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Welcome back for day five of week four of our look through the book of Nehemiah.
This is our last day of looking through Nehemiah. In one sense it's a short
book, but wow, is it packed with incredible lessons for how to rebuild.

And we're talking now about dedication. How do you have a spirit of dedication
in order to be the rebuilder that God wants you to be, to take what God has
rebuilt, redone in your life and dedicate it back to him. We've talked about the
fact that dedication begins with thanksgiving, that it requires purification,
that it's expressed in giving, and then there's a fourth truth that we learn
from Nehemiah, and that is that dedication has to be refreshed regularly.

As I've been reading through these chapters, it may seem like they're this
perfectly dedicated bunch of followers of Nehemiah and of God, but read chapter
13 of Nehemiah. You'll see their dedication didn't last, they struggled with it.
So what do you do when your dedication seems to wane?

Well you can resign yourself to defeat, you can design yourself an excuse, or
you can assign yourself a new commitment. You can refresh your commitment.
Dedication has to be refreshed regularly.

And I want you to look with me at what Nehemiah did to lead these people to
refresh their commitment to a recommitment in their lives. There's some great
lessons for you and I about how to keep our commitment fresh. He teaches us four
things that we need to do.

First he teaches us to stop skirting the issue. In verse 11 he rebuked the
officials about what was happening. So the scripture says, chapter 13 verse 11,
"So I rebuked the officials and I asked them, 'Why is the house of God
neglected?

' And then I called them together and I stationed them at their posts. " They
were neglecting some of the things that had caused their success, and Nehemiah
called them on it. He says, "Look, there's something wrong here.

That's the first step. " Something like the first step in rebuilding is
admitting that there's a problem. And when you start to pretend that a problem
isn't a problem, when you start to not be able to talk about something, when you
start to not be able to think about something or hope that somebody never
discovers something, you know there's an issue that you're skirting.

And that's the point at which you need to be honest with yourself. Quit skirting
the issue. Take a look at it and ask God to help you to begin to dedicate your
life afresh and anew to him.

Realize you need a rededication. You need a recommitment at that point of your
life. Now how do you do that?

Well, as you read through the example of Nehemiah, you see how to do that.
Second thing he teaches us is to quit compromising. Quit compromising with your
enemies.

Compromise. That is the great enemy of commitment. That's the great enemy of
commitment.

We compromise our way out of commitments. There's not one great decision that we
make that says, "I'm not going to be committed anymore. " It's all these little
compromises that you and I make.

In chapter 13, verses 6 to 9, listen to what happens, "And while all this was
going on, I was not in Jerusalem. For in the thirty-second year of Atar-Serxes,
king of Babylon, I had returned to the king. But sometime later, I asked his
permission to come back to Jerusalem.

And here I learned about the evil thing that Elias had done in providing Tobiah
a room in the courts of the house of God. I was greatly displeased and threw all
of Tobiah's household goods out of the room. I gave orders to purify the rooms,
and then I put back into them the equipment of the house of God, with the grain
offerings and the incense.

" You might remember when we talked about opposition, that Tobiah and Sanballat
were the two great opponents of the rebuilding of the wall. And here's the very
guy who'd been an enemy of the rebuilding, who's now somehow secured a room in
one of the courts that had been rebuilt. Maybe he paid enough money for it, and
people thought, "Oh, this is a great deal.

" So the equipment for the house of God is in some closet somewhere, while he
enjoys this room. There's a lesson here. The enemy will keep trying to move back
in.

So you have to quit compromising, and you have to get back to a place of
commitment. The friends that tore your marriage down, once you rebuild that
marriage, if you get connected with them again, they're going to try and tear it
down again. The friends that hurt your kids.

Flirting with the habit that caused your addiction. Anytime you compromise in
those areas, you already know in advance what's going to happen. So stop
compromising with your enemies.

Notice what Nehemiah did. He just threw it out. He didn't say, "Well, let's move
a few things out.

Maybe we can share the room. " He just threw it all out, and he put the things
of God back into that room. It's a great lesson there.

Third thing we learn about rededicating your life is you remove opportunities
for sin. You remove them. In this case, Nehemiah ordered doors shut, and he
posted guards for a certain reason.

Listen to what happens in verses 19 and then in verse 22. When evening shadows
fell on the gates of Jerusalem before the Sabbath, I ordered the doors to be
shut and not opened until the Sabbath was over. I stationed some of my own men
at the gates so that no load could be brought in on the Sabbath day.

And then in verse 22, I commanded the Levites to purify themselves and go and
guard the gates in order to keep the Sabbath day holy. Remember me for this
also, oh my God, and show mercy to me according to your great love. Here's what
had been happening.

They had been bringing in loads of grain and other things on the Sabbath day.
And maybe it wasn't even the Israelites who were doing that. So because they
weren't Israelites, it was okay for them to be working on the Sabbath But the
Israelites were not to load grain on the Sabbath day.

God had commanded them not to. They were to keep that day holy, to focus on God
during that day. But because the grain came in, people thought, well, we have to
do something with it now.

And so they couldn't resist the temptation to work with the grain that day, to
break the Sabbath. So what does Nehemiah do? He plans in advance to keep the
Sabbath by locking the doors so the grain can't be brought in.

Wow, there's some lessons there for how you and I need to rededicate our lives.
There's some things in your life that need to not be in your life. But one of
the keys to that is planning in advance for them to not be in your life.

If you're struggling with alcohol addiction, you don't go to a bar to hang out
with your friends. As great as those friends are, you just don't go. You make a
decision in advance to do the right thing.

If you wait until you're in the circumstance to do the right thing, you're not
going to make that decision. If you're asking God to help you to stay pure and
not to have sex before marriage, but you start to pray while you're in the car
with half your clothes off saying, God, please, please, please help us to stay
pure, there's no chance. No, you plan in advance not to be in the car because
you recognize what's going to happen in that situation.

What do you need to do in your life to plan in advance not to be in situations
where you find yourself tripping again and again into the same sins, the same
habits, the same addictions? How do you need to order the doors shut and post
guards over those areas of your life? That's one of the keys.

But that's not enough. There's a fourth key, and that is you don't just keep
what's wrong out of your life. Fourth key is you fill your life with doing
what's right.

In verse 30, "So I purified the priests and the Levites of everything foreign,
and I assigned them to duties, each to his own task. " It's that old phrase,
idle hands are the devil's playground. If you have this space, this lack of your
life, nothing happening, then it's easy to fall into the trap of sin in that
area of your life.

It's that lesson from King David, who when all the kings were out to war, when
he was supposed to be battling, he was back in the city, and that's when he was
on the top of his roof looking down and he sees Bathsheba and he falls into
temptation. He should have been out with his men in the battle. He should have
been doing what was right, but because he wasn't, he fell into temptation.

The best way to flee temptation is not to sit idly and wait until it goes away.
It's not going to go away. It's to run towards doing what's right.

The best way to run away from temptation is to run towards doing what's right.
Dedication is worth nothing as a feeling or a noble thought. It only shows its
worth as a decision in your life.

And the challenge here is to decide to do what's right. When you decide to do
what's right, you have a new sense of dedication in your life. And through that
new sense of dedication, you have a strength for taking what God has rebuilt in
your life and keeping it dedicated to him, useful to him, honoring him.

Now, we come to the end of our study of the Book of Nehemiah, and as we come to
the end of this study, I would like, and I'd like to invite you to join me in a
rededication to these seven principles that we've talked about, that these
principles are going to mark your life as you rebuild that career, that life,
that family, that relationship. As you rebuild and recharge and re-energize in
your life, recommit to these things, these seven principles that we've talked
about right now. First reaction, that you will begin to see problems as
opportunities, opportunities to trust God.

In every problem, there's the opportunity to trust God with that problem. Do it
right now. God, I trust you once again with this problem.

The second principle, the principle of initiation, how to take the first step.
The toughest part of re-energizing anything is getting started. So how can you
take the first step of trusting God with it?

Take the first step of recognizing your need for God in it. And then the third
principle, the principle of appreciation, staying focused by saying thanks. Who
do you need to say thank you to?

The words thank you have great power to refocus your life. Specific
thanksgiving, sensitive thanksgiving, searching thanksgiving, who do you need to
say thank you to? And then the principle of opposition, how to expect and reject
opposition.

Remember, we talked about four proven steps to victory. Redirect your thoughts,
reposition your forces, restore your confidence, refocus your priorities to
instead of thinking about the opposition, thinking about God, thinking about his
plan, his purpose for your life. The fifth principle, the principle of
organization, organizing your successes.

How do you need to take what God has given and see that blessing as now a
stewardship? Something out of which he wants to bless others. The sixth
principle, the principle of celebration, how do you regain and retain the joy?

Don't become a person who rebuilds the wall only to crumble inside. The joy of
the Lord is your strength. You might even memorize that verse so you can bring
it to mind often.

And then the seventh principle we just looked at the last few days, the
principle of dedication. Dedicate it to God. Make the commitment that will last
instead of dedicating it to yourself or to somebody else.

Your legacy is really not your legacy. Your legacy is that you're a child of God
and that you're honoring your father with your life. So you dedicate it to God.

In this spirit of dedication, in this spirit of commitment, let's pray together.
Our Father, thank you that you're the God of a second chance. Thank you that you
are not a God who gives up on us when things fall apart.

You're a God who shows up. Whether it seems like we have everything together or
it seems like everything is falling apart, you are there to strengthen us, to
show us the way. As we think about rebuilding, re-energizing, recharging in our
lives, we once again dedicate ourselves to you.

We dedicate ourselves from beginning to end to following you. We want it to be
for your glory, for your sake. We want it to be for your honor.

And so God, instead of getting caught up in what's not working in our lives, I
pray you'd help me help us to get caught up in your love, get caught up in your
power, get caught up in your joy, get caught up in you and who you are, and to
recognize there is no circumstance that you cannot bless us in the midst of.
Even the worst of our sins, you can continue to bless us. Even the consequences
we're suffering right now from that sin, you can continue to bless us.

Even what somebody else has done to us, even the hateful things that happen
because we're in this fallen world, you can continue to bless us. So instead of
looking at the circumstances, we look at you and we pray once again that God,
you will strengthen us to rebuild. The God of heaven will give us success.

Maybe his servants will start rebuilding. We pray this in Jesus' name. Amen.

I'm so glad you joined us for this study of Nehemiah, one of my favorite studies
honestly in all the scripture. And I hope that you'll stick with us for our
continuing studies to the books of the Bible and drive time devotions. Or you
can go to drivetimedevotions.

com and pick just about any of the books of the Bible to study next or look on
your phone for the app, drivetimedevotions app and use that. Whichever way you
do it, I am just thrilled, really thrilled that you're studying God's word
together with us. Thank you.

And we'll see you for our next book study together in one week.