True Grit | Week 4 | Full Service

So about a month ago, there was something really amazing that happened here in Arizona. Has anybody heard of the High Rocks competition? Okay. A couple of you guys. Anybody in here compete in the High Rocks competition? No. It's alright. I'm not that athletic either.

Alright. I'm just kidding. So, there was this crazy High Rocks competition. It's the it's this, athlete competition and it happened and it is unbelievable. So like, there's there are eight workouts that you do in this competition and between eight of the workouts,

you run. And so, here's a little breakdown of it. You got the the skier where you're doing this sort of thing And then you got the sled push and the sled pull and burpee jumps where you have to jump as far as you can and rowing. All of these workouts and between each and every workout, you have to run a kilometer.

Now, how far is a kilometer? No one knows. Okay? I think it's the British way of still oppressing us. It's But as someone who's tried to run a kilometer, it feels like forever. Alright? So my wife, six months ago, she comes up to me and she says, hey,

I I see this High Rocks competition is coming to town. I really wanna do it. You know, I've never like run hardly more than a mile. I'm nervous, but I wanna commit to something that I've never done before. And I said, yeah, of course. Like, let's do it. That'd be easy. Let let's just go for it. And so

we we set out this kind of training regimen. The first seven days we've got lined out, we're gonna go to the gym and and so we start the first day and it's like we're running and then we're doing some weight lifting and then we're running and we're doing some weight lifting and and then

what feels like my eight millionth kilometer of running, I start to think to myself, you know, I think I'm happy with the way I am right now. You know, you never have more self love than like the second day of getting back to the gym, know. It's like, think I do love myself the way I am.

And so I tell my wife, you know what, I I think I'm done. Like, this is kind of unreasonable. There's a lot going on here and it's months out. I just we just had a newborn, like, don't think we should do this. And my wife said, you can quit, but I'm gonna commit to this. I said, okay. Go ahead. Commit to this. Alright?

And so, my wife, she would wake up early with our daughter and then she would go to work and have a full day of work, and then she would she would go and do this, like, hour and a half workout at the gym where she is just exhausting her body, training just the training for this workout.

She would come home, she's exhausted. And I I was just telling her, her name's Ellie. Ellie, like, this is unreasonable. We just had a kid. You're a full time mom and full time work. Like, this is too Just You can do it a different year. You can do it a different time. She said, No. I'm gonna commit to this.

I said, Okay. All right. So as the months roll by, she's preparing, she's getting ready, and finally, the competition comes to town. And it is crazy. Like, they rent out the entire State Farm Stadium, the Cardinals Stadium, and they completely redo it. This is a picture of her and the person that replaced me, her friend Rita.

And the reason they're smiling right now is because it was before the competition. Okay? So they're getting ready to go in and do this competition. They completely redo the football stadium and there's just a big track and there's all these exercise machines.

And so, you know, I got there, and I have my daughter in the little baby carrier, and I go to the concession stand and get, like, an extra large popcorn. And these, like, hyper muscular people are running around, and I'm, like, walking around with my snacks.

And it was time for my wife to to do the competition, and they released her. And I was just blown away at what she was able to do. Like, she was just running so far, and then she would do these crazy exercises, and then run, and exercise, and run, and weight lift, and and they did an incredible job. They did a they did an amazing time. It ended up being an hour and thirty six minutes, and that was like fast.

Just straight. Their heart rate was just through the roof the entire time, and when she crossed that finish line, she was just glowing. She was so excited.

And I remember on our way home, we were we were in the car and she was just saying, like, I just can't believe I did it. I can't believe I could do all that. I never thought I'd be able to do that. I'm so proud of myself. Like I trust myself more. I I I trust that I can do hard things.

And I remember sitting in the driver's seat just being so jealous

because I got to see what was on the other side of that unreasonable commitment was unbelievable transformation in her. You see, what I saw in that driver's seat is the same thing that we're gonna see in God's word today. And it's this, on the other side of unreasonable commitment is unbelievable transformation.

You see, when we God calls us to do something, when he's called us into something, when we commit to it in an unreasonable, seemingly unreasonable way, on the other side of that is unbelievable transformation. See, all of us as Christians are called by God to do something.

You know, maybe you just started following Jesus. You were called by God to follow Jesus. We're called to serve God with our talents and gifts. We're called to give financially. We're called to be good husbands and wives and fathers and mothers and sons and daughters. We're called to live a life of purity,

a life of holiness, a life of trusting in the Lord. We're called to love our neighbors. We're called to love our enemies. All of these things are things that God has called us to live. And we know, and when we hear about it, we're excited, and we're so ready to do it, and then for whatever reason, the commitment fades.

So what do you and I do when we know we're called by God to do something and we want to do it because we want what's on the other side. We want the unbelievable transformation. We want our lives to feel full and fulfilled.

We want to feel joy. We want to feel the peace. We want to feel a close knit family that like we never thought we would have. We want to to have a loving marriage, like and healthy marriage, like we never thought we could accomplish. We want to to

be people who are respected and loved. We want what's on the other side of this unreasonable commitment. So how do we put our head down and have true grit and be unreasonably committed to what God has called us to do? You see, that's what we see in Nehemiah chapter six. Nehemiah,

he's he's been called by God to finish this wall. It's a wall around Israel. And and he's almost done in chapter six. He's so close and all that's left is he has to commit. There has to be an unreasonable commitment.

And what we're gonna see is on the other side of that unreasonable commitment is unbelievable transformation. So Nehemiah chapter six. You guys there? Alright. Here we go. Verse one, Senbalat,

Tobiah, and Geshem the Arab, and the rest of our enemies found out that I had finished rebuilding the wall and that no gaps remained though we had not yet set up the doors and gates. So three people, Senvalat, Tobiah and Geshem the Arab and the rest of our, what is that word?

Enemies. Enemies. Yeah. I'm just making sure it's still back there. The rest of our enemies. You see, one of the key points I want us to take away today is when God has called you to something and you step into it, it does not mean everything is gonna be easy.

It does not mean that people are gonna be happy with what you're doing all of the time. You see, the day that you said yes to Jesus, you not only gained a heavenly father in heaven who loves you. You gained an enemy from hell who's against you. And if you are gonna do anything in your life

committing to the calling of God, there will be opposition. Because just like the Holy Spirit works in and through people and he influences godly people to accomplish the will of God, the enemy uses his influence and he works in and through people to oppose the will of God.

And so the same things that are happening three thousand years ago in the book of Nehemiah are the same things that we're gonna see in our life. Why? Because we have the same influences working.

And so what we're gonna see modeled by the life of Nehemiah is how we stay unreasonably committed when there's opposition, when the enemy comes after us. Okay. Verse two. So, Sanballat and Geshem sent the message asking me to meet them at one of the villages in the Plain Of Ono. And, Nehemiah thought, oh no.

I know it's bad but Bill hasn't been here in a while and we need some dad jokes. Alright? I'm sorry. I'm ready for him to be back. This is the worst. Alright. But I realized they were plotting to harm me. So I replied by sending this message to them. I'm engaged in a great work, so I can't come.

Why should I stop working to come and meet with you? Notice his reply, no. I'm engaged in a great work. Why would I come and meet with you? Four times they sent this message and each time I gave the same reply. So

his enemies are trying to keep Nehemiah from accomplishing what God called him to accomplish. And what's their first tactic? Notice it's not destruction. Notice it's not attacking. The first tactic of the enemy is often distraction.

They're just inviting him to a meeting. Just come meet with us. Just stop what you're doing. Stop what God asked you to do. Stop doing that. Just come Can we talk? And they say it four times. Like, can we meet? Okay, but why don't we meet? Okay, you can't meet. Well, what about a meeting? It's like, you know, over and over and over again, they're trying to get him distracted

from what God called him to do. You see, one of the first tactics of the enemy in our life when we are seeking to step into our calling is distraction. And so we have to, just like Nehemiah, if we're gonna be unreasonably committed, we must have an uncompromising devotion. An uncompromising devotion.

Completely devoted what God is, to what God has asked us to do. Because the enemy is going to try to send these little distractions in our life, and if we're not careful, they will completely take away the time and energy and resources that we want to give to our calling.

So one of the first jobs I had here at Rock Point, I was the Rock Point Seminary Director, Youth Seminary Director. So basically, I I oversaw this Christian class at Rock Point for high school students. And, man,

to be at Rock Point Seminary, it actually took quite a sacrifice for these Castille students. What they would do is they would have to take either a zero hour, which is a class that starts at 06:30 a. Every weekday. Or they would have to take an online class on their own time and do it out of their own effort

just to be in the class during the day. And so these students, they knew they were called by God to to further education

and and to understand God's word in a deeper way. And so when we started the school year, we were so excited about what God was gonna do, about the calling God had placed on each and every one of their lives. Then as the months roll on, you know, gets busy and sports start up and the extracurriculars

start up and and and homework inevitably starts to pile up. And so around the middle of the year, I would inevitably get this question. A student would come up to me and say, and they called me Jonesy. Jonesy,

I was just so busy last night and I didn't have any time to do anything. And I can I instead of being in class today, can I go and work on my homework?

You know, I'm a reasonable guy. Like, I I totally understand. Like, life gets busy and things pile up and said, okay, here here's what we'll do. I absolutely you can do that. But just to make sure your life is really so busy, just show me your screen time from yesterday. I'm a good teacher, I'm telling you.

Just show me your screen time from yesterday, and if it's under two hours, it's totally reasonable, two hours, then I'll let you go and do your homework. In my three and a half years of being the seminary director, do you know how many times I let a student do their homework during my class?

Zero times. Why? Because it is so easy for us to forget what God has called us to do because we we we allow so many of these little, tiny, benign, harmless distractions.

And just We have a killing of our calling because it's just a little tiny death by paper cuts. The enemy drains our calling just one drop at a time.

You see, it's so it's so easy to do where you're just on Instagram for an hour and then you watch a couple Netflix episodes and then, you go to Snapchat and you're playing a video game on your phone, and then by the end of the day, you don't have any time to read your bible for five minutes because you spent

four hours doing this. And like, I get it. Like for me, it's this stupid game on my phone called Clash Royale. It should be called Clash Cocaine. It's If you don't have it on your phone, don't download it. I'm gonna keep it on my phone because I could quit anytime I want. I just don't want to yet, but

All of us, all of us, all of us have these little things in our life that just drain our time and energy. And I'm not saying it's sinful to engage in these things, but if we're not careful,

these little harmless distractions can actually be the thing that keep us from stepping fully and engaging the calling that God has placed on our lives. Keeping us from being present fathers. Keeping us from being loving children, keeping us from serving

at church, keeping us from attending service, keeping us from reading the bible. Now a lot of us, I know, we we don't have ill intentions. A lot of us, we're so busy, we have so many things going on. We

wake up early, we get the kids ready, we take them to school, we go to work, we pick the kids up from school, we take them to extracurricular activities. And by the end, we're just like, I just need a couple minutes to just turn my brain off and to rest. Right?

Well, neuroscientists have actually found that these things we engage in, social media and video games and watching TV and Netflix, they're actually not restoration for our brain.

They're not restoration for our mind at all. There's a reason, you know, when binge Netflix all weekend long, you go back into work Monday feeling more tired than when you left on Friday. It's because these things are actually not restoration, but they are recreation.

And recreation, it's still fun, it's still enjoyable, it's still good, but it forces your mind to work just as hard as almost if you were working. What real mind restoration looks like, is like carving out space and time in your schedule. Like after dinner, instead of watching Netflix, you go on a walk with your family.

Looks like having just a couple moments of prayer in your day. Going out in nature and connecting with with the God who created everything you can see. See these moments are what restore us.

And these things, these little distractions, they actually make us more tired and more drained so that we They keep us from stepping into what God has called us to do. So where in our lives do we need to start thinking about the things that are stealing our attention? Stealing

our resources? Stealing our energy? Where do we need to have an uncompromising devotion?

You see, for thousands of years, Christians have dealt with this issue. So we're not the only ones. And there's actually a practice that Christians have done for a very, very long time that helps cut out these good, harmless distractions so that people can focus more clearly on God. It's a practice called fasting.

Traditionally, it's done where people remove

food from their life for a time so that they can focus more clearly on God. But also, fasting can be cutting out social media from your life for a period of time. Cutting out watching TV, cutting out video games, whatever it is, whatever that number one distraction that you go to is.

What if you just fasted leading up to Easter? What if you just deleted Instagram until Easter came? And every time you wanted to go on the app, instead you just took a moment to pray to God and ask, God, would you just restore me? Would you help me step fully into my calling and my commitment?

Where in your life is your calling being drained because these little harmless distractions have been sucking the life out of you?

So, Nehemiah chapter six. They're trying to distract Nehemiah and it's not working. He has this uncompromising devotion. And so the second tactic,

verse five, says the fifth time, send ballot servant came with an open letter in his hand. And this is what it said. Now let me give you a little context of what an open letter in this time

means. So like a closed letter would be like a personal message, like a DM. Like I shoot you a personal text message and it's just between you and I, nobody else can see it. An open letter is kinda like a you ever seen when somebody like tries to write a personal message and post it on someone's Facebook page?

And you're just like, I don't know if I should be reading this. This is personal. That's exactly what an open letter is. It's not sealed and so anybody can come up and read the letter and so it's meant to be public even though it's guised as private. Okay.

So verse six, it said, and this is what it said, there's a rumor among the surrounding nations, and Geshem tells me it's true, that you and the Jews are planning to rebel, and that's why you're building the wall. According to his reports, you plan to be their king.

He also reports that you've appointed prophets in Jerusalem to proclaim about you, look, there's a king in Judah. You can be very sure that the report will get back to the king. So I suggest that you come and talk it over with me. He's trying to slander Nehemiah. He's trying to trick

and start rumors and gossip about Nehemiah. And this is how he replies, verse eight. I replied, there is no truth in any part of your story. You're making up the whole thing. They were just trying to intimidate us, intimidating us, imagining

that they could discourage us and stop the work. So I continued the work with even greater determination. So the second tactic of the enemy, when we try to step into the calling that God has placed on our life. The first is distraction. The second is slander. He's going to try to take your image

and he's going to attack your image. What people say about you, what people think about you. You see, if you're a Christian, you have an identity, but Satan can't touch your identity. Your identity comes from God and God alone. He cannot change that, but what he can seek to attack is your image.

How people see you and what people say about you, because he knows that so many of us, we care so much about our image and we so easily forget about our identity. So just like Nehemiah, when we're faced with slander from the enemy, we have to have, if we're gonna be unreasonably committed, we must have an unshakable

identity. An unshakable identity.

A couple months ago, I spoke here at Rock Point and just to give you guys like a peek behind the curtain on how all this works, we

plan our sermon series a year out. So we all go on a retreat and we decide, hey, here's what we're gonna teach on, who's gonna speak. And so a year ago, we decided that on March 15, Hunter was gonna teach on Nehemiah six about commitment.

So I was preaching a couple months ago, the end of last year, and I was going to preach on worship. So I was preparing my message, and Bill was on a retreat, so he was away. And that week leading up to me preaching,

so many things happened in our nation. And the most intense being the public assassination of Charlie Kirk. And they came to me because I was preaching that week. And they said, Hunter, you're gonna say something. I said, what do you mean I'm gonna say something?

Well, you're a pastor of this church and you're gonna get up and you're gonna lead our church and you're gonna say something. I said, I'm 14 years old. What do you want me to say? It's like, what do you mean I'm gonna say something?

And so I came this weekend and I was nervous. And I, you know, I knew everybody was gonna have an opinion about everything. And I I I just came into it and I just said, God, I just wanna point people to you. I just you are our hope. I just want

everybody in the room to realize that you're the person we put our trust in. So I came in and after

that, after I had done it, I was on social media and I was just looking at what people were saying. And I was scrolling and I get to this post and someone said, yeah Rock Point they just put this flaming liberal up there to talk about it.

And I scroll a little bit and I see another post like, oh yeah Rock Point they just put this die hard redneck conservative up there to I'm like, what? When you step into what God has asked you to do, you are going to get criticized from every side. Because the enemy knows that so many of us put our image

before we place our identity. And I'm preaching to myself here because I am a people pleaser to my very soul. And here's the trap that I get in so often, is I take my image, what everybody can say about me and how they feel about me, and I lay it as the foundation of my life, and I place my identity on top of that. And

when I do really good and when I'm killing it and people are excited for me and they're proud of me, I'm feeling like the man. Know? It's just addicting. But on the other side, when I mess up, or I make a mistake, or I do the right thing and people are upset with me,

My image starts to tell my identity that I am worthless. That I am not good enough. That I don't have any value.

It is an incredibly dangerous thing to put your image before your identity because the enemy can attack that. But what we are called to do, if we're gonna be unreasonably committed to what God has called us into, we have to reverse those things. We have to lay as the foundation of our life, our identity.

And that comes from God. And that cannot be shaken, that cannot be moved. Because what does God say about us if we are followers of him? He says, we are his children that are loved unconditionally.

We've been made in his image. We get our identity from the gospel and what does the gospel say? We are more broken than we would ever dare to admit, yet at the very same time, we are more loved than we would ever dare to believe.

That's our identity. We've been made in his image. We have been made in the image of God with gifts and abilities and talents, and we are created to worship God. We are servants of the most high king. And when you stand on that identity, you are untouchable. Amen? The

enemy cannot shake that identity. And when you make mistakes, you come back to the love of the gospel. And when you do well, you come back to glorify God because that's what you were created to do. We have to, have to, have to. If we're gonna be unreasonably committed, we have to stand on an unshakable identity.

See, I see this a lot, especially with, people who were raised in other denominations of Christianity or people who were raised in other religions entirely and they come and we talk about baptism. How it is the public declaration that I've been saved by Jesus.

And I have a lot of conversations with people who say, listen, my family baptized me as a baby. If I get baptized, what are they gonna think? They're gonna be upset. They might think I threw everything about their parenting away. And what I remind them, and what I wanna remind you, is your identity has now been replaced

with a child of God. And you have to You cannot worry about your image and what people will say. You have to stand and live out of your identity. See, that's why a lot of us are so nervous to talk about Jesus and talk about our faith with our neighbors and our friends, with our coworkers.

Because we're worried that if we share about the life Jesus has given us, then people are gonna think we're judgmental and we're rude and we're looking down on them. Because we're so worried about our image, but we have to stand on our identity. The identity we've been given by Jesus.

And just like Jared was saying, like, man, we are gonna have so many opportunities to share the good news of Jesus with people coming in this room, and they only come twice a year, maybe. And what an awesome opportunity to make room and appoint people to Jesus by celebrating Easter on a Friday or a Saturday.

And I think a lot of us is like, well, you know, I already made plans with my parents or my kids and we're gonna have the perfect, you know, Easter egg hunt right after church and we're gonna have lunch and we're all gonna get a picture with our Easter dresses and we don't wanna mess it up because they they might be upset, they might be mad, I don't wanna to change the image.

Man, what if you led your family by standing in your identity as a servant of Jesus? And said, man, it's inconvenient, it's not as good, I'm actually gonna have to change some plans, but I'm gonna make room in this room for people to hear Jesus for the first time by coming on a Saturday.

Where in your life have you allowed yourself to focus so much on your image that you've lost vision of your identity?

Nehemiah chapter six.

So they tried to distract him and it didn't work. They tried to slander him and it didn't work. Now we're gonna see the third tactic of the enemy that they're gonna deploy to try to keep Nehemiah from stepping into his calling. Verse 10, later I went to visit Shemaiah son of Delaiah and grandson of Mehetabel. What a family.

All right. Who is confined to his home. He said, let us meet together inside the temple of God and bolt the doors shut. Your enemies are coming to kill you tonight. So what's happening? This prophet is saying to Nehemiah, listen, your enemies are gonna come kill you tonight. Hide in the temple.

Which by the way, Nehemiah is not a priest and he is not allowed to go into the holy temple of God. If he does, it would actually disqualify him. So he's trying to They're trying to use fear to keep Nehemiah from finishing what God has asked him to do. Verse 11, but I replied,

should someone in my position run from danger? Should someone in my position enter the temple to save his life? No, I won't do it. I realized that God had not spoken to him, but that he had uttered this prophecy against me because Tobiah and Sanballat had hired him. They were hoping to intimidate me and make me sin.

Then they would be able to accuse and discredit me. Remember, oh my God, all the evil things that Tobiah and Senballat have done, and remember Noadiah, the prophet, and all the prophets like her who have tried to intimidate me.

The third tactic the enemy is going to try to deploy against us, and the third tactic they deployed against Nehemiah is fear. They're trying to make him so afraid that he steps away from what God called him to do and he discredits himself as a leader. But I love Nehemiah's response.

You see what it says? He says two things. He says, I am not the man. Should I run as a man in my position? What's he saying? I'm too good to run. I'm not gonna do that. And he also says, I'm not the man who's gonna go into the temple. I'm not worthy enough to go into the temple.

You see, the face of fear, and what is fear? It tries to distort reality. It tries to to It causes us to forget who we are and who God is. And the first thing Nehemiah does is he refocuses on exactly who he is and on exactly who God is.

I'm not the kind of man who's gonna run, but I'm also not the kind of man who's gonna go into the temple of God. You see, if we're gonna be unreasonably committed, we must have an unrelenting refocus. An unrelenting refocus. We have to refocus on who we are and who God is because the temptation of fear causes us to lose focus.

The other day, I was going out to lunch with one of my buddies. It was just one of those days I just didn't really wanna talk to people. You you have those days.

So we go out to lunch and we order our food and we sit down and we're sitting there and we're talking and the waitress comes up and she puts his food down in front of him and she puts my food down in front of me and I quickly realize this is not the food I ordered at all. And so the waitress says, does everything look good? And I said, yep.

She walked away. And my buddy realized that that wasn't what I ordered. He said, is that the food you ordered? I said, nope. He said, well why don't you just go tell them to fix it? He said, I'm it's okay. You know, I don't want to bother anybody. It's fine. He said, well you ordered

you paid for the food you wanted. Why don't you just go tell them that that's the wrong food? He's like, it's okay. It's you know, don't worry about it. This this is going to be fine. He said, well, I'll go tell her. I said, no, no, no. Stop. Stop. I like it. I like it. I want it. I did. This is fine.

And he looked at me and said, Hunter, you're a pastor. You literally stand on stage and talk to people all the time, and you're afraid to go ask this teenage girl to fix your food order? He said, have you forgotten who you are?

That's what fear does. It makes us forget who we are. It makes us forget who God is. Because when we get so worried about our finances and making sure that we need to make sure there's a buffer and that there's gonna be enough, We actually forget that God is the one who provides and we're the ones who are provided for.

We have to refocus. When we're so busy and we feel like, oh, we just can't serve because you know there's so many other things I have to do and we're always busy and I've got to be on Instagram for eight hours and all of these things. We forget that God is the one who gave us the abilities in the first place.

And we're the ones that get to use our abilities to worship. Man, when

we're single and we're scared we're gonna be alone for the rest of our life, or we're in an unhealthy marriage, we feel like we're gonna feel unloved for the rest of our life, and we start to get worried about it, and start to feel like, man, I don't know if I'm ever gonna feel loved. So we start to cut corners and

soften our morals just to feel loved. We forget that God is the one who provides all the love we could ever need and we're the ones who receive it.

Man, when we get health diagnosis and we feel like, man, I'm just worried. I'm going to isolate. I'm going to keep myself away because I'm scared and I'm nervous. We forget that God is the great physician. He's the one who holds us in his arms, and we are the one held in his arms. We are the ones who are healed.

Fear is so tricky because it causes us to forget who we are and who God is.

You see, oftentimes we hold on to control because it feels like we're gonna hold it all together. But there's a reason when you're the kind of person that feels like you need to be in control and you're holding it all together, that you feel like you're falling apart. Because you weren't meant to hold yourself together.

He was. He holds the universe together and he'll hold you together. There's a reason it feels like you're being crushed by the weight of the world because you weren't meant to hold the world on the weight of your shoulders. He was. He is.

He's the one who's going to hold it all together and you're the one who gets to rest under him.

You see, think a lot of times we're nervous to give because we we have to be in control of our finances. We have to make sure there's there's enough and we feel comfortable and we feel good and we got all the nice things. But we have to remember, we have to refocus on he's the one who provides it all.

It's easy to to feel like in our job and we're leading a business and everybody else is cutting corners, so I need to cut corners too and I I need to make sure that, you know, I'm I'm making doing good things for the company so that my future is secure and we gotta realize he's the one who's gonna take care of us.

And as Christ followers, we're gonna be we're gonna be the people who live according to what God has called us to do. See, where in your life have you lost focus because of fear? Where do you need to remember that God is the one who provides, he takes care of, he holds you in his arms?

So, Nehemiah chapter six. Three times they've tried to keep him from finishing the wall. They've tried to keep Nehemiah from accomplishing what God has asked him to do and he doesn't do it. He has an unreasonable

commitment to exactly what God called him to do. And finally in verse 15, we get to see the result of that. What is on the other side of unreasonable commitment?

Verse 15, it says, so on October 2, the wall was finished just fifty two days after we had begun. It's hard to understand, but fifty two days, that number for this wall at that time was nothing short of miraculous. It shouldn't have happened. But Nehemiah understood that on the other side of unreasonable commitment

is unbelievable advancement. Unbelievable transformation. You see, at what else it says. Verse 16, it says, when our enemies and the surrounding nations heard about it, they were frightened and humiliated.

All these enemies that tried to stop Nehemiah from doing what God called him to do, they were frightened and they were humiliated. They realized this work had been done with the help of our God. Man, what would it look like in your life if you chose to just get unreasonable

with your commitment to what God called you to do? And on the other side of your unreasonable commitment, the people around you saw the hand of God on your life. The people of God saw the hand of God, the enemies, I'm sorry, saw the hand of God on your marriage. The people around you saw the hand of God on your parenting.

The people around you saw the hand of God on your business. The people around you saw the hand of God on your mental health. The people of God saw the hand of God on you.

Man, on the other side of our unreasonable commitment is unbelievable transformation.

I remember when this became very real in my life. So in college, I had the opportunity to sit down with the president and CEO of this Christian organization. This organization puts on camps all around the country every single summer and just pointing

people to Jesus, see so many salvations and so many people called into ministry from these camps. I truly believe one one of the main reasons I'm in ministry today is because of one of these camps.

And so I got to sit down with a guy kind of leading and in charge of it and I was just excited to learn from him. So I remember going into his office and it looked like a very normal office. Know he had like a bookshelf and a desk and and some plants and a window and a painting except off to the side in his office,

there was a coffin and it made me uncomfortable so I didn't say anything about it. And so I'm sitting down with this guy and I'm talking with him and I'm just asking you know how'd you get here? How'd you get to this point in your life? And he said, listen Hunter,

after high school I didn't really have any interest in leveraging my life for the kingdom of God and committing to what God asked me to do in any any, intense way. But I needed a car and my dad said if I go to bible college for one year he'd buy me a car. So I went to bible college for one year. And he said, in that year,

I realized the call that God has put on each and every Christ follower. And that is to position my life in such a way that I use everything I can to point people to Jesus for the kingdom of God. He said, so soon after that, I came to this organization and I built that box. I built that coffin. He said, that's my coffin.

There's gonna be a day that my body is gonna end up in that box and buried in the ground. He said, you know, all my gifts, all my abilities, everything, it's gonna end up in that box with me. All my toys, everything I've collected, my house, my car, everything, it's gonna be given to people I love and know.

But I realize my days are numbered, Hunter. And I am called to something greater. And as long as my heart is beating and my my lungs are breathing, I'm gonna leverage everything I have for the kingdom of God. And when I'm tempted to be distracted

from what God has called me to do, I look at that coffin and I remember I have a limited number of minutes on planet earth. And then I'm gonna end up in that coffin. When I'm tempted

to to be worried about what people think about me, what they're gonna say about me, I look at that box and remember, as soon as I'm in there, everyone's gonna forget and no one's gonna care what anybody thought about me. When I end up in that coffin, it's not gonna matter. When I'm tempted to be afraid

of the risks that God is asking of me, of what it's gonna take and what what I have to give, I look at that coffin and I remember I'm gonna end up in there. None of that is gonna matter. The only currency that translates from here to eternity is the commitment that I offer God today.

He said, you know what? We're reaching thousands for Jesus right now. We need to reach millions. And it is my mission to accomplish that until I'm in that coffin.

How about us, church? We're all gonna end up in a box one day in the ground. And yet, we've all been given lives and gifts and abilities and resources to leverage for the kingdom of God. And on the other side of that commitment that we've we were called to is unbelievable transformation in our life.

So what would it look like for us to leverage our lives in such a way that that we're raising the next generation, that we are we are pointing people to Jesus and we are making a difference in the world right in our homes, right in our jobs, right in our businesses, right in this church.

What does it look like for you to be so committed to what God has called you to do that people just look at you like, wow, look at the hand of God on that person. What is the call that you've been holding back? What is the calling God's placed on your life that you've held back from commitment?

And what does it look like for you today to have an unreasonable commitment? Because you know on the other side of that is an unbelievable transformation. Father God, I want to pray for each and every person in this church. Would you help us live out what you've called us to do? Would you help us have an unreasonable

commitment to the calling you've placed on our life? And I pray that we would walk out of this room today, each and every one of us, knowing exactly what it is. Thank you for allowing us to be here. Thank you for your word. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen.

Hey, thanks for joining us this weekend for service. Make sure to stay connected with us on rockpoint.io.