October 5, 2003

Service Theme – "Our God Is Our Strength"

Philippians 2:14-15; Nehemiah 1:1-2:4

A Holy Dissatisfaction?!

  1. Introduction
    1. Illustration – Arden Taylor writes, When our granddaughter was 4, she came to the table one day in a disgruntled mood. She complained loudly about every dish on the table. Hoping to change the mood, her mother suggested that she give the blessing. After a sullen pause, she prayed, "OK, God, I forgive you for this food" (as cited on PreachingToday.com).
    2. Context – We chuckle at that story, but we also know that we are the same way. There are things in our lives that we complain to God and argue with Him about, then extend some begrudging forgiveness to Him. This morning we’re going to read a couple of Scriptures that will help us work through this process.
  1. Scripture Passage
    1. (NEW SLIDE) Philippians 2:14-15 (from the New Living) – In everything you do, stay away from complaining and arguing, 15 so that no one can speak a word of blame against you. You are to live clean, innocent lives as children of God in a dark world full of crooked and perverse people. Let your lives shine brightly before them.
    2. (NEW SLIDE) Nehemiah 1:1-2:5 - These are the memoirs of Nehemiah son of Hacaliah. In late autumn of the twentieth year of King Artaxerxes’ reign, I was at the fortress of Susa. 2 Hanani, one of my brothers, came to visit me with some other men who had just arrived from Judah. (NEW SLIDE) I asked them about the Jews who had survived the captivity and about how things were going in Jerusalem. 3 They said to me, "Things are not going well for those who returned to the province of Judah. They are in great trouble and disgrace. The wall of Jerusalem has been torn down, and the gates have been burned." (NEW SLIDE) 4 When I heard this, I sat down and wept. In fact, for days I mourned, fasted, and prayed to the God of heaven. 5 Then I said, "O Lord, God of heaven, the great and awesome God who keeps his covenant of unfailing love with those who love him and obey his commands, 6 listen to my prayer! (NEW SLIDE) Look down and see me praying night and day for your people Israel. I confess that we have sinned against you. Yes, even my own family and I have sinned! 7 We have sinned terribly by not obeying the commands, laws, and regulations that you gave us through your servant Moses. (NEW SLIDE) 8 "Please remember what you told your servant Moses: ‘If you sin, I will scatter you among the nations. 9 But if you return to me and obey my commands, even if you are exiled to the ends of the earth, I will bring you back to the place I have chosen for my name to be honored.’ 10 "We are your servants, the people you rescued by your great power and might. (NEW SLIDE) 11 O Lord, please hear my prayer! Listen to the prayers of those of us who delight in honoring you. Please grant me success now as I go to ask the king for a great favor. Put it into his heart to be kind to me." In those days I was the king’s cup-bearer. (NEW SLIDE) 2 Early the following spring, during the twentieth year of King Artaxerxes’ reign, I was serving the king his wine. I had never appeared sad in his presence before this time. 2 So the king asked me, "Why are you so sad? You aren’t sick, are you? You look like a man with deep troubles." (NEW SLIDE) Then I was badly frightened, 3 but I replied, "Long live the king! Why shouldn’t I be sad? For the city where my ancestors are buried is in ruins, and the gates have been burned down." 4 The king asked, "Well, how can I help you?" With a prayer to the God of heaven, 5 I replied, "If it please Your Majesty and if you are pleased with me, your servant, send me to Judah to rebuild the city where my ancestors are buried."
  1. Coppin’ a ‘Tude
    1. I have to admit that, when I read those verses in Philippians, I get a little annoyed with Nehemiah. What a whiner! What a complainer! I can just imagine the pitiful little look he had on his face when he was serving the king, just to draw attention to his gripe. Nehemiah irks me a little bit. Unless I’m missing something here.
    2. It’s really easy to just read a verse or two or even one chapter in the Bible and get the wrong idea of what it’s about. Nehemiah hears from someone just returning from Jerusalem how bad things are there. The place looks like a bomb hit it! Really! And, actually, the bomb that hit it was the army of Babylon many years before. The reality of the destruction of Jerusalem and its continuing consequences breaks Nehemiah’s heart. So he went and griped to the king. Wrong! He first fasted and mourned and prayed to God for several days, then confessed his sin and the sin of all of Judah to God.
    3. That isn’t how I would have handled things. (NEW SLIDE) But Nehemiah took time to understand God’s heart first, figure out what God wanted Him to do, then humble himself and pray and ask God for His help in accomplishing an impossible task. God gave Nehemiah a powerful sense of holy dissatisfaction.
    4. What exactly is holy dissatisfaction? How do we understand what it is and how to tell if we’re filled with a sense of holy dissatisfaction or if we’re just being grumpy? How do we overcome the fear of having to face up to an obstacle as big as the reconstruction of Jerusalem and to DO something about it? Nehemiah gives us some real keys on how to allow God to fill us with holy dissatisfaction and then do something about it.
    5. (NEW SLIDE) First, a God-given sense of holy dissatisfaction is all about advancing His kingdom. Personal preferences are all about complaining and arguing, which are all about us. When Nehemiah heard about the conditions in Jerusalem, he didn’t ask the other Jews, "Why didn’t you do something about it?" He didn’t run out and just start doing, either. He sought God. He wept and fasted and prayed and poured out His heart before God. He listened to what God told Him to do. If Nehemiah had been operating according to his personal preferences, would he have spent many days in mourning and weeping and fasting and prayer? No way! He would have either griped about it to his fellow Jews, or barged right in on the king and been executed, or just said "Oh, well!" and gone on with his life. Personal preferences cater to our comfort and our way of doing things, while holy dissatisfaction causes us to move forward for God’s kingdom, doing things His way. And that’s encouraging, because any time we are advancing God’s kingdom by doing His will, we are living lives of holy dissatisfaction.
    6. (NEW SLIDE) Second, a God-given sense of holy dissatisfaction is all about taking risks for His kingdom. Personal preferences are all about playing it safe, or only taking those risks we think are important. Nehemiah had to take a very serious risk to bring the desire God had placed on his heart to the king. Unless ordered by the king, or during a time of national mourning, it was illegal to appear to be sad in the presence of the king, an offense punishable by death. So it was for good reason that Nehemiah hadn’t appeared to be sad in front of the king before that day. And he was badly frightened for good reason when the king noticed his sadness. But God used this risk as an opportunity to see His kingdom advanced. Nehemiah followed God’s leading and spoke God’s heart in spite of his fear. Personal preferences would have led him to look happy and simply fax or email one of the king’s flunkies something like, "Can I go rebuild the city of Jerusalem? If not, no big deal." Or even to just keep his mouth shut and never mention this to anyone. Personal preferences lead us to do the same things. We don’t take risks. We don’t look at God’s will and purpose when we make decisions that we deem too risky to place in His hands. But when we take risks in response to God’s leading in our personal lives and in the life of our church, we are living lives of holy dissatisfaction.
    7. (NEW SLIDE) Third, a God-given sense of holy dissatisfaction is all about humbling ourselves, confessing our sins and failures, and praying for God’s help to do God’s will to advance God’s kingdom. Personal preferences are all about making ourselves look good, hiding our sins and failures, and praying for God’s help to do our will to advance our personal kingdom. And this distinction can be a little trickier than we’d like to think. When we play to our personal preferences, what we care about most is how others perceive us, either as individuals or as a congregation. Do we have enough people showing up and enough money coming in to make it look like we’re doing well? Do we want people to see us as competent or as fools? The problem is that when we cater to our personal preferences, we will always make the choices that make us the most comfortable or look the best, and pray that God will somehow sanctify our choices. We’re all guilty of doing that! But when we allow God to build a sense of holy dissatisfaction in us, all of a sudden we feel compelled to go to our knees in prayer and humility, to mourn over our sin and failure and disobedience, to beg and plead with Him for His help to do His will in His way to advance His kingdom. And that burden only grows as time goes on, compelling us to do whatever He calls us to do to accomplish His will, which almost all the time means taking risks and many times looking foolish. Because God’s wisdom looks very foolish in the eyes of this world. That’s tough stuff to deal with! Pride is a very difficult force to fight! But if we’re going to see God’s kingdom advance, we’ve got to allow holy dissatisfaction to overcome our pride. When we humble ourselves, confess our sin and failures, and beg and plead with God for His help to do His will to advance His kingdom, we are living lives of holy dissatisfaction.
    8. (NEW SLIDE) Fourth, a God-given sense of holy dissatisfaction is all about God’s results that advance God’s kingdom. Personal preferences are all about our results that advance our personal kingdom. Verse four of Nehemiah 2 astounds me! The king asked, "Well, how can I help you?" That would almost be as big a miracle as the ACLU shutting down and giving all its money to Christians. That sense of holy dissatisfaction that drove Nehemiah to share his burden with the king brought miraculous results that advanced God’s kingdom. Jerusalem and Judah had to be restored in order for the Messiah to come, and God was going to make sure that happened! If Nehemiah was operating merely on personal preferences, can you imagine what he would have asked for? Appointment as permanent governor over Judah. A great salary. Army troops at his disposal to see that his will happened. But Nehemiah was overwhelmed by the burden God gave him to the point that he was willing to do anything God wanted him to do. And that’s where we’ve got to be. But what if Nehemiah had said, "No!" to God? God would have gotten the results He wanted, but through someone else. And Nehemiah probably would have lost his soul for all eternity. Disobedience does that. Seeking after personal preferences can do that. But when we allow God-given holy dissatisfaction to consume us, look out! The results will blow us away! When we allow holy dissatisfaction to drive us to do anything God calls us to do to see His results happen and His kingdom advanced, we are not only living lives of holy dissatisfaction, but we are seeing results that simply amaze us.
    9. God is working to cause His people to be filled with a sense of holy dissatisfaction with the way they’re doing things in His name. Either we allow Him to fill us with that holy dissatisfaction and change both us and our world, or we will eventually fall away. I’m not talking about sitting around complaining about the way things are or how much better they were in the old days. And I’m not talking about arguing over the merits of doing one thing over another. That all revolves around personal preferences. I’m talking about doing God’s will to advance His kingdom in His way, no matter what! I’m talking about looking at all the facts, laying them out before God, then basing our decisions not on the result of those facts but on what GOD wants us to do about them. I’m talking about a new way of living our lives! (NEW SLIDE) If it doesn’t drive us to humble ourselves, confess our sins and failures, beg and plead with God to use us to do His will to advance His kingdom, and take risks in doing His will to see His results take place, then it’s not holy dissatisfaction. God has something so much better in store for us than living the way we always have – and it’s called holy dissatisfaction.
    10. Illustration – Chuck Swindoll, in his book Improving Your Serve, wrote, Let’s play ‘Let’s Pretend’. Let’s pretend that you work for me. In fact, you are my executive assistant in a company that is growing rapidly. I’m the owner and I’m interested in expanding overseas. To pull this off, I make plans to travel abroad and stay there until a new branch office gets established. I make all the arrangements to take my family and move to Europe for six to eight months. And I leave you in charge of the busy stateside organization. I tell you that I will write you regularly and give you directions and instructions. I leave and you stay. Months pass. A flow of letters are mailed from Europe and received by you at the national headquarters. I spell out all my expectations. Finally, I return. Soon after my arrival, I drive down to the office and I am stunned. Grass and weeds have grown up high. A few windows along the street are broken. I walk into the Receptionist’s room. She is doing her nails, chewing gum and listening to her favorite disco station. I look around and notice the wastebaskets are overflowing. The carpet hasn’t been vacuumed for weeks, and nobody seems concerned that the owner has returned. I asked about your whereabouts and someone in the crowded lounge area points down the hall and yells, "I think he’s down there." Disturbed, I move in that direction and bump into you as you are finishing a chess game with our sales manager. I ask you to step into my office, which has been temporarily turned into a television room for watching afternoon soap operas. "What in the world is going on, man?" "What do you mean?" "Well, look at this place! Didn’t you get any of my letters?" "Letters? Oh yes! Sure! I got every one of them. As a matter of fact, we have had a letter study every Friday since you left. We have even divided the personnel into small groups to discuss many of the things you wrote. Some of the things were really interesting. You will be pleased to know that a few of us have actually committed to memory some of your sentences and paragraphs. One or two memorized an entire letter or two - Great stuff in those letters." "OK. You got my letters. You studied them and meditated on them; discussed and even memorized them. But what did you do about them?" "Do? We didn’t do anything about them" (as cited on SermonCentral.com). Holy dissatisfaction is about being, then doing. Without either one, it’s worthless. Let’s allow God to fill us with a profound sense of holy dissatisfaction and then do something about it!
  1. Communion
    1. Please bow your heads and close your eyes. I know this is tough stuff. But God is trying to instill in all of us, every single last one of us, a sense of holy dissatisfaction with the way things are so that we will finally move forward to advance His kingdom in His way, instead of just arguing or complaining about the way things are. God has a powerful mission for every single one of us. Let’s spend a few minutes just listening to Him and allowing ourselves to hear His voice building that holy dissatisfaction inside of our hearts.
    2. Are you willing to be obedient to that sense of holy dissatisfaction? Are you willing to humble yourself, to confess your sin and failure, to beg and plead for His help in doing His will to advance His kingdom? Are you willing to take the risks He is calling you to take? If your answer is "Yes" to these questions, take a moment and tell it to Jesus. And commit yourself to following through on these choices. Then as a sign of your commitment, come forward, take the juice and the bread, kneel at the altars, and partake of the bread and juice when you’re ready.
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