I need shirt.
Okay, so I did use that for that, but I need to sa all the saints and angels, they bow before your throne, and all the elders cast their crowns before the Lamb of God and same.
Yes, all the saints and angels, they bow before your throne, and all the elders cost their crowns before the Lamb of God and say, you are worthy of it all. Oh, you are worthy of it all.
For from you are all things, and to you are all things, you deserve the glory.
All those things, angel, they bow before your throne, and all the elders are their crowns before the Lamb of God and say, you are worthy of it all.
Jesus, you are worthy of it all. Oh, for from you are all things, and to you are all things, you deserve the glory, all the glory is yours. That you are worthy of it all, you are worthy of it all, oh God, you are all things, and to you are all things, you deserve the glory, all the glory.
Day and night, night and day, let incense arise. Day and night, night and day. Let incense arise. Day and night, night and day. Let incense arise.
Day and night, night and day. Incense arise day and night, night and dead instance arise day and night, night and day, and survive day and night, night and day and night, night and day. You are worthy of it all, you are worthy of it all.
From you and through you are all things, you deserve the glory. You can have all the glory. For you are worthy of it all, you are worthy of it all.
From you are all things. Until you are all things. Yes, from you are obeyed and through you are obeyed all. From you are obeyed and through you are obeyed. You deserve the glory, Jesus.
Oh, the glory.
Sa everything is from your hand reaching down out of the heavens, all to sculpt the heart of man.
Not in gold and knot and silver, nothing fresh is uncross a universal wonder.
You make us your grand design.
Oh, praise the Lord, the Lord most high Word of God, the breath of life, Maker of this heart of mine, you make us your grand design.
Stepping down into the r Word of God, become falling down amidst the chaos, your cross colliding with the sand, earth cries out in accusation.
Calvary's grace won't be denied.
For the joy of our salvation.
Greatest your grand design.
Oh, praise the most high word of God, the bre of life, Maker of this heart, you make this your great desire.
As Jesus forever the greatest exchange beauty for as Jesus forever the greatest extreme.
Once a broken earthly vessel, bound by shackles of this earth.
From the dust I was created, into the dust I will return for glorious resurrection.
I'm Restored and raised alive, recreated in your presence. You make us your grand design. You make us your grand design, God.
Oh praise the Lord, the Lord most high. Word of God, the breath of life, maker of this heart of mine. You make us your great design. Oh praise the Lord, the Lord most high, the breath of life, maker of this heart mine. You make us your great design.
You make us your grand design.
Lord, I come, I confess bowing here I find my rest without you I fall apart. You're the one that guides my heart.
Lord, I need you. Oh I need every.
I need my own one defense, my righteousness. Oh God, how I need you.
Where sin runs deep, your grace is more grace is found is where you are, where you are. Lord, I have free holiness is Christ in me.
Lord, I need you every hour I need you. My wonder, my righteousness. God, how I need you to teach my soul to rise to you when temptation comes my way.
When I cannot stand, I'll fall on you.
Jesus, you're my hope and stay.
Lord, I need you. Oh my God, how I need you. You're my, my.
Oh God, how I need you.
My own defense, my righteousness. Oh God, how I need you.
Father, we thank you for this day that you have given us. Lord, we thank you for your goodness and your mercy. And Lord, we thank you that. That in all of the chaos of this world, or that we still have you and that we still have, Lord. We still know where we are going.
We know what you have promised and we have that. And we lean into your promises, Lord, that you will never leave or forsake us. That you work everything together for our good Lord. Lord, as we turn to this new book, this new series today, I pray that you will work in our hearts. I pray that you will work in our minds.
I pray that we will. Although our situations and circumstances are different than they were in the times that we'll be reading, I pray that you'll open our hearts and mind to the situation we do have and the urgency we do have. That you will be glorified. In Jesus name we pray. Amen.
And one more. I just realized my fan is on and being picked up making a whole bunch of noise here. Sorry.
Okay, so some announcements as we get going here for the day. First announcement is, I still think we're not doing anything on Wednesday, so just stand by for when we're gonna open Wednesday's. Back up. Our next announcement is that besides me making a whole bunch of noise by dropping stuff, our next announcement is that I can't remember so I guess there's that. So we're moving on into Nehemiah.
We finished the book of Luke last week. We saw the Resurrection. And what we really prayed for last week was that people would see what it is that Jesus did for us and that he would. And that they would receive Him, Come to Him to receive that gift that he gave. With that said, I announced last week that we'd be moving into Nehemiah and going through that book for the next.
It's 14. 14 chapters. 13 chapters. I don't think it'll take us quite 13 weeks to get to it, though. We're gonna.
Some of the chapters are just a lot of narrative I'm gonna move through. Like, this week is a lot of narrative. And we're only going to get through. But we're only going to get through this first chapter today. But there is still a lot that we need to talk about with that as well.
And we're going to set the foundation and whatnot. The background going into that. On that note, I did ask that if anybody were to read ahead and have questions, send them my way. I've not received any questions yet. But as we go through this, I still encourage everybody, read ahead, and if you do have questions, let me know.
So the only problem I'm having right now if it seems like I'm kind of just trying to buy time, time is because I cannot get the scriptures to come up.
There we go. It looks like they're going to come up.
Let's see.
Well, they came up, but not in the right way.
What is going on? So I want presenter view full screen display slideshow. Okay. Okay. There we go.
Sorry, guys. Technology has not been working well with me the last few days. Okay, so let's go ahead and bring this up.
All right, so I'm gonna be going through Nehemiah. And the reason I want to go through. Oh, before technology has given me an issue and I was. So go ahead and still read ahead. Send me questions, what I have done and what you'll find after church tonight on our website.
As soon as I get this transcribed is I added two documents. Documents to this week's sermon. The first document I added is. I called it the Big Picture and it's questions. You can download the document and print it or if you have the ability, like with a tablet, to write on just on your screen.
It's got the questions that I want us to think big about over the course of the entire book. But then I have another one that is a study guide just for chapter one. In it I will. I ask you guys questions to answer. And by the way, this isn't homework like you turn it into me.
This is for your own use. So whether you use it or not is up to you. But I did add it there. It's got questions that can help you follow along and maybe even go deeper than what we sometimes have time to do during service. So with that said, let's go over real quick what the outline of this book is going to be.
So the outline of the book of Nehemiah, chapter one actually sets the background. And the background is really, really important not only for this book, but for us. Usually the background of any book is the foundation and is important for. For it. But the background of this book is not only important for the foundation and understanding Nehemiah but the background is important for understanding and responding to what God has us to do today.
Even though this is 20, 2400 years apart, almost 2500 years apart, there is a way we need to respond today. So we're going to see that, that happening. After that we're going to see in chapter two, I just titled it Sent in Preparations. We're going to see Nehemiah respond to the background that he sets for us. Chapter three, he's going to start rebuilding the wall of Jerusalem.
So we'll talk about that the hero more in a minute. In chapter four, there's going to be some opposition. Opposition. We're going to talk about social injustice and self sacrifice. See some more opposition.
Some more exiles are going to return in chapter seven. This like chapter seven is one of those. It's. It's mostly narrative. We read from this family.
This many people returned them from this family, that many people. So it's one of those. We're gonna, we're gonna get from it what we can, but we're gonna move through it pretty quick when we get get to things like that. Chapter eight, we'll have the reading of the law. We're going to see corporal or corporate confession of sin in Chapter 9 and then vows given in response in Chapter 10.
Chapters 11 and 12 will see the city of Jerusalem itself once again resettled. Chapter 12 also has the dedication of the wall of Jerusalem. Them and then some legal reforms that happen in chapter 13. Now with all of that, because that is. There is a lot there.
What I do want to do is set the background for Nehemiah itself. In fact, let me cut back to this. I have a timeline here that I brought up. I'm not sure how well you'll be able to see it. But what I'll do is put the timeline in the sermon notes when I'm done so anyone who wants to look at it can see it.
And I'm gonna see if I can make the timeline bigger for myself. So over here, over on the left of the photo, you're going to see a box that I have in yellow and I just. Does the whole thing show up? Okay, the whole thing does show up. So this box in yellow, this is what?
No, the whole thing does not show up. Okay, so I. It does. Wow. My eyes are blind.
I'm having trouble today, guys. I apologize. Okay, so at the top of the photo near the left, you're going to see a rectangle in red. You probably on your, if you're looking on a small screen, won't be able to read it. This is what's known as the Babylonian Captivity.
It took place from 605 to 539 BC. What we need to understand about this captivity though is the, the fuller extent of the captivity was longer than that. You'll remember when we talk about books like Daniel, the Book of Daniel took place in the middle of this captivity. When we talk about people like Isaiah, Ezekiel, they take place prior to this and even leading up to it. And what they prophesy is that this period of time will last 70 years.
But that 70 years from a biblical perspective did not begin until Jerusalem itself was conquered. So there were people in captivity before and then there are people after. In fact, if you look at the. When you get to see the timeline in more detail, I have a box here that I marked in yellow on this timeline. This is when Zerubbabel takes the first set of exiles.
He takes them them from Babylon and he go, they go back to Israel that. And they rebuild the temple at that time. In fact, the temple was finished in 516 B.C.
shortly after that, in the grand scheme of things, in 480, 458 BC sorry, Ezra, then Ludz leads a new group of people of exiles back to Jerusalem. And then 15 years later, in 445 BC Nehemiah, the book that we're reading, comes into play and he is sent back to Jerusalem. So since the exile officially ended, we're a hundred years after those things. And then what I do also want to show you real quick before we get into the text. I've got this map here that I've circled in red.
It's kind of off to the right. There's a red trail that Trail was the. The path that the exiles took to get back to the promised land. But that little circle that there is where Nehemiah is currently as of chapter one. Now, as we're going through this, what I hope that we see is we see the need for the Gospel to go out today, the urgent need for the gospel to go out today, as well as how we should respond based on how Nehemiah responds to a need that he himself became aware of.
So let's look at the first verses here.
Okay? The words of Nehemiah, the son of Hakaliah. Don't try and say that name. During the month of chislev in the 20th year, when I was in the fortress city of Susa, Hanani, one of my brothers arrived with men from Judith, Judah and I questioned them about Jerusalem and the Jewish remnant that had survived the exile. They said to me, the remnant in the province who survived the exile are in great trouble and disgrace.
Jerusalem's wall has been broken down and its gates have been burned.
Okay, let's work through this here real quick. This is mostly narrative, but we're still going to work through it. This is in the 20th year of the reign of king. I hate these names. Artaxer sees.
If you want to see the name of the king, it's in verse one of chapter two of Nehemiah. So what? Essentially, they didn't date time the way we date time today. Today they didn't date time as 2025 AD or 400 BC. The way they dated time was usually X amount of years into the reign of a king or X amount of years after the birth of a person.
So the way that we place the event of this book is that we know it's the 20th year in the reign based on chapter one, verse two of King Artax or sees. Yeah. And he's in the fortress city of Susa. So I showed you right back here where the fortress city of Susa is. It's that red circle.
This is post Babylon. Babylon. The Babylonian empire has fallen. The Persians, which Daniel, in his book, he talked about the Persians that would come in in his dreams and prophecy. And this circle, this Susa, this fortress is actually a winter retreat for the Persian government.
So I'm going to assume a little bit warmer there than where they normally would rule from. But this is. That is where he is right now. And when he is there, one of his brothers, Hanani, arrives from Judah. I'm going to make an assumption here.
The Bible does not tell us a lot of these things, but 15 years prior to this, a group leaves with Ezra from Babylon to the promised Land back to Israel. I'm willing to bet that Hanani is one of Those people from 15 years prior to, who also knew Nehemiah. And so when he gets back, they have a conversation and he wants to know about Jerusalem and how those who had survived the exile and made it back, how they are doing. And there is a report that is given. They said to me, the remnant in the province who survived the exile are in great trouble and distress.
So that's the first thing thing. Then the second thing. Jerusalem's wall has been broken down and its gates have been burned. So Nehemiah right here is presented with two problems. His people, his brethren, are in distress and they have no defenses.
Their fortified walls have been burnt down. Their gates have been burnt down. They are in shambles.
They really need some help. Before we move on and read the way that he replies to it, what I do want to ask you, if you were to receive that, the news that we would receive today would be different, right? But if you were to receive some bad news, that your brethren, that your family or your loved ones were in great trouble and great distress, how would you respond?
I want to ask and explore that before we read how Nehemiah responded. Because how we respond says a lot about our own faith and trust in God.
I think the human way to respond is to immediately respond in, into the flesh and out of anger. Or even if it's not out of anger, even if it's something that doesn't require anger but does require action, we respond immediately in the context of the situation. But outside of the context of God, we often hear something's going on and we immediately jump into help. But we skip the fact that God is in control of all of that. He's over all of that.
So rather than getting angry, if a situation requires, or perhaps immediately jumping in and trying to fix things on our own, or even in other situations, just becoming overwhelmed with grief to the point that we don't do anything, we should respond in a similar way that Nehemiah responded. Let's look at his response.
When I heard these words, I sat down and wept. I mourned for a number of days, fasting and praying before the God of the heavens. Just think about that for a moment.
His. His people, their walls are being torn down. Their gates are being burned down. They are in distress. And instead of becoming so distressed himself that he cannot do anything, or lashing out in anger and immediately rushing to aid, not really Knowing when we process things in our mind, we don't know the big picture.
We don't know God's big picture and what God wants. We just often rush and think that we're going to do something. Look what he does. The first thing he does is he weeps. Why does he weep?
I think he weeps because this is Jerusalem. We're talking about God's city, God's protected place. This was a place that God established for his own presence to be known before the entire world. And due to the sin of God's people, due to the sin of Israel, not only has God's presence left the city, but the city has been torn down and is the. The inhabitants who have returned are now in distress.
So he then mourns, right? There's, there's more than one way to mourn. You can mourn as in crying and just being sad and doing nothing. But you can also mourn in the sense of a biblical type mourning where you actually turn your attention, you turn your heart to God and you set your eyes on Him. And this is what is happening here.
He is mourning, right? Not that they are in distress, but he's actually mourning for the sin and the situation the sin has caused. So he mourns and fasts for several days. Days, instead of acting out, he takes several days, we don't know how many, and he prays.
I wonder how different we might respond to tragedy or to bad news. There's obviously things that require immediate response. If you're a firefighter and the tones go off and there's a hell on some fire, immediate response. But then there are things that a day or two of sitting down and consulting with God in the big picture is not going to affect the outcome if you don't just rush in, right? But retreating, praying and fasting before the God of the heavens is what it says.
There's an element to that in which we recognize that God is sovereign, God is in control, and that God needs to direct us in our response. So look what, what Nehemiah says in response to this verse five. I said, lord, the God of the heavens, the great and awe inspiring God who keeps his gracious covenant with those who love him and keep his commandments.
I love the way that he opens up. When we've talked about prayer and we've talked about prayer before several times, but we talk about the way that we should pray, we should address God. But before we jump into asking God for things, we should probably be grateful for the things that God has given us. But there's even more than being grateful to God. If we're going to go before God and go before his throne, why don't we go before him in worship?
Even in need, we should worship him first because he, he is worthy of the worship. But that also sets our heart posture toward God to worship Him. So keeping in mind the nation of Israel as a whole has been under attack for more than a hundred years. There was a captivity. Since the entire nation was, was attacked and besieged for 70 years, it's been another hundred years and all this stuff is going on.
You might be tempted to look up to heaven and instead say, God, why have you forgotten us? But Nehemiah says, lord God of the heavens, just look at this worship the great and awe inspiring God who keeps his covenant with those who love him and keep his commands.
How great would it be if we as God's people, regardless of the circumstance, regardless of the world of life, of how we may or may not either feel like injustice has been done or we've been forgotten that we can approach God and we can worship him in the worst of our situations and sin. How great and awe inspiring you are.
Verse 6. He says, Let your eyes be open and your ears be attentive to hear your servant's prayer that I now pray to you day and night for your servants, the Israelites. So before I finish this verse, what he's asking God is he's saying, God, please hear me right? Because here's what's happened is God has essentially stopped hearing the prayers of the Israelites, right? He's heard the prayers of a few people during the captivity.
We know one of them is David, not David, wow, is Daniel.
But God has shut his ears to Israel. Why?
Well, because God said, and he told them this in the Mosaic covenant. We saw this in Deuteronomy. If you obey me, I will be with you. And if you don't obey me, I won't be with you. But that was a covenant between God and the Jewish people.
And the Jewish people for hundreds of years have adulterated God, have committed idolatry. They worshiped baal, they boiled their babies and milk to eat and to consume. They sacrificed their young ones to false gods and to false idols. They kept putting up Asherah poles. They adulterated God to the point that God's presence left the city and he allowed Babylon to take them.
However, and we'll see when we get here in a minute. God also told them, not if you disobey me, but when you disobey, because He Knew they would disobey. But then he also said, when you turn your heart back to me, so what we are seeing is a person, person turning their heart to God. And he says, God, open your eyes and please hear the prayer. And he says, I'm praying this day and night.
So he doesn't just pray to God and say, okay, I said a prayer. I hope it's done. But he's praying day and night. He's being fervent about it, seeking God's direction. And he says, I'm praying.
Look at this. For your servants, the Israelites. He doesn't say, I'm praying for many. Me. Now, I'm not saying that we cannot pray for our own self.
In fact, we are told to approach the throne of God and pray, even on our own behalfs. But look what he's doing. He is performing intercession on behalf of the nation. And here is how he does that. He says, I confess the sins we have committed against you.
We. He's including himself in that. He doesn't say, I'm confessing the sins that they've committed against you, but he says that we. He wraps himself into that statement. And then he says, both I and my father's family have sinned.
We've acted corruptly toward you. We have not kept the commands, statutes and ordinances you gave Your servant, Moses. Please remember what you commanded. Your servant, Moses. If you are unfaithful, I will scatter you among the peoples.
But if you return to me and carefully observe my commands, even though your exiles were banished to the farthest horizon, I will gather them from there and bring them to the place where I have chosen for my name to dwell.
So. So a few important things here that Nehemiah is praying for. First, Nehemiah's praying on behalf of the nation. And he begins his prayer with worship. And then says, God, I'm confessing our sins, our nation sins, and even my sins, even I have sinned against you.
Look at that heart posture of Nehemiah going before God. Nehemiah goes on, we're gonna read through the entire book over the next month and a half or so. He goes on to be a great leader over God's people. But before he goes on to be a great leader over God's people, he first has this heart that is conditioned toward God.
We've acted corruptly. And then look what he says. Remember your command. The command was twofold here. First, if you are unfaithful, I will scatter you among the peoples.
Did that happen yes, the Jewish people were unfaithful to God and they were scattered among the people. But then he says also, please remember this, not as if God forgot it. Let's be clear on that. God did not forget it. Rather, what he is doing is a form of intercessory, where he says, I'm turning to you.
So he reminds him of the, the entirety of his word. If you return to me and observe my commands, you will bring us back. He continues, they are your servants and your people. You redeemed them by a great power and strong hand. So he's reminding God we're your people and some of us are turning back to you.
And then he reminds them of the past. And this is a strong thing here, here again, not as if God had forgotten, but the connection to what started the Mosaic covenant. To begin with, you delivered us with a great hand. When you read some of what the other prophets wrote and use this type of language, the language that they're using is you brought us from Egypt. You were the God that every nation feared.
You split the sea, you caused armies to fall. You've done, you've driven out the people of Baal. You've consumed, I think was 400 and some odd of their prophets and a pillar of fire. You are the God who with a strong and mighty hand gave us deliverance. And now look, the nations themselves.
This is what we get, not from Nehemiah, but from other, other prophets, the nations themselves. Now look and say, where is your God? Right? So he reminds him, please be attentive to the prayer of your servant and that of your servants who delight to revere your name. Name.
Then he says this, give your servant success today and grant him compassion in the presence of this man. At the time, I was a king's cup bearer. Real quick, the note here at the end about being the king's cup bearer. This is an important note, not for this chapter, but for the next. In fact, I think it should just be with the next because it tells us Nehemiah was able to get the presence and company of the king that he did to request what we will read about next week in chapter two.
But what I want to say here is he says, lord, please give your servant success today and compassion.
This is the first time we see it in the book, but not the last time that we'll see it in the book. But what Nehemiah is showing us here is that he is not dependent upon himself for success.
A lot of the times as Christians, we may wonder, why am I failing in fact, actually, here, let me. Let me get to our mission here before I bring that up. I think it's a better. So I just want to again come back. Let's look at verses, at verse three and see what the great need in Nehemiah's time is.
Hanani said to him, the remnant in the province who survived the exile are in great trouble and distress. Jerusalem's wall has been broken down and its gates have been burnt. The need is that Jerusalem, God's city of peace, is been under siege. It's being burned down. They are being disgraced.
The people there need help. That's the need. This is an urgent need at that. A need that requires, I would say, quick action, but not so quick quick that you run off and you.
And you just act, right? You don't want to be reactive, but you do want to act. And there's a difference. So this is his issue. They need help.
And then it tells us that he goes on to pray and fast before God for a number of days. And then finally he says, God, give me your success. I'm kind of rephrasing what he said a little bit here. Give me your success. Nehemiah knows if he is to be successful in aiding his, his brethren in Jerusalem, it will be reliant on God.
Now, for us, what's important here for us to, to get out of this, Nehemiah is relevant. Every. Every scripture is relevant to us today. Every scripture applies, but how it applies is sometimes hard to understand. Understand what?
What did we read here today that to us is an issue? Or that to us we can look at and say, okay, God, I need to do this, I need to follow. There's some examples. We see an example of prayer, a fervent prayer at that. We see an example of relying on God, but even more so, so there is a great and urgent need right here, right now.
We're in a. In a mixed congregation, one where we have some people in person, some people online. And with our online group, we are spread across the United States. So when I say right here and right now, do understand, I'm referring to right where you are right now. Now, there is a great and a urgent need.
And that great and urgent need is that the kingdom of God is coming. It's coming quickly. And there are people out there who do not know Jesus as their God, Lord and king, and they need him. That is our great need, the need of Nehemiah. So how do we respond to this great need, to the fact that all of us are surrounded by people.
We either have neighbors, family, friends, co workers or otherwise are surrounded by people who don't know Jesus as their God, their king, their Lord and their Savior. So how do we respond? Respond? Well, first, we often. I'm going to say what we often do wrong is we often just go out and say, okay, I'll just share the gospel or I'll just invite somebody to church, or I'll just.
And often. Or we'll get online and we'll get in arguments with people, or we will, we'll do all sorts of these things and none of them work. Why don't they work? Well, they don't work because we are relying on ourselves for success. So I want to say this, that, that salvation, the, the issue of salvation, we cannot save anyone.
We can't do that.
It, that's not our job. It's not our role. God did not ask us to do that. The only thing that we can do is share the gospel, share the Word and hope that God will, will convert them, that he will get a hold of them. Right?
God saves. We share. But how many of us are spending our time in prayer, both on a daily basis, not just our daily prayers for our lives, saying what we're thankful for and asking for what we we need. But how about for the prayers of those that we know personally? I guarantee every one of us knows somebody personally or multiple people personally who do not know God.
How many of us are going before God in fasting and prayer, specifically on their behalf, specifically to say, God, please help this person come to know you or this family come to know you.
When we, when I was teaching discipleship classes about two years ago, here I was teaching and saying that prayer should be 90% of our effort right now. We can't write off and say because I'm praying, I don't need to do the rest. But prayer should be 90% of the effort. For every hour that we spend sharing the gospel outside the doors, we should be spending six or seven hours praying for the gospel behind closed doors.
Next is do we ourselves have a posture toward God, right? That he himself is excellent, that he himself self has glory, inherent glory. What does he say here? Nehemiah says great and awe inspiring God. Do we posture ourselves before God as someone who is great and on inspiring or do we posture ourselves toward him as someone to just ask, give me, give me, give me, right?
But if we're going to posture our heart towards seeing people saved and each of us, we should be kingdom minded and oriented in that way that we See people coming to God. We first need a heart posture toward God that He is great and awe inspiring. And then finally success.
Success is twofold. First, first success whether someone is saved or not, or whether we are successful in seeing somebody saved or not. Or even successful in our job, in our lives and our other projects. What we need to remember is that success is God's. We do everything by the power of God and we do everything to the glory of God.
And so that also means that all of our successes is we should be relying upon Him. God tells us that in our strength, in our weakness, he is made strong. And so we should always be walking in our weakness. And that in our success and our battles be God's success in God's battles. But further, I want to define success when it comes to a kingdom oriented mindset because we start at the step study or I we're starting the study today to look at how do we respond for one, what is the need?
The need is the kingdom. People who don't know God. But we're going through Nehemiah to look at, through the whole book. How did he himself respond? We're just in chapter one of 13.
So how do we as God's people respond to the new need? And I want to first define success real quick. Success is not that you share the gospel to someone and they get saved. Although I will say that was successful. That's not how we're going to define success.
Success is not arguing with somebody until they get saved or, and, or arguing with people at all, but rather success is this being obedient to the commands and words of God, to faithfully follow the commands of Christ and be obedient to that which he has called you to do. If you do that, you are successful. But you can only do that if you are relying on him and his power. In the Old Testament we have a prophet. He is sent to a group of people to preach.
And if you want to know about feeling a lack of success, and I know the feeling of going and sharing the gospel both with friends, family and even people unrelated to me who don't want to receive it or for some reason won't receive it, I know that frustration and how it feels like you're not successful. You want to know what that feeling is? There is a prophet in the Old Testament that God specifically said, I'm going to send you out two way people and you're going to preach to them them and they will not listen to you, not one of them. The only reason God sent that Prophet to those people group was as a witness and a testimony against them.
So you might feel like, wow, I've come to this people group and I have preached and I have shared the gospel and I have done everything and not one person got saved. Oh, God sent a prophet is nothing more than a testimony against a people because he knew he wouldn't listen to that prophet. So again, we define success here. As we start looking at how we respond, I want us today to have our heart oriented toward God, our heart posture toward God. I also want us to be realistic in what success is as we respond to God.
And success is faithfully following and obeying our King, even when it looks like nothing has happened, we don't know what God is doing. And even if no one appears to be getting saved, if you faithfully follow and obey what he tells you to do, you are successful. That's how we're going to define success as we move forward here. With that said, I do want to point out out as we come to an end of this, there are people out there and this is a broadcasted message and always out of safety, if someone's listening to this broadcast, I do want you to hear the gospel and I want to tell you the gospel real quick, is that Jesus Christ is God in the flesh, who died on the cross out of love for you and your sins.
He rose again the third day, given victory over sin and death, so that if you would receive him and make him your king, you would have everlasting life. That's the gospel. We are all sinners and we all deserve the punishment for sin. But we can have the gift of God, God, which is the gift of eternal life if we receive Jesus Christ. So if you are ready today, as we come to an end, if you've not received him, we have what I call the ABCs.
Admit, believe and confess. If you can admit that you are a sinner, who can do absolutely nothing about where you are and where you're going, that you're deprived, your debt is too great. And believe that Jesus Christ really is the creator God, who spoke everything into existence, who came to this earth and flesh, who lived sinlessly and died on your behalf, and believe that he resurrected and then confess him not just as your Savior. A lot of people I hear say, well, yeah, he's my Lord and Savior, but the kind of it's generic and they leave it there. Confess him as your God.
Right? You even see that with doubting Thomas, my Lord and my God. Doubting Thomas said when he felt his Hands confess him as your God and Lord and King. To say, lord Jesus, I take off the crown that I wear that I use to direct my own life and I submit it to your feet to let you come into me and direct my life. You will be saved.
It's a promise in our closing prayer. You are welcome to pray with me to that end. If you have not received him, I will note this prayer does not, cannot, will not save you. It is your posture toward God and actually meaning it that will save you when you receive Jesus Christ. After our prayer, we will partake of the Lord's communion.
So those who want to partake of communion with us, I invite you to stay behind and then I will see the rest of you next week as we continue through Nehemiah will be in chapter two. And by the way, my. I'm known for telling jokes in church and I haven't told one today. Who is the shortest man in the Bible?
The answer is build out of shoe from the book of Job because he was shuhite. But the second shortest person is also named and that's Nehemiah because he was only knee high. So there's my joke for the day. Let's go to prayer. Father, I admit that I am a sinner and that I cannot save myself.
And that without you I'm eternally separated from from you. And I believe that Jesus is the God man who came here and lived and died sinlessly and gave victory over death, conquering the grave the third day as he rose again. And Lord Jesus, I ask you, come into my heart. Replace the person that I am. I confess that you are not just God and Lord and Savior, but that you are my God and Lord and Savior and submit to following you.
Father, I pray as we as we enter into this study and as we leave here tonight that we will be aware of this great mission you've put before us. You've told us to go and make disciples and there are lost people around us who don't know you. I pray, Father, for those people. I pray, Lord, that you will lead us to them or them to us or however you do it, or that you will lead them to someone who knows you. And Lord, I pray that by your grace that they shall come into a knowledge of who you are and that they will be saved so that you will be glorified.
Lord, I pray that you will use us us in the way that you need to use us or want to use us to that end. In Jesus name we pray. Amen.