Bread of Life Church of Fresno
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Bread of Life Church of Fresno
009 BoLCF Daily - What Nehemiah Teaches Us Today
Sharing an encouraging and challenging word this week is Jordan Yarbrough. Hear about a revelation God gave him while studying the book of Nehemiah and our discussion on how it is relevant to the church today and until the end of time.
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Welcome to Bread of Life Daily, where we take a few minutes of the day to orient ourselves toward God and connect with a brother or sister in Christ. We hope this episode helps you. Love God, love people and serve both. Hey everyone, this is Kyle, hosting this session of Bread of Life Daily, and with me today is our very own Jordan Yarbrough. Jordan, welcome on. What's up, Kyle, it's good to be on. So today, Jordan is going to be bringing us an encouraging but also a challenging word, Coming out of Nehemiah spending some time with the Lord reading the stories in there and it felt like he got a picture for our church that he is going to share with us today.
Speaker 2:Jordan, why don't you go ahead and just kind of set a quick background context for Nehemiah for those of us who aren't familiar, yeah, so Nehemiah is explained as a governor in the Babylonian exile and he asked the king to travel back to Jerusalem to rebuild the city and the walls, and he feels led by God to do this. So he travels to Jerusalem and he takes some Jews with him to do that and accomplish that task.
Speaker 1:So huge project rebuild a city. I'm not much of a builder, I can't really do much around the house, but he is called to rebuild Jerusalem with his friends and family, so pretty intense project. How's that transition go for him?
Speaker 2:The transition was really tough. It literally says that there was simply too much rubble. In verse 10 of chapter 4 of Nehemiah, it says the strength of those who bear the burden is failing. There is too much rubble. By ourselves, we will not be able to rebuild the wall. That's what the Jews were saying. So on top of that discouragement, there was also a great opposition that they faced. And so there was these rulers out there, these other governors that are obviously under the rule of the Babylonian empire, that begin to taunt the Jews and Nehemiah there. They begin to taunt them and say who are these Jews? They're very weak people. Even a fox could climb on the wall and break it. Look at this. It's a laughable attempt at whatever they're doing. And then it gets to the point that as they start to rebuild, they start to try to stop them, and so they begin to attack them physically. They begin to even accuse them of false things, and then even begin to try to lie and entrap Nehemiah in unrighteous acts.
Speaker 1:Okay, and so why are these people coming against these Jewish people trying to rebuild the city? What's that about?
Speaker 2:I believe it's a demonic attack. It's really trying to get the work of God to stop, because these are God's chosen people. Right, these people are going to worship the Lord, they're going to serve the Lord. So what's happening is you have this worldly empire, the Babylonian Empire, and basically all of them and their cohorts and affiliations. They're trying to stop the work of God from happening.
Speaker 1:Okay, and that's I mean. So there's a parallel being drawn here, right, like we kind of see ourselves in this story. We are here trying to build God's kingdom in a different way than Nehemiah was doing, but we also have enemy opposition coming to stop us. So we can kind of get what that's like not on this scale, but we get that Absolutely, and our lives were faced with all sorts of different things.
Speaker 2:You know what Nehemiah did was he put the Lord first. In Nehemiah, chapter 4, verse 14, it says and this is Nehemiah talking he says and I looked and arose and said do not be afraid of them. Remember the Lord, who is great and awesome, and fight for your brothers, your sons, your daughters, your wives and your homes. So he encouraged the people to trust the Lord. Later on it explains how they prayed that God would confuse the enemy's attack, and it says that God did. And so at that point he got more wisdom from God, and so he began this strategic construction plan where he had all his builders out there with a sword in one hand, laboring and building the walls of the city with the other hand.
Speaker 1:And I tried to close my eyes for a second and picturing myself, hammer in my left hand, sword in my right and you know, there's a present threat of danger lurking behind me trying to rebuild the city. And I got my family here too. You know, it's just very difficult.
Speaker 2:Yeah, your family your kids, your wives, everything your lifestyle, everything you own right, because it all came with you right. And so, in verse 16 of chapter four, it says from that day on this is Nehemiah talking half of my servants worked on construction and half held the spears, shields, bows and coats of mail. Those who carried burdens were loaded in such a way that each labored on the work with one hand and held his weapon with the other. Wow, and each of the builders had his sword strapped at his happening at that moment.
Speaker 1:Okay, so this is a big team effort, yes, a big team effort going on here. So what is the kind of practical element here that is paralleling our life?
Speaker 2:Yeah. So there's a couple of things. So the first thing that comes to mind it's like okay, here's the Jews. They are conquered people. They have no land, they're weak, they're nobody, they are condemned. So that's us in our sin no-transcript.
Speaker 2:As our church grows but not just in this season of our church even in our own lives, as we're obedient to God's call and we meet people, we're praying for people, we're walking with people, we're serving people. It says here in Nehemiah 4, verse 21,. So we labored at the work and half of them held the spears from break of dawn until the stars came out. So that's like 14, 15 hours, right, yeah? So as we grow, as we're being obedient to God's call, here, we have to be able to pick up the spears for hours.
Speaker 2:To be able to pick up the spears for hours meaning sacrificing our time, sacrificing our lives, to fight for those around us, for those that we love, for those that we're walking with, and so it's really a greater call to service, because the enemy is ferocious and sometimes it takes a group of people to fight for you to get that breakthrough in your life, to help you walk that narrow path even. Or those that may be struggling in different sin or just coming to Christ. It takes a huge effort sometimes to really fight all the power and the plans of the enemy, and so that's kind of the picture here that we need to get to the place where we pick up those spears for long hours and we're fighting right alongside our friends. Yeah.
Speaker 1:And I like what you said too. It's not just this time. You know that we're going to be engaging in this kind of work. We're banding together to rebuild and to start building the kingdom of God here on earth until Jesus returned. Yeah, that's what we're going to be doing, so like we're always going to be here in this work, you know we're always going to be doing this, definitely, yeah, so challenging, encouraging, because you know the the Lord is with them and they get to rebuild the temple, and so we're putting our faith that God is going to bring us through that process of well, his kingdom is going to reign forever, and so this, ultimately, will be his victory and our victory too. So, yeah, why don't you, why don't you go ahead and just pray for people listening out of this, out of this picture and this message here?
Speaker 2:Absolutely, lord. We just come before you. We thank you for your grace. We thank you for who you are, lord. We thank you for your word and for the example of Nehemiah and how he shows us that he put you first, he trusted in you, he put his faith in you and you came through and delivered the victory to them. Jerusalem was rebuilt and so, lord, on this earth, we just ask right now that, as it is in heaven, that it would be done on this earth, that your kingdom would be built, father God, that you would use us, lord, we ask that you would begin to give us a larger capacity to serve your people, to serve one another and to keep pushing forward. We thank you for that in the name of Jesus. Amen. Thanks for that in the name of Jesus, amen.
Speaker 1:Thanks for joining us today. We hope this session will help you love God and people more. Now we'd love to hear from you. Send comments, suggestions or questions to daily at bolcforg For more about Bread of Life. Church of Fresno. Look us up online and reach out or, better yet, come join us. We hope you have a blessed day.