Skip to content Episode 9 | Nehemiah: 5 Old School Spiritual Standards That We Must Set if we Are Going to Follow God in a World that Doesn't Aug 24 · 37 min ...more
Episode 9 | Nehemiah: 5 Old School Spiritual Standards That We Must Set if we Are Going to Follow God in a World that Doesn't
August 24, 2026 · 37 min
Series Nehemiah August 24, 2026 · 37 min · Nehemiah
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Nehemiah's Recap and Leadership Challenge 0:00 So I wanna catch you up. We've been going through a series the last few weeks about Nehemiah. And Nehemiah is a leader of all leaders. Nehemiah is a guy who led through extremely difficult seasons.0:12 Nehemiah is a guy who led through a much much more difficult season than 20 20, if you can believe that. Truly, he did. It was way worse. And he came out the other side successful. So we've been taking his journal, which0:23 is found in our our Bibles, and we've been allowing it to speak to us on how we can lead to this very, very difficult season. So Nehemiah is the cup bearer to the king of Persia. What that0:35 means is he would test his food and make sure there was no poison in the food. So he's the most trusted guy. And if the food was good and had no poison in it, then he could pass through the king. And 1 day in the life of0:46 Nehemiah, everything's going great and fantastic. And he never thought he would, you know, work his way up to where he's at, but he sees 1 of his brothers from Jerusalem come in. And he goes to catch up with him for old0:56 time's sake. And he begins to ask him about how things were back home. And what he finds out breaks his heart because his brother, Hannah, and I there says, listen. Maybe you've been living up under a rock, but,1:09 the Jerusalem that you know, the Jerusalem that your fathers told you about is no longer there. I mean, the walls are all torn down. There's no officers that can protect the city. The gates are burned with fire. The1:20 people are in great distress. It's a bad, bad situation. And this broke Nehemiah's heart as would you. You know, if this if you heard and moved off and you heard Cassette Hills is no longer here and the places you had1:31 memories are no longer here. And Nehemiah immediately went into prayer and fasting, and he prayed for 4 months about what to do. And God would lay it on his heart to be the 1 to go back and rebuild the walls. It's1:43 kinda funny though because Nehemiah is not a construction worker. He's not a miracle worker. He's not a priest. He's not a prophet. He's just a layman that, that they saw a problem and it broke his heart and God would1:52 take it and use him. And so here's where he finds himself in the next predicament. God would tell him to rebuild the walls, but the problem was his boss was the very guy that wrote the laws, that the walls of Jerusalem2:04 could not be rebuilt until he wrote the law and wrote the rules and the gives a permission for them to rebuild them. And so now you see where he's between a rock and a hard place. I mean, God tells him to do it. But the2:15 king in charge, is basically said no 1 can do it till I say so. But how many of you know that sometimes the people that we feel are in charge are really not in charge? How many of you know that the king of2:27 kings is the ruler of the rulers that we see? And so I believe as he began to pray that God began to shape the king of Persia's heart and turn his heart and open his heart as God often does with our leaders.2:39 And when he did this, Nehemiah approached him and says, I wanna ask for permission to go and rebuild the walls. And believe it or not, he gave him permission. It changed the law. Then he gave him a blank checkbook and2:50 said, here's my checkbook. Go fix it. And so, Nehemiah takes off, and he gets to draw a story. And he finds out it's worse than even Hannah and I said. I mean, it's in a mess that people are in great distress.3:04 Figures out what all he needs. And he cast the vision of what could be and what should be. And they all buy on board, and they're excited. And they're they're fired up about this new life that they could have. And they3:13 begin to build, and they get to the halfway point. And when they get to the halfway point, as we looked at, they started getting criticism and opposition, and they started getting threats from the outside, but they press3:22 through and they press through and they press through. And where we find ourselves today is the wall is completed. I mean, it's done. It's over. I mean, after all, isn't this a story, that you heard of3:34 Sunday school growing up and it's it's all about a wall. Right? But if we've been looking at this whole time, this is a story not just about a wall. Because if it was, we would have all closed the book3:46 and ended the story. This is a story much greater than that. This is a story about God building a leader in Nehemiah and God building a leader in you, who would then build a group of people in Nehemiah's days3:58 and in your days, your family, your work culture, whatever that may be, who would rebuild a culture, who would follow God in a world that didn't. That's the overview of this book. That is a call I believe right now of us4:10 Christians, us Christ followers, build us into a leader that shapes the people up under our influence, that changes the culture to follow God in a world that, quite frankly, clearly4:22 doesn't. Right? We ought to live in a way so much so that the people on the outside of our walls look in and say, what is it about them? And I want I'm intrigued. I wanna know how they are different. And that is what God4:33 is calling us to do, I believe, during this season. And now Nehemiah is facing his greatest challenge yet. The the challenge of building the wall, yeah, that that was rough. And now he's gotta build a group of people.4:45 I mean, he's gotta build a strong group of people. And and those of you in leadership positions know that the the hardest thing possibly about your job or at least it is mine, is not just speaking on the weekends and4:56 this and that. It's to building the team. It's building the people. It's building the leaders. And now Nehemiah is gonna set out to build a group of people that follow God in the world that does it. How does he do5:07 it? I mean, how is he gonna build a group of people so strong that the people on the outside say I wanna be like them. How does he do it? He goes old school. He he sets some old school principles,5:19 spiritual standards that they ought to live and die by. Just some good old old school spiritual standards that they ought to live by. And for many people, just like the Fleetwood Mac deal or like the songs today, for5:30 most of these people, this was new. They had never heard these basic spiritual standards that they ought to live by. They never heard them because the walls have been broke down for 100 years. They just got back from5:42 captivity. They had never heard. But they were not new at all. They were old school spiritual principles that they ought to live by. Some standards. Now, you obviously know what standards are. Right? You know,5:54 a standard is not a want. Like, you know, we all want things. I want to lose 5 pounds. I want more money in my, you know, my bank account. I want this. I want that. Standards are different than wants. Standards are must.6:05 I must have this. I feel I have to have this in order to survive, in order for things to be at peace. We all have standards and all of our standards are different. In your life, in every area of your life is a6:17 reflection, my friend, of your standards. Okay? I can prove it to you. Your some people are highly into fitness. And for you, your standard is if I don't work out 5 days a week, that's mine. Because I don't know why it6:29 is. It's number 5. Sometimes I get 6. Sometimes I get 7. But if I don't work out 5 times a week, I'm agitated. I feel like I'm I'm I'm not I'm unfit. I didn't meet my goals. That's my standard. For some of you, it may be6:40 once a month. And you may feel like, bro, I went for a walk and I feel good. That's your standard. Or for for some of you, did you know that even in the area of finances,6:52 that we all have a standard. We all have what we must have in order to survive. I can prove it. And everybody's everybody's number is different. There is a number. There's a number that when your account hits that7:03 number, you completely freak out. True? And that number for some people may be 5 bucks. The number for some people may be 1000 bucks. Number for some of you may be negative. You may be like, yeah. That yeah. When I7:15 bounce when it starts bouncing, I freak out. No. There's a number. There's a standard. And we are reflections. And every area of our life is a reflection of our standards. For some of you coming to church once a week,7:25 through as your tech, you're good. That's your standard. For some of you, if you don't get along with God every day, you you feel disconnected from him. We are a reflection of our standards. And now Nehemiah is gonna say7:35 the most important thing, the most important standard that you set is the spiritual standards. And he's gonna go old school and he's gonna give us 5 spiritual standards that we must live by if we're gonna live in a world7:47 and and and hopefully hopefully entice the world to follow God in a world that clearly doesn't. Okay? And he gives us these and they're over found in verse 1 through 3 in chapter 7. Let's read it. It says, now when the7:59 wall was rebuilt, I'd install the doors and the gatekeepers and the singers and the Levites were appointed. Then I put Hananiah, my brother, and Hananiah, the commander of the Citadel in charge of Jerusalem. You see what8:09 he's doing? He's passing the leadership now. And, then he said to them he said the gates of Jerusalem are not open until sun is hot. And while we're standing guards and the gatekeepers are there to to make sure the doors8:20 are shut and bolted, here's what he's doing here. Most cities would open, the gates at daybreak. He's saying, I don't wanna do that. I wanna make sure the sun is shining, that it's hot. I want bolts on the door. I wanna8:31 make sure I know who's coming in. And then he said, also appoint guards from the inhabitants of Jerusalem at each post and in front of their own homes. You see what he does there? He says, put them in their own homes to8:42 guard their own backyards and they'll they'll guard it more carefully than they would someone else's. So notice the 1st thing he does. He goes on and on about these gates and the the bolts and the bars and make sure the8:51 sun is up. Why is he doing that? He's doing that because if he's gonna rebuild a culture to follow God and the world that doesn't, he knows that he must be very, very, very careful whoStandards 1-3: Gatekeeper, Worship, God's Word 9:03 he allows in the walls. Because who he allows in there can change the entire culture. And I wanna tell you, my friend, it's the same principle for you. Who you allow in your life, what you allow in your life can9:15 change the course of your life. Number 1, what we ought to do is we ought to be a gatekeeper. We ought to set the standard in our life to be a gatekeeper. Now Brent, what does that mean? I don't even have I'm talking9:26 about the gates of your life. Let me give you a few ways that you can be a gatekeeper. 1st off, you gotta guard your soul, don't you? You gotta guard your soul. You know, we in America, we are so obsessed with fitness9:37 and our bodies and this and and and I get it. Are we? I mean, we're all organic. I mean, we got plastic surgeons for everything. I'm not against that. I got great friends that are plastic surgeons. If the bar needs9:49 painting, paint it. You know what I mean? I'm gonna fight age with everything I got. Alright? I'm not talking but I'm talking about we're pretty obsessed with our fitness. We're pretty obsessed with a body that is10:00 dying the day we're born. I mean, the day we're born, we begin to die. You ever thought about that? Guard your soul. How's the health of your soul? That's the big question. How what do you feed your10:12 soul? How often are you feeding your soul? How often are you getting the word of God and prayer? How healthy is your soul? Because your soul is gonna live on forever. Now if you're unchurched and you're watching this or10:23 you're here today, you're off the hook my friend. But I do wanna I do wanna give you something to think about. The thing that you're so obsessed with that you're putting so much money and time in and effort in, how's10:33 that going to be in 100 years from now? But someone's soul today, if you're unchurched, is gonna live somewhere for eternity. Where is your soul gonna be? We're gonna come to that at the end of this.10:45 I wanna I wanna help you. But that should be the biggest question in your life. So be a gatekeeper. Guard your soul. Also, you can be a gatekeeper by guarding your thoughts. Philippians 4 8 says this, whatever is true,10:55 whatever is honorable, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is worthy of praise, dwell on these things. He's saying, think about these things. Guard your thoughts. I've heard it said this11:07 way, every day we ought to wake up and stand guard at the gates of our mind. Isn't that true? I often have to remind myself of that and here's why. Your life goes in the direction of your thoughts.11:19 Your life goes in the direction of your thought. When the enemy wants to attack you, guess where he's gonna attack you? The battleground is in your mind, is in between your ears. What you focus on becomes your reality.11:29 Guard your thoughts. Someone the other day was telling me, Brent, I'm seeing what all is going on in America. So down. I'm so depressed. What if this happens? And what if this happens? And when this happens and this11:39 person gets selected and this is happening. And they start going on this whole whole deal. I said, let me help you. Your reaction to what is happening is an indication of your level of faith. Matter of fact, your11:51 reaction to what's happening, and how you respond shows who you're dependent on. See, I yeah. I've got strong opinions about who I think, you know, would be the right person to lead in this. Hey. And12:03 you you got strong opinions too. Strong people have strong opinions. Right? And and I try my best to to to filter to the lens of, scripture. We got strong opinions, but I wanna make it very,12:14 very clear. My allegiance, though I I feel I feel we should vote, I feel that we've got a military that oh, I'm so glad to see so many of you home. We've got a military that fights for our country.12:27 We ought we ought to do this. But I also know this. My ultimate allegiance is not to a political party. My ultimate dependency is not, you know, to who sits in the White House.12:39 My who I'm dependent on is Jesus, who who my ultimate person that provides for me, who who provides for me is Jesus. Okay? Who12:51 who gives my joy is Jesus. And so I'm telling this guy, I'm like, look, you're you gotta guard your thoughts. Don't let your thoughts take you to a place you might not even have to go.13:06 Have to. And I told this guy, I said, bro, you're already as if it's already happened. So you might as well, you know, might as well happen because you're already Isn't that true? Guard your thoughts. Now how we can be a13:18 gatekeeper as well is we need to guard our associations. 1st Corinthians 13 33 shows us bad company corrupts good morals. Nehemiah spends an awful lot of time saying wait till the sun's up. Wait till you can see them13:29 before you let them in your life, keep the the gates closed. You know, we ought to be very careful who we allow in our life. I read this the other day, a quote from Jen Rome that says, you are the sum average of the13:41 5 people you're closest to. You're the sum average of the 5 people you're closest to. Here's the truth. We all think we're the best of the people we hang out with, don't we? We all think I'm I'm good thing they've got13:53 me. I'm making them better. You're the average of the 5 people you're closest to. Welcome to Haskett Hills. You're average. Do you like14:05 your average, or do you need to change some things? Right? I heard this, people rise or fall to the level of expectations14:18 you. We've all had a friend in in in high school that it was so fun to hang out with, but they took our life off course. I've had them too. They were so but they were so fun, but they they lowered our our our level of14:29 living and our standards. Then we've had people to the opposite that lifted us up, brought something out of us that we didn't even know we could accomplish. We rise or fall to the expectations of those closest to us.14:41 Guard your associations. My mother and father 1 time, I just learned to they they bought an entire house to guard our associations. I didn't know this. We lived at the river for like 11 or 13 years,14:53 something like that. I had no clue that they bought jet skis and boats and all this to make our house like the party house. So secretly, they could spy on who we're hanging out with. I'm like, either this is really15:04 messed up or really caring. But they did that so that we would and and later I said, you know, why do we move? And they're like, well, y'all y'all got married and moved out and, you know, we never really loved the river15:14 anyways. So it was just really for y'all to we want to see who y'all hanging out with because we knew that who you hang out with is who you become. And, I'm thinking, dang, man.15:26 These are good parents. They're gonna buy a house. It's amazing how to hang out with right people. I'm over here I'm over here complaining about the Amazon list that my my my wife sent me for Christmas for my daughter15:36 and if you were buying a house. You know what I mean? But guard your associations. That's what Nehemiah teaches us. He teaches us to be a gatekeeper. Verse 1. We're still gonna hang out here. He says, next, he appoints15:45 the singers. You know what Nehemiah does? 18 times in the book of Nehemiah, he talks about reference to worship. Nehemiah now sets the 2nd standard. And this is an old school standard. The standard of worship. The15:57 standard of worship. He makes worship a priority. He makes sure that there are singers there that's gonna lead them in constant worship. We ought to find ways throughout the day to worship. Worship is not just singing,16:08 by the way. If it was, some of you would never worship. I've heard you sing. Some of you that is not worship at all, but you try. It's not just singing. Worship16:20 is this. Remember Rick Warren, we learned of the purpose driven life. Rick Warren taught us that, and if you don't get anything out of the sermon, get this. God created you to love you. Wow. Like mind16:31 blown. Created this world, the trees, the sunset that we see, and put you in it. God created you to love you. And until you understand that, by the way, you'll life will never make sense.16:43 But when we express love back to God in any way, that's called worship. It can be done in nature. I I worship in in in nature. And what I I feel closer connected to God. I can I can16:55 pray without distractions? I like to, I like to be outside. I've just yesterday on on my Instagram, I took a picture of a bird. I'm a bird nerd. I like birds. Random17:07 fact. He's, like, eating, like, a seed or something fell on my deck, and he see and and Carrie's, like, why you been that bird on Instagram? Ain't nobody care about your bird? And I'm, like, well, I was it was17:19 cool because I've sitting here seeing this bird and I'm like, man, even I remind me of Matthew 6, you know, where it says do not worry about a thing. You know, the birds don't sow or sow nor reap.17:31 Yet, you know, your heavenly father cares for them and takes care of them. How are you not worth more than the bird? Like, I love you more than a bird. And I'm like, dang. You know, God done took care of all these bird17:39 and he loves me and has taken care of me. And she's like, yeah, Brent. But, here's the thing, nobody knew that you were thinking that. They just see a random bird on your page. And they think you're you're drunk or you'd17:51 have the most communion. And I've come, like, no. I was just worshiping. Why are you making fun of me for worshiping? You know? But you can worship all there. You can go for a walk. You can see your kids outside playing,18:03 and you say, God, thank you for them. God, thank you. See, worship is when we express love back to them. And now Nehemiah sets his standard for worship. My mother did this. Do you ever have, like, your mom do something18:13 or your dad say something, they don't even remember what they say, but you it's like burned in your mind. My mom did this 1 time. My older brother, because we're a preacher's kid. Every Sunday, we gotta be there all18:21 through service. My brother said, we gotta go to church today. And my mom, you know, my mom's the holy 1. My dad, everybody thinks he's holy. It's really my mom. My mom turned around and said, BJ, is this Sunday? Yeah.18:32 Well, every Sunday, as long as you're living up on this roof, we will be in church. Don't ever ask that question again. She was setting the standard for worship, and it went down generations. It went down to my son. Now18:43 my son, you know, he's on the autism spectrum and he has the same thing, and then we told him, look, forever we're gonna be in in church. That's our standard. And we gotta be careful what we let him listen to, by the18:52 way, because stuff just comes out at certain times. We were listening to that Kanye West that closed on Sunday. And so and he pulls up Chick fil A last the other night with the baby sitters. And he rolls the window down19:03 to the Chick fil A attendant, and he said, closed on Sunday. You're my Chick fil A. Follow Jesus. Listen and obey. And I'm like, roll up. Wait. No. I'm gonna you're gonna think we're crazy. You19:15 know? But we're we're we're we're teaching them. Hey. We worship in this house. God is a priority in this house. And all of us can worship, by the way. If you can worry, you can worship. You know, worry is when we, get19:27 so consumed with something that we cannot control that we begin to think about it till we're actually, you know, all of our thoughts and all of our word. But if you were to take worship I mean, worry and turn turn it19:36 outward, just reverse it, turn it inside out. It's it's worship, isn't it? When you say worship, it's when you put focus all your attention to a God who is in control when things look like they're out of control. And19:46 you're getting to praise them, for that. And so all of us can worship. Now the next thing we see in the verse 1 is Look, we're still in verse 1. There's like 73 verses. It's gonna be a long19:58 day. Some of you are like, dang it. Why did I come to church today? I'm kidding. We ain't gonna do all that. But it says, the Levites were appointed. This the 3rd standard that he sets is old school standards, a standard20:09 of living by God's word, doesn't it? Remember there was 12 tribes and the priest came from the tribe of Levi. And over the years, the Jews were scattered. 100, you know, hundred years, the walls were down. Some of them20:19 were in captivity. And so now he's bringing it back and saying, guys, guys, guys, guys, if we're going to rebuild this culture, if we're gonna follow God in a in a world that doesn't, if we're gonna be an example, we20:29 must live by God's word. That is very relevant for us believers today. Isn't it? I cannot stress to you enough how important it is to every day read your Bible. That's how God speaks.20:41 Many times we wonder what I do about this situation? What I do get in God's word. You know, we do we we think that God communicates like we communicate. So we think, god, what do I do about this office problem, or do I20:52 date her, or do I not, do I hang out in this room? God, what do I do? Please speak to me. And my tell is that me talking to myself,21:04 Or is it you? Or the bad burrito? And we're like listening instead of we spend so much time, like, listening for a voice instead of looking for a verse. God speaks through his21:16 word. And we ought to get in his word. We ought to have a hunger for his word. We ought to pray for an appetite for his word. In America, I've always said it this way. We don't lack access to the word of God. We have21:26 Bibles everywhere, on coffee tables everywhere. We don't like access. We lack an appetite for the word of God. How are we gonna know the will of God for our life if we're not in the word of God? Adrian Rogers says it21:36 this way, and we wanna bring our Bible down to match our lives instead of bring our lives up to match our Bibles. Right? And now he's setting the standard of living by God's word. You know what he's really doing? He's21:46 shaping their world view. You know that all of us in here have a world view. You know what your world view is. Right? Your world view is the things that you know to be true, whereby you evaluate those things that claim21:56 to be true. That is your worldview. We ought to have a worldview that looks through the lens of scripture. We ought to not do the dip and skip method. Okay? We ought to take all of his word and say I'm gonna22:08 live and my worldview is gonna be based on his word. Not how I feel, not what culture says a right or wrong, but what does the Bible say? But you know what we do? We we do the dip and skip. We say, I'll take that. I like22:20 that, but I don't like that. I like this 1. Like it's a salad bar. Couture. But I like carrots. You know, we gotta take22:31 the whole thing, and we gotta say this is my world. Whether I like it or whether or not, whether I'm tempted by this sin or whether or not, I'm gonna do my best to live with this world view. If it says it in this book,22:42 I'm gonna live by it. And that is what now Nehemiah is doing because he's saying you cannot change a world. You cannot influence a world to follow God if you yourself doesn't doesn't live by God's word. And so he sets22:53 this. Now the next thing that he does is look at verse 2. It says, then I put my I put Hannah and I, my brother, and Hannah and I, my the commander of the citadel in charge of Jerusalem. So he makes them leaders. For23:04 he's a faithful man. He feared God more than many. 4th standard that he does, he sets a standard for leading. He sets a standard for leading. Now I know what you're you're thinking. Wow. I'm not a leader. I don't really23:14 lead a lot of book read read leadership books or podcast. Let me help you with this. You are a leader. Leadership, according to John Maxwell, is influence. It's just influence. Nothing more, nothing23:26 less. Everyone in here influences someone. And now Nehemiah is gonna give just some simple standards to leadership. He names Hananiah the 1st 1. You remember Hananiah? Hananiah was the 1st 1 Hananiah is the 1 that calls23:38 all this catalyst, all this change. Remember he was the leader that came to to Nehemiah and said, hey, it's bad. Let me tell you how bad. Leaders see problems that other people don't see as problems. For 100 years,23:50 people thought, well, it's not a big deal. To Hananiah, he said, oh, it's bad. It's real bad. He's a leader. He sees the problem. Now the next thing that we see is he tells us what Hananiah, the other guy, he he saysStandards 4-6: Leadership, God's Voice, Giving 24:00 he's a faithful man and he feared God. Leaders are what we want to imitate, what we want to be like. What if these were just the 2 qualities that God is asking you to do to lead those under your influence?24:12 He said he was a faithful guy and a person that feared God. You know, the with the word faithful in the bible, it doesn't always just not a religious terminology. It just means something, someone who is dependable.24:23 Someone who is dependable. Are you dependable to the people that are under you? Can people depend on you? That means? That24:35 means in awe and reverence, that we put his word on a high standards and we say, I wanna I fear breaking his commandments. It also means that we have a healthy, you know, absolute fear of God. Matthew 10 2824:47 says, do not be afraid of those who can kill the body, but, cannot touch your soul. For fear only God, for he can destroy both the soul and body in hell. We ought to we ought to fear God and24:58 not man. God is looking for leaders and peoples to say, I don't care what the world does. I fear God and I wanna live according to his word. Proverbs 9 10 says, the fear of the Lord this25:10 is interesting. The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. Meaning, when we read God's word and we we fear not doing it like we should, that's the very beginning of wisdom and knowledge of the holy 1 is25:21 understanding. And I thought about this the other day and thought this, you know, perhaps we are less than wise and faithful generation of believers because we're less fearful of God. Just something that you want. Now25:32 the 5th and the standard that he gives is the old school standard of listening to God's voice above man's. Look at verse 5. Okay? Verse 5 says this, then my God put into my heart to25:44 assemble the nobles, officials, other people. So what he does here is he gets all the people and he wants to know who's all here. He takes role. He takes attendance. But this stands out when he says, then my God put into25:55 my heart these things. So we ought to have the standard of listening to God's voice above man's. I did a I do a whole message every year on how to hear God's voice. And every time I do it's like, oh, you already did26:07 that. You're gonna do that again? Yep. I'm gonna do it every year. Because it's the most important thing that we can do is he know how to hear God's voice. Throughout the leadership of Nehemiah, we see him addressing the26:19 king. We see him building the wall. We see him when facing enemies. We see him do something interesting. He just listens to 1 voice, God's voice. He prays and he lets God lead him.26:30 He just listens to 1 voice. I believe if we did that, we would our lives would turn out a whole lot better, wouldn't it? You see, if we listen to the wrong voices, we'll make the wrong choices. And in this day and era,26:42 if you listen to too many voices, we'll make a multitude of wrong choices. Right? And we can. I mean, anybody on the Internet, we go, man, this guy said, this. You don't you don't know them. You don't know how they26:54 treat their wife. You don't know how they treat their kids. You don't know be very careful who you listen to. Listen to God's voice above all above all voices. You're gonna hear God's voice in your Bible teachers and the27:05 multitude of counselors, some, good good vetted Christians by your pastor and by the word of God. But Nehemiah now sets this standard of listen to God's voice above all else. Then he goes on and he he27:17 numbers all the people there. Okay? I'm gonna save you, like, 70 verses. That's what he does. He He names everybody this there. Then he sets the final standard. Number 6, the old school standard he sets, is he sets a27:28 standard for giving. He sets a standard for giving. We as believers should be givers. God has given us so much that we should be givers. Look at this. This is only like27:40 2 or 3 verses. And it shows over and over the leaders gave gifts and the governor gave gifts and the priests and the people they gave and they gave and they gave and they gave. Nehemiah now sets the standard27:52 for giving. If we love God, we give. And I wanna tell you, this is 1 of the things that you guys have got down. You've got it down. During this whole COVID thing, I was blown away by your generosity. You gave28:04 blood. You gave your time. You gave your talent. You gave your money to help feed those in a local area. And that is what us believers do. We gotta be givers. I'm a bit like, I love giving because God's given me so much.28:16 He's given me eternal life, forgiveness of sins, a relationship. He's given me more than I ever deserves. I love giving. And, and during this this Christmas deal that y'all have are doing and now launching these little,28:26 shoe boxes for those who, might not have Christmas and we're filling it with gifts and we're buying some for our family to do. When we were to order these, we ordered I think we ordered 5000 of them. And I'm28:38 like, oh, we don't easily do 5000. I wanted 10000, but the staff was owed you a little faith, you know. And so, I'm just giving them a hard time. But I wanted to do that because I wanted to be a blessing. I know that you28:50 guys got the spirit of generosity in you, but there's something I mean, maybe this is wrong. I'm like a little competitive with giving. Like, I asked the staff, administrator last week, I'm like, how we doing on those28:59 those Christmas boxes? He said, well, we've we've almost got 1000 of them gone. You know, we got 4000. Hey, let me ask you a question. Who's who's gotten the most picked up the most boxes? Well, the name is 1 at our 929:11 30, sir. Oh, so and so he picked up 100 box. Okay. K. K. And he said, why you need enough? Nothing. I'm already thinking in my mind. I'm 1 0 1. 1 0 1. I'm gonna there's something in me, like, I want29:23 to I wanna be generous. I want I wanna give. I was thinking about this, 1 of the big expansions that Cascade Hills is gonna have, and I couldn't wait to tell you. Right before this whole thing just messed up didn't29:35 it just mess up our life? Threw us out of our routine. We were about to launch something just a huge expansion project to test it. Huge. Now what's cool29:46 is there's 2 huge things that God's about to do. And I'm like, it's I can't wait to tell you about them. But 1 of the things that I was doing is I was praying and said, God, what can I do? Because I wanna be 1 of the29:56 biggest givers of this. I wanna lead the way. I wanna be and I started thinking, what do I got that's so so valuable? Like, what do I got that I can just give to the church and they could they they could sell it, they30:06 can do whatever. What what do I got that's valuable that I can give away? I thought, I got it. My son. I'm kidding. I just wanna make sure I just wanna make sure you're still paying attention. But I started thinking30:16 about and and God lays it on my heart. I said, oh, now that, that's big. Like, that that like, I I saved up a lot of money to buy that particular thing, and I've always wanted this particular thing and this30:28 and I and I got to thinking, that's exciting to you can here's why it's exciting. In 100 years, that thing that I got that I wanna I wanna just give to the church and let them let them sell it, put the money towards this30:37 new project. 100 years, it probably won't even be cool no more. You know? It just be a big pile of rust. And in 100 years, the things that we accumulate here, property, this, that, it's not gonna matter. But what's gonna30:48 matter is when we give and our standard of giving is so high that we give to a place that reaches souls, who we reach is what matters. And so I began to get really excited about it. I'm like, this is31:00 this is gonna be exciting because we can give it and we can see souls that have been reached, because of it. That's the most important thing. So Nehemiah now sets these standards. He sets these standards.31:12 He says these are what we need to live and die by. And then as we've as we've been saying the whole time, this is a story not not about a wall. And I'm gonna say this just until you get it, until you know it, till you31:22 some of you may get a tattoo of it. It's a story about God building a leader, and it's a story about God building you, who would then build a group of people. And hopefully that you would build a group of people in your31:33 family, in your work, in your culture that you're in, that would rebuild a culture, would follow God in a world that doesn't. That is what God is calling us to do. God is calling us to live to a different standard so31:44 that people on the outside begin to look inside and hopefully just maybe just maybe, they begin to get intrigued and they find Christ because of the standard that we live by. Now if you're here31:56 today or you're watching online and you don't know God, I wanna tell you how you can know him. I don't want you logging off. I don't want you leaving without knowing this. This is the most if you've slept through theThe Call to Rebuild Godly Culture 32:06 whole thing and you got a good nap, pay attention now. Okay? This is the most important thing. Do you know where you will spend eternity when you die? The stats on death are staggering. I checked them again the other32:18 day. 1 out of everyone dies. You want to know where you're gonna spend eternity. That's the most important thing. Where's your soul going? And and and maybe, you know,32:29 maybe you're you're you're you've tried different things or whatnot. I wanna tell you how you can know where your soul will spend eternity. 1st, you gotta know that God loves you, that he loves you, that he wants a32:40 relationship with you, that but our sin separates us from being able to have a relationship with holy God. He's holy. We're sinful. He he he can't tolerate our sin in the in the sight of his holiness.32:55 Holy. Right? So he sent his own son. He's all God, all man, to live a sinless life, something we could never do. And then go to a cross and to die in our place. What he33:06 experienced in the cross is what we deserve. He laid down his life on the cross and says, judge me, pour out your wrath upon me, your anger towards sin. Judge it on my perfect sinless body, and I will stand in33:18 their place. I will stand in their place so that they can now have a relationship with you again. And he lived for us and he died for us and he did that so that by faith, if we ask him in our heart and we believe he's33:30 Lord, he will take his perfect clean slate that he lived. Just like that song said, nothing but the blood of Jesus. And he will apply his perfect righteousness to our filthy tab33:42 and make us perfectly clean in his sight, where we can now have a relationship with him. He went to a grave. He didn't remain there. He did just what he said he'd do. He rose from the grave. Now if you were in search of33:53 God or how to get to heaven, I wanna just gonna tell you. I'm gonna be blunt. What you just heard with the gospel, that's the best there is. You're gonna go to another religion or try a different place, this, that, or do34:04 whatever you need to do to figure it out on your own. But I'm just telling you what you're gonna find is you're gonna go somewhere and they're gonna say, do this whole list of stuff really, really good,34:16 you might have a chance of going in. And you're going to start to search their leaders and you're going to start to search the history behind this stuff. And what you're going to find is all of them or most of them34:28 are dead and they're still in the ground. And I'm just saying if we're going to follow, God, if we're going to put our hope, our faith, if we're going to put our trust in where we will spend the eternity, which is the34:39 most important thing. I wanna challenge you. You better put it in 1 that proved he can raise the dead. And that's exactly what Jesus did. And we've got how we got our Bibles, eyewitnesses of those who said I saw him die34:51 and then then hung out with him and ate with him afterwords for 40 days, over 500 eyewitnesses saw him. I don't want to bet my life on something that's not proven. I'm very factual.35:03 And I want to challenge you today, don't walk out of these doors, don't log off today without knowing 1000 percent that you could swing over hell on a rotten vibe, and you'd be35:14 good. Alright? Ask Jesus into your life today. He did all that in hopes that 1 day you would recognize how much he loves you, how much he is madly in love with you. When35:26 you can't even love yourself, God's already forgiven you and God loves you. And he's just open arms saying, would you come to me? I want a relationship with you. I want to give you more than you ever dreamed of. So let's35:37 bow our heads and go to the Lord in prayer together. Father, thank you so much for your word. I pray that we would live at such a level, at such a standard, Lord, that other people find you because of our lives. My35:48 prayer at this time is for that person watching online, that person that is in the room today that wants to know you. They're here for a reason. They're searching for a reason. Give them courage to do what you are35:58 calling them to do. If you'd like to have Christ in your life, simply say this prayer and you believe on it with everything you've got. It's not nothing magical by the words. It's the faith in Jesus. But say,Gospel Invitation and Salvation Prayer 36:10 Father, I know that I'm a sinner. And I know that I cannot save myself. I believe that your son Jesus died on a cross for me. And I believe that your son Jesus36:22 rose from the dead. So by faith, right here, right now, I ask you to forgive me of my sins. And I believe36:34 that your son Jesus is Lord. And I ask you to come into my life. Save me. I look forward to following you. I'll never be ashamed of you.36:46 Thank you. Amen.In this video 0:00 Nehemiah's Recap and Leadership Challenge9:00 Standards 1-3: Gatekeeper, Worship, God's Word24:00 Standards 4-6: Leadership, God's Voice, Giving32:00 The Call to Rebuild Godly Culture36:00 Gospel Invitation and Salvation Prayer
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