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Empowering multimedia ministry for bold Christian living: Weekend Messages, Deep End Podcast, Deep Dive Bible Study. Tim Hatch, Lead Pastor, Waters Church, 26 years of pastoral ministry, book author.
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0:00 You are listening to Waters Church podcast. Waters Church is a multisite, multigeneration community of faith on the East Coast of America. Now for a message from our pastor.0:13 Leadership that lifts, following Christ to empower others. Now I had in mind a thought as soon as I read this text in Nehemiah chapter 5, and I looked0:25 at it and I saw what the Lord was leading me to speak on in this text. This is about leadership. In fact, the entire book of Nehemiah is a leadership book.0:37 There's a great preacher by the name of, Chuck Swindell. Anybody ever heard of him? Yeah. Don't know if anybody know that knows this, but his first church was up in Waltham, Massachusetts. That's about 40 minutes from0:48 our North Attleboro location. And, he was only there a short time, and I know why because churches in Massachusetts, I know this from experience, not our church, but I know this from experience,1:00 tend to resist leadership. They tend to resist change. And he wanted to change things, and he wanted to start, you know, radio ministry and grow the church and TV ministry. Everything that you saw him do1:12 over these last 50 to 60 years, he wanted to do in Massachusetts. The church board fought him every step of the way, and he drove out of Massachusetts, called it his happiest day of his life, and, the rest is history.1:24 And he wrote a great book called he, it's called Hand Me Another Brick. And it's a fantastic book on leadership, but it's based on the book of Nehemiah. The book of Nehemiah is1:36 really a book on leadership. Let me hear somebody say leadership. Leadership. Now here's what I thought. As soon as I talk about this, as soon as you guys see the message notes, I don't know, maybe the enemy is playing1:46 with me or my flesh, but I just had this thought. Some of you are gonna some of you are gonna sleep on this message. You're gonna say, this isn't for me. I'm not a leader. I wanna say something to you. Yes. You are. You1:57 are a leader in the making. Couple reasons why I believe that. Number 1, leadership is not about being in charge, and it's not about telling people what to do. You2:09 can be a leader even when you're not in charge and even without telling people what to do. And I have a simple question for you. All all God's people, I'm talking about all Christians. Now listen to me.2:21 Do you really think that God wants you to be a follower? No. He wants you to be a and I'm talking about in this world. He wants you to lead people toward Christ wherever you2:33 are, whatever your position, whatever your stage in life. I believe God wants leadership, and you write this down at the top of your notes. God desires his people to be leaders. Somebody2:45 say, I am. You gotta say it like you mean it. I am. I am. A leader in the making. Leader in making. And I want you to think about how God might be challenging you to see your life2:57 no longer as just a simple Christian, somebody who's waiting to go to heaven, but rather somebody who's in the business of influencing other people toward Christ. Now we3:09 want leaders to lead us, but we want to lead others toward Christ. Amen, somebody? So when you think about leadership too, a term that's important here when we think about that term of leadership is influence. That's3:20 really what in well, that's what leadership is. It's influencing. When you go to the workplace, you are faced with a choice every time you enter into the workplace. You can let those people who are not3:32 in Christ influence you, or you can influence them toward Christ. I'd rather you influence than be influenced. Amen, somebody. When you are in a family with unbelievers, I'd rather3:44 you influence them toward Christ than let them influence you away from Christ. And on and on it goes. I absolutely believe God wants all of his people to embrace a leadership mindset. And when we get to chapter 5 of3:56 Nehemiah, we find the principles of leadership that God blesses. Now the question about this whole idea of leadership is simply this, what kind of leader are you gonna be? And I wanna introduce you to 2 guys4:23 flight 15 39, January ninth 2009 or January third, I think, 2009. He took off from LaGuardia Airport in New York.4:36 They hit a flock of geese, both engines out. Just like that, the flight the plane was going down. And you might have seen the movie, might have read the book. Sully takes over heroic action,4:48 heroic leadership, lands the plane safely in hud in the Hudson River, and Sully does not exit the plane, the story goes, without making sure that every single5:00 member on board, every single passenger and crew member was off before him. And after everybody was off and safe, Sully went back and forth on the plane 2 more times to make sure that there was no5:11 1 left in the plane. How many know that's good leadership right there? Leaders show the way and go the way and know the way, and they help people find life and safety. Now we5:23 know about Sully. I don't know if you know this guy on the right. Does anybody know who this guy is? His name is Francisco Scatino. Francisco Scatino is an Italian cruise ship captain.5:35 Infamously the captain of the Costa Concordia. And this might remind you of that. This is the Costa Concordia hit a cliff under the5:47 water, some rocks under the water, and crashed, tipped over, 35 lives, lost crew, and passengers. What people don't know is the story of how that happened. It was not just an accident.5:58 Scatino was being entertained by a, Moldovan belly dancer on the captain's deck at the time of the6:10 crash. And to show off and impress her, this girl that he was also having an affair with, sleeping with, He decided to steer the ship to a dangerously close proximity to an Italian cliff, and the6:22 rest is history. But that's not the end of the story. Scatino, in an extreme act of cowardice, jumped ship before anybody else into a life raft and escaped. And6:34 when they called him on it, he claimed that he had tripped over the railing and fell conveniently into the first life raft off the boat. What kind of leader are you gonna6:46 be? You know, 1 is a hero, 1 is a 0. Yeah. Was wondering if you're gonna pick that up. 1 is heralded. They've written books about. This guy is doing a 16 year6:57 prison serve sentence, and I believe appropriately. God wants you to be a leader. The question is what kind of leader are you gonna be? Now let me give you some passages from the bible that prove what I'm talking about7:07 when it comes to God's heart for you to be a leader. At the top of your notes there, you'll see it. Deuteronomy chapter 15 verse 6, it says this, for the Lord your God, and God is talking to ancient Israel. The Lord your7:17 God will bless you as he promised you, and you shall lend to many, and you shall borrow from none. Now look at this next line, and you shall what? What's the word? Rule. Underline that word. You shall rule over many over7:28 many nation. This is God talking to his people, his nation. I want you as a nation to rule over other nations. Some of you might not even know this, but it was never God's intention for Israel to7:40 have a king. Didn't did not want them to have a a a a kind of like singular leader who would call the shots. They actually asked for a king because7:52 they failed to grasp God's heart for them to be a nation of leaders, and they saw other nations led by 1 man, and they said, we want 1 man to lead us, and God acquiesced to their desires.8:04 But originally, God wanted his entire people, the whole nation to rule over the nations. Rule and show them what life with their God, with8:15 Yahweh was really like. Deuteronomy 28 verse 13 also says this, and the Lord will make you the head and not the tail. You you you have to understand this is God's desire8:27 for all of his people. Now in every animal on the earth, the head leads the tail, unless you are my boxer dog Cody who chases his tail in circles endlessly. But most of the time,8:39 animals are led by their head. The question for you, the question for me today is this, am I a follower or am I a leader? Am I being influenced or am I influencing other people toward Christ? 3 points8:50 about this from the New Testament. I want you to write down in your notes, letter a. I am called to lead through my life. Peter says, first Peter chapter 2 verse 12, live such good lives where?9:03 Among the pagans, where the unbelievers are. Live so exemplary that though they accuse you of doing wrong. Here's here's a layman's terms for that. Though they think you're nuts,9:14 crazy, you know, fundamentalist, old fashioned, old school, you know, whatever, all the names they wanna call you. Though they label you all those names, when they see what you do, they will be9:26 won over by your good deeds. Lead by your example. Letter b. Write this down. A leader dwells inside of me. I don't know if you ever thought about this, but you are. If you9:38 are a Christian, scripture says you are a temple of the holy spirit. You're a temple wherein God dwells inside you through the third person of the trinity, the holy spirit. If you've got the holy9:50 spirit, let me hear a good amen. Amen. Now that Holy Spirit is a leader because the scripture says in Romans chapter 8 14, for those who are led by the spirit of God are sons and daughters10:02 of God. You've got a leader inside of you. You've got a holy spirit who's leading you to make decisions about life and what to do, what not to do, what to say, and what not to say. How many need sometimes10:14 the holy spirit to just shut your mouth because you can't? Anybody with me on this? The holy spirit wants to lead you, scripture says in John 14, into all truth. The scripture says he wants to lead you in peace and in10:25 righteousness. The scripture says in Psalm 23, he leads me in paths of righteousness for his name's sake that the leader of heaven has come down10:37 to lead you into the pathway of peace and righteousness. And I absolutely believe this. If you listen to the holy spirit, you're gonna avoid a whole lot of messes in your life. Can I get a good amen? Letter10:49 c. Write this down. Jesus has called me to light the way for others. When he talks about this in the sermon on the mountain, Matthew chapter 5, what does he say? You are the what? You are the light of the world. Anybody11:01 notice that your headlights on your car are in the front and not the back? There's a reason for that. They are supposed to show you where to go, where not to go, how to avoid an accident, and how to find the obstacles in11:12 your path. Christians, have you ever thought about that? You are the light in this world. You are there to show people the way forward. And God has called every11:24 1 of his children into a leadership role in a world that is bent on evil. And sometimes it's hard, and sometimes we get mocked, and sometimes we11:36 get harassed, and sometimes people hate us. But we know that God will lead us and bless us. And over the course of your life, you can look back and say, wait a second. God was good to me, and other people will say it as11:47 well. I got a family member who's now gone, dead, was an atheist, lifelong atheist. Well, we tried. We tried. Everybody in the family tried. He came from an atheist family. His mom died with her feint fist clenching,11:59 saying, I know there's no God, and she went into the afterlife and faced her eternal judgment. And we tried to win this guy to Christ year after year after year after year, but he never would. And he went when he became12:09 an old man, as everybody does, and he looked back on his life, he said this incredible thing to his wife, who was, at that time, his ex wife. He said, you know what? I don't believe in the God that you serve. But I look12:20 at my family and I look at your family, and I can see that whatever you believe, it does work. It does work. And even if people don't come to Christ, we can leave a legacy, a12:32 testimony behind our lives. See, you got a question. You got a question. Like, when when your face is on a screen and and the screen is in heaven and people are looking at it, I think God wants to be proud of the12:43 legacy you left behind. Now here's the problem, and everybody is gonna hear feel this. I don't know how to lead. I have no idea where to12:55 begin. So here's the thing about leadership from Nehemiah chapter 5. It's not complicated. Somebody say it's not complicated. It's not complicated. That's the good news. Here's13:07 the bad news, but it's hard. Just because just because it's not complicated doesn't make it easy. And what we're gonna see here in this text is Nehemiah doing the hard things that are13:18 necessary to influence the nation of Israel who had been under horrible leadership and had felt the consequences of it. And here comes Nehemiah with godly leadership, godly influence13:29 that blesses God's people. Now we're gonna we're gonna read the scriptures, but I do ask this of the Apollo Beach location. You guys, stay seated. Stay seated so that you're not in the way of the camera. Amen. They come13:40 to see me, not you. Praise the Lord. Everybody else at all locations, stand up, and you guys in Apollo Beach, just, stand in your heart. Amen. Okay? Nehemiah chapter 5, your bible's open. Here's what it says. Now13:52 there arose a great outcry of the people and of their wives against their Jewish brothers for there were those who said, with our sons and our daughters, we are many. So let us get grain that we may eat and keep14:04 alive. Let's let's get food. We need groceries. What's their what is that is what they're saying. There are also those who said, we are mortgaging our fields, our vineyards, and our houses to get grain because of the14:13 famine. These people were going into serious debt. Credit cards were jacked. Major mortgages, high interest rates. Man, we don't know anything about that, do we? And there were those who said, verse 4, we have borrowed14:24 money for the king's tax on our fields. We don't know anything about high taxes, do we? Man, this is totally irrelevant. Oh, I'm just being sarcastic, but let's keep going. Now our flesh is as the flesh of our brothers,14:34 our children as their children, yet we are forcing our sons daughters to be slaves. Some of our daughters have already been enslaved, but it is not in our power to help it for other men have our fields and our vineyard.14:44 Verse 6, I was angry when I heard their outcry in these words. I took counsel with myself and I brought charges against the nobles and the officials. And I said to them, you are exacting interest each from his brother,14:54 and I held a great assembly against them and said to them, we, as far as we are able, have brought back our Jewish brothers who have been sold to the nations, but now you even sell your brothers that you may that they15:06 may be sold to us. They were silent and could not say a word to us. So I said, the thing that you are doing is not good. Ought you not to walk in the fear of our God to present to to prevent the taunts of the nations of15:18 our enemies? Moreover, I and my brothers and my servants are lending them money and grain. Let us abandon this exacting of interest. Return to them this very day the fields, vineyards, olive orchards, and their houses15:29 and their percent percentages of money, grain, wine, and oil that you have been exacting from them. Then they said, we will restore these and require nothing from them. We will do as you say. And I called the priest and15:41 made them swear to do as they had promised. I also shook out the fold of my garment and said, may God shake out every man from his house and from his labor who does not keep this promise. So may he be shaken out and15:52 emptied. And the entire assembly said, amen. And praise the Lord, and the people did as they promised. This is God's word. Let's let's pray together. Father in heaven, open our ears.16:05 Massage the soil of our hearts, and help us, Lord, to receive truth that transforms us. For every person who is listening today, I pray that16:16 Jesus becomes real to them and the Holy Spirit rises up in them and help us with our eyes to see Jesus. In his precious name we said, amen. Amen. God16:28 bless you. Have a seat in the presence of the Lord at the other locations. Let's talk about how this goes down when Nehemiah steps into a leadership position. I said it's not complicated, but it's hard. But the first16:40 thing is real simple. Here you go. Write this down. Leaders do this. Number 1, they lean into the problems people face. What I mean by that is leaders do not16:51 ignore the problem. Every man listening now, pay attention. Your marriage will have problems. Do not ignore them. Your children17:03 will have problems and difficulties. Do not ignore those either. Moms listening to me, your job is to be a leader of your children. We have a culture out here that is trying to17:15 turn upside down the leadership structure in the home. Amen? Where parents are subservient to their children. And there's a book that's been written recently about this. A lot of the anxiety that17:27 the children are facing right now is because moms and dads will not draw clear boundaries for those kids. You're supposed to lead, not follow your17:39 children. Can I get a good amen? I I I remember a study that was done years ago about children on a playground, and the research was how children respond to boundaries. And17:51 so they put these children in a playground with no fence, and they and they realized that the children without a fence were extremely anxious and would not would not venture beyond the centralized location18:03 of the playground. They they they they they huddled together. And then they took those same children, put them in a playground with a fence around it. Same looking location. And they realized that as soon as the fence18:13 went up, the children would go and spread out because the safety of the boundary, the safety of the fence made them more bold and braver. I it's incredible. We think that the lack of18:24 boundaries makes us brave. No. Proper boundaries make us properly brave. Amen, somebody. That's called leadership. God wants to set boundaries in your life to lead you and to strengthen you, not to cause18:36 anxiety and worry and stress in you. And so what you have to understand though is that there's gonna be problems in your life. There's gonna be problems in the job. There's gonna be problems in this in the school.18:43 There's gonna be problems with your family, your friends, your relationships. Don't ignore them. Don't pretend everything is alright. Lean in. Listen up. You wanna do you wanna be a leader at the job? You wanna help18:54 people know Christ? And and and here's the thing. Real simple. You do not have to chapter and verse people to lead them to Christ. You don't have to know all the bible verses. You really don't. 1 of the19:06 best and easiest ways to influence a coworker to Christ is very simple. Here it is. Listen to what's going on in their life. Pay attention to their problems. Care19:18 about them. That's what happens in Nehemiah chapter 5. It says in verse 1, there arose a great outcry. Circle the word outcry. Because the word outcry here is found in Exodus chapter 3 when Moses, meets God at the19:29 burning bush. And God says, I have heard the outcry of my people who are enslaved at the hands of their Egyptian, taskmasters. And that outcry was a cry to God because a foreign nation enslaved19:41 them. This outcry, the same word, is a cry to God because their own brothers and sisters were enslaving them. And the scripture unpacks the problems that were going on. Verse 2,19:53 they said, our sons and daughters are many. We got growing families, but we can't afford groceries. Verse 4, it said or verse 3, it says there were those who said we're mortgaging our fields. We're going into debt. We20:04 got high interest rate credit cards. We got loan sharks coming after us. We don't know what to do. Verse 4 says, and the king on top of all the debt and all the things we gotta pay for just to pay for food, the king is20:13 coming and he's raising our taxes, and we can't even afford it. So we're selling our lands. And and what happens is and this is a fact about communion. This is a fact about nation building. Listen to this. It's in the20:24 bible. It it it's why no bible believing Christian can believe in socialism or communism. Listen. The bigger the government, the higher the taxes and the greater the discrepancy between the haves and the have nots. Read20:36 history. It goes that way every single time. Some of you young people, you go to school, they tell you how great socialism is. Go to a socialist country and find out just how great it ain't. Amen, somebody. And what20:48 happens is socialism just turn turns people into greedy kids when they're poor and they don't have stuff because they think if they get more of their stuff, they'll feel they'll feel happy. And what you have happen is20:57 prices go up and the discrepancy between the the income equality gap just rises. It does not decrease at all. The more the government does for you, the more the government can take from you. And that's exactly21:09 what we see happening here in Nehemiah chapter 5. And the people are stressed. They are burnt out. They are broke. They can't afford groceries. They are in debt. They have no lands. They cannot get out of the cycle.21:21 And Nehemiah realizes there's a serious problem going on. And I hear it's very simple to be a leader. It's a very simple thing to be an influencer for Christ. Listen to where people are coming from.21:33 Care about them. The old adage goes like this. People don't care about what you know until they know how much you care. Lean in. Years ago, I learned the lesson of listening to my wife. I don't21:45 know if any man struggles with this, but I'm a leader and I struggle with that 1. And my wife has been more right about things than I like to give her credit for, but she is God's gift to me to speak into my life in ways21:56 I don't wanna hear. But listen, as a leader, sometimes you need to hear things you don't wanna hear. Anybody with me on this? Well, we were moving. This was many, many years ago. We were moving. We were excited, but I22:06 had, you know, no money for movers in those days, and so I was the moving man, me and my friends. And I was just loading up the truck and bringing things truck all day back and forth, back and forth, 1 truck, moving all22:16 our stuff to this house. I was on the last truckload, and I was just at this point, how many know you just get to the point where you're just chucking stuff into the truck? Just I don't care about ropes, I don't care22:26 about straps, it's all I just gotta get this done. And I threw on top of the truck, an antique bureau that her father who collects antiques from all over the world has made a lot of money doing so by the way. And she put22:37 they put in my hand, it was the last thing on the truck, And, I got into the truck, rolled down the window, and Cheryl calls out to me. She sees the thing, the the bureau on the truck. She said, Tim, that bureau needs to22:47 be strapped down. It's gonna fly out. And here's what I did. I pulled out of the driveway and I did this. Just just I'm the man. I'm in charge.22:59 Just So sure enough, I'm on the way. I'm thinking I'm gonna make it all the way there. I'm totally fine. And I swerved to hit, to stop hitting a pothole. And as I swerved, wouldn't you know the top drawer of that bureau23:11 shot out like a shotgun out of that bureau onto the ground, smashed, fell apart. And I said, Cheryl's gonna kill me and most of all, she's gonna be right and I hate that. So I gotta get out, find every part of23:23 this bureau drawer, put it together and I did and I found every part except 1 of the knobs. 2 knobs, 1 of the knobs. The thing about antiques is if you don't have all the parts of the antique, it becomes worthless. I23:34 knew I gotta find this knob. And it was late in the day, last truckload. I'm exhausted. My friend's with me. He's exhausted. I say, you know what, Bob? Let's just come back tomorrow. We'll find the knob in the daylight.23:44 He's like, sounds good. So we go. We drop off the last load. I don't tell Cheryl about it. I come back the next morning. No joke. No joke. They had plowed out a new development at that exact spot of the23:56 road, and that knob is gone into the annals of an argument in my marriage's history. Anybody want know what I'm talking about? Learn to listen to the people24:08 around you. You know, sometimes we get so intimidated by that, get angry by that. I don't wanna hear about the problems. I don't wanna hear about what's going on. You know, how can we ever increase? How can we ever get24:19 better if we don't learn, if we don't listen, if we don't see the problems and address them? We we need this at every stage of our lives. I mean, I I'm so glad that the legacy24:30 news media is starting to exposed for the frauds that they are. Because they have been telling us it's the greatest economy. It's the greatest time ever. You should be happy. Look at how awesome our country is for the24:41 last, I don't know, 10 to 15 years. And finally, the people have woken up and said, no. It's not great. We need to go in another direction. That's pretty much what happened in November. That's what happened because24:50 people can't buy the lies in this country, or at least they can only buy those lies for so long. But what you see there is a lack of leadership in listening to what's actually happening in people's lives.25:02 Leaders listen. Pay attention. Open your ears at the job, at the marketplace, in the school, in the relationship, and start to do number 2. Here you go. Ready? Number 2. Love people enough to confront.25:15 I said it's not complicated, but it's hard. Here's the hardest part. Confront them. The word confront comes from a Latin term con, which means with, and frontis, which means face or forehead. Literally confront some of25:26 you have a negative connotation. Even I do. I don't wanna confront I don't wanna get in people's faces, but here's confronting is just having a face to face conversation with someone. Confronting is removing all the25:38 obstacles and just having a conversation individually with someone that you need to work things out with. And and there might be somebody in your life. You don't wanna hear it. You don't wanna talk about it. It might be,25:49 you know, your our tendency as humans is to avoid. We just wanna avoid the problem. Or we do what, you know, childish people do. We just give them the silent treatment. We just don't talk to them26:01 anymore. Or we do what gossips do. We have a problem with person a. So instead of talking to person a, we talk to person c, d, e, and f. And that's just childish. And in the church, that is26:12 extremely damaging. And and that's how churches become toxic, and nobody wants to be a part of it because everybody's got something against everybody else, and nobody wants to talk directly to the person. I have learned26:22 in my leadership the hard way. Man, it might be harder upfront to talk to someone directly about the problems that we're facing, but what's even worse is to ignore it and26:34 pretend it doesn't happen and not have the conversation with the person you need to talk to and watch all the overflow of gossip and slander in that relationship, in that situation, and it just26:45 snowballs into something far worse. This is what Nehemiah does. He loves enough to confront. Verse 6, I was angry. You know that there is a proper way to get angry? We we think that all26:57 Christians should just never be angry. No. The scripture says be angry and do not sin. It is entirely possible to be angry and not sin, and it's entirely possible to have good anger.27:09 Good anger is rooted in love for the person. Whatever is bothering you about this relationship, the struggle that you're in, the situation, the the the the proper way to address it is to27:21 say, I hate what's happening to you. Jesus gets angry with the money changers. He gets angry with the merchants in the temple. The scripture says he makes a whip. Do you ever think27:33 about this Jesus? Jesus himself made a whip and drove out the money changers with his own homemade whip. But what was it? It was an anger rooted in the fact that those money changers and27:45 those salesmen were taking up space in the temple that should have been reserved for people to come and worship God. He had an anger about what was happening and how it hurt people. See, some of you see27:56 things that are wrong in your situation. You see things that are wrong in marriage. See things that are wrong in a job or or or a community, and and and you get angry at the people. Don't get angry at the people. Get28:08 angry at what's happening to the people. That's proper leadership. Verse 7, it says, I took counsel with myself. And then I came and brought charges against the nobles and the officials. He got face to face with the28:20 people in charge. And then he calls them out. He says, you are exacting interest. Now now Nehemiah knew the law in the Torah, in the book of Exodus. It teaches Israel how they were supposed to talk or treat each28:32 other economically. 1 of the rules was they could not enslave each other in perpetuity. They could only, sign you you could not take a slave. A person could make themselves your slave because there was28:44 no welfare system in those days. So welfare was, I've lost all I have. I'll be your slave. You could only serve for 6 years, and then you were freed in the seventh year, and you were sent out with all your goods and all28:54 your material possessions in that seventh year. In fact, Jewish people are the only people in history that have never actually taken slaves. Almost every other group of people have. The reason why is because they had the29:03 law. But in this case, they were enslaving each other. They were taking advantage of each other's destitution. This is bad leadership. Bad leaders and and really just unchristian people, nonchristian29:15 people take advantage of somebody else's destitution pockets, to bless their own lives. He says, look. You you gotta watch out for what you're doing because the nations are gonna mock us. They couldn't and it says here29:26 in verse 8, they were silent. They couldn't say a word to him. You gotta get angry enough to do something because your anger is rooted in what is happening to the person. See, some of29:38 you got a a family member, or you might be the family member. But somebody you you've got a family member, and you are watching them destroy their lives. And to just sit there and just coddle and just to be see,29:50 you know, it's okay. It's not my life. It's the other. That's not that's not love. Love does the hard work of having the conversation with them because what they're doing is hurting themselves. Years30:02 ago, centuries ago, in England, in the nineteenth and eighteenth century, the transatlantic slave trade was a key component of the British Empire's economy. And there was a young man30:14 named Wilbur William Wilberforce who had been elected to parliament, but he was a playboy. He was a layabout. He was from a house of privilege, and he didn't know the Lord. And then through, a an30:25 experience with the Holy Spirit, this man got radically saved. And then he was discipled by a guy named John Newton, who was a former slave trade captain who had come to Christ and wrote a song you might be30:37 familiar with. He was the author of the song Amazing Grace. How sweet the sound. This guy ins influenced William Wilberforce. William Wilberforce realized that he had wasted his life in leadership until Christ came into30:48 his heart. And then he decided to turn all of his efforts to abolish the Atlantic slave trade. And he wrote up a law every year in parliament. For 20 years, he wrote this law to abolish the slave30:59 trade. And for 20 straight sessions of parliament, his law was struck down by all of his all the members of the British parliament for 20 years. Finally, in 17 o 3, he got it passed. But31:11 not 18 o 3. 18 o 3, he got it passed. But not satisfied with that, he wanted to work until the end of his life to abolish all slavery, and he did. 1 week before his death, the31:23 British Empire ended the slave practice across the empire. Why? Because 1 man decided that slavery was hurting people, and I need to confront my associates, my31:35 contemporaries. I gotta upend the apple car. I gotta make a little bit of a disturbance in what's going on in order to make a difference. Sometimes you can't make a difference until you make a31:47 disturbance. Amen, somebody. Sometimes you've gotta do things that people don't like. That's what Christianity is about. It's we are on foreign territory. We are on the enemy's ground, and we need to31:58 stand up for what is right when we see it. Verse 9, it goes on. I said the thing that you are doing is not good. Ought you walk in the fear of our God. Underlined. Fear of the Lord. You know what the fear of the Lord is?32:10 It's when you respect God so much, you don't care what people think. It's when you fear what he thinks more than you fear what people think. And this is a key component to32:22 leadership. Leadership is I don't need the people that I'm leading to validate who I am. I don't need them to approve of who I am.32:35 When I have the approval of my father in heaven, I don't need the approval of my friends and family on earth. This is where you get power to lead. That's why the32:46 gospel is so good. Because the gospel declares you are loved. You are chosen. You are highly favored. You are a royal priesthood. You are a holy nation. You are the people of the most32:58 high God. You are sons and daughters of the living God, and he will never leave you. He will never forsake you, and his banner over you is love. And if you know33:10 this, it doesn't matter what people think about you. That's the foundation. That's the foundation for leadership. When you are so convinced33:22 God loves you, you don't need the love of those you need to lead. Are you getting this? Amen, somebody? Verse 12, it goes on. They said we will do it.33:34 Impact. We will restore. And I I just quick question. Just quick point about repentance here. They they determine they're gonna they're gonna pay back the people that they ripped off. Listen. I I think about this.33:45 Repentance is not just feeling sorry for what you did. Repentance is making it right. They paid it back. They gave back the interest that they were charging their brothers. And then Dehemiah says, yeah. Okay. I wanna33:57 make sure. I want you to swear. I'm calling in the priest, he says. He calls in the the holy people. That that that's like getting the pastor involved because you wanna make sure that the person's honest. Anybody know34:05 what I'm talking about? And so he says, okay. Listen. I want you to swear that you're gonna do it. And then he shakes out fold of his garment. That's what this means. He says, he took out his pockets and he says this, so34:15 may God make you if you don't live up to what you have committed to do. I want you to take this seriously. I want this is confrontation. This is an this is a beautiful picture of how34:27 to be a leader. Number 3, write this down. Live as an example. Again, not hard not complicated, but it's hard. Live as an example. You wanna be an influence for Christ in the workplace? You cannot influence34:39 people for Christ in the workplace if you act like the people who are not in Christ in the workplace. Gotta live you gotta live different. We're supposed to be different. Somebody say different. Different. It's okay to34:50 be different. It's okay to not fit in. Years ago when I was a waiter, I remember this, working at a restaurant, and the, every waiter or waitress in the restaurant after a shift35:02 would get a free drink, a free drink from the bar. And, I was a bible college student, and I was not drinking, and I didn't wanna drink. And, I was, refusing every single night. Not a single35:14 time did I tell anyone in that way in that restaurant that I was a Christian. Not a single time up until that moment. After about 8 weeks or 6 to 8 weeks of me not drinking after a shift, they said, Tim, why aren't you35:26 drinking? They started to make fun of me. And then without even knowing it, they they started calling me father Tim. Oh, here comes father Tim. Oh, here's father Tim's too good to drink with us. Father Tim won't have and35:36 and and you know what? It it was it was a jibe. It was a friendly jibe. It wasn't anything nasty, but but the witness of the example spoke for itself. Sometimes you can preach without saying a word. Amen,35:48 somebody. Live by example. See what it says here in verse 14. Moreover, from the time that I was appointed to be governor of the land, from the twentieth year to the 30 second year of Adaxxerxes, 12 years, neither I36:00 nor my brothers ate the food allowance. Underline that. Food allowance with the governor. We're we're gonna talk about that. The food allowance with the governor is is is actually mentioned in verse 15. The former36:09 governors who were before me laid what? Heavy burdens, where? On the people. And took from them their daily ration of food, 40 shekels of36:21 silver. Now I did quick math here. 40 shekels in those days is equivalent to 5000 dollars for us today. That that that this is what happened. Before Nehemiah got there,36:33 the leaders of Israel who were overseeing a broken down depressed society had been feeding themselves from the taxes of the people 5000 dollars a36:45 day. Now, it's amazing how relevant the bible can be. Because I don't know if you've been watching the news the last couple of weeks, but there's a big to do about DOGE. Anybody know what I'm talking36:57 about? D o g e, Department of Government Efficiency. Talk about an oxymoron, government efficiency. Amen. Anyway, it's starting to root out the excesses, all the37:08 wasteful spending of government. But even before the election, there was a news, item that broke back in September about the Department of Defense that was feeding37:20 itself on the backs of the taxes from the people. I was amazed. I wanted to share with you about this. The news was that 79100000000.0 dollars was spent in the last year from37:32 the Department of Defense on food and excesses. Here are some of the highlights. 103000000 dollars was spent on fish and poultry. 16000000 dollars was spent on37:44 rib eye steak. 147 orders of lobster tail was purchased by the Department of Defense last year for 6100000.0 dollars.37:55 147 lobster tails for 6100000.0 dollars. What guy in Maine is laughing himself to the bank on the backs of our taxes? Unbelievable. Then this news,38:07 came out this past week of the USAID, USAID. It's supposed to be about developing nations. I'm so glad this is happening. It's being exposed. Here's some of the numbers from your tax dollars.38:18 47000 dollars went to a transgender opera in Colombia. 32000 dollars went to a transgender comic book development in Peru. 2000000 dollars went to a sex change procedure went to sexShow more
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