Sermon Tone Analysis

Welcome

Good Morning!

I’m Pastor Wayne and I’d like to welcome you all to the gathering of Ephesus Baptist Church.

As we gather this morning, it is imperative that we understand why we gather.

We gather to worship and exalt the name of the one who has become our salvation.

The right hand of the Father, our Lord Jesus Christ!

If you are visiting with us this morning, we want you to know that ...

We are all one family of faith: “giving our all to love God, love people, proclaim Jesus, and make disciples in our generation.”

That is our mission, our purpose, why we exist as a church.

We have a connect card in the pew in front of you.

I invite you to take one and fill it out!

If you have prayer needs, you can let us know about those as well.

I promise, our prayer team will lift you up soon.

You can place those cards in the offering plate when it comes around.

Who’s Your One?

Scripture Memory

Opening Scripture Reading: One In Christ

Prayer of Invocation

Introduction

Verse 1

Stand up stand up for Jesus

Ye soldiers of the cross

Lift high His royal banner

It must not suffer loss

From victory unto victory

His army He shall lead

Till every foe is vanquished

And Christ is Lord indeed

Verse 3

Stand up stand up for Jesus

The trumpet call obey

Forth to the mighty conflict

In this His glorious day

Ye that are brave now serve Him

Against unnumbered foes

Let courage rise with danger

And strength to strength oppose

Verse 4

Stand up stand up for Jesus

Stand in His strength alone

The arm of flesh will fail you

Ye dare not trust your own

Put on the gospel armor

Each piece put on with prayer

Where duty calls or danger

Be never wanting there

Verse 5

Stand up stand up for Jesus

Each soldier to his post

Close up the broken column

And shout through all the host

Make good the loss so heavy

In those that still remain

And prove to all around you

That death itself is gain

Verse 6

Stand up stand up for Jesus

The strife will not be long

This day the noise of battle

The next the victor's song

To those who vanquish evil

A crown of life shall be

They with the King of Glory

Shall reign eternally

The enemies of God constantly tried to frighten Nehemiah into quitting, but he courageously stood firm!

Even though we aren’t there yet, (spoiler alert) we know that Nehemiah was victorious!

How we stand up, how we fight our fight, how we run our race.....how we finish our race is what ultimately matters most on this journey we call faith.

If we want to finish our race well we must run it with courageous faith because our enemy is always lurking.

Life is our battlefield.

Day by day we must put on the armor of God and fight courageously.

Today, I want to share with you four requirements of courageous faith that Nehemiah demonstrates in our passage this morning.

1. Courageous faith requires seeking to know God’s will (6:10).

Seeking to know God’s will requires spiritual discernment.

As Nehemiah has shown before, God has gifted him with tremendous spiritual discernment.

So what is Spiritual Discernment?

J. I. Packer has defined spiritual discernment as,

Discernment may be defined as the ability to see what you are looking at and to assess it by appropriate criteria.

Spiritual discernment is a matter of perceiving the qualities, tendencies, and likely sources of proposals and policies that relate to God and his kingdom.

Though such discernment may have a basis in natural shrewdness, it comes to fruition only through a sustained attunement to God and a habit of asking oneself at every point in life what makes for his glory (that is, his own self-expression and his creatures’ appreciation and adoration of him).

Packer, J. I.

A Passion for Faithfulness: Wisdom from the Book of Nehemiah.

Wheaton, IL: Crossway Books, 1995, p. 134.

Nehemiah will need this discernment to handle the next form of opposition that his enemies will roll out.

These have been turbulent times for Nehemiah as he sought to lead the revitalization efforts in Jerusalem.

Apparently, Nehemiah was summoned to the house of a priest who also professed to be a prophet named Shemaiah.

Appearing to be fearful for his own life, he wanted to meet with Nehemiah in private.

He had self-confined himself in his home in fear.

Why was he not helping the Jews build the wall?

Sometimes it pays to be cautious around those who always have advice but never seem to get any work done for themselves.

As a good Jew, Nehemiah was interested in seeking God’s will and if God was again speaking through a prophet, Nehemiah had to listen.

(Remember God has been quiet for some time now.)

This priest says to Nehemiah, “Listen, I have received word from God that your enemies are coming to kill you.

You need to come over to the temple, and we’ll hide out together in the holy place.”

Doesn’t this sound like a great proposal?

Spend the night in the safest, most secure place in all of Jerusalem.

Avoid assassination tonight and live to continue God’s work tomorrow.

Courageous faith requires seeking to know God’s will.

So, the question for Nehemiah to discern was, “Is this really the will of God?” It came from a respected priest in Jerusalem, surely it is God’s will, right?

Our second requirement for Courageous faith will help us to see how Nehemiah answered that question.

2. Courageous faith requires standing on God’s Word (6:11).