The Zeal of Nehemiah

well come on why don't we give him an Apostolic hand praise right now it'd be all right if we were at a rally tonight but we're at Wednesday night church let the redeemed of the Lord say so tonight Hallelujah why don't you turn to the person next to you and tell them I'm glad to be at church tonight amen praise God if you've got your Bible quickly turn with me to the book of Nehemiah chapter number four and while you're turning there of course I want to say what an incredibly unbelievable privilege it is to be invited to be a speaker not only an attendee which would be sufficient and I would be happy as a a lark to just be here to absorb but I am incredibly honored to be asked to address you tonight and uh fac Maryville has a special place in my heart and in the heart of my wife and I I don't know of another family that better exemplifies what Excellence looks like in the kingdom of God than the Pastoral team at First Apostolic Church of mville Tennessee if there are people that know how to represent the kingdom of God with more Excellence I don't know who they are but Bishop you and your wife you you're in inspirational just being here and being with you of course brother and sister Ericson brother and sister Hammond Junior Bishop Nolan and Flanery brother sister Carpenter these people have become dear friends to my wife and I and our children and the debt that I owe to this church is immeasurable and I'll likely spend the rest of my Ministry attempting to repay the sacrificial contributions that this church has made into the work of God in hondurus and um I am uh I'm very much in debt to this church and the work of God in ratan Honduras is in debt to this church and the kingdom of God moves forward because people make sacrificial contributions without any expectation of reciprocity and uh and I am in debt to this church because they believe in that amen book of Nehemiah chapter number four I was here last year and I sat through brother Woodward's session on Transitions and this was the last place I was before I went to Tulsa and transitioned and um you saved me a lot of Heartache brother Woodward and you blessed me because of that I had no idea that it would happen the way it happened but the purpose and the plan of God is divine and uh and I'm trusting him I've got some people from New Life Tabernacle here with me from Tulsa some of the best people in all of the world I Pastor the greatest Church in America and I'm privileged and honored to do that my wife and children are home holding down the fort and uh they're awesome they're my whole world and if the boys were here you would know know it because something would be broken by now and you I'd be going home with a bill and by the looks of it it'd be a very expensive bill because we've got nice things in Tulsa but it ain't this night brother carer amen book of Nehemiah chapter 4 I asked the production team to start a 30 minute timer I just didn't ask them I didn't tell them when to start it and they they got ahead of me it don't start yeah it don't start for 30 minutes now I know my assignment tonight is to just lay some groundwork for brother Hammond to come up here and finish it off and so I want to quickly get to the word of God neamiah chapter number four beginning with verse number one and but it came to pass that when San ballot heard that we built builded the wall he was wroth and took great indignation and mocked the Jews and he spake before his Brethren and the army of Samaria and said what do these feeble Jews will they fortify themselves will they sacrifice will they make an end in a day will they revive the stones out of the heaps of the rubbish which are burned for just a few moments on this inspirational session this Wednesday night of the movement conference I want to talk to you about the Zeal of Nehemiah the Zeal of Nehemiah amen would you put your Bible down behind you would you lift your hands towards heaven and would you pray with me that the Holy Ghost would have its way in this place tonight more than anything more than impressing people more than the Applause or the approval of a crowd I want the Holy Ghost to invade this atmosphere tonight God I need you more than I have ever needed you before I love you and I appreciate you but God I'm needing you to inhabit the Praises of your people your word is already Anointed God anoint my lips my feeble lips of clay that I may articulate the word of God in such a way that we do not f to give you all the praise and all of the glory one more time put your hands together and give God a great shout of Praise amen God bless you for standing you can be seated have you ever wished for a a 30h hour day surely the the extra time would relieve the tremendous uh amount of pressure that we all live under our lives leave a trail of Unfinished tasks and unanswered messages and unvisited friends and Unwritten articles and unread books they they haunt The Quiet Moments when we stop to evaluate our life and we desperately need relief we think but would a 30-hour day really solve our problem wouldn't be wouldn't we be just as frustrated as we are with a 24-hour allotment of time a a mother's work is never finished they say but neither is a teachers and neither is a students and neither is a ministers and and or anybody else for that matter and no no amount of time uh that we add would help catch up with that children grow in number you know I I thought thought having one child was complicated and then I added a second child and 1 + one is addition but if you add a third anybody with three or more here tonight you know what I'm talking about it is not simple H addition there is a a formula involved and it gets uh increasingly more complicated the more you add and and so the more children you have the more they require of you in time time and the greater experiences we have in the church the more life brings the more exacting the assignments and so we confess we left undone those things which we ought to have done and we have done those things which we ought not to have done and a great and besetting danger in the life of an Apostolic leader and church Builder is letting urgent things everybody say urgent urgent urgent things crowd the important thus we live in this constant tension between the Urgent and the important and it has become so inescapable for you and I that now sociologists are calling the time that we are living in the tyranny of the urgent we are living in a day where the Urgent matters more than the important and every Pastor in this room can testify that everyone and every saint thinks that their need is the most urgin that's why employers are sending you home with work phones to keep you Tethered to the Urgent that's why social media wants your notifications turned on to keep you Shackled to the Urgent emails interrupt our dinners and text messages vibrate in our pockets and in our purses at church and phone calls awaken Us in the middle of the night everyone and everything but leaves their life and their need is urgent which is consistent with the culture of the world that we live in this world is all about me my Facebook my Instagram my Twitter my Snapchat my YouTube my LinkedIn my Google+ my website my business card my my schedule my notifications my text messages my my my my it is so easy to get caught up tangled up tied up in the business of me and as technology grows and we can access the globe at our fingertips I have to confess tonight as the youngest speaker on the docket speaking to my generation of 40 and under it is not a la lack of opportunities that frightens me for this generation but it is the abundance of opportunities and that we might spend our life trivializing the opportunities that we have on things that matter so little on things that are less meaningful than building the kingdom of God can I just pause right here on this Wednesday night evening it's and session and tell you the mission and the work of God the culture and the kingdom of God it goes against the grain of this culture the world says do you the world says focus on you the world says Get Up and grind build your brand work on your rib don't be skib toilet Ohio I've got young kids I don't even know what I'm saying up here don't be bugging the world says focus on you grind build it establish it set yourself up but the word of God looks at you square in the eyes and says Forget You crucify you deny you and seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness can I tell you that the irony of cross bearing and the the demand that Christ gives to you and I was that crosses were for criminals take up your cross and follow me they didn't look at him like that was an honor they said we don't wear crosses crosses are for criminals but Christ makes no apologies and for the often painful and H humiliating aspects of cross bearing it is intentionally designed by God to kill your flesh and destroy your pride so that Christ can be formed in us I pray that a generation Rises up in 2024 that would much rather have him than anything else oh oh I know I know thank God for the pews and thank God for the carpet and thank God for the LED wall the walls and the the tracks and the TalkBack mics and the merch and the Excellence these these awesome things we all love and aspire to implement but it matters so little in comparison to how he matters all of this this is to exalt him and Elevate him and extol him and esteem him this conference it's him it's not about us this church building is for him it's not about us the team you're building and mentoring that's for him that's not for us the city you're reaching that's for him that's not for us and for Nehemiah a man who had made it he was successful he had built a life for himself he now lives in shushan the capital city of Persia and unlike the Jews who are barely surviving Nehemiah has earned the respect and the honor of the secular world and he has become the king's C Bearer and has all the Comforts and conveniences that a man could ever want however Nehemiah when he finally discovered that the condition of the people of God were in great Affliction and reproach that the gates of the city had been burned with fire and that the walls of Jerusalem were broken down he is shattered he's devast devastated he could care less about the life that he had built he could care less about the luxuries and the leisures of living in in proximity to the king the Bible says in Nehemiah chapter 1 verse4 he said when I heard this I sat down and I wept in fact for days I mourned and fasted and prayed prayed to the god of Heaven Nehemiah said yes everything in my life is good when I look around I see nothing but good but I am not content to just sit back and bathe in the blessings of of of leisure and luxury meanwhile the people of God live suffering I just can't do it and I want to ask the movement conference before brother Hammond comes I want to ask where where are the building ERS where where are the builders the ones that that will sell all and go not not the ones that that slip in and and give an offering and slip out and you are never changed or challenged or equipped to engage the mission and the call of God but where where are the Nehemiah in the house tonight the ones that that make the church and his work a priority above everything else in your life where are the people the ones That'll Walk Away from good jobs and nice homes and secure Futures and prospering 401ks and follow the word of God the ones that are more concerned about his house than you are your house the ones that are more concerned about his work than you are your work where are you in 20124 do you see what Nehemiah sees oh oh Nehemiah Nehemiah don't be so dramatic don't you know that the information that you are so moved and devastated by is over 140 years old don't you know we've known about this for centuries nearly don't you oh Nehemiah just relax you're being so emotional Nehemiah you're being radical I I I don't want to hear that kind of language I know what radical life looks like brother Carpenter I know what it's like to walk away from a good paying job writing speeches and for the governor of California and riding around in bulletproof vehicles and go to Global Climate Summits and and rubbing shoulders with Harrison Ford and Maria Shriver I know what it is to to have a path laid out in your life and thinking this is my trajectory and this is where I'm going and this is what I want to accomplish and all of a sudden God awakens you to the reality that the gates are burned and the walls are broken down and the people of God are suffering and you cannot sit idly by in your plush little job in your little corner office and just continue to go through something's got to awaken in the heart of a young married couple in 202 24 that is less interested in a spotted dog and an SUV I wish some where are the young missionaries that'll sell everything and go to a foreign field where where are they where are they in 2024 that'll sell everything you've got and take your precious little wife by the hand and buy a one-way ticket to a little island down in the middle of the Caribbean and a place you'd never be before in a language that you couldn't speak to a people you'd never laid eyes on before where are the Nehemiah that'll say God if you go with me there is no distance too far and there is no price too great and there is no cult this is a high and a holy calling brother Jones brother Jones you're bugging right now you know that's just not how we do it in 2024 anymore now now we just send big checks brother Jones we're blessed now that's old school that's radical let me just tell you something there are not two kinds of Christianity there is not radical Christianity and then other Christianity can I tell you there is only one form of Christianity and that is radical Christian anything else that is not radical is a cheap counterfeit as a former missionary for 14 years up here struggling with bronchitis I make no apologies I make no apologies for what I'm about to say the version of Christianity that has germinated in North America this casual version of Christianity it will not get the job done I got three people that are ready to be radical I thought I was at the movement conference on a Wednesday night we can't be casual not when suicide is on the rise among teenagers not when over 50% of marriages is end in divorce not right now casual Christianity is not going to cut it not when anxiety and depression are at an all-time high not when America who makes up now if you want to find out how small America is leave America for a little while you know what percentage of the world's population we are anybody want to take a guess just throw out a number we are three % of the world's population I know we feel big bad make America great again I know I know I'm in Oklahoma okay okay I know I I came back to Pastor Cowboys and Indians praise God I had to have a meeting with my ushers last week an emergency meeting with my ushers last week we've got to hire somebody to come do a church gun safety weekend because if somebody walks in the back door of my church I had a one of my best friends in all the world Brother Brad Allard in in California he pastors a church I don't know what would happen in some of your churches if this happened but a man walked in the back doors of his church in the last 30 or 60 days uh a man with face tattoos teardrops y'all know what I'm talking about and an AR15 multiple extra clips he made it all all the way to the Altar and nobody touched the man and he laid his gun on the Altar and gave his life to the Lord Listen Hold on hold on hold on if he'd had done that at New Life Tabernacle in San Springs he'd have died halfway down the middle aisle every one of the ushers in my church is packing heat so you don't do foolish stuff at New Life Tabernacle I said that poor guy coming to surrender his life to the Lord he'd have met his maker before he ever surrendered to God we need gun safety protocol at New Life Tabernacle I Rejoice with Brother Brad Allard in California cuz his people look like they never even seen an AR-15 before Oh my God what is that that looks like it's from Call of Duty I got dudes in my church that build them at home there's probably guys in this church right now that got some homemade AR-15s there might be people in this room that's got it under your Pew right now we make up 3% of the world's population I know we feel big bad and strong but we're not we consume 80% of the world's prescribed narcotics that does not include the non-prescribed narcotics that you buy down at the street corner I'm talking about a world in dire need of a radical message movement casual preaching ain't going to cut it A Life Lesson and a latte ain't going to cut it discussions and donuts ain't going to cut it we've got a rare back with fire in our mouth and you've got to preach the acceptable year for the spirit of the Lord is upon me and he hath anointed me to preach the gospel everywhere you look the degradation of Politics the exposure of immorality and celebrities and athletes and politicians I'm talking about the Zeal of Nehemiah and uh it seems like every day I've got another reason to not like sports and I love I love I love I don't like getting beat by Nolan Carpenter and golf I don't like that at all he had an unfair Advantage yesterday I want to rematch it was a home course Advantage but I'm telling you if my boys my boys love basketball but you better believe I'm going to think twice before they put a pro athlete poster on the wall in their bedroom because I'm telling you the immorality and the exposure of celebrities and politicians and athletes is on the rise the rise of wars and rumors of wars earthquakes in diverse places famines and noisy pestilence we need people church leaders and pastors who will abandon self-will abandon personal ambition abandon social influence seeking and pursue a life of Kingdom building can I tell you tonight it will not be easy if it were everybody would be doing it that's why the movement exists to equip people people for the fight because when the moment Nehemiah said I will arise and build is the moment Satan said I will arise and oppose you Satan makes things difficult the moment you make a declaration that we will build that's right the moment I turned New Life Tabernacle to to face those 19 Acres that are across the street from our church to to look at and by and build the future of what we're going to achieve for the kingdom of God the moment we turned and extended our hands and said we will rise and we will build it's the moment every devil in s Springs Oklahoma said I will arise and I will oppose you but if you are going to do anything meaningful and worthwhile in the kingdom of God you have got to get familiar with what it looks like to hold you need to know what it's like for your hand to cleave to the cold steel of the sword of resistance some of you will never know what I'm talking about because never in your life have you stood up and said I will rise and build some of you some of you have never stood up and said I will have a Godly marriage some of you have never stood up and said I will raise righteous children some of you have never stood up and said I will have a prayer life but you just mark my words on this Wednesday night of the movement conference the moment you say I will rise and build is the moment the devil will say I will arise and oppose you I oppose your finances I'm preaching to pastors and church leaders tonight I'm not I'm not trying to preach Saints into the kingdom of God you you you come back on Sunday for that I'm talking to builders tonight I'm talking about how the devil's going to oppose your finances your health your marriage your vision your children your church leaders I will oppose your Zeal Nehemiah it's like the moment you say I will arise and build the people you depend on the most brother Carpenter your church leaders all of a sudden they they disappear their marriage is a wreck they they're compromised their integrity is compromised and you're looking around going how in the world are we going to do this I often tell people in my church if you've never met the devil it's because you and the devil are going the same direction oh I'm preaching tonight brother Hammond I'm sorry I'm meddling now when you stand up and say I'm going to do something for God the enemy stands up and says no you're not the moment you say I'm going to start a prayer life he stands up and says no you're not the moment you say I'm going to start a bus route or saved and sober in a drug rehabilitation he'll say no you are not I remember man that timer is that normal speed that's not normal speed I remember when my wife my wife and I musicians you can get ready I I've got so much more to preach oh my word it's pitiful you don't mean that I remember when my wife and I were missionaries we had just purchased some land the land was a miracle and we'd begun construction on what would become the headquarters Church of the work in Honduras and I was spending 10 and 12 hours a day on that property working in the blistering humidity heat I didn't know that when you become full-time in Ministry you never had to do hard work again no one told me that I just thought you had to keep doing what you were doing before I didn't know I could just you know beckon people to do those things for me I was out there 10 and 12 hours a day working baking under that Caribbean Sun and digging and bending rebar and hand mixing cement laying bricks and running plumbing and you name it we were doing I'm not saying we were doing it good we were just doing it I didn't know any better we didn't have enough money to pay someone to do it so we just did it ourselves from sun up to sun down we were killing ourselves to build the kingdom of God we seed every penny we had personally into the work of God because we thought it was worth it and I'll never forget we were out there working and one day a young man came up to me and said hey Pastor there's a man there's a man up front at the property and he's praying he's walking around the church property and he's praying and so I I cleaned up pretty quickly you know I got all the cement dust off and I washed my face and if there was a man up there praying I wanted to go be a part of that I I didn't know if it was a a a a preacher I didn't know if it was a an apostle I didn't know if it was an angel you know missionaries believe everything we believe the whole Bible I ran up there was a big tall black man I said hey man I just I heard you were up here praying I just wanted to come introduce myself I I'm I'm responsible I'm the overseeing missionary here and I I noticed you were praying I want to be connected to praying people what are you praying about what are you what led you here today and he said I'm praying that God would tear this building down I went oh praise God he said I I've just been walking this property and I've been asking God for the destruction of this false church and he left and that was the last time I ever saw that man and I'll be honest brother Carpenter it bothered me it bothered me because I want people to like me and I know I've got about 11 seconds for everybody to keep liking me I'm I'm going to make people mad now I want people to like me it bothered me that day all the it bothered me that was Friday it bothered me all day Saturday that people would not believe in what I was doing I could not believe that that there were people that did not want to be my friend I I could not it hurt me that people did not believe in the work that I was doing and the and actually hoped for my demise it bothered me all weekend until it bothered me until I got to church on Sunday and as I was getting ready to start service about 25 people walked in the back door of my church and I said to one of the young men in my building I said who who are these people walking in right now he said said you know that man that was here praying on Friday afternoon I said yeah they said he is a pastor and Pastor a nearby church to where we're building he said all 25 of these people used to go to that church but they said yesterday morning God woke them up and said they want to come down here and be a part of what God is doing I baptized every one of them in the name of Jesus Christ every one of them receed the gift of the Hool Holy Ghost can I tell the movement conference tonight they can pray against our wall they can laugh at our work they can resist us they can spit in our face they can mock our worship they can trivialize our Holiness but they cannot stop the progress and the advancement of the kingdom of God this thing is unrelenting this thing is Unstoppable this thing is unmovable this thing is impenetrable I'm preaching the pastors right now that are being confronted by San ballad in toaya and you're asking yourself how in the world can anybody oppose what I'm building and trying to do in this city can I tell you right now you don't have to try to Win Friends and Influence People you just keep building the walls you just keep reaching that City you let the Z of Nehemiah let the Zeal of Nehemiah feel fuel your ministry remain standing with me who are for the Woodward who are these feeble Jews these pitiful Jews these incapable Jews that's the first thing the devil's going to try to do is trivialize and minimize what you're building and the only thing you need to do with distractions are ignore them I'm I'm I'm talking to somebody right now when you do what we do the devil is going to try and minimize what you're doing in fact it's easy to come to mville and go I don't know if I even want to go home to my church I think I just might want to stay here this is Disneyland and the enemy will show up on your shoulder and try to make you feel like your music department is pitiful your preaching is pitiful your Sunday school is pitiful but here's the thing I I build it but God anoints it we labor in vain if it's not God that builds the house anyways so you know what I'm going to do on Sunday I'm going to go back home and I'm going to rebuild the walls these feeble Jews coming out of captivity they just lost everything how ridiculous of them how Bodacious of them it's absurd for them to even remotely consider themselves able to do this in the face of opposition and resistance but anybody who builds any whether it is a business a church a marriage a family will build it on the canvas of Confrontation if you are waiting for confrontation to be over before you get out a little elbow GP and a little shovel and start building you are going to die waiting for a day that will never come you are either going to build in the presence of controversy and confrontation or you are going to die waiting but tonight I am preaching to builders in fact the entire book of Nehemiah is written to builders and leaders not people who just want to come in and wave a praise offering and walk out but those that have seen a glimpse of what God is wanting to do and said yes that is what I want in the Holy Ghost and you are ready to lace up your bootstraps and make it come to pass it's not for the weak it's not for the faint of heart that is why Jesus turned to the disciples and said If any man puts his hand stand on this plow and turns back after seeing what we've seen after knowing what we know having tasted what we've tasted having sat together in Heavenly places if you have the capacity to turn back having seen what we have seen you are not fit for the kingdom of God and I know I've gone over my time right but some of you are sitting here right now and you are already doubting what God wants to do in you and for you because you're discouraged by what it looks like and what it appears like and how it seems and what the enemy has told you that is the that is the first attack of the enemy Sam ballet's name literally means hatred or discouragement it was no different in job's day I've often wondered why did one man survive every epidemic in job's Life One Man survived survived the tragedy to come back and tell job your flocks were stolen and only I escaped to tell you your kids died and only I escaped to tell you your camels were stolen only I escaped to tell you you want to know why because the enemy thrives on your doubt and he will always use somebody to remind you how bad it is for job it was always that one guy that should have died but found pleasure in reminding job how p ful it was if there is somebody who doesn't believe in what God is doing in your church the enemy will send them to you to remind you why you shouldn't believe if there's somebody who doesn't believe what God is doing in your life the enemy will send somebody who doesn't believe and and so they can criticize what God is doing just let me stop here long enough to tell you if you think that you are going to do what God has called you to do in this city state Nation or world without getting people mad you have got another thing coming huh you think you can build this kind of ministry you think you could build the movement conference and get these kinds of results and nobody's going to get upset cleaning up streets shutting down drug dealers putting therapists out of business closing down bars and the enemy isn't going to fight back you can do the right thing and still make people mad yeah I'm done I'm I'm seriously done I turned it off in Honduras we had a concert outside one time and it was the first time we ever had a crusade hundreds of people showed up and at the end of the concert we made an invitation to come and pray at the altar and a man came up to me he said pastor do you see that man right there I said yeah he goes that man is aario or a hired assassin he'll kill anybody you want for $1,000 said my God that is a bargain I started one two three if I go to mville I I really could take full of a I could take care of a handful all at once I need a dep deputize in October God I said we got to get him out of here he was sitting there with his arms said hey just keep an eye on him he may be here to kill somebody I don't know and uh I got to praying with people I turned back to try to find hilberto he was missing started scanning the crowd where is he he could be knifing somebody right now not that I was going to do anything I was just going to find somebody to do something you know you know I'm not the biggest man in the room and I looked and he was all the way up front hands lift said shame on me shame on You Stephen Jones for thinking that this doesn't work it it was just a little platform two little speakers and a corded microphone we didn't have a whole lot it was a humble setting but we didn't need a lot for the gospel to work brother Nichols by the time I got got to him big old assassin tears were running down his face I got a chair you ever had to get a chair brother Carpenter I got a chair to lay hands on him I laid hands on him he started speaking in Tong as the spirit gave the utterance he grabbed my hand as it was on his head he said it feels like electricity is running through my body I said you need to get baptized in Jesus name he said I know he said do you think it'll work on me I said I know it'll work on you he said you don't know what I've done I said when you go down in the watery grave of baptism he won't even know what you've done I'll never forget it as long as I live brother Hamm and I walked him down into the water of myself that Caribbean Ocean 86° you don't have to beg me to baptize people in Hunter I walked him all the way out there we got was steep I put him as we got every step we walked out into that water it was like sins were just rolling off of him and he he was realizing for the very first time the heaviness that he was feeling was washing off of him and the burdens he hey has it been so long since you got baptized that you forgot what it felt like to know the joy of baptism oh there is not a joy like the joy of a Reconciliation there is not a joy like the joy of a watery grave as I was walking him out and the name of Jesus was cleansing him I was being filled with the Zeal of Nehemiah I put him under that watery grave he came out speaking in other tongues and he disappeared I didn't see him for years he called me not long ago I didn't recogn Iz the number called me he sound like he had a speech impediment he said is this the missionary I said it is who's this he says this is hilberto hard to articulate because it was sounded like something had happened to his ability to speak he said I I haven't been back to the island in a long time because I had to run and hide he said people had already paid me to commit murder murders that I wouldn't commit he said and when they found me on the mainland they cut my tongue out he said pastor they tried to get me before I talked in tongues but they showed up too late because I've already been born of the water and of I'm telling you when this gets in you the Zeal of Nehemiah you're going to make drug addicts m mad but it's the Zeal of Nehemiah you're going to make Assassins mad but it's the Seal of NE I wonder if you'd lift your hands right now as they get ready to lead us in worship I wonder if there's a neiah in this house that is ready to stand under an anointing and a burden and say God I'm ready to build I'm ready to build I'm ready to build come on I wish I wish the Holy Ghost would fall right now I wish you'd let the Holy Ghost fall on you right now come on young man God can use you at 20 years old come on young married couple at 25 and 30 God can put in you the Zeal of Nehemiah lift your hands lift your voice all over the the house right now come on this altar is open I believe it' be an order for us just to fill this altar with Nehemiah come on