Here's Pastor Alan Wright with today's blessing, a biblical faith-filled vision for your life. Be empowered in these trying times with today's blessing, which is taken from Nehemiah 8, verse 10. You might feel weary from the strain of trying times. You might feel weak under the weight of difficult days, but in Christ, You have a secret pathway to power. You've been given, in your inheritance, a hidden weapon.
Joy. The joy of the Lord is your strength.
So I bless you to walk in the joy of the Lord, His own joy in you. With God's joy, You become a Moses in the face of every Pharaoh. With God's joy, you become a Samson in the face of all your Philistines. With God's joy, you become a David in the face of all your giants. Then may you be strengthened today.
and the joy of the Lord. It's the fruit of the Spirit, and it's the fuel for your journey. That's today's blessing, and that is the gospel. Pastor, author, and Bible teacher Alan Wright. I'm drawn to Nehemiah for a lot of reasons, and maybe most of all.
It points us to the greater builder, the one who is the greatest visionary, who built a better city. And that's Jesus. you're going to see him in Nehemiah's story. That's Pastor Alan Wright. Welcome to another message of good news that will help you see your life in a whole new light.
I'm Daniel Britt. Excited for you to hear the teaching today in the series Nehemiah, Dreamer, Builder, Warrior, as presented at Renolda Church in North Carolina. If you're not able to stay with us throughout the entire program, I want to make sure you know how to get our special resource right now. For a limited time, this can be yours for your donation to Allen Wright Ministries. As you listen to today's message, go deeper as we send you today's special offer.
Contact us at pastorallen.org. That's pastorallen.org. Or call 877-544-4860. Again, by phone, 877-544-4860. More on this later in the program, but now let's get started with today's teaching.
Here. is Pastor Alan Wright. Mm. Let's dive into this, the setting of this. Again, at verse 1, the words of Nehemiah, the son of Hekaliah.
It happened in the month of Khislev. I think that's November, the 20th year. I was in Susa. That's the Persian palace that the king would be in in the wintertime. At that time it was King Artaxerxes, king of Persia.
That Hen and I, one of my brothers, maybe literally are brothers, could just mean another Jewish guy. Came with certain men from Judah, and I asked them concerning the Jews who had escaped and who survived the exile. concerning Jerusalem and they said the remnant there Who survived the exile, in the words he used, are in great trouble and shame the wall of Jerusalem's broken down, the gates are destroyed by fire.
So disobedience and idolatry. Had been prevalent in the life of Israel. God, through his prophets, had warned them that if they did not return to the Lord, there would be heavy discipline from the Lord. And it came. And it came in the form of the overrun.
of Israel, first the northern kingdom, and then in 586 BC King Nebuchadnezzar in Babylon sacked Jerusalem, overran the city, and they deported most of the Israelites to Babylon.
Some survived it, some escaped it, some were left behind. But most were gone. And God promised that He would restore them. He never, never, never, even under the old covenant of law, he never simply just punished his. He disciplined for the sake of restoration, and he never broke his promises.
He always had planned for them to have this.
So they start coming back. When a new empire, Persia, takes over, and Cyrus has a different policy. He's like, allow people to go back to their homelands. First group comes back around 538. Led by Zerubbabel, they rebuild the temple.
There's a famous scene in in Ezra they talk about the temple gets rebuilt and It didn't seem to have the former glory, and so some people wept because it wasn't as glorious as Solomon's temple. But the temple got rebuilt, and A wave of people came back with Ezra. They'd rediscovered the book of the law, probably discovering Deuteronomy. Ezra's trying to lead them back into the word. And Nehemiah is a cupbearer to the king of Persia.
And this is crazy. Because the cupbearer, of course, is the one who's tasting the king's wine, make sure it's not poisoned. But because it's always delivering food and beverage up to the king, this person is intimate acquaintance with the king.
So they became known as having influence. and they had an audience regularly with the king, a very rare thing. And God did this sometimes, right? Like Moses. was Hebrew, but he was raised in the Egyptian court.
God sometimes will just do this. He did this with Daniel during the exile. Daniel was Hebrew, but he got promoted in Nebuchadnezzar's court because Daniel was so smart and visionary.
Well, here now is this Jewish man, Nehemiah. who was part of the exiles and he somehow has gotten into this position. He's cupbearer to King Artaxerxes there in the winter palace at Susa. And he gets visitors who come from Jerusalem, and he says, How's everything going? I think that Nehemiah thinks everything's going well.
The temple had been rebuilt, he'd heard, and they had had some early efforts to rebuild the walls. But they said, no, things are in trouble and the people are in disgrace and the walls are down. And we think what happened, we won't go there, but it's described in Ezra chapter 4, is that all this rebuilding, he's not talking about what happened when Nebuchadnezzar ran through Jerusalem in 586. That was decades earlier. They were talking about that they had started the rebuilding effort of the walls and then it got halted.
And then there was mockery from others, and the whole city was in disgrace. And I think that came as a big surprise to Nehemiah. And he found it out. And it's something sometimes that's just more disappointing when you think that things are going well and then you find out that they're not. There's a kind of anguish.
But his grief and his longing is so deep. Look again at verse 4. As soon as I heard these words, I sat down, I wept and mourned for days, continued fasting and praying before the God of heaven. He's just. For days he can't do anything but weep and pray.
And why? Why is he? I've thought about it. Why is he so upset?
Well, partly he just loved his homeland. I mean, all the Jewish people, they love Jerusalem. They love their homeland. Psalm 48:1. Great is the Lord, greatly to be praised, the city of our God, his holy mountain, beautiful in elevation, the joy of all the earth.
Psalm 87, 1. On the holy mount stands the city he founded. The Lord loves the gates of Zion more than all the dwelling places of Jacob. This was the place of their temple. This is the place of the palace.
This is the place of their birth. This is the place of their culture. He loved his homeland, so he's grieved. Things are in disgrace there. But also, you have to understand walls are important.
This is very hard for a modern mind to understand, but in the ancient city, if the walls are not there, the city is unprotected. Not just from marauders and raiders and enemy nations, but also from the culture around them. It was very important that they not be diluted and assimilated into the culture around them. And if you trace it far enough, it was to say that if the city walls aren't there, the people aren't going to be protected. They'll be subject to being scattered across the face of the earth.
There will be no more people, no place for the Messiah to come. And so he's stirred by all this. But he's stirred, if you look closely, he's stirred by the plight of the people. Verse 3: They said the remnant there in the prophets who survived the exile is in great trouble and shame. The people.
are in trouble. And they're being mocked, and they're in shame.
So this is stirring Nehemiah. But you must say that on top of all of that, His love for his homeland, his love for the people, the stirring disappointment. There's something supernatural that is moving him. And that's what I wanted you to say. Pay attention.
Pay attention. To those stirring, deep, sometimes visceral. but gnawing senses of burden things that you care about immensely, about Maybe God is moving through that.
So He discerns this. You see. Just because Nehemiah heard about it didn't mean he was called to lead an effort of rebuilding. He goes through four months before he ever talks to the king about being released to go do this. He's praying for a long time.
I remember I was my first year of any ministry. I was doing youth ministry straight out of college. I'd gone to a ministry conference in Atlanta my first year, and I was at this convention center. We took a break, we were walking down the street for lunch, and I'm walking with an older, wiser pastor, and there were so many people on the streets where we were homeless and others. They were asking for help.
They were in need. People needed finances. People needed so much. And I just, my heart was just tugged by everything, right? And I said to this pastor, I said, how do you deal with the sea?
of endless need. And he said something so wise, I never forgot it. He said, Oh, there's a big difference between seeing a need and discerning a call. to meet it. It was really important.
I've been trying to spend most of my ministry to understand that. You and no individual can meet all the needs. In fact, If you try to meet all the needs that you see, you will miss your call. Yeah. That's Alan Wright.
And we'll have more teaching in a moment from today's important series. Ever wonder why little children wish they didn't have to go to bed and adults look forward to it? Ever notice how children see mealtime as an intrusion in the midst of a fun day, but adults see mealtime as the most fun part of the day? What happened on the path to adulthood that robbed us of the simple freedom and wonder on display in a child's heart? If you've ever longed to be a child again, here's good news.
You can. When Jesus told his disciples that the greatest in the kingdom were the little children, he was pointing to a huge spiritual truth. The abundant life is on display in the simple faith of little children. When you make your generous gift this month, we'll send you Alan Wright's timeless book, A Childlike Heart, as our way of saying thanks for your partnership. Call or visit us online today to make your gift and get your copy of A Childlike Heart.
The freedom and wonder of childhood awaits you. The gospel is shared when you give to Allen Wright Ministries. This broadcast is only possible because of listener financial support. When you give today, we will send you today's special offer. We are happy to send this to you as our thanks from Allen Wright Ministries.
Call us at eight seven seven five four four forty eight sixty. That's eight seven seven five four four forty eight sixty. or come to our website, pastorallen.org. Today's teaching now continues. Here once again is Alan Wright.
Because you cannot. But God has made you for specific purposes. And he wants to lead you into an ongoing process of discernment, whether you're a young person discerning the whole direction of your life. Or whether in your older years and discerning how to use the valuable time and wisdom that you have. He wants to lead you through a process of this.
You could say that what happened with Nehemiah was he couldn't get away from it. He prayed, he mourned, he fasted, he prayed, he mourned, he wept, he fasted, and he just couldn't get away with it. He just couldn't get it off his mind. He couldn't get away from the idea that something needed to happen. This is part of it.
It's part of what happens in a call. Call it having a burden that won't go away.
Some things God just calls you to pray about. He'll do that. He'll do that with Ann and I sometimes. He'll do that with Ann. He'll just wake her up and just pray about this.
And you just pray. He's just using your prayers. But when there's a call of something that you're supposed to get more actively involved in. It persists. Years ago, I learned about shame.
I didn't know anything about it until These So many years ago. 26 years ago, I began to learn about it. It's a shame. You don't measure up as you are now, and if you're going to be fully loved and accepted, you need to. perform more, be better, measure up.
And how much anxiety that mentality can cause. and how only the gospel of the grace of the Lord Jesus can heal it. The gospel that says you are perfectly loved. Already. The gospel that says your life will be changed by God, not by him withholding that love, but by giving it.
The gospel that says not by him dangling acceptance if you will be a religious performer, but by him blessing you. and speaking of visionary forecast over your life. It became such a huge part of my life. I ended up writing a book on the subject. I ended up doing conferences all over.
It's still a big part of my life. Here I am talking about it again. Yeah. Call. And I remember when it came time to write a book on that, and I'd have been so blessed to be able to write three books with this good publisher, and in the midst of doing that, I had this privilege of getting to know the president of that company, that publishing company.
And so when we were talking about doing the shame off you book, I actually got to talk to the president. And he sat down and he said, why do you want to write this? And I had just the week before, I think it was, been in California at a conference where I was hearing Rick Warren, the famous purpose-driven life pastor, speak. But he was talking about the way that they did so much evangelism and I remember him saying this, and I never forgot it, Rick Warren. He said, today there are going to be tens of thousands of people, maybe hundreds of thousands of people, who die without knowing Jesus, and the thought of people going into a Christless eternity is unbearable to me.
He said, that's why I've structured everything I do in my life for our church and for our ministry. I remember talking to the president of that publishing company, and I said, I told him that story, and I said, For me, Also, the thought of people needlessly bearing their own shame. When there is the gospel of Jesus that could liberate them from a life of anxiety that could lead them into all manner of perfectionism, rebellion, or addiction. The thought of people Growing up in that from the time that they're little kids and never knowing a different story or a different message. The fact that we could just teach people about how they could be healed from this, and yet people are going to go on in that shame and live in it unless they know the thought of people living in shame is unbearable to me.
The thought of those walls staying down. and the people in disgrace and the city of God being unprotected. and the mission and promises of God being at risk. The whole thing was just unbearable to Nehemiah. He couldn't shake it.
He couldn't get it off his mind. He couldn't get off his heart. He just kept praying about it. The burden that just kept coming. And this is one of the ways that God leads.
He didn't come in a burning bush. He didn't write it on the wall for him, but he laid it on his heart. Yeah. And God has ways, beloved husband. He wants you to get into his purposes for your life more than you do.
That's right. And he's got ways of making you care. I think of Jeremiah so often, Jeremiah the prophet who wished he could quit, but he couldn't. Jeremiah 20 verse 7, he said, Lord, you've deceived me and I was deceived. That's a strong language.
You know, what it's interesting is that translators aren't willing to do it, but the real translation probably is better. You seduced me, and I was seduced. He's saying, you wooed me. You revealed your holiness as so attractive, and you made your wonders known to me. And I just got sucked right into this whole prophetic thing.
He said, You're stronger than I, and you prevailed. No fare. He says, I've become a laughingstock all the day. Everyone mocks me. That happened to Jeremiah a lot.
He gave a lot of unpopular prophetic words. Whenever I speak, I cry out. I shout vengeance, violence, and destruction, for the word of the Lord has come to me. Like a reproach, derision all day long. He's just being persecuted, he said.
But look at verse 9, he said, but if I say I'll not mention him or speak of him anymore in his name, there is in my heart, as it were, a burning fire shut up in my bones, and I'm weary with holding it in, and I cannot. He said, he's saying, I'd like to quit. But I can't. Because every time I try to quit, it's like a fire shut up in my bones, and that's worse than the idea of quitting.
So I just keep doing that. He's saying I care about it too much. I love the Word of God too much. If I'd known it was going to be like this, I wouldn't have signed up for it. I didn't even know, but you just lured me right into it, and I fell in love with you, God.
And now I can't fall out of love with you, and I can't stop talking about you. God's got a way. of ordering your steps. He's got a way of hemming you in before and behind. He is so for you.
Selfish ambition, the things that are just out of our own thoughts. It doesn't come from outside. This is what the world says. The world's ideology right now is: don't let anybody tell you what you ought to do. You just Be who you are.
You know, live your truth. Look inside yourself. It's not a new philosophy. It's not just new ageism. It always has been.
A temptation. to pridefully follow an inward voice which is unreliable. We are sin-tainted creatures, and the inward voice is unreliable. If I just rely on myself. I would still B Trying to play tennis with a sore back.
painting pictures and playing the electric guitar. Putting a tin can out for somebody to put money in. I mean, I would miss it all if I just go, what do I like to do? It's wrong. This is utterly countercultural, but it is the biblical picture.
of the spirit-filled called life. I think these days of mourning and weeping and fasting for Nehemiah were a process. Four months go by before he ever talked. Talks to the king. And calling You see, it can endure the test of time because calling Stands.
Okay.
So Nehemiah hears the bad news in November. He decides to act on it in April. But it could have been even longer. It's not to say we're supposed to delay, but it's Romans 11, 29 to say the gifts and calling of God are irrevocable. Jonah ran as far away from God as he could run.
And yet, even though he had rebelled and tried to travel to the uttermost parts of the sea, Jonah 3.1, the word of the Lord came to Jonah the second time. Arise, go to Nineveh, the great city, call out against it the message I tell you. The same instruction, the same call. That's really delightfully encouraging, isn't it? Delightfully reassuring.
Pastor Alan Wright, our good news message today, Calling vs. Ambition from the series Nehemiah. Please stay with us. Pastor Alan is back joining me in the studio, sharing a parting good news thought for the day in just a moment. Unlock the power of blessing your life.
Discover God's grace-filled vision for your life by signing up for Alan Wright's free daily blessing. If you want to fill your heart with grace and encouragement, get Alan Wright's daily blessing. It's free, and just a click away at pastoralen.org. Ever wish you could be a child again? Ever long for the simpler days when your biggest financial worry was counting the money in the shoebox at the lemonade stand?
Ever long for the more carefree times when you wish the long summer days would never end? If you've ever longed to be like a child again, author Alan Wright has some good news. You can. Because Jesus commanded us to become like little children in order to enter the kingdom, it must be possible. When you make a gift this month, we'll send you a copy of the first book Alan Wright authored.
It's called A Childlike Heart, and it will lead you once again into the freedom and wonder of childhood. If you long for fresh, childlike faith, Alan's book will help you find adventure and joy in your grown-up walk. And remember, when you make a gift, you're broadcasting the love of God to thousands of people every day. The gospel is shared when you give to Allen Wright Ministries. This broadcast is only possible because of listener financial support.
When you give today, we will send you today's special offer. We are happy to send this to you as our thanks from Allen Wright Ministries. Call us at eight seven seven five four four forty eight sixty. That's eight seven seven five four four forty eight sixty. Or come to our website, pastorallen.org.
Back here now with Pastor Alan in the studio, Nehemiah, Calling vs. Ambition as our teaching continues. I can't think of Nehemiah without thinking about building a wall. Yeah. He is a builder, but also he was a dreamer.
And he was also a warrior.
So I called this year as Nehemiah, the builder, the dreamer, the warrior, because He's all of that. And sometimes I would like to just be a dreamer. You know, it's wonderful to get a dream of seeing the wall being restored. It's quite another to get the sense of commitment. How does that come in our lives?
But when God gets hold of you, it's amazing what you can do. And there is spiritual opposition that he faces just as we do also.
So, whatever it might be, I'm speaking to a listener now that is your call for the wall that God has for you to build. I'm not just talking about a physical project. I'm talking about the spiritual initiatives that He has in this new year for you. He who calls you is going to guide you through it every step of the way. And no better place to learn to glean from the grace of God than the story of Nehemiah.
Um Thanks for listening today. Visit us online at pastorallen.org or call 877-544-4860. That's 877-544-4860. If you only caught part of today's teaching, not only can you listen again online, but also get a daily email devotional that matches today's teaching delivered right to your email inbox. Free.
Find out more about these and other resources at pastorallen.org. That's pastoralan.org. Today's good news message is a listener-supported production of Alan Wright Ministries.
