Favor Found

Awesome. It is so good to be with everybody again today. I missed everybody this week. I really missed you guys. You know, us not being able to do the summer bash last Sunday, us not really not doing church because wanting to not get anybody out in the weather on Wednesday. Man, I’ve really missed everybody. So today’s just been a treat for me between breakfast at 9 a.m. and the Sunday school and the baptisms today. Man, it’s been a really good morning for me personally. I hope it has for you as well.

We’re going to come to part of our service, congregational prayer. This is your first time with us. Then, man, feel free to take a back seat. You can just be a spectator with this one. But if you’ve been with us for any length of time, then I invite you to find a neighbor and we’re going to pray for something else that got postponed last week that Buck mentioned a minute ago. Tuesday morning. Ladies, what time is the pack and pray on Tuesday morning? Is that true? Okay. All right. 10 o’clock on Tuesday morning, we’re going to have a pack and pray event. And this is information should be in the bulletin at this point. There’s stuff on Facebook about all that. But we’re going to put the schools on the screen here. You know, what we’re really trying to do is just bless some teachers and just say, hey, we love you. We’re here for you. We want to help you out. So grab a neighbor and just pray for the teachers of one of those four schools that they would come to know the love of Jesus personally through the pack and pray event. And then I’ll gather us up and pray. In a minute, we’ll jump into our sermon. Just go ahead and take it away and pray.

Father, thank you so much for today. God, thank you again. Lord, thank you. You’ve made the sun shine on us, which Lord, at least for the next few weeks, I’m not going to take for granted. God, thank you. Thank you for watching over us and protecting us. Lord, you say in your word that you make your face to shine on us. So Lord, thank you for making your face to shine on us again this morning. Father, I personally just want to pray for the teachers at Baptist Hill Middle High School. God got to meet the principal. Seems like a guy that is charged up, ready to change the narrative about that school. Lord, got to meet some of the administrators. Lord, got to hear how some of them spoke about you. And Lord, how you and your son, the gospel, the church, pastors, all of those are welcome in that school. So Lord, thank you for that. Father, I pray that we’ll be able to lock arms with them. And Lord, that we would just, we would play a small part, Lord, in your kingdom expanding through teachers into the lives of other teachers and students and administrators and faculty members and coaches and everybody else. Lord, thank you for Donna doing this. God, I pray that you’ll bless her for that. And Father, ultimately, that you would bring forth a product, a harvest, a result that’s greater than what the energy and the resources that went into it are. Lord, that’s your way. You are always multiplying the efforts of your people who are striving for your cause in a way that we can’t take credit for. So Lord, thank you. God, I pray that you would do that as well today while I’m preaching. Father, I’m just a man. I’m just an okay one at that. But Lord, your word, perfectness, good, it’s right, it is life-giving. Father, you’ve used it to encourage and convict me this week. God, you’ve used it to point out my sin. You’ve used it to give me joy in you. And Lord, I pray that you would do that again this morning, please. Father, I pray that the people of Sauldam Baptist Church would hear a better sermon than what I’m about to preach. Please. Lord, I give this to you and it’s in your name that we pray. Amen.

Well, this morning, we’re going to be talking, continuing in our series through the book of Nehemiah. If you’ve got your Bibles, you go ahead and open them up to Nehemiah chapter 2. If you are still learning the roadmap of your Bible, just open it to the middle. You’re probably going to land in the Psalms or the Proverbs. Hook a left and you’ll get there shortly. Nehemiah chapter 2. We’re going to be talking about Kind of a church word this morning. That word is sovereign. Or sovereignty. That’s a word that we don’t really use a whole lot in our daily conversations. That’s totally fine. But we all understand what it means in our lives. So we’re going to be talking about false sovereignty versus true sovereignty.

If you would have asked me senior year of college, who is sovereign? I may have told you my boss at Bonefish Grill over by the airport and the convention center. You see, I was waiting tables. I was working as a host. I’m just trying to make a little bit of cash so that I can buy a ring and so that Becca and I can get married and we can go off and do our little thing. My life, when it came to work, was ruled by those bosses. And they knew it. And man, they kept me under an oppressive thumb, to say the least.

If you were to ask me first couple years of marriage, who’s in charge? I may have told you my finances. I would have told you the bank statements, the credit card statements, how much money we had in the bank. I may have said that’s in charge because I am living for that. I am under the control of that. I’m under the sway of that.

If you ask me right now, who’s in charge? I might tell you my body, honestly. I am still, I’m writing checks with a 21-year-old mind that a 31-year-old body can’t cash. And I am struggling on the inside with that emotionally and mentally as I’m trying to recalibrate what fitness goals are for this stage of my life. Some of y’all hear 31 and you say, man, you’re still a young buck. And my body says 31, I am no longer a young buck.

False sovereignty versus true sovereignty. There was a guy who in the 1820s, 20 years before Sauldam Baptist Church began, 1820s, his name is Gregor McGregor. He understood the difference between false sovereignty and true sovereignty, but he was on the wrong end of it. He was a Scottish adventurer who created a fictional Central American country named Poyer. He describes himself as the Kazakh of Poyer. He was the chief of this country. Gregor McGregor, through his own confidence, through his charm, through his deceitfulness, convinced investors and settlers to invest in and immigrate to his made-up country in Central America. No lie. He convinced hundreds of people to give him money in the form of bonds in the Central Bank of Poyer and move to Poyer with him. What they found was not Gregor McGregor. And they did not find a country, but they found a jungle where most of them would pass away from yellow fever.

Gregor McGregor understood the difference between true sovereignty and false sovereignty. He asserted himself as a sovereign person. He said, “I am a king. You will follow me.”

Now sovereignty, this is what this means. Sovereignty is the independent authority and ability to do what you want to do. We are all trying to assert some sort of sovereignty over our lives. We say, “I want to do this. I’m going to try to go make that happen for me.” Right now in my season of life, I am trying to assert my sovereignty over a preschooler and a toddler. Ask me about 6 o’clock tonight how that’s going for me. Okay? Not so well.

Sovereignty. Nehemiah, the guy of the story that we are studying out of the Old Testament, he understood that God is sovereign. And he was learning that lesson for Himself. Who is truly sovereign? Who is acting like they’re in control? Who’s acting like they’re in charge versus who really is? And that’s a question you and I all have to wrestle with. Who’s in control? Who’s in charge of me, of this country, of our world? Who’s in charge of our financial system? Who’s in charge of healthcare? Who’s in charge of the universe and the solar system? All the way down to the little bugs crawling in my backyard right now. Who’s in charge? Nehemiah, God, you’re right. Nehemiah would see that. Nehemiah would see this. God alone is sovereign. A note taker. That’s what I want you to remember from today. God alone is sovereign. And He would see that in three different ways.

I said, Nehemiah chapter 2, I’m going to start reading in verse 1. It’ll be on the screens, but it is so much better right here in your laps. Nehemiah chapter 2, starting in verse 1. During the month of Nisan, in the 20th year of King Artaxerxes, when wine was set before him, the king, I, Nehemiah, took the wine and gave it to the king. I had never been sad in his presence. So the king said to me, “Why do you look sad when you aren’t sick? This is nothing but sadness of heart.” I, though, was overwhelmed with fear and replied to the king, “May the king live forever. Why should I not be sad when the city where my ancestors are buried lies in ruins and its gates have been destroyed by fire?” Then the king asked me, “What’s your request?” So I prayed to the God of the heavens and answered the king, “If it pleases the king and if your servant has found favor with you, send me to Judah and to the city where my ancestors are buried so that I may rebuild it.” The king, with the queen seated beside him, asked me, “How long will your journey take and when will you return?” So I gave him a definite time, and it pleased the king to send me. I also said to the king, “If it pleases the king, let me have letters written to the governors of the region west of the Euphrates River so that they will grant me safe passage until I reach Judah. And let me have a letter written to Asaph, keeper of the king’s forest, so that he will give me timber to rebuild the gates of the temple’s fortress, the city wall, and the home where I will live.” Now here’s the crux of the whole passage. The king granted my requests, for the gracious hand of my God was on me.

Now if this is your first week with us, you’re like, “What in the world did I just drop into?” All right, I give you a little bit of historical context. Nehemiah is a Jewish man living in a city called Susa. Susa was one of the capitals of an empire called Persia. The Jewish people are under exile of the empire of Persia. Now this man, Nehemiah, also happens to be one of the most connected and influential people in the entire Persian empire because he is a direct servant of the king, Artaxerxes.

Now some of Nehemiah’s friends had just gone back to the homeland and they just inspected, “Hey, how is Jerusalem doing? How are our people doing in Judah?” And they come back to him. This is chapter one. And they say, “Man, it is not good. The walls around the city are broken down. The fortress has been torn down. You remember 150 years ago, whenever we got conquered yet, none of that’s been rebuilt. The people are just kind of wasting away. No one’s there to protect them. It is not good, man.” Nehemiah understands it is his job. God is calling him to do something about it.

And that brings us then to chapter two. It starts off by saying the month of Nisan. About four months have passed since his friends came and told Nehemiah the situation that’s going on. So then wine is set before the king. Nehemiah is just doing his job. He is the wine bearer. He is the cup bearer. The king would have trusted him implicitly to make sure there’s nothing poisonous in the wine. You see people all the time trying to assert new kings. So they would have to take out the old king, which means he poisoned the wine. Nehemiah’s job was to say, “Hey, this wine’s good.” The king would have trusted him.

So Nehemiah is taking wine to the king, but he is overwhelmed with fear because he knows he has to make this request. Why would he be overwhelmed with fear? You find that in a book called Ezra. Ezra was one of Nehemiah’s contemporaries. They were working for the same overall thing about the same time. It says this in the book of Ezra chapter four. “King Artaxerxes sent a reply to his chief deputy, Rehum, Shemshai the scribe, and the rest of their colleagues living in Samaria and elsewhere in the region west of the Euphrates River. Greetings.” This is from the king. Remember that. “The letter you sent us has been translated and read in my presence, and I issued a decree, and a search was conducted. It was discovered that this city, Jerusalem, has had uprising against kings like me since ancient times, and there have been rebellions and revolts. Powerful kings have also ruled over Jerusalem and exercised authority over the whole region west of the Euphrates. Tribute, duty, and land tax are paid to them. Therefore, issue an order for these men to stop rebuilding the city. Stop rebuilding the walls. Stop rebuilding the temple, so that this city will not be…”

rebuilt until a further decree has been pronounced by me. See that you don’t neglect this. Otherwise, the damage will increase and the royal interests will suffer.

Now see, here’s the deal. Even though people in Judah would have wanted their homeland to be rebuilt, others had some interest against that desire. So they have sabotaged this whole thing, and the king Artaxerxes has already said no to rebuilding Jerusalem. So when it’s Nehemiah’s turn to step up to the plate and take his request, along with the wine to the king, he knows. He is asking the king to go back on an official order. He’s asking the most important man who doesn’t owe him anything to say no to what he’s already done. Nehemiah is risking his life by both expressing possible dissatisfaction with the king and dissatisfaction with what the king does.

Kind of like if you ever go to your boss’s office and you ask him to reverse a decision that he made a couple months ago, or you ask somebody in your company to change a policy about what goes on. You know you’re going to catch a little bit of flack from that, or imagine you are the guy in charge. Imagine somebody comes up to you at your place of business, at your work, where you are in a way sovereign, and someone says, “Hey man, I don’t like how you’ve been doing things. I think you ought to go this way instead.” Imagine how you feel toward that employee. Now multiply that by about a hundred and put some lives at stake and put millions of dollars at stake. That’s what Nehemiah is dealing with.

No doubt he is overwhelmed with fear, but he knows that his people back home have been overwhelmed by something else. When he is talking to the king and the king says, “What do you need?” He says, “Why should I not be sad when the city where my ancestors are buried lies in ruins? Its gates have been destroyed by fire.” Why would I not be upset about that? You see, King, 150 years have gone by. 150 years of our home being decimated by people. Why would I not be upset about that?

You see, I would think that the people of Judah at this point are assuming Jerusalem would never be restored. Their worship would never be revived. I would imagine they’ve lost faith. I would imagine that they were having trouble believing God could still act on their behalf. Makes me wonder how long until I lose faith and confidence in God as well. I have these moments where my faith and my confidence in God will burn so bright in this moment of knowing I’ve got to do this. I’ve got to stand for what I believe in or this is wrong. I’ve got to help fix this. And I don’t see God move in about five minutes. So my confidence and my trust start to waver. A hundred and fifty years have gone by for these people. Have they lost faith? Have they stopped believing in God?

I wonder for you, what area of your life are you still waiting for God in? What area of your life do you need God to revive and to restore you? Is it a battle with some long lasting sin or temptation? Something you just can’t shake and get rid of? Is it some broken family relationship or friendship where the wrong thing was said or the wrong way was interpreted and it just hasn’t been right? And you’re still waiting for things to come and be right. Is it a health struggle that’s been nagging you and hanging on your back, draining your finances and your joy? Is it some financial tragedy that is slowly dripping your cash out of the bank or something that decimated you altogether? Is it a health struggle that you’re trying to make a difference in your life?

You see, God is sovereign. He is sovereign to revive and to restore His people. But oftentimes, we believe a lie about God instead. We believe the lie that God does not see us. Nehemiah was learning a valuable lesson about God’s sovereignty, that because God is sovereign, He sees. Which means there is no situation God’s people will ever endure that God’s eyes don’t go to. God always sees you in the midst of your problem or your pain or your difficulty. He always sees you. And even if it took time, God being sovereign would revive His people.

God in His sovereignty is also able to provide for His people. Look at verse 4 again with me. The king asked Nehemiah, “What’s your request?” So I prayed to the God of the heavens. This habit of prayer has been developing in Nehemiah’s life for some time. We learn in chapter 1 verse 4 that Nehemiah has been praying for days and months, fasting before the God of the heavens. And whenever the time is right for him to present his request, he offers one more quick prayer to the Lord. It’s clear his enduring pattern of prayer fuels this moment where he takes his opportunity. And I believe that what the Bible tells us is that monumental works for God are built on the foundation of deep devotional life with God. Monumental works for God are built on a devotional life with Him.

Of course, I’m a pastor, so I believe in reading the Bible. I believe in praying. I believe in coming to church, which you’re all doing today. So my encouragement is continue. My encouragement to you is to continue in your life with Him. Even when it doesn’t make sense, even when it feels like your prayers are just bouncing off the ceiling, even whenever the Bible doesn’t make any sense and it’s filled with names you can’t pronounce and places you don’t know anything about. Just continue and call to Him and ask for Him to help you, and He will help you. Continue going to church. Continue being part of a group of people that are pursuing God together, and watch how God changes your life.

God is sovereign, and He wants to provide the help that you need. The story of Nehemiah is one of God providing every need for this man to accomplish God’s mission. And the same is true for us today. What God calls us to, He provides for. Some of us, unfortunately, believe a different lie about God. We believe that God can’t help us. We might believe that God sees, but we fall into this lie that while God sees, He can’t actually help. Which makes God kind of like a fan in the stands at a football game. God is sitting there, and He sees what’s going on, but He can’t coach the players, call the plays, sway the referees, or do anything to change the outcome. He’s just kind of a feel-good presence in the stands rooting for you. That’s how some of us believe God is. And you see that by the way we live our lives.

But the thing is, God can help, and He wants to help. He wanted to help the people of Judah, and He wants to help the people of Sauldam Baptist Church in America today. He wants to help. We’re all going through situations in life where we wonder, can God do anything? Or if you’re just honest, you would believe that, or you would admit that rather. We go through moments where we wonder, can God help? Some of us in the room may be there today. God wants to encourage you with an emphatic, yes. He sees you, and He can help you. Can.

Nehemiah will learn that God is not just sovereign to revive or provide, but God is sovereign even to direct. Look at verses seven and eight with me again. “I said to the king, if it pleases the king, let me have letters written to the governors so that they will grant me safe passage until I reach Judah. And let me have a letter written to Asaph, keeper of the king’s forest, so that he will give me timber to rebuild the gates of the temple’s fortress, the city wall, the home where I live.” And again, that incredible statement, “The king granted my requests, for the gracious hand of my God was on me.” Nehemiah says, “If your servant has found favor with you.”

The beauty of the story of Nehemiah is that God’s sovereignty is shown in the favor Nehemiah has with the king of Persia. Oftentimes, God shows us that He’s in control, not by writing messages in the sky or splitting some red sea of your problem, but by moving the hearts of people in your life that can help you with something. It’s like in Proverbs chapter 21, where it says that the king’s heart is like channeled water in the Lord’s hand. God, the Lord, directs it wherever He chooses. Or in Matthew 28, which was referenced during one of the baptisms earlier, Jesus comes to His disciples after He’s resurrected from the dead, and He says to them, “All authority, sovereignty has been given to Me in heaven and on earth. Go therefore, make disciples of all nations, baptize them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, teach them to observe everything I’ve commanded you, and get this, I am with you always.” The Lord of the universe goes with His people, and He is in charge. God is the boss. He is in charge. He is sovereign, and He could be with you. He could be with you. The favor that we might receive from people is just God, in His kindness, moving people on our behalf. Nehemiah recognized this. Nehemiah recognized that while the king granted his request, it was God who was directing everything. It might seem like the king is in charge, but God is in control. You see, God is able to revive His people and to provide what they need because God alone is sovereign to direct.

Some of us in the room believe a different lie about God. Unfortunately, we believe that God is not in control. We believe that while God sees us and He may want to help, He can’t actually do anything about it. He’s kind of like me sitting here in America watching the Olympics, and all those folks are running a 1500 meter race, or they’re trying to hoist weight above their head, or they’re trying to out-swim each other, and I’m cheering, and I’m shouting, “USA, USA!” and I can scream with all my might. I see them. I want to help them, but I’m not in charge. I’m not in control. I can’t do anything for them. And I think some of us see God that way, or maybe worse. We see God like one of those athletes competing against other gods to see who gets first place. God is just one of a couple of different options we can choose. He’s there. He’s in the mix. He’s trying, but He may not always come out on top. That’s how some of us see God.

But I promise you, God is alone in His sovereignty. He is one of one. He is by Himself in charge of everything. He is in complete control of the universe. To use Simone Biles’ language, God is the GOAT. He is the greatest of all time. He is supreme. He’s in first place. There are no seconds, thirds, fourths, fifths, sixths, on down the line. It is God and God alone.

So what does that mean for us? While our experiences or world events may disappoint us, they are ultimately part of God’s plan and are under the sway of His authority. Let’s get really personal. Whatever happens tomorrow in your life, good, bad, or otherwise, has either been directed or allowed into your life by the gracious hand of God. And as you get a little perspective from the good stuff and the bad stuff, you start to recognize that God is using all things to make you look more like Himself and to give you a deeper, more satisfying joy in Him than what that promotion might, or that relationship, or getting through a green light. God is after something deeper and better than our good mood. God is after our joy. He is after our holiness. He’s after our confidence in Him. And He’s going to use all things for the good of those who love Him.

Now make no mistake, one day every knee will bow before the Lord. Some in joy and some in despair, but everybody will bow before Jesus because He is the King. The question is, what are you going to do with that truth right now? Those lies: God doesn’t see you. God can’t help you. God’s not in charge. I wonder, if you were honest with yourself, which lie do you tend to believe? I think if you believe that God doesn’t see you, you probably feel pretty alone. You feel like God’s not there, and there’s some void in your life. There’s some emptiness where you want there to be. If you believe that God can’t help you, I would assume that your prayer lacks belief at all. You’re just kind of tossing up well-meaning words to some vague idea of who Jesus might be, but you don’t actually expect God to intervene or to work in your life. Or if you believe the lie that God’s not in charge, you probably treat people and finances and health like they’re in charge, and you live to make those things happy.

But here’s how the gospel, the good news of Jesus Christ, comes into this. God does see you. Oh, He sees you, and He knows your very greatest need. He knows that the greatest thing that you could ever need is to be reconciled with Himself. So He sent Jesus Christ to come and deal with the very greatest need that you ever have, the need of forgiveness for your sin. You see, God Has a holy standard for us. He has right, and He has wrong. And that standard for us is also good for us, but because sin is not just something we do, but something that lives inside of us, we continue to break His standard. We transgress over that boundary. So God, this is a problem you cannot solve on your own. There’s no amount of money you could ever give financially. There’s no amount of church attendance you could ever do. There’s no amount of scripture memory you could ever commit to your heart that will make God forgive you. So God, who sees your greatest need and sees who you are in truth before Him, sent His Son. While we were still sinners, Christ came, and Christ lived, and Christ died for you to deal with your very greatest need.

It’s not just that God sees you, it’s that God also can help you in this greatest need. You see, you don’t have the power to follow Jesus on your own. The four folks that got baptized this morning, today is a line in the sand. It’s not the start of perfection. Today is another milestone in their walk with Jesus. It is not the beginning of this incredible, perfect standard that they have before the Lord. God still needs to help them. They still need God to help them. But God can help them.

God doesn’t just see our greatest need. He doesn’t just help us in our greatest need. But He is in charge so that for all who love Jesus, for all who place their faith in Him, God takes all the stuff of our life, good, bad, and ugly, everything, and He makes it all work for our good that we would look more like Him so that one day when we either pass away or Jesus Christ comes back, whichever happens first, we can joyfully bow before Jesus Christ as King and we can say, “I love You, I tried, and You’re my Savior.” And that’ll be the story of our lives.

Hope that you believe God is in charge. Hope that you know that God sees you. I hope that you know God can help. I hope that you truly believe that God is sovereign. Nehemiah believed it. The four folks that got baptized, believe it. I believe it. I hope you believe it too.

Let’s pray together. Lord, God, I really trust Your Word to accomplish what it needs to do. Because God, there’s no power inside of myself to draw anybody into deeper affection or relationship with You. It’s gotta be You working through me. Father, I beg that You’ve been doing that. I beg that You’re gonna continue to do that. Please. Lord, for anybody in the room that doesn’t know You, for anybody in the room that isn’t so sure about Jesus or what a relationship with Him even looks like, God, I beg that You would please help them. God, that You would draw them closer to Yourself. Father, I’ve sought to be faithful to Your Word. I’m asking, Lord, You would do something with it. In Your great name we pray. Amen.