Skip to content Episode 4 | Nehemiah: Guard Your Gates Aug 24 · 42 min ...more
Episode 4 | Nehemiah: Guard Your Gates
August 24, 2026 · 42 min
Series Nehemiah August 24, 2026 · 42 min · Nehemiah
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Chapter 3: Rich Lessons in Names and Unity 0:00 We are going through a series with a guy who actually wrote, like, a journal style. Like, we are getting to read his personal journal. And the cool thing about this guy that we're studying is he's probably 1 of the0:11 greatest leaders in the past 2400 years. And he led through a season much, much, much more difficult than 20 20. Isn't that amazing? I mean, just that he made it out of that. I heard a joke the other day.0:23 Because all of us gonna agree that 20 20 has been a difficult season. I mean, everybody can agree on that. That, you know, in in the Christian world, 6 6 6 is the worst number. Right? I mean, it represents the devil's0:32 evil. 6 6 6, stood out and said, I am the worst number ever. And 20 20 stepped up and said, hold my beer. Isn't that funny? If you're gonna email me about a complaint, it's clinic0:44 clinic Cascade Hills. Remember, it's been a difficult season, hasn't it? It's been crazy, crazy difficult. And so we're taking this guy named Nehemiah, and we're going through his personal journal. And what we're doing0:56 is we're just just you and I, we're just taking the wisdom and how he led through this difficult season, and we're applying it to our lives. And so it's very very fascinating and very relevant for us. And this story, if1:07 you have been in church or sometimes, you know, chances are growing up in Sunday school or something, you know who Nehemiah is. And if you did not grow up in church, chances are still pretty big1:19 that you know who Nehemiah is because Nehemiah did something impressive. Wall around the entire city of Jerusalem in 521:31 days. Now that's impressive. I can't even get a contractor to call me back in 52 days. But this is a story, as we've been saying, this is a story not just about building a wall. It1:42 was about God building a leader who would then build a group of people, who would rebuild a culture, who would follow God in a world that didn't. And church, I want to tell you something. As Jesus followers,1:54 I believe that that is what God is calling us to do in this time, in this unique space of time for us to rebuild a culture that follows God in a world doesn't. And so2:06 this story, just to catch you up here where we're at, in case this is your 1st week, Nehemiah, he is the, he's the cup bearer to the king. And so Nehemiah, what that is, is he's the king's most trusted God. He would2:18 check the king's wine and food to make sure it didn't have poison in it. In those days, they would assassinate kings by way of their food. And so he's the most trusted guy in the entire kingdom. And Nehemiah 1 day finds2:30 out that his hometown is in ruins. That his hometown, that the walls are broken down. That there are no officers or soldiers or guards, stationed on the walls protecting the city because, well, there's2:42 no wall. And the gates were burned by fire. And and I can imagine it looked a lot like what we see on the news today, where there anything and everything could go on. I mean, there could be looting, there could be2:53 raping, killing, stealing because there had no protection. And in those days, walls were a big deal. See, the walls represented the identity of their God. And here's God's own people with no walls, no protection.3:05 And so Nehemiah hears this and it breaks his heart. It would be as if we left Columbus, Georgia and you and I heard that there is no more Cascade Hills Church. There is no more Columbus, Georgia. The places that you have3:17 history with and the places you grew up with and your kids grew up enjoying, there is it's no more. It's torn down and the people are in great distress. And this breaks Nehemiah's heart so bad that he begins to pray. He3:29 begins to fast and pray. He did this for 4 months. He begins to pray about what to do. And when he prays about what to do, God would then lay on his heart for him to do something about it. So he's not a priest. He's not3:40 a prophet. He's not a miracle worker. He's just a volunteer that now God would say, I want you to step up and somehow rebuild the walls of Jerusalem. But here is the problem that Nehemiah finds himself in. God3:52 tells him to do this, But the very king that he works for, King Art Exerts, is the very king that wrote the law. So from the book of Ezra, wrote the law that the walls of4:03 Jerusalem may not be rebuilt until he says Now, in those days, when a king says a certain law, when they say this is the way it's going to be, rarely ever was it reversed. It was irrevocable. So4:15 Nehemiah is in a, between a rock and a hard place because God tells him to rebuild the wall. He's been praying about it, and now he works for the very guy that wrote the law not to rebuild. He's been praying about it,4:20 and now he works for the very guy that wrote the law, not to rebuild the wall. And so he's in a hard spot. And as he begins to pray, he begins to ask God, I imagine, open up an opportunity. Just give me4:32 a moment where I can talk to him. I know he trusts me and God does. And you remember how the story goes that he then asked the king for permission to rebuild the place, the very place that the king said could not be4:44 rebuilt without his permission. And he gets it, guys. He gets permission. Then while he's already there, he goes ahead and he asked again. He says, how about this? I need something else. Not only do I need permission to4:56 rebuild, but I need money to pay for it. I mean, can you imagine the guts this guy has got? Here's the guy who says it will not be rebuilt until I say so. I'm gonna need to rebuild5:08 that place, and I'm gonna need you to pay for it. I mean, wow. Nehemiah is a gutsy guy. And get this, Nehemiah gets both requests granted. You remember what what the word of God says? Because God's good5:20 hand was upon him. The king granted him him these things because he has good hand is upon him. And I don't know what you are facing today. I don't know that what you're facing that seems above your head, above your5:31 ability, above your resources. But when you got God's good hand upon you, you got all you need. And if you are a believer in Christ, I want to tell you something, friend. God's good hand is upon5:43 you. God is for you, not against you. You got everything you need when you know the king. Okay? And so the story goes that he gives permission. And now Nehemiah would take get this 4 months to travel5:54 to Jerusalem. And you thought that ride down to the beach was long. That screaming kid in the back. Now he takes a 4 month journey as we looked at last week. They went around at night, him and a few guys, and they6:06 surveyed the walls, and they inspected them and thought, okay. What material do we need to hear? And who do we need to put there? And how do we rebuild this thing? And that's what we looked at last week, and that's what6:15 we're picking up today. And so as I began to, open my Bible to pray about where to go today, because I'm doing this with you guys. We're walking through this together. I'm not over here in chapter 5 and 6 and trying to6:26 get ahead. I'm right here with you. To hear. I'm we're going through this week by week. And so I was so excited about the big opening weekend6:38 here locally. And I'm like, God. I I mean, we've already talked about the good hand of God being upon them. That was encouraging. I wonder what you got planned for chapter 3. And I opened it up and said, oh, gosh. What6:48 am I gonna preach after chapter 3? You ever open up a chapter in the Bible and it's a bunch of names that you just can't pronounce, and you think why is it there? That's chapter 3. And I'm going, no. No. No. No. God. No.6:58 Oh, I get it. I get it. You want me to skip it and go to chapter 4. Because chapter 4, Lewis. Oh, and Lewis. I got you. You want me to skip it, and and I didn't get that feeling. It's like God didn't speak nothing to me.Gates 1-5: Worship, Evangelism, Truth, Humility, Purity 7:10 I'm like, okay. Well, let me back back up and look at chapter 3. And I began to look at all these confusing names and what they're they're just building the wall. And this guy with a long name built this section. This7:19 guy with a longer name built this section. And this guy with a longer name built this section. And this guy with a longer name built this section. And this guy with a longer name built this section. And this guy with a7:21 longer name And his kids built this section. I'm going, oh my gosh. 1st week back. We're gonna talk about we're just gonna try to pronounce our names. I mean, what we're gonna do? But then I began to study and begin to7:33 get out some old commentary and begin to pray and begin to dust off the old old books. How many of you know there's no school like old school? And I began to look at, chapter 3 and I said, oh my goodness. You could stay7:44 here for 3 months. It is rich. I mean, chapter 3, we could talk about how he rallied all the people around 1 vision and how we, the church, should have 1 vision, how there's a world that's7:55 dying and headed to hell, and they need the church to stand on 1 mission. And the church to say it's the gospel of Jesus Christ that changes the human heart, and that's it. Or we could talk about unity. We could talk8:06 about unity. 15 times it says, and this 1 built next to this 1, and this 1 built next to this this 1 next. I mean, he's got a whole city unified on8:18 1 mission. You imagine what would happen if we, the believers, just had unity. You remember that's the 1 thing that Jesus prayed for. Jesus said, let them be 1. Let them be 1 so they'll believe in the8:30 message that I and the father are 1. What if we could be 1? We could talk about unity and we could talk about what I've said many times before, whether you're tall or small or black or white or white or skinny.8:41 It don't matter. If you're a believer in Christ, we are to be 1. We're brothers and sisters. And if we can't get that right, we need to stop the bus and stay on that. And we could talk about that.8:54 And we when we're talking about unity, I've said it before. If you don't like diversity, if you don't like that, you're gonna hate heaven, Because heaven is very diversified.9:06 Okay? That's what I love about this church. You see everybody. Okay? We could talk about unity, or we could talk about how they all just got all in on what God did. Perfume9:18 makers. No matter their profession, they got all in on God's work. All of them. And that tells us that all of us have got giftings and we all should get in on what God's doing. We should all serve. And if you're not9:28 serving yet, man, find a spot to serve. Or we could talk about how we could how we should serve God. There's a little verse over there, verse 20, where Nehemiah is so neat to me. He picked out 1 guy. He picked out 19:40 guy, and he said, now this guy worked zealously for the He went all out. He picked he went overtime. He picked up other people's jobs, stuff they wouldn't do and he said, I'll do it. Reminds me of, 1 of the9:51 parking lot volunteers that we lost just a little over a week ago. His name is Mark. If I showed you his picture, you probably you probably been guided in by him multiple times. And it reminded me of Mark when he said10:02 they zealously work because Mark would work anything we needed around here. You need windows washing, Mark's here. You need you need box lunches delivered to the hungry, Mark's here. Mark, he's all Mark's zealous.10:14 Mark's all in. And I learned Mark's story just 2 weeks ago. I didn't know Mark for years and years and years. He worked on and I stopped. I said, you you are always here. Tell me your story. And he began to tell me a10:24 story of how he moved here from California to take care of family and how he found God here and how he said, you know, if I if if God saved me, I'll serve wherever he wants me to serve. I'll I'll do whenever you call,10:36 I'm dropping what I'm doing and I'm coming to to help. And we could talk about people like Mark, and we could talk about you and so many of you that have worked zealously over the years. There's some we could talk about10:46 organizational leadership. I mean, we could talk about all this stuff. But when I began to pray about where God wanted me to lead, I found an old Jerry Vines, some material from Doctor. Vines. So these are his points.10:57 And boy, did it open up my eyes to some things in here. There's 10 gates in this chapter. And behind all the confusing names and who did what, 10 different times it says they built11:09 or rebuilt these gates. They built or rebuilt. They built or rebuilt. And I began to dive into that and pray about that and God began to speak. And I began to see some things I've never11:21 seen before. How many of you know what a gate is for? You know that. Right? A gate is to to keep you protected. A gate is used to keep the wrong things from coming within. A gate is used to protect something within from11:32 something without. Right? I mean, I've got a gate at my home because my son is off he's on the autism spectrum. He he's everywhere. I mean, he's just like a ping pong. I mean, he's just everywhere. I don't want a UPS11:43 coming guy coming in and flying down the driveway and running my son, so I protect it. Okay? A gate is meant to protect us. But do you know this, that if you don't guard your gate, your gate can't guard11:55 you. If you don't guard your gate, your gate can't guard you. There are some gates in our life that we must guard. I think we can all agree during this difficult season that many of us have let down our guard12:07 on multiple gates in our life, like our marriage. How many of you have seen multiple people file for divorce during this season? More than I've ever seen in my lifetime. That gate wasn't guarded as as well, was it? How12:18 many of you have seen people that, their finances are now falling apart because during this time, I had 1 friend of mine said, I'm in a mess. I said, what happened? So I'll tell you what it was, is that 1st 9 weeks of12:29 quarantine or whatever it was, I've just I just I had nothing to do but look on the Internet. And so Amazon was always there, and Amazon always had what I needed. And it was just a click away. And it'd be here in 2 days.12:40 So I just click, click, click, click, click, and I am in a mess. They guard us finances. Some of us didn't guard our health. I didn't. How many of you gained the quarantine 15? I did. Don't be ashamed. I've I gained all12:52 of it. On week 9, I went they showed up my house to film. I tried on 9 shirts and none of them would fit. So I ain't wearing no button up no more. It won't button.13:04 I mean, 1 of them was squealing. I went to button. It was, no. I said, okay. And so my wife said, we got to guard our hell. If we're gonna be in the house and they're coming over doing film crew, let's go start working13:15 out. So we lost all this weight and did all this. The most important thing we can guard though is not our finances, our health or even other stuff. It's our spiritual lives. It's our spiritual life.13:27 And these gates, all 10 of them, represent something spiritual. And they have spiritual application to them. And we must guard these gates with everything that we have. So some of us are here13:39 in a season where we are rebuilding our spiritual life. Maybe the church doors being closed has been very difficult for you. And some of us are here for the 1st time and they're hurting and they're broken or they're13:49 logged in online and you're saying, I want to build that part of my life. I've never had anything to do with God, but I want to build it. So we're here to build or rebuild. Today, we're going to go just real quickly14:01 through 10 all 10 of these gates. I can see it on some of your faces. Oh, man. Joe, it used to be a 3 point preacher. Come back. He's got 10 points. Don't talk to me. You know you watch 176 seasons on Netflix.14:14 Don't talk to me about know some 10 points. You you ended it and said, you have watched 176 episodes. Oh my gosh. They were in my last 6 months. Right? God's gonna ask me, well, how do you spend my time? Well, I know14:26 176 seasons was a a long way. So 10 points. Let's go through them quickly. I can talk fastly if you can listen fastly. The 1st thing that he goes to rebuild is rebuilding his walls as we see the 1st gate he mentioned is14:37 called the sheep gate. The sheep gate says they rose and built the sheep gate. Now what does that represent? The sheep gate was where the priest would come in and they would bring the animals through to be sacrificed. So14:49 before Jesus, the blood of Jesus, remember they would use the blood of bulls and goats and sheep to atone for sin. And so this is the gate that they entered from. Notice here that Nehemiah mentions that 1st.Gates 6-10: Spirit, Word, War, Return, Judgment 15:01 We ought to put worship 1st. Should we? We ought to put God 1st. It doesn't matter the strength of the outside of the gate if the inner man is broken down and is falling apart. There's a lot of people's lives that are15:13 falling apart and they're looking for external things. It must be this. It must be that. Must no. It's an internal issue. We must guard the gate. We must put God 1st in everything we do. Remember God says, to love the15:24 Lord God with all your heart, with all your mind, with all your soul. Sometimes even myself, the the hardest thing of about being 1 of the hardest things about being a preacher is you you have to separate your quiet15:36 time, your time with God, your time from study. It's very difficult, because, you know, your mind is on it. I know I gotta get ready, but then you want it. And sometimes, like, combine them and it's great. But my wife15:46 can tell me when I have a lackluster quiet time. I'll be a little little rude. I'll be a little edgy. It's just so you you didn't spend time in prayer, did you? You you need to go pray. That stings a little bit when she15:57 says it, but she's right. And so we ought to put God 1st in everything that we do. And that's a reminder for us. The sheep gate, it represents sacrifice. How many of you know that God sacrificed his son to have16:09 a relationship with you? That your quiet time and your time with God is not just an agenda to be checked off. It's a relationship to be enjoyed. It's holy God, the father is and a loving father16:21 wants to spend time with you as if you are the only individual in the world. That's how much he loves you. Enjoy that time. Put him 1st. What I find fascinating16:33 is you remember when Jesus came? He came and he rebuilt the sacrificial system. Remember that? He said no more blood of bulls and goats, but now I'll lay down my life and it'll be my blood that atones for your sin.16:44 Isn't that beautiful? If you're watching today or you're here today and maybe you've tried to search for, fulfillment in every other area of your life. You've tried to search for an alcohol or drugs or relationship, and16:55 you found that I'm just empty. I'm empty. I'm empty. I've tried it all, and I'm just empty. Try Jesus. Try putting Jesus 1st. If you're here and you said, I've you don't know what I've done. I've done some horrible17:07 things. I can't even forgive myself. I wanna tell you that God loves you and can forgive you. Come to the feet of Jesus. Put him 1st. That's everything you're looking for is found in him. Put him 1st in your life. You17:18 remember what Jesus says over in John 10 9? Gates? I am the gate. Those who come in through me will be saved. Now, the17:30 2nd gate that we see him come to is what's called the fish gate. I'll looked at this as a guy, what what what what we're gonna talk about here? The fish gate? What what do you want me to tell him? Guard your tackle? I17:41 mean, my my nephew steal my bass fishing stuff all the time. I don't I don't really know what you want me to tell. Guard the gate of your ultimate calling. You know what your ultimate calling is. Don't you? You know what17:52 Jesus called fishermen. You remember that? And this was this gate was where all the fishermen would bring in the fish to be sold in the markets. They would come from the Mediterranean Sea or the Sea of Galilee. 1 time,18:02 by the way, Jesus was on the Sea of Galilee and he saw 2 fishermen, Peter and Andrew, and they were fishing. And here's what Jesus said to them. Jesus says, listen. He said, follow me and I'll make you fishers of men.18:14 He said, follow me and I'll give you something greater to fish for. Guard the gates of your ultimate calling, which is to fish for men. And I don't mean on farmers only dot com. You will find a man, but that's not18:26 your ultimate calling. I mean, fishing for souls. God has put lost people in your life, lost people in your family, And your ultimate calling as a believer in Christ is to18:38 somehow get the message of Jesus to them. Maybe it's by you sharing your story and how God has changed your life into them. Maybe it's about inviting them to church. Maybe it's about sharing this link. Your ultimate18:49 calling is to make other followers of Jesus. And in a world where there's so much to do as a Christian and as a believer, there's a lot of good things to do. But the 1 thing that God calls us to do is to share the19:01 gospel of Jesus Christ. And there's a world now more than ever that needs it. Okay? And so we ought to guard the gates of our calling. We ought to go and pursue pursue19:13 sharing the gospel with everything we got. We ought to be fishers of men. My wife, she reminded me of this the other day. She Jesus juked me. You ever been Jesus juked? You know what a juke is. Right? A lot of y'all19:24 watch college footballers. Juke is a fake out. It's like you think you're going this way and you juke them. Okay? And and and see Jesus juked me. I'm an introvert. I don't really I gotta be around people all the time.19:34 Anybody else introverts in here? Introverts here's here's how I know you're introverts. Everybody that just said they're introvert did this. You don't even want you don't even wanna I'm introvert. You know know what I19:44 mean? You don't even want if I were to said the other, they would have said like this. You know what I mean? Introverts like, I don't wanna be I love people. Call to reach people, but I don't get energy from and I'm19:55 around people all the time. So when I go on vacation, I don't want to see no people. I love you, but just not on vacation. I wanna go by a pool. I wanna read a book. I wanna get away from people for just 120:06 quick moment. And my wife is the opposite. She's like a social butterfly. She gets energy from people. So So we always struggle when we're doing these vacations. She, she planned a vacation. She said, I got this vacation20:18 book, and she's always wanted to do this. She said, I'm so excited about it. So before you say anything, I've never done this where I'm excited about this. We're going to a bed and breakfast.20:30 I'm like, I said, you mean like with other people. Yes. And you're gonna love it. They cook you breakfast, and they got this big table, and y'all come down there at the same time you eat. Then you20:42 look at this picture. She pulls it up on us. This is the look at the view. And the view was perfect. But look at the view. Look, you get to roast marshmallows with other people at night. And I look at these people, and20:54 there's no offense. You know, we all gonna age 1 day. They had to be 90 plus. I'm the and 1 of them is like an oxygen tank and he's on the in this wheelchair and there's nothing wrong with that. I get it. I've had21:05 relatives like it. It's I'm just saying somebody needs to watch him. You're putting, like, this guy by a fire? And like if only 1 slip put a rock up under the wheel or something. I'm like, you're gonna hurt this guy? And21:15 my wife says, we, we could make friends. And I'm like, I'm not even sure I want the friends that I got. You know what I mean? And and and so I'm trying to stay excited about21:27 it, but then she she could tell that I wasn't excited about it, but she said, Brent, they may not know Jesus. She she juked me. That's my ultimate calling. I mean, you know, what21:38 am I gonna say to that? I said, alright. Well, you're right. Some of them do look like they're about to meet him any day, so I guess we'll go. And so see, Jesus me. But she's right. Is it what what she's21:50 right about is our ultimate calling guys, is to reach other people. And so that that's what the fish gate represents. The garden gate of your ultimate calling. Now the 3rd gate he comes to is called the old gate. The old22:02 gate. The old gate. He repaired the old gate. Remember Jeremiah 16 6 or 6 16 says this, thus says the Lord, stand in the ways and see and ask for the old22:14 past where the good way is and walk in it. There you'll find rest for your souls. But they said, we will not walk in it. The old way. What's he represented by that? It means the good old gospel.22:26 Your good old Bible walking those ways. You know, I get criticism sometimes, from people my age And they'll say, Brent, we like your preaching well. We like your we like, you know, we like coming to22:38 church because you make you make us understand the Bible real good. You tell your stories. We like your humor. We like your shoes. Every week we show up and say, which kind of shoes he's wearing this week? But the only22:46 thing is, you're a little old school. Have you ever thought about just just changing something because you're a little old school? I mean, like like your view on sex before marriage or your your view on, you know,22:58 marriage between man and woman or your view on abortion? You're a little old school. Yep. Sure am. I'm old school and no school like old school. I'm as old school as this Bible right23:10 here. And I'm as relevant as tomorrow. Because the word of God says this heaven and earth will pass, but my words will not pass away. So I'm old school. You got it right. And we ought to stay by the23:22 good old book. We ought to keep the values by the good old gospel. And we ought not to add to the good old gospel. You ever met these religious people? They think somehow you got to work to keep23:34 your salvation? You got you got to do this. You got to do and it makes you feel like less than, don't it? Like you feel some people that I'm around, I'm like, man, am I saved? Because I mean, they they just they make you23:44 think you got to do all this. Be careful about adding to the word of God. You remember we were warned about this in 2nd Corinthians chapter 11 through 3. It says, but I fear less somehow as the serpent deceived Eve23:56 by his craftiness. So your minds may be corrupted from the simplicity that is in Christ. See, it's Jesus and Jesus alone that says, we ain't that good.24:08 We couldn't earn our salvation, so you know we can't keep it. The only way 1 that can keep it is Jesus. Jesus, by the blood of Christ, by his grace, that we keep our salvation. And so guard24:20 the good old ways. We ought to be a people that keep that keep that good old message of the gospel because the gospel still saves. Now the 4th gate that we see is we see this the valley gate. You know, what a24:32 valley is. You got mountains and then you got valleys. This reminds us of the importance of humility before God. 1st Peter 5 6 says says this, therefore, humble yourself under the mighty hand of God that he may exalt you24:44 in due time. You know, I've always said it this way. I'd rather humble myself than God humble me. That's 1 prayer that I'm scared to pray. God, would you humble me? I don't know if I wanna pray that prayer. I don't know24:54 if I wanna be humbled by God. You know? That that doesn't sound I think I'll humble myself. You know what I mean? God exalts those who are humble and he opposes the proud. Did you know that if you're a25:06 new believer, you know that the, Satan, he was actually the chief musician, in in the choir in heaven. Did you know that? That he was beautiful. That he was wonderful in all his ways until25:18 pride came to his life. And he says, I will make myself like God. I will ascend above the clouds. I will. I will. I will. You know, Jesus never said that. He said, your will. Not my will,25:31 but your will be done. Watch for pride in your life. Stay humble. The 5th gate is verse 14 that we come to is called the dung gate. Now what do you think that stands for? The dung25:43 gate. This stands for the garbage in our life that needs to be put out. You know, they would take out the garbage and burn it. They go through these gates and they burn it outside of the city. This reminds us and they25:54 would have to do this multiple times a day. I actually got the garbage 3 times just yesterday. My kid is a a mess. 3 times just we ought to be taking spiritually we ought to be taking out the dung out of our life all theShow more In this video 0:00 Chapter 3: Rich Lessons in Names and Unity7:00 Gates 1-5: Worship, Evangelism, Truth, Humility, Purity15:00 Gates 6-10: Spirit, Word, War, Return, Judgment26:00 Gospel Call and Salvation Prayer42:00 Gospel Call and Salvation Prayer
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