John K. Jenkins Sr - The ABCs of Family: Fight for Your Family - Part 2

Father, we thank You for the privilege that You grant us to be in this place. We could be in the hospital; we could be buried in our graves. But we thank You for sparing our lives for such a time and day as this. We give You all the glory and all the honor for waking us up, giving us the activities of our limbs, and giving us a mind to be in the house of worship. We pray that You bless our time in Your Word today. Speak to Your people. I pray, Heavenly Father, that You would speak to the unsaved, the backslidden, the unsure, the unchurched, and the uncommitted, and that You speak to the saints. Let Your truth prevail; let Your name receive all the glory and honor. Put a hedge around this place and a hedge around every location watching this worship experience. We pray, Father, that You receive all the glory and all the honor. Save somebody, reclaim some lost backsliders, and reconnect somebody who has become disconnected. Plant somebody who needs to be planted, and God, we will give You all the glory and all the praise in Jesus' name. Amen and amen.

Look at your neighbor; tell your neighbor or someone near you, «You look better today than the last time I saw you,» and you can be seated. It’s so good to be in the house of the Lord today. Amen, amen! For the last several weeks, I have been delivering messages on family — the ABCs of family. Last Sunday, I spoke about fighting for your family, but I was unable to get to the part that instructs you how to fight for your family. I discussed the elements that help destroy families, such as irreconcilable conflict. I talked about financial challenges and sexual immorality. All of these things contribute to the destruction of families, but today, I want to teach you how to fight for your family. Amen!

The principles I want to share about fighting for your family come from Nehemiah chapter 4. So let me ask you to turn there for just a moment. I provided some background last week, but just in case you weren 't here, let me tell you about Nehemiah. Nehemiah had been given the assignment and the responsibility of being the king’s cupbearer. He had the responsibility of tasting the king 's food and drinking the king’s beverage before serving it to ensure it wasn’t poisoned. One day, while on the job, he looked sad because he had heard that back home, in Jerusalem, the walls had been torn down, and nobody had come back to restore them. For a couple of hundred years, these walls had remained in ruins, and people were hesitant to return and move to the city because there was no protection; there were no walls.

So, Nehemiah decided to go back and rebuild the walls. He made the determination to return and that’s exactly what he did. He went back to Jerusalem and began the process of rebuilding the walls around the city. In chapter 4, we learn that as he was doing this, some people in the city became angry. Let me read the text to you. Nehemiah chapter 4-are you all there? Please put it up on the screen; thank you very much. It says, «Now it happened when Sanballat, Tobiah, the Arabs, the Ammonites, and the Ashdodites heard that the walls of Jerusalem were being restored and the gaps were beginning to be closed, that they became very angry. And all of them conspired together to come and attack Jerusalem and create confusion.»

Now let me pause here for just a moment. Even though I’m talking about fighting for your family, I know some people may say, «I don’t have a wife. I don’t have a husband. I don’t have kids.» But here’s what you do have to fight for: Everybody here has something to fight for, either for your family or for your destiny-fighting for your assignment, your purpose, your calling, your gifting-what God has for you. Anytime you make a determination and a decision to advance God’s kingdom or to do what it is God has for you, everybody needs to understand this: Anytime you decide, " I’m going to do what God created me to do; I’m going to do the thing God told me to do,» I can guarantee that you will encounter opposition. It goes with the territory; it’s part of the journey.

In this text, we see that Nehemiah had people conspiring against him. In fact, people gathered together to conspire against him. They became very angry and were unhappy about what he was doing. Verse 8 says they conspired together to come and attack Jerusalem and create confusion. There 's always someone who will try to create confusion. How many of you know someone who creates confusion? Keep those hands up — I want to see who you are!