John K. Jenkins Sr - Fight for Your Family

Alright, you can be seated for just a moment . Open your Bibles to Nehemiah chapter 4. I'm going to walk through this fourth chapter; the first 14 verses of chapter 4 are what I want to cover. I want y'all to just follow me. Can y'all follow me? Tell your neighbor, "Just follow me." Now, I'm going to give you my subject at the end of this because this is an abbreviated message. I want to talk about Nehemiah. Somebody say, "Nehemiah." Nehemiah has the assignment of being the king's cupbearer. He has the job, the responsibility of drinking from the king's cup and eating from the king's plate before the king, just in case it's poisoned; he would die, and the king would not drink or eat. How many of y'all want that job? Who 's applying? Who 's putting in the application? I'm not applying for that job, but that was his responsibility. One day, while he's off serving this king in a country where he is not from , he receives word that back in his homeland, Jerusalem, the city is in disarray . The people are distraught because the walls of the city have been destroyed and burned down, and nobody has been able to repair these walls for hundreds of years. It 's distressing because the people who have returned to Jerusalem - having been dispersed-have come back home , but there is a level of frustration, discomfort , and insecurity because the walls have not been rebuilt. It has been hundreds of years since they were torn down, so now this burden rests on Nehemiah 's heart, and this burden he has is to go back and rebuild the walls around Jerusalem . As a matter of fact, he is so distraught about it that his boss, the king, notices his discomfort and unhappiness and asks him what's going on. Nehemiah tells the king, and the king releases him to go back to his homeland to work on the walls . Not only does the king release him, but he gives him money to make the trip and resources to rebuild the walls . So, Nehemiah goes back to rebuild the walls.

Some of you are like Nehemiah in your life. You have an assignment ; God has a job, a mission for your life . God has something for you to do , and we learn from the story of Nehemiah some lessons we must take into consideration whenever we have an assignment from God . Look at the person sitting next to you. I know they look however they look, but however they look, they have an assignment. Look at them and say, "You have an assignment from God." There 's something that God has put on your plate to do . There 's a reason He created you. There 's a reason you were birthed. You didn't just get birthed so you could go back and forth to work and do the same humdrum, boring job that you do every day. There 's an assignment; there's a gift; there are deposits God has put down inside of you , and He wants you to fulfill them. But what happens? How do you handle it ? Nehemiah has this assignment, and right off the bat, we see some things we can learn from him.

I want to read beginning at verse 1 of chapter 4. Y'all with me? Chapter 4, verse 1 says, "But it so happened when Sanballat heard that we were rebuilding the wall , that he was furious and very indignant, and mocked the Jews." Sanballat, when he heard that they were rebuilding the wall-he heard that Nehemiah and the Jews were rebuilding the walls-became very indignant and mocked the Jews. You need to be clear about this: when you are doing what God has called you to do , there are going to be people who will not like what you're doing . Let me thank the five people for their "amen," and the other three who clapped their hands. You need to get that in your spirit. Understand that there's always going to be somebody with something to say . In fact, in verse 2, it says he spoke before his brethren and the army of Samaria and said, "What are these feeble Jews doing? Will they fortify themselves? Will they offer sacrifices? Will they complete it in a day? Will they revive the stones from the heaps of rubbish, stones that are burned?" They looked at what Nehemiah and the people were doing, and he ridiculed them. He mocked them. As a matter of fact, he looked-this is a key point-he looked at what was out there, at the remains of the walls that had been burned down ; there were heaps of rubbish , stones that had been burned, and he said they could not possibly rebuild that.

Now I need to talk about that, because there are some things in your life that God wants to rebuild. As a matter of fact, God wants to rebuild some stuff in your life, some things in your marriage, some things with your kids, some things in your family, some things in your finances. He wants to rebuild them, and when God wants to rebuild them, and you begin to work the process to rebuild, be clear that there are going to be people who will not be happy about what you're seeking to do . Here 's what I discovered: in the course of my life , in the course of my journey, in my 40-plus years of preaching, I discovered that anytime I'm headed in the direction to do what God wants me ...