Building A Dream Team Series

I’ve asked you in recent weeks to think about what’s broken in your sphere of influence. It could be a relationship with a spouse, a parent, a child, a friend. It could be that something is broken in your career or ministry. Identifying the broken places helps us see what job God wants us to do for Him. Anyone can just go through the motions in life. But God has called us to be builders.

There are three kinds of people in the world:

· People who make things happen!

· People who watch what’s happening, and

· People who wonder what happened.

I’m sure you want to make things happen – to be a builder. You probably won’t be able to fix things all by yourself. If you are going to make things happen, you will need help!

I love finding quotes that keep me focused and fired up. Someone said that seven powerful words are: “I have a problem. Will you help?” Someone else said that you spell team “T E A M – Together Everyone Achieves More.” Another quote: “None of us is as strong as all of us.” One more: “A star can win any game. A team can win every game.”

Do you know how to put together a team to help you rebuild what is broken?

Building a dream team

Series: Here’s Hope: Rebuilding a Broken World

Text: Nehemiah 2:9-20

I want to ask you to ask God to give you one thing this week that you can apply in your life that will make a big difference in that broken area He’s called you to rebuild.

Let’s review. Nehemiah had heard from his brother that Jerusalem, his ancestral home, was in ruins. With its walls down, Jerusalem had no defense against invaders. It was no place to make a home. Many of the citizens had moved out. Temple worship could not be maintained. Morale had sunk to rock bottom. Nehemiah was deeply disturbed – he wept, fasted, and prayed for 4 months. God spoke to his heart. “You go and meet the need.” Problem is that he is cupbearer to the King of Persia, Artaxerses. He kept praying passionately and serving faithfully until one day, the king asked him why he was sad. Nehemiah boldly asked for a new job. His praying paid off. God caused the King to send Nehemiah to oversee the building project, to give him letters of safe passage, to finance the project, and to appoint him as governor.

To build a dream team…

1. Rest and refocus.

9 Then I came to the governors of the provinces beyond the River and gave them the king’s letters. Now the king had sent with me officers of the army and horsemen.

10 When Sanballat the Horonite and Tobiah the Ammonite official heard about it, it was very displeasing to them that someone had come to seek the welfare of the sons of Israel.

Even before he arrived, the word was out that he was coming. Israel’s enemies were definitely not happy…

11 So I came to Jerusalem and was there three days.

Now, we don’t know for sure what he did in those three days. But we do know about the pattern of Nehemiah’s life from the rest of the book. Nehemiah’s rule of action seems to have been: first pray, then act, then pray, then act, then pray again. It’s a safe bet to say that he spent the time resting from the 2 month 1,000 mile trip and that he prayed.

Abraham Lincoln said on one occasion: “I have been driven many times to my knees by the overwhelming conviction that I had nowhere else to go. My own wisdom and that of those about me seemed insufficient…”

“Charles Swindoll has it right, I think, when he refers to Nehemiah as ‘A Leader—From the Knees Up!”

To build a dream team, rest and refocus after some hard work.

2. Investigate before you initiate.

Before Nehemiah began, he was determined to know the worst. Sometimes, we don’t do a very good job or rebuilding or getting the right kind of help because we put on the rose colored glasses and don’t want to see how bad things really are in the marriage or in the family or with the business or in the ministry.

Not Nehemiah. He investigated the situation. He wanted to know exactly what he was up against.

We can see two things he did to investigate.

Spend some time…

… in solitude. vv. 12-15

12 And I arose in the night, I and a few men with me. I did not tell anyone what my God was putting into my mind to do for Jerusalem and there was no animal with me except the animal on which I was riding.