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The Bible Breakdown
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The Bible Breakdown
Nehemiah 02: Have a Personal Vision
Have you ever wondered how a vision can transform not just your life, but also the lives of those around you? Join us as we uncover the remarkable story of Nehemiah, a humble cupbearer to King Artaxerxes, who had a burning desire to rebuild the walls of Jerusalem. Witness the incredible power of preparation and foresight as Nehemiah navigates court politics, secures the king's approval, and embarks on a mission that would inspire generations. Through his strategic planning and unwavering commitment, Nehemiah demonstrates that serving with excellence can open doors to extraordinary opportunities.
In this episode, we also share an inspiring modern-day parallel of a man who redefined his athletic goals after a realistic self-assessment. From an ambitious dream of completing an Ironman to the dedicated pursuit of running a marathon, his journey over three years is a testament to the power of vision and perseverance. Placing his marathon application in a visible spot, he kept his goal in sight every day, a practice that echoes Nehemiah’s careful planning and dedication. Tune in for a compelling narrative that bridges ancient wisdom with contemporary determination, concluding with a prayer for divine guidance and a reminder that the joy of the Lord is our strength.
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The More You Dig. The More You Find.
Well, hello everybody. Welcome back to the Bible Breakdown podcast with your host, pastor Brandon, today. Nehemiah, chapter two and today's title is have a Personal Vision. Have a personal vision. I love how Nehemiah goes about doing this and then he casts the vision to people and then they get to work doing something great for God. We're going to get into all that in just a moment, but, as always, if you like what we're doing here, make sure you like, share and subscribe to the YouTube channel and the podcast. Make sure you're leaving us comments and questions and all the things I'd love to hear from you. Also, make sure that you are going to the Bible Breakdown Discussion on Facebook.
Speaker 1:The more we dig, the more we find, and I love seeing what God is doing through this community and as it's growing. And now we have people who are listening and watching from all over the world and it's mostly coming from our podcast and I love it. I love that. I love people that are more and more paying attention on YouTube and it is so much fun. But I will admit I'm having to be careful with some of my stories because some of you you have no idea what I'm talking about, if those of you who live in China and those of you who live in Africa. You have no idea what my southern stories are all about. So I'm going to try to be careful. But if I get one that's way off, email me, let me know, because I know maybe to not include that one next time. All right, well, if you have your Bibles, I want you to open up with me to Nehemiah, chapter two, and the idea of having a personal vision. Remember that Nehemiah was minding his own business. He wasn't a priest, he wasn't a Levite, he was a cupbearer for the king, a very honored position in the court of the king. But he heard that the walls of Jerusalem were in disarray and were destroyed and it was a horrible, horrible thing. And he just weeped and just mourned, wept and mourned over the state of the walls of Jerusalem, which is such a symbol of the strength of God and the strength of the people and all of these things. And so he just decided I'm going to take responsibility, someone's got to do something. Might as well be me, but he has to go and figure out how to tell the king. Hey, king, you mind if I head out for years, so let's watch what happens and how he casts a vision to the people of Israel and see what that maybe can speak to us to do today. You ready, here we go.
Speaker 1:Nehemiah, chapter two, verse one, says this Early the following spring, in the month of Nisan, during the 20th year of King Artaxerxes reign, I was serving the king his wine and I had never before appeared sad in his presence. The king asked me why are you looking so sad? You don't look sick to me. You must be deeply troubled. Then I was terrified, but I replied long live the king. How can I not be sad, for the city where my ancestors are buried is in ruins and the gates have been destroyed by fire. The king asked well, how can I help you? With a prayer to the God of heaven? I replied if it pleased the king and if you are pleased with me, your servant, send me to Judah to rebuild the city where my ancestors are buried.
Speaker 1:Verse six the king, with the queen sitting beside him, asked how long will you be gone and when will you return? After I told him how long I would be gone, the king agreed to my request. Verse 7,. I also said to the king if it please the king, please let me have letters addressed to the governors of the province west of the Euphrates River instructing them to let me travel safely through their territories on my way to Judah. And, if it please the king, please give me letters addressed to Asaph, the manager of the king's forest, instructing him to give me timber. I will also need it to make beams for the gates, for the temple, fortresses and for and. The king granted these requests because the gracious hand of God was on me. When I came to the governors of the provinces west of the Euphrates River, I delivered the king's letters to them. The king, I should also add, had sent along army officers and horsemen to protect me. But when Sanballat and the Horonite and Tobiah, the Ammonite official, heard my arrival, they were very displeased that someone had come to help the people of Israel.
Speaker 1:Now pause for just a moment. Can you imagine already an amazing lesson for us? And that is this that Nehemiah had so served the king with honor that when he needed something, the king was willing to listen. What an amazing lesson to us that we so many times we want God to do something for us, but we don't do ourselves any favors by not living with a sense of excellence that, wherever he has put me. I'm going to grow where I'm planted so that if an opportunity comes along, I can seize it. What an amazing lesson already is to live my life in such a way so that whenever I need something, people are willing to give and to serve, because I have already given and served. I think that's just absolutely wonderful, verse 11.
Speaker 1:So I arrived in Jerusalem Three days later. I slipped out during the night, taking only a few others with me. I had not told anyone about the plans God had put in my heart for Jerusalem. We took no pack animals with us except the donkey I was riding. After dark I went out through the valley gate, past the jackal's well and over the dung gate to inspect the broken walls and burned gates. Then I went to the fountain gate, to the king's pool, but my donkey couldn't get through the rubble. So, though it was still dark, I went up to the Kidron Valley, instead inspecting the wall, before I turned back and entered again at the valley gate.
Speaker 1:The city officials did not know that I had been out there or what I was doing, for I had not yet said anything to anyone about my plans. I had not yet spoken to the Jewish leaders, the priests, the nobles, the officials or anyone else in the administration. But now I said to them you know very well what trouble we are in. Jerusalem lies in ruins. Its gates have been destroyed by fire. They replied at once let's rebuild the wall. So they began the good work. But when Sanballat, tobiah and Geshem the Arab heard my plans, they scoffed contemptuously. What are you doing? Are you rebelling against the king? They asked. I replied the God of heaven will help us succeed. We, his servants, will start building this wall, but you have no share, no legal right or historic claim in Jerusalem. Now you should remember those names Samballot and Tobiah, geshem somewhat, but mainly Samballot and Tobiah. Those are going to be the two villains of this story. That's going to work against Nehemiah.
Speaker 1:But what I love about this is he went to the king and he was ready. Whenever the king said, what do you need? What's going to happen, he didn't just say well, let me get back with you. I hadn't planned this far ahead yet he was ready, so that when the moment came, he had a vision, he had a plan for what he wanted to do. And then he did the same thing when he got to Jerusalem. He went to Jerusalem and he inspected everything. He got his mind where he wanted it to be, he figured it all out and then he went and he cast vision to everybody else. You know that speaks so much to us today.
Speaker 1:There is such an interesting dynamic that happens that sometimes God will put us in environments but we're not ready and we just don't expect God to do what he says he's going to do. Give us these opportunities, and so we're not ready, and so I want to encourage you as we get ready to end our time together, be sure to have a personal vision for what you desire for God to do in your life, and there's three things we can learn from this chapter that will help us. Number one take your time. The journey of a lifetime takes a lifetime, and it's important that you take your time, and this could be a course of a year to make it a year long prayer. God, what destination do you want me to point my life into? Now, as always, we let ourselves be guided by God, and so he may have us start in one direction and then steer us along the way, but we got to start somewhere. So the first thing is is take your time. This isn't the movies. You can't wrap up an entire journey in two hours. It takes years. So take your time.
Speaker 1:Number two take a realistic assessment of where you are. Notice how Nehemiah. First of all, he realized his position in front of the king. Look, I'm a nobody Like. I mean, I'm in an honor position as the king's cupbearer, but really I got no stake here, so I'm not going to talk to the king like I'm his equal. I'm going to talk to him. Lord, long live the king. And then, when he got to Jerusalem, he made sure to assess the walls. I'm going to assess where I'm at before I take my next step.
Speaker 1:So, once you take your time to look at what is it that God wants me to do? Then you assess where you are. Do you feel like God's wanting you to start a business? Well, are you ready to start a business? Forget this stuff of. Well, if God wants it to be, he's gonna give me the money. Of course God will, but he also wants you to use wisdom, and so if you're $100,000 in debt, today might not be the best time to start that business and just trust God to fix it. You might or he might let you fall to learn that lesson. And so, if you're $100,000 in debt, you take an assessment and go okay. Well, god wants me to start a business In five years. I'm going to start that business and until then, I'm going to get ahold of Dave Ramsey. I'm going to start taking an assessment. Do you want to do something that's going to require you to go back to school and get an education? Do you need to go to trade school? Do you need to do whatever? Like take an honest assessment of where you are. You want to get married one day? Well, you have to take an honest assessment of where you are right now.
Speaker 1:And then number three cast the vision of what's possible. What does that mean? Is that means put it somewhere where you can look at it every day? I want to tell you how this can work out for somebody I knew one time. They wanted to run a marathon and they just they wanted to get in shape. Actually is how it started. And so they wanted to get in shape. They wanted to get in shape, they wanted something, but they knew they needed a big idea to get there. They knew they needed something massive in order to really get them inspired and get in shape and so then they decided to run a marathon. But they took their time first on what they wanted to do.
Speaker 1:And I believe this guy started off with wanting to do like an Ironman, which is like a whole lot bigger than a marathon, and finally so he took his time, took his time and he finally realized he settled on, he wanted to run a marathon and at that point I'd ran one one time. And so I was like, dude, you should do this, you can totally do this. And he's like, no, no, no, I'm gonna take my time. And he took a realistic assessment and he hadn't been exercising for years and so he couldn't even run a block without having to stop and throw up, you know. So he took his time figuring out what he wanted to do, and then he took a realistic assessment of what it was going to take.
Speaker 1:And then he trained for something like three years, took a very long training, but what he did was is he took and he registered for this marathon and he put the race application and he put it on his desk, his dresser, his clothes. Where he put it kept his clothes and every morning when he would get up and he didn't want to go run. He would look at that application and he would remember about the commitment he had made. And every morning when it was raining outside, he looked at that application and every time he did it, he did it. He kept looking and kept looking and over the course of time, he took his time, he made a realistic assessment of where he was and he cast that vision for himself and he ran that marathon and it was amazing to watch him just slowly progress and, to be honest with you, I would forget he was doing it for a long time and he would come back and he'd go man, I'm getting closer, closer to what? Closer? Oh yeah, you're running a marathon because it was such a long period of time, but he finally did it.
Speaker 1:And you know, for us, many times, let's let's say you want to start that business and let's say you're in a hundred thousand dollars of debt, we know what you're going to need. You're going to need a compelling vision and you're going to need to have something in front of you and so, whatever that is, find that, find that vision, take your time, find it, make a realistic assessment of where you are and then put it somewhere so you can remember it. That's what Nehemiah did, is. He told the people what if we rebuilt this wall? What would it look like if we remove the shame of this city and we built that wall? Do that and watch what God will do. Because, number one, chapter one man, we take responsibility. I'm your huckleberry.
Speaker 1:Chapter two we have a personal vision. Let's pray God. Thank you so much, lord, that you have a plan for our life. Your word says that it is good to give us a hope and a vision. I pray, god, you will give us a vision for what you can do in our lives. Help us, lord, not to find a vision just of ourself, but to get an idea of what you want us to do and to move in that direction, lord, by taking our time making realistic assessments and then painting that vision clear, so we know our next step. In Jesus' name, we pray amen, amen. Well, god's word says in Nehemiah 8, verse 10, don't be dejected or sad, for the joy of the Lord is your strength. I love you. I'll see you tomorrow. For Nehemiah, chapter 3.
