No More Hide and Seek

Title: "No More Hide and Seek | Pastor Brian Doell (Sunday Service)" URL: "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VEDzGtg_lFk" Transcript: "(00:00) Okay, I'm going to interrupt now. Thank you for the high fives and the conversations, but we're gonna continue in our worship and and uh seeking of of God this morning. So, we're going to do that. We're going to take a few minutes to pray together and uh going to do this fairly simply today. Just looking here. (00:24) If you have a need uh that you would like your church family to be praying for, I'm going to the hardest part right here is just ask you to stand where you are. You're not going to have to say anything, nothing more than that, but just stand so we can recognize so we can be praying with you. So I'll give you a second to do that if there's anything we can be praying for. (00:46) All right? And then I'm going to ask that the rest of us stand in support and I'm going to lead us in prayer. this morning. Father, we come before you um as your children. We come before you as you have said to come seek you as our father and that you are a father who uh gives good gifts. (01:12) That you give out of your uh righteousness and out of your mercy and out of your grace. And you have been so good to us and we are thankful for that. And so today we bring before you those of our uh church family that that are in need and as part of their family we support them and want to be involved with them before you. (01:31) And so we we pray for them. We ask for your involvement to meet the need. We don't even have to know. You already do. We just simply uh bring them name them before you and name them in the uh your presence through the power and presence of Jesus. What he has done for us. Jesus you told us to pray in your name. (01:49) And so that's what we are doing. And you have accomplished for us already the greatest thing that could be done. You've given us salvation. You have forgiven our sins. You've shown us grace. You're transforming us. And so we had asked that same power, the resurrection would come to rest on those who have need this morning. (02:06) And many of needs that probably weren't even thought of or raised for us to be aware of. We ask you to intercede. And father, again, I want to just bring our brother Alberto before you with the loss of his mother this morning that you would uh comfort him, comfort his family. And in this, we again to rejoice. She knew you. (02:27) She's your daughter. We're so thankful for that. And so, Lord, in all of this, you do your will. We thank you. May you be glorified. And now, we have the privilege of coming before you to listen. In the name of Jesus, we pray. Amen. You may have a seat. Um, I have to confess something. You can come up if you want to, Brian. (02:49) This last week was pretty rough for me. Um, last Sunday I started this series that we're doing and I mentioned that Brian was going to be preaching for three weeks and there was quite a rousing response. And then I mentioned that I was going to be finishing the series out and I just got to say I was crushed. (03:13) But anyway, uh, no, I'm kidding. Brian, I'm glad you're here. Look forward to having a few weeks with you and love you, brother. >> Thanks, man. >> Y, >> better late than never. >> Excuse me while I do some remodeling here. >> Well, thanks for having me. So, So, apparently you had fair warning that I was coming and you're here anyway. (03:45) >> Yeah. >> So, that's gratifying to know. Thanks for being here. >> I'm really excited to be here. Joel and I have been talking about this series for a little while now and I'm really grateful that I get a chance to dive into this for a few weeks. I was really blessed by what Joel had to say last week when he kicked this series off. (04:03) this series. One of the reasons I'm so excited about it is that there are not too many things in life that are more amazing and more profoundly moving than the promises of God. I mean, on such a deep level. And I think sometimes we can forget about this aspect of who God is because we get so wrapped up in ourselves and our own issues. (04:28) And even if we're wrapped up in our own spiritual journey and our own pursuit of God, we get wrapped up in all the details of that and we kind of forget to turn to God. Or when we do turn to God, we can end up reducing him to maybe just fitting into however we're currently understanding things. He becomes less this amazing, great, awesome God and more this manageable concept in my life. (04:57) We can forget that God himself, the creator of everyone, everyone and everything. The God that is more powerful than everyone and everything. The God that knows all, the God that sees all, the God for whom nothing is impossible. That God loves you. That God loves me. that God is so invested in you and so invested in in me in each one of us that he makes us promises. (05:29) He makes us unbreakable promises and then he records them for all eternity. And these are not based on whatever is currently going on in the world or in my life or how well I'm navigating my life or how badly I'm navigating my life. And that's really an unparalleled thing anywhere else in life. We just don't encounter that anywhere else. (05:53) And it's so amazing and so profound because this is not just the thing that a religion teaches about God. It's not just an esoteric thing, some kind of idea that's floating around that I might choose to believe in or not believe in. It's not just a thing that might well be true, but it doesn't really have anything to do with the daily practical things in life or the step by step, the minuteby minute. (06:18) It is a reality, God says, that gets to the core of who he is. Those promises impact every last one of us if we let them and affect us all in a very, very real way here and now. if we take them up on those promises. And if we can't get excited about that idea, then I think that speaks to the fact that we really don't know or understand what it means for God to make a promise and what that then means for us. (06:51) And it makes perfect sense on a human level that we don't really understand the promise concept because on a human level we don't think of promises that way. When I say I promise, when you say I promise, it means a very different thing than when God does. We can think on a human level by saying I promise. (07:18) That's just absolutely one of the most powerful things that we can say. And yet, even as we're saying it, if we're being realistic, we understand that it is quite literally impossible for us to follow through because you cannot promise an outcome. You can't. You can only promise an intention. And even then, that's not something that we follow through on all the time, even with the very best of intentions. (07:47) Factors outside of our control make it literally impossible for us to ever guarantee anything. You see this in movies and TV shows a lot. I love movies, and people who are close to me would say that I've got a bunch of irrational quirks and pet peeves when it comes to movies and TV. I assure you they're not irrational at all. They make perfect sense. (08:11) They're all totally justified and not one of them is ridiculous. But this is really one of the biggest ones. This one gets to me every time I watch it in a movie or TV show. You see this promise idea show up all the time in screenplays where a character says, "I promise." And you're sitting there watching them going, "There's absolutely no way you can make that guarantee. (08:36) " One character will sit another one down and look into their eyes and without any trace of irony or self-awareness at all, I promise we're going to find the guy who did this. I'll never hurt you again. I promise. I'll never let anyone hurt you again. I promise. We're going to solve this. I promise. And then, of course, because the people who write the lines, they're the ones who wrote the screenplay. (09:02) they can actually make sure that the person follows through. So I guess there's that. But in the real world, it's impossible to back up. In the real world, these promises become at best a declaration of our best intention in the moment. And maybe they become something that we avoid saying or we really don't put any kind of faith in at all because we're just being too pragmatic, too realistic when we look at the world around us because we know we can't guarantee anything and we're too used to seeing ourselves and other (09:37) people break promises. And so the promises of God kind of lose their power because we're limited in our understanding of what a promise really is and what a promise really looks like. So, here's where we need to allow God to redefine the term. Joel broke this down a little bit last week, but we need to stop hanging our hats on whatever this term has come to mean to the culture around us, and we need to let God redefine the term. (10:09) In doing that, let God completely change the way that we view them. There's a great passage in Romans 12 that you won't see on the screen, but Romans 12:2 says, "We should not copy the behavior and customs of this world, but let God transform you into a new person by changing the way you think. Then you will learn to know God's will for you, which is good and pleasing and perfect. (10:33) " Now, how we define words and concepts is part of the behavior and the customs of this world. If we want to get to know the life that God has in mind for us, that can't become a reality if we're okay to just default to however the world around us is happy to define things or our limited understanding or perspective. When we get to know who God is and and what he has in store for us, if we do that, if we allow him to completely turn our thought process inside out, turn it upside down, we can then tell the difference between fact and fiction. We can allow him to reorient (11:10) our thought process, the way we process things. Knowing and walking in the will of God are really impossible until and unless we do that. And this includes how we view the promises of God. So with that in mind, let's take a look this morning at a very specific and very fundamental uh start from step A kind of a promise. (11:40) It really, if we take those words from Romans 12 seriously, it really upends some very basic human notions that really govern our lives. And then also this morning, we'll we'll take a quick look at somebody specific in the Bible who embraced this and we'll see how this turns out for him. So let's start with a passage from the book of Hebrews. (12:07) Hebrews 6:16-19 says this. Now when people take an oath, they call on someone greater than themselves to hold them to it. And without any question, that oath is binding. God also bound himself with an oath so that those who received the promise could be perfectly sure that he would never change his mind. So God has given both his promise and his oath. (12:31) These two things are unchangeable because it is impossible for God to lie. Therefore, we who have fled to him for refuge can have great we hold to the hope that lies before us. This hope is a strong and trustworthy anchor for our souls. It leads us through the curtain into God's inner sanctuary. There's a lot in that verse or in that passage, but there are a couple of things particularly worth noting here. (13:00) And one of them, as we've been talking about, is the contrast he draws between people and God. He's very direct, very blunt with this idea that the promises of people, while they're based on a sound concept, God being the creator of that concept. God's greatness supersedes anything and everything that we can hold ourselves accountable to. (13:24) God's promises are an entirely different proposition. It's really a different thing. His word is unbreakable. His declarations are unchangeable. His promises are not subject to any force that can derail and do derail any and all of our best intentions. And he uses this idea to set up an idea that answers one of the most basic questions that humans have ever had or ever will have. (13:58) Is there a God? Is he real? If he's real, how do I find him? Can I know him? How do I get to him? Does he actually care? Does he actually want to hear from me? Could he care about somebody like me? Could he actually change things in my life? These are the age-old these are the most basic bare bones questions from time and memorial in the human soul. (14:31) Every culture, every society, every group of people, no matter when in history you look at it, these questions and every last one of these groups of people have tried their very best to come up with answers to these questions. And here it's been all along the word of God. Can God be found? Yes, he can. Verses 18 and 19 again, read this with me again. (15:00) Therefore, we who have fled to him for refuge can have great confidence as we hold to the hope that lies before us. This hope is a strong and trustworthy anchor for our souls. It leads us through the curtain into God's inner sanctuary. What does he choose to do right after he defines what a promise of God is? He defines now who those promises are for. (15:25) Who has he directed those promises to? Well, he's applied those promises to us. And who is us? We who have fled to him. In other words, anyone who looks for him. Anyone who looks for God, this promise applies to. And and what is that promise? That we have great confidence that God is there to be found and that we have access to him. (16:05) We have access to God himself. Something this amazing. We don't have to wander around wondering. We can actually have an audience with God himself. That should give us great hope. That should be what anchors us here. Now, there's a second point in here that might be not quite so obvious, at least to us today. (16:28) Would have meant a lot to people back then. In fact, it would have been a huge deal. Something they'd never heard before. Never even really dreamed that it could be true. And if they heard this, this would have totally turned their upside or their understanding of things upside down. And you see in that passage where it says it leads us through the curtain into God's inner sanctuary. (16:47) Love this part because it's not just the writer being poetic. Some of you might have studied this passage before or heard this before, but in those days, there's a very, very specific way that the temple is set up. Very specific rules to follow. Not at all like we think of church today. We all show up and hang out together. (17:07) We love the fact that there's people from all different backgrounds and all sorts of people that come together and worship God together. This is an awesome thing. We love that. At that time it was a very different thing. There were very different areas very specifically designated for people of different kinds to go. (17:25) Essentially courtyards for different people. So if you were a gentile, you had to go to the non-Jewish courtyard. That's where they had to go. That's where they had to stay. If you were a woman, you had to go to the court of women. Couldn't go anywhere else. If you were a Jewish man, you could go into other areas, but not every other area. (17:44) And even if you were a priest, you could go into what they called the holy place, but you couldn't go into the holiest place or the holy of holies. The two places were separated by a curtain. Only the high priest could go in there and even then only once a year. And behind this curtain was encountering the presence of God himself. this access to God was not available to anyone else in this temple setting. (18:17) So for these people to hear something like this verse that God promises that this new hope leads us through the curtain into God's inner sanctuary. That's a pretty massive deal. You know, remember when Jesus died, we read that this curtain was torn in two. That barrier is eradicated. That essentially Jesus sacrifice replaces the old ways, the old sacrificial system, the old temple hierarchy. (18:53) He leads us now past the curtain into the inner sanctuary where we encounter God himself. Now there actually hadn't been a barrier to the individual person reaching out to God before that. But in this temple system and in this hierarchical system, this is what they had come to know. There was a barrier to entry. (19:15) And even though you and I probably didn't grow up with this curtain idea as being everpresent in our lives, we deal with this idea in other ways. We might not have the curtain, but we certainly do have all of the religious, well, let's be kind and call them extras. All the stuff, all the religious ins and outs and hoops to jump through and words to consider and did you and could you and what about and all of that stuff that in our human zeal coming from best intentions most of the time we invent within the church. (19:59) ways that we dream up that might have some element of biblical truth to them, but ultimately really aren't embracing the the nuts and bolts and the big picture at all. Things that denominations just have a lot of fun arguing about. Things that we think that we need to add to the really straightforward words of Jesus and his disciples. (20:28) And it's all really a fruitless attempt, though well intended and though not all of it is garbage. It's all an attempt to create a connection with God that in passages like this, he's saying that's actually not necessary for access to God. Francis Chan among other people has said this. (20:53) I'm paraphrasing, but we don't need to spend our lives looking searching for deeper truths. We just need a deeper commitment to simple truths. We don't need to find the magic key here. As Joel said last week, we need to lose the idea that we can somehow improve on what God has to offer. You can't do it and I can't do it. Through Jesus, God throws away 90% of what people were trying to do to get to God or prove their worth or any of the other religious stuff that in the end is just stuff. (21:26) And the writer of Hebrews reminds us of this epic truth that there is nothing standing in the way, nothing keeping you from God. It's not performance-based. It's not if you look the right way or born in the right place. Not if you took the right steps. My dad's here today, as he would say when I was a kid, if you held your mouth just right. (21:52) when we turn to him, he's there. Period. End of story. And Hebrews expands on this in a couple of different places. And here's the same idea in Hebrews 4. So then, since we have a great high priest who has entered heaven, Jesus the son of God, let us hold firmly to what we believe. This high priest of ours understands our weaknesses, for he faced all of the same testings we do. (22:19) Yet he did not sin. So let us come boldly to the throne of our gracious God. There we will receive his mercy and we will find grace to help us when we need it most. So that's not just some random guy you may or may not know telling you that's who God is. It's right here in scripture. We can now come boldly to the throne of God. That is a promise of God. (22:46) That is a promise of God. And because of that promise of God brought to life by what Jesus did, we don't have to hesitate. We don't have to wonder and we don't have to get it all together. You don't have to jump through the hoops. You don't have to wonder if he really wants to hear from you. God promises that we can find him. (23:03) He wants to be with us. He wants to provide for us. He's not trying to make it difficult for us. pretty fundamental difference between how religion can sometimes look, right? And it's not just in the book of Hebrews. It's a foundational promise that shows up time and time again throughout the Bible, even before Jesus. This is a fundamental characteristic of the nature of God that we read about throughout the entire Bible. (23:37) Let's not make the mistake of concluding that because of what the book of Hebrews says that maybe previous to that or this Old Testament, God wasn't really interested in people. There's a couple of amazing verses in the book of Deuteronomy where Moses is talking to the Israelites and he starts off by talking to them about being a great nation. (23:58) And I guess what makes them a great nation at this point, at least in part, is that they're following God and his commands. And then he points out truly or how truly unique God actually is and how close he wants to be to his people. What an amazing sentence to say to people. He says Deuteronomy 4:27, "For what nation has a God as near to them as the Lord our God is near to us whenever we call on him?" Take that to the bank. (24:34) That's not a God hiding from his people even in a very different time. And and then here's the beautiful part. Even as Moses is outlining all of the rules and all the things that God is asking him to do, which are often the things that we get all wrapped up on or in and focus on as humans, we downplay the rest of the verse, which is that he's there whenever we call on him. (24:58) And then when it does come to the thing that or the things that God asks them to do a little further on, he details what happens when they don't follow God, there's a consequence. He says, if you break this covenant, and he uses a pretty harsh phrase. He says, "You'll be utterly destroyed. (25:17) " And then he kind of uh defines what that means in the sense that you'll be scattered. He says, "Away from anyone and anything you know in a foreign place." And even then he says in verse 29, "But from there you will search again for the Lord your God, and if you search for him with all your heart and soul, you will find him even then. (25:42) " So you see the overarching pattern. God in the Old Testament under the old ways of doing things was there for his people. That's fundamental to who he was. He was there for them when they followed through on what they were supposed to do. And even though there were consequences when they didn't follow through, he was still there for them. (26:04) He was there for them when they reached out for him anyway. And then this same God in the New Testament after this phenomenal act of love and sacrifice of Jesus that rewrites all the rules and that fulfills this promise in this particularly visually powerful way where he destroys this physical barrier. The curtain that people thought prevented them from knowing God. (26:30) It's the same characteristic of God that has been evident throughout the centuries. At no point has God been ha hiding from his people or preventing them from knowing him. At no point. The doors always been wide open, if in different ways throughout the years, to who? To anyone who will look for him. Now, I wonder if most of us today have this in mind as a foundational characteristic of God. (27:07) Maybe you do. I hope you do. This God who was and is available and wants to be known, wants to be reached out to who repeats this throughout the generations, who makes promises specifically about this. Psalm 9 repeats this promise in a different way. Psalm 9 9-10, "The Lord is a shelter for the oppressed, a refuge in times of trouble. (27:34) Those who know your name trust in you, for you, oh Lord, do not abandon those who search for you. You don't do it. The Psalmist is taking this seriously. You made a promise. I know you made the promise. I know you can't break it. You, oh Lord, do not abandon those who search for you. And so this age-old question that asks if God can be found, and if so, who can find him? Yes, he promises I can be found and and you can. (28:08) He promises if you reach out for him. He promises. Now, it does maybe beg the question, and forgive the irreverence here, but maybe some people will hear that and be tempted to ask, so what? Okay, so he can be found, but what does that really mean to me practically speaking? is I guess there's a spiritual religious component to life that's open to me. (28:37) What does that mean? What does it actually mean to have access to God? Well, what it really actually means is I can now approach anything in life, literally anything and anyone, all of my life, including my own issues, my own shortcomings. I can navigate it all with a God who lovingly created me and promises to work in and through me in the middle of it all. (29:01) Not a farway God, not a arms length God, not a God off in the distance, not a God subject to religious rules and regulations, a God who literally promised to walk through life with us. Not just an idea created by humans so that we can have something hopeful to look forward to maybe if we do things right. This is a promise to be taken seriously. (29:29) We saw in Hebrews, it becomes a strong and trustworthy anchor for our souls. A God who understands our weaknesses, gives us mercy, and extends us grace to help us when we need it most. That is a God that's interested in the particular details of our lives as human beings. And he promises that he wants to be part of it, even the worst parts of it. (29:51) Now, I want to tell you a quick story this morning of somebody who took this promise seriously. Somebody from the Bible. A normal a normalish person. Someone who didn't have it all together. There's nothing superhuman about this guy. This guy's not really or operating with a deeper understanding than the rest of us. (30:10) But it's a story I think really shows us what a life spent taking this promise seriously can look like. It's the story of a guy named Nehemiah. And if you're not familiar with that, you can find it in the Bible book called strangely enough Nehemiah. And I say he's a normalish guy because when we get to know him at the beginning of the book, he's a cup bearer to the king to King Arderes. (30:38) Now, I don't know if you know what a cup bearer is, but the cup bearer is the person who is charged with serving drinks to the court of the king and to the king himself and often involves tasting the drink itself to make sure it's not poisoned. Traditionally, we viewed this position as a pretty high one within the court because this person had to have the king's trust. (30:58) They were in the king's present a lot presence a lot, but they were still a servant to the king. And there's the very real possibility that you could die any day from ingesting poison that's intended for the king, which is a pretty significant downside to the job. I don't think that's something that they put in the job posting. We can probably all relate though to aspects of the job, our jobs, our lives that we don't totally love. (31:29) And as many of us or as much as many of us can't relate to all of these other aspects of such a specific job in a specific time, we see throughout the story that he's very much a normal guy. He has normal human emotions and feelings and deals with things in a human way. And I tell you this because I want you to see how Nehemiah as a normal person embraces this particular promise of God. (31:59) So one day Nehemiah asks his brother, how the Jews who had been in captivity, how they're doing, how things are going in Jerusalem, what's going on, hoping for good news. And they tell him actually things are not going well. Not at all. They're in trouble. The wall of Jerusalem has been torn down. (32:26) The gates have been destroyed by fire. People are scattered. There's no hope. It's a troubling time. And Nehemiah is troubled. In fact, he's distraught. The book says, "When I heard this, I sat down and wept. This was a big deal. He feels deeply for his people, for his family, for the people that he shares a heritage with. (32:56) He feels deeply for these people and he does what we often do, which is that he lets that really affect him and he doesn't know what to do next. Now, if that's not describing the human condition in a really simple phrase, I don't know what is. being distressed about something and not knowing what to do. And here's Nehemiah. So, let me read you what he does next. (33:26) After he's been distraught about it for a second, he says, "For days, I mourned, fasted and prayed to the God of heaven." He's distressed. He's anxious. He doesn't know what to do. He turns to God. He prays to the God of heaven. Now listen to what his prayer is. Then I said, "Oh Lord, God of heaven, the great and awesome God who keeps his covenant of unfailing love with those who love him and obey his commands, listen to my prayer. (34:04) Look down and see me praying night and day for your people Israel. I confess that we have sinned against you. Yes, even my own family and I have sinned. We have sinned terribly by not obeying the commands, decrees, and regulations that you gave us through your servant Moses. Please remember what you told your servant Moses. (34:28) If you're unfaithful to me, I will scatter you among the nations. 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've chosen for my name to be honored. The people you rescued by your great power and strong hand are your servants. (34:48) Oh Lord, please hear my prayer. Listen to the prayers of those of us who delight in honor in honoring you. Please grant me success today by making the king favorable to me. put it in his heart to be kind to me. Is that not a pretty amazing slash very normal human prayer? God, I've messed up. My people have. We can't do this on our own. You can. (35:19) Also, by the way, you remember that promise you made as though he forgot. But what a beautiful thing. God, you promised us. I'm just reminding you of it. God, can you make that come true in me? Can you make that come true with our people? So, what does he do next after he prays this amazing prayer? Well, he goes to the king as part of his normal job and he's terrified. (35:47) Part of the job, you assume, is to not trouble the king with your own issues. But the king himself broaches the subject. He's never before appeared sad in the presence of the king. The king apparently not known for his concern for being a warm-hearted guy. Says to Nehemiah, "Why are you looking so sad? You don't look sick to me. You must be deeply troubled. (36:13) " See how God is already answering part of this prayer. Then even though he's scared, he says to the king, "How can I not be sad? for the city where my ancestors are buried is in ruins and the gates have been destroyed by fire. And then the king says, "Ah, too bad. See you later. Serve the drink." Actually, remarkably, the king doesn't brush him off or say that at all. (36:39) The king says, "Well, how can I help you?" And then it says that again with a prayer to the God of heaven. Notice he doesn't then proceed in this conversation without turning to God. He turns to God again to support the whole rest of this conversation with a prayer to the God of heaven. (37:01) Nehemiah tells him, "I want to go back to Judah. I want to start working on this rebuilding." And then because apparently God is giving him a whole lot more courage than he thought he was going to get, he starts asking him for the moon. He starts asking him for a ton of stuff. Also, God, I'd like some letters that I can take with me on this journey that I can show to all the leaders of the place I'm going to be walking through that allows me safe passage. (37:24) I want their protection as I'm walking through that. Also, I need a letter for the guy who manages your forest so that I can have all the timber that I need for free to do this project. I think it's hilarious that there's a forest manager under the king because apparently even then there was mid level bureaucrats that are holding the key for everybody. (37:44) It says that the king granted these requests because the gracious hand of God was on me. Pretty amazing. And so he gets these letters and he goes and as often happens he immediately meets resistance by three people in particular who are as the kids would say haters. They don't like what's going on. They don't like that he's about to do this. (38:14) So, they try stirring up trouble for him right away. And what does he do? Knowing what has just happened in his interaction with God, knowing what God has just done for him, he says, "The God of heaven will help us succeed. We, his servants, will start rebuilding this wall." And then a a super interesting thing happens in chapter 3 of Nehemiah. (38:40) It looks like the most boring chapter on earth, but it's amazing because what he does through this entire chapter is detail all the different workers and what they were doing. Eliashibb the high priest and the other priests start to rebuild that the sheep gate and the fish gate was built by the sons of Hassana and Marramoth son of Uriah and grandson of Hakaz repaired the next section of wall. (39:04) People from all over the place start coming together and repairing this. people from as far away as the provinces west of the Euphrates. Now, by listing off all the workers and what they're responsible for, this I guess could just seem extraneous. He could have just said, "Well, this was all rebuilt and then moved on. (39:20) " But he doesn't. He gets into detail, names the workers and what they did. And maybe we just think, well, that's nice. He's giving credit to other people, not taking all the credit for himself. I think it's actually more along the lines of this is what I asked God for, and this is how he provided. This is how he came through. (39:39) I could not do this on my own. This is how he came through. Here's who and what he gave me. It's kind of a remarkable and noteworthy list because it gives us a hint into both what a major project it is and how very practically God provides for Nehemiah. And he brings people from all over the place, people that you wouldn't think think would work together. (40:03) And of course, continuing with the theme of Nehemiah being normal and these being normal people, there's just a gem of a verse in there where at one point we read that next were some of the people from Takcoa, though their leaders refused to work with the construction supervisors. So issues then, issues now. But then he goes on, continues to rebuild, and then the enemies get serious. (40:33) Then they decide, we're going to come up with some pretty dramatic plans to halt this whole thing. And they're not just filing a complaint with the HOA, plot to kill them. They start hearing and seeing that the workers are getting tired, they make plans to swoop in and kill them while they're too tired to defend themselves. (40:55) And Nehemiah prays again and he prays for protection and that the plans of his enemies won't succeed. And remarkably, God reveals the details of the plans to him and apparently kicks his imagination into high gear. And he then turns around and details a whole bunch of steps that he and his people start taking to protect himself or themselves. (41:17) And the end result is the enemies are frustrated and completely unable to carry out any of their plans. And it's again remarkable how God comes to their aid. He doesn't step in and strike all the enemies dead. What he does is give wisdom to Nehemiah. He gives the knowledge that he needs to come up with the practical steps that he needs to take and then he blesses those when he takes them. (41:49) And then there's amazing twists and turns in this story. I really encourage you to read the whole rest of the story for yourself. But at some point along the way, he doesn't really tell you when Nehemiah actually becomes governor of the province. And because he's fa faithful to God, he starts to uncover a whole bunch of corruption in the existing government. (42:11) And he starts to decide or he decides right from the beginning, I'm not going to act that way. I'm going to restore integrity to this office. I'm going to do the thing that pleases God because God has really driven this thing from the beginning. Now, it kind of sounds like maybe that this was a super long story that this took place over years and years and years. (42:37) It says, "The wall was finished 52 days after we had begun. When our enemies and the surrounding nations heard about it, they were frightened and humiliated. They realized that this word had work had been done with the help of our God. And then there's this other amazing passage that kind of concludes the book where he starts talking about all the people who then start pouring in 50,000 in all starting with the prayer as he's scared doesn't know what to do from that moment when he starts to turn to God to the (43:27) point when this whole project is done against all odds and all of these scattered people come back together and find hope and find God again. All because Nehemiah starts this whole human journey with a prayer. Now, it might be tempting to read this book as something that it isn't, which is that if I turn to God, all my needs will magically be met. (43:56) all my problems are going to be solved. People are going to be prevented from hurting me. Maybe for you it's that the Bible's suddenly going to make sense. Maybe for me it's I'm going to no longer make terrible decisions. That's not it at all. Notice what it does say. Nehemiah is troubled and he prays. Nehemiah is sad and he takes that sadness to God. (44:28) He doesn't know what to do. He takes that not knowing to God and God following through on his promise to to be there answers him. He puts him in a situation where a king who does not have to notice or care when you're not doing well opens the door for Nehemiah to talk about it. And even though he's scared, God gives gives him the courage to detail say what's on his on his mind. (44:53) And God works through the king to make him receptive to helping him. And he gives Nehemiah further courage to ask for more. And as the story progresses every single time he prays, God provides him with people and things and practical solutions and knowledge and wisdom. And he expects Nehemiah to act. He doesn't do it all for him, but he makes the journey possible. (45:15) And it's not based on the fact that Nehemiah is a flawless guy. We know he's not. And it's not based on Nehemiah observing the right rituals or saying the right things. He's just pouring his heart out. Here's what's important to me. God, could you meet me here? Would you join me in this? God, I don't know what to do. Will you help me? God, you've been amazing through this and I want to change my behavior and the behavior of my people. (45:47) And he becomes a person who worships God in the good and the bad. Who turns to God instead of to his own understanding or instead of to the prevailing wisdom of the culture. He holds himself and his people accountable. His life changes and the lives of his people change. Why? Because this God who says come to me, Nehemiah says okay what do you got? And God says oh try me. (46:15) Nehemiah comes to God. He grabs onto this promise with both hands. And I want to encourage you, like I said before, to read this book. But not only that, put yourself in the place of Nehemiah. What's the thing or things in your life that you're distressed about, that you're sad about, that you're anxious about, that are throwing you for a loop, that you don't know which way to turn, that you can't detail? Here's here's what the next step has to be. (46:48) Maybe you feel like you're not wise enough, you're not strong enough, you're not anything enough to do the next step. God says, "Come to me. I'm there for those who reach out. I'm there for those who search for me. I'm there. I want to leave you with just another version of this promise. It's found in the book of Jeremiah. And sometimes people again will kind of look at things like this and say, "I've heard this specific to this promise before. (47:19) " Well, God is talking to a very specific group of people. And so, this promise is really only to them. But actually, this is a promise that is fundamental to the character and the nature of God. Jeremiah 29, he says,"For I know the plans I have for you, says the Lord. They're plans for good, not for disaster, to give you a future and a hope. (47:40) In those days when you pray, I will listen. If you look for me wholeheartedly, you will find me. I will be found by you, says the Lord. I will end your captivity and restore your fortunes. I will gather you out of the nations where I sent you, and I will bring you home again to your own land. I will be found by you. (48:01) Now, I don't know where you are in your own journey. I don't know if you're bogged down by religion. I don't know if you're bogged down by baggage from the past, indecision about the future. Maybe this morning you just need to hear a really simple return to one of the most fundamental promises of who God is. (48:22) That he's there for you. He's there to be found by you. you and me and anyone who reaches out that maybe when we turn to God and we grab onto that promise and remind God, God, you promised this to your people back then. You promised it to Nehemiah. You promised it to the New Testament people. Can you apply that to me now? Maybe we too could become people who at every turn seek to be with God on every step of the journey. (48:56) Because that's who God promises to be. A God who is there every time you reach out to him. Not part of the time, not some of the time. And it really doesn't matter the bag that you bring with you. Let's have invite him to keep that promise in our lives today. Let's invite him to journey with us into every twist and turn of life.