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Nehemiah 4:15-23
We invite you to join us for worship each Sunday morning at 9:30. You can also download our service at Baptist-Christian at iTunes. I have come to the conclusion that the only way to completely overcome fear is to DIE! I don’t believe it is possible to live a life in this sin-tainted world, even as a Christian, and not experience occasional fear. If a doctor said you have cancer or some other life-threatening disease, or your family was threatened in a serious way, any reasonable person would be afraid! Someone one who says they are never afraid is just lying! Even Jesus expressed some fear in the Garden just before His arrest! Our focal passage offers us some significant insight in dealing with fear as Christians. Notice the Jews
- PRAYED TO GOD! There are hundreds of verses in Scripture that teach us that for a Christian’s life to be an exact representation of Christ, it must be a life of prayer. Depending on which source you choose, lack of communication is either the #1 or #2 cause of divorce. When I talk to couples in marital trouble 100% of the time they tell me daily prayer, quiet time, and worship are not vital parts of their marriage. When I tell them the only way to fix their marriage is to make each of those activities an intimate part of their daily life, many don’t come back. Prayer is to be the Christian’s natural desire toward God. Why wouldn’t one want to be in constant communication with the One Who redeemed them? Dealing with fear must begin in prayer. Then the Jews
- POSTED A GUARD! God has again gone to great lengths to teach us to “be alert, on guard…because our enemy wants to destroy us. When we make a serious effort to move forward in our spiritual growth, Satan also makes a serious effort to stop us. Notice how some of the people worked while others stood guard. What we learn is that when we are not actively engaged in a project, we ought to be praying for and guarding the backs of those who are. The reason is that you will notice they took turns working and guarding. We must work together as one if we are going to finish the work safely! Notice also these people
- PRESSED TOWARD THE GOAL! In the same way Scripture teaches us just because we are save, we are not free from attack, it teaches us that God doesn’t arbitrarily dump blessings/protection/success on us. James 2 teaches us we are to work (hard) to receive the benefits of our salvation. Jesus learned obedience through what He suffered (Heb. 5:8) and if He learned that way, so must we. When we try to free-load off God, we send the wrong message to the unsaved. These people had every reason to quit building and let the king’s army take over, but they would not have learned to persevere had they quit. We will not overcome fear if we try to walk through this sinful world without, constantly and continually, asking God to guide us. We are fools if we think we can live as Christians on our own without the help of other Christians. Therefore, we must depend on each other. As long as we keep moving toward the goal God has set for us, we need not fear what men can do to us because greater is He that is in us, than he that is in the world.
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