Where is God leading?
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Seeing the year in 20/20 often requires retrospect.
Seeing the year in 20/20 often requires retrospect.
In just three short days we will be starting a new year. We will be closing 2019 and starting a new decade. The 20’s. This is a special year because people all over the country will be hearing sermons over and over about seeing things clearly.
The new year gives us a special time to stop and consider where we are and where we are going. I know many of us don’t really get into the new years resolutions but the day still marks a point for reflection.
It’s important to set goals, to measure your growth. Its maybe even more important to discover your passions. Where do you want to set goals?
At this time next year you will be looking back over your year with wait for it: “20/20” vision & judging your journey based on where you ended up.
I want to break down some of the fundamental pieces to this process as we learn them from a unique prophet named Nehemiah.
Nehemiah Background
Nehemiah Background
Babylon has fallen to Persia. Nehemiah serves as the cup bearer to the King of Persia, Artaxerxes. This is Nehemiah’s recounting:
The words of Nehemiah the son of Hacaliah. Now it happened in the month of Chislev, in the twentieth year, as I was in Susa the citadel, that Hanani, one of my brothers, came with certain men from Judah. And I asked them concerning the Jews who escaped, who had survived the exile, and concerning Jerusalem. And they said to me, “The remnant there in the province who had survived the exile is in great trouble and shame. The wall of Jerusalem is broken down, and its gates are destroyed by fire.” As soon as I heard these words I sat down and wept and mourned for days, and I continued fasting and praying before the God of heaven.
Nehemiah was living in Babylon serving in the royal court
When your passion lines up with God’s passion
When your passion lines up with God’s passion
Who is a gate keeper?
Who is a gate keeper?
First Pray
First Pray
And I said, “O Lord God of heaven, the great and awesome God who keeps covenant and steadfast love with those who love him and keep his commandments, let your ear be attentive and your eyes open, to hear the prayer of your servant that I now pray before you day and night for the people of Israel your servants, confessing the sins of the people of Israel, which we have sinned against you. Even I and my father’s house have sinned. We have acted very corruptly against you and have not kept the commandments, the statutes, and the rules that you commanded your servant Moses.
I ask for your attention and your forgiveness.
Remember the word that you commanded your servant Moses, saying, ‘If you are unfaithful, I will scatter you among the peoples, but if you return to me and keep my commandments and do them, though your outcasts are in the uttermost parts of heaven, from there I will gather them and bring them to the place that I have chosen, to make my name dwell there.’
Affirm your promises
They are your servants and your people, whom you have redeemed by your great power and by your strong hand.
Affirm his character
O Lord, let your ear be attentive to the prayer of your servant, and to the prayer of your servants who delight to fear your name, and give success to your servant today, and grant him mercy in the sight of this man.” Now I was cupbearer to the king.
Hear my prayer: Submission and Request
then talk
then talk
“Now I was cupbearer to the king”
I said to the king, “Let the king live forever! Why should not my face be sad, when the city, the place of my fathers’ graves, lies in ruins, and its gates have been destroyed by fire?” Then the king said to me, “What are you requesting?” So I prayed to the God of heaven.
Pray again
Pray again
respond
respond
And I said to the king, “If it pleases the king, and if your servant has found favor in your sight, that you send me to Judah, to the city of my fathers’ graves, that I may rebuild it.” And the king said to me (the queen sitting beside him), “How long will you be gone, and when will you return?” So it pleased the king to send me when I had given him a time.
God provides
God provides
The heart of man plans his way, but the Lord establishes his steps.
For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, plans for welfare and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope.