Welcome to Beyond Sunday, an extension of the preaching
ministry here at Leamington EMC. I am Pastor Jonah Chitty and I
am joined today by. Joe.
Pastor Joe Penner Joe, how are you today?
I'm doing good. Is it?
Is it sadden you that the snow is melting?
It is very sad. Is it?
Is it sad? Yes.
See, I'm I've said this to so many people.
Everybody knows this already. I doubt it.
When it's, if it's going to be cold, there might as well be
snow. And some people might say, well,
I'd rather be warm. To which I agree, probably.
I agree probably I prefer the warmth.
But at the same time it's like this like cold and then it snows
and then it warms and melts and gets mucky and messy.
I'm like, I'd sooner just have like 3 or 4 months of like nice
cold weather. There's snow on the ground.
You can build a ice rink or. You can have fun with it.
Go play in the snow and then then we get back to spring and
summer. Yeah, I don't know.
I I like it all. I I like cold weather.
So, yeah, growing up in the heat make this so silly, right?
But I love cold weather, so. Yeah.
OK. So we heard a sermon based on
Nehemiah chapter 4 on Sunday. Pastor Jake preached a sermon.
He called have faith in God when facing opposition.
He had five points in his sermon and they were his first point
was interesting enough the the same as the title so that's
easy. The first point was have faith
in God when facing opposition. Jealousy and anger and fear can
cause problems when they're all linked together.
He said that in there when they're all together, big
problems come. His second point was pray to God
when facing opposition. So pray Third Point was when
opposed in faith, keep moving forward.
His fourth point, stand guard against attack on God's work.
And then his .5 was sort of related was equipping yourselves
to stand guard against that attack.
So yeah, he used several different illustrations from
other texts to help as he as he preached through this passage.
Pastor Joe, you had a chance to listen to the sermon.
Yes, Sir. What do you think?
What was what was going on? Yeah, it was.
He started off with, I kind of wanted to start where he started
off in the very beginning of the sermon he talked about in his
introduction, you know, things sometimes in life start off
good, but then they go bad. Like he used it like marriage or
a new job as an example. And so I wanted to be super.
Smiling at me. Might as well start off with a
whole bunch of tension, get ourselves into some trouble.
Do you remember any like, tension from the beginning of
your marriage? Obviously, like everything
leading up to the wedding and you're excited and you're
excited for like this, all this planning and everything to be
done. And then the marriage starts.
Like, do you remember like tension that you and Val had at
the beginning of your marriage? Thanks a lot.
I mean, there's been so much tension.
We're 15 years. I think you guys are married 15
years too, right? Yeah.
So 1515 years.
And that's a long time ago to think about.
But yeah, probably, like, I mean, just the normal stuff, she
would probably have different answers, right?
That's the thing about marriage is like, she probably kept a lot
of stuff from me. Like that was really annoying
her. And she was just like trying to
keep the peace that she's a peacemaker and so she would do
whatever she can. But like, arguments in the
kitchen like that still happen now.
Like, you know, like we do things way different as far as
like cooking and cleaning and all of that stuff.
And we both like it clean, but like order of operations is way
different. I like to clean as I go.
She likes to wait and clean it all after.
And I'm just like, this is disgusting.
How can we eat like and know what's happening right now?
We need to clean. But she thinks the opposite.
It's like it's fine. It's just one of those things
like, But those little things like that, you expect
everything's going to be roses and everybody's going to know
exactly what I'm used to. And then you, then you, then you
merge your life together. And then you realize, hold on,
this is way different than I was expecting.
She cooks nothing like my mother.
And yeah, anyway, I just got myself in trouble now.
But, yeah. So what about you?
Well, that's really funny. Like those little things that
you think of, they just like it's, they're the tiniest
things, like like the typical things, right?
You know, they're laughable right now.
Yeah. If she was sitting here, I might
not be laughing. It's like, because it's because
it's real tension. Like the little stuff draws out
real tension. Right.
We're real tough when our wives aren't around.
I'm really like dreading pushing like the the upload button on
this podcast. I, I'll, I'll share this story.
I, I don't think I'll get in trouble for this because we
share this story with people anyway, but it, it's not, it's
just really funny, honestly to me.
But early on in our marriage, I don't know that it's a fight or
attention. I remember we lived in this
little apartment for like the first year of our marriage.
And I remember we went to like this liquidation store and we
bought a massive like box full of family sized macaroni and
cheese boxes. And so like we could, they were,
these boxes were so big, we couldn't even eat a whole family
size Mac and cheese. So we like had like separated
and we just joked it like that first year of our marriage.
It's like we ate Mac and cheese so much and it's just, to me,
it's just funny. But yeah, I mean, we had little
arguments. Whose decision was it to buy?
I don't remember the wholesale quantity of family size boxes of
Mac. We did it together, but let me
tell you, I mean, just she makes Mac and cheese for the kids now
too, but she can make Mac and cheese like nobody's business.
You know, she's a professional Mac and cheese maker.
She makes far better food than that.
But but anyway, but I would say at the beginning, like, you
know, again, like you think marriage is you.
You literally get into this mindset.
It's like we're going to get married and everything's going
to be great. And then you fight about the
dumbest thing. Well, part of it is this is this
isn't a podcast on marriage. We'll get to an EMI four in a
minute. But like, part of it is like
when you're dating, you're both trying to put on like the best
face possible and you're both trying to to like, like appeal
to the other person. And so you're like, maybe you
agree to watch something on the movie that you weren't really
interested in. Like, I love action movies and
and comedies and Valerie loves period pieces, but she watched
comedy movies and action movies when we were dating.
And so like, once we got married and she didn't want to watch it
anymore. Like, what in the world?
This is what I like to watch. And so, yeah, those are the
things like you don't like. Because a part of it is that
reason, right. Like you're.
Yeah. Like you're trying to make good.
Like you're in to put your best forward and like, get them to
like you just like, just be yourself, right?
And you end up being yourself. And it causes like, like what
Pastor Jake said, he starts off really, really good.
And then like 6 or 8 months in, maybe sooner than that, right?
You realize, oh man, who is this person I married?
Yeah, I'm talking about Valerie asking that question, not me.
I would never ask that question. Who is this person I married?
You start to get more comfortable with each other and
more open and more honest. And so yeah, anyway, I I thought
that was kind of funny. But yeah, I know we've had our
fair share. No one thing silly little
arguments. And hopefully, I think we're
much more for now, I mean. Yeah, but you guys dated a long
time before you got married, right?
Yeah. It wasn't like long long, but.
You knew each other just. Over a year, yeah.
Yeah, we did. We did know each other a long
time. Yeah.
So Valerie and I knew each other like maybe a year before we got
married. Yeah.
No, not even a year. So like, it was, that was even
harder because you don't know each other.
Like you have no time. There's no frame of reference
other than what you're dating. And so it's like, anyway, yeah,
maybe one day we have time we can talk more about like the
marriage topic, you know? Anyway, I think it might be fun.
Right. But yeah, here in the Nehemiah
4, that's sort of exactly like, that's exactly what happens,
right? Like we, we've gone through a
lot of hard things about how this project whole got started
and got underway, but finally it's like the work is getting
done and it seems like everything's going well, but
then our position comes in and problem starts to creep in and
we got problems. We got problems.
So problems come from three places in Nehemiah Chapter 4.
Problems come from verbal assault, right in the beginning.
They come from physical assault and they come from within two.
There's some, there's some like we're like scared.
We're not. There's too much trouble.
Remember that part in the yeah, there's too much.
There's too much stuff. We can't like overcome the
obstacle that is the wall itself.
And so there's a little push back there.
But Nehemiah urges them to go on.
We see, we see the problems and then we see the people's
response throughout the chapter. What do you think about in
pregatory prayers? Yeah.
Sorry, just like jump right in there.
Why don't you explain? Why don't you explain that bit?
Yeah, so in pregatory prayers are prayers the against people
like you're praying for the Lord to bring down judgment against
your enemies. And we see that a lot in the
Psalms. We see it a lot in the Old
Testament. We see both Paul and Jesus quote
in pregatory Psalms in their writing.
So like in in the Gospels, we see Jesus quote it and in in
Romans, we see Paul quote them sometimes.
And so they're not, they're not prayers that are selfish prayers
for vengeance. They're they're prayers for for
God's justice to be to be done. And so, yeah, so we see an
example of that here in Nehemiah 4.
I'll just read that. So this is after a sandblot in
his cronies jeer the Jews. And then in verse 4 we see a
prayer from Nehemiah. Here, O God, here, O our God,
for we are despised. Turn back their taunt on their
own heads and give them up to be plundered in a land where they
are captives. Do not cover their guilt and let
not their sin be blotted out from your sight, for they have
provoked you to anger in the presence of the builders.
And then so we built the wall. So I mean, he's saying like,
whatever they're saying against us, may it be against
themselves. Is it, is it wrong to pray that
kind of prayer, Pastor Joe? I struggle with it a lot because
I'm just thinking of like, you know, what I, what I, what I
practically do that now. And I, yeah, I don't think I
would, I don't think I would have the confidence.
I mean, this is scripture. And so these, these people have
the confidence and, and the boldness to, to, to pray in, in
a way that, you know, they're, they're aligned with God's will.
I would struggle to know if my heart was in the right place to
pray that, to pray that sort of prayer.
You know, I think my heart, if I was praying this prayer today,
it's like an enemies were attacked against me.
Don't get me wrong. I mean, there's times where in
my flesh it's like, you just want vengeance, right?
You want, you want revenge. You want.
But again, that's, that's the selfish aspect of it where it's
like, am I just wanting that for my own sort of like my own
justice that that's what I want to happen.
But Nehemiah is concerned about, you know, Jake brought this out
in the sermon that he's concerned about God's glory,
that they are going against God. He realizes that like these
people aren't opposing me, they're opposing God.
And so he has insight into that. But if I were to pray this
prayer, I might pray like man, Lord, change their hearts so
that they come alongside us and like they realize that you're
the only true God and they want to come along and work with us
and be a part of what we're doing, you know, like instead of
opposing us. But there's a there's a sense in
which we as even as New Testament Christians in the new
covenant, like we do recognize, OK, well, there is coming today
when all of God's enemies will be judged right.
And we actually have a song. We we sing a song.
I, we introduced a song this last year, Psalm 145.
How great. By solving grace music.
And in that Psalm, we actually sort of sing that same song,
like that same sort of thing where it's like we know that one
day God is going to make every wrong right.
Like he's going to destroy his enemies.
You're pulling it up right now. Maybe you can read that for us.
If I can get there. But yeah, in this song, it's,
it's sort of alluding to that same sort of thing, that God's
enemies are going to be destroyed.
You know, I'll pull up the lyrics of the song too, just so
that I get that right. But.
Yeah. But I think that's where it's,
it's important for us to maybe understand maybe more of what's
going on there instead of, you know, just assuming that, you
know, Nehemiah is not wrong, right?
Yeah, exactly. No, I mean, he's upheld.
He's actually upheld, right to be right.
Verse 20 in this says the Lord preserves all who love him, but
all the wicked he will destroy. Yeah.
And that's in verse. That's Psalm 14520.
Yeah. And in some way we are, we do
have enemies that will be judged.
And in fact, we are without God's grace, we, we would be
certainly judged as well without God's grace and, and the blood
of Christ covering our sin, right.
So, but yeah, I think like, I mean, we wouldn't like you said,
it's really seems prideful to to pray a prayer like that.
Or maybe maybe you think I'm not that bold.
Like you said. I did read an example, like
someone prayed, someone claimed that they prayed in purgatory
prayer like recently and like against Planned Parenthood.
And like the leader of Planned Parenthood recently died.
So they claimed that they prayed a prayer on Sunday and then she
died on Monday. I don't.
It's one of those crazy stories. Yeah.
But who knows, right? I wouldn't, I wouldn't have the
courage to pray that My prayer would be.
I think I shared this in our Wednesday night class.
But my prayer in that situation would be your prayer.
What you said earlier is like, Lord, this is not just, you
know, for, for the sake of your name, save this person, you
know, make them understand they're wrong and draw them to
yourself. I think that's a Christian
prayer. Yeah, right.
The desire for all to be saved is an evangelistic and a
Christian prayer. And then the Lord is going to do
his justice however he deems fit.
So whatever happens, happens. But at the same time, like I
don't think like I'm not praying like heaping coals on someone's
head, Like that's just not me. But at the same time, I think
there's a place for it. Like when they're when, when
God, when God is being mocked blatantly and there is no like
sign of repentance or no, like you see them hope for it.
You just pray that the Lord would just deal with it.
I think that's, that's what that's what Nehemiah is doing
here. He's just praying that the Lord
would just deal with this. Well, and I think that's I think
that's a faithful understanding of God's justice because for for
us, again, like you said, I think we got to be real cautious
and careful about how we do that and how we go about that, making
sure our hearts in the right place.
But that rightly does understand that God's justice against
guilty sinners is to judge them and for his wrath to fall on
them. Right.
So God is just in in scenario one, to save people and to not
count their sins against them if they place their faith in Jesus
Christ. He is just to do that.
He's also just to condemn them when they refuse that sacrifice
and when they turn against his ways and so.
Which is verse 5. Do not cover their guilt.
Yeah, and not let their sin be blotted out from your sight,
right? And actually this reminds me of
like I'm, I'm teaching the baptism class on Wednesday
nights and we had this conversation in one of our
classes where we talked about, you know, who God is and his
character and his nature. And as we talked about it, we
talked about, well, OK, well, man has sinned.
And so couldn't God just, yeah, you know what, everybody's
sinned, whatever, no big deal it all sin is forgiven and it's
fine. And we go, well, is that, does
that make God good and righteous and just?
And so we thought about that for a while, but then it's like,
well, let's, let's make it practical, right?
Let's make it a, let's make it a judge here in Leamington who,
who's a, he's a judge. And I don't even know that we
have judges here in Leamington. You might have to go to Windsor
court. Let's say there's a judge in
Windsor who judges cases. And, you know, let's say you got
a, a guy who, who's a rapist or a murderer or whatever.
And he's a, he's stolen out of like 20 different stores in the
area. And he comes in and he's
prosecutor and he's brought in for the judge.
And this case is laid out. And the judge is like, you know
what? It's not a big deal, just you're
free to go. Just don't do it anymore.
Right is is anybody like, oh wow, what a what a good judge
like that judge is like really good.
He upholds the law like he's really right.
No, everybody's like outraged, right.
He's. Like just judge, right?
How could you let that guy go? He's guilty.
And so for us to say to act like God should just like, you know,
overlook sin, and that would make him a good, no, that
doesn't make him a good judge. That makes him an evil judge, a
wicked judge. You know, he's just to do it
based on our faith in Christ because we are putting faith in
the way that he has made for us to be saved.
But if people reject that, then he is just to condemn people
based on their choice to follow their sin.
And so to that end, I think we should pray for justice, you
know. And so again, we ought to be
very cautious and careful about where our hearts are at when
we're doing that. But I think to pray a prayer
that that wicked people would be judged for their sin is faithful
because God is just and he's going to do that in my heart.
I immediately go that drives me back to the throne of grace,
right? Because if I'm praying like
Lord, I pray that you condemn wicked sinners for their
sinfulness for their the fact that they're opposing you like
you just said before, that immediately drives me back to
the cross in worship because I go, I deserve that.
I just. I mean, all of the sin is paid
for. Wicked's all accounted for.
Like it just who paid for it, right?
Like who paid for your sin? Well, you can either pay for it
yourself or you can place your faith and trust in Christ and
and trust that he paid for it. Yeah, on your behalf.
Yeah, man. Yeah.
It should drive us back in worship.
It's really good. Really, really good.
What else stood out in Chapter 4 to you, Pastor Joe?
Yeah, well, just, I mean, obviously Jake tied in again,
like Nehemiah constantly going back to God, right?
He constantly comes to God in prayer, you know, through all of
the opposition, his his. And this is just consistent with
the whole book so far that his primary thing is to go back to
God time and time and time again.
He's not trying to solve everything on his own.
I mean, he does, he does act, he does do things, but not before
going to the Lord in prayer. And he just, you just you really
get the sense that he has a really deep intimate
relationship with the Lord and just constantly goes to him in
prayer. And this gives him confidence to
do the things that he does because he just trusts God that
much. And I really liked what what
Jake said that when we turn to God in prayer, you know, it's
not that we're changing God's mind or, or anything like that.
It's like we begin to align ourselves with what God is
doing, which I thought was a helpful way of, of thinking
through that because it is so true.
It helps us to remember that God is God.
He's eternal, he's in control, He knows what he's doing and we
can trust him. Yeah, verse verse 9 and we pray
to our God and then the second part of that verses and set a
guard as protection against them day and night.
Doctor Betts in his commentary said like the pattern of
Nehemiah's life is to pray 1st and then to act.
And I thought that was hopeful to, to understand what's going
on in this chapter. Yeah, because no, they're not
attacking their enemies, but they are setting up like firm
defense, right? It's the it's the sword and the
trowel they're holding at the same time, right?
They're working with a a hand like a right hand on their
sword, and they're working with. Building the wall, the images
like they're doing the same thing, always ready for for
attack to come. But that pattern, we've seen it
since the beginning when Nehemiah heard of the of the
problems that they were having in Jerusalem, he like he prayed,
right? He spent lots of time in prayer
and then then he was given the opportunity to act.
And so we see it again here. He prays and then they act.
Yeah. And I just think that's really
good application for us to be thinking about in our lives,
right? Like when difficulties come,
when trials come, when hurts come, you know, whatever comes
in our life where we're tempted, you know, sort of with the theme
of this passage, whether it's enemies come and you know,
people mock you or slander you or or say things that are not
true about you or whatever the case is, right?
Whatever opposition comes and we're tempted to like pull off
of doing the work that we're doing, or maybe we feel
embarrassed or whatever, or like to stop doing what God is
calling us to do. What is our first response,
right? To look at that in the flesh and
to make a judgement, to make a decision?
Or do we immediately run to the Lord?
And, and again, sort of going back to like previous sermons in
this series, It's like when you do the, the work on the front
end to be prayerful in like, is this actually what the Lord
wants me to do? Once you finally, you know, put
your hand to the trowel, you're confident that already that it's
the Lord's word. And so now it's just a matter
of, OK, maybe going back to going back to the Lord and
saying, I was very confident that you asked me to do this.
This is, and I was very confident of that.
Like you need to be at work here.
Like I'm trusting you. Like give me the confidence to
continue going ahead with what I was confident that you asked me
to do, right. And if there's something that I
missed or whatever, then make that plain to me and and show me
the direction. Otherwise heaping coals on their
heads, right, like right. I think that's that's really
good. Like when we face opposition,
especially in something that we've already determined in our
heart that this is God's will, like we should expect
opposition. It's coming.
Like, I think that's that's one thing that we can learn from
This is like, Yep, everybody started to build the wall.
Everybody from their neighbor and all to their house to the
neighbor's house. Everybody built their own
section of the wall. Everything seemed good.
Everything was going to work toward according to plan.
We should expect some opposition.
Like they knew San Balat was coming, right?
He's not, it's not the first time we've heard about him,
right? Heard about him earlier in the
book. Now he's coming and he's being
more vocal and that and then he's then he's up like he's
going to like try to attack them physically and we're going to
sneak up on him and take him by surprise, right.
That's come, that comes up later.
Yeah, yeah. And then we need to expect the
opposition. So like I think that's a good
lesson for us. Like you said, application, like
if we are going to do that, we can be like for whatever we're
doing, gospel ministry, out giving evangelism, like
evangelism at the park, whatever we're trying, whatever
initiative we're taking here as far as just thinking about our
discipleship initiative we talked about last week.
Yeah, like expect opposition, expect people to not understand
what you're trying to do. Yeah, right.
Expect to have to provide more clarity.
Expect to have to convince people and then ask the Lord,
OK, Lord, this is what we feel like you want us to do.
I'm expecting opposition and we need you to work in their
hearts, right? We need you to like convince
them because at some point we can't like we can't do it so.
Well, even like, you know, use the example of a discipleship
group, or let's just say you've, you've maybe not always come
faithfully to church or come faithfully to Bible study, or
you've never been in AD group and now you commit yourself to
do it. We're going to come to church
every Sunday. Yep.
Well, guess what? The kids are getting sick and
this starts to happen and the tire just went flat on the car
and like, and I'm not going to get into the whole, you know, I
think there's spiritual warfare and some of those things.
I'm not going to get into the whole like, you know, we don't
need to find a demon under every rock sort of thing.
But the point is it's like things are going to start to
happen where it's like now you're going to be tempted to be
like, wow, maybe I'll just miss D Group this week or or maybe
I'll just miss this, you know? And there's times to do that,
right? There's times where it's like,
you know what, sometimes the issue is so pressing that you
just need to do that and staying home with the kids because
they're sick. Yeah, that's going to happen
every once in a while too. But I'm just saying it's like,
that's sort of the opposition, right?
And you need to press through that and go.
It's like, no, I committed to doing this.
I committed to D Group and I'm going to be faithful to go.
Yeah, it is a conviction, right? That's the thing you have to
like, you have to have in your mind like a, like a, like a deep
conviction. This is what I think the Lord is
asking me to do right now. Yeah.
And then to live on your convictions is to say, no matter
what comes, I'm going to make progress in this area.
And that doesn't mean you're going to do it perfectly, but
you're going to make progress in this area.
Like I'm going to like if you've got this conviction that you're
going to fight against the world and not allow your family to be
sucked into media 24/7, like whatever, whatever type of
media, TV, social media, whatever, you can't, you can't
give in at the first weakness. Like you can't give in to your
kids, which you think might be the hardest thing, but I think
hardest thing in that situation would be your family like
yourself, like it would be for me.
Is this a conviction or not? If it's not, then you're not
going to do it. You're not going to follow
through. But if it is, you feel like it's
from the Lord, you're going to follow through.
Because we know that when we're conviction about things, you're
picking a side. Like that's the thing about
convictions is like, I have this strong conviction that this is
right. Yeah.
Well, there's somebody out there that thinks it's wrong, right?
There's always going to be somebody on the opposite side.
And so we're never going to be able to, like to make happy
everybody when you're conviction about something, right?
And especially if you're fighting against the world.
Yeah. Because it's hard.
That's a battle. Absolutely, anyway.
Well, I think it's even good to be thinking about, you know,
maybe maybe there's opposition, maybe there's stress, maybe
there's tension in your life regarding who knows what, right?
But maybe that's an opportunity for you to go.
Like I made the point before that it's like when you're
really convinced that God wants you to do something, that gives
you the boldness to continue pushing through it, trusting in
God, praying for him to give you strength because you're
convinced that it's his will. But if you're not and you're
going through a really difficult season and you're under pressure
and you're under stress and you feel overwhelmed, maybe that's a
sign that you need to slow down and something needs to come off
the. Plate.
Oh, that's a good point. And maybe you need to slow down
and go. Maybe I shouldn't have been
doing that in the 1st place. That's a good point.
Maybe I've been piling on and doing too much like something
that I will often tell people like every once in a while we we
really need positions filled here at the church or we need
people to do different things. And so I'll.
Every once in a while, every once in a.
While we always need people to help, we'll, we'll message a
bunch of people, I'll text people.
And when I'm talking with someone, I'm always very
intentional go I, I don't want you to sacrifice your personal
life like 'cause often times you're, you're messaging people
that are already serving in one or two areas or whatever.
And so I'm always very intentional to say you are the
only one who knows your boundaries.
You're the only one who knows how much is on your plate.
And I don't want you to say yes to something just because you
want to say yes to it. You need to look at your life
and you need to evaluate like, you know, I, I appreciate people
who, who share, share this with me that it's like when I'm going
to add something, I, I perfectly consider what else needs to come
off. That's how intentional I am with
my schedule. And I think that's, I think
that's a really helpful way for people to be thinking about it.
You need to look at your life as a plate and how much can I
handle, how much can fit on the plate?
And if something else is going to come on, that means something
else has to go off. And I think if we thought more
intentionally about our life that way, we wouldn't be as
stressed and running around as we are.
But we just continually add things.
And I think some of it is guilt. And that's why I'm very careful,
as you know, as a pastor, to not make people feel guilt tripped
into doing something because I don't want someone to be adding
stress into their life as though I'm guilt tripping them into
doing something. It's like, no, this should be a
very intentional decision on your part to do something that
you feel like God is calling you to do.
And that may mean you need to pass something else off.
So I guess I just mean to add that to say, maybe you're
running around and you're acting, you feel crazy and you
just feel overwhelmed. And maybe that's a sign that you
know, you are you convinced that that was what you, the Lord
wanted to do. And maybe it needs to come off
and and maybe you shouldn't have done it in the first place.
Or, or maybe you filled your plate up with way too much
stuff, like of, of other things. And you need to like, in order
to do this, you would have to remove 5 things, right?
Like, I think that's something that you, you just hit on like
something about like just our lives that are busy thinking
about. I don't know, maybe it's
something I've been thinking on for a while, but I think I've
told you this like I want to do less better.
Like I just want to, I want to do less things in my life and I
want to be able to do them like the best possible way that I can
do them. And so like that what that
requires is, is taking everything that I do and putting
it on the board and just saying and then wiping it clean and
then say what is the most important thing that I, that's
non negotiable has to sit here. You know, for me, it would be if
I'm just thinking about like the way I spend my time, Bible
reading, prayer, like my personal devotion would be up
there. Time with my wife would be up
there. Yeah, like specific time with my
kids would be up there. Church would be up there.
But but those are the things like it can't be like all the
different things that I want to do, like hobbies even like the
things that we pile in just to try to keep up with whoever.
It has to go. Like it can't be, especially if
you want to serve like the Lord in something you have, like
you're going to have to eliminate maybe four or five
things from your personal life in order to do something.
And, and that takes a lot, man. And that that's, it's a hard ass
sometimes because for family people like for parents, like
it's not just me that that can decide, right?
Like if you're single, you can decide whatever you want for
your life. You can make a change like that
and everything changes. It's fine.
It's pivot. No matter, no matter what, no
one's really impacted but you. But if you have a family,
you're, you're impacting everybody in your family.
But just want like, if you change, like, like I'm just
thinking about our schedule. If we change like two things,
like everybody's impacted, right?
Like the schedule's tight sometimes.
And so the more kids you add, the more tight it gets.
And so, yeah, anyway, it's something I've been thinking
about, but I would love to do. I, I would think that would be a
good motto for even like the church, like like being involved
in programs or whatever we're trying to accomplish, like do
less and just do it really, really well.
Yeah. And I think, I think that comes
down to the point of like I'm trying to trying to keep this
make sure we're still tied to Nehemiah 4.
I know. Well, I think, I think we are
though, like I think. What were they doing?
Right. They were convinced that
building the wall was the most right thing for them to be doing
in that moment, right? And they were so convinced that
they were willing to face opposition.
And I think, you know, again, the sort of the point of this
podcast is really to give feet to like what we're doing it to
be more intentional with application.
And I think when you're thinking about your life sort of to the
point that you're making about how busy we are and the things
that are priorities, I think we need to be asking ourselves what
are the most important things that we can be doing.
There's countless things that you can be doing with your life,
right? And like you said, once you have
kids and you know, you add a sporting event or something like
that and you know, one kid. Is music lessons anything?
Right. One kid stays after school to do
this program at the school, and then other kids are involved in
this sport and it's like, you just realize how quickly your
time runs out. And like you said, it affects
the whole family. And so those things aren't bad,
but but they need to fall in line in the line of priorities,
right? That it's like, what is the most
important thing, right? Because, you know, we would say
that it's more important for us to be, you know, spending
quality time with our wives, discipling our wives.
It's more important for us to be spending time discipling our
children, teaching them how to be faithful and following
Christ. And so if, if sports or other
things get in the way of me doing the thing, that's more
important now we have to start asking hard questions and we
have to start weighing those things out.
Is it really worth it then, because I, I don't get to do
this right. So everybody has to, to work
through that yourself. And I think most times you can,
you can still make it work in a way that whatever.
I'm just, but you can't keep adding, you know, like, you
know, each kid has three or four different things that they're
doing throughout the week. It's like, well, OK, now, now
you're just being crazy, right? Like you have to limit that so
that you can do things that are that are so valuable and
important. So like in Nehemiah, Nehemiah
came, he sat in the rubble and then he prayed and he decided
the wall need to be rebuilt. That was the most important
pressing thing that had to happen.
And they did it quick. They did the the low wall quick
and then they had the work had to continue right to make it
taller. Opposition comes.
So like, what would the opposition be like if we just so
like our goal and whatever this thing is that our family chose
to be the most important thing? Like we would say it's
discipleship in our family. Then like the opposition comes.
It's like, OK, it's all the added things that come up in
life, the opportunities to do something that's not the main
thing. And so like, that's it.
They may be good things, like they they really might be good,
but they don't they don't like tie into the wall building.
And so I think that's, that's the point, like, like if it
doesn't tie into your wall building, like what you
prioritize for your family to go back to your volunteering thing,
that's OK to say no, right? But I would say, does your wall
building conflict what your church is doing and what your
church is like the the people who God has placed in your life,
like pastors and ministerial people who like who are leading
the church, the church you're a part of, does it conflict there?
And that's the question. I would either do some soul
searching, is my wall building in opposition to the wall
building at the church? And maybe that's a stretch, but
I don't, I don't know. I'm just thinking out loud.
I think that like we, we have to re evaluate.
We have to constantly evaluate. Is this lining up with the goal
that I think God is doing in the community right now?
I think it's fair because Paul says in First Corinthians
chapter 12 that we're a body. We're one body, right?
And so if you really consider that we're a part of this church
and we're a part of one body together as, as believers and we
are headed in one unified direction, doing 1 unified
thing, then it's like, it does stand to reason that, well, the
priority of the church then should be my priority, right?
And so, and those are hard things, right?
But I think all of us sense that tension in every area, right?
Like, let's just dig working out.
For example, you might go, maybe you started out a workout
resolution at the beginning of the year and you're like, you're
just like, you know what, I want to work out four days a week, 20
minutes a day, whatever. It is OK.
Now if you have like a personality, not everybody
struggles with this personality. Some people are like, once the
20 minutes are done, I'm like, I couldn't get far enough away
from working out, right? It's done, it's over with.
I never want to think about it again.
But I think very quickly we can get into this mindset where it's
like, oh, but now I need like bigger, better weights.
And now I want to improve my time and I want to improve my
weight. And like, now I want my biceps
to be a certain shape, a certain diameter, you know, And it's
like now you have these goals. And it's like that's where the,
these, these goals, these outside opposition.
Well, now it's like, now it's not just 20 minutes of working
out. It's like, well, now to achieve
my goals, I'm actually going to have to spend a certain amount
of money on protein and now it affects my finances.
And but now I'm going to actually have to spend more time
working out. It's going to take me an hour
every day. And now it affects family time.
And you just see the ripple effect of that.
And it's like, well, now this group of guys that meets in the
gym on Wednesday night at 7:00 and they really pump the iron
and those guys are going to help me get to the next level of my
fitness. And I guess I can't go to
Wednesday night discipleship now because.
And so again, it's obviously an extreme exaggeration, like who
knows if that's but you see that and, and it sounds silly, right?
But each and every one of us has been in a season where it's like
you're tempted to give a little bit more to that hobby, right?
I'm, I'm tempted to follow a little bit closer with the stats
of my team, right? And give a little bit more so I
know more. So the next time I have that
conversation with my buddies, it's like I can give a little
bit more insight from, you know what I mean?
It's like you just start to see that's the opposition, right?
It's like the world is gonna tempt us.
Satan is gonna use the world, the world, the flesh and the
devil are fighting against us, right?
And he's gonna try using the world to try luring us away from
building God's Kingdom and to building our own kingdoms or
like, distracting us from what God is doing.
And it's so easy to get caught in those temptations, right?
And we're constantly having to evaluate what is the most
important thing, you know, as far as God is concerned.
For what? How I can be spending my time?
Right. And Nehemiah would.
Nehemiah's response would be always be on your guard.
Yeah. Knowing that the opposition's
coming, what did he tell them to do?
He told them to arm themselves, arm yourself, keep your sword
handy as you work. Yeah, it's the sword and the
trowel. You, your hand is on your sword.
In fact, like at the at the end of the chapters, like they
didn't even really like leave their swords when they got a
bath. Like they went to bathe, right.
Their sword was right next to them the whole time.
Yeah. And so like his, his response is
so it's so your response, like to to your example there is like
you have to constantly be a like, aware that the
opposition's coming and fight against it.
Like you have to be ready to not go on the attack.
I think that's I think that's the wrong language.
I don't think Nehemiah is saying, hey, let's go attack
them, right? It was from a defensive
position, but it didn't say, you know, allow it to the opposition
to come and overrun you and overtake you.
It's like, Nope, allow the opposition to come and when they
come, defend yourself. Right.
So like. So like when things come against
your wall building, what are you doing about standing your guard,
right? So that's the other thing, like,
so like put protections in place in your life, the guardrails in
place in your life. All right.
What is the sword that I need for to in order to like defend
against the opposition I know is coming?
I don't know what it is for everybody.
Yeah. I don't have like real world
examples but. Well, I think just to make the
application that that Jake did in Ephesians chapter 6, I think
is helpful because I know I've heard a lot of people say it's
like most of the armor that you know, Paul mentions in Ephesians
6 is defensive armor. And the only offensive, you know
weapon is the sword. Which is the word of God.
And I think when we as believers
are in the word of God every single day, those those things
are easier to see, right? If we're not in the word of God,
it's easier for us to be deceived.
But every morning when we're being sharpened by God's word
and it's dividing between our soul and our spirit, every
single day, it's like it's a lot easier to see how Satan is using
the world to try to distract us. And we can be on guard and we
go, not today, You know, I'm not.
I'm not. I'm not going there.
I'm not doing that right. I'm committed to what the Lord
wants me to do. Yeah.
Yeah, that's true. The sword is our is our weapon
and the sword in our, in our case is the word.
Yeah. So where do you see?
And this is like maybe our final question, maybe this is too much
for for the podcast like to put on the spot, but where do you
see Christ in Chapter 4? Where do I see Christ in chapter
4? I think we touched on it some in
the beginning, like this, like idea that like their judgement
is coming, Like Jesus didn't come just to like to bring
peace. You know, he came to judge.
Yeah. And so I think that's part of it
for me. But what would you say?
Well, yeah, I mean, I'm just so opposition to the work, right?
Like when you think of Jesus's life, I mean, he was convinced
of God's plan, God's plan for his life.
He knew God's plan. He knew where he was going.
You know, he set his face to Jerusalem and he knew what he
had to do and all through his life it doesn't matter.
Peter tried to get in his way and said, oh, it's never going
to happen. No one's ever going to kill you.
And he says, get behind me, Satan.
We see Satan at the very beginning of Jesus ministry,
right? You know, here, here's a
shortcut to ministry success. If you bow down and worship me,
I'll give you all the stuff. Judas tried to try to do it.
Yep, everybody. You know, all the leaders, like
they tried to make him king, the people tried to make him king
and you know, he sneaks out. He knows this is not the Lord's
plan. And you know, even himself
praying in the garden, you know, if there's another way, I'll go
that way, but not my will, but yours.
You know, I'm paraphrasing all of these things, but I think,
you know, he was, he knew what God's plan was for his life,
that he was going to be the sacrifice for all mankind.
He was going to be the once for all sacrifice that was going to
make a way for people to come to God.
And so his God's plan for his life was so much bigger than
himself, and he opposed he he stood strong, I guess, in the
face of all of this opposition, everyone trying to get him to
deviate from the plan, but he was committed to what God
wanted. Similar patterns to of Nehemiah.
Nehemiah's life was patterned by what?
Prayer and then action. And then.
So we often see Jesus going out alone to pray to make sure that
he's in alignment with the Father.
Yeah, dude, yeah, that's really good.
Lots of different ways to to see the parallel.
Yeah, right. And it's in there.
So I always want to try to draw that out.
Like if we can, like when we're thinking about, especially in
your Old Testament, easier. It's way easier in the New
Testament to find Christ in in the text, but a little bit
harder sometimes. But I don't think it was that
hard. You can get it on the spot.
So you did a good job putting you on the spot.
Sorry. I think it gets easier the more
you do it right. I mean, I think the more, the
more you begin to think about it.
And, and again, there may be to explain the reason that we do
this is because Jesus, you know, after rising from the dead, he,
he meet, he met these these two men on the road to Emmaus and
they're trying to figure out what all this meant, right?
They're like, Hey, what are you Jesus?
Like what are you guys talking about?
Where have you been hiding under a rock?
They're like, where have you been?
And it's like, man, this Jesus was here.
He did all these miracles. He did all this teaching.
We thought he was the Christ and then he died and then he was
buried, but then he was. Now we hear this report that
he's raised from the dead and it's like we have no idea what's
going on. Like we're just so confused.
And then he just goes, man, you guys are just so slow of heart
to believe all that was written in the prophets in the law and
it beginning with the law, beginning with the prophets.
He showed him how all of the Old Testament, what we call the Old
Testament, how it all pointed to him.
It was all fulfilled in him. And so we get our, our
understanding of, of how now to read scripture.
Now we don't just read it like it's, it's just a, a good
history lesson that we learn from.
It's like, no, somehow, some way, this is now pointing us
forward in a way that it points to Christ.
And there's a fulfillment in Christ that, you know, Nehemiah
does an excellent job following the Lord's leading.
And you know, he, all of these stories are men and women who
stood up in the face of trials. And then we're faithful to what
God was asking to do in that moment.
But ultimately, it finds its fulfillment in Christ because
it's all pointing us there. And so Christ is the fulfillment
of all the law, all the prophets, and it finds its
fulfillment in him. And now we don't need to build a
wall anymore. We don't need to have a place
where we go so that we can congregate as a nation and be
protected from other nations. Our mandate is to make
disciples. And so we go forward in Christ,
you know, sharing the gospel with everybody.
And so and so it's helpful for us.
But I think the more that we do that, right, the more that I've
been encouraging people, it's like, you know, read, read the
Old Testament, understand what it's saying in the context of
what it's saying. And then when you're done
explaining that, now begin to think about, well, how does
this, how does this point me to Christ, right?
What can I learn about this and how does it point me to Christ?
And I think the more that you just, the more you do that, I
think the easier it gets. Maybe not always easy, but yeah,
the more natural it becomes I guess is a better.
Way right. It's almost it's it's almost
impossible for a Christian to not read the scriptures as a
Christian. So like, like it just happens to
start you start to see yeah, like as you're reading it as God
opens your eyes to behold the wonderful things in his law he's
showing you and it's all about him and it's all about his son.
And then how it all fulfils is exactly right so well.
And that's probably a really good point to bring up that we
never, never read Scripture in our own wisdom or understanding,
right? Like we cannot understand it
apart from the Holy Spirit. And so if you want to see Christ
more in the Scriptures, then be praying for that, be praying for
the Holy Spirit to open your eyes.
Yeah, for sure. You're preaching Sunday?
Yes, Sir. Coming up, Nehemiah 5.
Nehemiah 5 you. Already got you.
Already got it done I guess. No, not done.
I got my outline. Awesome.
I'm looking forward to it. You have any kind of insight on
it yet? You can say no.
I, I I some it's, it's good. I mean I.
Am doing a great job putting in the spot.
It's really interesting how like I think sort of the transition
for me is it's like, well now like we've had a lot of
opposition from the outside and you alluded to like some, some
opposition from the inside and. It's still grumbling.
Yeah, yeah, it kind of got shut down quick.
Exactly. And it's going to get a lot more
pointed. And so now it's like now we
transition from outside opposition to inside opposition
and how they were causing problems themselves, right?
Like they were not helping them themselves.
And now we see problems like now we're fighting within and just
once again being emphasized that like God, God loves all people
and specifically people who are are vulnerable and oppressed and
are in a position to be taken advantage of by other people.
God cares about those people. And you know, we need to be
diligent to care for them, to love them, to minister to them,
to protect them. Very good.
Well, that's awesome, man. I think we can wrap it on there
like right at that point. Is that OK with you?
Yeah, I enjoyed chatting about imprecatory prayer and it's just
a fun thing to think about fun. It's not fun, but at the same
time it's it's interesting, right?
It's an interesting thing that happens in Scripture and also
how how it all points to Christ. So I'll close in prayer today.
I'll put you on the spot so much.
I'll close this out in prayer. LMC, we are praying for you.
Let us know how specifically. If you have a quest, we'd love
to hear from you. Well, let me pray, Father, thank
you for the book of Nehemiah. Thank you for my brother Joe
here and my brother Jake who preached the sermon on Sunday.
I pray that you would, that you would use your word to open our
eyes to understand the wonderful things in your law because your
law points to you. And so we pray that you would,
would continually reveal to us in the Scriptures the truth of,
of Jesus and his and, and the grace that is shown through his
sacrifice. And Lord, I pray that we would
that we would be steadfast in our commitment to you, steadfast
in, in wall building in the, in what you've given us the, the
task that you've given us to do. And Lord, I pray that that we
would not be failures in that. So for your name's sake.
And so, Lord, we pray this in in Jesus name, Amen, Amen.
Have a great day.