing me, me criticizing her, back and forth, we can't handle it. No kid can handle it. No relationship can handle it.
The Response: Nehemiah Seeks God
How does Nehemiah respond? It is fascinating to me to look at his response. He seeks God. Nehemiah, and this seems to me to be a consistent theme in scripture. When I look at a Joseph, when I look at, whenever I see these guys, when Paul, when push comes to shove, and there's something that needs to happen, they understand that they're powerless in the midst of it, and they need God in a desperate way.
So I also like this prayer. You may have never heard this prayer before, but this could be a prayer that you pray for your boss or your enemies. "Hear, O God, how we are despised. Return the reproach on their hearts, and give them up for plunder in the land of captivity. Do not forgive their iniquity, and let not their sin be blotted out before you, for they have demoralized the builders."
See, that's what's happened. See how the organization's starting to fall apart here? Here are these guys, God's job, God's way, God's timing, God's project.
The Project Continues Despite Criticism
These guys are working, but now the criticism comes, and they become demoralized. The result of this is the project does continue. So we built the wall, and the whole wall joined together at half its height, for the people had a mind to work. So now they got half the job done. The verbal battle comes, and they're saying, "That's fine, here we go, we're going to keep on working."
The Battle Shifts to Emotional Warfare
Now the battle shifts, and it becomes an emotional battle. The situation is right there in verse seven and eight. The enemies now are even more angry. "When Sanballat and Tobiah and the Arabs and the Ammonites, all these guys heard that the repair of the wall of Jerusalem went on, and the breaches began to be closed, they were very angry. And all of them conspired together to come and fight against Jerusalem and cause a disturbance in it."
These guys will not be silenced, they won't stop. They are angry, and now they begin this process of coming against the people, and they come against them, and the people are growing weary. Look at verse 10. "Thus in Judah it was said, 'The strength of the burden of bears is failing, and yet there is much rubble, and we ourselves are unable to rebuild the wall.'" These guys are growing weary.
When Enthusiasm Wears Off
I want you to see, at least in my mind, what I think is happening. The project's about half done, and they're about 80% depleted in terms of their emotional strength. They're fatigued, they're discouraged, they're tired. The newness of the project has worn off.
We see it a lot when we do something like a church plant. People get excited, "We're going to go do a church plant, we're going to go into a school, we're going to set up every week." That is a lot of work. You're going to haul in all your music, all your chairs, all your stuff every week, and that's a lot of work on July 17th when it's 116 degrees.
We're focused again on Nehemiah. There's a weariness that's taken place. The project is half done. I can really relate to this, because I have a ton of books, almost all my books, that are partially read. We have a friend who, if he starts a book, will not start another book till he finishes it. And I said, "I just wouldn't do that." I assume, because I spent money on it and I'm interested in it, I'm assuming that if I don't want to read on, the author wrote a bad book. That's my assumption.
Losing Focus on Progress
Here's what's happening. The key to this is tucked in verse 10. Here's what they're saying: "There's so much rubble." They're not looking at the wall that's half built. They're looking at the rubble that's still there. They've lost their vision. They've lost their focus. That's why they're weary. That's why they're tired.
The Challenge of Raising Children
My favorite illustration for all of this is raising kids. To understand that Brooklyn is a giant eater. She got one thing from me - she loves to eat. She eats and eats and eats and eats. Sarah texts me now every night between one and 1:30. So I got a text the other night, and she said, "I'm feeding the baby. Gracie's upstairs screaming. This is a lot of fun." And I text back, "I'll tell you something more sad than that. I'm awake to listen to this."
This job that Sarah's engaged in with these kids has no gratification to it at this point. The novelty of having - she's already had two, so there's not a lot of novelty to it. Her hormones are readjusting, her body's readjusting. This is a real difficult spot to be in. All you're doing is changing diapers and feeding them and getting up in the middle of the night.
Then they're going to start to move. Then they're going to learn to say no. Then they're going to start to run around. Then somebody's going to offer them a joint to smoke. And then some guy's going to want to take them to bed. And this is life, man. That's their future. I don't share all this with her at once, but that's their future.
I remember a guy came to me and said, "I just heard" - and he was a guy who was thinking about having kids - "I just heard on the radio that it costs $450,000 to raise a kid." I said, "Well, two things. Number one, it doesn't cost that much. Number two, they don't ask for it up front. So go ahead and have one and figure it out as they go."
The Need for Long-Term Vision
If you're going to be a good parent, because it's really tough, you have to have a long-term view. If all you look at is dirty diapers, pretty soon you think dirty diapers.
Let me put it in our life, in the Christian life. Paul says this in 2 Corinthians 4, verse 16, 17, and 18: "Do not lose heart. Though the outer man is decaying, the inner man is being renewed day by day. For momentary light affliction is producing in us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison." Because here's the key - so He set it up, we're decaying.
Brooklyn is born at age 16. At age 17, she began the process of dying. I didn't put that on the card, but it's true. And unless she's Enoch, which I'm guessing she's not, she's going to die. So the outer man is decaying. That becomes more clear to us, I think, the older we get. But the inner man, the soul, the heart, is strengthened day by day.
Focusing on the Eternal
Momentary light affliction - that's Paul's description of life. It's inevitable. It's in your life, it's in my life. It's momentary light affliction. It's not that it's not real. It's not that it isn't painful. It's all those things. But Paul said, "Here's the key, this is momentary."
If I look at things that are seen, I'm going to get discouraged because I'm going to see decay and I'm going to see all these things. But they're temporal. But I look at the things that are unseen, and the things that are unseen, those are eternal. So there's my hope.
Do this. Go to the book of Romans. Romans chapter five, Paul writes this. Verse one: "Therefore..."
Having been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. So there was a preexisting condition. I come into the world hostile to God, separated from Him by my sin, but because of Christ, I now have peace with God. And you know the second part of that. If I have peace with God, I can experience the peace of God. All of a sudden now, there is an option in my life that things can have love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness, faithfulness, and self-control. I'm in right relationship with Him.
Though the world, and I'm in it, and my body still has sin and the effects of sin, I'm right with God. He says this: "through whom we have obtained an introduction by our faith into the grace in which we stand," and we exalt in the hope of the glory of God. The very next verse, he said, "not only this, we also exalt in our tribulation." So he said we exalt in tribulation - he anticipates them.
Why do we exalt in tribulation? Because we know tribulation brings about perseverance and perseverance brings about character and character hope and it doesn't disappoint. We count it all joy when we encounter various trials because we know the testing of our faith produces endurance. So those tribulations come for a reason. Hardship comes for a reason, for your own good.
Understanding Counseling and Discipleship
We're just talking about this and pastors are working through some stuff. We're trying to figure out, I think that we've turned counseling into something way bigger than it's supposed to be. Now I'm not opposed to the fact that you need some sort of help, but it's really what it is, is discipleship, it's life on life. And almost all of the counseling that comes in is marriage counseling. Now part of that is because we don't do well with other areas, probably. But when we're talking about marriage, it's a lot of realistic expectation, it's just a lot of definition and talking.
The toughest, absolutely toughest case to deal with is one where you're dealing with one of the partners and not both of them. Because when a guy and a gal come in for marriage counseling, they're coming in and if they were honest, if you said to the wife, "what's your goal?" She would say, "my goal is to see you fix him." If you said to the guy, "what's your goal?" You would say, "fix her." They both communicate very clearly because it always goes like this: "oh, it takes two to argue." So that's their way of saying, "I'm probably wrong, but essentially I'm okay. I argue only because he's a jerk, so fix him and I'll be okay."
The hardest one is where you don't have the other person because you sit down and I'll say it all the time, "here's what needs to happen, here's how long do I have to do this? How long will I have to do this before they respond?" And I'll always say, "they may never respond. This is not about them responding." So if you're in a terrible situation, what I'm trying to say is, why does God put you there? What's God trying to teach you there? What does this situation reveal to you about you? That's where that tribulation comes. Test your faith, you're strong.
Hope Based on Past and Present Truth
But in verse two, he talks about exalt in the hope of glory. So we had a presidential election a year ago that was all built on hope and change, hope and change, hope and change, hope and change. Now, I don't want to get into all whether that's good, bad, or whatever. We got a whole bunch of change. We don't have much loose change left. We're all out of that. We're into the folding kind now at the speed of light. But we got change.
The idea of hope, this is really important, is always in the future. It's always something ahead of it. Maybe a day ahead, it may be a decade ahead. Hope is always based in the future. Now, here's my contention. For those of us who are Christians, our hope is based on the past and our present. The only reason that we have hope in the future is because of what Christ has done in the past, what God has promised us.
There's no reason to turn on CNN or MSNBC or Fox or any of them and feel hopeful. The only thing I've seen that's hopeful is the snowstorm has shut down the government since Friday. That's the only hope I've seen. If they could now get a snowstorm in Sacramento and one downtown Phoenix, it would be good. Just snowstorm them all out.
True Hope Found in Scripture
But if I read my Bible, I'm filled with hope. Because this is momentary light affliction. And I'm to not look at the things that I see, but the realities I don't see. That God is in control. That God is sovereign. That I might not and cannot fix this.
There's no reason. I'm spending a chunk of time with churches that by their own definition are just saying, "we're all screwed up." So you got a body of 500 people that all say they love Christ and they can't resolve conflict. They can't make a transition from the old generation to the next generation without the old generation just fighting and fighting and fighting and standing in the way. And bodies are all over the place. So the church that's 3,000 is gonna go to 300 before they'll ever make a change.
If a body of believers that are 500 in number can't do that, how's a government ever gonna do it? How's Intel ever gonna do it? If a husband and wife who say they love Jesus can't stay married to one another, what hope do organizations have? My hope is this right here. This momentary light affliction is producing for me an eternal weight of glory that Paul says is beyond all comparison. I can't even get my brain around what this is gonna be like. That's the hope.
When All You See is Rubble
See, these guys have lost their focus. All they see is rubble. Maybe in your life right now, all you see is rubble. All you see are bills that can't be paid or relationships that can't be fixed. I'm not some blind optimist. The cup is half empty for me. I got it. But the reason I don't end up in despair, the opposite of despair is hope, and my hope was never in
The cup to begin with. These guys building this wall have lost focus of what's going on, and they need to be refocused. They're also afraid, and whatever you're afraid of will control you.
If you look at your financial statement and it's declining and you fear that fall, then the love of money and the desire for accumulation will control you. If you fear rejection, then it will control you. If you fear that if you do something wrong with that kid, they will run away, then you're always going to be parenting out of fear. You're going to be playing defense all the time and they're going to score fast. Whatever you're afraid of will control you.
The Enemy's Intimidation Tactics
The enemies have started to mock them, and the idea is that they're going to do something in this whole process. In verse 11 and 12, you see that fear. "Our enemies said, 'They will not know or see until we come among them and kill them and put a stop to their work.' And when the Jews who lived near them came and told them ten times, 'From all the places where you turn, they will come up against us.'" They're now afraid.
It's like boxing—I don't follow boxing much anymore. If Mike Tyson would be fighting a guy that's five and five, and they do a pre-fight interview with this guy, and the guy would say, "I've been watching a lot of film and I've spotted a weakness. I got a secret weapon." Every time I'd fall for that. Every time I'd go, "Gosh, he saw something. He's got a secret weapon." There's nothing more frightening than a secret weapon. Then he'd come out, and in about 30 seconds, Tyson would knock him out, and he still had his secret weapon because we never did find out exactly what it was. These guys say, "We're coming. They won't know. We don't know when we're coming. Like a thief in the night. We're just going to strike." So they are very much afraid. They're very fearful.
The Right Response to Opposition
The response in verse 13 was not to give up. You know what they did? Nor did they double their efforts at work. If you're in a bad market right now, working twice as hard isn't going to make the market good. I've always tried to say that to guys. I've been with some young guys lately who are just killing themselves working. Look, if there's no deal to do, there's no deal to do. You working twice as hard isn't going to make it happen. I'm not anti-work. They didn't say, "Boy, we better hurry up and build it."
Verse 13: "So in the lowest parts of the space behind the wall, in open places, I stationed the people by their clans, with their swords, their spears, and their bows." Here's what they said. Their response and their result was: "We're going to take this thing and we're going to do what we can do." We don't need to work harder. We're going to respond to the situation. We're going to address the situation.
Nehemiah Addresses the Fear
They also—Nehemiah addresses and understands the emotion. Verse 14: "And I looked and arose and said to the nobles and to the officials and to the rest of the people." Here you go, verse 14—key, we've got 10 minutes. You've got to get it. Huge application to your life right now: "Do not be afraid of them."
I think the Bible screams at us, "Do not be afraid." But that's not all it says. Nancy Reagan had the idea, "Just say no to drugs." That never works. That just isn't going to work. It'll work for a week or a month, or you get a kid to read enough books and you give him tickets to his son's game or something. But "just say no" is not enough unless you have some extraordinary person who's made out of stone who's not human. "Just say no" is never enough. It has to be replaced by something.
So a whole bunch of people—and I think we do that, and I'm around a lot of Christians, I'm around a lot of people who have their theology straight—but they never read the second part of this stuff. "Do not be afraid. Don't be afraid. Don't be afraid. Don't do it. Don't do it. Don't do it."
The Need for Replacement, Not Just Prohibition
"Do not be afraid of them. Remember the Lord, who is great and awesome." It's not enough to not be afraid. If you're dealing with somebody, you're dealing with your own life, you're dealing with others—to just focus on what God's prohibitions are is never enough. It's to look at the prohibitions He has, but I'm always looking to the provision He makes. Do not be afraid, but remember what He's done.
Just saying "do not be afraid" is really stupid when there's somebody out there and it's very frightening. It has to be replaced with something. We've talked about this before. Hugely practical but great illustration: if Susan and I have the grandkids and let's say Yale's playing with something I don't want him to play with, I'm going to say, "Oh Yale, no, no, no," and nothing gets accomplished. He's miserable. I'm miserable. Susan's miserable. Susan fixes it in about two seconds. She takes away what we don't want him to play with, but she replaces it with something that will be something we want him to play with or will enhance him in some way.
Thomas Chalmers and the Replacement of Affections
It's the same thing with your heart. Thomas Chalmers wrote an essay—I don't even know what Chalmers' dates are, probably a couple hundred years ago. Chalmers wrote an essay and what he talks about is the replacement of the affections of the heart. If I love sin, it's not enough to say, "Don't love sin anymore." You have to replace it with a love of God. It's not enough to say, "Don't eat." If you need to lose weight, "Don't eat that"—well, you've got to replace it with something.
I was with some people the other night and they were talking about eating, and somebody said, "Have you seen the Weight Watchers fudge sickle? Eighty calories or something." I immediately—I'm driving home and I'm thinking because Susan and I were in separate cars—thinking I've got to tell Susan to get some of those Weight Watchers fudge sickles. Because I got rid of the fudge sickles, but I've got to get something else because—
We have a vacuum going right now. Something's got to come in there. It's got to be more than Melba toast. It's got to be more than just broccoli. Well, you see that when you say don't sin anymore, you take that away. It has to be replaced with this provision.
So let's say you're an adult single Christian. Premarital sex, sex outside of marriage, is not an option for you. I mean that's sin. It just is. But man, that's a strong drive and you're in an environment. It's all around you. It's not enough to say no. You got to say He'll meet that provision. He'll be your lover. It won't take place in a physical sense. We're still going to have to do that, and you may have that drive that's so big that you're going to need to be married, but look to Him for the provision somehow.
The Problem of Self-Sufficiency
Think about this. I was thinking about the other day because I am. Think about being a believer in Haiti right now. I think this is right. I always want to say our biggest problem, and the only reason I frame it that way is it gets your attention, but I don't know if it's our biggest problem, but certainly one of our biggest problems is that we are too self-sufficient.
The whole Christian life begins with this: Blessed are the poor in spirit. My Christian life begins with me saying I'm not strong enough. I can't do it. I'm impotent when it comes to this. God, it's all yours. But I think after that, I fight the battle constantly of going, "But you know what? I bet I can do that. I bet there are some things I can do." That's the problem.
I think we're really pretty independent, and that feeds into the whole American psyche, which is rugged individualism to begin with. And I'm all for it. Y'all know that. So you take free market capitalism, you take a democracy, you take all - it's very individually focused.
I have a friend. This is a great thing. He was a marine. Once a marine, always a marine and blah blah blah. He said what made me a good marine makes me a lousy Christian. What made me a good marine was you can do it. You can power through it. You can do this. You build it up. What makes me - I bring that to Christ and go, "I can do it."
Addressing the Emotional Needs
They were afraid, and they responded. Nehemiah addressed the emotional needs of these people, and the result is in verse 15: the project continues. The work goes on.
Look at the spiritual battle that takes place, and we can go through this part fairly quickly and tie it together. The enemy, and we're not going to turn there in the book of Ephesians, the enemy that we have is Satan. Our response is the same response that we have here in Nehemiah chapter 4, verse 16 through 18. They're preparing for battle. They're making some strategic decisions. They're preparing for conflict.
Peter writes in 1 Peter chapter 5, verse 8: "Be self-controlled and alert. Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion seeking to devour. Resist him, stand firm." Not in yourself - stand firm in your faith.
Preparing for Spiritual Battle
So again, under your outline under C2: A is prepare for conflict, B is unify for strength, and C is to remain on the alert. So they're prepared for battle. They understand that there's this future event that's going to take place. They understand that they have a real enemy, and it's Satan.
We can go two ways with Satan. Both extremes are wrong. One is to think he doesn't exist at all, and the other is just to think he's behind everything.
Years ago, I was doing a Bible study down at the arena, and I used to use an overhead projector. I plug in, I come to the wall, I plug in the projector, and I've never had anything like this - sparks are flying all over everywhere. So there's one of the maintenance guys and one of the overall security staff guys of the arena there, and they said, "Whoa, what happened?" I said, "I don't know." So they took the plug and they said, "Where's the ground?" I said, "I don't know. What's a ground?" And they said, "The ground, there's a ground on there." I said, "Was that the little thing that comes out the little -" They said, "Yeah." And I said, "Well, I broke that off because a lot of plugs don't have that in there." And they said, "Well you idiot, that's the problem. This thing isn't grounded. Can you fix it?" I mean, that's all I cared about.
Here's what I didn't do. I didn't go, "Oh, Satan is out to keep me from teaching the Word of God to these people." He doesn't need to do that. I'm too stupid. I broke the ground off. I'm stupid. The projector's going to explode.
Understanding Our Adversary
So we make the extreme there on one hand and say doesn't exist. We make the extreme on the other hand that says he's behind everything. You have an adversary - Satan. I doubt you've ever encountered him because you're not big enough for him to really mess around with. He's a finite creature. He's not God. He can't be everywhere.
So when you think you're under attack of Satan, he can only attack like one of the seven billion at a time, and I'm guessing on the guest list you're alphabetized under Z. Maybe not. But His demons are there. The plots are there. And in most cases, it's like me with the ground. He doesn't really need to attack you because your sin will take you right into it, right into this. And I'm going to just tell you Nehemiah: the progress stops, but now the building of the wall continues.
Look at what we talked about today. There has to be half a dozen great practical applications in there. For me, it's the idea of do not be afraid to replace it with something. And the idea is if I lose focus of that future, if I lose that, I'm in real serious trouble. I'll become discouraged and worry.
A Story of Faith in Loss
Haley was working in the hospital. She was telling me she's got this cutest patient. He's 88, and so she was talking about what a cool guy he was. He is on her floor, and his wife is in intensive care. She's probably going to die. So a day or two later, the lady had died. And she said, "Here's -"
What happened? They came up and they told the guy that your wife has died. They've been married 65 years. Your wife has died. Do you want to go and see her? And he said yes, I do. And he said, "Haley, will you be here when I get back?" And he said yes, I will. And he said, "Will you hold my hand when I come back?" And he said sure.
That's one of the beauties again. I understand all the healthcare battle and all that. I'll tell you this: if you want to minister to people, you start working in a hospital because there's ministry opportunities all over that joint. Quit whining about the paperwork and blah blah blah.
So the guy goes down, he comes back, and he comes in and he said, "Will you sit down Haley and hold my hand?" And he held his hand and he said, "Haley, I want to ask you something. Haley, this is really important. Do you know Jesus?" And Haley said, "Well, I'm a Christian, yes." He said, "Do you know Him in a personal way?" So this guy was pretty good because he wasn't going to take the cultural Christian thing. And he said, "Do you know Him in a personal way? Because Haley, my wife right now is in heaven and I'm going to be there pretty quick. And I want to know if someday we're going to see you there."
Your Life is Your Ministry
Now, there's a tendency to go, "Isn't that a sweet story?" Well, those opportunities are around you all day long. I had yet another discussion yesterday about the frustration people are feeling in people like you not seeing your life as ministry, especially your work. There's this giant disconnect.
You have that opportunity. Now the circumstances produced an urgency there, an intensity of that moment. But you have opportunities like that all day long. If you don't see your entire life—but those of you that are still working—if you don't see your work as an opportunity to minister to the people around you, you will be spiritually dwarfed and you will be forever frustrated.
Because the more you grow close to Him, I would see this all the time. Guys would come to faith and they would grow, they'd be in business, and then they'd come up with this idea they needed to go to seminary or something. And the idea was to do something spiritual: "I need to leave the workplace and go do this." Now some do. I did. So I'm encouraging you to do what I didn't do.
But think about it. If you're growing spiritually, you got a typical eight-hour day. If you sleep eight hours and you work eight hours and the other eight are commuting and brushing teeth and dealing with business, and you take out that first eight, you're sleeping—very hard to redeem the sleep. Hard to evangelize in your sleep. If you take the rest of it, you got half of your life at work. If you don't see that as ministry, then you're going to be so spiritually frustrated.
God Has Placed You Where You Are
But if all of a sudden you see, God's placed you wherever you are. There's a reason. Is the public school system screwed up? Yeah. Not the teachers—not all of them, some of them—but it's filled with bureaucracy and everything else. It's screwed up. What's the answer? You go in and teach. You go into the system. Not to sit back and lob bombs at it. Now God may call you to do something, then do it.
Is healthcare screwed up? Oh my gosh. Be a doctor, be a nurse, volunteer at the hospital. Look, if you come in with a dog, they'll let you in any room in the hospital because they think it cheers up patients. There's people all around you.
And it's time for you and me to identify the problem. We're very good at that. To quit complaining about it and to be part of that solution or whatever it is. Is government screwed up? Yeah. But you know what? I think the way to fix it is to be on the city council. It's not to be the senator. It ain't going to happen for you. I can just tell by looking at you. It's just not working for you. It's not going to happen. You're not going to be president.
Start Where You Can Make a Difference
But you be honest with me. Are you sick of the schools? Then run for the school board. Complaining that business is corrupt? Then start an honest business. The problem is, it's more fun to complain than it is to do something. That's the problem. Me too. I speak as one who's got the PhD in this deal.
Pick up right here next week. Father, help us see that. Help us see the practical application that's all around us. And not to be overwhelmed by the problem, but to understand—not in some sort of bumper sticker way—we are a huge part of the solution. God, give us the strength to be Your people doing Your job, Your way, and Your timing. We ask it in Christ's name. Amen.