John K. Jenkins Sr - The ABCs of Family: Fight for Your Family - Part 1

Father, we thank You for Your loving kindness and Your tender mercies. Thank You for waking us up. Thank You for the activities of our limbs. Thank You for keeping us all week. We are so thankful for all the many miracles You have wrought on our behalf. Now, Father, we pray for Your anointing on this service and on this Word. Speak to hearts, change our lives, and help us to be in the center of Your will. Save somebody today, Father; reclaim someone for Your glory-some lost, some backslidden, some unsure, unchurched person. We pray that, Heavenly Father, Your perfect will will be done. Put a hedge around this place. We ask You to bind every distracting spirit and have Your way in Jesus' name. Amen and amen. Praise the Lord!

Give somebody a dap real quick and thank them for being here. Thank that person somewhere nearby and let them know you 're glad they made it. You can be seated. Did you all have a good Thanksgiving? Amen. I’ve been on this family series, and I want to continue talking about family today. I will be finished with this series when I get through my points. Today, I want to talk about fighting for your family.

So many people are walking away from family, walking away from their marriages, walking away from their relationships with their kids and their parents. We are just walking away, and that’s not the heart of God. God loves family, amen? The problem is that people think it ' s their right to walk away from family. It 's so easy to focus on everything that 's wrong with your family and why you can 't be connected with the «jacked-up jokers» in your family. Yet, you forget that you are also one of the «jacked-up jokers» in the family because some people think everyone is wrong but them. Go ahead and look at your neighbor and say, «He 's talking about you right now .»

I want to invite your attention to the title of today 's message, «Fight for Your Family.» Nehemiah chapter 4. I want you to go to Nehemiah chapter 4. Let me just- I’m not going to get through the entirety of this message today. I tried to get through it at eight, and I didn 't, so I’m not going to try to rush through it. I tried to rush through it at eight, and I still didn 't get through it, so I 'm going to say some tough stuff. You’re supposed to say, «Amen! Tell us, Pastor! Preach, Pastor!»

I want to talk about Nehemiah. Nehemiah, who had a job in a foreign country as the king ' s cupbearer, is a person who eats the food and drinks the drink before the king to test for poison. His job is to ensure the king 's safety. While fulfilling his duties, he learns that his hometown, the city of Jerusalem, is in disarray. The walls have been torn down and destroyed for a number of years, and people are failing to return and care for his home city. He feels burdened to go back and repair the walls. Throughout the book of Nehemiah, we find that he returns and rebuilds the walls of the city; the people start returning home, and the miracle is that he rebuilt the walls in just 52 days.

Now, that may not seem like a short time to you, but that 's a miracle-52 days to restore the walls! However, when he makes it back to Jerusalem and starts the rebuilding, enemies surface. Some people who are against him are seeking to stop him from rebuilding the walls of the city. They are trying to frustrate him, defeat him, and in the midst of this challenge, he tells his leaders, «Fight for your families.» I love that his mentality is to fight to keep families together.

I say this because some of you today have made decisions in your life to advance God’s kingdom. You ' ve made choices and taken actions to improve your community, your family, your marriage, and your children. You must understand that when you make decisions for the benefit of God, you are going to gain some enemies.