Responding to the Vision – Sermon 2
Respond Patiently
Nehemiah Patiently Served
Nehemiah Patiently Prayed
Nehemiah Patiently Planned
Respond by Praising
Respond by Presenting the Problem to the People
Respond by Proposing the Vision of the Lord
Slide 1 Slide 1
Have you ever thought of something and thought that would be great to do, but then you never did anything about it?
Maybe you have thought how it would be great to have a food bank
Or maybe a better run nursery.
Or a better way to be hospitable to new people
Or a way to integrate the different generations.
Something that you thought of and thought would be great if this were in place.
Most people want to do good. We have good intentions, but there are many times that those intentions remain just that, intentions.
Last week we began our study in Nehemiah and we talked about how to make an impact requires vision and that you don’t end up making an impact unless you do it on purpose.
But, I want to tell you that it requires more than just a vision and intentions to end up at the destination of that vision – It requires action.
It has been said that
“You can’t build a reputation on what you’re going to do.”
You need to actually do.
Therefore, we spoke last week about Receiving a Vision from the Lord and because to actually get anywhere we need to do something,
This week I want to talk about Responding to the Vision from the Lord.
How is it that we should respond, once we have received a Vision from the Lord?
We are continuing our look at Nehemiah and I want us to see how he responded to the Vision he received.
We are going to be reading from Nehemiah Chapter 2. (p. 343)
Slide 2
There is a lot here so I am going to take this in pieces.
Slide 2 Nehemiah 2:1
In the month of Nisan in the twentieth year of King Artaxerxes.
Hey didn’t ch.1 start out similar to this? Yeah it says
Nehemiah 1:1
In the month of Kislev in the twentieth year, while I was in the citadel of Susa,
There are about 3 months in between Kislev and Nisan so the elapsed time between when Nehemiah heard the report and talked to the King is anywhere between 3 and 5 months.
So the first way we need to respond to a vision of the Lord is probably one of the most difficult. We need to
Respond Patiently
Slide 3
Slide 3 Nehemiah was patient. Being patient, however, does not mean doing nothing. He was active in his patience.
As the Lord lays on our hearts what it is he wants us to do, we need to be patient, but we need to be active in our patience like Nehemiah was.
So what is it that Nehemiah did while waiting for God to give opportunity to the fulfillment of the Vision?
First,
Nehemiah Patiently Served
Slide 4
Slide 4 Nehemiah 2:1b-3
1 In the month of Nisan in the twentieth year of King Artaxerxes, when wine was brought for him, I took the wine and gave it to the king. I had not been sad in his presence before; 2 so the king asked me, "Why does your face look so sad when you are not ill? This can be nothing but sadness of heart."
I was very much afraid, 3 but I said to the king, "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?"
Nehemiah continued to do the job that he had and he did it well. Notice at the end of verse 1 it says I had not been sad in his presence before.
Nehemiah wasn’t just going along hating what he was doing. He was doing his job faithfully.
Application
When we are waiting on the Lord, we need to continue to serve in the spot where He has us.
Do you have a vision for something different than you are currently serving? Stay and be faithful to where he has you if there is not currently opportunity to move.
Maybe you aren’t doing anything.
Maybe you are saying, “I don’t have a vision for anything right now, so that is why I am not doing anything.”
That is surely not what the Lord wants from you.
He wants you serving.
He wants you serving where He has you.
The place where He has us is often times a training ground and a time of testing and growing for us.
When we can continue to be faithful where the Lord has us, He can trust us to be faithful with the bigger vision He is laying on our heart.
Matthew 25:21
You have been faithful with a few things; I will put you in charge of many things.
We need to do all things as for the Lord, whether big or small.
Colossians 3:23
23 Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord,
Don’t walk around day in and day out grumbling and feeling sorry for yourself because you think the Lord is making a big mistake not using you right this second for what He may be laying on your heart.
Take the time to be patient and serve where He has you.
A second thing we see is that
Nehemiah Patiently Prayed
Slide 5
Slide 5 We saw last week that you need to be praying to receive and refine the vision that the Lord may be giving you.
But you also need to continue in prayer so that you will be able to recognize the opportunity to move forward when it presents itself.
Nehemiah 2:4
4 The king said to me, "What is it you want?"
Then I prayed to the God of heaven,
This is one of those very short and quick prayers. Now I certainly believe this type of prayer is effective, but only when it is supported by a life of prayer.
This was not Nehemiah’s only prayer. We saw in Ch. 1 that he had been praying and fasting during the last 3 or 4 months and then the opportunity he had been waiting for presented it self and he sent up a quick prayer to the Lord for wisdom and guidance in his response.
These short prayers when we are faced with the situations of life I am convinced are the only way we can obey Paul’s directive in.
1 Thessalonians 5:16-17
17 pray continually
We need to be patient and pray continually about the situation that the Lord is laying on our hearts.
And be praying for guidance and wisdom when it appears that opportunities are presenting themselves.
A third thing we see is that
Nehemiah Patiently Planned
Slide 6
Slide 6 Nehemiah 2:5-8a
4 The king said to me, "What is it you want?"
Then I prayed to the God of heaven, 5 and I answered the king, "If it pleases the king and if your servant has found favor in his sight, let him send me to the city in Judah where my fathers are buried so that I can rebuild it."
6 Then the king, with the queen sitting beside him, asked me, "How long will your journey take, and when will you get back?" It pleased the king to send me; so I set a time.
7 I also said to him, "If it pleases the king, may I have letters to the governors of Trans-Euphrates, so that they will provide me safe-conduct until I arrive in Judah? 8 And may I have a letter to Asaph, keeper of the king’s forest, so he will give me timber to make beams for the gates of the citadel by the temple and for the city wall and for the residence I will occupy?"
Nehemiah had a lot of requests here of the King. He just did not make these up off the top of his head.
During his time of patiently waiting, he was also patiently planning.
What would have to happen for me to do this job?
I would need some time off from my current work situation.
I would need materials to do the job.
Where could I get those?
I would need to live somewhere during that time.
Where could I get the materials to build my house?
There are those who might oppose me in my quest.
How could I plan ahead to assure safety as best I can?
He thought through many of the aspects that would be necessary for him to fulfill the Vision that God was giving Him.
This is what God wants us to do. He wants you to use your time to think through things.
Proverbs 21:5
5 The plans of the diligent lead to profit as surely as haste leads to poverty.
When you are in the waiting room that God has you in, use that time to be thinking and planning. We don’t’ need to rush into what the Lord has laid on our heart.
Be thinking through and planning what needs to happen for the Vision to be accomplished.
And be bold about it.
Nehemiah did not say, “Well I don’t know where to get this stuff. I don’t have any of it.” He found out who did have it and when the opportunity presented itself he asked for it.
The king asked what do you want.
He said send me there to rebuild the wall.
But, king, I also need wood to do it, and security, and a place to live. Could you provide that also.
And the king did.
That is because Nehemiah knew what he needed because of his planning, he had been praying to God for guidance and for the success in this endeavor, and he had been faithfully serving the king all the time he was there.
He was a man of integrity that the king trusted.
God has got you in situations and circumstances where your integrity can be shown. When the time comes to ask others for help in seeing a vision completed, will there be people around to help you because you have been a faithful servant and have been praying and have been planning?
Use the time God gives you to patiently respond to the vision.
And when you have responded patiently and God has opened the doors for you to continue, you need to
Respond by Praising
Slide 7
Nehemiah 2:8b
Slide 7 And because the gracious hand of my God was upon me, the king granted my requests.
Nehemiah recognized that it was God who was making things happen and he was giving him the credit.
When things start to happen concerning the vision that God has given you be careful of pride. It can easily sneak in.
Nehemiah could have said,
All my careful planning and praying and waiting are really paying off. Aren’t I something. God sure is lucky that He has me doing this task.
But He doesn’t. He recognizes why these things are occurring and gives praise to the Lord because of it.
Psalm 52:9
9 I will praise you forever for what you have done;
We need to do the same thing. When our vision starts moving forward, don’t take the credit for it, give it to God and praise Him for it. He is the one who is doing it through you. Praise him for it.
The next thing we see Nehemiah doing is
Respond by Presenting the Problem to the People
Slide 8
Slide 8 Nehemiah 2:17a
9 So I went to the governors of Trans-Euphrates and gave them the king’s letters. The king had also sent army officers and cavalry with me.
10 When Sanballat the Horonite and Tobiah the Ammonite official heard about this, they were very much disturbed that someone had come to promote the welfare of the Israelites.
11 I went to Jerusalem, and after staying there three days 12 I set out during the night with a few men. I had not told anyone what my God had put in my heart to do for Jerusalem. There were no mounts with me except the one I was riding on.
13 By night I went out through the Valley Gate toward the Jackal Well and the Dung Gate, examining the walls of Jerusalem, which had been broken down, and its gates, which had been destroyed by fire. 14 Then I moved on toward the Fountain Gate and the King’s Pool, but there was not enough room for my mount to get through; 15 so I went up the valley by night, examining the wall. Finally, I turned back and reentered through the Valley Gate. 16 The officials did not know where I had gone or what I was doing, because as yet I had said nothing to the Jews or the priests or nobles or officials or any others who would be doing the work.
17 Then I said to them, "You see the trouble we are in: Jerusalem lies in ruins, and its gates have been burned with fire.
If people can’t see and know that there is a problem, there will be no reason for them to do anything.
“Hey the wall is down.”
Yeah, so what.
Well because the wall is down, we are in disgrace.
The people that live around us ridicule us and we are open to attack
Nehemiah explains the problem.
You think it would be obvious to the people. But often times things are not as obvious to others as to the one that God has given the vision of better things to.
For whatever God has laid on our hearts we need to communicate to those who will be part of it.
“Why does this need to happen?”
This is what we should do for whatever we are doing that is going to require others involvement.
Problems with a small facility
We as a church are face a problem due to the fact that our facility is small. Our largest space area is this sanctuary and it is only suitable for one purpose. That poses a problem when our church is growing and reaching more families.
This past Wednesday night, we had a back to school bonfire and we had 29 4th – 8th graders here. When the winter comes, and we are indoors for the entire evening, we are going to need space to move around. If not, the kids will just stop coming and we will not be able to be as effective at fulfilling the commission that God has given us.
Maybe you have a vision for something else. Identify the problem of maintaining the status quo and inform those whose help you are going to need.
That is part of our responsibility.
Let God take care of working in the people’s hearts to respond to the problem we have voiced.
Maybe it is with kids and seeing that our kids are growing more in the Lord. If we don’t teach them who will? And if we don’t, then the future of the church here is in trouble.
That is identifying the problem.
The next thing we see is Nehemiah
Respond by Proposing the Vision of the Lord
Slide 9
Slide 9 Nehemiah 2:17b-20
Come, let us rebuild the wall of Jerusalem, and we will no longer be in disgrace." 18 I also told them about the gracious hand of my God upon me and what the king had said to me.
They replied, "Let us start rebuilding." So they began this good work.
19 But when Sanballat the Horonite, Tobiah the Ammonite official and Geshem the Arab heard about it, they mocked and ridiculed us. "What is this you are doing?" they asked. "Are you rebelling against the king?"
20 I answered them by saying, "The God of heaven will give us success. We his servants will start rebuilding, but as for you, you have no share in Jerusalem or any claim or historic right to it."
He told them of his vision to rebuild the wall of Jerusalem and that this would solve the problem of being in disgrace.
This is the point where many people take their eyes off of what it is God wants them to be doing.
This vision was not about a wall. It was about a people.
Any vision that comes from the Lord, I really believe is going to be about people. It may include physical things like
building a wall, or
putting up a new building or
something else that is physical.
But its purpose will be for people.
The purpose of the wall was to remove the disgrace of the people, God’s people.
We need to propose the solution in those terms.
There have been leaders before who have proposed building new churches and adding on space and the needs for those things were real.
But when you go about it and the people’s focus becomes the building or addition, you end up running into problems when challenges come. We must keep the proper focus.
Seeing people come into relationships with Jesus Christ
Seeing people raised up in their relationship with Jesus Christ
Seeing people’s spiritual needs being met.
Seeing people’s physical needs being met.
People, people, people.
Vision of Hickory Creek
We believe that ALL people matter to God and that God wants ALL people in relationship with Him through His Son, Jesus Christ.
Therefore, we at Hickory Creek Community Church desire…
…..to be a church where people at every stage of life can come and be ministered to so that they can minister to others.
..…to be a church where we minister to those who are younger and older, in school and out of school, those with kids and without kids, those who work and those who are retired.
…..to be a church where “being” the church is more important than “doing” church.
..…to be a church that glorifies God and exalts the name of Christ in everything we do.
…..to be a church that is more interested in where people are heading than in where they have been.
…..to be a church that encourages people to take the “next step” of faith and maturity from whatever point they are at.
…..to be a church where the healthy help the hurting and the hurting are becoming healthy.
…..to be a church where the words “Love God…Love People…Live it Out!” is more than just a motto, it is a way of life.
It is about people.
But if you read our vision statement, we also have a section called Attaining the Vision. That is where the rubber meets the road.
That is where buildings, and ministries, and raising capital will come in, but it will never be about those things.
It will always be about people.
What is it that the Lord is laying on your heart?
Maybe it is this church. Maybe God is saying to you, you need to be a part of the work I am doing here.
Maybe it is a new ministry within this church. Maybe God is saying to you, I am working here and I have a specific task for you to do.
Maybe it is leading our kids ministries so that Kids can know Christ better.
Maybe it is leading our nursery ministry so parents can be confident that their little ones are cared for and they will better be able to hear and respond to the message God is giving, rather than worrying about if their kids are ok.
Maybe it is helping plan bigger facilities so that we can do better ministries and more ministries so people can be better reached and ministered to.
We are going to close at this point.
I want you to be thinking about this over the next week, if the Lord has not laid anything on my heart, then maybe you need to take a step of serving in places where there are needs.
It is when we are being faithful there, that God will use us for bigger things to be more faithful with.
Let’s pray.
