Transcription downloaded from https://yetanothersermon.host/_/stornowayfc/sermons/62638/rebuilding-the-walls/.

Disclaimer: this is an automatically generated machine transcription - there may be small errors or mistranscriptions.
Please refer to the original audio if you are in any doubt.


[0:00] Now it happened in the month of Chislev, in the 20th year as I was in Susa, the capital, that Hanani, one of my brothers, came with certain men from Judah.

[0:11] And I asked them concerning the Jews who escaped, who had survived the exile, and concerning Jerusalem. And they said to me, the remnant there in the province who had survived the exile is in great trouble and shame.

[0:24] The wall of Jerusalem is broken down and its gates are destroyed by fire. As soon as I heard these words, I sat down and wept and mourned for days. And I continued fasting and praying before the God of heaven.

[0:38] And I said, O Lord God of heaven, the great and awesome God who keeps covenant and steadfast love with those who love him and keep his commandments. Let your ear be attentive and your eyes open to hear the prayer of your servant, that I now pray before you day and night for the people of Israel, your servants.

[0:55] Confessing the sins of the people of Israel, which we have sinned against you. Even I and my father's house have sinned. We have acted very corruptly against you and have not kept the commandments, the statutes and the rules that you commanded your servant Moses.

[1:10] Remember the word that you commanded your servant Moses saying, if you are unfaithful, I will scatter you among the peoples. But if you return to me and keep my commandments and do them, though you're dispersed under the further skies, I will gather them from there and bring them to the place that I have chosen to make my name dwell there.

[1:30] They are your servants and your people whom you have redeemed by your great power and by your strong hand. O Lord, let your ear be attentive to the prayer of your servant and to the prayer of your servants who delight to fear your name and give success to your servant today and grant him mercy in the sight of this man.

[1:51] Now I was cupbearer to the king. Amen. May God bless that reading of his own word. We're going to sing now in the traditional version of Psalm number 130.

[2:05] You'll find it on page 421 of the Sing Psalms books. Page number 421 and it's Psalm 130. The tune is Martyr Drum. We're going to sing the whole of the psalm.

[2:16] Lord, from the depths to thee I cried, my voice, Lord, do thou hear. Unto my supplication's voice give an attentive ear. Lord, who shall stand if thou, O Lord, should mark iniquity, but yet with thee forgivenesses that feared thou mayest be.

[2:34] Psalm 130 and we'll sing the whole of the psalm and we'll stand to sing. Lord, from the depths to thee I cry, my voice, Lord, do thou hear.

[3:01] Unto my supplication's voice give an attentive ear.

[3:19] Lord, who shall stand if thou, O Lord, should mark iniquity, but yet with thee forgivenesses.

[3:48] That fear thou mayest be. I wait for God, my soul doth wait.

[4:08] My hope is in His power. Lord, from the depths to thee I cry, my soul doth wait.

[4:21] For morning wash my soul doth wait. My soul doth wait. For the Lord.

[4:35] I say, Lord, live up to wash the morning light to see.

[4:54] Let it triumph, O faith, the Lord. For with Him mercy speak.

[5:13] And when Jesus' redemption is ever found within.

[5:31] And from all His iniquities, He Israel shall redeem.

[5:50] Let's continue reading in the book of Nehemiah and chapter 2.

[6:01] Verse 2.

[6:38] 

[9:08] Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen.

[9:19] Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen.

[9:30] Once again, we're asking that God will bless his own word to us. We're going to once again join together in prayer. Our Father, we've been reading of how hundreds of years before Jesus came into the world, the temple was rebuilt and the wall of Jerusalem was rebuilt.

[9:52] And we can now see with the benefit of hindsight and history, how all of this was preparing the way for the coming of Jesus into the world.

[10:03] And our Father in heaven, we pray that we too, being ignorant of things to come, will be just as faithful as those in the past who didn't know what you were doing and how you were going to fulfill your purpose and your plan.

[10:21] And yet they worked in faith, believing that God was going to do something good through their commitment and through their instrumentality. We give thanks, O Lord, for the gifts and the skills that you have given to your people.

[10:36] And we give thanks also that you have brought us into the world at such a time as this. And we pray, Lord, that even although there is hostility and indifference against the gospel, we pray to be faithful to you, believing that greater is he that is in us than he that is in the world.

[10:59] We give thanks that you will fulfill your purpose, that you will build your church. The gates of hell will not prevail against it. And that everything in your perfect plan will come to pass.

[11:12] Lord God, we rest in that plan and we ask to be active in it, using the gifts and the talents that we have, praying to you, Lord, to be used in your kingdom.

[11:25] For the few short years that we're going to be in this world, we pray that we will be obedient and faithful to you, even although we don't see the result of our work here in this life.

[11:38] We give thanks, O Lord, that what we do in this life and the way we live is an investment for the glory of God. And we pray that you will be pleased with us in Jesus Christ.

[11:49] We pray that for the church, not just here, but for the church up and down our country, all over our country today. And we ask, Lord, for the church in the Western world, many of which have seen, many of these churches have seen blessing in the past.

[12:07] And we can only look back at our own history as a nation. And we lament the fact that whereas you have blessed us in the past and where people were faithful to you in the past in great numbers and with great resolve and commitment and prayerfulness to the Lord, we cannot help but comparing how weak things are now.

[12:33] But we pray, Lord, not to be like the people of old, who were the people that we have been reading about, who were too inclined to give up that work.

[12:44] We give thanks, Lord, that you are the God who restores and repairs and the God who restores the years that the locusts have eaten.

[12:54] We give thanks, Lord, that your purposes are always good ones. So we pray for the church here in the United Kingdom, in Scotland and England and Ireland and Wales. We pray for your people throughout the country.

[13:07] And we ask, Lord, that you will bless every place tonight where your word is preached. And pray that it will be preached with great power.

[13:19] Pray that your spirit will be poured out on all those who opened the Bible this evening. Pray that your people will be awakened and inspired and energized by what they hear.

[13:30] And we pray that for a new discovery of what the gospel is, that the gospel is the power of God to salvation. And we pray that the gospel will, that you will show your people how to find ways of reaching the lost.

[13:44] Lord, because that is why we are here. We've been sent out by the Lord who said, go into all the world to make disciples of all nations. And Lord God, we pray to fulfill that great commission, that great command.

[13:57] In our own small corner, we ask, Lord, that you will bless your people and that you will encourage them to speak for Jesus and to live for Jesus.

[14:09] And we do not know how our witness will affect someone and how you will use us in some way to affect someone. But Lord, we pray that you will keep us from hiding our light under a bed.

[14:24] Keep us from being silent when we should be vocal. Lord, give us the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, the winsomeness of Jesus, the patience of Jesus.

[14:35] Give us, oh Lord, the approachableness that he had when the common people heard him gladly. We ask, Lord, that you will show us how to give an answer to all those who ask us for a reason for the hope that lies within us.

[14:52] And we pray that you will make us able to explain the gospel in very simple terms to those who ask us. Bless all of us then, we pray.

[15:02] We pray for those who regularly worship with us. We pray for those who are here as visitors. Pray for their churches where they come from and ask that they may flourish and that they may know your blessing.

[15:14] In unexpected ways, we pray, Lord, for those who aren't believers. And we ask that you will speak to them.

[15:25] And that even this time of worship, something in what we read or something in what we sing or something in what is said, will be used by you as an instrument to open up their heart and to bring them to a personal knowledge of Jesus Christ.

[15:41] Our Father in heaven, we pray these things now, asking, Lord, for those who can't be with us this evening because they're ill or in hospital or confined to their homes. We pray for them.

[15:51] Pray for those who mourn and who are bereaved. We pray that you will uphold them and comfort them and forgive all our sin. In Jesus' name. Amen. Amen. Now, before we turn to this passage, we're going to sing again, and this time from Psalm 124.

[16:08] It's in Sing Psalms, and it's on page 170 in the Sing Psalms books. Psalm number 124, and the tune is old 124th.

[16:19] We're going to sing the whole of Psalm 124 to God's praise and stand.

[16:37] Psalm 124, and the tune is old 124th.

[17:07] Psalm 124, and the tune is old 124th.

[17:37] Psalm 124, and the tune is old 124th.

[18:07] God has left us to their cruelty. We have escaped just as a captured bird.

[18:24] Out of the fowler's neck has been set free The snare is cut, we are at liberty Our help is in the name of God the Lord Through may the earth and heavens find his word Let's turn again to those two chapters that we read previously Nehemiah, the book of Nehemiah and chapter 2 I want us to think about the two chapters

[19:27] But we'll take as our text words that you'll find in verse 17 Nehemiah chapter 2 and verse 17 Then I, Nehemiah, said to them You see the trouble we are in How Jerusalem lies in ruins with its gates burned Come, let us build the wall of Jerusalem That we may no longer suffer derision And I told them of the hand of my God that had been upon me for good And also of the words that the king had spoken to me And they said, let us rise up and build So they strengthened their hands for the good work For centuries The book of Nehemiah has inspired countless numbers of Christians In every generation It's surely one of the most encouraging testimonies that there are

[20:27] Of how God in his providence uses and moves ordinary people To do great things for God Even although they themselves may be oblivious That they are doing great things for God All they are doing is what there was to be done at this time And at the end of their lives Many of those people They look back over what they've done And they've just simply said this That I simply did what had to be done But we can look back over those same events And we can see how God weaved them into his plan And how he brought about his work of salvation Through the Lord Jesus Christ Because all of this, like all of the Old Testament Looked forward to the coming of Jesus into the world

[21:28] And if we read the Old Testament Always with that at the back of our minds It throws a great deal of light And helps us to understand the events that take place In the Old Testament There are great stories in the Old Testament Many of them have involved miracles Like Samson Who was given superhuman powers In order to carry out the work God gave him to do What is remarkable about this story Is that Nehemiah had no superhuman powers And yet he was still able to do great things for God And that's because he attempted great things for God And God did great things through him So this is not a man with extraordinary strength He is not an extraordinarily intelligent man in any way

[22:28] He's an ordinary person who in his own small corner Where he is He becomes convicted as to what he ought to do And he goes and he does that work prayerfully And obediently Now it helps us of course to understand The time and the place when this took place It always helps us to understand Have you ever, let me just take a little aside here Have you ever done a timeline of the Old Testament?

[22:59] I would challenge you to do that Because it will help you to understand The various books and the way What I mean is this Do you know where in the history of the Old Testament Each book appears?

[23:12] If you do, if you find out And it's not that difficult to find out Then it helps you to understand How the pieces fit together In the Old Testament Well, Nehemiah lived at the time of the exile You remember that in 586 Nebuchadnezzar destroyed Jerusalem And took away many, many hundreds of people To Babylon where he had come from But then exactly 70 years later In exactly as God had predicted and promised Another king came to the Babylonian throne A man called Cyrus And his policy was entirely different He decided to let the Jewish people Go home to their own land If they so wanted And what makes this quite remarkable Is that God had prophesied That this was going to happen

[24:14] Initially, 50,000 people They travelled all the way from Babylonia All the way to Jerusalem From Babylon to Jerusalem And they started building the temple But very soon afterwards They stopped Their work came to a standstill And perhaps that was partly Because they came back with great enthusiasm Perhaps over-enthusiasm In a kind of patriotic way Overly patriotic way Perhaps they expected That because God was allowing them To come back to Jerusalem That God was going to restore The kingdom of Israel Back to its former glory They would think of times like David and Solomon And the days of the kings When God did great things Amongst his people Even times like Further back than that But nothing like that happened

[25:16] They were left They were on their own And even although God had promised That they would come back There wasn't that sense of Of his There perhaps wasn't that sense Of his extraordinary power That there had been in the past And so they became discouraged And they stopped building But 16 years later Two men Haggai and Zechariah God moved in them So that they stirred up the people And they began to build the temple again And they finished it In a remarkably quick time Now this is something like About 50 or 60 years later Because even though the temple Had been built The walls of Jerusalem They lay all this time In ruins Until this moment And until this man Nehemiah Was a butler He was a butler To the king At that time Artaxerxes Was his name A Persian king

[26:17] And a butler I would imagine Was a very comfortable job It wasn't everyone That was promoted To the position of butler His job was to make sure That the king was kept safe From anyone who tried To poison him So it was a very responsible job He had to have won the trust The personal trust Of the king So here is a man In an important position And yet God is going to use that man For a very different job In a different environment From what he was used to I want us to notice Several things About these chapters That I hope will inspire us As we look into them Because like I say This book has been An inspiration And it's been an encouragement To many many Of God's people Throughout the centuries I want us to Notice first of all That Nehemiah's work Began with something Which was not What it should have been It began with something

[27:18] That was not What it should have been It began with a conversation A message A report That someone brought back to him Someone who had visited Jerusalem And had travelled all the way back To the capital And that person said to him The remnant there In the province Of Who had survived the exile Is in great trouble And shame The wall of Jerusalem Is broken down And its gates Are destroyed By fire And that had the effect As we read in verse 4 Chapter 1 verse 4 As soon as I heard these words I sat down And wept And mourned For days And I continued fasting And praying Before the God Of heaven Why was Why did this report Have such an effect What did it have to do With him Was it because He came from Jewish descent And because He was Nationalistic And because He was smitten

[28:19] With the pride Of Jerusalem And because Someone had told him That the walls Had not been built And he was comparing it To what it was In the past And this was just Sheer Sheer Patriotism No it wasn't Nehemiah knew What the significance Of Jerusalem was In the plan And in the mind Of God Nehemiah went Deeper than that He was convicted As to what The significance Of the city Of Jerusalem Was We often sing In the Old Testament In the book of Psalms About Jerusalem Do we know What we're singing about When we sing About Jerusalem Psalm 122 For example Begins I joyed When to the house Of God Go up They said to me Pray that Jerusalem Will have peace And felicity What are we What do we mean When we sing Those words Are we asking For the literal Geographical Jerusalem That today stands In the middle Of such conflict In Israel

[29:19] No we're not We're asking For God's Kingdom On earth And Jerusalem Symbolized God's kingdom On earth It became When David Took it over At the very beginning Of his reign Jerusalem became The city of David And the city Of God The city in which The temple Was built And you remember Of course How when Solomon Built the temple How the glory Of God Came and dwelt In the most holy Place And this was the Place where God Met with his people And where they Bore witness To the truth And the reality Of the living And the true God So Jerusalem Had a huge place In the mind And the heart Of Israel Because it had A huge place In the mind And the heart Of God God himself Says In Psalm 87 Glorious things Of you Are spoken I love I love He says The gates Of Zion Why was that?

[30:21] Because God Has some kind of Favorite place In the world? No It's because This was the place That God chose To meet with his people And it was also The place that God was preparing For the coming Of his own son Into the world And as we look Back on the Pages of the Old Testament We can see How carefully God is making These preparations For Bethlehem For the teaching And the ministry Of Jesus For Calvary For the resurrection And for eventually How the gospel Beginning in Jerusalem Would spread out Into all the world That would be the place From which The disciples Would go out Into all the world After the Holy Spirit Fell upon them Was poured out Upon them They were filled With the spirit And anointed By the spirit Empowered by the Holy Spirit They went out From there And began to Preach this message That the son of God Had come into the world To give his life As a sacrifice

[31:23] For our sin And it was something Of that Of course Nehemiah Didn't know Exactly what God was going To do But he knew The place That Jerusalem Had in the Heart of God And so For him to hear That it was in Ruins With the walls Knocked down It was an Absolute tragedy For him And something He felt He needed To do something About But the very First thing That he needed To do Was to come To God In prayer Because before He could Take a step Forward Well his hands Were tied He was bound To his To his work He was a cupbearer A cupbearer to the king Couldn't exactly Go on holiday Or take some Leave of absence That just wasn't The done thing The king Wouldn't allow him To do that Normally Ordinarily So he had to Make it a matter Of prayer And so he brought This amazing Prayer to the Lord Oh Lord God Of heaven The great and

[32:23] Awesome God Who keeps covenant And steadfast love With those who love him And keep his commandments Let your ear Be attentive And your eyes Be open To hear the prayer Of your servant That I now pray Before you Day and night For the people Of Israel Your servants Because when he Became convicted When he became So troubled And pained In his own heart The first thing He instinctively did Was to bring The matter To the Lord And that's That ought to be Our very first Instinctive action Whenever we We face A crisis Of any kind We are Coming to the Lord Of course Of course We have the privilege Of coming to the Lord In prayer Every day Don't we Of spending time With the Lord Committing the day To him Committing every decision The big decisions And the small decisions The kingdom to come And the daily bread And the daily bread All of these Belong to him

[33:24] But here Nehemiah comes And he commits What is to him A crisis To the Lord Because if this Is something That the Lord Has laid upon His heart Then it's something That will continue With him And it is something That God Will transform From being A conviction And a burden And a prayer And a sorrow Into an action And an obedience And so he Takes the matter To the king In God's providence In chapter 2 Once he prays about this He leaves it to the Lord He casts his burden Upon the Lord And chapter 2 Tells us what happens After that Again The normal course Of events God comes to us

[34:25] Where we are If God has a work For us to do He will come to us Where we are And he will put it Into our hearts And he will Open up the way And that's exactly What he did We have this Extraordinary Series of events When Nehemiah Was undertaking The course of his work With king Artaxerxes The wine was before him And he took the wine He gave it to the king And he couldn't help The sadness of his face Now it wasn't allowed You weren't allowed To be sad In the presence Of the king It was a shame It was a disgrace For you to be sad In the presence Of the king If you were His butler Or if you were His servant Or whatever you did For him If you were In the presence Of the king You must rejoice And I said to the king And the king noticed That he was sad And he said To him Let the king He asked Why

[35:25] Is your face sad Seeing you're not sick This is nothing But sadness Of heart And I was much afraid And I said to the king Let the king Live forever And this extraordinary Series of events Happens Where the king Allows him To go back To his Own Country He asks him What his request is So he prays To the lord of heaven And I said to the king If it please the king And if your servant Has found favour In your sight That you send me To Judah To the city Of my fathers That I may rebuild it And amazingly The king Gives him What he asks for And so His work arose Out of an inward And a growing Prayerful Spiritual concern Nehemiah is not Impulsive I don't know If you are an Impulsive person We can all be Impulsive at times

[36:25] And we can all React sometimes And overreact To what we hear And we can all Generate plans In our hearts But Nehemiah Was not like that Nehemiah knew That if he was Going to have Anything to do With the rebuilding Of the wall First of all It had to come From God And secondly God had to Open up the way In order to make It possible For him To go back To Jerusalem These two things Happened God maintained That burden On him And he also Opened up The way for him But then Nehemiah Had to Obey The Lord In all Of what He did His work Began then Out of An awareness Of what Should not Have been His work arose Out of an inward And a growing And a prayerful And a spiritual Concern But then His work Began Out of his

[37:26] Willingness To do The work Coupled With an Opportunity Being given To him He was a man Who was Naturally A person Who took Initiative And when he Saw What needed To be done He did it Did it Didn't seem To be anyone Else who was Prepared to do it And he was The one Who was Convicted About doing It And he was The one Who was Acutely Aware Of the Shame That In which Jerusalem lay With its Walls Knocked down To the Ground And so He did it Himself He made Arrangements Made whatever Arrangements He could To make His way All the Way back To Jerusalem And to Organize The people There To gather People And to Inspire

[38:26] Them And to Delegate That work To them So that They too Would have A part In In the Work That he Had To do And That's Part of The inspiration That there Is in The story Of Nehemiah That God has Given a Person Gifts And skills Sometimes We don't Even know The skills And the Gifts That God Has given Us To do Until We put Them to Work For his Kingdom And for His Glory But as We do So As we Take that Step Forward In Faith Believing That we Are taking That step In the Hand of God As God Leads Us Then God Gives Us He Exposes Gifts And abilities That perhaps We never Thought That we Had In The Past So when Nehemiah Reaches Jerusalem He gathers

[39:26] People around Him And He Shows Them He Says To them I went To Jerusalem And was There For Three Days And I Rose 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 In Jerusalem And So he Gathered You see The trouble That we're In He said To them How Jerusalem Lies In Ruins With Its Gates Burned Come Let us Build The wall Of Jerusalem That we May No Longer Suffer Derision And so What Happened Then was Quite Remarkable The most Extraordinary Collection Of people Came Together People Who Shared His Vision Now People Talk About Vision In The Christian Church We have To be Very careful What We Mean By Vision Vision Arose In The Mind Of Jeremiah Out Of Something That Needed To Be Done It Was A Job That Needed To Be Done It Was Something That Was Achievable By Something And It Wasn't Something

[40:26] New Now There's A Time For Doing New Things But There's There's Also A Time For Making Reparation What we Have Here Is God Who Is Going To Rebuild Something That Was There And In Which God's People Had Perhaps Lost Their Confidence And Lost Their Their Their Courage And Their Enthusiasm About And It Was Nehemiah's Job To Go And Inspire Them To Say To Them God May Not Be Going To Do What He Did In The Past He Never Does The Past Is In The Past But One Thing We Know That God Has Not Abandoned Us To Nothing He Is Still Our God We Are Still His People He Has Pledged Himself To Us In Remember Abraham And Isaac And Jacob

[41:27] God Said To Them I Will Surely Bless You And Multiply You I Will Give You This Land And In Your Seed All Nations Shall Be Blessed Has That Happened Had That Happened In The Day Of Nehemiah No It Hadn't So It Meant That God Still Had A Work To Do And Even Although His People Had Forsaken Him And God Had Allowed Not Mean That God Had Separated Himself From Them He Had Given Them Plenty Proof That He Was Still With His People To The Extent That The Prophecy Came True That Cyrus Would Come To The Throne And He Would Allow God's People To Return To Jerusalem Why Because God Still Had A Purpose For Them The Promises Still Had To Be Fulfilled Those Promises That Were Made By Isaiah And Jeremiah And The Prophets That The Servant Of The Lord Would Come And He Would Redeem His People From Their Sins Nehemiah

[42:28] Wasn't Able To Promise The People Instant Success Or Instant Prosperity In The Way That Had Been At One Time In The History Books But God Was Able To Promise That He Would Take Them Step By Step And The Really Inspiring Thing About The Book Of Nehemiah I'll Tell You What It Is They Did This In Sheer Faith Alone Because Of God's Word Alone And All They Saw Was The Rebuilding Of The Wall Of Jerusalem God Was Going To Do So Much More In The Centuries To Follow They Were Never Going To See It And Yet They Believed Inspired By Nehemiah They Believed That Their God Was Doing His Work Amongst Them Now The Church Is The Same

[43:29] There Were Many There Was Much Apathy Amongst The People There Was Much Hostility From The Outside World People Had Lost Their Confidence In What God Was Doing Some Of Them Had Started Concentrating On Their Own Houses And Their Own Businesses And Their Own Lives And They Had To Be Reignited As To Who They Were And The Relationship That They Had With God God Does The Same Today He Reignites Our Hearts How Does He Do That The Same Way As He Did To Nehemiah And Ezra And The People At That Time He Sends His Word And If God's Word Doesn't Infuse You There Is Something Wrong If It Doesn't Remind You That We Do Not Belong To This World We Belong To The Kingdom We Are Citizens Of Heaven And That We Are In This World To Bear Witness To What Jesus Has Done In Giving Himself

[44:29] On The Cross To Go Out Into The World And To Make Disciples Of All Nations And To Work For The Good Of His People Jerusalem Is The People Of God What Are We Doing This Evening For The People Of God Are We Using Our Talents And Our Skills Prayerfully And With Conviction For The Good Of Of His People Are We An Inspiration To Others When People Look At Us Do They See The Lord Jesus Working In Us The Character Of The Lord Jesus Do They See That Positive Resolve That Nehemiah Shows That Skill And Being Able To To Remind The People Of God Of Who They Are At Root And At Heart Chapter Three In This Book Is Really Quite Fascinating Because It Tells Us That The Work Was Not Completed By Nehemiah By Himself How He Gathered Together

[45:29] A Whole Group Of People Of The People There Was A Gold Smith A Gold Smith Wasn't Exactly Someone Who Was Accustomed To Putting Bricks Together And Yet This Gold Smith Obviously Was Reminded Of What They Were Doing And The Importance Of What They Were Doing And When He Was Reminded He Said Yes I Want To Be Part Of This There Was A Perfume Maker It's The Last Person You Would Expect To Be In A Building Project A Perfume Maker You Had A Man Called Shalom In Chapter Three And He Repaired A Section With The Help Of His Daughters Now I Don't Want To Be Sexist And I'm Not Saying That Daughters Are Not Capable Of Being Involved

[46:30] In The But In That Culture That's The Last Thing You Would Ever Have Expected Somebody Repaired The Dung Gate That Can't Have Been A Particularly Inspiring Section Of The Wall To Be In It Doesn't Exactly Look Good On Your CV That You Were In In Putting Together The Dung Gate But That Had To Be Done It Required People To Be Willing To Do The Most Menial Of Tasks The Most Basic Of Tasks It Required People To Leave The Comfort Of Their Own Existence Just As Nehemiah Had Done If You're Going To Be Involved In The Work Of The Lord It Involves You Leaving Your Comfort Zone Nehemiah Nehemiah Nehemiah Was Prepared To Make Great Sacrifices And Face The Dangers And The Discouragement Of Going Amongst People Who Were Hostile To What He Was Doing People Who Would Bad Mouth

[47:30] Him Much Of The Book Is About The Hostility That He Faced People Who Laughed At Him And Who Said That They Couldn't Possibly Build This Wall But Day By Day Nehemiah Refused To Listen To The Voice Of Hostility And Discouragement Because He Worked In Faith Because Greater Was He That Was In Him Than He That Was In The World And He Believed That God Was Going To Bring About His Purposes And It's The Same With Ourselves This Evening God Is Asking For Our Faith To Be Put Into Practice For His Kingdom God Is Reminding Us Continuously That Herein We Have No Continuing City We Seek A City With Foundations Whose Builder And Maker Is God These

[48:30] Were Men And Women Of Faith Ordinary Men Some Of Them We Know Some Of Them Are Named Some Of Them For The Most Menial Tasks Others Are Unnamed But They Helped In Their Own Small Little Way They Were Part Of This Project That God Himself Brought To Completion And That Was Only An Element In What God Was Going To Do In God's Plan To Send His Son Into The World God Is Still Working He's Still Working In 2014 And He Has Placed You And I In His Church Amongst His People He Has Given Us The Greatest Privilege That We Could Ever Hope To Have In This World He's Given Us The Reason For Which We Are Here In This World And He Has Given Us The Greatest Message That There Is In

[49:31] The World And He Has Told Us Let Your Light So Shine Before Men That They May See By Your Good Works Your Living Your Purpose Your Faith That God Is Reality And That To Have The Lord Is To Have Everything Let's Pray Together Our Father In Heaven We Ask That You Will Inspire Each One Of Us In The Gospel And That You Will Equip Us And Send Us And Give Us That Determined Faith That Conviction Yes Even Those Tears That Nehemiah Had That Drove Him To Prayer And That Drove Him To Ask That God Would Do Something Lord We Pray That You Will So Convict Us And Move Us Lord May We Never Be Passionless

[50:31] We Pray Oh Lord To Be People Who Are Always Moved By The Gospel For Where Would We Be If It Hadn't Been For The Love Of The Lord Jesus Christ Moving In Us In Jesus Name Amen Now We're Exel Those That Lowly Be Whereas The Proud And Lofty Ones Afar Off Knoweth He Psalm 138 Verse 5 To The End Of The Psalm And We'll Stand To Sing고요

[52:19] The End Surely that which concerneth me The Lord will bear with me Lord, still thy mercy last to God Thy own hands worked for sin And now may the grace of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ The love of God the Father

[53:20]  And the communion and fellowship of the Holy Spirit Rest on and abide with each one of us Both now and always Amen Thank you for listening to the Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ Thank you for listening to the Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ