R325 Overcoming Life’s Hurdles Pt.1

Overcoming life's hurdles. That's today's topic as we go to God's Word for our encouragement from Dr. Don Wilton today. All of us face hurdles, and sometimes they're so overwhelming it seems we cannot get over, around, under, or through. But today, Dr. Don Wilton takes us to the Word of God to give us some understanding on how we not only train for cresting those hurdles, but how we can help each other do that.

Speaking of helping each other, we'd love to pray with you and for you anytime. We're connecting on our website at www.tewonline.org. That's www.tewonline.org. It's also the place you can discover more information on this wonderful book so many folks have asked about. It's about Dr. Wilton's relationship with Dr. Billy Graham called Saturdays with Billy.

Again, details online at www.tewonline.org. Now today's great teaching with Dr. Don Wilton. Would you be so kind this morning as to take a copy of God's Word and turn with me to the book of Nehemiah chapter 2. As we continue our study in faithfulness here in the book of Nehemiah chapter 2.

Our subject this morning, overcoming life's hurdles. And I want you to know everyone how much I love you in the Lord Jesus Christ. And how much I thank God for your faithfulness. And for the way in which you have charted a course for those of us who are coming behind you to follow.

Now, beloved friends, there is one thing that we settled, I believe, last week and it's simply this. Nehemiah was a man who was prepared to step out by faith. We discovered last week, some for the first time and some for the millionth time, that the essence of everything that we do as believers is the exercise of our faith. In fact, the Bible puts it like this, without faith it is impossible to please God. Nehemiah was given an insurmountable, from a human perspective, challenge.

He was given a task that would boggle the average mind. And yet, we've discovered already that Nehemiah was a man who was prepared to accept God's challenge and he was willing to step out by faith. And so here's what happens. God speaks and we say, God, reveal your will to us and we will be prepared to adjust our behaviour, our comfort zones and our lifestyle to do exactly what it is that you want us to do. And so God reveals his will to us and we say, Lord, we will do it. And we begin to step out in faith. And so the question becomes not our willingness to step out in faith because we've settled that.

Our issue, the issue now becomes what are we going to do about the manifold hurdles that we are going to have to leap over in order to accomplish the will of God as we walk by faith and not by sight. One of my favourite sports to watch is the hurdle race during the Olympics. I used to love watching Edwin Moses and people like that, the great American hurdlers. And you know, I've never wanted to be a hurdler, so I don't want anybody to even think that.

In fact, I probably couldn't be, I'd fall flat on my face. But if you consider a hurdler, a hurdler gets up to the starting line and he can see down the road and he knows that he wants to get to the finish line. Much like the apostle Paul said, he said, I have run the race. I have moved towards the goal that God has committed me to. And as the hurdler looks down to the finish line, he knows that in order to accomplish what it is that he's about to do, he has to leap over a number of obstacles, a number of hurdles in order to gain the finish line that he has set out to gain. Nehemiah was a man who accepted God's challenge to step out in faith.

Probably no different to many of us here today. God puts before us many different things and he says, this is what I want you to do. And we say, Lord, here I am, send me whatever it is you want me to do, I'm willing to do it. And as we begin that journey of faith, we find ourselves stumbling and falling over life's hurdles.

They are all over the place. The question is this, how do we overcome life's hurdles? What was it that Nehemiah did as a prerequisite to the course he was about to enter into, faith 101? What was it that Nehemiah was beginning to put into place in order to enable him and to equip him to face life's hurdles? Because it is an absolute guarantee. I've heard some people say, well, pastor, if you give your life to the Lord Jesus Christ and you trust him and you're willing, like Abraham, to step out in faith and to go wherever God wants you to go, that you're never going to have to face any hurdles.

That is not at all the reality of life. In fact, I'm going to submit to you upstairs and downstairs and all over, every person worshiping with us today can identify with innumerable numbers of life's hurdles. Let's read together in Nehemiah chapter two. Nehemiah chapter two, follow along in God's word.

In the month of Nisan, in the 20th year of King Artaxerxes, when wine was brought for him, I took the wine and I gave it to the king. I had not been sad in his presence before. So the king asked me, why does your face look so sad when you are not ill? This can be nothing but sadness of heart.

I was very much afraid. But I said to the king, may the king live forever. Why should my face not look sad when the city where my fathers are buried lies in ruins and its gates have been destroyed by fire? The king said to me, what is it you want Nehemiah? Then I prayed to the God of heaven and I answered the king, if it pleases the king and if your servant has found favor in his sight, let him send me to the city in Judah where my fathers are buried so that I can rebuild it. Then the king with the queen sitting beside him asked me, how long will your journey take?

And when will you get back? It pleased the king to send me so I set a time. I also said to him, if it pleases the king, may I have letters to the governors of Trans Euphrates so that they will provide me safe conduct until I arrive in Judah. And may I have a letter to Asaph, keeper of the king's forest, so he will give me timber to make beams for the gates of the citadel by the temple and for the city wall and for the residence I will occupy. Because the gracious hand of my God was upon me, the king granted my requests. So I went up to the governors of Trans Euphrates and gave them the king's letters.

The king had also sent army officers and cavalry with me. Now when Sanballat the Horonite and Tobiah the Ammonite official heard about this, they were very much disturbed that someone had come to promote the welfare of the Israelites. May the Lord write his word upon our hearts this morning, overcoming life's hurdles. Here he was, Nehemiah, servant of God, willing to adjust his life, willing to give up ownership of being cupbearer to the king, willing to go and suffer with the people of God, willing to go and rebuild the walls of Jerusalem, and he had accepted God's challenge to step out in faith. There are many, many hurdles that lie ahead of this man. I want to summarize them in four statements. There were four basic hurdles that he was going to have to overcome as he looked down the stretch.

Probably not too unlike the hurdles that we look at. Number one was the fear of the unknown, the fear of the unknown. In fact, chapter two, verse two and part B says, I was very much afraid. Now, beloved friends, this morning when it comes to exercising the commission of God in our lives, there is no doubt whatsoever that great fear lies out there on the basis of the fact that we don't know what lies out there.

When God begins to speak to you, there is the reality of the fear of the unknown. We like to be comfortable. We like to know what's out there. We like to be able to hang our hat upon something.

We like to know that our credit card carries value. We like to know that we are acceptable in the presence of mankind. We like to know about the final mark of our destination. We like to know that we can have a proverbial peep behind the window of the curtain of faith and yet the Word of God says we walk by faith and not by sight and without faith it is impossible to please God but there is the ever-present reality of the fear of the unknown. What a hurdle to overcome.

You're going to ask most people today to step outside of their comfort zones and even though they won't tell you about it, what keeps them rooted to where they are is the fear of the unknown. A long unknown journey. A long unknown journey. Just the hazards of the journey. Verse 7 following tells us and the rest of Nehemiah tells us about the journey this man undertook.

Now folks, when you think of Boeing 747s and you think about Fords and BMWs and you think about interstates today, the distance that this man had to travel from the court of artaxerxes to the broken walls of Jerusalem pales into insignificance but historians tell us as did Jesus with the story of the Samaritan person, he said listen, he said on this particular highway as you are traveling between point A and point B, you are going literally on a journey into the unknown. It is fraught with hazards. There are people out there wanting to get you. There are robbers and burglars.

There are muggers. There are people who will kill you for a dime. There's the hazards of the dirt on the roads. There are wild animals that can devour you. There is a journey that is unknown and you don't know about it.

Oh, he had hurdles all right, didn't he, Nehemiah? The fear of the unknown. A long, long journey but the third hurdle he had to overcome was human opposition.

Human opposition. Well, we read about it in verse 10. When Sam Ballard and Tobiah heard about this, they were very much disturbed. Now folks, you and I as spiritual people cannot understand when some people begin to knock and to buck against the spiritual outpouring of God but it is a biblical fact. It is a biblical fact that every time God speaks to an individual or to a group in any circumstances that there will be those who will oppose the outworking of God's grace. It is a biblical guarantee.

It's not a matter of if it happens, it is when it happens. In the past Thursday night, deacons from all over Spartanburg County gathered together in our dining hall. We were there with our chairman of deacons and with some others and Mr. Ken Smith who is chaplain to the South Carolina football team spoke to us. It was a wonderful evening and he spoke about the wise man building a house upon a rock so that when the rains come, the house will stand firm. He spoke about the foolish man who built his house upon the sand and when the rains and the floods came, the house upon the sand fell flat and I thought to myself what Jesus was trying to teach us is that we need to build upon a rock and not upon the sand, that is what he's trying to teach us but another thing Jesus is trying to teach us my friends is that storms will come. That's right, it is guaranteed the floods are going to come. The hurdles of life are going to present themselves to us. It is guaranteed for both the wise man upon a rock and the foolish man upon a sand, the storms of life are going to come. This man, one of the greatest hurdles he began to encounter was the rise of human opposition.

It was no different in the acts of the apostles. You can read about it in chapter four where the apostles began to preach and teach the word of God and the Lord added to the church daily such as would be saved and there rose from among the ranks of the church believers a group of people who were opposed, they were against it and the Bible says here these people were disturbed, were disturbed that Nehemiah was coming to promote the welfare of the Israelites and to rebuild the walls, fear of the unknown, a long journey, human opposition but in the fourth place, the fourth hurdle was practical questions. His greatest hurdle perhaps were the practical questions of life. We've all got them, I've got them. You know what the practical questions are? How am I going to do this? Who's going to pay for it? Am I going to have enough money? Will I have enough to eat?

Am I going to starve to death? What about mommy and daddy? What about my grandparents? My parents are elderly, I can't leave them. I don't want to move out of this area because it's where I've grown up. As long as I don't have to leave my home, it's going to be okay.

I'm willing to accept this as long as I don't have to change that. What, where, how, when, why? When I'm doing this, when I'm doing that, they're practical questions and beloved friends, they are very, very real in the life of every believer. Never be afraid to ask practical questions of God.

Do you know why? Because God is the God who is going to answer every single predicament. These, this word here is the key that unlocks the key to kingdom living. This word is a lamp unto my feet and a light unto my path. It is by this means that God shows me where I am to step into the darkness of life. Fear of unknown, a long journey, human opposition, practical questions. So what did he do about it? How did Nehemiah step out in faith and begin to overcome life's hurdles?

Let me share some thoughts with you. Number one, he relied on his partners in prayer. He relied on his partners in prayer. As I've been studying through this whole book of Nehemiah, I wondered what kind of prayer partners Nehemiah had.

I've got six or seven, I want to give them to you. You see, the Apostle Paul writing to the church at Corinth, he uses a marvelous phrase. This is what he says in 2 Corinthians. He says, we are co-laborers together.

Isn't that wonderful? We are co-laborers together. What were some of his partners in prayer? Let me give them to you, not in order of priority. Number one, his intellectual skills.

Uh oh, you thought you were going to write down the names of people, didn't you? His intellectual skills. Someone said to me one time, pastor, it doesn't help because I only get one A and five C's. Listen, God's not interested in whether we get A's, B's or C's or D's. But I'll guarantee you what God is interested in. God is interested in all of us using the brains that God has given to us.

Think about what you're doing. Think, use the mind that God has given to you. Make and allow your mind to come in sync with the mind of Christ. That's what the apostle Paul was trying to teach the church at Philippi.

He was telling them, let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus. Use amongst others your intellectual skills. Secondly, your human experience.

That's a second partner of prayer. You know, human experience is probably one of the greatest teachers of all. It's our capacity to learn as we go along. I think about human experience. And I think about the things that you and I can learn from those who have gone through the school of human experience. But in the third place, human experience cultivates accumulated wisdom. That's a prayer partner is accumulated wisdom. God's word says, if you ask for wisdom, I'll give it to you.

I won't hold it back. So you go to a Christian person who has accumulated wisdom and God is gonna use that wisdom to help you to overcome some of life's hurdles. But number four, your role and position in life. There's a prayer partner. Your role and your position in life. Just think about Nehemiah chapter one and verse 11 says, I was cupbearer to the king. This man had a role and he had a position.

He used both in order to be able to overcome life's hurdles. What is your role and position? Are you a dad this morning? Well, my brother behave like a dad. Operate like a dad. Are you a grandmother this morning?

Well, my sister behave and operated like a grandmother. Are you a mother? Behave and operate like a mother. Are you a school teacher? Behave and operated like a school teacher. Are you a pastor? Behave and operate like a pastor. Are you a Sunday school teacher?

Be what a Sunday school teacher ought to be. Are you a deacon? Are you a Christian?

Are you a born again believer washed and redeemed by the blood of the lamb? Use your title, your position. Forgive the interruption, but as Dr. Don continues to convict us all, you need to know we'd love to pray with you about what's that next step for you to discover how you need to be better using your talents and your position. God calls us all to service, doesn't He? As Dr. Don would say, He calls us to serve, not to sit. No one takes the army and looks at that and says, Now, those are the army people that need to be watching the other people do the work and fight the battle.

No, no, no. We're all called to be a part of this battle together, but we are called in this sense of unity to work together. Can we pray for you about what's God doing next in your life, about what God is calling you to do next? We'd love to pray any time, day or night, at 866-899-WORD. I pray you'll jot the number down or store it in your cell, 866-899-9673. We'll always connect you with one of us, happy to talk or listen or pray.

Just know that we're here for you. Now back to today's great teaching, Overcoming Life's Hurdles with Dr. Don Wilton. All of us who love the Lord Jesus Christ are being called into a wonderful position in Christ Jesus.

But number five, the testimony of others. What a blessed prayer partner, the testimony of others. So many people whose lives have been impacted for Christ have impacted my own life for Christ. So many. Someone said to me one time many years ago, said to me, Pastor, one of the greatest things you can ever do in your home is invite godly people into your home.

Now let me just run that by again in case some of you are mourning Wake Forest loss yesterday. Listen carefully. Somebody said to me as a father, they said one of the greatest things you can do for your children is to invite godly Christian people into your home. Let them stay with you. Let them eat with you. Let them live with you. Do you know that I've met people who never have anybody in their homes?

I say, well, I don't have the gift of hospitality. You want to impact your children? Bring godly people into your home. Don't just take them out to the football stadiums. Don't just go and sit and shout at football games. Bring godly people into your home.

Do you know why? The testimony of others. What a tremendous prayer partner. And then finally, the consistency of your lifestyle. The consistency of your lifestyle. You say, how's the consistency of one's lifestyle a prayer partner? Well, my friends, the Bible teaches, you can go into the Sermon on the Mount, many other passages right throughout Scripture, that your walk is going to parallel your talk. Your practice is going to walk arm in arm with your preach.

What you are and who you are is going to have a direct reflection on how you overcome life's hurdles, how you operate in the fabric of society. I was professor of preaching at the New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary. And one of my responsibilities was to have preaching classes with preachers and they would get up and preach and then I would have them stand up in front of the camera and the whole class would critique them, just like you're all critiquing me right now.

And you can just imagine the experience. And it was a wonderful time. I mean, we had revival after revival. One day, probably one of the best preachers I've ever heard in my life as a young man got up to preach. When he finished preaching, I graded him, the class graded him and I gave him his grade and I gave him an F. He was the first and only man that I ever failed in preaching. I don't believe you can fail a man in preaching. Just the same as I don't believe a man can get 100% grade for preaching.

It's impossible, absolutely impossible. And so the next morning, he came to my office and he said to me, Dr. Wilton, he said, I don't understand. He said, man, you know, and he had a right not to understand. I don't understand how I got an F for preaching. I said, well, let me explain it to you.

Yesterday, I was at Elysian Fields Avenue in New Orleans, right opposite Blockbuster. There was an elderly lady in a car in front of me. There was another car between me and that elderly lady and we turned left. And this elderly lady got so mixed up that she stopped, started. She didn't know what to do. She didn't know where the traffic was coming. And this person in the car in front of me wound down his window, drove around her. He didn't cuss, but I'll tell you something, he let that dear old lady have what for. I mean, he told her everything that you've ever heard. He told her she didn't need to have a driver's license and what was she doing on the road and everything else in between it. And when screaming off down the road, there was just one problem on the bumper sticker of that car was a big sticker that said, New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary.

And my brother, you were the man in that car. How can you stand in the pulpit and expect to get an A when your lifestyle is a total contradiction of everything you're saying? How can you expect to sing in the choir? You knew I was going to get into this.

I've been waiting for this. How can you sing in the choir when your lifestyle is not consistent? How can you be a deacon if your lifestyle is not consistent?

How can you be a Sunday school teacher of your life? You see friends, life is filled with obstacles and hurdles and you and I are never going to be able to either overcome the hurdle of our own limitations. Do you know what the greatest hurdle is in my life?

It's me. I'm the biggest problem to myself, folks. I get in the way of God's will. And God, my nature, my base nature, my sinful nature wants to rear its head all the time. The old man wants to rise up in aggression all the time. And listen to me friends, if I'm not consistent in my lifestyle, I'm never going to be able to overcome life's hurdles.

Never. He is our caretaker and I pray that you know that he's stirring our hearts to change, to grow, to become more able to overcome life's hurdles. There's a great deal more tomorrow in the next edition of The Encouraging Word, but today is today. And do you have some things you need to deal with with the Lord right now?

I pray that you've heard Dr. Wilton preach, but now as he steps into the studio to share his heart, you'd open your heart and mind to what he wants to say next. Are you ready to give your heart and life to the Lord Jesus Christ? Why don't you pray this prayer with me right now? Dear God, I know that I'm a sinner and I know that Jesus died for me on the cross. Today I repent of my sin and by faith I receive you into my heart. In Jesus' name. My friend, I welcome you today into the family of God.

This is exciting news. If you've just given your life to Jesus Christ, welcome to the family of God. If you've rededicated your life, welcome home each and every day. It's our joy to pray with friends that are beginning a brand new journey with the Lord.

And in that newness, Dr. Wilton has wonderful resources he wants you to have as you begin again. I pray that you'll give us a call right now at 866-899-WORD and let us not only pray with you and for you, but get your address and mail you these free items. That's 866-899-9673. If you gave your life to Jesus Christ or rededicated your life, let us pray with you right here and now. And speaking of prayer, that's what that phone is for 24 hours a day. Did you know that the Bible tells us to pray? Ephesians 6 18 says, And pray in the Spirit on all occasions, with all kinds of prayers and requests.

With this in mind, be alert and always keep on praying for all the Lord's people. We would love to pray with you. The Encouraging Word has a 24-hour live prayer line.

You can call 866-899-WORD and talk to a real person who will be glad to pray with you. The Encouraging Word is a viewer and listener supported ministry. Thank you for listening today. Our time's gone for today, but I hope you'll join us tomorrow for Part 2 of Overcoming Life's Hurdles with Dr. Don Wilton. And let's stay connected online at www.tewonline.org. That's www.tewonline.org.