HOW TO COMBAT DISCOURAGEMENT PART 2

Text - Nehemiah 4:10-14

Introduction

Have you ever had a day that started great - fantastic.  You were so encouraged by the way the day started out, but then little by little it started to deteriorate right before your eyes?  And one thing happened after another.  You know, it didn’t all strike at one time, but it got worse, little by little.  Until finally it was completely out of control and the whole day was ruined.

It reminds me of a lady who was out doing some running around town and she left all of her kids at home - she had 8 kids.  She left them all home by themselves, the older ones were supposed to take care of the smaller ones.  She comes walking into the house, in the living room, and here the six smallest kids are all huddled around in a circle in the middle of the living room and she thought that was so cute, so she walked over to see what the center of attention was – what they were all looking at in this great big huddle.  And to her astonishing eyes she looked down in the middle of that huddle of all those little kids and saw a pack of baby skunks.  As soon as she could think about it she just said “Children, run - run!!”  And to make matters worse, each kid picked up a skunk and ran.

It seems like sometimes we have days like that where things just go from being a great day, to being a bad day, to being a terrible day.

That’s kind of the way it was with Nehemiah.  He started off great with this plan to go over to Jerusalem and rebuild the walls of Jerusalem.  I mean, how much trouble can you get into by building a wall?  Think about it?  But Nehemiah really faced some serious opposition in this task that was before him.

So he started off great with the zeal that everyone of us would have.  Then all of a sudden he was faced with opposition from the outside, he faced with opposition from the foreigners, from the people that were strangers, from his enemies, if you will, and we expect that, don’t we?  We expect that kind of opposition.  I mean we know that if we’re going to do something for God, the world is not going to like it – Amen?

So we know that – we realize that, and that’s bad enough, but what is even worse is when you start getting opposition from your own brothers and sisters in the Lord.  From your own church members, if you will.  When you’re trying to serve God and your own brothers and sisters in Christ and your own church members are trying to discourage you from doing what you know God wants you to do.  Now that turns out to be a rotten day.  You know that you’re going to get it from the world, but you never expect it from your own brothers and sisters in Christ, do you?  But that is exactly what happened with Nehemiah.

You know I find it interesting when we left off with chapter 4, and especially in verse 6, if you recall there it says:

Nehemiah 4:6 So we rebuilt the wall till all of it reached half its height, for the people worked with all their heart. (NIV)

When do you usually face discouragement?  It’s not at the beginning of some job.  I mean you know if I was to say, “Church, I have this great idea - let’s do this.”  And you thought it was a great idea and you decided to join in and help with it, well at the beginning there would be so a lot of zeal and so much enthusiasm and so much excitement and so much participation and volunteerism.  At the beginning it’s all great – it’s all fire at the beginning.

But then around the middle of that ministry or task, when the work has been going for awhile and we start to realize that this isn’t as easy as we thought it was going to be, then you start seeing people, little by little, dwindling away – saying “I’ve got something else I’ve got to do on this day ... I’ve got to do this ... I’ve got to take care of that ...” 

I remember when I came here to this church – there were 15 men that went down the street with me and several women as well to knock on doors and invite people from our community to come to church.  They followed behind me just like ducks.  We just walked down the street and I’d walk up to a door and take one with me and then another person, then another person, then another person – you know why it was that way at the very beginning?  Because there was so much excitement.

But then about the second or third month, everybody started saying, you know I’ve got to do this on Saturday, I’ve got to do that on Saturday – you know why?  Because they started to realize it wasn’t exactly what they thought it was going to be when they started out.  It was a little bit more intimidating than what they first thought.  Or maybe it was going to take a little extra memorization of scriptures.  Then they started to say, well I don’t think I will be able to make it this month preacher.  Until little by little, there was nobody.  That’s what happens.

At the beginning we have such great fire, zeal and enthusiasm.  Then all of a sudden we get so discouraged, for whatever reason.  Maybe because we don’t see the results we think we should see, maybe because the work is too hard.  Maybe for the same reasons that we’re going to see here in our text today – discouragement is the same no matter what - no matter whether it was back in Nehemiah’s day or here in our day today.  No matter if it was in the Nation of Israel or in God’s people here at this church, discouragement comes for the same reasons and we need to combat discouragement in the same way. 

So I want to look at this second part of my series in “Serving Amid Opposition.”  We’re going to look at how we need to face that opposition.  We’re not only going to be opposed from the world, but we’re even going to find it from God’s people where we never thought we’d ever find it.  We’re going to find that we’re going to get discouragement from the Lord’s people.

So let’s look in verse 10.  It says:

Nehemiah 4:10 Thus in Judah it was said, "The strength of the burden bearers is failing,  Yet there is much rubbish;  And we ourselves are unable to rebuild the wall." (NASB)

Now what was the tribe of Judah?  The bloodline of the king of Christ.  The royal tribe, I mean this was the prime of all tribes – this was the best of all tribes – this was the tribe through which the Messiah was going to come – the most exalted tribe of all.  Now you would think that the world will try to discourage you, but not God’s people.  But the truth is, discouragement can come from many different places and people.

But the great news is that this is passage of scripture shows us how that we can face discouragement when it comes.  We’re all going to find times when we’re going to be discouraged.  I don’t know about you, but I get discouraged.  Do you ever get discouraged in serving God?  I’m looking out among you right now and just a few minutes ago, when I was sitting up here and you were out there all spread out all over the place, I saw discouraged faces – were there some of you that were discouraged because there were so few of us tonight? 

To be discouraged is human.  It might not be the thing that we should be, but it’s none the less human.  What we need to know is that in the service of the Lord, we’re going to face discouragement – everyone of us will.  But God shows us how to face it and deal with it in our lives. 

I was up at Hume Lake, this getting off the text, but I was up there and I was talking to a young pastor – my age, and one whom I’ve know for many years - went to seminary with him, and he stood up to give a testimony.  He was in a revival service listening to another pastor who was one of my teachers in school, preaching the revival service and he was preaching about hell!  And this young preacher stood up and said, “You know, before I heard that sermon, I had already made up my mind that I was going back to my church and I was going to tell them that I am resigning.”  He said, “I already had another job lined up, already knew exactly where I was going to work that Monday after church, and I had already made up my mind I was going to resign – I was just going to give it up and I wasn’t going to go back and pastor.”  This young man is a talented preacher, and he was going to give up.

Everyone of us will sometime or another get to that point to where we want to give up because of discouragement.  And Nehemiah was faced with an awesome task to rebuild the walls and they were lying in rubble, they were burnt, they were in ashes, they were completely destroyed.

Imagine coming to church Sunday morning and finding this beautiful building in rubble.  Like the Oakland fire.  Can you imagine?  How would you feel then?  You would get discouraged.  Can you imagine that?  Now that could happen anytime, any day.  It’s like starting all over again.

Now here Nehemiah is starting at this task of rebuilding this wall and the outsiders are discouraging him saying, “Oh, look at that pitiful wall ... look at that little tiny thing that they’re putting up ... look at that ugly wall ... that’s not a wall ... you call that a wall?

And Nehemiah is saying, “Lord, you know how to handle these people ... Lord you take care of these people.”  Now that’s one way to take care of it, isn’t it – turn it all over to God.  That’s what we need to do – turn it all over to God.  I mean when we’re facing opposition from outside, the Lord says, “Vengeance is mine saith the Lord.”  Amen?  We shouldn’t try to take those matters into our own hands.  We need to turn it over to God.  God you take care of them.

But now what do we do when there’s discouragement from inside?  From those who we would least expect discouragement to come from?  From our own brethren?  From Christians?  We’re going to see what we’re going to do, but let’s look at the reasons for this discouragement to begin with.