As a church, we’ve been doing the series the last few weeks on the book of Nehemiah. So, once a year as a church, we take either a book of the Bible or a significant passage of scripture and we just look at it for a couple of months and this year, we’ve been looking at the book of Nehemiah.
As somewhat of a recap, Nehemiah was essentially the story of a man named Nehemiah who was a Jewish man who was serving the king and he would be and he was serving him his drinks. He was a wine steward to the king and basically, he had a foreign country and he had heard that back in his homeland, the walls of Jerusalem were still broken down.
It was not unusual news to him. I mean, the walls of Jerusalem have been broken down for 170 years and so it wasn’t like he’d heard it for the first time but something on the inside of him broke and he just could not handle it anymore.
Have you had an issue in your life that you’ve just had to deal with for a long time and then comes a moment that was like I’ve had enough? I can’t deal with this anymore. Something’s gotta happen. That’s exactly what happened with Nehemiah.
And so basically Nehemiah, the whole book of Nehemiah was Nehemiah being used by God to lead the rebuilding of the walls of Jerusalem and they’d been broken down for 170 years and they were rebuilt. The Bible tells us in Nehemiah six fifteen, they were rebuilt in 52 days, which is absolutely incredible.
Nehemiah 6:15 NKJV So the wall was finished on the twenty-fifth day of Elul, in fifty-two days.
Do you know what that tells me? It tells me it doesn’t matter how long you’ve waited. Does matter how long you’ve had to deal with an issue. It doesn’t matter how long you’ve had to wait for a promise. When God decides it’s time, he could turn it around really, really quick. That is the God that we serve. And here, in this, here in this story, we see that that’s what this whole thing is about in Nehemiah.
In chapter one was basically when he first got the burden. He first heard the news that the walls have been broken down and it was just too much for him. And it really you know, and it really touched his heart. And basically, Nehemiah chapter two, that was where he hit some up the courage to actually say to the king that he wanted to go and rebuild the walls.
And so all of Nehemiah 2 was basically about how he got permission, access and the resources that he needed to rebuild the walls of Jerusalem. And then we jumped to Nehemiah chapter 3 and now Nehemiah 3 and I’ll just read you the first five verses. Nehemiah chapter three is when he starts the rebuilding of the walls. And that’s what we come to right now.
Interestingly enough he rebuilt the walls of Jerusalem. in 52 days. That is absolutely amazing. The question begs the question, wow, how did you do it so quickly? What did you do? It wasn’t like God made a promise and then all of a sudden, they just turn up to Jerusalem and walls started coming up out of the ground and supernaturally came together.
Three Reasons Why the Wall Was Rebuilt So Quickly
Now, God used people, God used the leader, and God used his people to see that promise come to pass and so, I want to focus on today about three reasons why the wall was rebuilt so quickly. I believe it’s going to be helpful for us. For those that have an issue that we’ve had for a long time and don’t know what to do about it.
For those of us that had an issue for a long time and don’t know how to get a breakthrough, maybe we can learn from the Israelites. Maybe we could learn from Nehemiah but what they did in order to see this long-awaited promise, 170 years, man. Their whole lives, they’ve been living with this issue. The whole generation after generation after generation had lived with this issue and then all of a sudden, in 52 days, they turned it around.
As a side note, it doesn’t matter what your family line is like. It doesn’t matter what has happened in your family line in the past. You’ve been grafted into a new family line. You’re a part of the kingdom of God. You’re a child of God and he can do incredible things in and through your life and so, I want to talk to you today out of these first five verses of Nehemiah chapter three about three reasons why the walls were rebuilt so quickly.
The first reason is this, it says in Nehemiah 3:1-5.
Nehemiah 3:1-5 NKJV
Then Eliashib the high priest rose up with his brethren the priests and built the Sheep Gate; they consecrated it and hung its doors. They built as far as the Tower of the Hundred, and consecrated it, then as far as the Tower of Hananel. Next to Eliashib the men of Jericho built. And next to them Zaccur the son of Imri built. Also the sons of Hassenaah built the Fish Gate; they laid its beams and hung its doors with its bolts and bars. And next to them Meremoth the son of Urijah, the son of Koz, made repairs. Next to them Meshullam the son of Berechiah, the son of Meshezabel, made repairs. Next to them Zadok the son of Baana made repairs. Next to them the Tekoites made repairs; but their nobles did not put their shoulders to the work of their Lord.
1. Rebuild
The first key to rebuilding a world is to repair it. which means you don’t have to raise it to the ground. It would have taken a lot longer if I had to come in and just wipe out all the walls. What we’re going to do is we’re going to demolish everything. We’re going to dismantle it and we’re going to start from scratch. No, no, you wouldn’t have got it done quick enough. You don’t have to raise something to the ground to make it better. All you gotta do is take what you’ve got and repair it.
One of the things I think we’re going to start seeing more and more on the Gold Coast as land becomes more scarce, especially down this end of the coast. You see it in other capital cities what’s happening right now is people are buying blocks of land often closer to the city with an old house on it and knocking it over. And they’re wiping it out and then rebuilding once again from scratch.
That is not what they did here. They actually repaired what was already there. Even though it was broken. Even though it needed fixing. They didn’t throw it away. They actually repaired it. I find that incredibly challenging because I hate maintenance. So the whole reason why I like living in newer houses is that it just lasts a little bit longer.
Because even the other day I came home and came home late at night. I’ve you know been out most nights and I came home late when I was pretty tired. I came home and the front door was a jar and the front door, the lock, the handle had been pulled apart. So, Trish and one of my sons, Josh, decided to pull the handle part and I walked in. It was about 10 o’clock at night. I thought, no chance. And I just went straight past and went straight to bed.
Josh came in in the middle of the night and said, we’ve done it. We got on YouTube and fixed it. I said, praise God. Maintenance not my thing, man. Repairing is not my thing. I’d rather just start from scratch. It would have taken way longer if they wiped it out.
One of the things that are happening right now is that I’m getting asked to speak to leaders about how to train, you know, take an existing church and transition it into a new season and that sort of thing. One of the things I learnt when I was an itinerant, I’d be speaking all around Australia was that sometimes someone would take over a church as a leader and they just wipe it out and then start again but the problem was they never got back to what it actually was before and they needed to transition it.
I remember when we first took over Kings back at the start of 2018. I really had it in my heart that scripture don’t remove the ancient boundary stone.
Proverbs 22:28 NKJV Do not remove the ancient landmark Which your fathers have set.
And so what that means is these things about it that you don’t shift. That you don’t move. That which has been established. And we wanted to know what that was. There were some things that had to change to move forward but there were some things that are supposed to stay forever.
Now I just had these five values that really dropped into my heart. At the time and I thought I better check it with the elders. Check it with the board. Check with people who’ve been around long time. I said, I think I feel like this is what King’s is and they all said, yes, that’s us.
You know, you got it in one and and and you would know if you’ve done Compass, you know what those five things are because they’re part of our compass program. There are five values and you know, so we’re a Pentecostal Church. That’s who we are. We’re a multi-generational church. We’ve been here 45 years, man. You know, we got all generations here. You know, we’re a family and we’re a church with the school. That’s just how is. That’s who we are. People don’t get it too bad. That’s who we are. That’s who Kings is. We’re a soul-winning church. We’re an apostolic church. They’re kind of like the pillars.
You know, if you go and renovate a house, there are certain walls you can move. There are others you can’t touch even if you want to. Why? Because they’re weight-bearing walls. The roof will cave in. In the same way, the things you don’t move in. So, I thought to myself, well, it’s a bit presumptuous for me to get up there at church. First time as a new pastor. Still going to win people over, you know, and then just, you know, throw that out there.
So, I thought I’d wait six months before I share that and been at church a couple of weeks and Matt Treagus who’s now our Pimpama campus pastor. He said, Ben, are we going to start connect groups at some point? I said, oh yeah. We better. I said, okay. We hadn’t started a night service yet. I said, why don’t we invite the connect group leaders and then we will chat to them, have a coffee, and pray for them and let them go and I thought there’d be about 15 people come and that sort of thing and then then the team started advertising it as a vision night and I said, no, no, no, no vision. There’s no vision. I just got here. The vision is survival, okay?
I remember coming on the night and I went up to my office and I thought, you know, what am I going to talk about? I’ll just pray with them, chat, get to know them, and that sort of thing. I walked down here and 250 people were sitting there and I thought, I better give them a bit more meat on the bone and I thought I’ll pull out this old thing I was thinking about doing. Talking about who Kings is.
The pillars of the church because people were worried, people wondering what was going to go on and just shared it and I felt like it would, it helped people realize it’s safe that we haven’t come here to knock the house over. But we also know that there are repairs that were needed. And we’ve come to do that. That’s exactly what happened there. They have come and taken what they’ve got and repaired it.
Do you know what that means? It means if you got marriage problems, you don’t have to throw it out, get another one. We can actually work with the one we’ve got. That issue in that business and in that career, you can actually work with the one you’ve got. We see it happen all the time. Where people have an issue and they say, right, I’m starting again and wipe it out and start again.
You see, for some people, they move. Like, every 4 or 5 years, they keep moving. It’s not working out for me. Every time you move, it costs you like $10,000-$15,000. There was a family in our church at one of our campuses. I was preaching the country a couple of weeks ago and they rocked up to it. I said, what are you guys doing here? They said we live here now. I said, how long you’ve been living here? They said, oh, we’ve been living here a few weeks but we hate it.
I said, listen, you guys move around all the time. You got no house, you got no property, you got all it cost you all the time. I said, listen, you’ve only got one more move in you and then I found out the other day, one of my campus partners Sydney said, oh they’ve come back. They’ve said, oh, I said, well, you tell them, that’s it. No more moving.
You’re not going to rebuild by continually knocking over. We have to repair take what God’s given us and repair it. Proverbs fourteen verse one says:
Proverbs 14:1 NKJV The wise woman builds her house, But the foolish pulls it down with her hands.
We don’t have to wipe everything out all the time. We can just repair. You know, when a plan goes off course, could you imagine being on a plane and finding out that the plane was a couple of degrees off course? Imagine if the pilot went on, they said, hey, guys. I’ve just realized I’m a little bit off course. What I’m going to do is this, I’m going to go back to Brisbane and then I’m going to start again. No, no, no. You make adjustments and keep moving forward.
And in the same way before throwing something in. Before raising it to the ground. Before wiping it out. Why don’t you have a think about it? And say is it possible that instead of doing that we can repair it. They made repairs.
2. Relationship
The second thing is this. It says in Nehemiah 3:1-5:
Nehemiah 3:1-5 NKJV Then Eliashib the high priest rose up with his brethren the priests and built the Sheep Gate; they consecrated it and hung its doors. They built as far as the Tower of the Hundred, and consecrated it, then as far as the Tower of Hananel. Next to Eliashib the men of Jericho built. And next to them Zaccur the son of Imri built. Also the sons of Hassenaah built the Fish Gate; they laid its beams and hung its doors with its bolts and bars. And next to them Meremoth the son of Urijah, the son of Koz, made repairs. Next to them Meshullam the son of Berechiah, the son of Meshezabel, made repairs. Next to them Zadok the son of Baana made repairs. Next to them the Tekoites made repairs; but their nobles did not put their shoulders to the work of their Lord.
The nobles did not put their shoulders to the work of the Lord. Did you see that? Next to them. The only reason why they did it so fast. The second reason why they rebuilt the walls so quickly is the relationship connection. I would imagine it’s not the first time someone tried to rebuild it.
I would imagine sometimes someone would come out to their tribe to see their gate breaking down. So we gotta fix this guys. But clearly, it hasn’t worked. It only worked when they all did it together. Sometimes there are some breakthroughs that you need. That you actually can’t get by yourself. That you actually need to be able to go and to join with others that can actually help you.
The way that you can find out whether you need some help is if you’ve got an issue that you’ve had a long time and by yourself, it’s never gotten any better. That’s an indication that we need to do it together. That’s why even as Christians we actually created for community. God himself is a community Father, Son, and Holy Spirit and we are made in his image. And so what that means is we are created for community.
And so you see it all the time. People think that their Christian faith could be one of just privacy. Me and the Lord and just us and that sort of thing. And I’ve heard people say to me things like, you know, you know, do you believe someone could be a Christian and not go to church? I said, sure. You know, anyone can be a Christian. I said, but I know for myself, I’m a much better Christian by actually going to church and it’s because I’m part of a community and there’s something, the Bible says, what Jesus says, where two or three are gathered in my name, I am there.
The Bible says, we’re supposed to be part of the body of Christ. We’re not supposed to live our Christian lives in isolation. It’s not purely a private faith and sometimes you’ll find one of the greatest things you can do actually is be part of a connect group be part of a group of people that can be there, that can cheer you on, that can help you in your struggles, that can support you in what you’re doing.
Sometimes, you live your Christian life in isolation, come to church, listen to a message, and go home, and that’s pretty good. But imagine if you came together with some others. Just like it said on the screen earlier in today’s service, we are definitely better together. There’s something powerful about being a part of the body of Christ. We can do it together.
One of the things that I guess has probably happened, I’m saying like an old man turned 50 this year. Praise the Lord and I found out I’m eligible for a seniors card. At fifty, that’s what I heard. I thought that I’m so waiting man to get to the front of that line and get that 15% off at Muffin Break. Be amazing and so yeah, praise God.
Where was I going with that? Oh yeah. So, And one of the things that can happen more and more now is that and you know, please in my heart here in it. I’m preaching to the converted. When we talk about church and people and more and more like you know, going once a fortnight, once every three weeks and that sort of thing and could you imagine just only eating like that? Yeah. I’ll just skip him, your metabolism would be shocked a bit.
There’s something powerful about that consistency. The Bible said, Jesus went to the synagogue as was his habit.
Luke 4:16 NKJV So He came to Nazareth, where He had been brought up. And as His custom was, He went into the synagogue on the Sabbath day, and stood up to read.
The Bible says, let’s not neglect the gathering together. There’s something about, there’s a strength, there’s a power, there’s an anointing that comes apart comes when we do that and it’s one thing to watch messages on YouTube and it’s one thing to do all that but there’s something powerful about what we do here about the community that we have.
I go to church three times a week. On a Sunday because I’m paid to. That sort of thing and I remember many years ago, I was on staff at a church and normally in my holidays, I’d actually preach at other churches and but this particular time I wasn’t preaching anywhere and on a Saturday night, I’m thinking, is awesome. You know, I go to church three times a Sunday. I go like 150 times a year. You know, a lot of Christians only go like 15 times a year.
I thought, you know, I’ll just you know, I’m going to have the day off and Trish came to me on Saturday afternoon. She goes, were we going to go to church tomorrow? I said, mate, we’re going to church tomorrow. All the day, I go to church every week. I go three times a week. I said, you know, if someone could have a Sunday off, I reckon it’s me. And so, I said, I’m not going to church.
She said, oh, okay. Then I made the mistake of doing my devotions, I was doing my devotions and I was reading how in Psalm 116. It says, what can I render to the Lord for all his benefits towards me? And there’s only four things.
It actually says, take up the cup of salvation which means get saved. Pay my vows to the lord which means be generous. Praise his name which means praise him in the presence of his people which is go to church.
Psalm 116:12-17 NKJV
What shall I render unto the Lord for all his benefits toward me?
I will take the cup of salvation, and call upon the name of the Lord.
I will pay my vows unto the Lord now in the presence of all his people.
Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of his saints.
O Lord, truly I am thy servant; I am thy servant, and the son of thine handmaid: thou hast loosed my bonds.
I will offer to thee the sacrifice of thanksgiving, and will call upon the name of the Lord.
That’s all he requires. And I read that the night before and then I felt the Holy Spirit speak to me. He says, oh so, you’re not going to church you know you’re not preaching so you’re not going. No one else is good enough. You know, and you want to and oh so you’re beyond church, are you? You’ve grown beyond it and you know, because I know I have a beautiful day set up.
You know, I was going to get up in the morning. I was going to take the boys down to McDonald’s. We’re going to have breakfast. Then, I was going to go and I was going to come home in time to watch the morning footy show and then I was going to watch the Sunday race and I was going to watch the AFL and then watch the NRL. I was going to have a fantastic day and then I felt the Lord say, well, you know, are you a Christian?
I thought, okay, okay. So, I went to the bedroom. It was late at night. I said to Trish, I said, okay. We to church tomorrow. She’s like look at me like I told you. And I said but because we lived in Ipswich right? I said but we’re going to go to the Gold Coast. In the morning then we’re spending the rest of the day at the beach. She goes no problem. So now I do it. I’ve been doing it for five years now.
But I remember we went and we turned up to the church service. It was down here on the coast and rocked up late. Can’t believe it. You know. And rocked up late and walked in and the presence of God. And I just felt the presence of God come on me. It’s almost like having a shower. You know when you have a shower and you don’t think you need one then you have one. And you realise I can’t quantify it But I know I needed that shower.
That’s exactly what happened. I came into church and something was just washed off me. And I was filled with life, joy, and strength. And I went out, had a fantastic day by the beach. And I hadn’t been at church for a whole 7 days. There’s something powerful about the habit. We need each other. We need to spur each other on to good works. Maybe there’s an area of your life that you’ve been trying to get sorted out in private.
Might be have something to do with your finances. Might have something to do somewhere else. And you’ve never been able to do it. Now’s the time to invite someone else in. Now is the time maybe to go to an expert. Now is the time maybe to go and get some advice. Now is maybe the time to go and get some help. If you haven’t been able to do it by yourself. When is the point that we’re going to decide. I need to go and get someone else to help me. They only were able to do it because of relationship. They were only able to do it because they had others doing it with them.
Ecclesiastes four nine and twelve says this:
Ecclesiastes 4:9-12 NKJV
Two are better than one,
Because they have a good reward for their labor.
For if they fall, one will lift up his companion.
But woe to him who is alone when he falls,
For he has no one to help him up.
Again, if two lie down together, they will keep warm;
But how can one be warm alone?
Though one may be overpowered by another, two can withstand him.
And a threefold cord is not quickly broken.
We are better together and in the same way, the only reason why they were all able to do it, it wasn’t Nehemiah by himself saying, I’m going to go and do this. No, no, no. Everyone else got involved and they got something done that they’d waited 170 years for. God had done in 52 days. Not only that, there’s something powerful. There’s a synergy and a multiplication that comes. When you walk together in unity.
Deuteronomy chapter 32 verse thirty says this:
Deuteronomy 32:30 NKJV How could one chase a thousand, And two put ten thousand to flight, Unless their Rock had sold them, And the Lord had surrendered them?
How can 1 chase a 1000 and 2 put 10000 to flight? Hold on. One puts a thousand. So, I would have thought if two are putting to flight, it’d be two thousand. But it doesn’t say that. Says one puts a thousand to flight, two puts 10,000 to flight. There’s a multiplication there.
Studies were done a number of years ago about mules when they were pulling loads and pulling plows and basically mules are better than horses in terms of being able to pull a load. Mules can basically carry their own body whereas horses can carry around about half their body weight and that sort of thing. And what they found was this. That if they got two meals together they could actually pull more than double. They could pull together more than what was combined. So, two and a half times.
Originally, because they were working together. They actually achieved more together than they would have if they had both been working alone. In the same way, it’s the same for us. We are better together and the same way if you got an area of your life where you’ve tried to fix by yourself and it hasn’t happened yet. If you’ve got an area of your life that you’ve tried to sort out and it hasn’t worked yet, now’s the time to get someone else involved and have to be able to work together to see that come to pass.
3. Responsibility
The third reason why they were able to do it. It says in verse one of numbers chapter three, then Elisha, the high priest, rose up with his brethren, the priest, and built the sheep gate. This is the beginning the work. At the end of chapter two, all we see at the end of chapter two is that they’ve actually got some people who are getting unsettled about the fact that the Israelites were going to rebuild the walls but this is the actual rebuilding of the walls. It starts right here. Who’s the first person that does it? The high priest. That’s really unusual.
Normally the high priest would stay out of it. Let other people do it. But for this job they went up they were first. What were they communicating to everybody else? Everybody has a responsibility to make this happen. It’s not just for some people. We’re not going to sit back and tell you what to do. Every single of us, they’re saying, actually, has to make that happen. And so everybody got involved except Nehemiah chapter three verse five.
Next to them, the Tokoites made repairs but their nobles did not put their shoulders to the work of the Lord. The only people who didn’t do anything were the nobles of the Tekoites. They were really thrown under the bus there, weren’t they? You know, doesn’t just say who did it. It actually talks about who didn’t do it. And they were the only ones who didn’t support it. They’re nobles, man. They don’t do that stuff. That’s for the common people. The noble don’t actually do any of that kind of work. That manual labor. That’s actually for the common people.
And so they actually kind of got away with it. Because the walls are rebuilt their walls were rebuilt, and they were fine. And they were the only people who actually didn’t help. However, the fact that they were named means that they were supposed to. If it didn’t matter, then their names wouldn’t be named. But it mattered. Because if the high priest is doing it, then the noble should be doing it as well. And they’re basically communicating it here.
The scripture is communicating to us that it was a possibility of everybody. To actually do it. The third key to actually seeing a breakthrough in that area of your life is responsibility. You have to rise up yourself as well. To actually see that coming to pass. If you sit around waiting for someone else to do it. If you’re sitting around for waiting for someone to rescue it, it’s not going to happen. There comes a moment where you gotta rise up yourself. And actually do it.
The power is actually within your hands. Greater is he who is in you than he that is in the world. This thing that you’ve been with. This thing that you’ve been facing. This thing that feels like it’s overcoming you. I believe the Lord can strengthen you and enable you to rise up. Do what you need to do in order to see the breakthrough come to pass in your life.
But interestingly enough, the nobles who did nothing, they were just used to telling people what to do and sat back I guess they probably had some nice place to a nice place to live. Interesting enough, it says that they did not put their shoulders to the work of the Lord. That phrase shoulder actually was referring to the back of the neck. And it’s expression is drawn from the imagery of oxen that refused to yield to the yoke.
So, basically, you got oxen and there’s a yoke that goes across their shoulders, across their neck that they pull the plow behind and that it’s a sign of that, you know, that they need to do the work. They would not put their shoulders to it. They refuse. They said, no, I’m not doing it. I’m not going to do that. I’m not going to serve the Lord in that way. That’s not what I do. And like they got away with it.
But actually, studies have been done and six centuries later there was a man by the name of Simon Bar Kokhba. Simon Bar Kokhba was someone that the Israelites thought might be the Messiah. Over the years there were a number of people that rose up where the Israelites thought they might be the Messiah. And very often they were someone who was a military leader.
And Simon Bar Kokhba was one of these men. Who rose up as a military leader to actually fight against the occupation of Rome. So by that time the Romans had taken over Israel. And so here is this leader who rises up and he’s going to lead the Jewish people to fight against the Roman occupation. Everyone was supposed to help. There was just one group that didn’t help. Do you know who it was?
The Tokoites. They refused to help. And guess what? History says that their homes were burnt down. And they were punished. So it looks like the nobles of the Tokoites because of their disobedience didn’t suffer any consequence. But what they did do was pass on a habit.
Some people talk about generational curses and that sort of thing and can get a bit super spiritual about it but there is no doubt. There are proclivities and tendencies that run through generational lines. And they’re always if there’s a negative one a generation has to rise up and cut it off. So what happens here?
The nobles of the Tokoites. So we’re not helping out. We’re for us. We’re not doing it. Walls get rebuilt. Fantastic. 52 days. That’s great. Probably forgot about it. But a habit and a culture was formed in their family. They clearly lasted six centuries. Until at the end, it wiped their family out. We need to be careful.
For me, I’ve got to think about this all the time like all of us. What am I passing on? What habit am I passing on to the next generation? What is it that I’m not doing that I’m supposed to be doing? That doesn’t seem to affect me. But might be passed on to the next generation. It’s something we need to keep an eye on all the time.
I told you before the only reason I’m here is because of my parents. When it comes to church and that sort of thing. My dad was like, you know, the one rule is, you live with us, you go to church and I used to try and get out of all the time. Told you about the time, I’d go to parties and get, you know, try and stay overnight at that place so I didn’t have to go to church.
My dad had come in the morning, picked me up. He’d knock on the door. I remember one time. I was at a party. It finished like at 6 AM in the morning, right? And I’m in bed and you know, pretty hungover and asleep and that sort of thing. I hear the doorbell ring. I hear my dad’s voice. He’s been here. I’m eighteen. He goes, is Ben here? He’s gotta go to church.
He’s telling my friends and so how he picks me up and takes me to church. Church was so important to him. I remember one time, the church was on a church camp. The church went on church camp. My dad was one of the elders of the church. He decided and talked to the senior minister about it that we were going to go back to church on Sunday morning and run a service just in case visitors showed up. And so we did.
The whole church is at this camp. Me, my mom, my dad, and my sister turn up to church. My dad offers service about four other people rock up and my dad puts on a service for them. When I was away from the Lord and old enough to do what I wanted to do and I wasn’t going to church. I wake up eight o’clock every Saturday, Sunday morning. Even if I went to bed at 7 thirty. I’d need to go to church.
It was a generational blessing. That God put in my life. Because of the habits of my parents. Amen. What we do passes down. You’ve heard of a thing. They call it about in psychology. Family of origin. And every generation has an opportunity to clip off something that’s in our family that we don’t need to see passed on anymore. Amen? And right here we see that they’re supposed to help out. They’re supposed to get involved and they didn’t.
And then sixth century later after having never dealt with that issue. It ricochets and affects her entire family line. Amen. That’s such an encouraging word. Praise God. Maybe you’re in this place and you know it’s time for you to receive your breakthrough. Maybe you know that it’s time that broken area of your life that has been broken for so long. Maybe now is the time to see that shifted. I believe the Lord is saying for some people here. That it doesn’t matter how long you’ve waited. It doesn’t matter how long you’ve had to deal with it. It doesn’t matter how long it’s been an issue. If you will do those three things that will help you to go to the next level.
Repair. Don’t just throw it away. Take what you’ve got and make it better. You’ll be amazed at what God can do. Secondly, relationship. Invite people in who can help you to get the breakthrough that you need. And thirdly, responsibility. Don’t be a victim to that thing. Take responsibility for it. It’s your life. Greater is he who is in you than he that is in the world.
And you might find that something you’ve dealt with for so long. Yeah. Can deal with and turn around in less than 2 months. If he could do it for a whole city, I’m sure he could do it for you as well. Amen? And maybe, praise the Lord and maybe you’re in this place and you’re saying, Ben, that’s me. There’s something. There’s a part of my world that’s broken down and it’s broken down for a long time. And I’ve tried, tried to fix it, tried to change it, still hasn’t happened God has promised you.
He’s promised that it’s going to actually come to pass but right now, you’ve been waiting for so long. Maybe that you, I want to pray for you right now and pray that God will open up a season for you to see that shift. It might be a financial thing. It might be a health thing. It might be a family thing. It might be a business thing. It might be a relational thing.
Whatever it is, that thing. I’m a firm believer that God does not give us a thing called a thorn in the flesh. Yeah. In the the apostle Paul says, I have a thorn in the flesh. It’s an issue that he never overcomes and so sometimes people grasp that theology and they have an issue in their life that they basically say, well, this is an issue. I just have to deal with the rest of my life but that was only spoken to the apostle Paul.
The Bible says, the apostle Paul says, God has given me a thorn in my flesh because of the surpassingly great revelation the lord has given me. So, unless you get revelation as good as the apostle Paul. So good that it’s supposed to be scripture. I promise you that verse does not count for you. But just because you’ve had that issue a long time does not mean God can’t shift it quickly.
