Message June 10, 2018 Given by: Geoff Kohler Series: Nehemiah: Man of focus Scripture: Nehemiah 2:1-10; Philippians 4:4-9 Title: Finding Our Way into God s Will What is God s will for your life? There is a community of Christians for whom that question is a life-long hunt that requires diligent study and prayer because they re afraid of missing it. Their expectation is that God s will is minutely exact. I had a friend in college who thought this way. He mused one day how terrible it would be to marry the wrong person, when God s will was that you were to marry that person over there and you blew it. The strict, legalistic requirement of living on the line of God s will appears to be exhausting for these people. The other side of this is that there is a group of Christians that doesn t give any thought to God s will because they re pretty clear that it is to do good works, the works of Jesus. Otherwise, God s not really involved in any day to day sort of way. But, we re told in Scripture: Do not conform to the pattern of this world but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God s will is his good, pleasing and perfect will. (Romans 12:2) If we re going to act as God s servants in the world, then we re going to need to know God s will. And this suggests that there needs to be some interaction between our souls and God s Spirit. There needs to be some testing and approving, a discovery process. There needs to be focus; but getting clarity from focus is different from trying to keep one s balance on some imaginary tightrope of God s will. Getting clarity also keeps us from just relying on our own ideas. So, we re looking at these two Scriptures today the Apostle Paul s words in his letter to the Philippians and the story of Nehemiah to get a perspective on how to discover and to follow God s will. 1
I want to remind you of the message from last week. In last Sunday s message I shared a starting point for focus. We begin when we claim our first identity as being a servant of God, and we re already in God s will when we do that. God s will for our lives begins by identifying with him. Then we approach all of life from that position as we face the news of the day. As we experience whatever comes our way: We look for how the stirring of our hearts resonates with what we know stirs the heart of God. What moves us emotionally? We respond physically which might be fasting, as Nehemiah did, or it might be taking a long walk, going for a bike ride, sitting in a quiet place and meditating. Depending on what is stirred, it might be throwing a party. Then we respond spiritually, and we pray, we talk with God, reminding ourselves of how God has worked with us in the past. Then we face the adventure of where God is leading us. Now, let s look at what happens next for Nehemiah. From Chapter 1 to the beginning of Chapter 2, six months has gone by. Nehemiah has taken 6 months to focus, to discern where God is leading him. He may have learned that God just wanted him to pray for Jerusalem. That may have been God s will, but he discerned he needs to be personally involved. God isn t just calling on Nehemiah to ache where his heart aches, but to engage in doing something. So, we learn that once he recognizes God s call, he develops a plan. He prepared for a door to open. He doesn t reveal his heartache for six months, but when he s ready to present his plan, he shows what he feels to the person who stands in his way. Last week, at the end of the message, I asked you to write on the picture of the stone in your bulletin. On one side you wrote down something tough that God asked you to do, and on the other side you wrote down something that stood in your way of doing it. You can see that we re building a wall with these things and the wall s foundation is our confession that sometimes it s hard to do what God asks of us. Things stand in our way. For Nehemiah it was the king, Artaxerxes. This man could snuff out Nehemiah s life like a candle flame. A snap of the king s fingers would end it. So, it says that Nehemiah was deeply frightened. One translation says, terrified. When we compare that to Paul s words in 2
Philippians where he says, Don t be anxious over anything, we could say that Nehemiah blew it. But Paul is talking about coming to God, not facing what stands in our way here. Nehemiah has no anxiety about going to God. He doesn t even tell us what he said, just that he shot up a prayer to God. It s not wrong to get scared by what stands in our way. It s wrong to think we can t depend on God in that moment. The alternative to being anxious is to be expectant. When we walk into the scary moment, the tough spot, and we pray, we pray with expectancy. We expect when we pray for the right words, God will give us the right words. When we pray for a compassionate heart, God will guide our spirits into compassion. When we pray for wisdom, God will give us wisdom. In fact, it says in James letter, If any of you lacks wisdom, you should ask God, who gives generously to all without finding fault, and it will be given to you. (James 1:5) That word for generously carries the idea of soaking. God will soak you in wisdom when you ask for it. Jesus tells us that when we ask God for help, he provides it abundantly. If we ask with expectation for God to provide then we can take the next step with more confidence. We can be confident that God will help. Can you see how this leads us into peace? If we aren t anxious over asking God to help us, if we ask with thanksgiving, which grows out of expectation, we move ahead with assurance that God is at work and we can follow. We may not know the outcome, but we can follow God wherever things go. This is different from finding some single line of God s will. It s different from hoping against hope that we ll get it right. There s no peace in that. Also, just figuring that we got this and that we don t need to pay attention to God s will, doesn t provide us with peace either. When we just rely on our own understanding, we don t put our trust in God. We re told: Trust in the LORD with all your heart and don t lean on your own understanding;in all your ways submit to him, and he will make your paths straight. (Proverbs 3:5,6) 3
The way into peace, God s peace, is to present our requests to God with the expectation that God is going to lead us through life. The next step of focus is to be expectant that God will lead. And then we develop a plan that focuses on the things that make life work. Jesus calls us into being fully-engaged members of God s kingdom. That s more intimately focused on what makes life work in our real lives and in our own hearts. So, Paul calls us to focus on whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable if anything is excellent or praiseworthy We get clear on what makes life work and then we put into practice what we ve seen in the saints before us. We follow in the pattern of life that we saw of those whose faith and lives and service we admire. So, Nehemiah, servant of God, gets himself focused. He spends 6 months to understand what s involved in making life work, so that, when the time comes to face what stands in his way, he is ready. And he shares this is what is true this is what is right this is what will work. And then he gives the credit to God. It wasn t the king who answered Nehemiah s requests so much as it was God who answered Nehemiah s prayers. Do you know what shows that God answered Nehemiah s prayers? One thing is that he received more than he asked for. Along with all the things he could think of that would go into a solid plan, the king added on a small army. Nehemiah was focused on building a wall. God knew that Nehemiah was going to face more trouble ahead. Sanballat and Tobiah and later Geshem are enemies to this good work. More will stand in the way. In our church, right now, we re in a rebuilding season. We ve had some major shifts to live and work through in the recent past, and we have needed to clarify our heading in ministry because of that. Over the past few weeks the Elders of the church have clarified 3 major priorities. They are Connecting Hospitality, Positive Giving and our Children s Ministry. Hopefully, you ve been praying for our Elders in that process. We re also interviewing for our Director of Children s Ministry, so please pray for that as well. 4
Last week the Elders gathered and shared how they saw these priorities fleshed out by their own involvement, by their team or committee s involvement and by the church s involvement as a whole. Now, a special task force has met to design the action steps of a plan to move these priorities into reality. These steps will be presented to the Elders at their next meeting on June 20 th for their discussion and vote. Then, after we finalize how we re going to do what we re planning to do, we ll be coming back to you, the congregation, with them. It s going to take all of us working together to accomplish the work ahead of us. The story of Nehemiah is going to be speaking into this process as we move through it, I believe. I must admit I m a little surprised about that as well. When I m seeking to be in the will of God, I lay out the plan of the year of worship before him. I listen to God s Spirit, to those around me and then I pray. As I pray, there are times when I come to something and think it should be included, but I can t tell you why, exactly. It s just part of where I feel God is leading. This study of Nehemiah was chosen several months ago, but it is fitting into the coming weeks as if I chose it a couple of weeks ago. So, my continued prayer is that God blesses us all through this study, but also that it demonstrates to us how closely God is involved in our future. You have another rock in your bulletin today. I d like you to write on this one as well. On one side, write down something you prayed for at any time in your life. On the other side, write down how God answered it. God may have said, Yes, No, In a little bit, or Sort of but in a different way God may have given you what you needed in some way other than what you prayed for. Just write out how God answered your prayer. No names. Just a prayer and how God answered it. Consider this as you pray for the future of our church Since our focus has brought us to our Priorities, let s all pray that God will give us a clear plan and the courage and wisdom to make this plan a reality. 5