This transcript was generated by whisper.ai. Hi everyone, this is Pastor Tom and I want to welcome you to week three of our look through the book of Nehemiah, day one of week three. We're seeing in the book of Nehemiah how to rebuild, recharge, renew, refocus, re-energize your life. We've been walking through these steps that Nehemiah shows us in the way that he rebuilt the walls of Jerusalem, starting with number one, reaction, start to see problems as opportunities, how do you do that? Step two we looked at was initiation, how do you take the first step? Step three we've looked at last week was recognition, the value of a thank you, the deep value of saying thank you for re-energizing your life. And we began last week looking at the fourth step, the step of opposition, how to expect and reject opposition to the rebuilding in your life. You'd think everyone would just agree with you and go along with you, but it doesn't work that way. We're looking together at four types of opposition that you're going to face, how to defeat each of those four types of opposition. Last week we began with ridicule and how to defeat it by redirecting your thoughts. This week we take up a second kind of opposition that you're going to face. It goes from ridicule in chapter four to attack. Chapter four verses seven and eight say this, "But when Sanballat and Tobiah, the Arabs and the Ammonites and the men of Ashdod heard that the repairs of Jerusalem's walls had gone ahead and that the gaps were being closed, they were very angry. They all plotted together to come and fight against Jerusalem and to stir up trouble against it. " Now this attack that happened, it happened to occur when the walls reached half their height we read earlier in the book of Nehemiah. When the project started to look like it was going to be a success, when they realized they're really going to do this, all of a sudden ridicule turns into anger and plots against them. Once people see that you have a chance of succeeding in something that you're doing, all of a sudden they start to attack what you're doing. This attack that happens against Nehemiah, it reminds us of a couple of very important truths for anybody that wants to rebuild a business, a life, a relationship. Number one, people ridicule a vision, but they try to destroy a reality because the reality makes them uncomfortable because their business they want to succeed and not yours because the reality of your success means that it says they should be trying for success. There's all kinds of reasons why people attack, but when it starts to become a reality it makes them uncomfortable, it becomes a threat to them, and so they try to destroy it. A second truth here is success didn't stop the opposition, it actually intensified it. You're going to see that many, many times in your life. Spiritual success, family success, ministry success, it doesn't stop the opposition, it actually intensifies the opposition. What do you do when you face attack? What do you do when someone's trying to make trouble for you, when someone's trying to come against you and cause the rebuilding, the re-energizing that you want to see happen in your life, cause it not to work? When you face attack, here's the strategy for success. You reposition your forces. You learn from Nehemiah. In Nehemiah 4. 9, here's what it says, "But we prayed to our God and we posted a guard day and night to meet this threat. " You see, you can't just ignore the attack. You just can't pretend that it isn't there. It's there. It's an attack. So Nehemiah took some of the wall builders and he turned them into guards. He repositioned his forces. He took the resources that God had given to him and he put some of them to work in defeating the opposition. He had to make some changes for that to happen. And to defeat the opposition, maybe you need to make some changes. So many times we settle for defeat and we wonder why God won't allow us to move ahead simply because we haven't considered the possibility of making a change. So for instance, if your family is under attack in some way, the good that you want to see happen in your family, the rebuilding you want to see happening in relationships with your husband or your wife or with your kids, if that's under attack in some way, you might need to make some changes. You might need to say, "Well, let's start doing church together or dinner together or family vacations. " I remember many years ago, the family we were close to, the church we'd moved away from, we were many miles away from that place now, called us up and said, "You know, we're having a struggle with our daughter and we wonder, could she come and live with you for the summer because she just needs to be in a different place for the summer because of some of the struggles that are happening? " And she did that and it made a huge difference. What do you need to do that's different? If your business is under attack, what changes do you need to make? If you're under attack spiritually, what changes do you need to make? Do you need to start to stay away from certain people or circumstances? Do you need to start to spend more time in God's Word? Do you need to get an accountability partner in your life? What changes do you need to make? How do you reposition your forces? Now in thinking about this, I want you to notice what happens in verses 16 to 18 as it talks about what Nehemiah did. "From that day on," beginning in verse 16, "half of my men did the work while the other half were equipped with spears and shields and bows and armor. The officers posted themselves behind all the people of Judah who were building the wall. Those who carried materials did their work with one hand and they held a weapon with the other. And each of the builders wore his sword at his side as he worked. But the men who sounded the trumpet stayed with me. " Notice for Nehemiah, it wasn't a matter of, okay, let's go fight and then we'll build. No, he didn't stop building to fight. If you stop building to fight the attack, you'll end up spending the rest of your life fighting the attack and you'll never get back to building. There's a lot of people who spend the rest of their life fighting the attack against their family, against their faith, against whatever, and they're not building anymore in their life. So Nehemiah had learned the lesson, we need to fight the attack and keep building at the same time. You build while you fight. That's the lesson of the Book of Nehemiah. So if you're facing attack, you reposition your forces. And then Nehemiah chapter four turns to a third kind of opposition that you're going to face as you try to re-energize, recharge your life, is in verses 10 to 12. It's the opposition that comes through discouragement. Beginning in verse 10, "Meanwhile, the people of Judah said, 'The strength of the laborers, it's giving out, and there's so much rubble that we cannot rebuild the wall. ' And also our enemies said, 'Before they know it or see us, we'll be right there among them and we'll kill them and put an end to the work. ' And then the Jews who lived near them came and told us ten times over, 'Wherever you turn, they're going to attack us. '" Notice how this invitation to be discouraged, it just gets louder and louder and builds on itself in Nehemiah's example. From so many different sources, the people in Judah, the enemies, even his own countrymen, they're echoing this discouragement. An attitude of discouragement, it's contagious. You start listening and you'll catch it too. And look at all the reasons that we can find to be discouraged. There are evidence, some of them here in Nehemiah, so much rubble. It's just too hard. We can't do this. We've got to be discouraged. Before they know it, we're going to attack. You don't know what's going on. There's trouble out there. It's going to fall on you at any moment. Just be discouraged. Or then ten times over, they came to us and told us, "It's amazing how people who want to discourage you, they don't just tell you once. People who encourage you, they just tell you once. People who want to discourage you, they just keep saying it again and again and again and again ten times over. It seems like all that you hear. " So what's the answer to this discouragement that can come into your life that can begin to tell you you're never going to have victory in this? You're never going to have victory in this desire to begin to grow in Christ or to have victory over that sin in your life or to begin to rebuild that relationship or to have a great business again or to have a great ministry again. Never have victory because you should just be discouraged. How do you have victory over that one? The answer to this one is you need to restore your confidence. Nehemiah knew how to do this. He met discouragement head on with a more powerful weapon. What's more powerful than discouragement? Encouragement. It'll beat discouragement every time. Genuine encouragement. So listen to what happens in chapter 4 verses 13 to 14. "Therefore, I stationed some of the people behind the lowest points of the wall at the exposed places, posting them by families with their swords and spears and bows. And after I looked things over, I stood up and I said to the nobles, the officials, and the rest of the people, 'Don't be afraid of them. Remember the Lord who is great and awesome and fight for your brothers, your sons, and your daughters, your wives, and your homes. '" Nehemiah hears the discouragement and so he chooses to encourage the people in two specific ways, through service and through worship. First he encourages them through service. Notice it says he posted them, did you notice, by families to guard the walls. So he didn't just hire some guards to come in and work to guard things. No, he got people serving by families. He got them involved in guarding the wall. When you're discouraged, one of the greatest ways to attack it is by looking for someone to serve, looking for someone else to encourage, looking for somewhere to serve. As long as you're not serving, you're going to stay discouraged because you're made to serve. Jesus said, "Just as I came to serve, I created you to serve. " So as long as you're not serving, you're just sitting, being, feeling discouraged, you're going to get more and more discouraged. Nehemiah knew this, so he got them serving. He posted them by families, got them serving together so they could encourage each other in the work that they were doing. It's one of the keys to encouragement. One of the keys to defeating discouragement in your life is you find a place to serve. The second thing he did is he worshiped. He encouraged them to remember the Lord. Your confidence, if you're going to restore your confidence, your confidence will never come from looking at your circumstances. Circumstances are not a reliable source of confidence because they're always changing. They can't be trusted. They'll give you some confidence today and then they'll take that confidence away and more tomorrow. You need a better source, a stronger source, and that is worship, remembering the Lord. God can be trusted. So you look to him as your source of confidence. The MIS says, "Great and awesome is the Lord. " Look at him. That's where your confidence is going to come from. That's where your encouragement is going to come from. As we pray today, let's pray that God will give us strength even in the midst of the opposition that we face in this life. And in prayer, would you just say, "Lord, I don't want to live discouraged. I want to live encouraged. " So I ask for your encouragement right now. I pray you'd show me a place to serve. And even though I don't feel like it, give me the strength, give me the faith to serve, to take that step, that small step of faith that can make such a huge difference in my life. And Lord, give me the heart to look to you, to worship you, to remember the Lord. You are a great and awesome God. You are a God who loves me and a God who will encourage me in anything and everything. And Lord, when I feel under attack, instead of just letting the attacks come, help me to look for the changes that you need to see made in my life. The changes that are changes of faith, changes of trusting in you, repositioning my forces, the strengths you've given me to face the attacks. God thank you that I never face anything alone, that you are always with me. In Jesus' name, I thank you, amen. Join us tomorrow. We're going to look together at the answer to one final type of opposition.