I've titled our sermon this morning, Nehemiah, a faithful servant of God, a commentator that is pastors we agree on to use to kind of keep things In Sync with the sermons is a commentary on Nehemiah by writer TJ Betts. And he begins the part on that. We're going to speak this morning on out of Isaiah chapter 40, verse 31. He says, But those who wait on the Lord shall renew their strength. They shall mount up with wings like eagles. They shall run and not be weary.
They shall walk and not faint. To me that's always been a very special verse and part of the reason is that special is the waiting part. To wait in faith is often the hardest thing to do in life. Sometimes a person gets old. Well, do something already, do something already. And, and may be true. Sometimes that's the case. We need to do something already and sometimes it's just we need to get our act together and start going. But sometimes the hardest thing is to not do something.
The hardest thing sometimes is to wait, to be patient, to allow time to run its course, just to wait. Waiting is not easy, especially us Westerners in North America. Everything is instant now, today, and we have to have it all today in our culture especially never fast enough or soon enough. I, for one, like things fast and quick. I like to see things happen now, but it's not always God's way of doing things.
Last Sunday, Pastor Joe began our series that we're going through now in Nehemiah, the people of Israel had been in captivity for many, many years. They had gotten taken prisoner to King Nebuchadnezzar, and this is well way over 100 years before that. Nebuchadnezzar had taken Judea, the the land of Palestine, the southern part. The people of Judah had been taken captive at the 70 year mark of their captivity at the land of Babylon was under
different rulership. The Persians had taken over. King Cyrus was king at the time and he made an offer and the the hand of God guided him and they could now go back to their homeland. They now didn't have to be captives anymore if they didn't want to be. They could now all go home. Some did, many didn't. But those who came back to Palestine, it's a long journey. It takes months of travel on foot, actually, if you just walk
the distance. They had walked back home and they came to a very devastated place. It was desolate that things were not good. We've heard some of that last Sunday already. But just to recap a little bit, the the place where they came to was basically in ruins and also inhabited partially by other foreign people who were not there before, before they were
taken captive. And these foreigners who had settled in Palestine, in the area, in Jerusalem, in the area, they didn't like the Jews. And so here come these Jews intent on rebuilding this ancient city. And they didn't like that. And so if you read book of Ezra, they sent petitions back to Babylon. And these Jews that are coming back, they're starting this rebuild the city. It's going to be trouble. And it got halted, it got stalled and so on. And the years, just decades rolled by.
Nothing happened. Nothing took, nothing happened. And not everybody had gone to do it back home from Babylon either. There was a lot of people who'd stayed in Babylon and they had had children. They had raised families and people lived in Babylon who had never been to Judea. They were they were grown and raised in Babylon, but they were still Jews. In all of this. There's a man who comes on the
scene. His name is Nehemiah, and he was the leader, the one who would rebuild the walls of this ancient city. And that's the story of Nehemiah and how that rebuilding project unfolded is a very interesting story of how God provided in hard times when things looked so hopeless. As Pastor Joe mentioned last Sunday in his sermon, the hopelessness that was there and how he prayed and through faith he got to work, it was not good. Outwardly, things looked very hopeless.
And Nehemiah, as a Jew living in Babylon, he was serving the king Arctic Xerxes in a very high entrusted position. He didn't, he really wouldn't have had any need to actually pay any attention to what was going on back home. Or maybe I don't know if he hadn't been even been there. He just heard about what was there some, some of his family or relations come from there and told him, hey, it's, it's bad
over there and he's grieving. He's mourning, He's praying and he doesn't like it. He's deeply grieved. He's mourning, but he could have had a different approach. You know what? I've never been there. Or maybe he has never been there. Maybe he was there. I don't know. But you know what? That's so far away. It's weeks of travel. I'm not going to touch them. I'm. I'm secure here. I got my job with the king. But Nehemiah did what many Saints before him have done. And Saints do.
They still do today. Still do. He prayed. And last time we heard how he prayed, it's actually a time period of about four months. Four months went by that he didn't do anything. As far as we know, he just prayed. We're not told he did anything other than pray in regards to the problem back in his home country. You see, let's be real here. To pray is one thing, but to just pray, that's an entirely different matter.
I'm not saying just praying is all we should do, but that's where we need to start and our and our time today we face the temptation to do everything else but pray. You see, often we learned a lot about a person, but what they do not do. We learned a lot about a person's life by observing what's missing in their lives. Prayer wasn't missing, not Nehemiah's life. He was grieved at what's going on. But note what we also do not find.
So here's these guys from Judea. They've come and said, hey, it's bad back there, it's bad back home and said he's brought walls broken down, gates burned with fire. It's not good. You know what he admired did not do? He didn't start writing letters to the government. We don't find he wrote any letters, but he wouldn't have had to. He's the King's cup bearer. The guy gives the king the cup. He doesn't start playing politics. He doesn't start the movement, get support.
We got to have a fundraising program for this ministry. Want to start? He's consumed with grief. What's happened, why it happened, And if you read the prayer again, I'm referring back to that Sunday. It's such an amazing prayer. I trust you read it last week. Such an amazing prayer. And he prayed for four months. As far as we know, he wanted something done, but that's how he got to work by praying. There's a lesson for us in this. I'd say to us as a church, it behooves us to learn from
Nehemiah in some way. We all too have to decide how we're going to face various challenges in our lives. Do we first spend time in prayer, waiting on God? Or do we just go rush ahead, take charge, take control, just go to work and then ask questions later and hope things work out? And if worst comes to worst, we can still pray. We must fight the temptation, just rush ahead without having first waited on the Lord.
It's our duty, our privilege, to pray and seek first God's face and to see what He has in store for us. You see, sometimes in life we face circumstances where we feel as if we can only pray. And I'm not saying that's wrong. Sometimes all we can do is pray. But we should pray before that's all we can do. Sometimes the only thing we should be doing is praying, period, and let God do the rest. Nehemiah prayed and things began to change, and it's not any
initiative that he was taking. It was God working through the circumstances and God got things going. As we will go through the sermon series, you'll find a lot about, I'll find a lot about about Nehemiah and it's so relevant to us today. He's a man of integrity. What you saw on the outside was what actually was on the inside, because what was the inside was coming onto the outside. He was a man of courage and strength.
He didn't allow circumstances to dictate to him what he was going to do. He had trust. He put his trust in God that God would intervene in the situations that they were going through. He was a man of trust in hard times, that God would intervene in his time. He had confidence in hard times. He looked to God to see him through. It was hard. He wept, he prayed, but God used him powerfully. It was his faith in God and trusting in God to do the right thing.
That connection, that relationship that kept him close to God and God used him to actually go to Jerusalem and work and complete the temple. I mean the the wall around Jerusalem. Want to read for this morning chapter 2, verse one to 10 out of Nehemiah. Nehemiah chapter 2, beginning verse one and through verse 10. And it came to pass in the morning of Nissan, in the 20th year of king Arctic Xerxes, when wine was before him, that I took the wine and gave it to the king.
Now I had never been sad in his presence before. Therefore the king said to me, Why is your face sad? Since you're not sick? This is nothing but sorrow of heart. So I became dreadfully afraid and said to the king, May the king live forever. Why should my face not be sad when the city, the place of my father's tombs, lies waste, and its gates are burned with fire? And the king said to me, What do you request? So I pray to the Lord, to the God of heaven.
And I said to the king, If it pleases the king, and if your servant has found favour in your sight, I ask that you send me to Judah, to the city of my father's tombs, that I may rebuild it. Then said the king. Then the king said to me, the queen also sitting beside him, How long will your journey be, and when will you return? So please the king to send me, and I set him a time.
Furthermore, I said to the king, If it pleases the king, let letters be given to me for the governors of the region beyond the river, that they must permit me to pass through till I come to Judah. In a letter to Asaph, the keeper of the King's forest, that he must give me timber to make beams for the gates of the citadel which pertains to the temple, for the city wall, and for the house that I will occupy. And the king granted them to me, according to the good hand of my God upon me.
Then I went to the governors in the region beyond the river and gave them the King's letters. Now the king had sent captains of the army and horsemen with me. When Sanballat the Horror Night and Tobiah the Ammonite official heard of it, they were deeply disturbed that a man had come to seek the well-being of the children of Israel. What a story. This is just a small slice of the book, but what a story. What a sequence of events. It starts with courage and hard times.
So the first what we see is Nehemiah showed faith through courage. You know that courage is a choice. I say that carefully, but it is a choice. Courage does not mean the absence of trouble or fear even, but we decide to do things that are hard based on what we trust God will do, and that's courage. He did not take a backseat approach at all. You know a lot of people, as soon as it gets a bit rough and bumpy and difficult and challenging, well, I'm out of here. I'm done, I'm finished.
Walk away. When Nehemiah got the bad news from Jerusalem. Oh, oh, oh, thank God. I'm I'm, I'm in a good place right now. I don't have to worry about that. No, none of that. He prayed. There's a phrase in chapter 1, the last verse of chapter 1. I believe it's verse 11 here. Let me just go back there quickly. Chapter chapter one, verse 11 and it says here I'll just read the verse. O Lord, please let your ear be attentive to the prayer of your servant and to the prayer of your servants.
Who here it is desire to fear your name? Who desire to fear your name? Is that our desire to fear God's name because that's what sees him through the rest of it? Is it my desire to fear God's name? Is it your desire to fear God's name? Or whose name do I desire to fear? I suggest that's the key connection running through the heart of the book. That's why Nehemiah does what he does. He wants to fear God regardless of where he is. And then God worked through his
prayers. The king got motivated, the King's heart was touched and everything started falling into place. From a human perspective, what was going on in back home in the city of his forefathers? He could have simply said, you know what? It's no concern of mine. I got my career in Babylon serving the king as a cupbearer. My job is here. Why would I give that up? Good retirement plan, good security, good house, no doubt. That was a very high position,
by the way. You couldn't get better than that in terms of, you know, think about it, being the King's cupbearer. He saw the king in the morning for breakfast, for lunch, for supper. No doubt he always handed the king the cup, because the cupbearer was the guy who had to taste the wine, make sure it wasn't poison, because if somebody died, it would be him,
not the king. Nehemiah is willing to give all that up. His heart is back home, where there was so much need, so much pain and desolation. He realized the problem, he acknowledged the problem, He prayed about the problem. Then he owned the problem without having to. That's a huge deal. But in this case, the the king notices in the early part of the chapter that he's sad, and he hadn't meant to be sad. No doubt he didn't go to the king saying, look, I'll wear a
long face. Maybe the king will say why are you unhappy? And then I will get some attention. The commentator suggests that this was a very dangerous position to be in when the king is saying you're sad. The king had no idea because the king could interpret this negatively. The king would say, OK, uh oh, this guy is not stable. He's mentally unbalanced or whatever's going on with him.
We've got to get rid of him. And of course, they would kill him because he can't have a guy who's with the king every day out in the public without supervision. He has to be controlled. And so just kill him. Those were some things that did happen in those days. So it was very nice to be close to the king as long as things were good. But if they were not good, it was just as bad to be with the king. Well, let's go through this verse by verse.
It says, and it came to pass in the month of Nissan, in the 20th year of Arctic searches, when wine was before, and that I took the wine and gave it to the king. Now I had never been sad in his presence before. Therefore the king said to me, Why is your face sad? Since you're not sick, there's nothing but sorrow of heart. So I became what? Dreadfully afraid? Dreadfully afraid doesn't sound courageous, does it? But as I said, courage does not mean that there's no sense of
fear. We may be afraid of doing some things because we know the consequences, what they might bring, but that should not stop us if it's the right thing to do. The position Nehemiah held was a very good position, also very dangerous position. Both the king notices he's sad and notice to Jeremiah Nehemiah's responses to the king, he says and said to the king, may the king live forever. So he's dreadfully afraid. And he says to the king, may the king live forever.
Why should my face not be sad when the city, the place of my father's tombs by his waste and its gates are burned with fire? Here Nehemiah is revealing a lot about himself that maybe Arctic Circus has known that Nehemiah was a Jew. He maybe did or didn't know, I don't know. But he's revealing his heart. That's always a sensitive thing to do. He told the king what was hurting him, what was bothering him.
But it's interesting also that he does not mention the name of Jerusalem. Commentator that I read mentioned made the point and said that he says the city of my father's tombs. The word Jerusalem was not a good name, especially in the Babylonian higher circles of power. And why? Because they had been such a rebellious or such an obstinate city when they first wanted to take over that part of the world, God had told the kings of Judah, look, you're going to be
captured. You're going to be taken prisoner, captors of war, because you've disobeyed me. And the Babylonians will come and take it. While they fought, they fought hard. And of course it was a very difficult situation. And of course the Jews lost, and Nebuchadnezzar came and took them and they tore down the temple. They destroyed the city, tore down the walls. And here's now Nehemiah and said that's what's making me sad. Of course, many, many years later, but the records were
still there. The history wasn't erased. Now many years later, says Nehemiah says that's the place of my father's tombs and it's waste, It's lies waste. It's gates are burned with fire. And that makes me sad. It grieved him still over all these years later. No doubt King Antarctic Circus knew all that history, all the victorious bads against them. And here's Nehemiah, a Jew, telling the king, that's the cause of my grief. That's not exactly something that would go over too well.
And he was dreadfully afraid, but he didn't shrink back from telling the king what was going on. And here it's the pivot. The king said, oh, oh, Nehemiah, you're done. We're not having a cup. Bear for me with that kind of a person. We're not doing that, but Nehemiah had prayed, he had trusted God and verse 4 is such a special verse. It says, and then the king said to me, what do you request? Notice the next line right there.
So I pray to the God of heaven. So I prayed, we don't know how much time elapsed minutes, I don't know, doesn't say. The king says what do you request? Nehemiah instantly senses, he instantly sees the Lord is at work in this circumstance. It's a huge, monumental step. What do you request? He doesn't say he's going to get to go. This is what do you request? You know what Nehemiah doesn't do?
He doesn't. He does not jump in with and fire off a long grocery list of demands and requests and complaints and whatnot, all because this is what's going on and we got conquered and I want this fixed and I want this remedied. I want no, none of that, none of that. He responded with courage, and he showed faith through trust. Nehemiah showed faith. He stepped out in trust and in faith. He prayed to God. He had taken the time to ground himself in God. He'd done his homework in his
heart. He allowed God to condition his heart, prepare his heart, and pray that God would work the rest. Here's the moment of truth. It takes courage to do that. The the trust foundation, the faith foundation has to be there for this to work. And he says in chapter, in the chapter 2, verse 5 says, and I said to the king, if it pleases the king, and if your servant has found favor in your sight, I ask that you send me to the city of my father's tombs. Again, Judaism is missing.
He doesn't say the word the city of my father's tombs that I may rebuild it. I'm asking you to lay me off, give me a leave of absence. Give me whatever he doesn't demand, doesn't tell him, doesn't come with. Hey, Mr. King, you need me to to tell me or to give me none of that. I ask you to send me to Judah, the city of my father's tombs, that I may rebuild it, rebuilding that, rebuild your city.
And we're going to find, by the way, at the end, we mentioned horror, the the sand ballot, the whatever, and there's a bunch of guys. They still didn't. There's going to be a lot of problems down the road as we go through the series. There's going to be a lot of problems. Can you imagine how Nehemiah may have felt? This could have been a suicide request. Not just any kind. Nehemiah had the courage to state his cause and to make his
request. What if Arctic Xerxes had been a power hungry, paranoid king, which he could have been. We don't know him, I don't know him, I haven't studied him, but God was at work here. Nehemiah stated his request. God was in control. Having no idea what the response would be, but having prayed, Nehemiah now waited for the response. It says #6 Then the king said to me, the queen sitting also beside him. How long will your journey be and when will you return?
OK, it's not a death sentence. I'm not going to get my head chopped off for asking that. He's not asking how long and when can you just feel the excitement in the room stirring in Nehemiah's heart? The pain, the agony, the desolation back home. It's constant occupying this life of prayers going on. Here's hope the king is interested. He's asking how long it will be when he'll return. He feels respected by the king, and king doesn't even want to delay.
Good. No, no. When you weren't going to come back, Nehemiah, when are you coming back? He wants to keep this faithful, trusted cupbearer. And again, the courage that Nehemiah had to to take this stand, this position, he's going to give up this secure this this, this secure position as a cupbearer before the king and go and do that job that maybe nobody would like to do because of the problems it had had before and would have again. He wants to do that.
He had a passion and a drive and an and a desire to be involved and something so difficult, so challenging. That was a huge project to undertake, says so. It pleased the king and I set a time. All right, all right. From here, everything smooth sailing, right? Nope. This is the starting line. This is only the beginning. It would take years to complete this. And you will find as you read Nehemiah, he showed steadfastness, He saw things through. He demonstrated character traits, maturity.
He took calculated risk. He demonstrated courage. We have to remember at all times that this man Nehemiah was at this, at the complete mercy of this king, but with God's strength, with God's courage, he did the hard things. You know how we Christians in the West so often are first and foremost concerned about, OK, what isn't it for me or what will it do to me? Before we're even concerned about what glorifies your name, remember who desire to fear your name and the world. This, this idea.
Well, I deserve a easy life. I deserve to have comfort. I deserve the best. I've earned the best. That would have been embarrassing to Nehemiah. He was so focused on what God wanted out of him that God will glorify himself through him. Never mind my position with the king. He's gotten the blessing to go. Everything OK now? Not quite yet. Notice his confidence in moving forward. He now has the King's attention. He has the King's interest. He has the King's blessing. Now he goes all in.
He showed faith through confidence. What had prepared him first was his was his first response when he heard the bad news It grieved him, it changed him it motivated him. He prayed he he wrestled in prayer, he fasted and prayed. That was the state of his heart caused him sadness and the king noticed the sadness was a huge deal. We don't know how much it affected Nehemiah how this all panned out. Was it ours, was it Daisy? We don't know, but he got the King's attention and God put it in.
King art exerts his heart to be favorably minded towards Nehemiah. And so with the king, when the king asked about it, he, Nehemiah told him God worked it out. It says here, it says in Proverbs, I'm going to read this verse in Proverbs, Proverbs 21, one says the King's heart is in the hand of the Lord like the rivers of water. He turns it wherever he wishes. The king was a little tiny pawn in the hands of God. God knew what he was going to do, but he wanted Nehemiah to be
faithful. He wanted Nehemiah to be faithful. Now with the King's favor on his side, it's time for phase two of his plan. Phase one was getting time to leave and get the king to approve the project. Now on the next phase, he's going to get the king to fund the trip. Verse 7. Furthermore, I said to the king, if it pleases the king, let letters be given.
He's again asking, let letters be given to me for the governors of the region beyond the river that they must permit me to pass through to through till I come to Judah. And verse 8, and the letter to Asaph, the keeper of the gates of the king of the King's forest, that he must give me timber to make beams for the gates of the citadel which pertains to the temple, for the city wall, and for the house
that I will occupy. And the king granted them to me according to the good hand of my God upon me. Wow. Not just had the king been favorable toward him. Now the king funds the whole ordeal. You imagine that? How good can it get? It's like somebody isn't quite sure it's going to go. And then the the top guy of the country, the president, the Prime Minister, the king, whatever you have, the emperor, the dictator, whatever it is,
he's favorable. And he tells all the premiers and the bosses and the governors, whoever they are, OK, you better do what he says. Here's the letter to prove it. Here's a testimony of the careful planning that Nehemiah had no doubt done ahead of time, even the only the day before. He had no idea how it would work out, but he had done. He had prayed for months. He carried this burden. And finally, as we heard last Sunday, here was hope. And now things were beginning to move.
The letters were not just ordinary letters. They were letters, written by scribes, no doubt, and stamped with a King's signature seal. Nobody could tamper with it. And the governors of the territories he would travel through, from Babylon down to Judea, those governors had no choice. Give him what he says. Give him. Give him what the letters demand. So now he's got the trip, but it
gets a little bit better yet. Verse 9, Then I went to the governor's in the region beyond the river on his way now, and I gave him the King's letters. There they go and notice next. And now the king sent captains of the army and horsemen with me. He gets military escort. It doesn't get better than that. You know, friends, when God's behind something, it just works. Nothing can stop it. Nothing can overturn it, nothing can change it.
I believe often times when something does not work in our favor, it's not because God doesn't want it. He wants it all right, He's all for it. But it's our own sinful, selfish pride and whatever else gets in the way and slows it down. You remember the story of the children of Israel? God redeemed them. He saved them. He rescued out of Egypt into the desert, and there He gave them the law and He had plans for them. Give them to the land of Canaan
and inherit the land. Should have been a very short journey, but guess what? They got to the border. Fear, anger, frustration set in and they got to wander the desert for 40 years. For Nehemiah, his only goal was the secret Glorify God who sought to fear God's name. From here on in, it would be great joy and adventure, right? Experience of joy for rebuilding of the temple. I mean, the wall of Jerusalem, restoring it to its glory, right? Nope.
There were problems. Nehemiah showed faith to resolve. How easy it would have been just to not take it seriously. I mean, again, sometimes you have second thoughts. I shouldn't have started this. I shouldn't have gone into this. I should have known better. I wish I hadn't. And we say those things because that's how our mind works and we shouldn't. Nehemiah doesn't do that. Sometimes we see our way through a little ways and then it gets rough and then we back out.
Nehemiah should resolve at the outset to pray. He got engaged in the situation. He resolved to do things right, as we'll see in the coming sermons in the following weeks. It's easy to be strong when there's no need for strength, right? I mean, anybody can have a loudmouth from far away. But once it gets close, then we our fear breaks us down and the courage leaves and and so we do
those things. Maybe you've really had resolve one time to do something like maybe ziplining or skydiving and until the moment of truth and then you backed out. I don't know. But Nehemiah is not that kind of guy. It says here in verse 10, when Sanballat the Horan Knight and Tobiah, the Ammonite official heard of it, they were deeply disturbed that a man had come to seek the well-being of the children of Israel.
So here he is. He's back home, old homeland, and here's these two guys or these, yeah, these two guys. They're not Israelites, They're not Jews, but they're there. They've moved in with a bunch of other people, and they're there. Oh, this is not going to be good for us. We can't have this. We don't want these people to be here. And we're going to hear about that in the following sermons. And as we will find out later, Nehemiah didn't let a thing stop him.
Hostility and opposition and challenges began at the outset. And again, Nehemiah hadn't had any need to do this. It wasn't something that he would have said, Oh, you know what? I, I always know he was maybe born in, in Babylon, I don't know. But he didn't think of himself. He thought of what does God want me to do? He did the right thing. He prayed, he showed courage, he trusted, he went ahead confidently, and he was resolved to do the right thing.
What about you and I? Would we have gone? Would we have held back? You know what, folks? We hold back a lot more for a lot less too many times. I include myself in this as much as anyone, but Nehemiah is a life is life of a portrait of a man to put God first in all that he did as a cupbearer to the king. That secure, steady, comfortable job going out to a high risk country, do a building project that was going to be fraught
with risk. Maybe we're not called to go fix a broken city, but maybe we're called to rebuild something, whatever that may be. Could be relationships, could be saying yes to something, surrender to something or surrendering to do not do something. But let me just say this. If we hang on to the things that don't have eternal value at the cost of things that do, we may
well lose both. Are we people like Nehemiah, people of prayer, we trust God no matter how daunting, how impasse possible things may look to us. You see here in North America, it's easy to make a confession of faith. Jesus, Lord, follow you wherever you want me to go. And then we start telling him, not here, not there. It's a little bit like this, a cartoon clip I saw some some time ago, a social media clip where a person wanted to know if can I ask them questions?
Well, yeah. Here's a list of approved questions you can ask the person wanted to know further about can I do some research? Oh yeah. Here's the approved sources you can search. And finally, the person, we're not trying to stifle thought. We just want to learn everything. You want you to learn all you can from these approved and reach these approved conclusions. That's where we put God sometimes. OK God, you can tell me everywhere except not here. You can. These are the list.
These are the places you can send me, Lord. These are the things you can ask me to do, Lord. And here's what I want the outcome to be. Lord, how foolish is that? Oh, we may not admit, we may not say it, but that's how we live. Imagine Nehemiah having tried that. His name would not be in the Bible today. We must ask ourselves, where are you and I in our relationship with God? Do we seek to fear His name? Who calls the shots? Again, We may not be called to build a city.
Whatever it is we're called to do, it is we're called to do to serve God. We're called to wait upon the Lord. What for? We're called to wait in prayer. We're called to be confident, trustworthy, and true and honest. Sacrifice ourselves for His cause. Whatever is the Lord is calling us to do, I won't encourage us this morning. Set our eyes on God. If we wait upon Him as Nehemiah did, we too will mount up with wings as eagles. We'll run and not be weary.
We'll walk and not faint. And in doing that, God will bless us as His people. Let's pray Lord, the story of Nehemiah is in your word for a reason. You've placed your people in this world to be salt and light in this world in our community. Nehemiah was a powerful testimony in the King's palace where he served as his cup bearer. He was a powerful influence in the field of work you called him to.
Lord, we ask help us to have the character like Nehemiah had that we Orient our lives around what you want from us. Lord, we ask that you guide us as we seek to serve in your community. Here in Leamington. We pray in Jesus name, Amen.