Time to Build | Week 1 | Daniel Goulding | Echoes Church

what is needed if we're going to experience revival.

Because I believe that God is doing something supernatural in the East Valley. He wants to do something powerful through our lives. And I hope over these next few weeks, we can see some of these lessons in Nehemiah that can show us how to get there. Okay? But today will be a lot of setup. I wanna set up the book. I wanna set up the context of where we are. And to get there, just gotta tell you a quick story. Okay. So I grew up in a family that did a lot of road trips. Anybody else road trip families as a kid? Okay. You were poor like me. Okay. So

I realized later that families went on vacation. I'm like, you went to Hawaii? Like, you can't drive there. So we weren't going there as kids, you know, and that tradition carried in and there's a lot of kids and it's it's no knock. Right? Road trips are fun. But when when I got married and had my my daughter, my my dad invited us to go on one of these like road trips with the family again. And so his brilliant idea is we're gonna drive up to Tahoe to see my sister. He was gonna rent this big motor home and we pile in and all make this drive. And I'm like, let's do this thing, right? And so somehow my dad and I turned it into a competition, which it's just we're we're kind of those people. Like, I am that obnoxious guy that I'm just competitive with everything. My kids are crying as I beat them with UNO, and I'm like, it's a life lesson. Nothing's gonna be handed to you. You know? Like, I just I I can't. I know I should let them win in things, but I just can't. I can't not win. It's like a terrible trait that I have. And so me and my dad make a competition of who's I'll drive there. You drive back. We'll see who can get there faster.

Terrible idea, but it's an idea that we have. And so we pile into this motor home. Again, I've made this drive multiple times from San Diego to Tahoe. It's a seven hour drive, right? I'm like, if good time I can make it in six, right?

And I'm flying in this motor home, just pushing it pedal to the metal, you know, cutting off people on the freeway. These old ladies are giving me, like, the number one sign out the window as I'm passing them. And

but I'm making good time. And we're two, three hours into this thing, and I'm like, there's no way my dad's gonna be able to beat this time. Like, I am the man just really kinda feeling myself. And and and then I look up and in the distance, I see

these, like, buildings where I'm like, oh, okay. What what is that effect? I recognize that. And as we get closer, I realize, like, that's the Vegas Strip. Right?

And I start to sing. I'm like, I've made this drive a lot. I don't I don't remember going through Vegas before, but maybe I'm just not remembering correctly. Right? So I I pull over and mind you, we're now four hours into this drive. I pull over into this like Carl's Junior, you know, little rest stop area and I tell everybody, hey, get out, get some food, you know, go to the bathroom or whatever.

Again, why I didn't have my phone on the whole time, I don't know. But that was the moment where I pulled my phone out and I push in the directions to Tahoe. And I realized that where we were sitting in this Carls Jr. Parking lot to Tahoe was a seven hour drive.

And I'm like, wait, we just drove for four hours and we're not a minute closer than when we started this journey.

So but here's now the conundrum that I'm in because I'm the only one that knows that we're four hours out of the way. So I'm like, do I tell them just like, hey, go to the back of the motor home, take a nap, and we'll be there in no time. Right? So, obviously, I gotta tell them. Everybody gets upset. It's now an eleven hour drive. Like, talk about hell on earth being stuck in a motor home for eleven hours with a bunch of your siblings and crying babies and all of that. And you're sitting here like, man, why are you talking about any of this today? It's mostly to tell you that I lost to my dad and I've never lived it down since. But

I tell you that to say that I think one of the most crucial things that we will see from the story of Nehemiah is that all of our lives are going to end up somewhere, but not all of our lives are going to end up in a place that we want them to end up in. See the truth and the reality is on that journey,

had, because I was focused on going quickly and trying to move so fast that I missed one turn off on the freeway that would have put us on the right road. And the problem was because I missed that the next two and a half hours took us in the wrong direction. And I

basically woke up in a city going, man, how did I get here? And the sad reality is is one of the most amazing parts about my job as a pastor is at the end of people's lives, I I get to sit with them and I get to have those conversations and pray with their families and and be in those moments. And the sad truth is that in those moments so often,

it isn't this expectation, this joy that we're we're ready to enter into eternity to be with our god. There are a few of those for sure, but a lot of times at the end of life, people are sitting there going, man, I I I wish I could do this differently.

I wish that I hadn't been so focused on X, Y, or Z or going so quickly. I wish I could do this thing different. And the sad truth is, is we don't get a second chance at life. And the question is, is your life going to end up in a place where at the end of it, you're going to be filled with regret,

or are we going to be filled with purpose? See, I believe that God has an incredibly big vision for your life and for mine, that I think God wants to make a significant impact with the time that you've been given on this Earth.

Does the question has to be asked is, do you know where God wants your life to go? Is your vision for your life, your plan for your life in line with God's plan? And over these next few weeks, my my hope and my prayer is that we would figure out a way to to understand god's plan for our life and to get our plan and our vision for our life to align

with his plan. Because when those things come together, I'm telling you the supernatural can happen.

Spoiler alert to the story of Nehemiah. This man, this kind of nobody man is going to do something in fifty two days that hadn't been done in over a hundred years. The story of Nehemiah is a story of the power and the potential of a person who understands who God has asked them to be. The assignment and the role that God has asked them to fulfill on this side of eternity.

Again, the the the the definition for vision that I I hope we all get for us is simply being able to see a picture of where you want to go. See, had I had I really just worked with the end in mind going, hey. Here's where I want to end up. It would have informed how I went on the journey. It would have informed what I had done.

And I believe that when you and I get a god sized vision for our lives, it it's a game changer. I think vision will do two things for us. Number one, vision will help us not have regrets at the end of our story. And secondarily, vision will help us have confidence.

See, sometimes, again, probably the number one question I get asked as a pastor is, Daniel, how do I how do I know what God's will is for my life? I'm trying to figure out if I should go to this school or take this job or marry this person. How do I know what God's will is? When you understand God's vision for your life, all of a sudden, his will becomes much clearer.

My hope and my prayer is that you would be a person who understands who you are. You have confidence to say yes to the right things and no to the wrong things, and you don't get to the end of your life filled with regret.

Again, the the thing I was thinking about this week is my my college campus, when I was walking around, I was always amazed at the people they let on the college campuses to sell stuff to us college students. I don't know if yours was the same way. Hopefully, there's been some rules or laws put in place since then, but one of the biggest ones that always had booths set up on our college campus was these credit card companies that would offer you a free t shirt, but you had to sign up for a credit card. Right? And I remember when I walked up to this booth, I was like, wait, I can get a free t shirt. And you're telling me you're gonna give me a card that I can spend a thousand dollars on and I don't have to pay you for a few months? I was like, deal. Give give me the credit card. And true story, I was in a fraternity. I literally, the next two weeks, I'm like, guys, bar tabs on me. So I go to the bar, put my credit card up. I'm like, let's have a good time. For two weekends, we're partying like rock stars. At the end of it, the bartender says, hey, the credit card's maxed. Do you want to do? I'm like, throw the card away, man. I got no use for it. Like, I'm not paying those suckers back. Like, these guys were fools sending me a credit card.

And here's the crazy part. I had no idea about this thing called a credit score. And, like, when I would try to buy a house seven years later that they would run my credit report and that thousand dollar credit card was now like $7,000 with interest and penalties. And literally, I think I settled for, like, $6,000,

the thousand dollars I borrowed in college. The the reality was is I didn't have a vision for my life financial. I didn't have a vision for the family that I wanted. I didn't have a preferred picture of where I wanted my life to end up. And so the truth is is I just settled for anything,

And it is so true for you and I. I'm telling you this story, this this book, the last historical book we have in the Old Testament, the book of Nehemiah, is an incredible one for us to see so many practical things from. Before I get us to Nehemiah, know this is the longest introduction ever.

I've gotta give us some historical context, but really to do it, I've gotta kind of do a five minute Old Testament survey class. Normally you do this in an entire semester or year.

I'm gonna do it in five minutes. Okay? You gotta understand the Old Testament. K? The the overarching arc of the Old Testament is God is creator. God puts all of this into motion, and eventually, he chooses a man named Abraham. And he tells Abraham,

you're gonna be my guy and all of your descendants. I know you don't have kids yet, all but of your descendants are going to become my people. And in '21 or yeah, February, we see God make a covenant with this man named Abraham in the nation of Israel is born.

And God tells them, you will be my people. Follow me. Trust me. You don't need a king. I will be your leader, but they they inherently don't wanna trust God. They do their own thing. There's a whole bunch of history that's in there that doesn't really matter. Eventually, because of a famine, They have to leave the land that god has given them and they eventually go to Egypt.

And in Egypt, they grow to a people group of two to 3,000,000 people. Well, a few pharaohs one pharaoh wakes up and realizes, hey, this is a big group of people. They don't believe like us. They don't think like us, and if they wanted to overthrow us, they could. So, he makes the decision to enslave

god's people. Eventually, god raises up a redeemer, a guy that's going to bring the nation of Israel out named Moses and he tells Moses, go to pharaoh, tell him you're going to take the people out of Israel, the whole out of Egypt, the whole story unfolds and in 1446,

we see fourteen forty six BC, we see the exodus of god's people out of Egypt heading towards what is supposed to be the promised land. They're supposed to go to Israel to to to Canaan, right? Where Jerusalem, the temple where everything is supposed to be for god's people but again, they aimlessly wander in the desert because of their disobedience for forty years. Eventually, Moses passes away. He records what is in the Old Testament, the book of Deuteronomy,

which is his final instruction to god's people saying, guys, don't forget all the lessons that we've learned. Don't make the same mistakes that we made then when you get into the promised land and a man named Joshua eventually takes the nation of Israel into the promised land. They establish the temple. They the people are thriving

but very quickly, the nation of Israel begins to do what we always do when we get comfortable. We start to think that we are our own god. We don't really have to listen to god's ways. It seems like everything is okay and the nation of Israel starts to begin to make some really poor decisions.

God tries to. A lot of the prophets that we have in the Old Testament like Jeremiah and Ezekiel.

We have these prophets that god sent to tell them, guys, stop living this way. You are asking for god to bless what he cannot bless and eventually, god's going to remove his protective hand from your lives and you are going to be taken into

exile again. You're going to go back into captivity. And what happens is, is in June, God allowed the nation of Israel to be given over to their own desires. He says, you wanna live how you wanna live? You wanna be your own God?

Have at it. And he allows the Babylonian government, the Babylonian king to come in and utterly destroy the nation of Israel. The temple is destroyed, the churches are put to wreck, and the people of God are now living again

captivity. This is where we see the stories of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, the book of Daniel who's an adviser to the king that happens while they're living in exile under Babylonian rule. All of this then about a hundred years later in May that the Persians come to power. They overthrow the Babylonians,

and the Persian king is very different than the Babylonian kings. The the Persian king says, I don't really care about these these Jewish people living here. You guys can do whatever you want. If you wanna leave where you are and go back to your homeland, have at it. And in May,

we see the first wave of the nation of Israel returning back to Jerusalem. In the very beginning, again, in the Hebrew Bible, the book of Nehemiah and Ezra are put together in one. And if you see in there, you'll see the beginning of this journey.

They get the temple rebuilt. They get church services kind of going again, But because there are no walls around the city, they're never able to set up commerce. They're never able to get a thriving trade going. And it tells us a pretty basic idea of owning and running a country.

Without a border, you're not a very strong country. Without a border, you're not a very strong country. K? Sometimes it's important to have a border because it is how you protect the nation. See, the nation of Israel was in ruins for hundreds of years, not because there weren't people and there wasn't a church.

It's because they had no way to protect the invaders from coming in and taking what was the churches. And so where we pick up reading again, longest introduction in the history of a sermon, but where we're going to pick up reading here is in April. About one hundred years after the first people have gone back into

Jerusalem and have tried to rebuild the people of god. Here's how we pick up reading. Here's where we pick up reading in verse one.

Says Nehemiah chapter one verse one. These are the memoirs of Nehemiah, the son of Hakaliah. In late autumn, in the month of Kislev, in the twentieth year of King Artaxerxes' reign, I was at the Fortress Of Susa. Hananiah, one of my brothers, came to visit me with some other men who had just arrived from Judah.

And I asked them about the Jews who had there from captivity and about how things were going in Jerusalem. They said to me, things are not going well for those who returned to the province of Judah. They are in great trouble and disgrace. The wall of Jerusalem has been torn down and the gates have been destroyed by fire.

So, Nehemiah, again, the very end of this chapter, we'll see, he was the cup bearer to this man named King Artaxerxes. Literally, the most powerful man on the face of the planet at this time in history. This was a man of prominence. He was a brutal, barbarian king, and Nehemiah was a slave that was born into

this captive situation.

Somehow, we don't really know. He's risen through the ranks and he is the cup bearer to the king. He literally would be like the the chief of staff to the president. He was an incredibly important person. He had a pretty terrible job, but his job was literally because so many people wanted to kill the king. If you understand all of the the changeover in the the different different Persian kings,

they mostly did it through coup. They would just kill their brother. They would kill whoever in command. And so he was an incredibly scared king.

So much so that he thought that people were trying to poison him all the time. So it was Nehemiah's job to drink the drink that he would drink before he drank it to make sure it wasn't poisoned. He would eat the food that the dignitaries were supposed to eat. And Nehemiah was in a position of total control inside of this government.

All of it to say that God had orchestrated all the details of his life to perfectly position him to solve something.

I believe that God has orchestrated your and I's lives to do the exact same thing as well. I don't think you're in the family you're in randomly. I don't think you're in the job you're in randomly. I don't think you live in the community you live in randomly. I think that God has been orchestrating all kinds of details

of your life, orchestrating all types of things to get you to where you are because there's a specific purpose that you are supposed to fulfill while you're here on this earth.

You have a job to play. You you have a role to fulfill for the kingdom of God. And what I hope and pray that we get over these next few weeks is what that plan is and we really begin to get a vision from heaven. Now, again, there's a couple things that we'll see here and kind of the process or the steps that we need to go through if we're gonna try to be people who live a a god sized vision

life. The first thing that Nehemiah understands here if that we have to understand as well if we're going to try to get god's vision for our life is it starts by understanding the bigger picture. And what I mean is is that Nehemiah Nehemiah understood what God was doing in the scope of history.

See, we're not living in just a vacuum. We exist in a specific time in history. And what we have to stop and ask is is to go, God, what are you doing right now? See, Nehemiah understood what what God was trying to do was to reestablish the nation of Israel in a specific place.

And he understood that without borders around the city, they would never be able to thrive again. So the logical question for you and I sitting here is we understand, okay, it's not so much about a physical border any longer. It's not so much about physical walls that God is trying to build. It's not about a geographical location that God is trying to bring people to.

But the question we have to ask is what is God doing in the moment in history that we exist in? Well, again, you've gotta look at what Jesus talked about while he's on this Earth to answer that question. But what Jesus was unapologetically about was reaching lost people.

You know, the number one complaint against Jesus while he was on this earth is that he was just too comfortable being around really sinful bad people.

The religious leaders didn't understand why do you spend time with all of these bad people? They don't believe like us. They don't vote like us. They don't behave like us, yet you spend time with them. In Luke chapter 15, Jesus literally answers

the religious leaders questions of them going, why do you spend so much time with bad people? Help us get it. We don't understand. He tells a couple parables. He tells a story of a guy that has a 100 sheep and he loses one. And he goes crazy trying to find the one lost that the one lost sheep. He goes so crazy that when he finds him, he brings him back into the fold and he throws a party to celebrate the one sheep that was lost that's now found. Truthfully, the party probably cost more

than the sheep was even worth. And then he tells a story about a woman that has 10 coins, and she loses one of the coins and she goes crazy. She's flipping over every couch cushion she has. She's doing everything to find the one coin that's lost and what does she do when she finds the one lost coin?

She calls all the friends. She throws a party because that what was lost has now been found. He then tells the story of the prodigal son. A dad that has two sons, one is lost, one comes home and what does he do? He throws a lavish party trying to tell them that in the kingdom of God, when lost things are found, heaven erupts.

Jesus tells us, if you wanna know what God is up to today, Luke chapter 15 verse seven, here's where it is plainly. The end of these three parables, Jesus says, in the same way, there is more joy in heaven over one lost sinner who repents and returns to God than over 99 others who are righteous and haven't strayed away.

If we're going to start to ask the question, God, what am I here for? What is the purpose of my life? What what is your vision for my life? We've gotta start with an understanding that what God is unapologetically for is bringing lost people back into the fold.

It says that there is a bigger party in heaven when one that is lost is found than when over 99 church people come to church. It doesn't mean that God doesn't want church people in church. It just means that when somebody is lost and they are found,

it is a game changer. And our primary function on this Earth is to help the people who right now are in a line that is destined to eternity without God to be moved into the line where they get to spend eternity with God. What's amazing to me, I wish I could hear every single story. Last week alone, we have a 170

people who respond to the invitation of faith. And one of those stories I got to hear. I met him a couple weeks ago out of the New Here booth. He showed up literally covered head to toes in demonic tattoos,

was telling me about how he grew up in a house where his mom was a literal witch and she practiced all types of the occult stuff. And he somehow stumbled into here upon hearing the good news of the gospel of who Jesus is. He sat here last week, raised his hand in tears saying, God, I don't know what this means, but I give you my life and I know this changes everything.

That is the primary

function for us on this earth. And so if we're going to start to go, God, help me understand why I'm here. We've gotta start to understand that's what God is doing in the scope of history. K? That's the bigger picture. That's that's what God is doing now. Here's how how it continues. Here's how the story starts to get a little bit more practical for us. Verse four, Nehemiah says that when I heard this, I sat down and wept.

In fact, for days, I mourned, I fasted, and I prayed to the God of heaven. See, here's what's amazing to me about the story of Nehemiah. Nehemiah hears that the walls around Jerusalem are in disrepair. But he's not the first person that's heard that.

Because they've been in disrepair for over a hundred years, almost a hundred and fifty years at this point.

That means that there's multiple generations that have come and gone already that have heard the same thing, but did nothing about it. But for some reason, when Nehemiah hears the account that Jerusalem is in disrepair and the walls are destroyed, it goes off like a bombshell inside of his soul.

And all of a sudden, he's moved to tears. He's fasting. He's mourning. He's pleading to God to do something about this. It it tells me that sometimes our God given purpose is something that we get emotional about.

That there are things that you will hear that maybe hundreds and thousands of other people have heard the same thing, but when it hits you, it hits you differently.

I'm telling you all the time, people come to me and they're like, Daniel, we just need to start this ministry. And I'm like, look, trust me. I am I I wish we had the manpower to start a quilting ministry as well. Like, trust me. It is top of the list. Right?

But I I don't mean it tongue in cheek, but there are so many ministries that people want us to start, and we're we're trying to backfill and get as many ministries going as we can. But maybe maybe the reason you have such a passion for that ministry is because God has uniquely burdened your heart for it. See, Nehemiah,

he wasn't a construction guy. He wasn't a builder. He was a cup bearer to the king. Yet, he heard the walls were in disrepair

and all of a sudden, it drove him to his knees going, god, something has to be done about this And it tells me if you and I, if we're going to get God's vision for our life, if we're gonna live a life of significance, get to the end of our life and not have a bunch of regrets,

sure, we've gotta understand what God is doing in the scope of history, but we also then have to start to align our hearts to God's heart. See, we have to start to have our heart break for the thing that God's heart is broken for. And I know it's one thing to go like, yeah, yeah, like I get it. God, God likes when bad people come to church and they meet Jesus. Like that, that's amazing.

But what happens often in churches, we go, well, that I'm not like a big evangelistic guy. I want a church that's more discipleship focused. And I think this is the mistake that we've made in the westernized churches. We've separated evangelism from discipleship.

And we think that they're two separate things. And we go, I want more discipleship. And that's a church that focuses more on evangelism. And I'm here to tell you it's two sides of the same coin.

And maybe the greatest discipleship making tool that we've been given as the church is to teach people what it means to relationally evangelize their communities.

Because I'm telling you, the the way that I got disciple, I went from being a knucklehead that knew nothing about god to really growing in my faith and spending time in prayer is when I sat with a bunch of high school kids. I was I was I was instructed to lead and I'm trying to encourage them to pray more, read their Bible more. I'm like, well, I should probably read more and pray my Bible more. In in in the process of trying to evangelize,

it was the greatest discipleship making tool in my own life. You and I have got to start by going, is our heart broken for the thing that God's heart is broken for? To a point that it's it's causing us to spend time in prayer, in mourning, in fasting. I'm telling you, if we're not there, then maybe

maybe we just start with a simple prayer that says, God, would you break my heart for what breaks yours? I think here's the question. Are you and I as concerned with what concerns God?

Because I promise you, God cares a lot about your family members, your neighbors, your community members that don't know who he is. And he's wondering if you and I will step into the responsibility that we have to be to the voiceless. Here's how story continues. Verse five, it says, then I said,

oh lord god of heaven, the great and awesome god who keeps his covenant of unhealing love with those who love him and obey his commands. Prayer. 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, the decrees, the regulations that you gave us through your servant, Moses.

As soon as Nehemiah's heart is broken for the thing that God's heart is broken for, what does he do with it? He does what all of us should do with it. And he runs to God in prayer.

And he cries out to God and reminds God of who he is. God, you are the great and unfailing God. You've always come through. And he brings his burdens to God. And in that process, he does something here that I think is the step that you and I often are mistakenly

missing in our lives. See, it's one thing for us to sit here and say, God, spark revival through us in the East Valley. That that's a bold prayer. But I've gotta be honest with you and tell you, here's what the beginning of revival always looks like. Repentance. See, what Nehemiah does immediately is he understands,

god, there's a reason we're in this situation. We are here because we have violated your law. You've told us how to live. You've told us how how to thrive under your leadership and we've chosen rebellion

instead and Nehemiah takes ownership for national sins that he didn't commit but he understood that we are all interconnected and there's a part of it that we have to take responsibility for things that we didn't even do. And Nehemiah starts with confessing the sins of the nation of Israel,

but then he moves into his own house. He says, God, it's not just them that have sinned, but it's also me. And he goes to a place of repentance. Here's the third thing. If you and I are going to get a God sized vision for our life, we have to embrace the power of personal repentance.

This is the most practical part of this whole message. I think so often, the challenge that I have as a pastor is I I get invited into meetings and conversations and relationships where people ask me to to bless things and they go, man, Daniel, I just don't get why we're not experiencing god's blessing right now.

And I'm like, look, I I don't understand everything about god but what is incredibly clear to me is god's ways. See, what Nehemiah says here is he's like, we violated the decrees that we have been given through Moses. What is he referring to? He's referring to the first five books of the Old Testament. He's referring to the Bible that they had been given. He says, see, god's ways are incredibly clear to us as laid out in scripture.

It's why the Bible is such a big deal because it tells us how we are supposed to live. It's an instruction manual that says, if you wanna thrive under god's leadership, here's how you're supposed to live But do not be shocked

if you make a decision to live contrary to that and you don't walk in the blessing and the abundance that god's supposed to have for you. And sometimes, I sit with people and I just wanna be like, man, this is actually pretty obvious. If you want god's blessing in your future marriage, live now in god's ways.

If you want your finances to be blessed, live your finances, trust your finances the way that the scriptures say to run your finances, and watch what God will do with a life submitted to him. But what we do often is we build our lives, we build our relationships, we build our businesses however we want,

and then we ask God to come in and bless him, and we're shocked when he doesn't. See, repentance, it starts with us going, you know what? I I'm not God. I'm trying to do all this through my own power, my own ability, and God, here's all the ways that I've fallen short. Here's all the mistakes that I've made.

And if we're willing to do that, look at the promise of scripture. Second Chronicles chapter seven, it says, this is what happens when we embrace the power of personal repentance. He says, and if the people who are called by my name will humble themselves. Do you know the first step of repentance? It's humility.

It's acknowledging that you're not God. You maybe have made a mess of your life. And if we start with humility, then we can pray and seek God's face. And then we've gotta turn from our wicked ways. He says, when we do that, I will hear from heaven and I will forgive their sins and restore their land.

He says, if you come with humility, you seek the face of God, and we all individually and corporately repent of the things that we've fallen short in, what we do in those moments is we invite the God of the universe to partner with us.

And he understands, okay, when you're faithful with little, I can make you faithful with much. But let's not be the people who are unfaithful with the little we've been given while also praying for God to give us a lot.

God's asking, what are doing with what I've already given you? What are you doing with the money I've already entrusted to you? What are you doing with the business? What are you doing with the relationships?

What are you doing with the time? What are you doing with all the things that I've given you? It's one thing for us to sit back and pray for revival. It's an entirely other thing to understand. We might not be we might we might not be able to control revival, but all of us can control repentance. Nehemiah understands

that God is going to start by using lives that are submitted to him. Here's how he continues. Verse eight. He says, please remember what you told your servant Moses. If you are unfaithful to me, I will scatter you among the nations.

But 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 that I've chosen for my name to be honored. The people you rescued by your great power and strong hand are your servants.

Oh lord, please hear my prayer. Listen to the prayers of those of us who delight 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. In those days, I was the king's bearer.

Here's what's amazing. Most of what we just read there is Nehemiah quoting the book of Deuteronomy. Moses' final instructions to the nation of Israel before he died and Joshua took them into the promised land. Moses told them, here's what's gonna happen if you don't listen to God.

And what Nehemiah realizes is that we're living in the current reality of what Moses warned us would happen if we didn't listen. And he starts to quote back to God, God's own promises that are recorded in scripture.

It's a powerful prayer for model or a powerful model for prayer if you'll see it. What Nehemiah does is he's reminding God of all of his promises. And by reminding God of his promises, he's ultimately reminding himself.

And he's reminding God, God, these are your people. And I know you told us if we if we live this way, if we ran after our own wants, if we ran after our own desires, eventually eventually you would just let us go after those and you would remove your hand from us and you would turn us over to our own desires. And God, I understand that we're living in the middle of a mess that we've made,

but that wasn't the end of your promise.

The end of your promise, right, with Jeremiah, Jeremiah twenty nine eleven, the the the scripture we have all over the place that says, god, you have plans for us, plans that will prosper us and to give us a future and to give us a hope. All of that was on the other side of the seventy years of captivity.

Jeremiah was telling them, you're going into a a brutal season because of your own disobedience but you better believe that God has something great for you on the other side of that. And Nehemiah is now living in the tension of where they currently are because of their disobedience

and where he knows the nation of Israel supposed to be because of the calling and the anointing of who they were. And in that tension, in the tension between where we are and what we're supposed to be as God's people, I'm telling you, vision can be birthed in crazy

ways. Here's the last thing, a fourth thing. If we're going to get a God sized vision for our own lives, we we need to learn to wrestle

in the tension between what is and what could be. See, the reality is is all of us, our marriages, our individual lives, our finances, all of them, God has an incredibly big plan for. He has an incredible vision for. But I think if we're honest, when we look around, we're not experiencing God's best in our marriages.

Why? It's because we're living in the brokenness of some of our decisions or maybe our spouse's decisions. We're living in the brokenness of the financial ruins of decisions we've made in the last few years.

And yet still in the middle of that mess, in the middle of our rebellion, in the middle of our mistakes, the god of the universe says, yeah. But here's the preferred picture of where you're supposed to be. You are a son or daughter of the most high god. And because of that, you have purpose flowing through your veins.

None of you are here accidentally. There's an incredible assignment that God has for your life. And I I wish right now I could put a bow on this whole thing and tell you exactly what that purpose is for your life. But but I can't do that. But I know God can. If you will reengage in the spiritual battle,

get back involved in the tension of wrestling between, okay, god, I know this is where we're supposed to be and I know this is where we are and I don't know how to close this gap. I don't know how to figure this all out but I I trust you do and if you and I will live attention,

lean into that tension, pray into that tension, speak the promises of god over our lives, over our circumstances again,

remind god of his promises for us, remind ourselves of god's promises for us. I'm telling you what will begin to happen is you will get god's heart again. Your heart will begin to be broken for the things that his heart is broken for and you'll begin to understand that all of this,

this life is more than just just chasing these small, little, green bills that have pictures of dead presidents on them but it without the supernatural. That's all life is. It's getting the bigger house, the next car,

the retirement accounts where you can eventually retire, and god steps into all of that and says, no, no, no, no. I have got a plan for you and I have positioned you

just like I positioned Nehemiah two thousand five hundred years ago to be the one person uniquely qualified to do this thing, I'm telling you, God has something for you to do while you're still here on this earth. The question is is will you lean into that tension?

Will you press in and begin to find out what God's vision for your life is? Because when your vision matches God's vision for your life, oh, man, watch out.

Somebody that gets a hold of vision is a powerful thing. So here's what we're gonna do. All of you got one of these things on your way in. If you didn't get a communion cup, our ushers will be here to pass one out to you. We're going together to just take a moment right now and again, just spend time in this tension.

We're going to just collectively,

corporately, as a community, say, god, right now, we're gonna seek your face. We're going to repent if we need to repent. We're going to worship you if we need to worship you. God, we're going to declare your promises if that's what we need to do but all of us right now, the band's going to lead us in a song. Our prayer team will be down here in the front and we're just going to press in and we're gonna lean in and go, god, we know that you have something for us and some of the most powerful response in worship that we can do is when we just sit privately and take communion.

Single one of you got one of these. Communion is us remembering that all of this, that having purpose, having meaning, having a vision from heaven, it's all only possible because of what Jesus did on the cross.

And before he would ultimately die the death that the Bible says that we deserve, he took his friends to an upper room and he told them, guys, my body is gonna be broken for you. I want you to do this frequently,

to take and eat of this bread and remember my body broken for you. And then take this cup and remember that my blood was spilled for you. And so during this last song as the band leads us and people are praying, if you feel led, step out of your rose, do do whatever and during this song, just union.

Nobody's gonna lead you. You can just have a private moment between you and god. Take communion. Let's pray. Let's press in. Let's go, god, would you birth something in us? Amen? Let me pray. Father, god, I thank you. Lord, so much for every single person that's here this morning. God, I know that there are people here who are on the verge of giving up.

Marriages that are on the verge of failure, addictions that are at the point of taking over, finances that are on the verge of absolute ruin. And, father, I pray right now that heaven would invade this place. Holy spirit, that you would burst something inside of us today that would change everything.

God, would you break our hearts for what breaks yours? God, right now, we seek your face. We declare your goodness. We speak your promise. We speak your life over every circumstance and situation that's in this room. Though that I don't know them, I know you do. And father, you are moving, you are speaking,

and god, we ask that you would do something powerful in each and every one of our lives. In Jesus mighty name, all god's people said, amen and amen.