Rebuilding with Prayer: Lessons from Nehemiah

1. "Nehemiah started, with a broken heart. Nehemiah's vision about doing something starts with being broken. In verse, or chapter one, verse four, it says, when I heard these things, I sat down and wept. For some days I mourned and fasted and prayed before the God of heaven. Often before we get to a place where we can do something to help rebuild our protections, we need to understand the gravity, of the situation." [09:40] (35 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)


2. "A vision from God often starts with a broken heart for what breaks his. This book, right here, that we're reading out of, it's filled of what breaks God's heart. And do we look at this book, read this book, and say, ah, man, this is breaking my heart because it breaks his. Or our heart's just broken because, well, it just stinks for us. It's difficult. But we need to be broken for what breaks God's heart. And if we do that, God will hear." [11:32] (39 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)


3. "Nehemiah's vision was fueled by prayer and knowing God's faithfulness. In that section where he's crying out to God and saying, how? They've sinned against him and others, and just kind of saying, we've done it to ourselves. We are the people who have done it against you. He also reminds God of his faithfulness in himself as well. He continues in verse 5. Then I said, O Lord, God of heaven, the great and awesome God who keeps his covenant of love with those who love him and obey his commands." [13:11] (38 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)


4. "A God-given vision is sustained by prayer long before it's ever acted upon. But if I'm being honest, I like to act. I like to go. I like to get things done, see a problem, address it, solve it. And I can be honest with you, I've been guilty of moving before I've ever bathed it in prayer. I don't cry out to God as much as I should. I go, oh, I know the solution. I'll go do this. You know what? More times than not, it doesn't work out because it's my solution. I'm the one calling the shots. I'm the one doing what I want to do." [13:11] (56 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)


5. "Nehemiah's vision took shape through bold action. Bold yet humble action in reality. See, when he had an opportunity to act, he trusted God enough to do it. In the second chapter, in Nehemiah 2, 3, and 4, he said this, but I said to the king, after the king questioned why he was so sad, may the king live forever. Why should my face not look sad? When the city where my fathers are buried lies in ruins, and its gates have been destroyed by fire, the king said to me, what is it you want? Then I prayed to the God of heaven." [15:25] (49 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)


6. "How we act is just about as important as when we act. Say that again, how we act is just as important as when or the way we act. What posture do we come in? Do we come in ruling and reigning like the world's kings or do we humbly come like a servant like our king? We need to be honest with ourselves and we need to be honest with ourselves that we are not God and we should never presume we are even if we get a word from God we humbly move forward." [18:56] (45 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)


7. "Because the gracious hand of my God was upon me, the king granted my request. I'll say it again because the gracious hand of my God was on me, the king granted my request. Not because I had such a great argument, not because I had scripture on my side, not because I was right but because the gracious hand of God was on me. Nehemiah was humble yet bold and I think we mix that up sometimes that we think if we're bold we need to be arrogant believe it right fake it till you make it but in reality God's calling us to be humbly bold trusting him taking a step of faith." [18:56] (48 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)


8. "I believe that a vision from God it moves from prayer to bold but not arrogant action trusting that God will provide what is needed every step of the way and in our passage here we see that Nehemiah had a plan he has an idea he's asking for supplies he's asking for safe passage he's not just willy nilly going into this he's prayed it out maybe God has shared these things with him we don't know but the plan is in place but yet he says because the gracious hand of my God was on me not because my plan made sense not because I had found favor with the king of Babylon it is because the gracious hand of God the Father Almighty was on him that he found success." [20:58] (58 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)


9. "I know many of you guys your hearts are broken because this place isn't what it once was the walls of Jerusalem were broken down Nehemiah started this process and this vision and this journey to rebuild the walls and we're in this process of rebuilding here and I pray we look back at a year two three four five however long and go wow that was the moment that things started to change that we trusted we cried out to him we we took a step of faith and he moved that'd be awesome we worshiped that God join us in crying out to him." [36:55] (52 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)


10. "I believe God's hand is on this place and these people and he wants to use us for the kingdom of God but we can never forget the one who is with us calling us it can never be about us we should not be look at how great we are we should say look at how great our God is his hand has been on us I know this church isn't what it once was this place doesn't have the pews overflowing many churches don't and I don't know if it ever will again I'm not going to be taking presumptions that I have a vision from God but I do know this so we don't trust him and boldly go where he's leading us it never will happen." [36:55] (66 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)