Fight

Fight the Good Fight, Nehemiah 4

• My main point this morning, “Fight the good fight” 
  • Please turn to Nehemiah 4, page 400 of the pew bibles. 
    • Review-  Last week we walked through Nehemiah 1-3 and prayed
      “May God Restore us” and asked, 
    • Is confession of sin and repentance a part God restoring us? Yes. 
    • As New covenant Christians, does this apply to us? Yes
      • “Church is a place where it’s ok to not be ok, but just don’t stay there!” Matt Chandler 
    • Confession and repentance leads to something
      • Share the burden
      • Helps us receive God’s forgiveness and live in his FREEDOM!
      • Puts us in accountability to help us not be bound
    • Does it lead to blessings? Yes. By being a church community that loves people well, even when they are broken, begins to fulfill the Great commission by the way we love one another, people will see it and want to be apart of such a loving community. 
• This week, fight the good fight

Read Nehemiah 4:1-5

• Nehemiah prays. an imprecatory prayer. Imprecatory prayers are prayers of judgement for the wicked. 
• Love your enemies, and pray for them. So we ought to be careful how we pray in light of the new covenant of grace and love established by Christ. I will post a blog or 2 this week to give some balance to this on our Facebook page. Do Not miss the main point here, we see in light of opposition to God’s work, we pray. 
• This is an example all throughout scripture but King David comes to the forefront. Every time before battle he “inquires of the Lord”. 

I write these things to you who believe in the name of the Son of God, that you may know that you have eternal life. And this is the confidence that we have toward him, that if we ask anything according to his will he hears us. 1 John 5:13–14

• It is one of the great benefits to being a Christian. God hears us.
  • There is a view that God hears all prayers, but in John 9:31 a man healed from blindness says “We know that God does not listen to sinners, but if anyone is a worshiper of God and does his will, God listens to him.” 
  • Is he right? 

Proverbs 28:9, If one turns away his ear from hearing the law, even his prayer is an abomination. 

But your iniquities have made a separation between you and your God, and your sins have hidden his face from you so that he does not hear. Isaiah 59:2

If I had cherished iniquity in my heart, the Lord would not have listened. Psalm 66:18

• As children of God, redeemed and restored by the life, death and resurrection of Jesus, our sins forgiven and cleansed, Saints, he hears us. 

Even when the opposition gets more serious, Read Nehemiah 4:6-9. 

• What can we learn from this?  “Fight the Good Fight”?

#1. Pray

Read 10-12

• A quick update. vs. 11, lives being threatened but the opposition is not just outside the camp. 
  • In Judah, Grubbling and discouragement
  • “You must return to us”. “Hey bro, I’m going to listen to my wife. I’m out”.
  • It’s getting to hard, my life is being threatened, and my family is telling me to come home. Tough stop to be in as a leader! So what does Nehemiah do? 

#2. Plan Read vs. 12-13

• He calls the “Nobles” to action.  Nehemiah 3:5 “would not stoop…”
  • Stopping was not an option for Nehemiah. He had been called to accomplish the work. So he prayed, and then he planned. 
    • What’s your plan?  
      • Devotional life
      • Confession and repentance 
      • Accountability  
      • Life with others, community group, friendships, etc. 

Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you. James 4:7–8a

• Do you have a plan? 
• Preventative prayers, Humbling yourself before God does it for you.
• Read vs. 14, a part of the plan is to remind yourself and others who God is! 
• READ vs. 15, and they get back to work! 

#3. Protect

• Read vs. 16-21
  • Life in Community
  • Weapon in one hand, the word & the gift God gave you in within the community in the other. 
  • Come back to verse 6 “the people had a mind to work” 

#4. It takes all of us! Application- Pray, plan, protect, It will take all of us to RESTORE OUR CHURCH!